Pink & Purple Dotted Nails feat. Essie

I dug out my dotting tool! As my base color I used two coats of Essie - Full Steam Ahead (Naughty Nautical Collection 2013) a cute lavender with a tiny bit of shimmer. On top of that I added a lot of dots using various sizes of dotting tools and three Essie colors from the Neon 2013 Collection: Boom Boom Room, Bottle Service and DJ Play That Song. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

OPI - You Are So Outta Lime - Halfmoon Lime Nail Art

Today's design is something I wanted to do for a while now: a half moon manicure with tiny limes. Since I got some lovely mint green colors I decided to go for it! As my base color I used OPI - You Are So Outta Lime (PR Sample) from their 2014 Neon collection. This one is not the classic neon green but it does have a hint of neon, which makes it look very different on camera. It's more of a light green and not the mint color you are looking at. I applied two coats over one coat of white. For the little lime halfmoons I used Maybelline - Chic Chartreuse and then painted the rest of the design with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

This is a scheduled post. I will be scheduling posts for the next few Sundays, but I'm trying to keep up with your feedback! You can follow me on Instagram, where I might post some nails during my vacations. Have a beautiful summer :) 

Spring/Summer Splatter Nails

I haven't done splatter nails in a while and I thought I could include one of my new neons from the Maybelline Bleached Neons collection in a cute spring and summer neon splatter design. You can find out more about how I create splatter nails in my tutorial for DIY Decals. For this one I used Flormar - 400 as my base and then added Maybelline - Chic Chartreuse, Essie - Shake Your $$ Makers, Essie - Lights and Flormar - N006. The first pictures shows the design with a shiny top coat and in the second I'm wearing one coat of Essie - Matte About You on top. 

Water Spotted Neon Candy Nails

I felt like doing some really colorful nail art the other day and this is what I came up with. I picked a few lovely neon polishes and created random gradients with a sponge on each nail. For this first step I used Essie - Boom Boom Room, Bottle Servive, DJ Play That Song and China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer. To complete the design I thought about doing a water spotted pattern on top using first Layla - Metal Chrome and then Wet n Wild - Black Crème. To see how I create the water spotted effect, check out my recent tutorial. I think it turned out really cute and I loved wearing this design! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Bold Neon Stripes with China Glaze - Pool Party

I already posted these nails on my Instagram last week, because I felt like my phone captured the neon color better than my normal camera. I tried again later and I liked the result a bit better. Just imagine a very bright pink neon or if you own China Glaze - Pool Party, just imagine this one over white ;) I used striping tape as a guide for my lines because I wanted them to look perfect. There's one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss on top. 

Neon Splash

For today I have a simple design to show you, that I did a while ago. I used two coats of Flormar - 400 as my base and then painted on some random splashes and spots with China Glaze - Pool Party (Neon), China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer (Neon) and H&M - U Must Have This. I did like the colors, but they do look a bit boring in the pictures. And I like the idea of splatter nails without the actual mess, so I might try this again with different colors. 

OPI - Black Shatter & China Glaze - Pool Party

A crackling pool party, yay! I got a beautiful present from my boyfriend and I wanted to show you one of the polishes, although you probably already know this one. It's OPI - Black Shatter, a black crackling polish from their Shatter collection. I don't have a lot of crackling polishes and they are sometimes a bit difficult to combine, especially the glitter ones. But I do love the black one, especially over a clear bright neon pink like China Glaze - Pool Party. I used two coats of the base color and then one thick coat of the crackling polish which gives the best result in my opinion. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Sunset Gradient with Essie Neons 2013

In the mood for something bright, I decided to paint my nails with a neon gradient using the perfect summer colors. Although I'm not a big fan of the Essie Neons 2013, they worked great for this gradient. I painted a white base with Flormar - M103 and then added Essie - DJ Play That Song, Saturday Disco Fever & Bottle Service. On top I added my square golden studs from Born Pretty Store and finished with one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

Cut Out & Outlined Nails with Neon Mint & Neon Glitter

I really like the idea of cut out nail art, the technique which just leaves a small part of the bare nail visible. Of course it looks best if the natural nail is not stained at all, but my nails are usually a bit stained. So to prepare for this look I buffed my nails and used a whitening base coat (Essie - Beam Up). Once again I made China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer the star of this design, but there's also another favorite involved: Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around. Although I prefere Clowning Around on a white base, I think it does look interesting on mint as well. My white color is Flormar - M103. For the triangle I found an awesome video tutorial by kirakiranail on Youtube. Maybe I'm just a bit dense, but I never figured out how cut out triangles actually work. I always thought they just free-hand the triangle, fill in the rest and then do a lot of clean up. But actually you can use a piece of tape and just leave a small strip on one side of the triangle to grab it later. Then all you have to do is complete the triangle with a nail art brush. You can see the process in her tutorial. What do you think about cut out nail art? Would you wear it?

Grey & Neon Pink Splatter Nails

I tried again and came up with another color scheme for Splatter Nails. I did these for the Splatter Nails Competition over at My Awesome Beauty, which will end tomorrow. I chose a grey splattered base color with Essence - Got A Secret, Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her and Essie - Licorice. And the neon pink cherry on top is once again China Glaze - Pool Party. I used my DIY Decals technique this time, to avoid a big mess. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Neon Mint Funky French with China Glaze - Highlight Of My Summer (Sunsational)

Well, hello there! So I got a really cool nail polish in the mail last week and you probably already saw this beauty around. I'm talking about the minty neon green by China Glaze called Highlight Of My Summer. It's part of the Sunsational Collection 2013 and I'm pretty sure it's everyone's favorite of this collection. A lot of the reviews I read said that this one has a really bad formula. In my opinion the formula is in fact not good, but it isn't a problem either. I was wearing this by itself for a few days and I used 3 coats to get an opaque result. But it does actually dry pretty fast, so I didn't mind. C'mon, it's neon! And it's mint! So since this color is definitely a highlight of my summer I decided to use it together with three of my current Essie favorites: In The Cab-Ana, Avenue Maintain & Mojito Madness. I don't usually wear a french manicure, but when I do, it has to be something like this. I painted the french tip free-hand with the brush that comes with the bottle and that worked quite alright. You could also use tip guides though, but then you have to wait until the base color is completely dry and I don't feel like doing that very often. Hope you like this funky french and thanks for reading! Take care :)

Neon Splatter

First I planned to enter the Splatter Mani Competition by Sophie from My Awesome Beauty with this design, but seeing the result I decided for it to be a test run. I'm not quite happy with the colors I chose and I think it's just a bit to busy. Plus it isn't too photogenic (neon!) so I think I can do better! You can win the Art Deco collection by Linda Johansen, which is a very tempting price. You can enter your own splatter designs until the 15th of July! 

So for this one I used two coats of Flormar - M103 and then splattered on the following colors with a straw: China Glaze - Pool Party, Kleancolor - Bikini Green and Essie - Licorice. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Neon Triangles

I started this design with two coats of Ebalay - White Matte and my plan was to do a water marble with some nice colors I chose the day before. Somehow the marbling didn't look as expected on the plastic nail, so I had to think of another way to add the colors onto my white base. I used striping tape to paint triangles with Essie - Saturday Disco Fever and some more striping tape and Essie - In The Cab-Ana to fill in the blank space. I like this design a lot, but the pictures don't do it justice! This neon orange is actually starting to grow on me, even if the formula isn't the best. On top of all of this is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Outlined Watercolor Nails + Watercolor Video Tutorial

Today's design started out as another attempt to make the most of the Essie Neons and they ended up as outlined Watercolor Nails. First I used two coats of Essie - Blanc to create an even, thick base for my watercoloring. Then I used Essie - Bottle Service and Essie - DJ Play That Song to create the watercolor nails. I filmed the process on one nail, so there's a short tutorial in the middle of this post!

I wanted to wear them like this first so I added one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. Somehow I managed to get a lot of tip wear in just a day, so that's why I used the technique of outlining once again, hoping to get better results this time. And I really like them so much more on round nails! And with a thinner line. Success! :) I used white acrylic paint and then another coat of BTGN Top Sealer to finish.

Essie - Neon (Summer 2013)

Essie Switzerland sent me the Neon 2013 collection as well and I didn't swatch this one until now because I wasn't very excited about this one. I read that a lot of people are disappointed with the formula of these six shades and I have to say that I am as well. Essie suggests that you wear a white base for all colors because it's going to make them brighter. It does indeed make all of them brighter and I personally don't like them without the white base. The only shade that I would wear without white is Boom Boom Room (light pink). But the thing is: white nail polish is the most annoying nail polish when it comes to formula. So why would I want to use a white base every time before I paint my nails? I don't want to! Also in my opinion this collection isn't a neon collection because the only shade that appears as an actual neon color to me is Saturday Disco Fever (orange). And most of the colors were quite thin and streaky and not a pleasure to work with. Nonetheless I found a way to enjoy this collection by combining all of them in a nail art design, which you can find at the end of this post. This is a long post again, so you can find all of the swatches after the jump.

Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around (Neon Glitter)

Today I want to show you one of my new favorite nail polishes! I ordered it a few weeks ago after seeing amazing pictures on Chalkboard Nails and Rebecca likes nails. I'm talking about Lush Lacquer - Clowning Around which is an adorable bright neon glitter top coat. The effect on white nails is just brilliant, so I used one coat over two coats of Essie - Blanc. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. You can buy Lush Lacquer nail polishes in their online shop on Etsy. (Update: They don't longer offer international shipping, but you can get some of their polishes on Llarowe or Mei Mei's Signatures.)

Grey & Neon Pink Ruffian Nails

Another pretty color that I picked up in the sale is Essie - Lights from the Poppy Razzi Collection. It is not as neon as I hopped it would be, but it's still a very bright pink. I didn't feel very inspired today and so I chose to do Ruffian Nails once again. I wanted the pink to be really flashy so I matched it with two coats of a light grey: Essence - Got A Secret. On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

Have a nice weekend! 

Neon Pink & Mint Starfish Nails (Mint Candy Apple / Pool Party)

This is one of the designs on my Dashica stamping plate that I haven´t used yet. It is from the Big Sdp D plate. 

For the base color I added two coats of Essie - Mint Candy Apple. My bottle is half empty now and this is definitely a nail polish I´m gonna buy again. Before the stamping I added one coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat.

I chose China Glaze - Pool Party as my neon stamping polish and it worked perfectly. I love those two colors together! 

Another coat of Revlon Quick Dry top coat and that´s it!

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