Peachy Polka Dots feat. Sally Hansen

Sally Hansen - Bleach Babe* (2 coats)

Sally Hansen - Tahitian Sunset*

*PR Sample

KBShimmer - Holly Back Girl (Winter Collection 2014)

Remember how I fell in love with KBShimmer - Holly Back Girl and tried to recreate it? Well I think I came pretty close with my DIY project but still I felt the urge to buy the original. And I'm not disappointed, it's a very beautiful Winter/Christmas polish in my opinion. Holly Back Girl has everything: a fancy name, Christmas glitter mixed into a snowy base and enough pigments to cover the nail with two coats. It did need a bit of careful application, but still, two coats were enough. I also bought another polish from the KBShimmer Winter Collection 2014 (while I'm at it...) and I love it just as much. I'm probably going to post it in the next few days, but first I'm enjoying this beauty! I bought mine at Harlow & Co but you can get this from various shops online.

Birthday Smooshattack Nail Art!

Yay for two posts in a row! Yay for my birthday! Obviously I wanted to have awesome nails for today and I tried something new, so I just had to show you right away. This is a technique invented by Elle from @with2l. I'm her biggest fan right now, her nail art is so beautiful and creative! The technique she invented is called Smooshattack and you basically use a stamper to smudge colors on your nails. She has a tutorial for it, which you can find with the #smooshattack. I'm amazed by the effect and how great it looks on the nails. This is my first attempt and I love it, so there's definitely more to come! I used OPI - Ski Teal We Drop*, Flormar - 400 and KIKO - #523 Royal Blue. On top are two coats of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

And now I'm gonna look for cake! <3 

*PR Sample

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. 

Maybelline Acid Wash Effect - Mint-Acid-Ittude

I picked up one of the colors from the new Maybelline Acid Wash Effect limited edition. I chose the mint color called Mint-Acid-Ittude, but it was quite difficult to pick only one since they all look awesome. I love the effect and the fact that drugstore brands are catching up with the glitter sandwich trend! For these pictures I used three coats. Drying time was alright and the formula as well, but the glitter does need a bit of placing here and there. I used two coats of Essence BTGN High Gloss on top for an even surface (and some air bubbles). 

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. 

Sally Hansen - Designer Collection 2014

I received the new Sally Hansen Designer collection for 2014 which was created in collaboration with Prabal Gurung and Tracy Reese. There are five colors and each one will be available during May in dm, Rossmann and müller stores for € 8.99. I've also seen Sally Hansen in Swiss müller stores but I'm not sure if they are available somewhere else*. I've swatched every color without base and top coat and two coats, except for A Wink of Pink which is shown with three coats. At first I was sure that my favorite would be Mojito since I love green nail polish. But it wasn't very flattering for my skin tone. I was surprised by Lady Lavender which I thought I wasn't going to like at first because of the shimmer, but then I fell in love with the frosty pastel look! This is not my favorite collection colorwise, in fact I like last year's designer collection (part 1, part 2) much better. You can find Sally Hansen on Facebook and Instagram.

Lady Lavender

2 coats

A Wink of Pink

3 coats

Batbano Blue

2 coats

Carnivale

2 coats

Mojito

2 coats

Mojito next to Essie - First Timer and Essie - Mojito Madness

White Polka Dots

Sorry for the stained nails! ;) I just really liked the look of these, especially with this length. But since I broke two of my nails already, this is my goodbye to long nails (for now). I used base coat, then added dots with a dotting tool and Flormar - 400 directly onto the nail and finally one coat of Essence BTGN High Gloss. 

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. 

Polka Dots & Essie - Avenue Maintain

Not that I feel like spring should be here already (we didn't even have winter yet!), but these nails really feel springlike! I used one coat of Essie - Avenue Maintain from the Madison Ave-hue collection 2013 and then added a lot of tiny dots with white acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Roy Lichtenstein Pop Art Nails - MoYou London Pro Collection #10

I was a bit disappointed about the size of my MoYou London plates from the Pro Collection #10 because they are really small for my thumb nails (my fault though, I didn't read the description!). So I thought the best way to use these images would be a skittle manicure, so that I could design every nail in a different way. Roy Lichtenstein / Pop Art is a great way of doing skittle nails, since everything is colorful anyway. I prepared some nail polish decals using three of the stamping images and then colored them with acrylic paint. On my thumb and pinky nails I made a simple polka dot design with Flormar - 400 and Essie - Really Red. I'm not too happy with both of the speech bubbles because my black polish (H&M - Manhunter) really isn't the best choice for stamping. I guess I'm once again on the hunt for a new opaque black! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Peppermint Nails - Merry Christmas!

I have one more Christmas design for you! Ever since I saw the Peppermint Nails video from HelloMaphie I decided to do something similar before Christmas is over. I love her combination with mint, so I combined two kind of peppermint swirls in one design. My base color is Flormar - 400 and all of the lines are painted with Essie nail polish. I used Really Red, Lovie Dovie, Mint Candy Apple and Mojito Madness. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Merry Christmas and thank you for everything!

Zara Scarf inspired Plaid/Tartan Nails

There's quite a hype going on these days about the double-sided plaid scarf from Zara and even if my favorite plaid colors are blue & green, I decided to take it as an inspiration for some nail art. I used Sally Hansen - Perfectly Poppy and Flormar - 400 as my base colors and painted the pattern with acrylic paint and a nail art brush. I'm not too happy with the black & white tartan, but I didn't really know how to achieve the perfect look. (Also, I'm really out of practice!) On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

MoYou London: Christmas Collection 04

I tried my festive stamping plate from the MoYou London Christmas Collection with the number 04 and I'm really happy with this plate! So many possibilities! But I started with a very simple color combination: first two coats of Flormar - 400 and then the stamping with Sally Hansen - So-nata Problem, which is not the greatest stamping color but it works for me. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. You can find plates and other nail art stuff from MoYou London here.

Vivid Lacquer VL006: Snowflakes

A simple stamping design to start the Christmas countdown, using the Vivid Lacquer stamping plate VL006. I did this design a few days ago and forgot to write down the colors, sorry about that! It's either Essie - Marshmallow or Essie - Waltz and the white stamping color is Flormar - 400. On top I used one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss and one coat of Essie - Matte About You. 

Watercolor Flower Nails

I recently stumbled upon a beautiful tutorial by Karine from Nailderella on how to paint watercolor flowers with acrylic paint. I've tried using real watercolors for nail art before, but it didn't work as desired. Karine suggests to use a matte top coat on top of the base color so that the diluted acrylic paint would adhere to the nail. This is actually really important, the color will not even slightly adhere to a non matte finish. So I used Flormar - 400 as my base and then added a thin coat of Essie - Matte About You. I added the flowers with white, pink and green acrylic paint and then finished with a coat of BTGN Top Sealer. This might actually be my nail art goodbye to summer! It's getting colder every day now and I've already seen a lot of fall inspired manicures popping up, which I really love. This is definitely my season! What about you, did you say goodbye to summer yet? 

Watercolor Nails - Video Tutorial

I want to thank everyone for the lovely feedback I got for my Blue & White Watercolor Nails! A lot of you asked for a tutorial on how I did these and I'm happy to do that today. Check out the short picture tutorial and the video tutorial below to see the easy steps for this design: