Floral / Cherry Blossom Nail Art inspired by H&M

This design was inspired by a bikini I saw at H&M. I used H&M - U Must Have This as my base color (including stained nails!) and then painted the flowers on top with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essence BTGN High Gloss. 

The Lacquer Legion Garden: Daisies

I'm posting later than usual today, since I really wanted to participate in this month's Lacquer Legion challenge, but didn't have time to prepare a design in advance. It's all about the garden this month! Obviously I had to do something with flowers and it seems to me like daisies are really popular these days, I see them everywhere! I picked Sally Hansen - Mojito as my base color and I think it looks lovely combined with the daisies. I painted them on with acrylic paint and a nail art brush. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. You can find all of the participants of this challenge with the hashtag #LLgarden. 

My #LLreinvention design

My #LLadoration design

My #LLglam design

Flowers on Essie - Fiji

The recent Essie - Fiji hype made me grab my bottle and paint my nails as well! I own the old european version and not the new limited one though. This one needs three coats to get an opaque result, but I couldn't resist for very long and added some nail art on top. I chose Essie - Turquoise & Caicos plus Essie - Chubby Cheeks to paint on flowers with a nail art brush. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her / Matte / Nail Art

Two coats of Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her plus some ornaments with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essie - Matte About You. I also added some studs and a shiny top coat later on, but I do prefer the matte version, don't 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? 

Deadly Sins Challenge - Day 11: Envy (Stripes & Flowers)

Day 11 of the Deadly Sins Challenge was something I was really looking for! This week's sin is Envy and today's theme says: Who would you like to be? Let us know recreating another challenger's work.

Illustrations by: dahlig

I chose to recreate a design by the amazing Brittney from Precious Polish because ever since I saw her French Riviera design, I fell in love with how beautiful those colors and patterns looked mixed together. I didn't have the exact same colors so I worked with what I had: Essie - Blanc, Bourjois - In The Navy, H&M - Lemon Tree and OPI - Friday Devil. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. So I still think the original colors look better and now that I look at her pictures again, I notice that I even forgot to paint the leaves! But nonetheless I really enjoyed wearing this design, it's so bright and colorful!

Peach-Colored Floral Spring Nails

I have one special scarf that reminds me of spring, no matter how cold it is outside. It's cream white with beautiful peach-colored flowers and a very light and soft texture. The scarf doesn't quite fit the weather yet and so I did what I always do: I painted it on my nails. As my base color I used three coats of Essie - Fiji, which was actually not the perfect choice because of its milky finish. I think maybe Essence - Iced Latte would have been perfect! I painted the flowers with acrylic paint and then added one coat of Essie - Good To Go on top.

Roses

I've seen this Blue Wave design by Simply Rins a few days ago and absolutely loved it. She said herself, that it reminded her of Roses and that's what I thought as well. So I decided to recreate it on my own nails with red colors to make the rose even more obvious. 

As you can tell, her design looks much more precise than mine does. Although you might think it's an easy design, I had my troubles with the lines. I used China Glaze - Something Sweet as my base color and then chose three red tones to create the rose. The first color is Essence - Better Late Than Never, the second one is Essie - Limited Addiction and the third one is Essie - Masquerade Belle.

On top is one coat of Essie - Good To Go. I can also recommend the tutorial by Simply Rins on how to paint with your non-dominant hand, she has some great tips!

Have a nice weekend! 

Dotted Flowers

Autumn is coming! You can tell so by the rainy weather and by the problems I have with the lighting in my photographs. Yesterday I tried doing a tutorial, prepared everything and started painting my nails when suddenly the blue sky turned to black and I couldn't see my own hands anymore. So I will postpone this one and instead show you some flower nails to say goodbye to summer. 

As always with white, I used Essie - Blanc as a base and then grabbed my dotting tool and started dotting. The colors I used are the following: Essie - Mint Candy Apple, Essence - Walk On Air, China Glaze - Something Sweet and Essie - Lilacism. 

I decided to leave the flowers very simple and just use three dots of each color to create them. Then added another dot in the middle of each flower and that's it. On top is one coat of Essie - Good To Go.

Japanese Cherry Blossom

This design was actually inspired by the Japanese Cherry Blossom series from The Body Shop. Perfect for spring and the lovely weather outside.

Since I don't have an opaque pastel pink nail polish I chose a white one as a base color and then mixed together my lightest pink from Catrice (Sweets For My Sweets) and some white nail polish. I used a sponge to apply it to the white base and got a really nice pastel pink background for my cherry blossoms.

For the branches I used Catrice - Lost In Mud and the long nail art brush from Essence. For the flowers I used three colors: China Glaze - Snow, H&M - Check Me Out and Catrice - Raspberry Field Forever. I made random spots with the white color, then added some of the lighter pink and a small spot of the darker pink in the middle. Then again a tiny bit of white in each flower.

One coat of BTGN Top Sealer to protect the design. 

NOTD: Roses

A little late for Valentine's Day - but roses are always nice, aren't they? 

I can't really give credit on this design since I don't know who it is originally from. It's all over the web in various styles and you will find a lot of tutorials on YouTube. If you know the original artist, please leave a comment and I will edit my post.

I used Essie - Mint Candy Apple as a base coat and added the roses with Catrice - Raspberry Fields Forever and Sweets For My Sweets. They're all done with a nail art brush. The roses came out a little more abstract than I hoped they would but I think this design looks better from a little distance. 

As always one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

Tomorrow I have some swatches of a new Catrice nail polish for you, stay tuned!