Christmas Plaid Nails feat. Essie - Urban Jungle

Today's nail art was inspired by a beautiful plaid design I saw a few weeks ago on Quiche Girl. She had the awesome idea to use multiple colors in one stamping. I love that she also added blue to the mix which looks amazing, but I left it out to make mine a bit more Christmassy. I also used the same collection from MoYou London, that is the Hipster collection. But instead of #06 I used the XL version #05. As my base color I used two coats of Essie - Urban Jungle. Then for the first round of plaid I used OPI - Christmas Gone Plaid and Cinnamon Sweet together on the same image. Then I used OPI With a Nice Finn-Ish for the golden plaid, which could have been a bit more opaque, but that's okay. For the last step I took a nail art brush and the same red and green colors to add some stripes over the stamping. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

Ruffian Nails / OPI Nordic / Gwen Stefani Holiday 2014

Today's nail design combines two of the newest OPI shades in a fancy sideways Ruffian. I used My Dogsled is a Hybrid* from the OPI Nordic collection  as my base color with two coats. Then I added some very old french nail stickers from essence onto the dried base and created the Ruffian effect with Unfrost my Heart* from the OPI - Gwen Stefani Holiday collection. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri.

* PR Sample

This blog gives me the awesome opportunity to try a lot of new products and I decided I want to give something back to you ladies, because you're a big part of this blog! I'd love to make two of you very happy by giving away two new and unused OPI sets. Set Gwen Stefani consists of Unfrost my Heart, Rollin' in Cashmere and So Elegant. Set Nordic consists of  Can't aFjörd Not To, Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm? and OPI With A Nice Finn-Ish. This is open internationally and you have until the 30th of November 2014 midnight (Swiss time) to drop me an e-mail with the subject: "OPI is awesome". Please also let me know which set you would like to win and try to convince me that you're not some bot looking for free stuff (for example, say Hi and use my name, send me your blog link to look at or a picture of the nail design you've done! I'd love that :) ) I will draw two winners and contact you by e-mail for your address. Also obviously one entry per person, since duh. Thank you! You're awesome! 

EDIT: Ihr könnt mir natürlich auch auf Deutsch schreiben! Viel Glück!

Set Gwen Stefani: 

Set Nordic:

OPI - Gwen Stefani Holiday 2014 Collection

I had the pleasure to review 12 of the 18 polishes in the newest OPI collection for Christmas 2014 called Gwen Stefani Holiday for OPI*. The collection was created with Gwen Stefani and contains colors from red to purple, green, silver and gold plus four glitter top coats and a golden flakie top coat. It will be available at the end of October 2014. As always, you can find more information about OPI on the OPI Swiss website or their Facebook page. I swatched every color with two coats without base or top coat and I will write a little note for each color this time. Overall I think it's a nice collection, but not too exciting. There are a few colors which stand out for me though: Cinnamon Sweet, Comet in the Sky, Sleigh Parking Only and First Class Desires. Pictures after the jump!

*PR Sample

(Piñata) Water Marble

Time for some water marble! This is one of those designs where I saw some bottles standing around on my table and felt like they would look cute combined. At first I wanted to add green to it as well, since I wanted to do something Piñata inspired. But the green didn't work for the water marble technique (check out my water marble basics here!) so I just used these three colors: OPI - Hey Baby, OPI - I Just Can't Cope-acabana and H&M - Car Paint Purple. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Gwen Stefani for OPI

I had the opportunity to try four of the seven polishes in the upcoming Gwen Stefani for OPI collection which will be available in Swiss stores from 21st of January 2014. As usual the 15 ml bottles are sold for CHF 23.90 and there is one special polish including nail art studs and rhinestones for CHF 49.90. For more information you can visit the OPI Swiss website. The polishes have different finishes, so the ones I tried are a pink crème called Hey Baby, a golden mat satin called Love.Angel.Music.Baby., a black mat satin called 4 In The Morning and a silver glitter top coat called In True Stefani Fashion. I was the biggest No Doubt/Stefani fan and kind of still am, so I love the concept and I think the colors are a great choice to represent Gwen. Then again I didn't think they are super unique on their own, which is why I combined them all in one design. I used one coat of OPI - Rapid Dry on top since OPI Swiss was so kind to send me a bottle of their top coat, but I'm not too impressed yet. One coat was too thin to melt the brush strokes together and I don't usually apply two coats, so I'm still able to see and feel the black lines. But I will definitely try it with other designs as well. 

From left to right: 

Hey Baby (Crème Gloss), Love.Angel.Music.Baby.(Satin), 

In True Stefani Fashion (Glitter Paillette), 4 In The Morning (Satin)

In True Stefani Fashion over 4 In The Morning

I wish you all the best for 2014, 

thank you for being the best followers ever! :)