Cut Out & Striped Nail Art

I've always been a bit reluctant to do cut out nail art since it either didn't look too good with stained nails or I didn't like the visible half moon of my natural nails. I decided to try again and kind of find a way around it by covering those two parts of the nail. What I love about this design that you can start to add striping tape onto the bare nails, which means you don't have to wait around for the base color to dry. So that's what I did, using my self-made striping tape kit and the 2 mm size tape. For the colors I chose Wet'n'Wild - Black Creme, KIKO - #389 Mint Milk & #295 Cerulean Blue and Essie - Peach Daiquiri. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. I especially love the pinkie, middle and thumb nails and this is definitely something I keep on my list of designs to do again. 

Dance Legend - Waszowski feat. OPI - Ski Teal We Drop

For today I have a very simple nail art with just two different colors. As my base color I used two coats of Dance Legend - Wazowski*. After the base was completely dry, I added a piece of my self-made 2 mm nail art striping tape in center of each nail. Then I used one coat of OPI - Ski Teal We Drop* as my top layer and removed the striping tape. On top of it is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri. 

* PR Samples

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. 

Exurbe Cosmetics - Wrecking Ball & Uptown Girl

I had the opportunity to try some nail polishes of a rather new Swiss company called exurbe cosmetics. They're based in Zurich, Switzerland and offer a range of 50 nail polishes, which are sold in a few selected stores and in a "members only" online shop. The polishes are 5-free, cruelty free and vegan. 11ml are sold for CHF 21.- each which is quite expensive in my opinion. Then again they're based in Switzerland and I wasn't too surprised. What is pretty cool though is that they ship very fast (within a work day) and for free! At the moment they ship to Switzerland and Liechtenstein only. If you're interested in becoming a member, you can use this invitation link (this is not a paid link). 

I tried two quite ordinary colors. There's Wrecking Ball, a dark grey silver and Uptown Girl a classic raspberry pink. They're all named after songs, thumbs up for that! I used two coats for each picture and they dried fast, even without a top coat. I also did some striping tape nail art which you can find at the end of this post. 

Uptown Girl

(the color in the bottle picture above and the nail art pictures is actually more accurate than in these two) 

Wrecking Ball

(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. 

The Lacquer Legion Glam: OPI - My Favorite Ornament

I skipped last month's challenge, but this month's I'm in again! It's the fourth challenge of The Lacquer Legion: Glam. The first thing on my mind was a polish: OPI - My Favorite Ornament from last year's Christmas collection. I love this one! It's textured and I always wanted to combine liquid sand with a creme polish. So I used two coats of Wet'n'Wild - Black Creme as my base and then created a pattern with striping tape. I then added one coat of My Favorite Ornament and removed the striping tape - that's it! You can find all of the other designs of this challenge with the hashtag #LLglam. 

My #LLadoration design

My #LLreinvention design

Striped Nails

I used two coats of Flormar - 400 as my base and then added stripes with a nail art brush and a lot of colors: Flormar - N006,  Essie - Mint Candy Apple, Essie - Avenue Maintain, OPI - AmazON...AmazOff and Sally Hansen - So-Nata Problem. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss.

Bold Black Stripes

Today's design is rather untypical for me, it's plain in colors and in style but nonetheless I really love it on my nails! As my base I used two coats of piCture pOlish - Nude. For the stripes I used black acrylic paint and a striping brush. That's it! I though about using a matte top coat on this one but then dismissed the idea, because I really liked it just with Essence BTGN Top Sealer. I'm definitely going to try other designs that go in this direction!

Sally Hansen - Designer Collection Part 1: Night Watch, New Wave Blue, Perfectly Poppy

Sally Hansen sent me their new Designer collection inspired by Tracy Reese, Rodarte & Prabal Gurung. I didn't want to simply swatch these colors but rather combine them in a nail art design. For a first part I chose a blue & red toned water marble. I used a dark navy called Night Watch (Prabal Gurung inspired), a beautiful turquoise called New Wave Blue (Tracy Reese) and a classic red called Perfectly Poppy (Tracy Reese). I swatched them with two coats each on one nail and the formula is smooth and fast drying. These are my first Sally Hansen polishes so I wasn't familiar with any of their products. I didn't like the brush a lot, it's rather chunky and looked a bit 'deformed', I prefer the long round brushes. For the water marble I used a white base to make the colors pop. These are pretty good for water marbling by the way! On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. Part 2 with three more colors will follow soon! This collection will be available in September for 8.99 Euro per 14.7 ml.  

Part 2: Coat Of Arms, Loden Green, Stocking Nude

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!

Blue Stripes feat. Essie - In The Cab-Ana & Bourjois - In The Navy

I decided to combine two of my new polishes in one design, using striping tape. I was inspired by Sammy from The Nailasaurus and her infamous striping tape manicures. At first I used two coats of Essie - In The Cab-Ana and then added striping tape and painted over it with Bourjois - In The Navy. This is my first nail polish from Bourjois and I decided to buy one because they were reduced and this blue was still on my wish list. I'm quite happy with it, the brush is disappointing though, considering the price. On top is  one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Born Pretty Store: Miki Nails - Water Decals A 1-23

I wasn't sure about publishing today's post, because I don't feel very comfortable with how my nails look today. In a moment of madness I decided to change back to round nails. I had regrets soon after and I'm not sure I will get used to the new look in the near future. Nonetheless I decided to let them grow a bit and then decide what to do. 

Since my first design today didn't work out, I tried my new water decals from Born Pretty Store. Because the last ones I tried were quite bad, I was curious about how the design A 1-23 would look in reality. And since I have the opportunity to review these for free, I thought I would try them again and tell you about it. First: The colors are definitely better, I'm not disappointed. Of course they look super bright online and they are a bit less saturated in real, but I think they look alright. Then application was the usual, it took me quite some time and I'm not very happy with the result. I feel like I could paint this design faster and would be happier with the result, but maybe I'm just too spoiled. They do look cool from a distance though! I used one coat of Star Nails - Nail Art Finishing Sealer first and then one coat of Essie - Good To Go. 

Have a look at my giveaway for a 20$ Born Pretty Store voucher, if you didn't already join! You can use my coupon code DEL91 for 10% off at Born Pretty Store. 

Sparkle Stripe Nails

On the lookout for inspiration I stumbled upon this cute pillow by Social Proper on Society6. I instantly fell in love, but then again I don't really need a pillow so I painted it onto my nails. I started with two coats of Essie - Blanc and then added a golden stripe in the middle of the nail with Catrice - Shanghai. I used some clear polish and craft shop glitter to make it extra sparkling. Then I added two more stripes with Essie - Need A Vacation and Essie - Lapis Of Luxury. On top is one coat of BTGN Top Sealer.

Have a nice weekend! 

Candy Cane Sugar Spun Nails

And we're back to Christmas! While making my Gingerbread Sugar Spun Nails I immediately thought of Candy Canes! How awesome would it be if I could create thin lines just with the sugar spun technique? So I tried it on top of two coats of Essie - Lacquered Up with sugar spung made of Essie - Blanc. It doesn't really look as neat as I wanted it to be, but I guess it still looks presentable. The problem with sugar spun is, that you really need to pay attention not to accidentally move your hand while placing the polish, especially if you're planning to do similar and regular lines. My right hand turned out quite different, with thicker lines. This time I decided that I don't want the real sugar spun look, so I added one coat of BTGN Top Sealer to smooth the surface. It smudged a tiny little bit of the white lines though, even after waiting a few minutes. I guess the longer you wait, the better the result will be.

Pastel & Golden Stripes

Today's design was actually planned as an Aztec design done with the plastic bag method. But after my design was dry and I tried to remove it from the plastic bag, it just didn't work. Fortunately I didn't add the aztec pattern yet so it wasn't that bad, but still a bummer! So I just took all the colors and started to paint the stripes directly onto my nails with a long striping brush (which by the way lost all its bristles in the middle of painting, lucky day!). I used two coats of Essie - Sand Tropez as my base color and then added stripes with Essie - Cute As A Button, Essie - Mint Candy Apple, American Apparel - Summer Peach and Lancome - 012. On top is one coat of Essence BTGN Top Sealer. 

By the way, I'm still working on my design. Did you notice the cute social media buttons on the right? They're not perfect yet (and maybe never will be) because I'm an absolute amateur in webdesign. But they're cute. And they're buttons. :)