Toujours Pretty

Paul & Joe nail enamel bottles are super pretty! That was the main reason to purchase one. I chose number 29 Toujours, which means 'always' in French.

Toujours is a lovely peach pink creme which needs3 coats to become opaque. The formula is good and it dries fast. 

Since I made the glitter nail art wheel, I find it easier to make glitter combinations. Today's combination will be Toujours with 2 layers of Nubar White Polka Dot. White Polka Dot is a clear base with lots of white hexagon glitters and micro glitters that shine blue and green. 

Have a great one!

Glitter Nail Art Wheel

The Winter Holidays are around the corner, so it’s time for glitter and glamour looks! In order to make it easier to choose, I’ve made a nail art wheel with 18 different glitter/shimmer topcoats:

01 Essence Blair

02 China Glaze Party Hearty

03 Nubar Black Polka Dot

04 Nubar White Polka Dot

05 KIKO 270 Aqua Paillettes

06 MNY #142A Baby & Lights

07 Essence Julia

08 Essence Edward

09 Essence Night in Vegas

10 LA Colors Sassy Sparkle

11 Color Club Covered in Diamonds

12 American Apparel Meteor Shower

13 Chanel Illusion D’Or

14 CND Gold Sparkle

15 Catrice Return of Space Cowboys

16 Catrice Godfather of Pearls

17 Essence Mystic Mermaid

18 Anna Sui  #80

What kind of festive mani’s are you going to wear?

Have a lovely one!

Present and Past Visions

This is another one from the Essence Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection: Alice Had A Vision - Again. 

It's a dark purple base with lots of purple and green glitters. The formula was a bit thick. The pictures show 3 coats of Alice Had A Vision - Again plus topcoat.

There is another mani created with one from the old Essence Vampire's Love collection.

I used The Dawn Is Broken as base. Then I draw a rectangle with Essence Galactic Black and placed gold bullion beads on top of the black rectangle.

Have a great one!

Tony Moly Shooting Star

Tony Moly is a Korean cosmetic brand and the name means: "putting style into packaging". That is indeed what it promises, because they bring the cutest bunny lip gloss bars and many other products with adorable packaging.

Of course, my focus is on the nail polishes. This is GS09 Shooting Star:

Shooting Star is a pastel purple with lots of multi-coloured goodies in it. There are tiny silver, gold, red, blue and green glitters accompanied by larger hexagon glitters in gold, fuchsia, silver, green and light blue. I used Essence Peel Off basecoat to save the removal trouble. Maybe that is the reason why Shooting Star ended up looking pink on the nails, but it is definitely the cause of the tip wear.

Shooting Star looks great on its own for a glitter sandwhich mani or over a pink/purple base colour. The pictures show 3 coats of Shooting Star without topcoat.

Have a lovely weekend!

Jacob's Protection

Twilight fan and you love nail polish? Then you might want to get the Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection from Essence. This collection offers 4 beautiful nail polishes. This is the first one:

Jacob's Protection is a dark grey base with lots of shimmers in blue, green, red and purple. On the nails, the blue shimmers are more visible.

The pictures show 2 coats of Jacob's Protection with one layer of topcoat.

What do you think of this collection?

Have a great one!

Framed Blue Heaven

In my previous post, I swatched the Color Club Blue Heaven which is a beautiful blue holo.  Today, I added a design to it:

I stamped with KIKO 386 Light Pastel Blue and used the design from BM 203.

The answer to the question whether Blue Heaven is also suitable for stamping is: YES! I tested on a nail wheel, but I didn't make a picture. So, I'll come up with a mani later.

Have a lovely one!

CC Blue Heaven

Yeah, finally my 100th post on this special day. Happy Halloween!!!

Therefore, I've chosen a beauty to celebrate:

This is Blue Heaven from Color Club's Halo Hues collection. It's a gorgeous blue holo. Blue Heaven is the first real holo nail polish that I own and I totally love it! 

I'm curious if this one is suitable for stamping, because it's almost a one-coater. The pictures show 2 coats without topcoat.

Stay tuned for another gorgeous from Color Club's Halo Hues collection...

Have a great one!

Black & White Tribal Print

Tribal print or ethnic pattern? I'm not totally sure which term fits the mani I have today:

The base colour is 2 coats of Essence The Dawn is Broken from the Vampire's Love collection. I've seen the pictures of the coming Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection and it looks promising.

For the tribal print, I used the design from BM 204 and white Konad stamping polish. Then I filled some areas with black nail art pen and added a coat of SV topcoat.

Have a great one!

Inspired Ribbon Mani

Today's mani is inspired by a ribbon mani from the Nail Up! magazine (November 2012 issue).

This is the look in the magazine:

The base colours are 2 coats of Topshop Hopscotch (index, middle and pink) and Essence Black is Back (ring).

Index ~ I made 2 X's with black striping tapes to create the ribbons. Then gave the ribbons different colours: blue with KIKO 385 and purple with Essence Passion for Fashion. On the insection of the striping tapes, I placed golden glitters.

Middle ~ The same method as the index finger, just different colours. The purple ribbon is created with Essence Passion for Fashion and the black one with Essence Black is Back. I made dots on the ribbons with Topshop Hopscotch.

Ring ~ 2 coats of Essence Black is Back and added golden glitters.

Pink ~ The ribbon design from Konad M3 with black Konad stamping polish.

 

Have a wonderful one!

Halloween Wrap

Hi there!
Since Halloween is almost around the corner:

It's my first time using the Saran wrap technique. The base colour is Essence Black is Back and the second colour is Catrice Spiced Bronze. I just realized that I use Spiced Bronze only around Halloween =]

Have a great one!

Ceramic Glaze

A few years back, a friend and I followed a ceramic course. We were thought techniques to create various products and use glaze to give the ceramic product a beautiful and unique finishing touch. The mani that I will show you today somehow reminds me of the ceramic glaze effect.

 First I used a nude base colour, which is Essence Iced Latte. Then I sponged a jade green colour on the tips to create a gradient effect. The nail polish used is KIKO no. 344 Light Misty Green (KIKO have names now!). A layer of Sech Vite topcoat was used to even out the sponged areas and let it dry faster.

 I wanted some paintings on the ceramic as well, so I used Konad M73 for the flower design and China Glaze Passion for stamping.

Have a great one!

Unexpected Change in the Galaxy

I had so much fun swatching this purple mani because of the newest Essence ‘Colour and Change’ nail polish. These polishes change colour when you layer a clear topcoat over it.

I started with a light pinkish purple base colour of Hello Kitty HK11-10 Lola Lilas. The bottle is super cute and so is the colour. It’s opaque with 2 coats. The Essence ‘Colour and Change’ nail polishes are one-coaters, so they are perfect for stamping.

The one I used here is no. 04 Unexpected Galaxy which is a dark purple base with silver shimmer. The original colour is silver with a purple undertone. When you layer a clear topcoat over it, the colour will change into dark purple. The design is from image plate BM208 and the topcoat used to change the colour is Seche Vite topcoat.

Isn't great to get two different colours by using just one stamping colour?

Have a nice weekend!

NOTD: My Private Jet

OPI’s My Private Jet comes in 2 versions. The one that I own is the 2^nd version.

The pictures show 2 coats without topcoat. This version of My Private Jet is a dark brown base with bronze shimmer and holo micro glitters. I missed the opportunity to buy the original version of MPJ with the linear holo effect, but this one is also a beauty.

Have a great one!

Black Metal Mani

Hi all, how are you doing? I've been away from blog world for awhile, but everything is fine and I will slowly post more often. Let me start with a simple mani:

I used 2 coats of Essence Black is Back as base colour and Essence Luxury Secret as stamping colour. The designs are from the French tip image plate: BM219. On my index finger, there is a silver round  stud which is from Essence Nail Jewels 02 Milky Way. This little box with blingy goodies offers round, flower-shaped, bow tie shaped, drop and star rhinestones in various colours and white pearls. But what stands out the most are the silver round studs.

Have a great one!

A Lovely Secret

Essence Colour & Go number 84: A Lovely Secret is truly a beauty with a secret. The base colour is lilac filled with purple and pink shimmer. The lovely secret lies in the purple shimmer: they appear as purple speckles! Isn’t that interesting?

There are 2 coats of A Lovely Secret. I added a design from BM 215 with Catrice Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans. Then I layered one layer of topcoat.

Have a great one!

Inspired by NailCatalog

As many of you, I'm really happy with the app: NailCatalog. They have the most lovely and great creations, so I check it out often to get inspiration for my mani. Todays mani is inspired by Nail Salon Haute Couture:

What I used:

~ Base colour: The nude colour from Essence Just The Nude Of Us

~ Catrice Back To Black as stamping colour

~ Golden Rose Nail Art 118: Bronze/Copper shimmer with a thin nail art brush

~ KIKO 204: a french sheer white

~ Konad image plate M73

The mani of Nail Salon Haute Couture is super pretty and impossible for me to recreate. But I made an easy version of it:

Have a wonderful weekend!

H&M nail polish.

H&M comes with a beautiful tiny trio of nail polishes almost every season. I’m not sure what the name of this set is, I will just call it: nail polish.

The 3 colours are:

Metallic Blue ~ Dark metallic blue with tiny silver glitter

Metallic Grey ~ Silver foil with silver glitter

Spark Me Up ~ Clear base with a mix of champagne gold, silver, light blue, dark blue and red glitters

Here above are two coats of Metallic Blue and one of Spark Me Up. The formula of Metallic Blue is sticky, which caused a bit of trouble during the application. But luckily it was not streaky. Spark Me Up covered the imperfections and added colourful glitters to Metallic Blue. One coat was enough to cover the nail with a decent amount of glitters.

Then I added a layer of Matte Magic of China Glaze:

Which version do you prefer?

Have a great one!

Smell of a Rose...

Today’s nail art is inspired by roses:

I used 3 coats of OPI Malaysian Mist as base colour. It’s a beautiful nude crème with a touch of peach. For the accent finger, there is one layer of Anna Sui Nail Art Color N #080 which is a clear base with multi-coloured glitters - blue, green, silver, purple and gold. The rose scent of this polish is very nice. It feels like ages for me to finally own a bottle of one of Anna Sui’s beauties, so I’m really happy with #080.

The rose design is from the Konad image plate M76 and stamped with Konad special stamping polish in white. At last, I’ve added one layer of topcoat.

 Have a great one!

Magnetic Spell Bound!

Magnetic! This blue version of magnetic nail polish is newly added to the Essence collection and goes by the name: 06 spell bound! Essence also brings us a new magnet which can create the star shape and it has a name too: magic star!

The formula is a little on the thick side but okay to work with. I used 2 coats of spell bound! and the second coat was a bit thicker so that there was enough magnetic pigments on the nails. This blue and silver combination is gorgeous! I still want to try China Glaze Pull Me Close though.

Last one with Essence High Shine topcoat:

Have a wonderful one!

Lace Fever

Lately, I've been doing a lot of NOTD's from the latest Essence and Catrice nail polishes. The fingers were itching for some nail art, so here is one:

There are 2 coats of Topshop's Hopscotch, my favourite light grey creme with subtle silver shimmer. On the accent finger, there is also one layer of Essence Ahoy! to draw the imperfect white rectangle. Then I used lace stripes to cover the outline of the rectangle. One layer of topcoat is used to seal and shine.

These lace stripe water decals are very easy to use. You just roughly measure the length you'll need and cut it. Then soak that little piece of water decal in water for a few seconds. The water decal will easily come off and you can place it wherever you want. I bought mine at the Born Pretty Store, but I think you can find them at other online stores that sells nail art related products as well.

Have a great weekend!