Sour Green Apple

Finally, I was able to catch this feather effect nail polish of Barry M. Sour Apple is one of total five nail polishes from the Confetti collection. They are a transparant base packed with different combinations of bar glitters. Sour Apple is filled with light blue and pastel yellow bar glitters.

As base colour, I picked KIKO #341 Cobalt Green. The moment I turned my camera on, I remembered how troublesome this colour is to capture. So no exception today, Cobalt Green is actually green, but somehow turned blue in the pictures -_-"
Anyway, the swatches shown are done with just one coat.

Have a nice one!

Hema Holographic Bordeaux

This beauty is from the Hema Special Effect Holographic collection. It features many holographic colours, but the purple one caught my eye. I was hoping that Bordeaux would also be a nice stamping colour as well. And it is...I will make another post of Bordeaux's stamping ability soon. For now, let's just enjoy Bordeaux as it is:

in the shade

Have a great one!

Birdcage under Water

My little sister once gave me a lovely decorative birdcage, and I use it to house four bottles of nail polishes. If there's is a nail art that I've always wanted to try, it's definitely the design of a birdcage. As I mentioned before, drawing is not my thing. So, I was hoping that I would find a nail art sticker of it someday. That day has finally come, I found a water decal on eBay with a bird cage hanging on a branch with birds in and around it:

I used two coats of Essie Ballet Slippers, a milky pink sheer polish. The accent nail has an extra coat of Essence Frosted Campaign from the TE Crystalliced.

The water decals are very easy to use. Just cut out the design and soak that piece of paper in water for a few seconds. The transparent film with the design will separate from the paper sheet and you can place it on the nails as you like. The size of this design was actually a bit bigger than my nail, so I had to chop off a part of the branch. 

What design have you always wanted to try?

Have a great weekend!

Coffee Break

Let's have a warm and sweet coffee break:

I used Barry M Matt White, PASTEL no. 43 and Barry M Chocolate for the gradient. If I can give a gradient a name, I would call this one a 'Latte Macchiato gradient'. Latte's and coffee specials are my favourites.

As for the green accent nails, I used two coats of p2 Volume Gloss Fresh Sister as base colour. Fresh Sister is mint green and has a super glossy finish. It's funny that the name of this polish has the word 'sister' in it, because this bottle is in fact a gift from my lovely sister. 

The coffee cup is painted with Barry M Matt White and Chocolate. The yummy donut is a nail art sticker. 

What kind of coffee do you like to drink?

Have a wonderful one!

Studded Jacuzzi Bubbles

When I went shopping for colourful spring clothes, I came across this amazing nail art wheel filled with black, gold and silver nail art stones. That was not the only distraction that kept me from my original shopping plan, Sephora's Jacuzzi Bubbles also caught my attention. So I ended up buying only nail related products instead of clothes.

Jacuzzi Bubbles is a matte greyish blue with light blue and purple shimmer. I used two coats of Jacuzzi Bubbles and layered TC on the middle and ring finger. The free handed silver forms are painted with a nail art brush and China Glaze Millennium. Then I used the star shaped and square nail art stones from the H&M nail art wheel.

What I really like about these nail decorations is that they resembles studs. I still have to get my hands on studs, but for the time being, I am totally content with these.

Have a great one!

Gold on the bottom of the Sea

One of the few Japanese brands I have tried is Majolica Majorca. They come in these tiny cute bottles filled with 5ml of goodies. This is BL501:

BL501 has a name written in Japanese, so I just used Google Translate to find the translation of 海の底 in English, it said: The bottom of the sea. TBOTS is from the Glow & Quick line, which really says what it does. Because TBOTS is a gelly, I needed four coats to reach opacity, which I normally wouldn't like since you have to wait so long between each coat. But TBOTS dried extremely fast and the finish is super shiny and glossy!

There are tiny aqua blue and golden glitters mixed in the sheer navy blue base. Unfortunately the golden glitters are sandwiched, so they do not appear golden on the nails. TBOTS turned into a slightly different shade of blue once swatched on the nails.

Have you tried the nail polishes of Majolica Majorca?

Have a wonderful one!

Grunge Me Tender!

The latest Catrice and Essence limited collections are filled with lovely spring colours. A few days ago, the local drugstore happened to have updated the limited collection display already, while these collections are supposed to hit the stores in April. You'll hear no complaints from me =]

So let's take a look at Essence TE Floral Grunge where feminine meets grunge. This is Grunge Me Tender:

Grunge Me Tender is described as mint on the Essence website, but I think it's more pastel green. Furthermore, Grunge Me Tender is a creme with subtle white/silver shimmer and has a soft matte finish. This is hinted by the sticker "The Suede" on the bottle.

Only two coats is needed to reach opacity and it dried quite fast.

I wanted to know how it looked with a layer of TC:

Have a nice one!

Glitter on me

This is Essence's newest member in the nail art Special Effect! topper family: Glitter On Me.

Glitter On Me has a clear base filled with tiny silver glitter and aqua, gold, pink and silver bar glitters. 

I started with two coats of KIKO Pastel Blue as base colour and added one layer of Glitter On Me. The end result didn't feel gritty at all, so I just skipped TC.

Have a great one!

Circus Confetti in the Green Room

Once again, here is Topshop's Green Room with a little bling:

In the previous post, I've mentioned how surprisingly sheer Green Room was. That makes it a perfect ingredient for a glitter sandwich. I used Essence Circus Confetti and layered one coat of Green Room on top. 

Circus Confetti is a real party glitter with its multi-coloured glitters in different sizes.
Before the sandwich:

After:

What do you think of this combination?

Have a great one!
 

Bonbon inspired mani

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I did a bonbon inspired mani:

The chocolate nails are swatched with Barry M's Chocolate and the ring finger has three coats of Essence Team Nude. The pink stripes are done with a striping brush and Essie Van D'Go. I added Canmake Nail Topping Coat #04 Mixed Fruit Seeds on the index and ring finger. The little heart on the middle finger is painted with OPI Red Hot Ayers Rock.

As I mentioned above, this mani was inspired by sweet bonbons. They looked like this before I devoured them:

Have a sweet day!

Topshop Green Room

My lovely sister bought this one for me as a souvenir from France. It was a pleasant surprise, both the gift and the polish itself:

This is Topshop Green Room, which is a beautiful green with an extremely glossy finish. I didn't expect the jelly-like formula judging from the bottle. So I was surprised to find out that Green room was so sheer. It will become opaque with three coats.

one coat

three coats

 The camera couldn't capture the real colour of Green Room, so I edited one of the pictures to give you a better impression of how Green Room looks like in real life.

In the next post, I will make a glitter sandwich with Green Room. Don't miss it...

Have a great one!

Broken, but not feeling blue

As a nail polish blogger, there is this one thing that is terrible: damage to the nails. Due to the cold weather and obviously lack of care, a split occurred at one fourth length above the nail tip on my middle finger. The horizontal split went halfway through, but I could not cut it all off, since it was still attached to the soft tissue. But luckily it is growing back. I left my nails unswatched for a week and I can’t take it anymore. So please don’t mind the weird shaped nail.

click for a clearer image

It feels great to have colour on the nails. I used 2 coats of Essence Movie Star as base. Movie Star is a dark grey creme and it is from the old Colour & Go collection. Then I stamped a design from BM205 with Color Club Blue Heaven. 

When I saw the sheer layer of Blue Heaven on the stamping tool, I was afraid that it wasn’t visible once stamped. But the holo awesomeness is incredible. Here are some shots in the shade:

click for clearer image

Have a great one! 

Celeb Party Girl

Another polish that I bought from Etude House’s Dear My Party Nails is called: Celeb Girl (PPP503). 

Celeb Girl is a milky light blue sheer base filled with gold, light and dark blue glitters in different sizes. The glitter sandwiches that you can create with each layer are beautiful and unique. 

one coat

three coats

The formula was easy to work with and there was no need to dab the glitters on the nails. Three coats were necessary to get rid of vnl. I just love the combination of the blue and gold in Celeb Girl. When you don't have time for nail art and you want a stunning look, this will be a perfect option!

Have a wonderful one!

Mystery stamped!

The previous post showed the beautiful OPI DS Mystery. This mysterious colour is a fine base for some stamping nail art. 

I've chosen China Glaze Passion as stamping colour since it fit the golden flecks so well. For the design, I picked one from the BM206 plate. Passion is definitely my favourite gold stamping colour.

Have a great one!

DS Mystery

At the end of the year 2012, I held an 'once in a year' big cleaning day. That was when this polish popped up: OPI DS Mystery.

in sunlight

The name is well picked, the mysterious attraction of the silver cap and base colour of the first coat.  I thought Mystery was a dark blue base with gorgeous golden flecks. But right after the first coat, I realized it is actually a purple base which turned really dark after three coats.

I really like the combination of the dark purple with the golden flecks. The formula of OPI never lets me down. You'll need three coats to be opaque. 

Do you have OPI DS nail polishes and which one do you like most?

Have a wonderful one! 

Bluetiful Flowers

The previous post showed how beautiful Essence's I'm Bluetiful looks on its own. Today I added a stamping design:

 The picture shows 2 coats of I'm Bluetiful. I used Konad M31 and stamped with China Glaze Millenium. At first, I thought that this flower design was small. But now that it is stamped on my nails, it almost looks like a full nail design. 

Have a wonderful one!