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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

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!

Double French Black

It's hard to find the right opening sentence every time, so I will just bump in with a picture:

I think black french manicures are something you whether hate or love. In my case, I hate it that I don't have the courage to wear it outside the house. Anyway, this black polish with tiny silver glitter that is used for the double french is: Essence Colour & Go no. 85 Galactic Black. In order to show you the tiny cosmic silver particles, here is a bottle picture:

As for the middle part of the nail, I used one coat of a milky white sheer polish: KIKO no. 204. Then stamped another design of BM225 with Catrice Back To Black. It's odd that Back To Black didn't work that well with BM plates compared to Konad image plates. That is way the design came out a bit subtle.

Have a great one!!!

Sea Sparkle

Today's mani has colours that reminds me of the sea.

There are two coats of KIKO no. 341 Verde Cobalto. It was really hard to capture the accurate colour of Verde Cobalto, because it leans more to green/ teal in real life. So I tried to change the colour of the picture above in order to show you how it really looks like. The application went very smooth thanks to the fine brush and the layers dried quite fast. 

Then I layered two coats of CND Effects no. 559 Gold Sparkle over it. Gold Sparkle is the very first bottle of CND in my tiny collection. I really like the formula and the brush of this CND polish. The shape of the bottle is also a bit different than the usual round ones that I own. Gold Sparkle is filled with golden glitters and flakies and it has an extremely  glossy finish. I am totally in love with 'effect' nail polishes as they can give your mani an extra something special =]

For the accent nail, I used Konad image plate M76, which is one of my favourite image plates at the moment and Konad special polish in white.

Have a wonderful one!!!

Over The Rainbow

A few months ago, I found out that there is a nail-art related application for Android phones named: NailCatalog.

When you open NailCatalog, you'll find a huge collection of manicures sorted according to base (one color, gradient, french or other) or color (pink, blue, purple, white/beige, yellow, green, gold, orange/brown, red, black, colorful and silver). The manicures are created by various nail salon's in Japan. So if you click on one design, you get to see a larger image of the mani and information of the nail salon that created it.

Today's mani is inspired by the above mani:

I used 3 coats of KIKO no. 204 to draw the clouds. KIKO no. 204 belongs to KIKO's French Manicure line, because it's a milky white sheer. I could have picked a white cream instead, but I wanted to create that dreamy feel to the clouds...not really sure I've managed to do so =S

As for the rainbow, I used Dolly Wink no. 03 (pink), no. 07 (lilac) and no. 09 (green) and Models Own Lemon Meringue.

Have a nice one!!!