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!