Alix Avien Blue Crackle

My first Turkish brand nail polish, which I hunted down during my short stay there: Alix Avien!

I did some research before I went on vacation and it was not all about the sightseeing stuff...also a little about what polishes were sold in Turkey. Luckily, I found several drugstores where they sell nail polishes of different Turkish brands.

Alix Avien Nail Deco comes in 4 colours: white, black, blue and pink. This navy blue one got my attention, since I already have a black crackle polish of Barry M. During that time, China Glaze had already announched their Crackle Glaze collection, otherwise, I would have bought Alix Avien crackle polish in white and pink too.

As base colour, I used Pa Nail Color A30, which is a nice champagne goldish polish. Two coats of A30 and one layer of Alix Avien blue crackle polish. The picture was taken on the second day of wear, but I think it still looks okay. It didn't chip that much even without topcoat and survived one day at work.

More 'travel hauls' will follow...

Have a great one!

Essence TE I Love Berlin

There is no better way to start the new year than with a Trend Edition of Essence. This time, the theme is called: 'I Love Berlin'. The collection consists of 5 nail polishes, 2 matt tip painters and 2 studio fashion nail stickers (and other eye and lip make-up).

Out of the total 5 colours, I only picked number 03 Green Grass, which is a beautiful teal. The application was smooth, but Green Grass is thicker than the Essence polishes I've came across. On the other hand, it made it possible to be opaque with just one coat. However, it does not dry as glossy as described on the Essence website, but that can be fixed with a topcoat.

I also got myself the matt tip painter in black: 01 Berlin Story (4ml). Like you already know, I am not good at nail art. So I came up with the most simple nail art like shown above. In the end, it was not simple at all!!! It was a battle against time. The polish was already dry before I could complete the star on my ring finger. I find it hard to use Berlin Story as a nail art painter, but I would definitely use it for a matt french mani.

What do you think of the 'I Love Berlin' collection?

Have a great one!!!

MNY No. 145

Although it's quite late, but I do wish everyone:

~*~ A Happy 2011!!! ~*~

I hope you all had a great time during the holidays. For me, it was non-stop eating delicious food ^^ I began the year with a vacation to Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey. It's a beautiful place with very friendly residents and delicious food and sweets. The most interesting part is that you can travel from Europe to Asia within 15 minutes with a ferry and still be in the same country. How cool is that?

 

At the end of the year 2010, I came across a new display of Maybelline New York in the local drugstore. It has a different package and the price is lower than the usual line of Maybelline. Of course, the first thing that caught my attention were the nail polishes. I picked MNY No. 145 (7ml) which is a milky white base with fuchia shimmers and flakies. Do look at the close-up picture, since I'm not good at describing things.

In the picture above, I layered MNY 145 over 2 coats of Catrice C01 Pearls & Chains from the LE Urban Baroque collection. I will come back to this sweet collection in another post.

Have a wonderful one!!!

New Catrice Colour: Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans!

With the aim to look for the Essence Fairytale collection in mind, I bumped into something as interesting: one of the newest colours in the Catrice Nail Polish assortment.

This one goes by the name: 350 Hip Queens Wears Blue Jeans! It is a beautiful blue creme with subtle blue glitters that are more presence in the bottle than on the nails unfortunately. I'll give you a closer look at the bottle:

They are in there!!!

Overall, I really like Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans!, since it applied smoothly, opaque in 2 coats and is totally new colour in my nail polish stash ^^'

Have a great one!!!

Multi Christmas!!!

Whohoho...There are so many beautiful Xmas mani's out there in blog world! I wanted to give it a try as well:

I used Etude House LUCIDarling's WH001 as base colour for my index and pink finger. As for the middle and ring finger, I layered two coats of OPI Red Hot Ayers Rock and OPI Yoga-ta Got This Blue respectively. For the design on the index finger, OPI's RHAR is used to draw the Xmas sock and the lines are created by Essence Nail Art Pen in Pearl White.

Sorry for the not-so-sharp picture.
I'm glad though, since the designs did not turn out that well =P

The shy Snowman is created with Barry M Matt White (body), OPI Yoga-ta Got This Blue (eyes and bottons) and OPI Red Hot Ayers Rock (scarf). As for the Christmas tree, this one is made by using GR 607 of Etude House Petite Darling HD Nails.

I definitely need more practice on the nail art, but I had much fun making it. What (mani/polish) are you going to wear on Christmas?

Have a wonderful one!!!

Yoga-Ta It's Snowing!

Today I swatched a very special polish, which is: OPI Yoga-Ta Get This Blue! It is not special in a limited edition way...it is very special because this is the very first OPI polish that I bought! Yoga-Ta Get This Blue! is from the OPI India Collection and it is a beautiful navy shimmer polish.

It began to snow a couple of days ago and that inspired me to do a mani with snowflakes. Luckily I have Konad M59, which offers two different types of snowflakes, so that I do not have to draw them myself (which would be a total disaster). I used Konad's special white polish to do the design and covered it with Konad topcoat.

Do you also want to create a winter-related mani during this time of the year?

Have a wonderful one!!!

Tiny Mittens

Brrr...the winter has really arrived... It is time to wrap yourself in nice warm clothes and get yourself pretty winter accessories like mittens. That is exactly what inspired me to do this mani: the patterns of mittens.

I used Topshop's Hopscotch (grey) and Catrice's Back to Black (black) for this manicure. Furthermore, I made use of the Viva La Nails black striping tape to make the excellent horizontal lines in this nail art. The striping tape was easy to use and it is impossible to make a mess. This comes in handy for me since I am quite clumsy when it comes to drawing a line with a striper brush. In the end, I had to redo it many times which is time consuming. The use of a striping tape is simple and effortless: you just place it on the nail and make your preferred pattern and that's it. AND it doesn't need time to dry.

Hope you like this winter mani.

Have a warm and wonderful one!!!