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Monthly Archives: May 2012

Nails of the day follow up!

I’ve decided to add some stamping to the previous nails using Dashica XL SdP image plate 8.

I am really enjoying this a lot right now. I hope you like it too!

Nail of the day: Mint to teal gradient

Just a very quick drive by posting of my nail of the day which is a gradient I did using China Glaze – For Audrey as a base color and along with that  I used Sinful Colors – Why Not, Mattésse Elite – Vig(Thank you again Marissa for sending me that set! They’re stunning!) and Nicole By O.P.I.’s Khloe had a little Lam-Lam to sponge over it leaving me with a nice fresh looking gradient. I hope you like it!

Have you tried gradient nails yet? Or is this not your thing at all?

Gradient Friday!

I’d like to take this moment and share my nails of the week with you, these are gradient nails that I made using O.P.I. polishes and a little make up sponge.  It looks complicated but it really is quite simple. If you want I’ll soon do a tutorial to show you exactly how to do this type of nailart that will surely blow many people’s minds this summer. For now I’ll just show you some pictures.

Okay onto the manicures. This, besides the sponge, is what I used for the one pictured on the right.

I used Alpine Snow, a pure white, as a base. It’s important to use a light opaque base when you use light colors to sponge as the sponged colors go on very sheer. Over that I sponged (from the bottom left to the top right) Need Sunglasses, A Roll in the Hague, Red Lights Ahead… Where?. Dim Sum Plum, Funky Dunkey and last but not least I put on a thin coat of DS Shimmer to give it the subtle holographic effect. And really that’s all there is to it! I know I’m making it sound like it’s a piece of cake, but really it is!

Now I enjoyed this manicure so much that when I finally had to take it off later that week due to chipping I whipped up another gradient manicure by just using 5 polishes instead of 7.

This next one I made by using a clean make up sponge and first painting my nails white again with OPI’s Alpine Snow, and letting that dry,  before I painted my sponge for the gradient (as you can see in the little picture on the bottom right of that little collage on the left there.) I went from yellow to green to deep blue using Need Sunglasses, Jade Is The New Black and Roadhouse Blues, all colors by O.P.I. I topped them again with OPI DS Shimmer to give them that nice holographic shimmer and after that they were good to go.

I feel there are a lot more gradients in my future and I want to try one with metallics soon.

But for now I leave you with the gradients of a few good friends of mine who all did their own version of a gradient this week for Gradient Friday.

I hope you’ll pay them a visit and check out their work.

And of course let me know what you thought, did you have a favorite, and will you be trying this technique for yourself soon?

 

 

 



Help a girl out?

- The competition has ended and alas I did not win, thanks so much for your votes though!-

 

I don’t like begging for things, but right now I’m going to anyway.

Bundlemonster has organized a nailart contest on Facebook where they are giving away 25 of the newest bundlemonster sets to the nicest nailart.

Today the voting has started and I would love it if you would spare me a vote and if you really like my nailart, spread the news for more votes.

This is my link, and this is the picture I submitted:

You can vote for it once every day, I’ll understand if you don’t do that of course but I’d love it if you tried. ;)

Have you submitted your own art to this contest, I’d love it if you linked below so I can vote for you in return!

Go Grey in May for National Brain Tumor Awareness Month.

Being a member of a few facebook groups dedicated to either Nail Polish or Nail Art I noticed that quite a few of the members started to create manicures to support the Go Grey in May Campaign. I became fascinated and curious and did some research before I decided that I also must “Go Grey this May” to support this great cause and raise awareness.

May is National Brain Tumor Awareness Month in the United States. During the month of May, the Brain Tumor Awareness Organization encourages raising awareness through a variety of campaigns and activities. Each campaign or activity will serve as an education and outreach opportunity, a fundraising opportunity, a fitness event, a healing program/exhibit, a community initiative, a support group project or any combination that suits you and/or your group.

People often ask me what’s on my nails and sometimes even why, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity to wear grey, a color that I otherwise rarely wear because it makes my hands look more red than they are due to the cool tint this color naturally has.

For this manicure I put on a nice base of Rejuvacote by Duri, my new favorite nailhardener and basecoat, and two coats of China Glaze – Recycle, a lovely opaque and creamy grey.

Over that I layered two coats of a holographic topcoat I created myself by putting a little bit of Spectraflair pigment into a regular topcoat and I decanted a little bit of China Glaze’s amazing Sexagon into the topcoat as well to make sure the spectraflair had some suspension.

After that was dry I added a nice topcoat, Seche Vite in my case, and there you have it, grey nails with a little bit of a holographic pop that will surely make heads turn on a sunny day.

What do you think, will you be going Grey in May and help spread awareness for this cause?

 

For more information on the campaign please visit: www.braintumorawareness.org

Oh MAN how cool is this bottle?!

I don’t do this often, but I am going to start off by showing you 20 pictures of nail polish. Here we go:

How amazing is not only this bottle shape but also this nail polish? I mean look at them, one has flakies, some have glitter, some glow in the dark while others are amazing under black light! And I love that it all is happening in just ONE collection!
This ladies and gentlemen is a polish by the brand Blackheart and they are out now at Hot Topic for only $5 a piece! That’s a steal!
The sad thing is though that due to airline restrictions, this item can only be delivered within the 48 continental United States using Ground Shipping. So I, as a European am out of luck and cannot order this from the site.

I may have to ask one of my friends in the USA to get some of these for me though, as these for the bottle alone already looks too unique to pass up!

Have you ever bought a polish merely for the unique bottle? And what do you think of these colors and finishes?

Look at my Layla!

Look at what I’m wearing today, isn’t it just amazing? I think this is the best black holo I’ve seen since Glitter Gal came on the scene! The color is called Flash Black and is by an Italian brand called Layla. There are 8 beautiful colors in this set, the colors out right now are:

  • Mercury Twilight
  • Coral Glam
  • Retro Pink
  • Ultra Violet
  • Jade Groove
  • Mermaid Spell
  • Ocean Rush
  • Flash Back
There will be more colors out soon but I am not certain if I want those yet because they are more scattered. And I like my holographic nail polishes to be a bit more linear like these.

As a very VERY early birthday present I recently ordered myself the entire set of 8 colors from http://www.aveyou.com which worked quickly but is very expensive and I don’t think as a European it’s worth ordering from there again. But hey, you live you learn right? You American ladies (and gents) have it good because not only can you order them at Ave You but they are also for sale at Ulta and their webshop HERE. Notice that these are certainly not cheap and that you can also just buy one or two, but I do think they are seriously worth getting all.  I actually think it’s safe to say that these are a serious contestant in the Holo Holy Grail of polishes. Anyway, they all got here safe and sound and are amazing in person, so amazing in fact that it’s pretty much impossible to really photograph or film the beauty of these polishes.

I mean look at these bottles, even the holographic effect on the wrapping is pretty awesome don’t you think?

Here’s a very short video of these babies in indirect daylight:

Aren’t they lovely? Seriously though, pictures and video don’t do these any justice, you need to see them in person as you can see on the pic below here, sometimes in pictures and videos they’ll look really subdued when in reality they so are not!

I’ve swatched these on a wheel so I can see them together and compare them to other holographics in the future. Each swatch has no top or basecoat and consists of 3 layers of the polish. I do this with all my swatches for comparing reasons. These nail polishes truely need two or three layers to become opaque and they can be a bit difficult to work with sometimes. You have to shake them really well before applying or else there are actual clumps of the tiny metallic glittery shards on the nail that you will have to distribute fast because these polishes dry quickly. And when you’ve just applied them they do not look very appealing at all at first, but when they start to dry the reflective pieces in the polish start to lay more flat and you get this amazing rainbow effect on the nail.

Now, let’s give this polish some stars. All in all I give these polishes the following rating:

For staying power so far: I’ve only worn this Black Flash and Coral Glam for two days and Ultra Violet for three but so far so really good!

For color: They have all colors imaginable since they have a rainbow reflection, I love it!

For coverage and application: You really need to build up the color and the opacity of these and they are a bit hard to apply sometimes, but most holo polishes are.

For price: $15.50 is quite a bit of money, but man, do these colors rock

- For amount: I would have loved to have more for this price. But it is a reasonable 10 ml/.34 fl oz.

Had you heard of this brand yet? Or do you maybe already have a few or are planning to get some? Let me know!



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International and Indie brands
at GREAT prices!




Dutch webshop that sells Orly and other lovely brands.



Dutch webshop that sells Cult Nails, Butter London, China Glaze etc.



Dutch stockist that also sells to the general public.



Dutch Webshop that sells China Glaze, Glitter Gal and a lot more good stuff.

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