Get Adobe Flash player

Blue

Neo Geisha by Catrice

Widely popular on the international catwalks: the Asia trend, inspired by the Japanese Geisha look. Red lips and black eyeliner are absolutely essential for the silk kimonos, collarless jackets and spectacular footwear of this trend.
The Limited Edition “Neo Geisha” by CATRICE is a modern interpretation of the traditional Geisha look that unites artistic Japanese elements with facets of the Western World. The colours: red, dark blue and nude are mixed with intensive green, pink and purple. A combination of classical and modern.

This collection has 5 new polish colors, 4 bright jewel tones and one nude. The nail polish with a high coverage comes in five trendy colors and is extremely long lasting and intensely bright. Various effects – plain or with a shimmer – create a modern, individual Geisha look.

Colors

  • Discreet Artist – Nude pink
  • Picked Cherry Blossoms – Hot pink
  • Madam Butterfly – Cherry red
  • Dance In Gion – Royal blue
  • Planet Tokyo – Jade green

As you can see Picked Cherry Blossoms and Dance in Gion have a shimmer to them, I can’t see if the nude, the red and the green have that too on this product picture. We’ll have to see in person I guess! I personally like the jewel tones and will be checking them out in the store, the nude, not so much.

Much love!To me this isn’t a very exciting collection but the colors are nice and cheap enough to pick up on a whim. What are your thoughts on these?

This collection will be released in Febuary and will be out through March in 2013.

Orly Hope and Freedom Fest for Spring 2013.

Lose yourself in an environment high on hope: Where positive vibes abound. Optimism comes alive. And music and spontaneity define the mood—giving rise to Hope and Freedom Fest, the new Spring 2013 color collection from Orly.
Join hands to celebrate social change, a suit yourself spirit, and festival inspired style. Experience color come to life through communal unity meets personal expression.

Orly Hope and Freedom

I must say, while I’m not into glitter usually, the look of Peaceful Opposition does intrigue me.  I also like the look of High on Hope but other than that I may skip the rest of this collection.

Much love!No idea when these will come out but I’ll let you know as soon as I hear something!

A quick Essie Spring 2013 preview!

Just two pictures for you this time but I’m sure you’ll enjoy these as pictures say more than words.

Colors

Much love!

China Glaze Tranzitions swatches and video!

From left to right:  Split Perso-nail-ity, Modify Me, Duplicity, Altered Reality, Metallic Metamorphosis and Shape Shifter

 You’ve heard of these before no doubt, they’re the new Tranzitions, 6 new highly pigmented colors, by China Glaze. Polishes that have a little secret! They are said to change into a darker polish when you apply topcoat, now how cool is that? I have to be honest here, I was a bit skeptical at first because I have a similar set by Essence that do the same thing and I just totally didn’t like those. Not at all. The difference to me was so minimal that I just don’t want to mess around with those any longer because they felt like a huge let down and a waste of time. My interest in this type of polish was awakened again though when I found out that China Glaze was going to release a similar set. This brand hasn’t let me down yet so I wanted to find out more for sure.

On the product picture you see quite a big difference between colors, but how will these look in real life?

Luckily the graceful Linda, owner of populair Dutch Webshop Enchantra was sending me a little swatch wheel of this collection so I could see exactly what these would look like with and without topcoat. It was a bit hard to capture, but hang in there with me, because I was pleasantly surprised by this little set!

As you can see, on the right is the little set, WITH topcoat, on the left are the polishes without. There is quite a difference that is hard to capture on camera but I found the polishes without topcoat, especially the crèmes, fairly muted, soft, almost pastel like. And the metallics were pretty but were kind of lacking depth. Once topcoated the crèmes turn vibrant, and the Metallics turn a lot darker and clearly more get depth, as if they were hiding color almost, very very pretty! I can’t wait to get some of these and play with them myself someday. I totally want the Blue crème called Modify Me and possible the one called Shape Shifter as it seems to go from a slightly purple tinged slate grey when left alone to a deep metallic purple once topcoated, and you know I love my purples!

There’s only one reason I can think of why you wouldn’t buy these. doubt that these would keep long on your nail without topcoat. Well let me tell you about a little secret, you can totally do two layers of polish with a topcoat layer in between to fortify your manicure a little and still have the same muted look. It’s what I do with matte polishes already and I’m sure you could apply that little trick to this collection as well! Yay, problem solved right?

China Glaze has also recorded a little video where you can see how big the difference really is when topcoating these beauties!

Have you tried the Essence set and were you unimpressed like I was, and will you be trying these?

Sneak Peeks – Essence 2013

I’ll just leave these tasty little morsels right here…

Sadly no release in the Netherlands but these will be out in Germany December 2013

No clue if this collection will be released in the Netherlands but it’s certainly cute and looks like it would work well for Valentines day.

These are planned for a January release just like the Vintage District collection:

Release planned for January 2013

And lastly, planned for the second half of January and first half of Febuary is the Snow Jam Collection, again not sure if this will come to the Netherlands yet, but I’ll keep you posted:

 Yep, it’s small and it looks like the text is in Russian or Ukrainian but it’s the best I can do right now.

But look closely on the left of all these, there will be at least 3 to 4 new Limited Edition nail polishes with this set of collections and I have to say, I’m loving the blues and purples!

Hopefully when the press release comes for these I’ll be able to tell you more about these little collections and show you the colors a bit better.

What are your first thoughts?

China Glaze releases the Cirque du Soleil Worlds Away collection.

I’ve known about this collection for a few months now but was asked to not speak about these just yet as China Glaze was keeping these under wraps for just a little longer…, and boy was it hard to keep these to myself because man, aren’t they interesting? To me the larger glitters look like something a lot of polish lovers have been buying from the Indie Polish makers and now China Glaze is bringing this amazing look to the general public as well, I love it!

There are 12 colors in this collection as you can see in the collage I made of them up here, and these are their names:

I’ll be curious to see what the swatches of this collection will be like and what everyone’s favorites will be.

What are your thoughts of this little set? Is this a must have or a must pass for you?

For those interested in buying these, Transdesign has the collection up already!

First look: Euro Centrale collection by OPI

Oh boy do I have a nice little scoop for you, look what OPI just revealed on their facebook page, Euro Centrale, their Spring/Summer 2013 Collection.

I love them! The names are just classic OPI funny and the colors are quite pretty! I hope they will give out a release date for these soon so I can start saving up for a few of these.

 

 

A Fifty Shades of Grey themed collection you say?

Many have read the books, myself included, and many have fallen for Christian Grey. Duri, the makers of Rejuvacote, my favorite nail hardener EVER, have noticed the  world wide obsession with Christian Grey and his Ana and are releasing a 50 Shades of Grey themed collection called 12 shades of Desire.

I’ve emailed Duri for more information but so far I have nothing to share sadly than this one page advertisement, because I would have loved to show you more pictures of this collection!

As you can see there are 12 colors in this and I just LOVE the names for it!

  • Bedroom Talk – Taupe
  • You belong to me – Teal
  • Behind Closed Doors – Purple
  • Oh, My! – Coral
  • Undisclosed Desires – Cherry Red
  • Blinding Obsession – Warm orange
  • Laters Baby! – Fuchsia
  • Pure Vanilla – Baby Pink
  • Kinky Pleasures – Blue
  • Provocatively Innocent – Red tinted Purple
  • Absolute Intimacy – Purple
  • Indulge My Whim – A silvery glitter

I think Duri did everything they could to leave out any reference to the color grey but that’s okay because I am loving the colors they did pick for this and I think I’d proudly rock any of them.

What do you think of this collection, would you buy it? And have you read the books?

Color Club Halo Hues collection sneek peek!

Finally, the polish world has listened to our prayers, we’re getting more holographic polishes! And soon too!

Color Club is releasing the Halo Hues collection this month, which means they’re beating China Glaze to the punch which are set to release a set in the spring of 2013. Very smart thinking you guys! The polish world obviously needs a little bit of competition. That way more companies should catch on and before you know it every brand will have some holographics, just like that whole (in my opinion) horrible crackle fad caught on last time.

There will be six polishes in this collection and dear god I want them all!

From left to right:

  • Harp On It 
  • Cloud Nine 
  • Halo-Graphic 
  • Blue Heaven
  • Cherubic
  • Angel Kiss

I seriously am anxious for these to come out, even more so than the upcoming extensive OPI James Bond collection I think! I LOVE me some holo and I don’t think you could ever have enough holographic polishes as a nail polish lover.

Do you have any holographics?

Source

Video – How to do nail art using acrylic inks.

And that’s how I created the nails I posted yesterday. I hope you enjoyed the video and that it inspired you to try out this method yourself.

You can buy the inks, brand Daler Rowney, and the pen shown in the video at an artist supply shop, craft store or even on eBay. The white polish I used underneath the design is O.P.I.’s Alpine Snow to get a nice clear image for the video. The inks are usually so opaque though that you can use any color you like.

If you decide to try this, I’d love to see your work! Link me in the comments if you want.

Nail of the day – Acrylic ink extravaganza.

 

Today I’d like to share with you the nails I’ve been rocking for almost week now.

I love them so much that I made a little step by step collage on how I created them, using a nailwheel, 3 colors of nail polish, a little piece of make up sponge (not pictured) a fountain pen and acrylic ink.

  1. These are the nail polishes I used. Apart from a base and topcoat of course. From left to right are: Essence  - Via Airmail!, China Glaze – Beach Cruise-R and China Glaze – Sweet Hook.
  2. This is the pen and the inks I used for this little step by step.
  3. First, paint your nail a base color and let it dry.
  4. Create a gradient on a little make up sponge by putting a stripe of all three colors on it and dabbing it onto the nail like so.
  5. Once the nail polish has dried you can start drawing on it using acrylic ink and a fountain pen.
  6. Make the pattern as large or small as you want, I nearly stopped at this point liking this design very much already but deciding to push for more as I have a weakness for full nail designs.
  7. This is the nail once I was finished drawing with white.
  8. I’ve added some blue details to it to make it look extra special.
  9. After all has dried I’ve topcoated my nail and hey presto, you have your very own portable piece of art at your fingertip!

Tomorrow I’ll show you a little video on how it all works, so don’t forget to come check it out!

Essie releases the Yogaga collection.

Now before I talk about these I need to say that I know I’m late writing about these but there were not any official pictures around. But here they finally are!

Essie, quickly becoming one of my favorite brands due to their fabulous colors and nice wide brush, has recently released a new collection called Yogaga. It’s already being spotted all over in the USA. But it’s only recently that they’ve added this collection to the site.

The collection consists of 6 brand new colors and they them like this:

  • Boxer Shorts – A winning blue
  • Gym Dandy – A motivated Greige Brown
  • Marathin – A fit Rosy Pink
  • Pilates Hottie – A Zen light lilac
  • Spinning Again – A driven brick red
  • Yogaga – A peachful sandy beige

I have to say, I like most of these, all but the red and the pink but that’s not because those colors suck, no those colors just suck on me. In general they are all beautiful though, and they are the kind of color you slap on when you want your nails painted but don’t feel like making a big statement. They are nice and creamy seem to cover without having to fuss with putting on multiple layers, which sounds good and zen enough to me! ;)

There was a bit of a discussion on a nail forum I’m on about Pilates Honey being a possible dupe of OPI’s Planks a lot from their pirates of the caribean collection, but after comparing them on a swatchwheel we came to the conclusion that Pilates Honey has more blue or in the correct terms; is a blurple.

I hope these come to the Netherlands so I can pick up a few!

Catrice presents the “Upper WILDside” Limited Edition.

It’s time for exciting contrasts! Catrice takes you to the unspoiled world of prairies with the urban flair of the modern age city. A chic lifestyle is connected to the longing for freedom and a search filled with adventure. This contrast is reflected in the colors of the Upper WILDside LE: Warm natural hues like brown, beige, warm red and orange are up against gutsy blue and green. Indian look vs. urban style: wild but chic!

 

The colors are from left to right:

  • Red rocks!
  • Hunting Heritage
  • Wild West-side
  • Urban Outrider
  • Be Aztec

Of course there are other products in this collection but you know me, I’ll focus on the Upper WILDside by CATRICE – Ultimate Nail Lacquer

The exciting Upper WILDside colors – warm Orange, brown and red meet cool urban blue and green. They will dry to a matte finish with a surface that feels like suede. (*Edited to add that it seems that only the red and orange will be suedes. The press information wasn’t really clear on that sadly.)

As you can see, these polishes have a shimmer in them that will look amazing when worn as is, without topcoat. But when you put either a glossy or a matte topcoat on these polishes they’ll look even more amazing. And that’s why I’ll try to get my hands on all of these colors as soon as they are out come the end of September. They’ll only be in the shelves until the end of October so if you want these you should hurry!

What’s your favorite color of this set? I personally like them all this time!

O.P.I. is releasing a James Bond themed collection!

This Holiday we will be celebrating the 50th Anniversary of James Bond and the release of the twenty-third installment called Skyfall with 12 dangerously gorgeous shades! Make sure to keep an ‘eye’ out for this stunning collection coming to salons October 1st!

Colors shown from left to right:

  • The Spy Who Loved Me,
  • Casino Royale,
  • You Only Live Twice,
  • Die Another Day,
  • Skyfall,
  • GoldenEye,
  • The World Is Not Enough,
  • Moonraker,
  • On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,
  • The Living Daylights,
  • Live And Let Die,
  • Tomorrow Never Dies.

They look fabulous don’t they? I may just have to grab a few of these.

Which one is your favorite? And out of curiosity, who is YOUR favorite James Bond? Mine is Sean Connery.

Source

Mani update – Neon-ized it!

Do you ever have this problem of enjoying the time consuming nailart you’ve done but just are not feeling the colors anymore?

That’s the problem I had with my Monochromatic Manicure. I just needed some color after rocking the black and white for a few days. So what I decided to do is give in to the current neon and gradient craze and sponge some of my neons over this to make it look more summery. Because neons are usually quite sheer it would show the pattern still so I wouldn’t feel like I had wasted my time drawing all kinds of stuff on my nails when I’d only wear the manicure for a few days.

This is what they ended up looking like:

And this is what I used to achieve the effect. Please ignore the condition of my neon yellow, I know it looks miserable but it was in a bag along with a few polishes that broke when I flew back from vacation last year and I haven’t taken the time to clean that one up just yet…

Pictured are:

  • China Glaze – Purple Panic
  • Essence nail art twins – Gabriella
  • Kiko – 336
  • China Glaze – In the limelight
  • China Glaze – Celtic Sun
  • A cut up make up sponge

Have you tried gradient nails yet? If so, what colors did you use?

Essence Colour Art!

Somewhere over the rainbow….from now on mix and match with the new trend edition favorite colours and effects, to create uncountable looks! colour arts, the new essence colour concept, consists of pigments which can be mixed individually with matching bases for eyes, lips and nails. finally creativity without limitations!

*These colors are only available on the large display version  in stores.

The rainbow within reach! the colour pigments shimmer in 15 of the brightest colours. they are available from matt to gentle shimmering, metallic and also in different high-gloss effects. These will retail for €2,49 a piece The colours can be used alone or mixed together and are applicable on eyes, lips and nails. The Colour Arts nailbase is a translucent nail polish, if used together with the colour arts pigments it creates uncountable fascinating colour combinations! it can be used as a sealing coat also. This is going to be sold for  €1,59 per bottle. Now let’s take a closer look at the pigments and see which is which in the little gallery below:

Essence “Colour Arts” will be available from September 2012 in the Netherlands and from halfway August to halfway September 2012 in Belgium.

I’m curious, will you be experimenting with these or would you rather just buy a ready made polish?

Color Club’s Fall 2012 Collection, Rule the Runway preview.

No words, just pictures, may I present to you the new Color Club fall collection called “Rule the Runway”

There seem to be cremes and duochromes, and I love it!

I have to admit… I love all of them (apart from the reds, I just do not do red on my nails :S) and I want them! And look, yet ANOTHER Peridot dupe!

What do you think of these pretties? And do you own any Color Clubs yet?

I’m feeling Nail-Venturous week, day 1: The Shimmer Effect, Corrupted and Flying Blue Jay.

This week I’m going to be celebrating the nail polishes I have that are made by Amy of I’m Feeling Nail-Venturous. Not because it’s her birthday, not because it’s almost my birthday. I’m doing this because she has some amazing polishes and I am very proud of the fact that I’ve designed the labels of the polishes that are being sold through Ninja Polish. You may know her work through a quirky polish that is currently taking the nail polish world by storm called Floam, which I shall be featuring later this week, but now onto the first three Nail-Venturous Lacquers that deserve a spotlight as well.

The polishes I am featuring today come from Amy’s own Etsy shop which is currently closed. Follow her Facebook page for updates though, you never know when she might return with an amazing new batch of polishes. They do not have my label but that of course doesn’t take away from how awesome these polishes are.

Take a look at the beautiful polish here on the top left. It’s called the Shimmer Effect and I was attracted to it right away, not just because it’s purple, but also because there is such a richness in other colors in there. There’s silver, green, light blue, orange/gold. It is simply stunning. And it sadly is a bit hard to capture but there’s a green pearly sheen over it as well that is just so unique. The official description is this: The Shimmer Effect has a purple base loaded with shimmer. It also has tiny square glitter as well as ultra fine green glitter. This polish has full coverage in two coats. This product is 3 free, and comes in a 15ml/.5 oz full size bottle.

In the picture I’ve applied two coats of polish over Rejuvacote, so no base color underneath to make this baby opaque, that’s how gorgeously pigmented it is, I was very impressed! It also applies easily and I did not have any trouble distributing the glitter evenly over my nails. Because it’s so full of glitter the surface of the nails will be slightly bumpy once it dries so I recommend you use a nice thick glossy topcoat over this polish to really bring out the colors and smooth out the surface.

Up next, pictured here on the right, is a polish called Corrupted. It’s a nice dark blue that I decided to apply over a blue polish, not because it will not be opaque after a few layers, but because I did not want to use a lot of layers so this polish will last me a while.

I first used a basecoat and a layer of Sinful Colors Neptune before applying Corrupted and just look how it shines, isn’t this pretty? Amy describes this polish as follows: Corrupted has a dark blue jelly base with ultra fine blue and gold glitter. It also has blue and white diamond shaped glitter, blue and turquoise small glitter, and gold shredded glitter. This product is 3 free, and comes in a 15ml/.5 oz full size bottle. 

Again, as with all glitters really, you should really wear a nice thick glossy topcoat with this to bring out the glitters even more and to keep your polish from chipping.

Now, last but not least, here on the left is Flying Blue Jay, this polish is quite different from the other two as it doesn’t have any reflective glitter but only whites in different sizes and some blue micro glitter. This is what creator Amy has to say about it:  Flying Blue Jay has a dark blue jelly base with various sizes of white glitter and ultra fine blue and white glitter. This polish is 3 free, and comes in a 15ml full size bottle.

I think this is a very unique polish, something I’ve not seen before in other brands. Amy also has another polish that kind of looks like this but it is a black base with white glitter called Voodoo Doll which I shall be showing you later this week.

I started, again, with a base of Rejuvacote and a layer of Sinful Colors Neptune before putting this color on in two layers. I think this one out of the three featured today is the hardest polish to apply. Well, no correction, it is easy to apply as the color applies smoothly, but you need to fiddle around a bit to place the big glitter as they will not go on evenly if you don’t. Does that ruin the polish for me? Heck no, it’s a stunning vibrant blue that only stands out more with the white glitter that shows through the color. You are guaranteed to get compliments wearing any of today’s polishes though, mark my words!

Glitter polishes usually are not my favorite but man I do have to admit to having a weakness for these three because wow, look at the colors and the glitter combinations, Amy clearly knows what she is doing and has an eye for color and texture and I admire her immensely for that.

What do you think of these three featured today? Do you have a polish by Nail-Venturous Lacquers yet? Or is this possibly the first time you’ve heard about indie (independent) nail polishes?

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?


Click to learn more

Follow me:



bloglovin


Follow @echoe69

Lifestyle Blogs
blogs

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 33 other subscribers

Where I buy:


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.

Categories