Monday Blues: Simple Blue Flowers

Hello my lovelies! It's been a long time, I know, and I am really sorry. There are multiple reasons for my lack of posts, the main one being that I'm not as excited about doing my nails as I used to be. I often do nail art and even try taking pictures but I'm not happy with the results so I end up not posting anything. Another reason is that people aren't as interested in blogs as they used to be in the past. With all the social media that requires minimal attention, nobody is interested in reading a long blog post anymore. Many of the well known nail bloggers have stopped posting a while ago. The ladies I was doing Monday Blues with also stopped posting. And frankly I just don't have the energy to tackle Instagram and Facebook algorithms, so I just stopped posting there because nobody sees what you post. But enough with complaining, today I finally have a manicure to show you. And this time I'm really happy with how it came out!

Monday Blues: Fall Inspiration

Hello my lovelies! Let me start by saying that today's weather is really giving me the blues, Monday Blues that is. It's been raining all day and I just hate it. The only thing to lift my spirits is the manicure I'm about to show you. I created this one by getting inspired by fall colors. For me the good fall colors are beautiful shades of grey, dark blue, purple and even a bit of orange. None of that brown and khaki if it's possible. So I took these shades (with the exception of orange) and combined them in a manicure. The final result makes me really happy.

Monday Blues: Polka Dot Blurple

Hello my lovelies! It's a sunny Monday in my neck of the woods and that's great because the weekend was really rainy. The sun is definitely helping with my mood and making me forget that a new work week is upon us. Another thing that makes me feel better is my manicure. There's glitter and lovely colors so I can't wait to show it to you. Here we go!

Monday Blues: Autumn Roses

Hello my lovelies! After a pretty rough week, I can finally say that today was a good day. My cold is gone and I had a relaxing weekend, so I was ready for another week. My Monday wasn't that bad either, so there are no complaints from me. I have a very autumn appropriate manicure on my nails and can't wait to show it to you. When I think of autumn, I immediately think of dark colors and duochrome polish. I was in the mood for these things and this is what came out.

Purple Chevrons

Hello my lovelies! What are you up to on this beautiful Wednesday? I'm still enjoying my holiday and trying to get as much rest as possible before the week is over. I went through my blog folder the other day and realized I have a ton of manicures that I haven't showed you yet. Some of them are really old like the one I'm showing you today. I created it months ago and didn't share it back then because it looked like Easter eggs and it wasn't the season for that. But now that spring is in full swing I think it's just right.

Ciaté Antique Brooch

Hello my lovelies! Sorry for the lack of posts this week but it's been a crazy one again. I'm finally getting some rest this weekend and catching up on life. I haven't done a proper Christmas themed manicure yet this year so I hope I can get on that tonight. Since I don't have a holiday manicure to show you I decided to post some pictures that have been sitting in my folders for ages. These nails look kinda festive in my opinion. I know that the brand Ciaté is kind of a controversial one but I won't get into that. This polish is truly beautiful and that's the only thing I care about.

Ciaté Antique Brooch and Flormar M112 indoors, artificial light

Born Pretty Store QA91 Stamping Plate Review

Hello my lovelies! I don't know if you noticed, but lately the nail art world has been taken over by chevrons. Everybody has been doing them and there are tons of ways to achieve the look. I've already shown how you can create them by using nail stencils, and in the following days I will show you two more ways to get them on your nails, all courtesy of the Born Pretty Store. If you are a fan of stamping, there is now a stamping plate with a chevron image on it. They were kind enough to send it my way and I created this manicure using it.

Milky Jelly Sandwich

Hello my lovelies! I'm still away and this is another scheduled post that will hopefully go up when it's supposed to. If you haven't already noticed, one of my biggest obsessions as of late are jelly sandwiches. They are so easy to create and give such a nice look to the nails! The sandwich I'm showing you today was created with the help of a couple of nude polishes and a very interesting glitter. Here's what I'm talking about.

TPA Group Challenge: Bling Bling Nails

Hello my lovelies! I know I have been a bad blogger this week and I apologize. I have to start scheduling my posts on Sunday because it seems I can't get anything done during the workweek. The TPA Group Challenge is back today with a very blingy theme. The manicure I'm showing you is a simple one but I think it fits the theme. Last week I did a water marble and I think that will make up for today's more simple look.

Born Pretty Store QA71 Stamping Plate Review

Hello my lovelies! I hope your week is going great. Today's post is all about stamping nail art. I've already shown you some stamping plates from the Born Pretty Store, so it's no secret that they carry some great quality plates that are very affordable. The one I'm showing you today is from the QA range and is perfect for people with larger nail beds. It looks like this. 

Born Pretty QA71 stamping plate (before removing the blue film)

Monday Blues: Flormar BD04

Hello my lovelies! Monday again and on top of everything it's supposed to snow today. I'm so not ready for that! At least I have a beautiful blue polish to show you and take your Monday blues away. I was very excited when the Black Dot collection from Flormar came out because they reminded me of the Illamasqua Speckled polishes that are completely out of my price league. I waited patiently for these to show up at my local Flormar counter and then picked up the brighter blue one. The collection also has a lighter blue, a mint, a grey and a pink one. They all have the same type of black glitter, only the base color is different. The one I'm showing you today is BD04. 

Flormar BD04 indoors, artificial light

Flormar GL01

Hello my lovelies! I woke up this morning to a very cloudy and rainy weather. I sure hope fall isn't already here because that would make me very sad. Today's theme for the untrieds challenge was a very easy one, namely glitter. I initially wanted to post one from Shimmer polish but I pushed that post to Friday so I can show this Flormar glitter first because everyone was very curious about it. A few days ago I went out and got two more of the Glitter collection polishes (the first one I've shown here) and I'm showing the one with square glitter today. Yes, Flormar is doing square glitter now! 

Flormar GL01 over Kiko 341 indoors, artificial light

Flormar GL10

Hello lovelies! Today's post is a very special one because it's post number 500 on my blog! Isn't that exciting? I must confess that I have no idea how I got to this huge number. I guess if you love doing something time flies and you end up almost 2 years later with no idea how you got there. I would like to thank you all for following me and for stopping by my little blog every once in a while. It means a lot to me that you support my passion! I thought about doing something special for today's post, but I decided to do what I love most and what I initially started this blog for: swatching and reviewing polish. The one from today is a beauty and it has rapidly become popular around here because it seems to be a dupe for Zoya Storm. Here's what I'm talking about. 

Flormar GL10 indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Shimmer Polish Jennifer

Hello my lovelies! I really hope this Monday is being kind to you. It's supposed to be rainy over here so I'm probably going to stay in an proofread my thesis. Even if you're at work or at school maybe, I have some gorgeous glitter to cheer you up today. Are you ready?

Shimmer Polish Jennifer over Flormar 423 indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Barry M Indigo

Hello my lovelies! Did you ever do a manicure that looked perfect on your nails and then translated awfully into fotos? If you're a nail blogger, this probably occurred at least once or twice. I'm used to this happen to me when it comes to makeup, but I get so frustrated when it's with nails. The manicure I'm showing for today's Monday Blues is just like that. 

Where In The World Challenge: Singapore

Hello lovelies! It's been over a month since the last time I did a manicure from this challenge. I've been a really bad blogger, I admit. I neglected this challenge because of Easter and everything, but now I'm back and I really hope I can finish it soon. The country we are traveling to today is Singapore. There are a lot of lovely nail bloggers in Singapore and I know some of them from Twitter and Instagram. I remember a conversation I had with Radha (@thepolishowl on Twitter) about the humid climate they have over there. Singapore is also a group of islands and it's surrounded by water, so that's how I got the inspiration for this manicure.

Sparkle Marble

Hello lovelies and happy Sunday! I haven't been posting as much as usual lately and I'm sorry for that. I really couldn't bring myself to write a post yesterday because I was very tired. But I promise it's gonna be better next week. Tomorrow is Monday Blues time and on Tuesday there's Polish Days. After that, I plan to do a few green themed posts for Saint Patrick's Day. So I hope you will stay tuned for all of that because I'm very excited. Today's manicure is a little unusual. I was very excited about this one but it didn't photograph properly. Let's take a look! 

My inspiration for this mani comes from the talented Jeanette from The Swatchaholic. She did a water marble using some Flormar polishes (link here) and it was absolutely gorgeous. So I decided to do the same thing and use only polishes from the Miracle Colors line. They are very sparkly and I thought they would look great together. And they did, just not on camera. 

The base I used was a day old manicure with Illamasqua Viridian (post coming up next week). I used 3 different Flormar polishes, U13 (pink), U08 (purple) and U25 (blue). Because U25 is very sheer, the parts covered by it showed a lot of the Viridian underneath, with just a bit of blue shimmer added. It actually looked very cool in reality, but on camera the purple and the green/blue parts look the same. So none of the cool 3-color shapes shows up in my pictures. I can assure you that this looked a thousand times better in real life. Here's a direct light shot to show you how sparkly this was. 

I honestly was in doubt if I should post this manicure, but I worked a lot on it and I think it still looks pretty cool. Maybe next time I'm gonna try it over a lighter base or using different colors from the same line. I could also try using one of the duochromes like Jeanette did. The possibilities are endless! 

Flormar U13

Hello my lovelies! I hope your week is not too busy and stressful. I have a quick post for you today. I never do Pink Wednesday on the blog just because I don't even need all my fingers to count the pinks in my collection. But this time I had one to show you and I decided to do it on a Wednesday too. So here goes! 

Flormar U13 indoors, artificial light

U13 is one of the amazing Miracle Colors polishes from Flormar and it's a very sparkly fuchsia glass fleck. The base is sort of a raspberry pink but the fact that it's packed with tiny fuchsia shimmer makes it look very girly and glitzy. If you don't get how much sparkle this one has, check out the sun pictures below. 

Flormar U13 in the sun

This is a very unusual color for me to wear but I really liked it in the end. It made me feel very girly and it was fun at the same time. 

Flormar U13 in the sun

This polish is on the sheer side so I had to do 3 coats to make it opaque. Even with 3 coats, there was still a bit of visible nail line, but it wasn't too obvious. As usual with Flormar polishes, it went on like butter and dried very fast. I only wore it for one day before removing it, but from my experience the polishes from this brand are very durable on the nails. 

Flormar U13 indoors, artificial direct light

All in all, I'm glad I have this in my collection even though it's not something I wear often. There are times when I feel like doing a girly manicure and this polish is perfect for that. 

My first successful water marble

Hello my lovelies! I'm so excited for today's post! I've been trying to master this technique for a while now and this is the first time I can actually show you the result. It's by no means perfect and there is no real pattern, so every nail is different, but I'm still happy with this mani. Here it is! 

For this water marble I used only Flormar polishes: two blues (423 and 438) and a green (437). Of course I used a white base underneath to make this opaque. I chose these polishes because I didn't want to waste any of my more expensive and hard to find polishes for this. But I'm happy to say that these spread nicely in the water and are pretty opaque. 

The first time I tried to marble with these colors was last weekend. But I kept getting these bubbles in the polish that wouldn't go away. I was so frustrated that I gave up. I then asked the lovelies on Instagram if they knew what that was. Turns out I was pulling my finger too fast out of the water. I also watched some videos from My Simple Little Pleasures on Youtube and found out that you have to pull your finger at a straight angle from the water. Seriously, head out to her channel and watch her videos because this lady is the queen of water marbling! I followed her tutorials and everything went great. No more weird bubbles in my polish! 

So now that I've nailed the basic technique, I need to learn how to create some patterns so that my nails look more similar and not that random. You can see that none of my nails has the same design as the other ones. Here's a photo of my left hand. This one looks even more different than my right one. 

I'm so happy that I finally got this right. This is the ultimate proof that you should never give up when trying something. Even if it's difficult in the beginning and you keep failing, you should try again. You will see that it will get easier eventually and once you get it right you will feel great satisfaction. 

Flormar DC05

Hello lovelies! How is your week going? Just two more days to left from this awful and cold week. It's been freezing over here and my throat is already sore. I wish I could just spend my days in bed. Oh well. Exactly a week ago I was showing you this awesome duochrome by Rimmel and now I have another one from Flormar to talk about. I was almost thinking of doing a "duochrome Thursday" series. Truth is, I have a lot of chameleon polishes in my collection and I like them a lot. And of course this one is no exception. 

Flormar DC05 indoors, artificial light

Last year Flormar released a duochrome collection with a metallic finish. They already had some duochromes in the Miracle Colors line, but those are glass flecks. I waited for this collection to show up at my local counter and when they did, they were a lot more expensive than regular Flormar polishes (2.5 times the regular price). I was totally outraged that they hijacked the prices so much just because they brought out something that people would buy more, so I came home empty handed. But then my sister was kind enough to get me this one for my birthday. 

Flormar DC05 indoors, artificial light

I was never into Chanel Peridot and all of its dupes, but this one is right up my alley. The color shifts from green to a light teal. There is also some gold in there, but it's a lot less than in Peridot. The duochrome effect is very strong in this one and it's one of those jewel type shades that looks so bright and blingy on the nails. 

Flormar DC05 indoors, artificial light

I swatched this on one of those sunny days that are so rare in winter because I knew that the sun pictures would be necessary. It looks a lot more streaky in my pictures than it looks in reality. The streaks are actually pretty unnoticeable in real life. 

Flormar DC05 in the sun

Do you see how green it looks in the picture above? The color shift is unbelievable! Application is pretty good like with all Flormar shades. The polish was a little runny, but I managed to get it opaque in 2 easy coats. Again, even though it has a metallic finish the brush strokes are not very evident. I did add some top coat to make it more shiny. 

Flormar DC05 in the sun

I haven't really worn this polish, so I can't comment on durability. I'm sure it will get a lot of use in the summer, because this really needs sun to be rightfully admired. I would try some other shades from this collection but none of them really wowed me and not all of them have the strong duochrome effect that this beauty has.