Art Deco chevrons

Hello guys! First of all, I'd like to thank everyone who wished me a happy birthday in my last post, it was very nice to hear, but I just celebrated my birthday last month, haha. The birthday nails were specially made for a reader who requested a birthday mani for her own special day ;-) So no birthday presents to share with you, but I do have these elegant chevrons in Art Deco style. The pictured bottle of polish, which I used as my base color, is M91 from a new cosmetics brand called Make-Up Studio. They carry a huge, colorful collection of eye-shadows, lipsticks, blushes, brushes, fake lashes etc. and... nail polish :) They just opened a brand new store in our local shopping mall, so last week I went for a look and M91 was one of the products I came home with. It's a dusty green creme which is close to Mint in Wikipedia's List Of Colors. The formula was pretty nice but the best thing is it covers in one coat ^^ I own quite a few dusty, grey-ish greens/mints, but none of those is similar to M91. So I'm happy to have yet another one in my stash! It's a shame though, that Make-Up Studio didn't give their polishes a real name, instead of just a number. They've got quite a few unique babies in their collection that truly deserve more identity. I admit they do cost a lot (€12.90 for 12ml/0.41fl.oz.) but as I said, some are really unique and worth the money, if you want to spoil yourself :) Anyhow, the day after I added the first chevrons with tape, using China Glaze's Jitterbug. The little chevrons at the tips were made with China Glaze Ink. It's a striper polish with a perfect covering formula, the thin brush is perfect for making stripes but also for freehanding, like I did here. It came in really handy, because I felt way too lazy to wait for another coat of polish to dry, like I would've if I used tape again. Finally a layer of Essence Matt top coat and tada! Thanks for reading :)

Birthday nails

Hello everyone! I hope you're all doing fine :-) I am, it's just a little hectic right now which is the reason of me posting so little lately. But I've got many new ideas to post once things slow down a bit, including tutorials and perhaps the start of my attempt on the 31 day challenge! I'm so looking forward to it! :)

For this post I'd like to share this birthday mani with you that I made for one of my dear readers. Since I am always occupied with other things that need to be arranged on my own birthdays, and usually just end up with a simple creme or glitter on my nails because of the lack of time, I decided to make something cute that's not too difficult or time-consuming to recreate. My accent nail, is (obviously) a birthday candle! I began with three coats of yellow (M67 by Make-Up Studio, a new brand!). Then I used a pink for the "cake". Once it had dried I added the candle, the little flame and wick, and there you have it :) On the rest of my nails I'm wearing China Glaze For Audrey. I painted the irregular stripes that I'm so into lately, with a white French manicure striper. What I love about those is how opaque most of them are, as opposed to regular white polishes. To complete the party look I added an iridiscent glitter (OPI Last Friday Night), it's sparkly and still reveals the stripe design underneath. And that's basically it! Happy Birthday! ^^

Jitterbug's BBQ

Hello everyone! I can't believe it's already been five days since my last post! This week's been so busy, that after I had removed this mani, I didn't even have the time or energy to repaint my nails. They're actually still naked! But I'm planning on changing that tonight :) Anyhow, for right now I have this diagonal tape mani to share with you. My base color was OPI Mrs O'Leary's BBQ. But when it started showing tipwear, I decided to add Jitterbug from China Glaze to the tips, using tape. The base color was already dry, so it only took me a little while to create a fresh mani.

Talking about Mrs O'Leary's BBQ and Jitterbug, you may have seen this color combination before here, in my (matte) V-gap post, I think they make a happy couple :) Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Guest post for Oooh Shinies

Hello everyone, I'm proud to tell you that the lovely and talented Bregje from Oooh Shinies has asked me to make a guest post for her blog, of course I said yes! :) So head over to Oooh Shinies for the complete post or click here.

Yesterday's mani, updated

Hello dear readers :) The mani from yesterday looked a lot cooler in the pictures than it did in real life, certainly when there's not a sign of the sun to reveal at least some of my effort haha. So for today's post I have the updated version which I made by filling in a few stripes with Essence Bella. Doesn't it make a cute couple with Almost Famous? :) Thanks for stopping by guys!

Yellow & black stripes

Hi everyone, for this post I have another striped mani to show you and it's bright! Not that my last mani wasn't bright enough, but tonight I felt the sudden urge to wear yellow. And that's rare, but fine with me, because I can really use some brightness in these dark, cold days that we're lately having in the Netherlands! The yellow I used is Color Club Almost Famous. I had to apply three coats for an even coverage and smooth surface. Normally I kind of avoid three-coaters, but for a yellow it's actually not that bad. Once again I used China Glaze Ink to make the stripes. In my head this mani looked better than it does in real life. Because I used a bright lamp in the pictures, the yellow is well visible. But in lower light, you can pretty much only see the stripes because the yellow kind of blends in with the tone of my skin, which looks weird haha. Maybe I'll add another color or something later, we'll see. Thanks for reading guys and nighty-night!

Black & blue stripes

Like many other nail bloggers, I too have been a terrible nail biter in the past. It started at age five or six and it continued till I was about nineteen. Nail polish has always been a hobby, ever since I got my first bottle of nail polish (silver, holographic bar-shaped glitter!) from my aunts. But I almost never got to enjoy my polishes on my nails because I could never fully get out of the habit of biting them. But then I stumbled upon nail blogging world and rediscovered my love for nail polish, I pampered my nails, started doing nail art and now I'm talking to you guys ;-) Since two years I'm finally able to say that my nail biting days are pretty much over. But then I went to the movies (In Time)... 109 minutes later I got two little nubbins on each hand, what just happened?! Sigh. Guess the movie was even more exciting than I thought, lol. Anyways, that's why I couldn't post anything earlier than planned, my nubs were really too short to share them with the world, haha. And honestly they still are, but oh well, that's why I made some nail art to distract you all. Hah! My base color is H&M Blue My Mind, I love how bright the color is, a true eye-catcher. I'd say it's a darker periwinkle blue creme, the formula seems a bit thick sometimes, but it's still fine and needs the average two coats for full coverage. On top I did some free hand stripes in random sizes with my favorite striper polish China Glaze Ink. I really like these simple stripes, because they're so easy to achieve plus the vertical pattern can make shorter nails look longer, which I kind of need right now :P Hope you like it too and thanks for reading if you made it this far. Good night!

Orly zigzag

Hello everyone! Since I didn't have much time to do my nails this week to post something, I decided to dig in the vault, look what I found! It's a zigzag tape mani I did in the summer with China Glaze Recyle for the grey and Orly's Viridian Vinyl and Purple Pleather for the tips, they were amazing to work with for the taping by the way. I expected the colors and zigzag pattern to pop more against the grey, but it became quite subtle actually. Still I like the matte and glossy finish combined in this mani :) What do you think about it? Thanks for reading!

Vintage clouds

Hi guys! For this post I have another request to show you. A little while ago I received an email from a reader who wanted me to come up with a funky mani for her informal dance soon. A few colors she liked were teal and coral, so I combined them in this "funky clouds" look. I like how simple this design is to achieve. Just pick three matching colors, one for you base color and two for the cloud shapes on top. The clouds are made by applying three strokes of polish next to each other, each smaller than the one before. My tip is to leave enough polish on the brush (but not too much!) so that when it touches the surface it will leave a nice, round dot as start point. This doesn't even need a lot of precision and you can just use the brush from your polish for this. And that's it :) Though I would advise using a fast drying top coat afterwards if you don't want to wait too long for your nails to dry, after all it's three coats of polish. (Four if you include base coat.) I like the way it looks here with plain cremes, but for a more festive look, a layer of (iridiscent) glitter can be added.

Below you can see the same look with China Glaze Midnight Kiss on the tips, which I made first. But after I took the pictures I noticed how Bella matched the rest of the polishes better so I just redid everything, for your viewing pleasure haha. Have a great night!

The polishes I used:
Essence - What Do U think? Version 1 (It looks less orange in real life)
China Glaze - For Audrey
Essence - Bella

Funky clouds

Hello everyone! I was in the mood for some funky nail art tonight but I didn't feel like spending too much time on it. And that's how I came up with these "funky clouds" you're looking at. I'm still no good at making up names for designs so don't make fun of me haha :P I started with two coats of OPI Funky Dunkey and then I applied Essence Bella on top in three quick strokes that form the cloudy shape together. After it had dried I repeated the steps a bit closer to the tips with OPI Silver Shatter, a layer of top coat and there you have it! I think it turned out pretty cute ^^ And I can't wait to use it with other color schemes. Hope you guys like it too! Good night :)

Katy Perry inspired nails

Hello everybody :) For today's post I have dice nails to show you. They're made for a reader who requested Katy Perry inspired nails. And the first thing that crossed my mind were her outfits of course! Katy has worn tons of awesome, funny, colorful outfits throughout the years, so plenty of stuff to get inspired by. One of my favorite dresses of her has to be the red sequin dice dress, I love all the glitter and the colors and it's so fabulous Las Vegas! Anyhow, what better polish to wear as the basecolor than good ol' China Glaze Ruby Pumps... One of my all time favorites. It does need three coats to cover, but it's so worth it :) And the formula is great too. I used black and white acrylic paint to freehand the dice. There is a lot going on, but I sure can't pull off that amazing dress, so my last comfort are these nails, lol. What are your thoughts on these Katy Perry's dice dress inspired nails?

Image source

OPI - You Don't Know Jacques Suede

OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede wasn't a polish I immediately liked. But it had more to do with the color than the finish. Taupe colored nail polish was something I'd never seen before a couple of years ago, but it became very popular over the years and now every brand and even drugstores have at least one taupe polish in their collection. Since I discovered the regular version of You Don't Know Jacques, I started to appreciate taupes and quickly began looking for the Suede version, I absolutely love the grainy surface! And here it is :) I used two coats. The formula was okay to work with, it dries fast, but not too fast in my opinion. So you don't have to hurry to apply it neatly and when you're done it's dry before you know it. What do you think about it?

OPI Dating A Royal + Essence Make It Golden

Hi everyone, how are you all? I hope everybody's had a great Halloween weekend. I really enjoyed all the Halloween manis I've come acrossed in the last couple of weeks, some were cute, some were scary and many were very funny :) I wish I could've shared some Halloween nail art with you myself, it's such a fun theme! But unfortunately the last few weeks have been the busiest so far this year. So no Halloween parties, but on top of that I also had to skip my birthday which was on the 30th. I'm 22 now! It's not that bad though, my party's just postponed ;) Anyhow, I'm rambling, let's talk nails! This is OPI Dating A Royal with a layer of Essence Make It Golden that I added the day after, and a coat of Essence Matt Topcat. Make It Golden is a glitter polish with tiny, tiny, golden microglitter and larger, multi-sized hexagons. I own quite a few golden glitter polishes but Make It Golden is actually something unique in my collection. The hexagons spread okay and the microglitters are pretty dense, but they don't completely cover the base color, which I'm pleased with. Another plus is the price, this golden beauty is only €1.29 for 0.16fl.oz/5ml. Not bad!