WIC by Herôme - Sapporo


Hi everyone! Today I'm showing you Sapporo, the third polish from the Mystic Japan collection that WIC by Herôme sent to me for review. Sapporo is a medium periwinkle blue shimmer, with a nice formula and application, so two coats was enough for an even finish. The color of this polish was already my cup of tea, but it's that soft shimmer that makes it a unique polish in my stash. Hooray! There's a bit of pink shimmer in there too, though it's only visible in certain lighting. Unfortunately this was not the case in my pictures. But still I liked the idea of a touch of pink, so I decided to use it in my tribal nail art for some bright, neon highlights. Hope you like it! :-)

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide. The product in this post was sent to me for review. This does not influence my opinion on the reviewed product.

WIC by Herôme - Shizuoka

From top to bottom: WIC Shizuoka, Nagoya and Yokohama, and P2 Artful on the right.

Hi everybody! Today I want to share this easy-peasy nail art with you, that I made with a couple of new WIC by Herôme shades from the Mystic Japan collection. The pink basecolor is called Shizuoka, a typical Barbie pink with a subtle shimmer. I noticed this polish caused dragging sometimes, but fortunately a thicker second or third coat was able to fix that.

I made the nail art by painting a few partly overlapping strokes in different colors. Simple as that! A nice bonus is you don't need extra tools for this, as you can just use the brush that the polish comes with. Hope you'll give it a try too! Goodnight. ^_^

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide. Some of the products in this post were sent to me for review. This does not influence my opinion on the reviewed products.

WIC by Herôme - Yokohama


WIC by Herôme kindly sent me their new limited collection Mystic Japan for review! I love all the cheerful colors in it, which I'll happily wear when it finally gets more springy here in the Netherlands.

For this post I picked Yokohama to show you. Yokohama is a medium lavender purple creme (less blue than in the pictures), with a very, very subtle shimmer. I applied two smooth coats and the formula was excellent, as was the opacity. As you can see in the first picture, I added some nail art too. I painted half of my nails with Essence Chacalaca and then added a few gold stripes in the middle with Janet #115. Not very Japan I must say, but cute nonetheless and fun to do! :-)
I'll show the other polishes of the Mystic Japan collection individually as well, paired with nail art like today, so there's a little bit more to see than a swatch! ;-) Thanks for reading!

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide. The product in this post was sent to me for review. This does not influence my opinion on the reviewed product.

Lace and Buttons


I keep thinking everything at school will eventually slow down so I can blog more again, but I don't think it ever will! Yikes. Good thing I discovered a couple of old pictures on my memory card, such as today's. ;-) I totally forgot about this mani and I'm happy to have found these pictures again, because I personally think it's so cute! ^_^ The basecolor I used is China Glaze First Mate (probably my favorite navy creme polish) and on top I made a simple lace design and three tiny buttons with a white striper and a dotting tool. Hope you like it!

OPI DS - Glamour


I was going for something plain on my nails, but ended up wearing the most special polish I own: OPI DS Glamour, on top of two coats of Orly Royal Navy. No need to say it's an absolute stunner, look at that! Though it looks even better in real life. I still can't believe how intense the (slightly scattered) holographic finish is, even in the shadow! Sadly this polish is discontinued too, as you might know. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to own it someday. But I must've done something right, because last year I was very lucky to get my hands on one bottle through a swap. (Thank you so much, Viktorija!) It felt like winning the lottery... :3 What's the most special polish that you own?

Rays of Color


Hi guys! My apologies for posting so little lately! I'm so busy with school at the moment, that I haven't been able to work on my next challenge yet. So instead I'll show you this second, slightly different version of my "divergence" mani, that I made some time ago.
The basecolor I used is H&M Deep Deep Water. It's such a simple yet pretty color, and the fact that it covers in one coat makes it even better! On top I made the red part with Essence Wild Thing (an oldie!), and the turquoise tips with Essence Bella. As usually tape was my little helper for those clean edges. ;-) Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again soon!

31 Day Challenge, day 26: Inspired by a Pattern


Hello everybody! For today's nails I was inspired by my awesome knitted Pull&Bear sweater. It took me a lot of time to draw the pattern, but I love it so much that I'd be happy to do it again some time. Perhaps only on a few accent nails, then! :-) The red basecolor is Rimmel Riviera Red, and for the triangles I used my trusty striper Ink from China glaze that's actually a dark navy, but mostly looks black, just like the navy on my sweater. ;-)

31 Day Challenge, day 25: Inspired by Fashion


Hi everyone! :-) Today's nails were kind of an experiment. When I saw this super cute Modcloth dress, I couldn't wait to capture the edgy neckline with the starry mesh fabric on a semibare accent nail. I used an image plate (that I bought here) to stamp the star pattern, and later I added the rest with the help of tape for nice and crisp lines. It didn't turn out as awesome as I hoped it would though, the stars made the sharp edges of the 'neckline' fade a bit. So next time I try this, I'll probably leave out the stars. What do you guys think about my fashion-inspired nails?

My inspiration: 'Written in the Stars Dress' from Modcloth

31 Day Challenge, day 24: Inspired by a Book


Hi everyone! Seems like the last couple of challenges were a lot harder than I expected. With the previous two and today's book challenge in particular, it took me quite a while to get inspired. After lots of thinking I decided to go with the character Janneke of the Dutch Jip en Janneke stories by Annie M.G. Schmidt that I grew up with. Fiep Westendorp is the one who brought the duo further to life with her adorable and iconic illustrations in black and white. I absolutely love the simplicity of her drawings which makes the characters so easy to recognize and therefore also... perfect for on the nails! ;-) I paired my freehanded Janneke accent nail with a girly polka dot pattern, using a black creme and China Glaze Designer Satin for the dots. It wasn't the easiest job, but I'm happy with how it turned out. ^_^

Image source

31 Day Challenge, day 23: Inspired by a Movie


Hi everyone! For day 23 of the 31 Day Challenge my nails are inspired by the movie My Neighbor Totoro. It's impossible not to love all the cute characters in it! :3 So on my ringfigner I made the giant totoro. First I applied three coats of China Glaze Recycle (which I'm also wearing on the rest of my nails), then I used a striper polish in black to outline the head and ears. Finally I added the eyes, whiskers and other details and my cutie was complete. ^_^ Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 22: Inspired by a Song


Hey everybody! I'm at day 22 of the 31 Day Challenge, which means I had to pick a song as inspiration. I never thought this challenge was going to be easy, but man, it was so much more difficult than I'd expected! A lot of songs have abstract titles, which are really hard to capture into something recognizable on the nails. And I did want to make something that people were able to recognize, rather than something artsy and abstract that could actually be anything. So I hope you guys indeed saw that pictured on my nails is a train. ;-) The symbolic train of John Mayer's Stop This Train. I think it's a touching song and I especially love the live version of it from his album Where The Light Is.

I really wanted to portray the speed and enormous size of the train, so what better way to do that than making it in Art Deco poster style? :-) The red basecolor is OPI's Big Apple Red, and for the vehicle I used a couple of different polishes and stripers, plus a little sponging for the steam and lights. At last a layer of Essence Matte topcoat and it was finished. Hope you like it!

Double V


Hi guys! I haven't been able to do much nails lately, so I have something from the vault to show you. This mani was made with my new favorite to-go polish: H&M Deep Deep Water. It's been sitting in my drawers for ages, just waiting to be discovered, and now it has been. Pictured is only one coat. One coat of perfectly pigmented, blurple metallic polish. And it dries fast too. ♥ But as pretty as it is, I like my manis with a little extra. ;-) So later I added the triangles with tape. I started with a gold triangle, and when it was dry I made a black one inside, and repeated these steps at the cuticle area. Slowly building everything up with layers. You can imagine this took a while, with so many triangles to dry. But if you're watching your favorite TV show at the same time, there really isn't much patience needed. ;-) Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 21: Inspired by a Color


Hi everyone! This is day 21 of the 31 Day Challenge and this time I'm supposed to be "inspired by a color". Like many other participants of the challenge I'm a little confused about what exactly is meant by that, so I chose to be inspired by the name of a polish, like fellow blogger Sarah did from Chalkboard Nails (do check out her blog!).

My inspiration, that I just randomly grabbed out of my Helmer, became OPI's Midnight Blue Glitter, pictured below. I instantly liked the name of it and already had an idea of what to make. But instead of using the polish itself for the look, I decided to only use the name as theme, because I really wanted my mani to scream: "BLUE GLITTER!". :3 And although Midnight Blue Glitter does contain beautiful blue (and turquoise and pink) bits here and there, the overall color is clearly charcoal. So I picked OPI Absolutely Alice (on top of Orly Sweet Peacock) to be my blue glitter. Which means my ring finger is indeed symbolizing midnight, with a classical Roman twelve in a clock, freehanded over China Glaze 2030. Hope you like it! :-)

OPI - Midnight Blue Glitter

Foil Water Marble


I'd never thought I'd be able to do, let alone love, water marbling, but here I am with another marbled mani. This time I wanted to do a darker one, using H&M Kiss Goodnight and Orly Sweet Peacock, which is the sparkly blue.

From my last water marbling attempts, I've learned that not every polish is suitable for it, so I wasn't surprised when that was the case with Sweet Peacock. It was hard to draw neat, controlled petals in the polish. But that actually didn't bother me at all, as my nails were left with these beautiful, more natural swirls of polish instead. Clean-up, however, was less beautiful! Despite having taped my fingers before dipping them in the polish, it was almost impossible to get them clean. So I took these pictures the day after, when most of the foily shimmer was finally gone after a long and hot shower. ;-) Thanks for stopping by!

31 Day Challenge, day 20: Water Marbled


They say practice makes perfect, and I couldn't agree more. I once tried water marbling just after I started this blog: I looked up a few tutorials, prepared the stuff I needed for it and then failed miserably. "Never again." I thought to myself. But since the technique is included in the 31 Day Challenge, I had no choice but to give it another go. So last week I failed again, and again, and again. And again. But I learned from it. And now I can proudly say I can do it. Weeee!
Things I had the most trouble with were finding the right polishes (some dry too quickly), drawing the designs in the water (maybe from using the wrong polishes) and preventing air bubbles. Though I have to admit I completely forgot to follow tutorials first this time, so I ended up rediscovering some handy things that I vaguely remember from the first time I did it. Clever me! :') Guess I was just too excited to get busy.

The polishes I used for this mani are Sea Spray and Four Leaf Clover, both from China Glaze. They were excellent for water marbling, but next time I'll be experimenting with my stash of too-crappy-for-normal-application-polishes. Because let's face it, water marbling uses up a LOT of polish. Thanks for reading!

Suzi Skittle


As my recent water marbling attempts for day 20 of the 31 Day Challenge weren't exactly succesful, I'll show you this colorful taped skittle from the vault instead. The grey shimmer is OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees Suede. It dries with a matte finish but with some glossy topcoat it looks just as stunning! On top I did a fifty-fifty tape mani by covering up half of the nails with tape and painting the other half with the following polishes:

Essence - Bella
P2 - Groovy Etos - #118
Essence - Sending You Kisses
Bourjois - Jaune Cab (#85)

In the meantime I'll practise more water marbling, I really want to be able to nail it! See you nex time!

31 Day Challenge, day 19: Galaxies


Hi readers! Today I have my first galaxy nails to show you. I always get excited when I see them on other blogs, but somehow it took me this long to finally do them myself. Now that I have, I'm really happy with them. Look at all those colors! :-)

I started with two coats of OPI Russian Navy (in the bottle in the second picture you can clearly see the red/pink shimmer I'm so crazy about!) Then I balled up a piece of paper towel to randomly dab on OPI Extravagance and China Glaze DV8. Finally I added a few white dots as stars and a layer of iridiscent glitter with OPI Last Friday Night. That's it! Now this may seem like a lot of steps, but because they don't require much precision this mani is very easy to do. Hooray!

To achieve this galaxy look, I roughly followed the steps of Asami's helpful video tutorial. Asami was one of my blogging idols with her make-up and nail blog Nails By Asami, often featuring cute handpainted cartoon nail art. Unfortunately she quit blogging, but you can still find her old video's on Youtube and a few of her designs on Pinterest.
Thanks for reading!

OPI DS - Reflection


This post I want to share a beauty from the vault with you: OPI DS Reflection! Oh, how I love this polish... I often reach for it when I'm in a hurry but still want something really pretty on my nails. There's corally red, there's scattered holo and a bit of gold shimmer. Doesn't it look amazing? I applied two smooth and quick drying coats, but it could do with one thicker layer too. Well done, OPI!

31 Day Challenge, day 18: Half Moons


Hi everybody! I'm on day 18 of the 31 Day Challenge and today I'd like to show you half moons, something I haven't shared on this blog before. Not surprising given the fact I've only done half moon manis twice so far. Time to change that, because working on it this time reminded me of how fun it is!

With this challenge I also rediscovered my love for OPI Russian Navy. It has that subtle red/pink shimmer which gives this navy polish a nice something extra to look at. I used two coats of it to freehand the half moon gaps and then I filled in the bare gaps with pieces of silver glitter using a dotting tool. I know they're just plain silver glitter, but from a distance I swear they're like little diamonds. Almost like jewellery on my nails and it actually makes me feel a bit posh, haha!
Have you tried half moon manis yet?

Gold Ornament


This mani is from a few weeks ago. I was just getting in the mood for the December holidays and added this simple tribal-ish pattern with a striper to go with the rest of my dark nails. I sure have a soft spot for black and gold. 

Below are a couple of older manis in black and gold. I thought it would be fun to show these lined up together to compare, isn't it a versatile color duo? ^_^

Fancy triangles, one of my first posts!

Shining like a star on Christmas '11.

Nude clouds for New Year's Eve.

Fierce French

And my recent Art Deco linework. :-)

And for those who are interested: the black creme I use is Color Club's Where's The Soiree?. It dries with a satin-matte finish, but I don't mind since it dries very quickly because of that, and I can always add some glossy topcoat. Another thing is it's a one-coater, so it covers perfectly but therefore can also leave stains on the skin. So I have to be extra careful with the application. Despite of this, it's still my favorite black so far.

Thanks for reading!