Chevrons with a Hint of Shimmer

Hi everyone! This post I have chevrons to show you. Chevrons on nails is something I never seem to get tired of, even after all this time. They can be so subtle and yet give your nails something edgy at the same time. I just love it!

For this mani I combined a murky purple-grey color with a nice shimmer to add a bit of elegance. The green-blue shimmer polish is H&M's Lady Luck. I applied one sheer coat of it, which dried quickly so after a couple of minutes I was able to make the chevron shapes, using trusty tape strips and a layer of Bleu Asphalte from Bourjois.

I hope you like it, and if you would like to see more of the chevron manis I've done, just head over here. Thanks for reading and see you soon!

Not dead

Hi everyone!

I haven’t been around for a LONG time. Not to be a downer, but I’ll just be straightforward with you. Lots of things have happened in the mean time. Good things, but also different not so good things that pretty much lead to a long period of depression and existential angst. Not so much fun, but it is the truth. So at some point polishing my nails was the least I could worry about. Let alone keeping up my blog.

I am sorry, though, that I couldn’t pull myself together to at least give you a heads-up of where I suddenly went or what was going on. There was a lot on my mind at the time. And to be honest I never thought I’d be gone for this long! Several times I tried to sit down to write you a post along the lines of “Hey, I’m alive, don’t worry. I miss you and I’ll be back soon.”, but it just never happened and after a while it just felt too awkward to say anything at all. Isn’t that weird?


As time passed and I started to feel better again, I also started to do my nails again. It’s surprising how much joy that little bit of color on the tip of your fingers can bring. And one day I realised it was time to come back to blog. I’ve really missed everything; the creativity, the community, the sharing, the glitter… (I hadn’t painted my nails for over a year!) Reading your thoughtful messages every now and then really lifted my spirits. So thank you for that. :)

Now this wouldn’t be a comeback without nails to show right?

This mani is for my friend Bas, who I promised a mani ages ago on the day we bought the greyish blue color together. It's #05 from Hema, which I used for the base color. On top I applied a bunch of simple strokes, using Be optimistic! from Essence, OPI Russian Navy and H&M Silver. I love how the warm copper pops against the other cool tones. So there you go, Bas!

On another note, you may have noticed that the blog went through a little makeover. I actually designed the whole look myself and had my boyfriend help out with bringing everything to life in code. We've worked really hard to make everything look good and work as friendly as possible, so feel free to let us know what you think about it!

That's it for today. But I will talk to you again very soon. Thanks for reading!

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!

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!

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!

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!

31 Day Challenge, day 17: Glitter

Ah, a new year has started. My first resolution? Finishing last year's 31 Day Challenge! :') I must be the worst participant ever! That's why I kept postponing starting on it in the first place. But at least I'm still having fun with it, and that's what counts, right?

For day 17 I did a glitter gradient. My first one actually and I must say I enjoyed it! It's so simple to make yet the results are pretty cool, I like. :) I used two coats of OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ and dabbed H&M Confetti Kisses and a bit of China Glaze Silver Lining on the tips. Thanks for reading!

31 Day Challenge, day 11: Polka Dots

Hi lovely readers, welcome to day 11 of the 31 Day Challenge: polka dots! I think polka dots are amazing; they automatically make a mani look sweet, plus they look great in almost any color combination. Still I don't wear them often because I'm usually too lazy to make them, either by stamping or with a dotting tool. But I was up for this challenge and decided to use the latter technique. And apart from the weird looking blobs on the pinky, I'm actually quite satisfied with how my dots turned out. :-D Three base colors were used for this skittle, polka mani:

H&M - Wildflower

Essence - Via Airmail!

Essence - Bella

For the silver dots I used Essence Romeo and finally I mattified my look with a matte topcoat from H&M, to make everything somewhat calmer as there was so much going on with the pattern and all the colors. So how do you feel about polka dots? :-)

South Africa?

Hello everyone! I'm interrupting the 31 Day Challenge for this colorful tape mani. The reaction that I heard most about this mani is how it looks like the South African flag. While it wasn't intended, I agree it kind of does. Not just the design, but even the colors are a bit similar. However, this mani was actually a result from adjusting and experimenting with an earlier design; the fifty-fifty mani. I had worn the corally pink color (H&M Wildflower) for a day and added the muted teal the next morning. And though I already liked how that looked, I had to do something that would cover up my slight tipwear, hence the purple chevrons which you see in the last picture. That was cute too but it wasn't quite finished until I added the little black chevrons. Amazing how much of a difference a bit of black can make. ^^

This mani was also a great oppurtunity to try out two new polishes from Etos (Dutch drugstore), #122 (teal) and #118 (purple). Etos recently released a whole bunch of new exciting colors and I'm thrilled about it, because both their quality and price are quite reasonable (€2.50 for 5ml/0.5 fl.oz). Thanks for reading!

Big thank you to my little brother for taking this picture for me. ^^

31 Day Challenge, day 3: Yellow

Yellow nails! These took a long time to get done because of the design on my ringfinger, so I made studded V-gaps on the rest on my fingers, which I actually liked better in the end. :-) The yellow basecolor is H&M's Lemon Tree. This was three to four coats which I admit is a lot. But the formula is great to work with, very smooth and no dragging, making it my favorite yellow next to Color Club Almost Famous. The silver I used for the dots/studs is Essence Romeo and the black is Color Club Where's The Soiree? as usual. What are your thoughts on this yellow rock look?

31 Day Challenge, day 2: Orange

Day 2 of the 31 Day Challenge! This time the challenge was to do orange nails and it was truly a challenge. I had a hard time coming up with something with orange as the main color instead of an accent color. Finally I decided to go with trusty clouds (tutorial here) combined with two shades of green, as I find orange to combine best with certain greens or blues. The lovely pastel orange is H&M's Peach Me Soon, in the middle you see Orly Ancient Jade and I've got Essence Bella on the tips. I look forward to my next challenge: yellow nails! See you soon. :-)

Funky Easter

Happy Easter everyone! When I think of Easter nail art, I think of pastel shades and detailed designs. But after wearing soft colors so often lately, I wanted to have something brighter on my nails now! :) I started with H&M Wildflower as my basecolor, then I painted half of the nail turquoise with Essence Bella, using tape for crisp lines. Finally I added a few dots with Color Club Almost Famous and my funky Easter mani was done. :) Have a great day!

A Broken Heart

Hi everybody! For this post I have a broken heart for you. Nothing to worry about though, I just thought it would be a cool design as I'm still experimenting with sheer polishes. :) I used my vertical lightning bolt design, then I painted the heart on top with a stencil I made from tape (like I used in this mani). I'm not sure if I like the colors I used, but I'm glad the idea I had in mind came out pretty much the way I wanted, yay! Thanks for reading! :)

Polishes I used:
H&M - Bella's Choice
Essence - Stamp Me! White
Color Club - Warhol

Abstract '80s

Hi guys, another tape mani for you today! Oh, how I love stationery tape. It's so perfect for making geometric shapes, which I happen to love too. ;-)

After (re)discovering the layering possibilities of sheer polishes with my recent springy stripes, I used the same technique in this mani. My base color (H&M Polish Me Happy) was applied the day before, so I could immediately place tape strips on top to form the mint green shapes with Orly Ancient Jade. When that had dried I once again used tape to make the pink triangles with Color Club Warhol and I just love how new shapes are formed where Ancient Jade and Warhol overlap. Speaking of Warhol, it's such a great polish for this layering technique. It's sheer, but covers very evenly and the color is so unbelievably bold! (Also take a look at layered Warhol together with its neon friends in this crackle mani.) And that's it for this post, I hope you enjoyed it. :-)

Purples (and a pink)

Sometimes all you need for fun nails is color! Here I used a bunch of untried purples in a semi-gradient/ombre mani. I usually love my purples blue-toned, which is probably why I've never worn the three pinker colors before, but they look pretty cute together in a group. :) The polishes used from my thumb to my pinky:

H&M - Beauty Bandit (I love this name!)
Essence - Passion For Fashion
Essence - Break Through
Essence - Meet Me Now
Essence - Very Berry (Not so berry though!)

Thanks for watching everyone!

H&M - Navy Cosmos: part 2

Hi everybody! Today I want to show you the blue side of H&M's Navy Cosmos (you can view part 1 here). It has a jelly-like formula that applies very easily, after two coats I had perfectly smooth blue nails. :) The color isn't unique, I have many similar colors in my stash - OPI Dating A Royal to name one, but then again I bought this duo just for the cute bottle. Do you have a weakness for nice packaging as well?

Freehand '80s

Hi everybody! This is the nail art I made with H&M's Navy Cosmos as my base color. I was just playing around with my favorite nail art striper China Glaze Ink, looking for an easy freehand design. You all know I can't live without my precious tape when it comes to nail art, but let's face it, using tape can be quite time-consuming! So (easy) freehand designs are a nice alternative every now and then. :-) For this pattern that looks kind of '80s to me, I started drawing the zigzags on each nail. After I'd finished there was still something missing, so I used a dotting tool to fill in the empty spaces with big dots. I thought it turned out pretty cute in the end, but the best part was that the whole job was such a piece of cake. ^^ I used Essence Matt top coat for that ultimate matte finish, but below you can also see the glossy version that I just had to share with you. :) Hope you guys like it!

H&M - Navy Cosmos: part 1

Hi everyone! For this post I have the red part of H&M's Navy Cosmos to show you. Like with H&M Plum it wasn't so much the color that I fell for, but the super sweet bottle! I couldn't resist the red and blue with the polka dots in the middle, even when I actually hate these narrow bottles with a polish on both ends. They're difficult to store, difficult to polish with because of the extra weight at the top, but boy they sure look cute!

The red creme of this polish duo is very vibrant, almost neon-like I'd say. The formula was a little bit goopy, but still manageable, needing two coats to cover. I know it's not the most unique color out there, but I like it nonetheless. It's a lot brighter than I expected it to be and I can't wait to wear it for summer! ^^ 

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.

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!