Inspiration manis for New Year's Eve

I can't believe New Year's Eve is already tomorrow! Time sure flies. But since 2016 has yet to come, I thought it would be fun to do a couple of New Year's Eve manis in one post to maybe give you some last-minute inspiration on what to wear on your nails. I've got a lot of pictures, so let's get cracking.

Semi-nude nails is something I tend to do more often lately. I'm not sure what it is, but there's just something about that bit of blank space that I find interesting. For the mani above I placed square pieces of tape at the top of each nail (at the cuticles) and painted the tips black. Then I filled in the gaps with gold linework, using a striper polish from Janet (#115). I really had a hard time deciding on how to fill those V-gaps, because the possibilities are just endless. You could fill it with a (stamped) pattern, a glitter polish, or with geometric shapes like in my last Christmas mani here, and even with nothing in the gaps, I think it still looks pretty neat.

For this one I used a dotting tool to make a firework-like pattern. I started with making a circle of six dots and then I added a line of dots after each dot. (Are you still with me?) It's a simple and fast way to create a fairly detailed design on the nails, plus you can easily combine it with an exciting glitter/shimmer/holographic/multichrome/etc. polish for the basecolor. Here I've opted for golden oldy Wild At Heart from Color Club.

Champagne! I like to combine this design with a shimmery blue, in this case Dorothy Who? on top of First Mate, both from China Glaze. You might've gotten a glimpse of this mani already if you've seen my new tutorial. If you haven't, go have a look at it here if you like it. It's easy-peasy to achieve!

Lastly I'd like to include my nude clouds mani from New Year's Eve 2011 to this inspiration post. For this mani I used my trusty cloud design. Again, an easy way to quickly spruce up your nails with just two or three colors. I can enjoy spending lots of time on my nails, but sometimes - especially in the hectic holiday season - a simple but effective design is very welcome! You can find the clouds tutorial here and the full post of this mani here.

I hope you all enjoyed this post and that it may have given you some inspiration for tomorrow night. Since I won't post until the new year, I'm wishing you all a very amazing and healthy new year in advance! See ya! :)

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?

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!

OPI DS - Extravagance

Hello everyone! Right now I should be studying, but I just had to share this beauty with you. It's OPI DS Extravagance that I wore a couple of weeks ago. I was looking for a chic polish with a twist and Extravagance was exactly what I needed: a deep plum with a scattered holographic finish. The application is great, I applied two smooth coats and topcoat, then the drooling could start! I already posted about this polish once before, but something this pretty should be seen more often! :-)

Nubar - Reclaim

Hi everyone! For the green nails challenge I initially wanted to use Nubar Reclaim. But I just couldn't add any form of nail art to it, because it was already perfection on its own. And I do insist on nail art with each challenge, otherwise it wouldn't exactly be a challenge, would it? ;-) So Reclaim isn't included in the challenge, but it's pure awesomeness nonetheless and totally deserved its own post. My pictures are taken in artificial light and as you can see it already reveals that linear holographic finish, which only gets better in sunlight. This was two coats, no topcoat. Absolutely love it! ♥

Guest Post at Polish Chest

Hello dear readers! Last week was a very busy week for me, but I did manage to prepare a glamorous guestpost for the lovely Danny from Polish Chest. Please check out the full post here!

Teeez - Outta Control

Teeez Outta Control. This must be my favorite purple, EVER! It's purple, prismatic and the formula and application are excellent. This is two coats over Orly Bonder basecoat and no topcoat, because it's so shiny by itself. Today's already the third day I'm wearing it, I can't get enough of it!

I once showed Outta Control before here in an accent nail mani, but I love it so much that I had to share it one more time. :-) Thanks for stopping by!

Teeez - Smooth

Hello everyone! For this post I have a special pink polish to show you. I've used this polish before in my guest post for Ivana from Ivana Thinks Pink, but I thought Smooth needed an own post. :)

Now Teeez isn't exactly the best in naming their polishes - several have the same name with a different number which is just confusing, plus those pretties just deserve an own name - but Smooth is kind of fitting! ;-) This baby was so easy to apply and it was denser than I expected, pictured is two thin coats of subtle holo beauty, love it! ^^

OPI DS - Extravagance

Hi everyone! For this post I'd like to show you OPI Extravagance from the Designer Series. Some of you might have seen it before here, a looong time ago, but I thought it deserved its own post :) Extravagance is my first and only DS polish so far, can you believe it! I own this pretty for a while now but for some reason I've haven't used it often. This weekend I decided to wear it on my nails again and I'm so glad I did because I fell in love for the second time... I'm amazed by the sparkly, holographic finish. The holo effect isn't as evident like the one in Gosh Holo, used here in a lightning bolt mani, but I don't care, it's so pretty anyway! I used two smooth coats to reach full opacity, no topcoat, look at it shining! What do you think about OPI Extravagance?

Teeez Outta Control + accent nail

Hi guys :) This is a recent mani. I started with the accent nail, one coat of Essence Bella with silver dots. To match the accent nail I chose a purple creme for my other nails, W.I.C. Dakar (similar to OPI Funky Dunkey). But after I applied the first coat, the sun suddenly began to appear, so not long after I was applying two coats of Teeez Outta Control on top. What a pretty purple that is! The holo isn't extremely strong, but definitely visible. Another lovely surprise was how shiny it was, I didn't even need topcoat. And it stayed just as pretty the day after, I couldn't stop staring at my nails! (Which can be quite dangerous while riding a bike... *Cough*) Thanks for reading!

DV8 Circus

Hi guys! Yesterday I showed you China Glaze DV8, a beautiful holographic polish, which I've used to create today's 'circus' design. You may have seen this tape design before here in an older post, I remember liking it a lot and that I wanted to use it more often, but I still had so many other ideas to try out that I never got to doing it again. So here it is, my second 'circus-tent-ceiling-mani', what a name, lol. It's not as neat as my first attempt, so I'll just keep my nails at a larger distance, which is much better for my eyes as well ;) Enjoy your day!

China Glaze - DV8

Hi guys, finally there was sun today! Holo time. This is China Glaze DV8, a beautiful teal/blue holo. DV8 isn't as holo as Gosh Holo, for example, but still really pretty to look at. The application was very nice, I applied two coats for full coverage, and what was even better was the drying time! In several minutes it's completely dry, so it's also a great polish to use for tape manis ;-) Good night!

Holo lightning bolt

(This is a scheduled post, I'm on vacation!)

Hello guys! The lightning bolt's been away for a while, but it's back now! Did you miss it? ;-) For this double lightning bolt, I used the same technique as usual, only now the middle part is diverging, making the whole somewhat playfuller. As my previous attempts on using Gosh Holo as a layering color miserably failed, I used it as the base color this time (clever!). Which is time-saving too since Gosh Holo is a one-coater and fast-drying. Then I taped off the holo part and applied Color Club Where's The Soiree? on top. I must've said this like a gazillion times, but Where's The Soiree? is just wonderful for tape manis. It's so extremely pigmented and even when it's used over another polish, it dries with the speed of light. So quickly after that I was ready to tape my nails again and used Essence Bella for the tips. Done!

If you like this look just have a look at the tutorial for this design if you haven't already. I know it takes a lot of patience but practice really makes perfect and I've already seen many beautiful and succesful attempts from you! They make me proud :) Thanks for visiting!

Holographic laser mani

Hi guys, right now you're looking at a new version of my laser mani. Holographic polishes are just perfect for tape manis. Though they don't always cover in one coat, they sure dry fast. The one I used is Gosh Holographic, it was opaque in two coats and ready to be taped in approximately 5 minutes. On top I used a beautiful purple shimmer from Art de Lautrec, #34 which is a lot less blue in real life. Unfortunately the shimmer isn't visible on the pictures and I didn't use topcoat because that would take away the holographic finish.

I'm loving the final look, holographic polishes are such an easy way to make the whole more interesting, so definitely recommended (for tape manis).

Have a nice day!

Extravagant checkers

Another checkered mani inspired by Erika from Chloe's Nails! I just can't get enough of them, I still have so many color/finish combinations I want to try out.

For this mani I used two lovely polishes: OPI's Extravagance and a Hello Kitty polish from H&M named Kitty Queen. I placed a close-up of the Hello Kitty polish so you can see the cute bottle and that pretty silver shimmer, look at it! It makes the pink so shiny :)

What are your thoughts on this pink mani?

Purple stars

Good afternoon everybody! For this post I want to show you a purple mani for which I used Color Club's Uptown Girl and Wild at Heart. Though I'm not a huge fan of purples I knew I wanted to have the purple holo Wild at Heart the moment I saw pictures of it. 'Cause holo's I like :) And this holo covers very well, which is nice for the freehand nail art I did here. Now this does not count for Uptown Girl that I had to apply three coats of for complete opacity, but the formula is nice and the drying time okay so it wasn't that bad.

For the stars I used a tiny, tiny paintingbrush, I kind of painted them randomly on the nails. Then I used a dotting tool from Essence to fill up the gaps between the stars.
So what do you think of purples? And would you like to see more purple manis in the future?

Uptown Girl and Wild at Heart

Striped First Mate

Hi folks! Today I'm wearing China Glaze's First Mate from the Anchors Away collection. First mate is a beautiful deep navy, very opaque and easy to apply, I used two coats.

To spice up my mani I added gold stripes on the ringfinger by placing thin strips of stationery tape on the nail, then I applied China Glaze's 2030 on top of that. The stripes really give the whole something festive and the technique is so simple! I love using Scotch tape because it's such an easy and fun way to create new, bold looks. My biggest inspiration in Scotch tape manis is Erika from Chloe's Nails, she's done a ton of gorgeous, mouthwatering tape manis, so make sure you check out her blog if you haven't. 

On the last picture I used different polishes to show you what effect the layering polish has on the base color. I must say that the holographic polish was really difficult to work with, the polish dries so fast that it gets stuck to the tape right away. When removing the tape the holo comes off with it. I always take the tape off as soon as I can to prevent the polish from sticking to the tape, but for holographic polishes I might consider an exception. Oh, wait! Perhaps I should do the holo first and then apply tape and First Mate on top of it. Well, there's something that might work...

From left to right: Essence - Matt topcoat, China Glaze - DV8, China Glaze - For Audrey, OPI - Simmer and shimmer