Little Strokes of Metal

Hi guys, for this post I have these silver strokes to share with you. I just had to do some art deco linework again. I like how elegant it looks, plus painting those thin lines with a striper brush somehow has a very therapeutic effect on me.

The striper polish I used is Janet #201. It's not very opaque, which causes each line to look different in terms of coverage. But I actually like that, I think it makes the look more dynamic. The smokey purple basecolor is How I Matt Your Mother from Catrice. It dries with a semi-matt, so-called "brushed metal effect", which isn't really visible in the picture, but I just loved the color and the formula is great. That was it for today, thanks for reading! :)

Floral Bits and a Pink tribal Accent

The weather in the Netherlands has been really gloomy lately. So as a person who's very sensitive to the weather - happy with sunshine and very moody on grey days, I desperately needed a bit of summer here. Enter nail polish! I went for a bright tribal accent nail with flower bits on the rest of my nails. The pretty silver is Hema #845, the purply pink is China Glaze Purple Panic and the teal is China Glaze Custom Kicks. I freehanded both the tribal pattern and flowers with a striper polish and dotting tool.

It's still grey outside, but that's okay, I've got my nails done! It's funny, though. This mani actually reminds me of summer, as the two China Glaze polishes were bought on my last summer vacation in Spain. Ahh, good times. Oh, well. Thanks for reading!

Cool toned Color Blocking

Hello everyone and a happy 2016! After the many darker manis from december I really felt like doing something more bright and cheerful this time. So I've made these color blocking nails with tape and four lovely colors. The lighter pink is Essence Hola, Guapa from the limited Arriba collection, the neon purply pink is China Glaze Purple Panic, the turquoise is Age of Aquarius from Color Club and the navy is OPI Russian Navy. Some of these polishes are matt, so I added a layer of topcoat to make everything all shiny. I like how these turned out. ^^

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! :)

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!

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.

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!

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 15: Delicate Print

Hello everyone! Here's my attempt on the delicate print challenge. Initially I was going for a lace pattern using stamping, but I was more in the mood for some freehanding today which brought me to this gothic kind of look. I have a huge passion for typography and calligraphy and love spending time on drawing fonts. So it was only natural for me to include it in nail art someday. :-)

Not sure if it's very noticeable, but the purple is actually a gradient, I thought it would bring more depth to the design. I used H&M Beauty Bandit as basecolor and sponged some OPI Funky Dunkey (which I'm holding in the picture) and Essence Passion For Fashion on top of it. The writing is done with China Glaze Ink, a striper polish. Hope you like it!

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! :-)

31 Day Challenge, day 12: Stripes

Hello readers! It's time for my 12th challenge of the 31 Day Challenge, which is stripes! I super love stripes, they make such an incredibly simple but effective graphic pattern. For this challenge, however, I didn't feel very inspired, so I went for trusty random stripes that I made with a striper polish; Janet #119). The design isn't new on this blog, but in the end I was surprisingly happy with the look. I could just stare all day at these nails, just because of the combination of two different finishes... Oh, well, at least I know some of you guys can appreciate that as well! ;-) The lovely matte basecolor is Orly's Purple Pleather, which I used two to three coats of. 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? :-)

31 Day Challenge, day 10: Gradient

Hi everybody! :-) It's about time that I continue with the 31 Day Challenge, so here you have my attempt on day 10: gradient nails. And what a terrible attempt it is... I tried so hard and so many times to get the gradient smooth, but so far this was the best I could do. I do like the colors though, and from a distance it doesn't look too awful. So with a lot more practice, I hope to show you a better gradient next time. ;-) I used P2 Funky as my basecolor and used a fine make-up sponge to dab on Essence Sending You Kisses on the tips.

My next post will be featuring polka dots, hope to see you again then!

31 Day Challenge, day 9: Rainbow

Day 9! This time the challenge was to make rainbow nails. I was looking really forward to this challenge, even though I knew it was going to be challenging indeed. In the end I came up with this very simple look with colored strokes. Basically I used the technique I also use to make my cloud manis, only using a different color with each stroke. I really like the end result, all the colors together make me so happy! Maybe also because they remind me of a box full colored pencils. :3

If you like this look, I hope you try it out yourself too. It's a quite easy way to create that oh-so-lovely rainbow effect. ^^ Thanks for reading!

Polishes I used over China Glaze Snow:

Essence - Beauty On Tour
H&M - Peach Me Soon
Color Club - Almost Famous
Catrice - ACid DC
Safari - #100
Essence - Via Airmail!
China Glaze - Gothic Lolita
Essence - Sending You Kisses

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 6: Violet

Day 6! Which means violet nails... Like my last challenge, it's a leopard print look, but with a different take. The violet basecolor is China Glaze Gothic Lolita. I immediately knew I somehow wanted to use it for this challenge because I just love the color and I'm smitten with the subtle shimmer. After a coat of Seche Vite I could start on the leopard half of this fifty-fifty mani. To do that I covered half of each nail with tape, then I applied the blue (China Glaze First Mate) as thin as possible and stamped over it with a silver polish and Konad imageplate M57.

I've got mixed feelings about the final result, it looks almost too tacky but I somehow kind of like it too. Is that a bad thing? :-P Anyhow, I enjoyed working on it and I'll see you soon! :-)

WIC by Herôme - Colourful Curaçao collection

Hello everyone! :-) For this post I have swatches from Dutch brand WIC by Herôme. Every now and then WIC comes up with a limited collection. And I'm always very excited to see them because they often contain interesting colors or finishes that really stand out against their core collection which mostly consists of cremes. This time I'm showing you the Colourful Curaçao collection, a mix of bright shimmers and two frosts, let's have a look at the polishes then!

Kontiki Beach - A lovely violet shimmer. The formula was amazing and it needed two coats for coverage. Usually I'm more drawn to blue-toned purples but I think Kontiki Beach is just gorgeous!

Mambo Beach - A typical old-fashioned pink frost that our mommies used to wear a few decades ago... (Though it appears much more orangy on the pictures.) I tried to be open-minded when I swatched this polish, but I really don't like it. That color combined with the frosty finish is just so dated. The good thing however, is that brushstrokes were easy to avoid. I applied two coats and as you can see, the frosty finish is almost perfectly smooth.

Blue Bay - The second frost in this collection, a silver with small hints of blue/purple. The color was hard to capture in my pictures though, in real life it's less purple and more silver. Blue Bay looked quite interesting in the bottle, but unfortunately it's not that pretty on the nails. I used two coats for coverage and extreme brushstrokes were just inevitable. :-( 

Cabana Beach - A bright turquoise shimmer. Ooh, I love this one! The color, formula and application are great. The only thing that would make Cabana Beach even better is if it covers in less than three coats, other than that it's perfect!

Banda Bou - I was most excited to try out this polish. The dusty, yellow-toned green color is already interesting, but then there's that subtle silver pearly finish that completes it. Yellow-toned greens normally aren't my cup of tea, but this one I like. Look at that unusual color and finish. ^^ I applied 2-3 coats.

Daaibooi Beach - Last but certainly not least! Daaibooi Beach is a rich, blue-toned green shimmer. It's quite an unusual color for a spring collection, but who cares when it's this pretty, it has so much depth! This one also needed three (thin) coats, but you can probably get away with two thicker ones as well.

So here you have it, WIC's Colourful Curaçao collection. I honestly like the whole collection except for the two frosts, but I'm glad to see WIC has the courage to try something different, who knows what they'll come up with next time. What do you think of these polishes?

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. These polishes were sent to me for review. This does not influence my opinion on the reviewed products.