Neon geometric Christmas nails

Hi everyone! I thought it would be fun to do a Christmas mani (Christmani XD) in neon colors. I already had the idea of building a Christmas tree and six-pointed star with see-through triangles using tape, and when I stumbled upon China Glaze Surfin' For Boys in my stash, I knew it would be the perfect color for the job. It's so incredibly bright! For these photos I used my iPhone5 camera, it's much more accurate with capturing the true color of Surfin' For Boys than my trusty old Canon IXUS 85 IS, but even in these pictures the brightness is nothing compared to seeing it in reality.

I combined the Christmas ornaments with random triangle shapes in neon yellow, teal and silver. The polishes I used were Orly Glowstick, Color Club Age of Aquarius and China Glaze Millennium. The 'white' basecolor (actually a super light grey) is Essence Enter Wonderland, a very pretty matt polish. To keep that lovely matt finish in the entire look, I finally sealed everything with matt topcoat. Hope you like it and 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 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

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?

Exotic Tribal

Hello everyone! The final weeks of school have started and it's been nothing but chaotic! This explains why I've been posting so little lately. The madness still continues for a couple of weeks but after that I hope to blog more often again, I've got plenty of fun stuff planned.

So yes, I should be studying right now, but I just needed a break to show you these nails. :-) Holland has had great summer weather last week and I wore a bright yellow (Make-Up Studio M67) most of it. After two days I had a bit of tipwear, but I just couldn't take the happy yellow off yet. And the tipwear wasn't noticeable anyway because it's a light color, so I decided to keep it on and update it with a tribal pattern in shimmery blue. The striper polish I used for it is Janet #119. I kind of like the final result, very exotic. ^^ Chiquita, anyone?

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 Fresh Version

Hi everybody! First of all: thank you so much for all the amazing comments you guys left on my last post, my abstract '80s mani. I seriously didn't expect so much feedback, thank you! Also I received many requests for a tutorial and I wanted to let you know I'll happily work on it soon. :-)

I liked the '80s mani myself a lot too, plus it's fun to do, so I made another version. Same idea but in fresher colors. :-) The basecolor is the classic China Glaze For Audrey, I love this polish! (It combines so well with different colors.) I used Color Club Almost Famous for the yellow and the sheer blue is Color Club Chelsea Girl. I really like the bright color of Chelsea Girl, but was so disappointed when I found out how sheer it was (4-5 coats for opacity, if you don't use a white base). However, that sheerness has a purpose from now on. :D What do you think of this blue and yellow mani?

Springy stripes

Now that spring is slowly starting to appear, I've noticed I like to wear pastels more often now. This week I'd been wearing China Glaze Lemon Fizz for a few days and when I got tired of it I spiced it up with a colorful tape mani. It wasn't my intention to make stripes though, after I did blue tips with China Glaze For Audrey I wanted to add geometric patterns in coral with Essence Think Pink. However, Think Pink was a lot sheerer than I thought, creating different tones of coral with the polish underneath. (The middle two colors are For Audrey and Lemon Fizz underneath Think Pink.) I was so pleasently surprised by this that I continued playing with this layering effect and ended up with these cheerful stripes. :-) Thanks for reading!

Nicki Minaj inspired nails

So many things to post and so little time! At the moment I'm in the middle of my exams, hence the lack of posting this week. But I've got plenty of fun stuff to share with you once things are slowing down. :)

Between all the studying I did manage to create a look for the OPI Nails 4 Life contest on Facebook. My entry had to be inspired by one of the four Nicki Minaj outfits provided by OPI. I chose the outfit she wore to Victoria's Secret and didn't have to think long about my choice, I was crazy about the fun graffiti style in vivid colors. Different techniques were used to achieve this look: sponging for the background, taping for the striped accent nail and a lot of freehanding for the stars, hearts and Nicki's initial, which took a lot of time to make but turned out pretty cute. ^^

If you like my entry, you can vote for me through this page. The prize is the entire OPI Nicki Minaj collection, plus an autographed copy of her Pink Friday album! Isn't that awesome?! I'm thrilled about the whole prize, so I'd appreciate it if you truly want to vote for my entry, though that's entirely up to you of course!

Did you participate in OPI's Nails 4 Life contest?

Image source

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! ^^

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!

The Mad Dollies nails

Hello guys! Today's post is another custom mani, I abosolutely love doing these! I got this request from a player from the Greensboro NC roller derby team The Mad Dollies. She asked if I could come up with some fierce nail art designs, in her team colors teal and yellow, that she could use for an upcoming game. She also loved the use of tape for nail art, so the first thing that came in mind was a fierce lightning bolt tape mani! ;-) (Which all went great until my topcoat decided to smudge my hard work!) On my thumb and pinky I have the symbols that two certain players carry on their helmet. I made the star using tape and I really like the design, but it took a lot of precision to get all the tape strips right. So I'm still thinking of a more efficient way to make the design in the future. And the index and middle finger resemble the distinctive tights I saw players on pictures wearing, mostly striped or fishnet. And luckily I had Konadplate M57 to make the last :)

So Kristin, I really hope you like these designs! You can use all five of them or just pick the ones you like best ;-) And good luck with the rest of this season!

I really enjoy working on these custom nails requests I'm getting lately, so if you would like me to make some designs for a special event or just for fun, feel free to leave your idea in the comments or send me an email at: nailside@gmail.com.

Polishes I used in this post:
Essence Stamp Me! White
Essence - Let's Get Lost
Color Club - Almost Famous
Color Club - Where's The Soiree?
China Glaze - Ink

OPI The "It" Color + black crackle

Hi everybody, recently I ordered some OPI polishes and one of those was OPI The "It" Color. I'm a huge OPI fan, with a weakness for their amazing glitter polishes but their cremes are wonderful as well, so lately I've been collecting more of those. I love their formula and the handy brush. The "It" Color had been a lemming for a while. I was searching for a pretty, warm and wearable yellow that would also apply nicely, which usually isn't the case with yellows. I had high hopes for The "It" Color, since I heard its application was pretty okay for a yellow and that it would cover in two coats. Too bad that's not the case with mine :-( The formula was alright, but I can't say the same for the application. No matter how careful I was with applying the polish, it kept leaving bald spots. After three coats it got less but the spots were still subtly visible here and there. So to hide those I added a black crackle from Barry M which made it better, yay :) I wish The "It" Color was as perfect as other OPI cremes, like Jade Is The New Black or Suzi Says Feng-Shui, but sadly it isn't. However I do love the warm, almost orange, yellow color. So I'll definitely give it another try soon and hopefully I can take all the bad words I said about it back then. What about you guys, have you found your perfect yellow yet?

China Glaze - Lighthouse

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

Hello readers! For this post I'd like to show you China Glaze Lighthouse from this year's spring collection Anchors Away, this bottle was kindly sent to me for review by China Glaze. Lighthouse is a glass fleck shimmer in a sheer yellow base. I swatched it before on one nail, but to get it somewhere near opaque, I had to apply at least four coats, so pictured is only one coat over two layers of Color Club Almost Famous. The formula was perfect, not too thick or thin, just right in the middel, leaving a smooth, sparkly finish, which reminds me of China Glaze Whitecap (from the same collection). Though Lighthouse is very sheer, the yellow base definitely shows, even after just one coat, but unfortunately it's not the kind of yellow I love. On it's own it looks too warm and too muted, I just don't like it on my skintone, especially combined with the subtle yet visible nail line after too many coats of polish. But when Lighthouse is added over a fresh, bright yellow like Almost Famous, it looks so delicious. Love! What do you think of Lighthouse?

That's one crazy mani...

Okay, guys, I have no idea what I was trying to do here... Just experimenting a bit and this is what came out. I really don't know what to think of it, so I'll just let you decide, haha :)
Polishes I used are Color Club Almost Famous, Barry M Cobalt Blue and three China Glaze polishes: Lemon Fizz, Four Leaf Clover and Designer Satin.

So guys, what will it be, hot or not?

Color Club - Almost Famous

I know it just turned spring, but sometimes, all you need to get in a real summer mood is a nice and bright yellow. This is three coats of Color Club Almost Famous on a white base (Essence Stamp Me! White). It's so intense yellow! And makes me want to put on my sunglasses, kick back in the backyard with a cold drink and just enjoy the weather. Also the blue background reminds me of a pool :)

What are your thoughts on yellow polishes?

California Gurls

Not that the Katy Perry song was my inspiration, but looking through the pictures of the finished mani did remind me of the song and this look would fit pretty well in the music video too, lol.

For the mani I used 3 coats of Strawberry Fields and a coat of Seche Vite to speed up the drying process. After that I applied my tape strips, added a coat of Essence Stamp Me! White and right after that Color Club's Almost Famous. The white base underneath the yellow gives an opaque finish and makes the yellow pop. The yellow should be applied almost immediately after the white so that none of both polishes are dry and stuck to the tape once you remove it. As a finishing touch I placed a green holographic star on my middle finger. Now let the summer begin!

Colorful checkers

Hello readers, I've been using a lot of dark colors lately, so I really felt like doing something lighter and happier now that spring is about to arrive. So here's a checkered mani, inspired by the talented Erika from Chloe's Nails, with eight different colors on a white base. The white I used is my absolute favorite so far, it's Stamp me! White from Essence. Because it's made for stamping, it's so pigmented! And the fast drying process is a big plus, but that's also why you have to apply it very quickly or you'll end up with brush strokes. But if you can apply it rapidly but neat, you can easily get away with one coat only. I did two.

I love the final result, it's so colorful and great for Easter. But I actually came up with this look accidentally, I'd planned on doing each nail the same, using two or three layering colors, but as I was doing my pinky I realized that I really needed some color. So now you're looking at the solution to that :)

Thank you for your time!

From left to right:
Hema - #81
Essence - Lime Up!
Essence - The World's Coolest
Miss Sporty - #140
Color Club - Uptown Girl
Hema - #82
Rimmel - #058 Lemon Drop
Hema -  no name