Oooh, Shinies!

Some of the OPI Holland polishes - Review

2012-02-11T08:55:00.000+01:00

Hi all! Today I have swatches of 3 of the polishes from OPI's Spring/Summer collection Holland for you.
As always, my swatches are without base- and top coat.

Gouda Gouda Two Shoes

Take a walk on the wild side with this robust rose.

The base is rose but it leans a bit reddish brown as well, and it has a lovely subtle copper shimmer. I've added a picture in sunlight, because as you can see, it looks more peachy then and the shimmer is more visible. It's one of those colors that I go for when I'm in the mood for something calmer.

Kiss Me On My Tulips

A smooch-worthy shade of hot pink.

I don't think this is the most original color, but that doesn't make it any less fun to wear. Summer on my nails!

I Don’t Give a Rotterdam!

This sassy steal-blue shimmer means business!

This one's my favorite of these 3. A grey-ish blue base that's packed with a silver/golden shimmer, gorgeous!

These polishes applied nice and easy, and covered well. I used 3 thin coats of each polish, but I could've gotten away with 2 thicker coats.
The collection doesn't scream Spring/Summer to me, but I really like it as a whole, it feels like there's something for everyone in there. Soft colors, shimmers and brights, and even a very dark one. And the polishes have some of the best names I've seen :) Have a look at the preview that I posted a while ago if you want to see more of this collection.
What do you think of these?

Thanks for looking and have a lovely weekend!

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

4 of the new Catrice polishes

2012-02-09T16:22:00.000+01:00

This morning I went to the store, hoping they'd have the new Catrice stuff, and I was lucky! The majority of the display was updated, but some polishes still had the old version of it. I didn't mind that too much though, it made it a lot easier to choose =) Here are the ones that I took home!

All swatches are without base- and topcoat.

Heavy Metallilac

2 coats

Oh my, is this gorgeous or what! It does show some light brushstrokes, but with a color like this I couldn't care less ♥

Genius In The Bottle

3 coats

Well hello there, wannabe Péridot! I don't have the real thing to compare with, but considering that Chanel Péridot costs almost 10x as much, I think it's close enough either way :) Again some visible light brushstrokes, but the 3rd coat evened things out a bit more. The darker bronze color shows up better irl.

Karl Says Très Chic

2 coats

I only tried 1 Ultimate Nudes polish before, and even though that was a pretty color, it didn't cover well at all and using it as a sheer polish looked terribad. So I was a bit hesitant to try this one, but after looking at the brush of this polish and some other Ultimate Nudes in the store, it looked like this one would actually cover well. So I took it home, and I'm glad I did! It's a soft and delicate looking rose colored polish, but it's darker than my pics show.

Put Lavender On Agenda

2 coats

When I saw this on pictures I wasn't sure if I needed it, I thought it was maybe too similar to some other taupe polishes. But it's more purple than I thought, and it's pretty!

I think Catrice added some great new colors and I'm sure I'll end up with some more of them, but I'm not completely positive. They changed the brush, and I don't like the new one! It's bigger and softer, and the application just gets a bit tricky for me with these kind of wobbly wide brushes. It did get easier the more I swatched, but I don't think I'll get fully used to it. Too bad!

The 2 cremes look boring next to the duochromes, but they make me think of stamping straight away and I'm sure they'll make great bases! What do you think of the new Catrice polishes?

Thanks for looking :)

Minty NOTD

2012-02-06T16:26:00.002+01:00

Heya :) For today's mani I used one of the Essence plates, but I can't really say that I love those. They have some nice full nail images, but I always seem to have some issues with them, I think they're a bit less deep than some other plates. The smaller images that I tried worked fine though, but you know I love full nail images!
The polish that I used as base is really mint colored, but I couldn't capture it today. I guess it has some to do with the beautiful wintery icy blue light outside ♥

Essence Kings of Mints stamped with China Glaze Adore and an Essence plate.

Thanks for looking!

How To: Taped mani

2012-02-03T16:59:00.000+01:00

With tape you can create original, clean designs, but it's also easy to smudge it all and ruin your base polish. If you have problems with it, I hope this helps! :)

Polish used: Nubar Prevail and Seche Vite

I start with cutting some strips of tape, and stick them with their ends to the side of a table, so I don't have to mess with a scissor anymore after I applied polish.
Because tape can be so sticky that you end up tearing off your base polish, I put the tape on my hand first, then on my nail. That way you'll remove some of the stickiness, and there's less chance of ruining your base polish.

You can use any kind of tape, but the tape that I'm using is Scotch tape (the matte tape). The reason I use this tape is simple, you can see if it's attached right because it'll get see-through when it is, as you can see here. The sides, near the cuticles, are spots that easily get loose, so make sure those are pressed down properly before polishing.

After applying the next polish (in this case a top coat), I remove the tape before polishing the next nail. Not when the polish is still very wet, because if you take it off straight away, it can happen that your polish gets a bit runny. But if you wait too long, the edges can get a bit messy.
I remove the tape towards the polish, like I tried to show here. Just randomly removing it from one side to the other can smudge your result as well.

Because I used a quick drying top coat and was making photos before removing the tape of my middle finger, the edge isn't so crisp there. So if you end up with these kinda edges, it'll probably help if you remove the tape faster :)

This time I only used a top coat, but when you're using several colors like on the manicures below, it helps loads when you use 1-coaters that dry fast and/or quick dry top coat in between. I haven't tried how well tape sticks after using quick dry drops, but those might be handy too.

Click the images to see more of these manicures

Other tips:

-What can help as well to prevent tearing off your base polish, is using a fast drying top coat on your base polish, and tape only one nail at a time so the tape won't be on your nail for too long. Or when your base polish needs several coats you could apply it the night before. The next morning your base polish is completely dry, and won't get ruined by the tape, even if you tape up an entire hand at once.

-When you use several polishes, using a thin layer of top coat in between the layers can help to finish with a smooth result.

-If you damage one of your layers with your tape, try freehanding a little over the damaged spot. If you then apply top coat, it often doesn't show anymore.

-You can also use striping tape to create small lines in taped manicures, round stickers for half moons, or use a hobby scissor with a funky shape on your tape before applying it. If you want to get really creative, grab a hobby knife, put your tape on a smooth cutting board (a mirror works fine!) and cut out whatever you want. Gently pull it off the board and use it for your mani.

- Put the tape on a stamping plate and trim the edge with scissors to get a curved piece of tape. (Thanks for the tip, ChromaCraze!)

If you have any other tips, I'd love to hear them so I can add them here as well!
Thanks for stopping by and take care :)

Catrice Million Styles & Essence Season of Extremes - Preview

2012-02-01T13:33:00.000+01:00

In March-April Catrice and Essence will both come with a limited edition, and here they are! All images are clickable for an enlargement.

Catrice Million Styles

8 Effect Top Coats

From left to right: No Smoke Without Fire - Million Dollar Baby - Miss Money Penny - Shake It! Flake It! - ¿Holo Qué Tal?! - Have An Ice Day - Godfather Of Pearl - Return Of Space Cowboys

Essence Season of Extremes

8 polishes and 6 double colored polishes

From top to bottom: my best nude friends and me - team nude - just the nude of us - it's two bright - we are all bright - brightsmates

From left to right: nude rules!- ??? - nude or what? - did someone say nude? - ??? - little miss bright - on the bright side - pimp my bright!

That's right, even more flakies! I'm curious after the effect top coats and the double colored polish, wonder if they'll cover well and how they look combined. What do you think of these limited editions?

Collage of the Month: January

2012-02-01T08:23:00.000+01:00

Morning! Here's the collage of the last month, and yesterday's post was actually my 300th post! I never thought I'd blog for so long when I started Oooh, Shinies! :) And I'm very thankful for all the interest you guys show in my blog <3 Blogging itself is fun, but that really adds a lot!

I updated the Catrice & Essence upcoming changes post, I had to remove the Essence preview stuff until Feb. 1st, now it's back in place.

Thanks for stopping by!

Dragon with tigerstripes

2012-01-31T17:15:00.000+01:00

A England's Dragon is a polish that really doesn't need anything added, it's perfect just the way it is! But before I was gonna take off my mani I wanted to mess around a bit with it :) Normally I never stamp on a holographic polish, but Dragon has more of a holographic shimmer (as Nihrida described it well), so I wanted to see how that would look as base for stamping. And I'll have to try it as stamping polish sometime as well!

I used China Glaze Jolly Holly and Konad plate m57, and I was curious how it would look matte as well, so I added a coat of Essence Matt. The holo shimmer disappeared, but the coppery-golden glow didn't.

Irl the shiny version looked better than on my pics, but I think I prefer it mattified. Or well, I actually prefer Dragon on itself =) What do you think, with or without matte top coat?

Thanks for looking and take care!

Delicate George

2012-01-28T15:19:00.001+01:00

Hey guys! Even though I adore A England Saint George on itself, if a polish is a 1-coater I just have to try it for stamping, and SG is one of those. I'm happy to say that it works great, and for me that made SG even more awesome!
I started with China Glaze Kinetic Candy (2 coats) as base, and stamped it with SG and the delicate flowery image from Konad plate m73. I haven't used that image in a while now, but it's one of my favorite images. Even though it has loads of fine lines, I never had any problems with it and it always gives a cute result :)
On my pictures the mani looks a bit too blue, irl it really shows that SG is more green, and it makes the base look more green as well.

Enjoy your Saturday!

A England Princess Tears - Review

2012-01-27T16:02:00.000+01:00

I wanted to swatch A England Princess Tears today, but boy did I have a hard time capturing it, it seems that the Princess doesn't like to be photographed! It's a unique color, but my pictures mainly show the silvery-grey side. Princess actually has a lot of lilac in it as well, and flashes lilac. On top of that, it's a holographic polish, the strongest holo I've seen so far in A England polish.

The swatches are with 3 thin coats, no base- and top coat.

I'll try to swatch this pretty polish again sometime, and hopefully I'll have more luck with showing the lilac and holo better then! The application and drying time was great, just like any other A England polish.

Have a lovely weekend :)

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

A England Dragon & Saint George - Review

2012-01-25T15:17:00.000+01:00

Once again it shows that my mailman has excellent timing, I wasn't sure what to do with my nails today and then I got a package! I received 3 polishes from the new "The Legend" collection from A England, and today I have the first 2 for you.

Unfortunately there was no sun today, so my camera had a hard time capturing the subtle holo in these polishes. But I couldn't wait any longer to try these beauties, can you blame me? :) Of course you'll see them again sometime when there's sunshine! The 3rd polish (Princess Tears) really deserves some sunshine pics straight away, because the holo in it is much stronger.

All swatches are without base- and topcoat.

Dragon

Dragon is a mossy green that flashes coppery-golden (as the bottle shows well), and it has a subtle scattered holographic effect. It reminds me more of a forest than of a dragon though, but that's probably because I play WoW and the dragons there have different colors, lol. Anyway, this pretty is unlike any other green I've ever seen!
I used 2 thin coats here, but 1 thicker was probably enough as well.

Saint George

Tbh, this one should've been called Saint Polish or something, whát an awesome color! Tristam is one of my favorite polishes when I'm in a rush or not sure what to wear, but it got some serious competition now from Georgie here. It's a gorgeous teal that leans more green or blue depending on the light. Also has the scattered holographic effect that gives it that deep, rich color.
Perfection in 1 thicker coat. Yeah, I really love this one, can you tell? =)

And because Adina (the lady behind A England) loves cats as well, I wanted to use my cats as background for some pics. They weren't in the mood for that (luckily you can't see the look in Sue's eyes here, hehe), but here you can see how blue Saint George can look as well.

Both of these just glide on your nails like butter, and dry fast and shiny. Adina really made a fabulous collection that was well worth the wait! The Legend polishes will soon be added to the A England website, and in the meantime you can order them by sending Adina an email.

Thanks for looking and take care! :)

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

China Glaze ElectroPop - part II the "Brights" - Review

2012-01-22T11:10:00.000+01:00

Today I have the second half of the China Glaze ElectroPop collection for you, the "Brights". All swatches are made without base- and top coat. The description of the polish is from China Glaze.

Aquadelic

Pool blue for nighttime gigs and daytime fun in the sun

Slightly more green irl, bright and happy! 2 coats.

Make Some Noise

Rock the mic in tangerine

One of my favorites of this set, the bit of coral in it makes it very flattering and fun for me. 2 coats.

Sunshine Pop
Shine in the spotlight in bold yellow

This yellow has a light shimmer in it. I'm sorry for the slightly blurry pics here! 3 coats.

Wicked Style
Party cocktail tropical punch

This one's a bit more pink irl. 2 coats.

Gaga For Green
Green lacquer for the girl craving the limelight

Reminds me a bit of grass! 3 coats.

Techno
Glitter confetti polish for a dazzling topcoat finish or all over finger tip bling

These holographic glitters aren't looking so holo on my photos, but it's a colorful and sparkly layering polish. 1 coat.

Most of these applied smooth and dried fast again, but Gaga For Green and Sunshine Pop were a bit thinner, they needed 3 coats and with that they dried a bit slower as well. Those 2 are also my least favorite colors of them all, I'm just not so into yellow and green polish. The glitters applied like a lot of these kind of glitters do, the smaller ones weren't a problem, but the larger, hexagon shaped glitters need to be dabbed in place a bit. As you can see, it does dry pretty shiny without top coat.
Overall, I think it's a great Spring collection, and I'm loving all the soft cremes! What do you think of these colors?

Click here to see my swatches of the "Lights".

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

China Glaze ElectroPop - part I the "Lights" - Review

2012-01-20T13:33:00.001+01:00

Yesterday I received a package with the ElectroPop collection from China Glaze, it looked like Spring in a box and the colors really brightened up my day! :) Today I have the first half for you, the "Lights" part of the collection.

All swatches are made with 2 coats of polish, without base- and top coat. The description of the polish is from China Glaze.

Kinetic Candy
Touch the sky in light blue crème

This one leans a little bit green-ish grey, love it!

Dance Baby
Hit center stage in cotton candy pink

Barbie bubblegum pink, the kind of pink that makes you look a bit tanned.

Electric Beat
Periwinkle nails for a wink worthy performance

In case you're wondering, a quick look at my nail wheels shows it's a tad more blue than China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le.

Sweet Hook
Blow a kiss in dreamy lilac

This soft lilac has a hint of pink in it, one of my favorites of the bunch.

Fuchsia Fanatic
Fuchsia pink for the rocker diva in us all

One of those lovely berry colors that doesn't photograph well, it's a bit more dark and fuchsia.

Gothic Lolita
Steal the show on girls night out in seductive purple

This one has an almost invisble shimmer, very pretty!

At first sight these colors maybe don't look so original, but I don't have any dupes in my stash and I'm really liking them a lot. And their application makes it even better! It's common for cremes to apply a bit streaky and needing a 3rd coat to even things out, but these 6 didn't have that at all, they all applied very smooth and covered in 2 coats. And you know I love cremes as base for my stamping! So yeah, I'm sure you'll see these more often on my blog ^^
What do you think of this collection so far? :)

Click here to see my swatches of the "Brights" part of this collection:

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

Black and silver

2012-01-16T12:18:00.000+01:00

For this mani I started with Essence Black Is Back as base, then stamped with China Glaze Millennium and RA plate 106. I think it's one of those manis that looks better irl, so I'd say give this combo a go sometime if you have this plate :) The result reminds me a bit of comics and hypnose, what do you think of it?

Time to go file my nails, thanks for looking! :)

Small green spots

2012-01-14T15:13:00.001+01:00

These little spots are from Red Angel plate 113, and if you ever thought of doing a dalmatian mani, this might be the plate for you =) I used China Glaze Jolly Holly as stamping polish and Catrice Run Forest Run! as base. I didn't have this color green yet, but RFR is one of the discontinued polishes (you can see the whole list here) so I couldn't resist buying it now. It's a pretty green, and JH works nice with it, but I'm not sure about the image here. What do you think of this combo?

Have a great weekend!

China Glaze ElectroPop - Preview

2012-01-13T19:36:00.000+01:00

Los Angeles, CA – (January 2012): Where heavy metal meets rocker chic, China Glaze® introduces the Spring 2012 collection, ElectroPop. Inspired by all things girly, edgy and fun, the 12 shades of ElectroPop bring out the inner rock star in all. For flash and glam this spring, China Glaze® hits the stage in style!

ElectroPop Shades include:

Kinetic Candy – Touch the sky in light blue crème
Electric Beat – Periwinkle nails for a wink worthy performance
Aquadelic – Pool blue for nighttime gigs and daytime fun in the sun
Gaga For Green – Green lacquer for the girl craving the limelight
Sunshine Pop – Shine in the spotlight in bold yellow
Make Some Noise – Rock the mic in tangerine
Wicked Style – Party cocktail tropical punch
Fuchsia Fanatic – Fuchsia pink for the rocker diva in us all
Gothic Lolita – Steal the show on girls night out in seductive purple
Dance Baby – Hit center stage in cotton candy pink
Sweet Hook – Blow a kiss in dreamy lilac
Techno – Glitter confetti polish for a dazzling topcoat finish or all over finger tip bling

ElectroPop is also available in:

6 Piece Collection of “Brights”: Techno, Aquadelic, Sunshine Pop, Gaga for Green, Make Some Noise and Wicked Style
6 Piece Collection of “Lights”: Fuchsia Fanatic, Dance Baby, Electric Beat, Kinetic Candy, Sweet Hook and Gothic Lolita
12 Piece 3D Counter Display
36 Piece Rack

ElectroPop will be available February 2012. Individual shades retail for $7; 6 piece collections retail for $42.

China Glaze is free of DBP, toluene, and added formaldehyde. China Glaze nail lacquers are available through salons and professional beauty supply stores nationwide. For more information, visit: www.chinaglaze.com or follow China Glaze on Facebook and Twitter: http://twitter.com/ChinaGlaze

China Glaze is a division of American International Industries.

About American International Industries

For nearly 40 years, AII has been the leading manufacturer and worldwide distributor of innovative, quality beauty and skin care products for men and women. Our product lines include Ardell, Andrea, Body Drench, Bye Bye Blemish, Checi, China Glaze, Clean + Easy, Clubman/Pinaud, Duo, European Secrets, EzFlow, Fright Night, Gena, GiGi, Gypsy Lash, IBD, Jeris-Lustray, No Tweeze/Micro Tweeze, 'N Rage, Prolinc, RAW, Seche, SuperNail, Surgi-Care, Waterworks, Winning Nails, Woltra, Woody’s, and Youthair. For more information, visit our website: www.aiibeauty.com.

Catrice & Essence upcoming changes! - Preview

2012-01-12T19:14:00.000+01:00

Here's what we'll see in stores around February/March... ^^

Catrice

The polishes that are discontinued are:

120 Plum Play With Me

130 Lucky In Lilac

140 Let's Mauve On!

320 Back To Black

340 Run Forest Run!

380 Forget-Me-Not!

430 Purplelized

440 I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

450 Sand Francisco

460 In The Bronx

470 Snow Motion!

480 Miss Piggy Reloaded

490 Iron Mermaiden

500 Sir! Yes, Sir!

540 Am I Blue Or Green?

580 Blues Brother Vol. II

590 Jade Is Not My Name

660 I'm A Star...

Those will be replaced by:

Click for an enlargement

Update: As some of you noticed (thanks for commenting about it!), it looks like some old polish will be back. The numbers 280 and 350 used to belong to London's Weather Forecast and Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans!, and the bottom right polishes look a lot like those 2! Catrice has re-used names/numbers before, but I think they're just bringing back some older polish now.
And 240 used to be Sold Out Forever, which would match with the 3rd from the right. I guess the rest is new though, because they have a higher number.

Essence

The products that are discontinued are:

Colour & Go:

27 no more drama

32 gold rush

41 very berry

42 dress for a moment

45 date with the night

47 red-y to go

49 the only chance!

50 irreplaceable

54 trust in fashion

56 got a secret

62 reach peach

64 be optimistic!

69 it's khaki time!

77 in style

80 icy princess

Nail Art Magnetics:

01 miracle shine!

04 mystic wish!

05 pixie dust!

Nail Art Freestyle & Tip Painter:

04 pink!

05 purple magic

08 juicy coral

Nail Art Special Effect! Topper:

05 time for reflection

06 you're a gold mine

Nail Art Twins Colour Base & Glitter Topper:

02 romeo & julia

06 bella & edward

07 chuck & blair

08 gabriella & troy

Those will be replaced by:

Click for an enlargement

Oh I can't wait =D And I know a lot of brands are bringing us flakies lately, but Essence Glisten Up! is still my favorite, so I'm very curious how these new Essence flakies will look! And more magnetics that will probably work for stamping again...yes please! The Catrice stuff looks good as well, but the Essence nail art things got most of my attention here =)

The new products should be in stores in February/March, and the products that are discontinued should be half the price now. My local stores had no idea about the changes and the prices are still the same, but that should be adjusted soon then. There's a lot more products that these 2 brands are changing, but those aren't nail-related, so I didn't add them here.

What do you think of these new shinies? :)

Blue & white

2012-01-11T17:13:00.000+01:00

Today's post is a mani that I did a while ago, but I totally forgot about it until I cleaned my image folders. When I upload pics from my cam they go into a new folder, and instead of throwing the folder away after posting, I always slack until I have so many folders that I kinda have to clean it >.< And that's how I came across this mani, lol.

This was Essence Fall For Me with Konad White and Red Angel plate 112.

Take care :)

Jingle Jangle

2012-01-09T15:24:00.000+01:00

Heyhey :) Ugh, today is one of those days where everything polish related fails, so I put my ideas aside and ended up with glitters instead. But by the time I had those on the weather got worse, so my pics ended up a bit blurry. Ah well, better luck next time, and you can still see the pretty glitter anyway =) This is 3 coats of Color Club Jingle Jangle, with top coat. It's a multicolored glitter, but the main colors are blue and purple.

Thanks for looking!

Relentless with Harmony

2012-01-07T08:34:00.000+01:00

Morning! =) After swatching the MeMeMe polishes I wanted to use Relentless for a full mani, so I used it as base here. Stamped with Red Angel plate 114 and China Glaze Harmony.

Have a great weekend! :)

MeMeMe polish - Review

2012-01-05T18:45:00.000+01:00

Hi all! :) Today I have 3 MeMeMe Cosmetics polishes to show you, which I received to review for the webshop Alice & Jo. For the swatches I used 2 coats of each, no base/top coat.

First up is Relentless.

Next is Amorous. This one could've used a third coat, because it shows some lighter spots, but that isn't so visible irl.

Last is Elegant, from their Metallic collection.

That a metallic polish covers well and dries fast is quite normal, and Elegant is no exception. The cremes dried fast too, and I was surprised by how well Relentless covers. Both Relentless and Elegant are 1-coaters if I use a slightly thicker coat. In other words, I'll have to try them for stamping! =)
The polish itself applies fine, but I'm a bit less positive about the brush though. These polishes have a big, flat brush, and I don't mind these kind of brushes at all, but this one's actually a bit hard. My cuticles are rounded, the brush is straight and because it's a bit harder it took some practice (and cleanup) to get it right near my cuticles.

It looks like MeMeMe mainly has creme polish, and you can buy them in the Dutch webshop Alice & Jo (they ship to other countries as well). The price of these polishes is €5,15 for 12ml.

Thanks for looking! :)

The product(s) in this post was/were send to me for review. For more information, please have a look at my Disclosure Policy.

Revlon Mistletoe

2012-01-04T16:10:00.000+01:00

Hey all! Today I have another post for you, with a polish that I got from Marta, Revlon Mistletoe. I don't have anything like it in my stash, and it's a pretty! :) I used 2 coats of Mistletoe with top coat for these swatches.

Thanks for stopping by :)

Catrice Nymphelia - Preview

2012-01-04T15:10:00.000+01:00

Here's a preview of the polishes in the upcoming Catrice collection called Nymphelia. This collection will be available from mid February till March.

From left to right: Be Pool - It's Rambo No. 5 - Dulce & Havanna - Salmon and Garfunkel - Fred Said Red

The names of these polishes clearly aren't matching with the nymph theme, and the Rambo polish is already part of their standard collection, which made me wonder if the rest will be too. So I asked the PR company, and they told me that Catrice will indeed update their collection again around the same period as these polishes come out. They didn't have more information at the moment, but I think that now's the time to pick up those backups or colors that you doubted about =)

Thanks for looking!

Glitters! (And how to remove them)

2012-01-02T15:37:00.000+01:00

As you might remember, last month I entered a contest held by Marta from ChitChat Nails. It was my first contest and I was a bit insecure about entering, but wooo, I came in 2nd! Thank you for all the votes :)
Salla from OMG! Polish 'em! was first and won the Color Club Beyond The Mistletoe collection with her lovely mani. But she already had 3 of those polishes and wanted to share her prize with me, how sweet is that! Thank you so much Salla, that was really kind of you :) And thanks a lot to Marta as well, who agreed with it and ended up sending 2 packages, ánd spoiling us both with some extra pretties ♥

The first polish that I'll be showing you is Color Club Candy Cane (3 coats), a gorgeous pink glitter that has some holographic glitter in it as well. It's very sparkly on it's own, but of course I had to add top coat to make it sparkle even more. This color is very flattering for my skintone and I'm loving it! :)

Because removing glitters can be nasty, with cotton pads breaking down and glitters ending up everywhere, I wanted to show you an easy way to do this with foil. If you're not sure how that works, read on =)

Cut strips of aluminium foil and cotton pads (or if you're lazy like me, just tear it in pieces) and get a remover with acetone. These removers work best for glitters, and the foil won't react with the acetone. Use the remover on the pads, place them on your nails and wrap it up with a piece of foil, then let it soak for a few minutes.

Then use some pressure on the package and wipe the whole thing off. Tadaa! Almost fully clean, and the bits that are left on the sides are soaked as well, so they'll come off nice and easy too.

I opened one the foil packages that I wiped off, and as you can see, all the glitters stay in place. No more glittery fingers! It takes a bit of extra effort, but it ends up being a lot faster than the usual cleaning, and it's nicer for your cuticles as well :)

What can help as well for removing glitters is using a normal polish as base below your glitter, the glitters will attach to that more and not so much to your nails. You can also add a coat of polish or top coat before removing them, so the layers of glitterpolish soften a bit and are easier to remove. But when you use foil these things aren't needed.

Thanks for stopping by!

Collage of the Month: December

2012-01-01T14:06:00.000+01:00

Hey all, here's my first post of the new year, the collage of the previous month :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy New Year!

2011-12-30T14:36:00.000+01:00

Yes yes, I know I'm a day too early, but tomorrow I don't have time to post! :) I wish you all a great evening tomorrow, and an amazing 2012, with lots of warm and happy moments with your loved ones. Happy New Year all! :)

Because my mani idea failed pretty badly (stamped fireworks in different colors), I went for a simple glitter combo instead. China Glaze Midnight Kiss (2 coats) as base, and Essence Make It Golden (1 coat) on top. It's more yellow-golden irl, and very sparkly and festive! What will be on your nails tomorrow? :)

Love, light & peace, and take care!