Lacquer Buzz

Sally Hansen Dorien Grey

2013-05-24T14:49:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! First, let me just utter a sigh of relief because it's finally Friday. This week has been very busy and stressful for me. Hopefully the next one won't be as awful. I wanted to write this post last night but I realized that even though I edited my pictures, I forgot to watermark them. So I just went to bed instead. I really wanted to get a post up today though, so here I am. The polish I'm showing you today could be labeled as boring by many people. I, however, am a big fan of grey polish and this one is just perfect.

Sally Hansen Dorien Grey indoors, artificial light

Dorien Grey from the Complete Salon Manicure line is a light grey creme. I must admit that I'm a tad confused by the name. On the one side, I love The Picture of Dorian Gray, but the name is not quite that. I understand that they changed Gray into Grey (although both forms are acceptable), but why Dorien? Anyway, leaving the name aside, this is a lovely shade and the perfect canvas for elegant nail art.

Sally Hansen Dorien Grey indoors, artificial light

The polish is pretty sheer, but I still managed to get it opaque in 2 medium coats. It dries very shiny, so top coat is not mandatory. This line is actually designed to be worn without any base or top coat. I don't like painting my polish directly on the nail and I hate to wait for it to dry, so I used both. I've had a bit of shrinkage with Seche Vite, probably because it was thickening and not because of the polish itself.

Sally Hansen Dorien Grey indoors, artificial light

I'm glad I finally found a good light grey to have in my collection. I think everyone should own a shade like this. It's both elegant and neutral without being boring at the same time.

Kiko Sugar Mat 646

2013-05-22T12:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! I hope this week is being kinder to you than it is to me. I won't bore you with my whining but instead will show you an amazing polish. I'm participating in a new challenge today with my fellow Romanian bloggers. It originated as an untried challenge, but we decided to loosen the rules, so everyone can post what polishes they want, untried or older. I however have a lot of untrieds, so of course I will try to use some of them. Today's theme was really easy because we only have to use one color. Technically, mine is not a color because it's black, but there's also some silver glitter in there, so I hope it counts.

Kiko 646 Starry Black indoors, artificial light

Ever since I got my first ever textured polish, I've been in love with this type of finish. I also found that it looked extremely cool in black, even though I don't wear a lot of black usually. I was excited to see that Kiko had one in the Sugar Mat collection, so when I sent my boyfriend to Kiko this was the first polish on the list. I'm very pleased to announce that it didn't disappoint.

Kiko 646 Starry Black indoors, artificial light

There's something really amazing about this polish and of course it can't be translated into photos. The black is matte and the glitters are sparkly, which is a winning combo in my book. Application is easy and 2 coats are all it takes to achieve this cool look. I always use a fast drying spray with the textured polishes just because I don't have the patience to wait for it to dry by itself. I'm so used to the magic of Seche Vite and it's very hard to live without it.

Kiko 646 Starry Black indoors, artificial light

I wore this for a couple of days and I had to try it with top coat too before I removed it. The effect is not that spectacular because there are a lot of black polishes with silver shimmer out there. This is definitely a top coat eater and would need at least 2 coats to look good.

Kiko 646 Starry Black with top coat, indoors, artificial direct light

Thank you for reading! Here are all the girls participating in this challenge:

1.Georgia - http://giamakeup.blogspot.ro

2. Andra- http://andrakat.wordpress.com

3. Agota - http://www.nailglaze.com

4. Alyce - http://tara-minunilor.ro

5. Anca - http://o-fata-simpla.blogspot.ro/

6. Sophie(Andra) - http://sophiesnailartdreamland.blogspot.ro

7. Dee - http://bydee-make-up.blogspot.ro/

8. Josephine - http://rainbowsinajar.blogspot.ro/

9.Cris' -http://crissscri.blogspot.ro/

10. Elisa - http://littlebeautybagcta.blogspot.ro/

11. Ioana's Reviews - http://ioanasreviews.blogspot.ro

12. Madalina - http://misshappyandhernails.blogspot.ro/

13. Ana-Maria - http://ana-s-beautyblog.blogspot.de/

14. C.L.M.- http://unghii-pictate.blogspot.ro

15. Cristina - http://crissiesmind.blogspot.ro

16. Laura - http://www.laurabalaban.blogspot.nl/

17. Ana - http://missingpieceofmypuzzle.blogspot.ro/

18. Mihaela - http://lacquerbuzz.com

19. Alexantza - http://alexantza.blogspot.ro/
20. Mihaela - http://elasdreams.blogspot.ro/

And the banner for the challenge:

Monday Blues: China Glaze Ride The Waves

2013-05-20T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! I swear I have no idea where this weekend went. It's Monday again so it's time for some blue. This time I'm showing you a gorgeous blue jelly. This post is quite pic heavy so let's just start with the jelly by itself.

China Glaze Ride The Waves indoors, artificial light

Ride The Waves is one of last year's Summer Neons but it's actually an odd one in the collection. It's not a neon but a very rare and gorgeous navy blue jelly. It's pretty hard to find a polish like this and of course my biggest lemming is Revlon Royal, which I will probably never get, so instead I picked this one up. It's lighter than Royal, although in pictures it looks pretty dark. Natural light pictures show the true color better.

China Glaze Ride The Waves indoors, artificial light

Being a jelly means it's really sheer, so it needs 3 thicker coats to become completely opaque. The swatches above are 3 coats with top coat, because this dries to a semi-matte finish. The actual reason I wanted to get this was for jelly sandwiches. So today I want to show you my first attempt using Ride The Waves and OPI Crown Me Already!

jelly sandwich with China Glaze Ride The Waves and OPI Crown Me Already! indoors, artificial light

To create this, I started with 2 coats of the jelly, then one coat of the glitter (it's really dense) and on top another thin coat of the jelly. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite, of course.

jelly sandwich with China Glaze Ride The Waves and OPI Crown Me Already! in the sun

I really really love how this looks in real life. The nail line is not that visible as it looks in some of my pictures, but in this case having a bit of transparency actually makes it better. It has a squishy and delicious feel to it!

jelly sandwich with China Glaze Ride The Waves and OPI Crown Me Already! in the sun

This manicure will definitely make my Monday better! I'm so glad I got Ride The Waves and can't wait to do more sandwiches with it. Suggestions for glitters are always welcome! In the meantime, don't forget to check out some more Monday Blues below.

Have a great week!

Colorful Paisley

2013-05-19T10:20:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! This morning I woke up very stressed about graduation coming up and the fact that I have tons of work left on my thesis. I thought that talking to you all about nails would relax me so here I am writing this post. I'm not even sure you will like these nails, they were sort of a failed attempt and I liked them more in reality than in pictures. But here's how they came out.

This paisley image is from a Bundle Monster plate, namely BM-315. I was in love with this image ever since I saw other people using it, so when I got the plate set it was one of the first ones I wanted to use. I googled "paisley" for an idea of the colors I would use and decided on this colorful paisley print. Then I tried to recreate it and failed miserably. I first tried to stamp with the colors on paper and they looked ok, but on the nail some are more vibrant than others. The green and the blue are barely visible in photos. The dots are also too big because the space was pretty small but my dotting tools weren't.

The polishes I used were mostly from S-he Stylezone: 310 (green), 281 (blue) and 247 (purple). The red is Rimmel Stand to Attention. If I would do this again I would definitely replace the green and the blue with more vibrant colors. The base was OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, which has easily become my favorite nail art canvas of all time.

I wore these nails for a couple of days even though I wasn't that happy with how they came out. Please tell me in the comments what you think and what you would do to improve them. I will definitely be using this image again because I love it a lot!

Black and Gold

2013-05-18T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! Oh Saturday, how long have I waited for you! It's been a crazy busy week and I'm really sorry I haven't had much time for blogging and doing my nails. On Thursday I went to the local premiere of The Great Gatsby and it was amazing. Seriously, whether you are a Leo fan like me or not, you need to see this movie. It's spectacular! I really wanted to do some themed nails for the premiere but ran out of time and energy so I did something really simple and elegant.

I was inspired by the movie poster that has a combo of black and gold. I rarely wear gold as a full manicure because I don't think it looks good on my skin tone, but I was happy to finally try my a-england Holy Grail for the first time. This is the new version of the polish. As you may or may not know, the old version was a very yellow type of gold, so it would have looked really bad on me. The new version on the other hand is cooler, although it's still pretty warm and I'm not completely sure that it goes with my skin. It also made my skin look weird in photos so please ignore that.

Holy Grail applied very easily and was opaque in 2 coats. It dries pretty fast like most a-england polishes. On the ring finger I painted a coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather and then used a golden stud from Born Pretty to finish the look. I really liked the fact that the stud is almost the same type of gold as Holy Grail and it really tied the whole manicure together.

I really enjoyed this unusual (for me) look and I got a lot of compliments while I wore it. If you haven't already seen the movie you really need to go see it. You won't regret it!

Born Pretty Store GIVEAWAY

2013-05-15T19:03:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! The time has come for me to thank you all for being by my side and for reading and commenting on my blog. As a token of my appreciation, I have prepared a little giveaway for you! The Born Pretty Store has been kind enough to sponsor me with a $20 voucher to give to one of my readers. With this voucher you can get lots of amazing nail supplies like the ones I've used for the manicures below.

Studs, glequins, flocking powder, you name it! The beauty of this prize is that you can choose what best suits your taste and style from the shop. Here are the rules:

The giveaway is open internationally. If you are underaged, please ask permission from your parents before you enter the giveaway.
There will be one winner and the prize is a $20 voucher to the Born Pretty Store.
The giveaway will run for 2 weeks, from the 15th of May to the 30th of May. I will announce and notify the winner on the 31st of May. The winner has 48 hours to respond before another winner is chosen.
To enter, please use the Rafflecopter widget below. You have to follow both my blog and the Born Pretty Store blog through GFC to enter. After that, there are additional entries for following via Bloglovin', Facebook, Twitter or Instagram, as well as for sharing the giveaway.
The prize is sent by the Born Pretty Store and I will not be responsible for lost or damaged packages.

Thank you and good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

p2 Sand Style Seductive

2013-05-15T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! How is this week treating you so far? I must say that I'm already very tired and only 2 days have passed. Wish the other 3 would go by sooner! On the bright side, I'm going to see The Great Gatsby on Thursday and I'm extremely excited because I've been waiting for this movie for months. I really wanted to do some nail art for the occasion but I don't think I will have time for that. Anyway, today I'm showing you another textured polish. Have to say that I'm completely obsessed with these and this particular one is nothing short of amazing.

p2 Sand Style 030 Seductive indoors, artificial light

After trying Confidential, I obviously needed more polishes from the p2's Sand Style collection. Seductive was my second pick and I couldn't be more happier that I chose it. The color of this textured polish is quite interesting and pretty unique. It's burgundy, which means it can look more purple or more red depending on the light. It actually looks more purple than this in natural light. I haven't seen another textured polish of this color, so I think it's a win. Another great thing about it is the golden shimmer that makes it very sparkly, a lot more than my pictures show.

p2 Sand Style 030 Seductive indoors, artificial light

The formula was a dream as well. 2 perfect coats and no cleanup needed. This was also surprisingly easy to remove. When I wore Confidential I was really scared of the gritty texture and used the foil method to remove it. But this time I was too lazy to cut foil pieces, so I just used the normal method. I literally couldn't believe how easy it came off. Of course I needed to try it with top coat to see how it looked. Again I was totally in awe.

p2 Sand Style 030 Seductive with top coat, indoors, artificial light

I can't even describe how beautiful this looks with top coat. My pictures don't capture even half of the beauty of this. Here's a shot in direct light.

p2 Sand Style 030 Seductive with top coat, indoors, artificial direct light

So what else can I say? I love a polish that looks great with and without top coat. Can't wait to get my hands on the other polishes in this collection. The very convenient price only makes it easier.

Monday Blues: Blue Butterflies

2013-05-13T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! It's Monday and when you'll be reading this I will probably be in class. It's been a great 2-week long holiday and I've blogged a lot in this time. It's been fun because I had lots of time for nail art. Unfortunately things will change because I'm graduating in 2 months and I will be extremely busy, which will result in less activity on the blog. I hope you'll forgive me and keep following even though there will be less posts. Of course I will never miss Monday Blues, that's for sure. Today I wanna show you two beautiful blues, in the form of a springy manicure.

Butterflies! Aren't they beautiful? I love butterfly stamps and this one has so much detail on it that I just couldn't wait to use it when I saw it. Plus it's a full nail stamp, which rarely is the case for butterfly ones. It's from plate BM-307. But let's take a look at the polishes I used. I started with a base of Kiko 340.

Kiko 340 Light Blue in the sun

The shade 340 (also called Light Blue) is a very bright sky blue creme. It's not one of those pastel light blues, but a very saturated one. It really makes your nails pop. The formula is good, with decent pigmentation and just slightly streaky. I did 2 coats for the swatches above and no top coat, because it dries very shiny. The polish I stamped with is from p2 and comes from the Volume Gloss line.

p2 110 Ocean Lady indoors, artificial light

Ocean Lady is a truly spectacular polish. First off, it's my favorite color, namely navy blue. Then it has an amazing formula. It's so pigmented that it takes just one coat to make it opaque on the nail. The brush was a bit uneven but I still managed to work with it because the polish goes on like butter. The only issue is that it dries fairly slow, but that can always be fixed with a fast dry top coat. The fact that it's so pigmented immediately made me think of stamping. And it does stamp great.

I'm currently wearing this manicure and all I can tell you is that it makes me happy. On top of it being blue, it's so bright and the butterflies are so beautiful! It's perfect to take my Monday Blues away.

I hope you enjoyed these blues together and don't forget to check out more Monday Blues below!

Have a great week!

Glitter is my style

2013-05-12T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! I hope you are all enjoying the lovely weather today. I plan to do so because it's my last day of holiday. I'm already dreading tomorrow. But back to happy thoughts, I have some older pictures to show you today. I wore this manicure before Easter and before I shortened my nails, so you will see that my nails look very long in these pictures. This was the point where I couldn't take it anymore and had to take them down. I started with a base of Essence Lilac Is My Style.

Essence Lilac Is My Style indoors, artificial light

Lilac Is My Style comes from the Snow Jam collection and it's not lilac at all. Seriously, I don't know what they were thinking when they named this polish. It's a medium warm purple with a gorgeous but subtle pink shimmer. It photographed more blue so I had to alter the pictures to make it look like its true self. This stands on the pinker side of the purple spectrum. The shimmer is more or less visible depending on the light. I couldn't resist and inserted a direct light picture to show you the beauty of the said shimmer. Please ignore the weird color of my skin.

Essence Lilac Is My Style indoors, artificial direct light

The formula of this polish was spectacular. It went on like a dream and it was one of the few times when I wasn't bothered by the wide brush. 2 coats made it completely opaque and it dried shiny, so there is no top coat in the first photos. And to think that I wasn't going to get this one when the collection first came out. The only thing that made me get it was the idea of having the whole collection. I'm so glad now because all the Snow Jam polishes are amazing. I decided that this one would look perfect with some silver glitter and so I did glitter tips.

Essence Lilac Is My Style and OPI Crown Me Already! indoors, artificial light

I recently realized that I don't have a simple silver glitter polish in my collection. I was lucky enough to find a 2 for 1 sale on OPI and this beauty was one of the two I got. Crown Me Already! is made out of small and large hexagonal silver glitter pieces and the payoff is quite nice. I painted one coat down half of the nail and then another coat on the very tip. You can see that the glitter is almost opaque in some spots so I think this can also be used as a full manicure. I was very surprised that it became completely smooth after just one coat of Seche Vite.

Glitter tips manicures are some of my favorite ones to do. I wore this one for about 3 days, which is a lot for me. Both these polishes are amazing and I can't wait to use Crown Me Already! again. If you have any suggestion of other ways this glitter can be used in, do let me know in the comments!

Born Pretty Nail Foil Review

2013-05-11T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! How are you all doing on this fine Saturday? I'm starting to feel sad because I have to go to school on Monday. This long holiday was a blast. I have a fun nail art item to show you today. The Born Pretty Store has recently started selling these nail transfer foils that I've been wanting to try for a long time. Here's how they look.

Born Pretty nail foil*

The foil comes rolled up in a little jar and has a length of 113 cm and a width of 2.5 cm. That's definitely a good quantity, so this will last for a large number of manicures. The foils can be found here and there are 27 colors to choose from. I chose the rainbow one (number 13) that has a few different colors on it, to create an interesting manicure with just one foil.

I would say that there's a learning curve to this nail art technique and it needs a bit of practice to get it done flawlessly. But the beautiful thing about it is that each nail is totally different and random, so there's no way of doing it wrong. Here's how my first manicure came out.

The instructions on the website tell you to apply a coat of nail polish, wait for it to dry, then apply a second one and wait till it's almost dry and apply the foil (shiny side up) pressing it so the pattern sticks to the nail, then remove the remaining sheet. I already had a nail polish on, so I applied a coat of clear nail polish and waited for a bit, then applied the foil on top. The semi-wet top coat has to be just right. If it's too wet or too dry the foil won't stick to it. It's better to stick the foil on smaller areas and do this repeatedly on each nail than sticking the foil at once on the whole nail. Top coat doesn't mess up the design and is recommended to make it durable and shiny.

After a few nails, I got the hang of it and I'm sure that next time it's gonna be much easier for me to use the foil. I really like that it's multicolored and the colors are jewel-like, which gives a very cool effect to the nails. The foil is also very sparkly, which you can see in the sun photo below.

If you want to try this type of nail art, you can find the foils here. There are plenty of colors to choose from and of course you can also combine multiple colors if you want. Don't forget to use code MFL91 at checkout to get a 10% discount. Shipping is always free!

I hope you enjoyed this and thanks for stopping by!

*Disclaimer: Product sent for review consideration. For more info see my official disclosure policy.

Born Pretty Stamping Nail Polish Review

2013-05-10T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello lovelies! I have another review today for you. I was very excited to see that the Born Pretty Store had a new selection of stamping polish, and very curious to find out how it worked. I'm always looking for good polishes to use for stamping nail art. They were kind enough to send me one for review and I'm gonna tell you what I thought of it.

Born Pretty black stamping polish

The stamping polish* is from the brand Kand Nail and comes in a 10 ml (0.35 fl.oz.) bottle. There are 8 shades available, from which I chose the black because it's the color I use the most for stamping. It's also hard sometimes to find a black polish with a good pigmentation so it can work for stamping and not look grey when you actually stamp with it.

I had a bit of time to play with this polish and try it out with different plates. First off, the pigmentation is great. It stamps as the blackest black there is, so a little goes a long way. What I noticed about it is that the consistency is kinda thin for a stamping polish, which could also be an advantage because you don't waste so much of it like you would if it were thicker. It seems to dry pretty quick, so you have to work fast when you use it. I also found that I had to clean the image each time after stamping or else it wouldn't work again. Here are a few swatches I did on paper with different stamping plates from different brands.

As you can see, the polish is very pigmented. I would say that the stamping quality depends on the quality of the plates. Also, images with thinner lines are more tricky because the polish can dry fast in those lines and not transfer on the stamper. I tested the polish over a white base because it's the easiest way to see the opacity and quality of the stamping. Here's my result.

I used OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls as a base and the image is from plate m63. The design stamped clear and crisp and dried quite fast on the nail. It wasn't too hard to clean the cuticles, the polish doesn't seem to stick to the skin once it dries.

If you are interested in this stamping nail polish, or in the other 7 shades, you can find them here. Don't forget to use code MFL91 at checkout to get an extra 10% off your order. Shipping is always free!

Thank you for reading!

*Disclaimer: Product sent for review consideration. For more info see my official disclosure policy.

Born Pretty Glitter Nail Polish Review

2013-05-08T14:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! How is your week going so far? I'm still enjoying my vacation and my only regret is that the days are rushing by too fast. The Born Pretty Store has been so kind to send me some fun nail art supplies to review and I'm gonna show them to you this week. I'm gonna start with some glitter, because everybody needs some in their life. This is a glitter nail polish* that comes in a beautiful bottle, shown below.

Born Pretty Tribal glitter nail polish

The brand of the nail polish is Tribal Colour and it has the number 24 on the bottom label. You can find it here on their website, where it's shade #4. It comes in a decent sized bottle of 12 ml (0.5 fl.oz.) and the price is very convenient.

There are more ways of using this glitter for a manicure. It's quite easy to get it opaque by itself, so you can do a whole manicure using just this polish. It's definitely a very bold look!

I chose this particular shade because it has lots of blue glitter in it (both larger and smaller), but it also has orange, black, fuchsia and gold hexagonal glitter, as well as a few pieces of white bar glitter. The clear base is packed with glitter, to the point where there's almost no clear base, which makes it a bit difficult to spread the glitter evenly. I did 2 coats for the look above and had to do a bit of arranging with my brush to spread the glitter pieces nicely. A couple of coats of top coat were necessary to level everything out. One thing I liked about this and want to mention is the fact that it didn't have a strong smell, so it probably contains no toluene.

If this look is a bit too much for you, there's always the option of doing just one nail (the accent nail) and keeping the rest of the nails in a solid color. Or you can do my favorite thing, glitter tips. It's what I did on my left hand and loved it!

This is just the right amount of sparkle that I like to bring to my manicures. I used Rimmel Blue Eyed Girl (terrible stainer, by the way) as a base color and then dabbed some of the glitter on the tips. Another thing I'd like to mention is that the glitter is quite hard to photograph. The sparkly multicolored pieces made my camera freak out. It didn't even want to focus most of the time. But I can assure you it looks very pretty in real life.

If you like this glitter you can find it here. There are 5 different colors to choose from. You can use the code MFL91 at checkout to get 10% off your order. Shipping is free!

I hope you enjoyed this review and thanks for reading!

*Disclaimer: Product sent for review consideration. For more info see my official disclosure policy.

Polish Days: The Number 5

2013-05-07T22:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! It's Polish Days time again and the theme for this month is The Number 5. I will tell you from the start that this number has no meaning for me. There's no 5 in my birth date or in my house number, the only connection I can find with it is the fact that I'm currently 25 years old. But that doesn't mean much cause it will change again in December. So I didn't know what to do for this month's theme, but I really wanted to participate as usual. At the risk of doing something totally unoriginal, I chose Cinco de Mayo as an inspiration for my manicure. It's a little more than I would normally wear on my nails, but this holiday is all about color so everything is accepted.

Another connection with the number 5 is the fact that I used the 5th nail polish in my spreadsheet as a base for this manicure. If you wanna see my stash spreadsheet you can click here and you will see that Eyeko Coral is number 5. I haven't swatched this polish on my blog and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to do so. I hope none of you will mind if I show you a polish that is discontinued (Eyeko stopped making polishes a long time ago) and can still admire its beauty.

Eyeko Coral in the sun

This polish is a hot coral creme that obviously looks more orange on me because of my very cool toned skin. I don't wear colors like this often, but I do like them from time to time, especially in the summer. The formula is amazing with this polish. It really makes me sad that Eyeko stopped making these. It's very pigmented and I almost got away with one coat, but I added another one because there was still some visible nail line. I would like to add that this is similar to Essie Ole Caliente, even though this one has better pigmentation. The Eyeko is a tad more pink and less bright compared to the Essie. I prefer this one, but since it's discontinued and I don't have any backups, I'm happy to own the Essie as well.

Eyeko Coral in the sun

To create the Cinco de Mayo look, I combined the color with some green. White would have been necessary to complete the Mexican flag but it didn't really fit into my design so I left it like that. I used some green striping tape and green square rhinestones to complete the look. It's certainly not a conventional manicure but I still like it.

Thank you for stopping by! I'm sure the other participants have come up with something way better for today's theme, so make sure you click on the links below to check out their posts!

Monday Blues: China Glaze Shower Together

2013-05-06T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! It's a special Monday today because it's my 1-year anniversary for Monday Blues. It was exactly one year ago that I posted my first post in this series. Well, technically tomorrow would be one year but it's Tuesday. I haven't missed one week of Monday Blues ever since I started. No matter how busy I was, even on the weeks I didn't post anything else, Monday Blues was always present. I'm kind of proud of myself for not missing any weeks, so to celebrate I made a movie with all the blue manicures I posted during this year. Enjoy!

And now let's get to today's blue. You all know how much I love China Glaze cremes, so I got this one because of my huge obsession with teal. Of course I also purchased other teals since I got this one, but I still find this one perfect.

China Glaze Shower Together in the sun

Shower Together is a beautiful blue toned teal creme with a great formula. Application is a dream with this one. I applied 2 easy coats and barely needed any cleanup because of the thin brush. It also dries shiny, but I used one coat of Seche Vite to make it dry fast cause I wanted to do some nail art on top.

China Glaze Shower Together in the sun

So last week I was telling you about the crafting scissors I got. One of them has a slightly wavy pattern and I used that one to create this manicure. I cut wavy tape slices and placed them diagonally on each nail. Then I painted China Glaze Flyin' High on top and took the tape off to reveal the design. This color combo reminds me of one of the first manicures I ever posted on the blog. It was a tape manicure with teal and Flyin' High. I know the pictures were terrible, but I was so proud of that nail art. You can check it out here if you want.

I really love these colors together and the slightly curved line gives an interesting touch to the mani. I can't wait to play more with my crafting scissors. Thank you for stopping by! Make sure you check out the rest of the Monday Blues below.

Easter Bunny

2013-05-05T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! To those of you celebrating Easter today, I want to wish a very happy Easter! I hope you're not too tired of pastels and bunnies because today I want to show you my Easter manicure. First off, I filed down my nails yesterday because they were getting too long to bear. I feel so much better now! So over the next few posts you will see different lengths alternating because I still have a few manicures from last week to show you. After shortening my nails I wanted to make them as bright as possible and I also wanted to play with all the stuff I got in the last days. Here's the result.

Last year I wore yellow for Easter (post here) and I wanted to do it again this year because I think it's the perfect color for this holiday. The fact that my boyfriend came back from Germany and brought me a bunch of amazing Kiko polishes was also helpful, cause one of the colors I chose was this bright yellow creme.

Kiko 355 Canary Yellow indoors, artificial light

I'm always looking for good yellows because everybody knows how hard it is to find one with a decent application. Kiko 355, also called Canary Yellow, is a pretty good one. It is still a bit streaky upon application, but the opacity is great, so what you see above are just 2 coats without any top coat. I finally got the 2012 Bundle Monster stamping set as a little Easter present to myself, so I wanted to play with it, of course. This set has a few holiday images, from which I chose the Easter egg with the bunny from plate BM-302 as an accent nail. On the other nails I used an image from plate BM-301. The polish I stamped with is a turquoise creme from Kiko, number 389 Mint Milk. I really like the combo of yellow and turquoise.

I have to say that this Bundle Monster set has some of the most awesome designs I have ever seen. It's been on my wishlist since forever and I'm so glad I finally decided to order it. The quality of the plates seems great from what I've seen so far. You can expect a lot of stamping manicures in the following weeks because I'm hooked!

Nail Polish Organization: Swatch Sticks

2013-05-04T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! Today's post is something a bit different, but I hope at least some of you will enjoy this type of post. I'm gonna talk about how I organize my nail polishes. Well, not how I organize the bottles themselves, I have a whole video showing you my pretty red Helmer (link here), but my way of keeping my whole color palette together so I can pick and compare my polishes. A few other bloggers have done posts about these and they have called them swatch sticks.

In the picture above you can see all my swatch sticks together and grouped by color. I used to swatch all my polishes on swatch wheels and it was a good option when my collection was small. But after I reached the 200 polish mark, the wheels were getting quite chaotic. This is how over 250 polishes look on swatch wheels.

Quite pretty, right? Well imagine trying to keep all these together in a stack. They would all fly from my hands and all over the room. Not to mention the fact that I had to look for colors on a few different wheels when I wanted to compare or match them. I made my wheels in the order I got the polishes, so they were all crazy rainbows. Not to mention there is no space to write the names of the polishes. After a while it's impossible to remember all there is on there and you have to check the spreadsheet to see what each number is. My collection was growing and something had to be done! And that's when the swatch sticks stepped in.

I got my swatch sticks from eBay. They come in sets of 50 in a little ziplock bag along with a long screw that you can use to arrange the sticks on. The price is between 2 and 3 $ for a set, so I would say it's quite convenient. I tried finding bigger sets but I couldn't. So I ordered 7 sets because my collection was already at 300 and I needed a bit of space to expand.

You can see above how the sticks look. They are made of clear plastic, so you can paint over or under the "nail". I painted mine under the curve of the "nail", so the polishes look like they would have top coat on. If I wanna see the original finish of the polish, I can just look underneath. There's plenty of space to write the name of the polish on the stick.

Most people printed out little tags, but you can also write the names using a marker if you want. I went for the printed tag version because I already had most of my polishes typed up in my spreadsheet. I won't go into detail about tag dimensions or anything like that because mine were pretty random and they aren't all the same length. I didn't have a lot of patience to cut 300 tags so some of them are crooked. What I do want to mention is that I used sheets of self adhesive paper to print them out, so after cutting them I just slapped them on without using anything else. Another option is to use scotch tape or something similar to stick the tags on.

I organized my swatch sticks by color and I separated holos, duochromes and glitters from the rest. Since I had 7 screws and didn't use all of my sticks, I had some space to expand and some of the collections are smaller than others. I do plan on finding a better grouping option, I know some people use rings but I haven't found those here yet. I photographed all of my swatch sticks so you can take a look if you are interested.

neutrals (white, black, grey, silver, gold, nude, brown), yellow and orange

red, pink and purple

blue

light blue, teal and turquoise

green

holos, duochromes and layering shimmers

glitters

My favorite part about this organizing method is the fact that I have all my layering polishes together, so if I want to spice up a manicure I can easily pick out something. I prefer to have them like that and not separate some colors that I have less of. I hope this post was informative for you and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me in the comments. I will try to answer as best as I can!

Pretty Pastels

2013-05-03T12:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! Man, I can't believe it's already Friday. This week has been a lot of fun, especially cause this Easter challenge has kept me busy. Time flies when you're having fun! So here we are with the last manicure of the challenge. Today's theme was "pastels", which I considered a lot easier compared to the other ones. This manicure is from last week so my nails are a little shorter. Now that the challenge is over, I can't wait to chop them off cause they are honestly getting too long. Anyway, on to the design.

I did this pastel skittlette using China Glaze Kinetic Candy and Essie A Crewed Interest as the main colors. Kinetic Candy is one of my favorite colors from last spring, so I was itching to use it again. I like how it looks together with the peach. Even though I don't wear peach a lot because it doesn't go with my skin tone, I do love it for nail art.

On my index I did a gradient using the two colors and on my middle finger I used some striping tape to create two diagonal lines. I liked the tape design so much that I'm probably gonna recreate it soon. On my ring finger I layered 2 coats of Revlon Whimsical over Kinetic Candy. Finally, I left my pinkie simple with just one small stud at the base of the nail.

This concludes my short Easter challenge. I hope you enjoyed these manicures and I want to thank you for stopping by. Don't forget to check out the other pastel manicures from these girls:

Anca - http://o-fata-simpla.blogspot.ro/

Ana-Maria - http://ana-s-beautyblog.blogspot.de/

Deyutza - http://deyutza87.blogspot.ro

Andreea M. - http://summer-gold.blogspot.ro

Madalina - http://misshappyandhernails.blogspot.ro/

Carla - http://sunafterstormblog.blogspot.ro/

C.L.M. - http://unghii-pictate.blogspot.ro/

Little Chicks

2013-05-02T12:00:00.000+03:00

Hello loves! Another beautiful spring day today and I have a manicure from the Easter challenge to show you. For today's theme we had to paint chicks on our nails. I'm talking about the yellow and fuzzy kind. Again I had a little trouble figuring out what I was going to do. Here's what I came up with in the end.

I saw these googly eyes in a craft store a few weeks ago and thought they would be perfect for this manicure. Unfortunately it was impossible for me to secure them properly on the nail. I really need to invest in some nail glue. I tried to secure them with top coat like I do with studs and rhinestones, but they are too big and get caught on stuff, which makes them come off at some point.

For the non-chick nails I used Essence A Lovely Secret as a base and then stamped the image from plate CH15 using S-he Stylezone 247. This image looks quite nice on the plate but it looks kinda random on the nail. Those are hearts, in case you can't figure it out from the picture. For the chick nails I used Rimmel Sunny Days as a base, with Rimmel Tangerine Queen for the beak and the same purples from the other nails for the bows.

I also had massive shrinkage at the tips with this manicure. Oh well, I hope you've still enjoyed it. Make sure you check out what the other girls have prepared for today's theme:

Anca - http://o-fata-simpla.blogspot.ro/

Madalina - http://misshappyandhernails.blogspot.ro/

Carla - http://sunafterstormblog.blogspot.ro/

C.L.M. - http://unghii-pictate.blogspot.ro/

Tape Easter Eggs

2013-05-01T12:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! It's the first of May and for us it's a public holiday (labor day) and people are having picnics and barbeques, or they even go to the seaside. I know some other countries have today off too, so if you live in one of them, enjoy this beautiful day! And if you have to go to work, I have some colorful nails to cheer you up. I'm continuing the Easter challenge today and the theme is Easter eggs. I've been wanting to experiment with crafting scissors and tape for a long time, so this was the perfect occasion. Here's what I came up with.

Last week I went to the store and got 2 pairs of crafting scissors with funky designs on them. I wanted to get some with a chevron pattern but they didn't have them, so instead I got these that have spikes alternating with waves. The other pair I got was also used, but you'll be seeing that design some other time. I won't deny that you need lots of patience with this kind of design, especially with cutting the tiny tape pieces with the not so tiny scissors. But I think the clean lines are totally worth it!

I started with 2 coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and a coat of Seche Vite. Then I let the nails dry for about 15 minutes before taping them with the pieces of tape that I cut beforehand. I used 5 of my most bright polishes to paint over the nails. The green is China Glaze Four Leaf Clover (it bled a little into the white, not sure why), the purple is Color Club Pucci-licious, the coral is Eyeko Coral, the blue is Barry M Cyan Blue and the purple on the thumb is Barry M Bright Purple. I removed the tape while the colors were still wet and waited for them to dry, then finished with a coat of Seche Vite. If you want a tutorial for this, please tell me in the comments.

These nails made me so happy! I think they do resemble Easter eggs, especially cause my nails are pretty long right now and they have kind of an egg shape. I enjoyed wearing them a lot. Finally, make sure to check out what the other girls have come up with for this challenge:

Anca - http://o-fata-simpla.blogspot.ro/

Ana-Maria - http://ana-s-beautyblog.blogspot.de/

Deyutza - http://deyutza87.blogspot.ro

Madalina - http://misshappyandhernails.blogspot.ro/

Carla - http://sunafterstormblog.blogspot.ro/

C.L.M. - http://unghii-pictate.blogspot.ro/

April favorites and haul

2013-04-30T21:55:00.000+03:00

Hello lovelies! Today is the last day of the Month and there had to be a favorites post. Plus I have to show you the damage I've done this month. I have to admit that I got a lot of stuff in April and there's also some on the way, which I will show you in next month's haul. But first, let's see the favorites.

This month has been all about spring manicures. I painted lots of flowers and used a lot of pastels. My absolute favorite is the fresh flowers manicure in the top left corner. The grass and flower one in the bottom left corner came close too. Then we have the pastel color block, the delicate lillies of the valley and finally the green mojito craziness in the bottom right corner. It has been a cheerful month indeed!

Now let's get to the polishes. First there was a massive China Glaze haul from Head2Toe Beauty. Don't forget that you can click on the highlighted names to see the posts with the corresponding polish.

China Glaze Ride The Waves (above), Secret Peri-wink-le, Keep Calm, Paint On, Fancy Pants and Strap On Your Moonboots (below)

There was a very good deal on Fragrance Direct, so I ordered a couple of polishes.

Essie Mojito Madness and Sally Hansen Dorien Grey

About a week ago I made an order on Asos for some Barry M polishes.

Barry M Prickly Pear, Blueberry, Blue Plum, Indigo and Diamond Glitter

There were also a couple of sales in town. I had to take advantage!

Nicole by OPI Alex By The Books and Sweet Dreams

OPI Pink Flamenco and Crown Me Already!

And some random cheap polishes from a local shop.

Gabrini M08 and 3D 58

So yeah, what can I say? I'm gonna try to behave next month. Maybe I need an intervention. I wish you all an amazing month of May!

Barry M Prickly Pear And A Bunny

2013-04-30T12:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! As promised yesterday, I have another post from the Easter challenge for you today. If you haven't seen yesterday's post (link here), I will just mention that Romanian Easter is on Sunday, so I'm not just crazy late with the Easter challenge. Today's theme was bunnies and I tried my luck at free hand nail art. Well, let me just point out that I haven't done free hand in a while and I suck at it more than ever. My bunny looks exactly like the ones I used to draw when I was 5. But let me first show you the base polish I used.

Barry M Prickly Pear in the sun

Barry M Prickly Pear is the second of the Gelly polishes I got. It's a lovely lilac color with a very glossy finish. I was surprised to find out that I don't have any dupes for this polish in my collection. It's more blue toned than other lilacs I have, and it actually photographed very blue so I had to alter the color to make it look more accurate. A lot of people complained about the sheerness of this one, but I didn't have any issues. It is a bit more sheer than the other one I tried, however I managed to get it opaque in 2 medium coats. I was expecting a very sheer jelly from the reviews online, so I was thinking that maybe I would use it for jelly sandwiches. As usual, this dried very shiny, so there is no top coat in the pictures. Again I had the same issue with it drying slower than other polishes, which makes fast drying top coat a must in my opinion.

Barry M Prickly Pear in the sun

And now for the nail art. I used a dotting tool to make dots with Barry M Blueberry on all but the ring finger. There I painted my weird looking bunny using some thin brushes and a few polishes. The grey is Rimmel Grey Matter and the pink is Kallos 54.

I wish I had done some artificial light photos of this, because the dots don't really stand out in this light. They were more contrasting in real life. I took this manicure off pretty quickly, because I didn't like the bunny at all. I also considered redoing it but I wasn't really into this theme and knew I wasn't going to do anything better. The manicure for tomorrow on the other hand came out great and I can't wait to show it to you. Until then, go see what the other girls have prepared for today's theme:

Anca - http://o-fata-simpla.blogspot.ro/

Ana-Maria - http://ana-s-beautyblog.blogspot.de/

Madalina - http://misshappyandhernails.blogspot.ro/

Carla - http://sunafterstormblog.blogspot.ro/

Sascha - http://mypsychonails.blogspot.com

Andreea M - http://summer-gold.blogspot.com

Deyutza - http://deyutza87.blogspot.ro

C.L.M. - http://unghii-pictate.blogspot.ro/

Monday Blues With Grass And Flowers

2013-04-29T00:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! Today is a lovely Monday for me because I am on holiday. If you are working or going to school today I have prepared a post to cheer you up. First, I have my weekly blue, of course. Then there's some nail art because I'm starting a little challenge today. Few people know that in Romania we celebrate Orthodox Easter, which is different from the Catholic one. They usually are about one week apart, but this year they are over one month apart. I'm not very familiar with the way they are calculated each year, but I'm really happy that this year our Easter is in May, namely this Sunday. This way we were able to have a longer holiday and the weather is just gorgeous compared to the winter we had in March. I've teamed up with a few Romanian bloggers to do this challenge that starts today and will have a daily manicure until Friday. I hope you'll enjoy these even if you have already or don't celebrate Easter. They are full of spring colors and cheerful things. Enough with the blabber, let's get to the blue.

Barry M Gelly Blueberry indoors, artificial light

I've been dying to try the Gelly polishes ever since Barry M came out with them last year. They are supposed to be normal nail polishes with a gel-like effect, which means high gloss. I finally decided to order some last week and this is the first one I've tried. Blueberry is a bright cornflower blue creme. The color is unbelievably bright and beautiful, it's just perfect for summer. The claims are true because it is indeed very glossy, what you see in the swatches is 2 coats without any top coat. There are very few polishes that dry so shiny, but unfortunately I have noticed that these dry slow. I've already tried 2 of these and I had issued with both of them not drying fast enough. If you've tried these let me know in the comments what you thought about the drying time. Other than that, the polish applied like a dream and had nice opacity, so it only needed 2 coats.

Barry M Gelly Blueberry indoors, artificial light

The theme for today's challenge manicure was grass and flowers and I had the perfect inspiration for it. A while ago I got this gift bag with a lovely design on it and I immediately thought it would be great for a manicure. So I took a quick picture before I gave it away. Here it is.

Barry M Blueberry served as the base color and I used a bunch of other polishes and tools to paint the rest. Here's the final result.

The greens are China Glaze Four Leaf Clover and OPI Don't Mess With OPI. The pink is Kallos 54 and the white is Rapsodi 302. I used a mixture of the pink and the white to create the flower centers. Finally, I stamped with China Glaze Liquid Leather using the butterfly from plate CH3.

Thank you for stopping by! Here are the other girls participating in today's challenge:

Anca - http://o-fata-simpla.blogspot.ro/
Ana-Maria - http://ana-s-beautyblog.blogspot.de/
Deyutza - http://deyutza87.blogspot.ro
Madalina - http://misshappyandhernails.blogspot.ro/
Carla - http://sunafterstormblog.blogspot.ro/
C.L.M. - http://unghii-pictate.blogspot.ro/

And the other Monday Blues:

Have a great week!

Fancy Glitter Pants

2013-04-28T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my loves and happy Sunday! I'm going all out with the crazy names for my posts lately. Again I was inspired by the name of the polish that I used for today's manicure. It's my second pick from the China Glaze Avant Garden collection. Frankly, I'm really surprised that I only got 2 polishes from this collection. I guess I liked the older China Glaze spring collections better. Or maybe I'm getting more and more picky. Anyway, let's get to the nails!

China Glaze Fancy Pants with Essence Circus Confetti indoors, artificial light

Fancy Pants is a really awesome polish but it's impossible to photograph, so I had to alter it a bit to show the true color. It's quite funny that the name reminds me of American Dad. The polish is blurple, which means it's somewhere between blue and purple. I see it more as a purple than as a blue, so it sits together with my purple swatch sticks. There's also a lovely pink shimmer in there that is quite visible, even though it is subtle. It's definitely an original polish and I love that about it.

China Glaze Fancy Pants with Essence Circus Confetti indoors, artificial light

I found the formula of this polish a little thick, but I still managed to work with it pretty easily. I did 2 coats to make it opaque. Then I felt it needed a little something extra and so I did some multicolored glitter tips using Essence Circus Confetti. It looked a lot better in reality but this kind of glitter is hard to photograph. It totally freaked my camera out and I could barely find a few photos that were properly focused.

China Glaze Fancy Pants with Essence Circus Confetti indoors, artificial light

These nails were fun to wear even though the glitter was a pain to remove. That's why I avoid using glitter that often. Otherwise I would probably use glitter for every single manicure because it's truly amazing. Do you agree?

I Need A Mojito!

2013-04-27T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello lovelies! Aah, finally Saturday! My exams are over and I'm ready to relax and take it easy. The title of today's post is inspired by the polish I used for this manicure. It's called Mojito Madness and it totally reminded me of how much I like Mojitos and that I absolutely want one because it's a perfect summer treat. It's also the perfect way to unwind after a stressful couple of weeks. Enjoy!

I started this manicure with 2 coats of Essie Mojito Madness. It's a spring green creme that has a bit more blue in it compared to other bright greens like this. Of course it wanted to photograph with a yellow tone so I had to alter the photos a bit to make it look like the real deal. This polish is so bright and fun that it instantly puts you in a good mood. Way to go, Essie! What I don't really like is the huge new brush. I don't buy a lot of Essie's so this is the first one I got since they changed the brush. Honestly, I had no idea and it totally caught me by surprise. I'm not a fan of large brushes and this one is just massive.

Luckily the formula made this go on smooth, but I was quite puzzled by the tiny bubbles that showed up when it dried. I'm not sure why that happened and I hope it wasn't the polish's fault. On my ring finger I used some rectangular black rhinestones that I totally love. Good news is that I found a whole wheel of black rhinestones of different shapes on eBay and it already got here, so you will see more of these soon. On the rest of the fingers I layered 2 coats of Etude House PBK803 Coco Black. I sometimes feel the urge to put this glitter over everything and anything!

These nails were a great mood booster while I wore them. Too bad I could only keep them for 2 days because I had to take them off before an exam. I definitely need to use these polishes again soon, not to mention the black rhinestones. They are so cool!

China Glaze Secret Peri-wink-le

2013-04-26T09:00:00.000+03:00

Hello my lovelies! I couldn't be happier about it being Friday. I have my last exam today and then it's holiday time for me. I can't wait to enjoy the beautiful spring weather and do lots of nail art! The polish I'm gonna show you today has been a long time lemming of mine. China Glaze came out with a similar color this spring, but I preferred to get this one because I love the older China Glaze formula. Needless to say that it didn't disappoint!

China Glaze Secret Per-wink-le in the sun

Secret Peri-wink-le (not too crazy about the spelling of the name) is, of course, a periwinkle creme. In my photos it looks a bit more blue than it actually is, but my camera is always fussy when it comes to picking up purple. The color is right between blue and purple in reality, so in order to avoid controversy I didn't post it as a Monday Blue.

China Glaze Secret Per-wink-le in the sun

The formula was as perfect as I expected. 2 easy coats were all it needed to look great. I love the way these older China Glaze cremes go on and I love the brush. There was almost no cleanup necessary after applying this one. It dries very shiny and doesn't need top coat, but I added some to make it dry faster because I wanted to do some nail art on top.

China Glaze Secret Per-wink-le in the sun

This beautiful spring color immediately inspired me to add some more spring colors and make it a spring color block manicure. So I used some striping tape to mask the tips and added Rimmel Peppermint and Barry M Peach Melba alternatively on each finger.

I was completely in love with the way this looked so I had to do both my hands. I did sort of a mirror image on my left hand where the fingers that had peach on my right hand had mint on my left hand and vice versa. The picture below has been taken with the camera sitting on a very wobbly tripod so forgive the awkwardness.

This totally screams spring to me. I hope you enjoyed it too and I'm looking forward to showing you even more spring manicures in the following weeks!