Minty Snowmen

Hi all,

No snow in sight, but there are snowmen on my nails! Snow is beautiful, I love how it crisps under your feet when you walk in freshly fallen snow. I also hate it because it makes traffic hell. And I do have to drive to work 5 times a week. So, this is much safer!

Polishes from left to right:

• Essence - Beauty Beats LE - 02 I'm backstage
• Essence - Stampy polish white
• Boulevard - silver (no name or number) 

Besides these polishes I used 2 of my Gals plates from the Fairy set, GA33 and GA41.

I started with a base of I'm backstage, 2 coats and top coat. Next I stamped the snowmen image from GA33 onto my nails except my middle finger with the Essence white stampy polish. My middle finger is sporting the snowflake image from GA41. I stamped with the white polish and added a few in silver as well. The Boulevard polish is one I picked up when I started painting my nails more regularly, it came with crackle top coat in blue and purple. This was before I discovered nail art *winks*.

Doesn't this look wintery? I really like the softness of this and of course snowflakes can't go wrong for me.

Nail Art Ideas Linkup - December - Festive French Manis

This week's N.A.I.L. theme is Festive French Manis. I am not fond of French Mani's, for some reason I can't get it to work for me. A standard french mani is an absolute no-go. I have a huge blue stain on my ring finger nail. You do not want to see that peeping through. I recently ordered some Vivid Lacquer stamping plates, and I also received a polish (I think it was a Black Friday deal). Since it is sparkly and I had to try it out, I turned it into a french mani of some sort.

From left to right:

• Vivid Lacquer - Murdered By Pirates Is Good
• Essence - 147 Miss Universe
• NYC - 013 Aqua Mystic

Murdered By Pirates Is Good is a gorgeous polish. I love Vivid Lacquer's black cat logo and isn't that name hilarious? Murdered is a grey holographic polish with some extra sparkles. There's a microglitter in there that shifts from blue to turquoise and it is just divine! All pictures are in indirect light, except the last one.

This polish is nearly opaque in 1 coat and dries pretty quickly as well. Photos show 2 coats, with top coat. I added a french tip with Miss Universe, using the brush from the bottle itself. Next I added a line with Aqua Mystic and a small nail art brush. I love the colours, but not the french mani part. It is just not my thing.

Direct Light

And this last picture with direct light to show you how sparkly this is. And sparkly is festive in my book *nods*.

Do check out the other ladies' frenchies!

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Tri Polish Challenge - Absolutely snowflakes

Hi all!

Today is Boxing Day and another day off! Tomorrow I have to go back to work though. Good thing I have pretty looking nails! I have wanted the MoYou London Festive collection 02 plate since I saw it. All those snowflakes! I looooove it. So... I caved and bought a few more plates (also a few Fairytale plates you'll see around soonish). I decided to use it for the last Tri Polish Challenge mani of this month (and year). I got so sick of all the silver and gold that my dominant colour is the supposedly "accent" colour instead.

From left to right:

• ILNP - Absolute Zero
• Catrice - 42 Nickel Minaj
• Essence - 157 My fortune cookie

And of course the star of today, MoYou London's Festive collection 02 plate.

I started with a base of Absolute Zero, 2 coats. You can see a swatch of it here. After adding top coat and letting it dry I started stamping. No nail has the same snowflake design, there's so much choice! Nickel Minaj stamped pretty well as you can see, I was not disappointed at all. I added dots of My fortune cookie for the gold accent.

I love this mani and the snowflakes, I have a feeling I will be wearing snowflakes a lot this winter. Is this stamping plate on your wishlist as well?

Next year the Tri Polish Challenge will continue!

Striped candy

Hi all!

Merry Christmas to you all! Short post today, there's not enough time in this week with work and family obligations. After I swatched Groupie At Heart, I had to turn it into candy... it's the pinkness. Pinkness that did not photograph well... not even after adding white. At least I tried!

I am wearing 2-3 coats of Groupie At Heart, which you can see on it's own here. I took my trusty Barry M nail art pen in white to draw the stripes. I could have gone for tape to get cleaner lines, but I wanted to practice lines with the pen instead. I don't think they came out that bad either. I'm not that happy with the candy cane, it looks crooked and the stripes are not as I imagined they'd be.

This mani is the closest I have been to a candy cane in years, I do not like super sweet candy. I am a chocolate kind of girl. I hope you enjoy the rest of this holiday season! And candy canes if you're into those *winks*

Tri Polish Challenge - Silver bells

Hi all!

Here we have my third mani for this month's Tri Polish Challenge. I vowed to use less gold this time, because I want to like my mani's and all this gold is not working for me. But today we have something I liked and even wore for a day or two!

First the polishes I used:

• Catrice - 42 Nickel Minaj
• Essence - 157 My fortune cookie
• Essence - Stampy polish black
• Mundo de Uñas - 32

And also Gals stamping plate GA41 from the Fairy set. I used the center top image with bells.

I started off with a silver Nickel Minaj base (2 coats). When it was dry I gently dabbed some My fortune cookie on the tips to create the gold gradient. I added top coat and actually wore this for a day (time shortage). I stamped the bells image onto my nails the next day using the black stampy polish. I coloured the bows with the red polish for the colour accent. I decided to keep the colour accent to one bell per nail only to avoid it becoming too loud.

What do you think? Less gold is better?

Also, for those of you who celebrate Christmas I wish you have a good time with family and friends! I do have some "sweet" nail art for you tomorrow as well, although I will be busy with preparing dinner most of the day.

Nail Art Ideas Linkup - December - Winter Solstice

This is my third N.A.I.L. mani already! This weeks theme is Winter Solstice, which is when we have the shortest day (and longest night) in December (usually on 21st... which is why I deliberately post this today...). What better to do as nail art than Winter Solstice itself? Well, inspired by an image of a Winter Solstice that is. Doesn't it look awesome?

A long list of polishes, from left to right:

• Barry M - Nail art pen white
• Essence - Beauty Beats LE - 03 As long as you love me
• Catrice - NEONaturals LE - C05 Have A Good Day
• NYC - 032 Blanco
• NYC - 034 Giallo
• Catrice - 865 Yellow Sub-Mandarin

Except for the nail art pen, these are all shimmers. I thought it would be fitting. First a pic that is slightly blurry, I know it is, but it does show the shimmer in "As long as you love me" so very very well. It has a lovely shimmer, sometimes more silvery, sometimes more gold, depending how the light catches it. This is two coats, nice formula, just lovely.

I used a tiny piece of sponge and tweezers to dab the different colours on, from dark grey, to light grey to white to pastel yellow, it is very subtle, but I did use all those colours. With a nail art brush I painted a sun with Giallo and then added the soft orange corona with Yellow Sub-Mandarin. I'm very happy how that worked out myself. The crescent moon was simply painted on with the Barry M nail art pen.

All this dabbing with colours reminds me that I have yet to try galaxy nails... this is a start *winks*.

Don't forget to visit the others participating in the N.A.I.L. challenge!

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Swatch - Essence Beauty Beats collection

Hi all!

Last week I bought the entire Beauty Beats Limited Edition collection by Essence. I skipped it for weeks, because it is "inspired" by a youthful Canadian singer I refuse to mention on this blog. Because his music is not my thing, and he seems to behave like a twat lately. And that is all I will say. Nonetheless... when I saw my local Kruidvat had discounted this LE for only €1 a bottle, I finally caved. Because the polishes are all lovely shimmers and €1 a bottle? No brainer.

From left to right:

• Essence - Beauty Beats LE - 01 Baby Baby Ooh
• Essence - Beauty Beats LE - 02 I'm Backstage
• Essence - Beauty Beats LE - 03 As Long As You Love Me
• Essence - Beauty Beats LE - 04 Groupie At Heart

I have limited myself to two pictures per polish. All of them show two coats with top coat. First we have Baby Baby Ooh, a deliciously looking purple. I love my purples and this is just divine. The shimmer is very delicate, a mix of magenta and blue, but only if you look very closely.

The second one is I'm Backstage, a cool mint. Like fresh pepperminty goodness it's very wintery cool, but would be lovely in spring as well. My pictures don't show the lovely green shimmer it has unfortunately. It's delicate like snow.

As Long As You Love Me is a beautiful grey, and I captured the shimmer! Whoohoo! It has a combination of silver and gold shimmer that makes this grey seem warm if that makes sense. It's just lovely.

Next up is my picture fail. My camera would *not* photograph this colour accurate at all. I could not get the colour right with colour adjusting the picture either, so I gave up on that. The group bottle shop is slightly better at depicting the correct colour, but it is more pink in real life. It does have a gold and pink shimmer that is lovely and makes this lean on coral. This did have visible nail line after two coats, so I added a third and you can still see it slightly.

I'm a bit torn which one I like best, it's a tie between the first three. I am very glad I decided to grab these after all!

So, what do you think of this collection? Which polish is your favourite?

Tri Polish Challenge - Stripes

Today we have the second mani for this month's Tri Polish Challenge and I made a mistake. I grabbed the other gold polish... bad bad me. I should have sticked with the gold I used for my first post. Please forgive me.

From left to right:

• Catrice - 910 Oh My Goldness!
• Catrice - 42 Nickel Minaj
• Mundo de Uñas - 32

The little red polish is one of my new stamping polishes from Mundo de Uñas which arrived from Mexico this Tuesday! I actually did a saran wrap with purple and Nickel Minaj and stamped with gold over it, but it just did not show that well and I aborted it. I went with something simple instead.

I painted half my nails in Nickel Minaj, and the other half with Oh My Goldness! With a small nail art brush I added some red stripes. I'm not too sold on this combination, I don't like this gold. It's too harsh.

Needless to say, this came off after taking the pictures, as did part of my index fingernail. I had a tear I tried to fix, but it did not work out *sad face*. So I'm back to shorter nails until it grows back. I did do some other mani's you will see in the next weeks that show the length as above, but next week's TPC manicures will will be shorties.