33DC2013 Day 30 - a mani featuring the same pattern, in various colours

When I have new polishes I often let them sit on my desk for a while. Same thing happened with the ILNP holos I got recently. They were screaming "use me", I swear! So today you'll see more nail art with these gorgeous polishes!

From left to right:

• ILNP - Grape Alicious
• ILNP - Admire Me
• ILNP - Molly
• ILNP - A.C. Slater

I decided to do a simple pattern: leopard print. It looked different in my mind than what it turned into, but I still like it.

I started with 3 of the polishes as a base: Grape Alicious, Admire Me and Molly. Two coats of each. I then added the coloured dots with a dotting tool. The base of Admire Me has the leopard in Grape Alicious and Molly, etc. I outlined them with A.C. Slater.

All pictures are taken with flash by the way, it does bring out the holo goodness in these polishes. The mani appears a bit darker in indirect light. No sunshine in sight lately either. Oh, do you see how long my index fingernail is? It usually breaks corners before I get to this length (of course I had the corner breaks on other nails, but shhhh).

Don't you think Admire Me has the most perfect name? This turquolo has to be admired and I do, I promise!

I wonder which patterns the other ladies chose... how many leopard prints will we see?

33DC2013 Day 29 - your favourite pattern

Today's prompt should be about my favourite pattern. I can't really say I have a favourite pattern though. In the end I did a simple mani with two of my favourite things: textured polishes and dots.

The two polishes I used:

• KIKO Sugar Mat - 644 Sea Blue
• Seventeen Rock Hard Couture - Cameo Crush

I have lemminged over Cameo Crush since I first saw a swatch here. It was on my wishlist when I went to London last month and I was happy to find a bottle. And it is gorgeous!

I am wearing two coats of both polishes on each nail. Both dry textured with a shimmer, though Cameo Crush's shimmer is way more apparent. When it was dry I simply added dots with a dotting tool and voilà!

It felt like forever since I last wore a textured polish... it must have been a month at least! I don't have a clue yet what I'll do for this Friday's manicure, but you'll see!

Perhaps the other ladies have actual favourite patterns they used today!

33DC2013 Day 28 - lines

Today's prompt is lines. I kept it simple using only striping tape to create the lines.

From left to right:

• ILNP - A.C. Slater
• ILNP - Molly

A look at A.C. Slater in the bottle, isn't it magnificent?

Flash

Flash

I started with a base of Molly, which you can see in her full glory here. After top coat and drying time I added striping tape to my nails. I just grabbed one of the rolls nearest to me, a white one I had not used before. I tend to tape all my nails before I continue. I shouldn't have. After I added A.C. Slater and removed the pieces of tape with my tweezers some of the tape's glue was left behind. It only seemed to do this on the nails that had the tape on longest. I had to wait until everything dried thoroughly before I could gently rub the glue off.

Flash

Flash

When I finally removed all the remnant glue I added top coat. A.C. Slater looked lovely with the bright magenta Molly stripes, nice contrast. It's a slate grey, dark and distinguished.

Flash

Direct light

Direct light

Please excuse my weird looking skin colour on the two pictures taken with direct light, I still have to figure out the best setting on my camera for these kinds of pictures.

Go visit the other ladies as well!

Swatch - ILNP Grape Alicious & Molly

Hi all!

A while ago I passed a work related exam and treated myself to a few ILNP (I Love Nail Polish) holos. I bought 4 of them during the pre-sale and got a 5th Limited Edition for free (any pre-order of 3+ polishes received Absolute Zero, only available through this promotion, wheeee). I've worn nothing else since my box of goodies arrived earlier this week. I am in love. These are my first proper holographic polishes as well, I own one HEMA holographic polish which is not worth your money. Especially not once you've seen these.

All ILNP polishes come in a cute box with a name sticker on top, so easy to store in your Helmer and you still know which polish is which. The cap has a rubbery finish which gives it very good grip. All pictures are two coats, no top coat. I do recommend to use top coat as I did have slight sheet marks the next day.

Flash

ILNP Grape Alicious is a re-release and it is a vampy dark purple. It is gorgeous. In direct light it is slightly lighter in colour like the bottle shots on the ILNP website show. In direct light and with flash the holographic bend is amazing, I could watch it all day. I unfortunately don't have sunlight pictures, the sun was hiding behind clouds all week (plus I tend to be at work if it does show itself).

Flash

Indirect light

The picture above shows the polish in indirect light (lightbox), and below the transformation with flash. It is so lovely. These are also the last pictures before a major nail break... I added a gradient with Admire Me on my second day when the break happened, before I could take pictures *grumbles*.

Flash

Next up is ILNP Molly. She's a magenta holo that is to die for and has the adorable name sticker on the bottom of the bottle. Again all pictures show 2 coats and no top coat.

Direct light

I managed to break a huge corner off my middle finger nail (and my thumb as well) the second day I was wearing Grape Alicious, I had to file it shorter to make it less obvious *sad face*. I cheered myself up afterwards with Molly on my nails. How could it not cheer me up? Look at it!

Indirect light

Flash

I just love the linear bend this polish throws at you, and that colour... love these shades of pink. Nice and bold.

Flash

The other ILNP holos I bought are Admire Me and A.C. Slater. You'll see A.C. Slater on Monday for the 33DC Challenge. Admire Me will make it to my nails again soon. I love them all!

There are a lot more new releases on the ILNP website, including holo versions of the Multichromes! Trust me, it was hard to limit myself to a few of them. They were officially released yesterday, so grab some while you still can! I do recommend signing up to the ILNP newsletter, you'll get notice of pre-sales. Their pre-sale system is flawless, you can add yourself to a queue and get a message once your spot on the website has opened up.  That way the website does not crash due to high traffic. It's smooth sailing this way.

33DC2013 Day 27 - a mani featuring 3 patterns

Today is about 3 patterns... I immediately knew I had to use my MoYou London Sailor Collection 04 plate for this. It consists of 18 designs that fit my nails besides my thumb. If you want bigger images these designs are on the XL plates as well. The images I used for today are on XL 05 *winks*.

I could have done something with all the cute fish and shell images, but that did not feel like autumn to me. I decided on the scale type patterns instead.

Polishes I used:

• Catrice - 32 The Dark Knight
• NYC - 011 Power of Elements

The Dark Knight is a vampy dark purple, opaque in 2 coats. It has a fuchsia shimmer as well, which you can just see below the cap in the bottle shot. It's lovely on its own as well.

I stamped with Power of Elements, a pink metallic that stamps perfectly! I decided to add french tips as well. I didn't think straight frenchies would look nice, so I went with the curves of the design. I really like how this looks.

My left thumb looks horrible, for some reason when I applied top coat the stamped image decided to move. I must have held my thumb to one side, the top coat had gathered there in a thicker blob stretching the image with it. Therefore, no thumb shot of the left hand. I do have the right one for you!

Similar to left as you can see, except my middle finger, the stamp did not transfer that well, I think I wasn't quick enough. So this one has a half moon as well.

What is your favourite image? I think I'll go with the one on my ring finger and thumb. It shows more of the base colour, although you can't see I am wearing a dark purple that well.

I suspect a lot of the other ladies went with stamping as well, you can see below!

33DC2013 Day 26 - Something from Pinterest

I have wanted to recreate this manicure from Pinterest since I saw it months ago. Took me a while to finally do it! I didn't want to copy it completely, so I used different colours and 2 accent nails instead of one!

From left to right:

• Essence - 128 Let's get lost
• Catrice - 42 Nickel Minaj

The colour of Let's get lost is not correct in the top picture, it is much closer to the other pictures, though perhaps less blue, more turquoise.

Both polishes needed 2 coats to get it opaque. When it was dry, I started stippling with my smallest dotting tool... lots and lots of dots! I topcoated it with HK Girl topcoat.

I wore this over a month ago during a volunteer beauty day (partly organised by work). We helped an organisation that helps people with disabilities have a great beauty day at a local beauty school. They could get their hair and make-up done by the students of the school. I brought a selection of nail polishes and did a few manicures. I chose to wear a simple manicure in case anyone wanted my manicure on their nails as well. Two clients wanted this stippled manicure, others wanted simple dotted flowers. But they were all happy with their fancy nails! I do not have pictures to show you of that day (pictures were taken, but can't be used publicly to ensure the privacy of everyone that attended). It felt great making those ladies happy with something as simple as this.

I love the simplicity and elegance of this manicure. I think it will look good in a lot of other colour combinations as well. Black/White, Red/Gold, Black/Gold, Black/Silver, Navy/White... possibilities are endless!