Recap - August Favourites

Hello Lovelies!

Wow, two thirds of this year have already gone by. Where did time go? I hope you had a wonderful year so far and are ready for my August Favourites!

Pearly Indian Violet (August 5th):

Zipper Mani (August 18th):

Purple Gradient with Pansies (August 25th):

Summer Flowers (August 31st):

This month it was a real challenge to put this selection together. Even though I was on vacation and didn't blog for a whole week I had so manicures to pick from. I hope you like my choices.

What was your favourite manicure this month?

You may also like:

• Summer Neon Manicure
• July Favourites
• March Favourites

Catrice - Get Boho In SoHo & Water Decal Fail

Hello Sweeties!

How are you today? A while back I showed you the Mickey Mouse manicure I did for my Fianceés nieces birthday and talked a bit about what I was wanting to do originally. 

I've been meaning to wear these water decals with the gorgeous rainbow swirl and after working quite a while on getting them on something really bad happend, but let's get to that in the end. First I want to show you swatches of Get Boho In SoHo by catrice.

Get Boho In SoHo is from the Satin Matt Collection (05) and has about the same formula as Minty Memories. It is very tricky to apply and the first coat goes on extremely streaky. It easily bubbles and shows brushstrokes. For this manicure I used two coats.

But I really like this polish even though it is a little troublemaker. Especially for what I had in mind it was perfect with the unobtrusive shimmer. It gave me a wonderful background for the rainbow swirl decals. (I like that better than just a plain old white polish.)

I carefully cut the water decals out, placed them in water and on my nails one by one and once I was done with all ten nails I applied a generous amount of Seche Vite to seal it in. My left hand was done and I went on to do my right hand, when I realised, that the decals started to flow to the sides. I don't know if this was due to the hot weather or if I simply was too generous with the topcoat, but it was aweful and there was no way to save this manicure. I had to take it off immediately after working on it for quite some time. I really was angry! (Mostly with myself of course...)

Have you ever experienced something similar to this?
How do you like this colorful decal? I am so glad I snapped a picture before I applied the top coat. Otherwise I wouldn't even have been able to show you what it could have looked like.

You may also like:

• Butterfly Water Decals
• Advanced Stamping - Tulips
• Comic Nail Art

alessandro - Stone Washed & Zipper Mani

Hello Loves!

I am back from my vacation and even though I really had a wonderful time, I missed blogging and painting my nails! Unfortunately I didn't schedule enough posts for the whole two weeks. But now that I am back I'll do my best to get back into my usual blogging routine! Today I have a manicure to share with you, that I did shortly before my trip. A zipper mani.

The blue polish I used as a base is alessandro - Stone Washed (15-556). Stone Washed has an excellent formula and is easy to apply, But I had some trouble with the brush at first. It is flat, but has a straight tip and so I touched my cuticles a few times. 

I really like the colour a lot it reminds me a bit of blue jeans wich inspired me to do this manicure in the first place. To place the zipper water decals, that I bought from Born Pretty Store, perfectly, I painted a gap on my ringfinger and thumb, that I filled with Barry M - Nude. Once that was dry I cut out my zippers and placed them on my nails.

Some of the decals had a white background wich made them stand out very well, but others didn't and were pretty hard to see. So I am not 100% satisfied with these water decals, but they definitely make a fun manicure! Maybe they would look better if a lighter colour was used as a background.

To create an even better denim look I ripped out a small piece of make-up sponge and dabbed it into some white polish and filled in some of the blue with it. Now it really reminds me of a pair of stone washed jeans! :-D

All in all I do like this manicure.

How do you like it? Have you ever tried BPS water decals?

You may also like:

• Butterfly Water Decals
• BPS Water Decal Accent
• Saran Wrap Manicure

Born Pretty Store Haul & Water Decal Accent Nail

Hello Beauties!

Happy Sunday! I am already on the road to Berlin where we will be staying for a couple of days. This post is the first of many that I've scheduled for you!

A few weeks ago I ordered at Born Pretty Store and finally my package arrived. I was so happy, but cooled down rapidly when I realized that half of my order was missing. Hopefully that will be settled soon. Let me show you my haul first before giving you details on my manicure.

Here is a first view of what I've got. So many packing materials that I didn't realise something was missing at first.

I got some nail art stickers and water decals, a few stamping polishes, some plates, a bottle of liquide latex for easier cleanup when doing gradients and water marbles and a few different 3D bows.

Furthermore I got new stampingplates and some glitter polishes. I am a bit sad that many of them are so similar, but they were only 0.99c so that isn't so bad. Then I realised that my set of holographic polishes (12pcs for $50.-) as well as some other small pieces were missing. That was really frustrating. Not only because it is more than half of what I paid, but these polishes were the main reason for me to order in the first place...

For my manicure I picked the item that immediately caught my eye. These flower decals were part of a three item lucky bag and I fell in love!

I was still wearing Holo My Hand (catrice) with a polkadot accent from the day before. The polish was still perfect and looked lovely with the blue part of the water decals so I decided to only take off my accent and do a new one.

As a base for my ringfinger I used claire's - Magic Show, wich had good coverage in two coats. I then cut out the design, put it into water and grabbed it with some tweezers to place un my nail. This decal was a bit thicker than the ones I've used before. It has a white base underneath the colours wich mahes it pop even better. But this means that you have to pull it off the carrier foil before placing it on your nail. Otherwise you'd end up with a white pattern.

Before sealing it in with Seche Vite I dabbed on it with a paper tissue to soak up the remaining water.

Isn't this a gorgeous accent nail? I am totally in love with it! The green leaves actually don't have a white base underneath and let the glitter shimmer through. Fantastic!

How do you like this combination? Have you ever worked with water decals before?

You may also like:

• Rainbow Water Decals
• Butterfly Water Decals
• 296 & Flower Accent

Butterfly Water Decals

Hello Sweeties!

How are you doing today? On this lovely Tuesday morning I have a short but colourful post to share with you. I used some of my new water decals to create this manicure.

I started my manicure with two coats of Wet 'n Wild - Frenche White Creme and let that base dry very well. In the meantime I prepared my decals by cutting them into nail sized pieces.

Then I soaked them in water one by one and applied them to the nails. As a last step I sealed them in carefully with Seche Vite.

I really like these decals. The butterflies are beautiful, but in my opinion a full manicure with them looks too unsteady. I'll try and do only an accent with these beauties next time to emphasise them even better.

What do you think of these water decals? Would you do a full set with them or use them as an accent? 

You may also like:

• Caribbean Sea & Fimo Sticks
• Black Flowers on Glitterbomb
• Minions

Water Decals - First Attempt

Hello Lovelies!

I still am in Salzburg visiting my mum and hope everything works well with my scheduled posts. Today I want to show you my first attempt in using water decals. I have ordered a bunch of them online a while back and they finally arrived. I did this manicure on Friday and wore it to my mum and aunts birthday brunch on Saturday.

I chose this pattern that reminds me a bit of a rainbow water marble. The instructions on the back are actually quite easy to follow, but I still messed up one or two nails because I forgot to wet my nail too and couldn't move the decal around anymore. I got a few wrinkles on these nails, but the topcoat leveled them out well.

The package says to paint your nails in a background colour and I chose this p2 coral polish by the name dress + go!. That may have been a mistake, because the lighter colours are really hard to tell apart due to it, but I will know for next time to use a white or nude background.

First you cut out the decal, remove the plastic foil and place it in water for a few seconds. Wet your nail (!) and place it on. Press down. Remove the paper, trim off the excess, soak away water with a paper towel and use a top coat to seal it in. The instruction says to use a blowdryer to dry the decal, but I just let it dry like I usually would. Give it a few minutes. I did smudge my first nail a little bit, but it was not too bad.

And now I will show you how it looks like: Tadaaaah!

As you can see here the original pattern was way more colourful and the coral polish swallowed some of it up, but I still like it a lot!

See my pinkie, I removed some of the decal by using too many brushstrokes with my topcoat. Beginners mistake. I did not know they were that fagile. I'll do better next time!

How do you like these colourful decals? Have you ever used water decals yourself?

Please give this post a +1 and share it on google or twitter if you like it to help me spread it. My internet access is very limited at the moment and I would not want anyone to miss it!

Have a great week and enjoy the summer!

You may also like:

• Water Marble
• Black Flowers
• Easy Tape Manicure