Apricot Gradient & Desert Stamping

Hello Sweeties!

How are you today? I am sitting at my desk right now, looking outside at the beautiful trees that are changing their colour, a blue sky with some little white clouds and listening to the birds singing their songs. My cup of tea smells fantastic and I am happy to be typing again. So here is todays post. The apricot colours I used are lovely for spring and summer, but I also think they are gorgeous for a sunny autumn day like today.

I painted my nails with one coat of Rival de Loop - pastel look and then sponged on a gradient using pastel look (02) and sunny look (03). Without a topcoat it looks a bit gritty, but after I layered over some Fairy Dust from china glaze I really liked the result a lot.

The top coat always helps bringing together the colours and blends them to a wonderful gradient. The pastel apricot and the peachy shade look lovely as a gradient, don't you think?

I then decided to use my Born Pretty Store stamping plate BP-31 to do a little stamping on my nails, but first I created two accent nails, that reminded me of sand and totally underlined the egyptian theme I was planning to do. I removed the polish from my middle and index finger, applied a white base and used the golden/apricot holo polish #6 from my BPS Holographics Set.

To get the colourful design I used multiple stamping polishes that I all bought from Born Pretty Store recently. (Check out the full haul.) For the palm trees I mixed together some black, green and a bit of yellow as well as a metallic green stamping polish. My camel is yellow with some white and the pyramides are black with a touch of yellow, wich looks like there is sand sprinkled all over them.

I am super happy with my manicure. Only my middle finger is a disappointment. I waited quite some time before stamping and still the polish got smudged horribly. I still wanted to share it with you, because I think the colourful design is very cute and I wanted you to see the beautiful motives from the BP-31 plate I haven't used before. I actually bought this plate for the full nail designs in the middle, but as it turns out the otheres are wonderful too!

And here is one last look at my thumb nail. Here you can see the metallic green stamping polish I used. It looks a bit blue in this picture, but it's not. It actually has a lovely golden shimmer. When you remove the polish and swipe over with a cotton ball, the green colour vanishes first and leaves the golden paticles behind and you can still see your design. I will show you this stamping polish in a separate post. It is totally worthy of that!

How do you like my egyptian stamping design?

You may also like:

• Neon Polishes Advanced Stamping (BP-31)
• Blackstar Red (BP-31)
• Lady Look

trend IT UP - Double Volume & Shine 050

Hello Lovelies!

How was your weekend? I hope you had a good one. Today I want to share with you a polish I bought in Berlin. This is trend IT UP Double Volume & Shine - 050. (I also did a little nail art on it so scrol down all the way! ;-D)

050 is a light salmon creme polish with a peachy untertone and a beautiful subtle shimmer that is best visible in direct sunlight, under a flash or any other direct lighting. See the little sparkles in the upper corner of the bottle?

I have tried polishes from the Holo Dimension line of this new brand, but this was my first from the Double Volume & Shine line. I really love this colour and I think it is perfect for autumn, but I am not sure I will ever use it again. This polish stinks! I have smelt a lot of nailpolish and even some with a very "heavy" odour, but this one tops it all. It doesn't have the typical polish smell. It is somehow sweet and tangy - the most repellent stench I've ever smelt in a polish.

The formula is okay. It is a bit on the thinner side, but not too runny. You have to be careful though with the amount of polish you put on your brush. The brush is quite thick and dense and also has some kind of reservoir at the top, where a drop of polish gets cought and runs down the brush when you apply it to your nail. You have to press that out first of your cuticles will be flooded.

I used three coats of 050 to get full coverage.It does take quite some time to dry so I had some trouble with my final coat. It was a bit streaky at the edges. The polish dries to a very glossy finish. But that was to be expected due to the name of the line - Double Volume & Shine. However I wouldn't say thet this polish was extra voluminous. At least not more than any other polish that needs three coats to be opaque.

I then stamped on a purple flower design using Double Volume & Shine 270 and the plate below (B87). (I have to use that Hello Kitty design someday!)

I was not quite happy with how that turned out and the polish was smelly even after it dried. I knew I'd take it off immediately so I decided to try out something different and layered one coat of kiko - Pearly Red (492) over it to add some colour and sparkle.

I didn't do a great job painting the colour on evenly but I still like the result very much with the design shining through the sparkly polish. 

How do you like todays manicure? Have you ever dealt with a polish that had an unbearable smell?

You may also like:

• Summer Flowers
• Tulips Accent
• Sunset Gradient

catrice - Rosy One More Time

Hello Lovelies!

How was your weekend so far? Yesterday we had a wonderful sunny day and were visiting family. I made a Sachertorte, an austrian chocolate cake. It was delicious. Today I want to share with you a manicure I did about tow months ago. I still haven't fixed my laptop so no new pics for now. 

This is catrice - Rosy One More Time (21) a peachy creme polish with a lovely shimmer. At first the polish looks like a regular nude, but when you take a closer look it actually is a light peach or apricot colour with a hardly visible silver, pearl shimmer. The formula is excellent and applied smoothly. it is however pretty sheer. I used three coats for these swatches, but there is still a bit of VNL (visible nail line).

Rosy One More Time is a colour you can wear year round. I like it a lot for summer, but it will also look good in autumn and can be easily paired with other autumnal colours like orange, brown or gold. In winter it will just add a touch of colour to a grey outfit or manicure. And in spring it matches with all the sweet blossoms and soft colours out there. I would recomment layering it over a white base though to get perfect coverage and an intense colour.

I am totally in love with this catrice shade. How do you like it?

You may also like:

• Stained Glass Flowers
• Summer Flowers
• Oyster & Champagne

Born Pretty Store - Holographics Set

Hello Lovelies!

How was your weekend? Are you ready to start into this new week? A while back I showed you my Born Pretty Store Haul. Unfortunately there were a few items missing. I finally received my set of 12 holographic polishes. They are numbered 1-12.

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 8 - 9 - 10 - 11 - 12

The first thing I did was naturally to put them on a display to see how the colours look like. Aren't they gorgeous? I can't wait to try them all. They are so damn sparkly.

Here are some more detailed looks at the bottles:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4

silver - pink - baby pink - red

5 - 6 - 7 - 8

orange - apricot - gold - blue

9 -10 - 11 - 12 

purple - light blue - violet - moss-green

How great are these colours? Do you own any of them? Wich one would you like to see on my nails soon?

You may also like:

• Holo My Hand
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• Huge Polish Haul

claire's - Neon Polishes & Advanced Stamping Accent

Hello Lovelies!

And a very Happy Friday! Today I want to show you a summer manicure that is perfect for the hot and sunny weather we are having again right now. For this manicure I used only polishes I bought in Berlin and shared with you yesterday (Day 2), plus a black stamping polish.

First let me show you how I created my accent nail: I used the advanced stamping technique wich means that you transfer a pattern to your stamper and then fill it out with your desired colours. Once that is dry you paint on a topcoat and peel it of 30 minutes later (or the next day. Just make sure everything is dry!) I also included a layer of white to make the neon polishes stand out even better. But I would not recommend doing that. It is better to paint your nail white before placing the decal on. In my opinion this makes the cleanup easier and prevents white borders.

Once you placed the decal on your nail in the right position press down gently and remove any excess. You can cut it down with a pair of scissors or remove it with acetone or polish remover. What I like to do is to press down against the side walls of my fingers with an orange stick and break off the excess. This only works with a very well dried decal so be patient! :-)

Once you're finished with cleaning everything up seal in your decal with top coat. Don't use too many brushstrokes or you might smudge your beautiful design. I used Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat wich in my opinion is the best top coat ever. It gives a wonderful glossy finish and dries rapidly. It also almost never smudges a design.

I painted my other nails with different neon shades. On my thumb I used the orange Stormy Day, on my pointer Cobalt. The pink on my middlefinger is called Rave and the green polish on my pinkie is Pinball. All the polishes required three coats to be opaque. The formulas were all very similar and very good. I had no trouble with the application and they dried fast.

For my decal I also used the other neon shades I purchased. The yellow California Girl and the purple Electric. Furthermore I used an apricot neon shade by the name Pastel Neons. I bought this one a day later so you will see it in part 3 of my Berlin series.

I topped off all of my nails with Seche Vite. I really love how this manicure turned out. I was not sure that I liked neon polish on my nails, but this manicure proofed me wrong. Maybe a full set of neon in one colour would be too much, but this way it is perfect for me.

I also love how the polish seems to be glowing in direct sunlight. The colours look so intense and are just beautiful to look at. On the polish bottles it says 'fluorescent'. I am not sure if that means they'd glow under a black light. Do you have any experience in that department?

Have a great weekend everyone and enjoy the sun! I sure will.

How do you like this neon summer manicure? Would you wear it like this or do you prefer in in one colour?

Oh, I almost forgot to mention wich stamping plate I used. It is the BP-31 plate from my Born Pretty Store Haul. I do have quite a selection of stamping plates but only a few of them have such great full nail patterns. I definitely have to get more of those! Any suggestions?

You may also like:

• Zipper Mani
• Handpainted Flowers
• Black Swan

new essence polishes

Hello Lovelies!

Today I have a very short post for you. I bought a bunch of nailpolish online a while back and totally forgot to show you these lovely essence polishes. They all are a bit older and no longer for sale in stores so I was super happy with getting my hands on them.

prom berry - chic reloaded - off to miami! - sweet as candy - once I was an angel

Wich one is your favourite? I think I will try off to miami! first. It is perfect for summer.

You may also like:

• glorious aquarius
• green tea for two
• polish purchase

Drugstore Polish Haul

Hello Beauties!

And Happy Friday! As usual I could not resist buying a couple of new polishes, when I went to the drugstore this week. It was even more tempting to buy some from the Limited Editions I discovered. Let me show you what I got:

p2 LE - Beauty goes Safari: offers four new polishes in trendy colours for the upcoming season with a gorgeous chatoyant pearl effect. I got three of them.

unforgettable - runaway - sunsational

NYX: Under The Moon - Enchanted Forest

p2 Metal Reflections: apricot soul - mint metal

Maybelline Color Show: Watery Waste - Grey Matters

essence - brit-tea LE: Have A Beau-Tea-Full Day - Green Tea For Two

There are some real beauties here, that I can not wait to put on and show you! I wish you all a great weekend.

Do you have a favourite polish from this haul?

You may also like:

• Shopping in Munich
• Latest Polish Purchase
• Cinderella Limited Edition