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

Mandala Stamping

Hello Beauties!

I am still alive! Thank you for your patience this last week. My internet connection suddenly went down a week ago and it took the cable company forever to send over a techinician. This morning they made final adjustments and as you can see I am back online! Yay! :-D It feels so good.

Today I want to show you a manicure I did on p2 - be my guy that I first shared with you about two weeks ago. I used Maybelline - Gold All Night to stamp on the blue and glittery background.

The image I was using on all of my nails is the left carriage wheel. I find the design very appealing. It reminds me of a mandala with its symmetric pattern.

The design did transfer very well, but on my indexfinger it partially stuck on the stamper.I still am happy with this manicure. In real life it looked even better than it does in these pictures. The contrast between the blue and gold and even between the glitter and gold was higher. The flash from the camera reflected on the golden polish and makes it a bit hard to see.

To add some depht to my design I decided to place light blue rhinestones to the center of the pattern on each nail. The design looks kind of like the suns I used to draw when I was a kid. (Okay, I still do, when I am painting with my niece and nephew...)

I hope you are alright and had a good week and weekend. I have to do some serious blog reading and catching up this week. Being offline for 8 days is terrible! I even missed to blog about my September favourites, but I will still do that sometime this week.

I hope you do like this design as much as I do. Does it remind you of a mandala too?

You may also like:

• Holographic Pearls
• Butterfly Stamping
• Purple Gradient with Pansies

Green Glitter Gradient

Hello Beauties!

Happy Sunday! Sorry for my absence yesterday. There was just so much to do after a week of being sick, that I didn't have time to write a blogpost. Today I have to show you a beautiful fall manicure that I first intended to wear as an accent nail only but ended up doing on all my nails.

The green polish I used as a base is 210 from trend IT UP. It is from the same line as the apricot polish I swatched for you a few days ago. See the post here. And yes it is very smelly too! I really love the green colour with a hint of blue, but I guess I will not be using it anymore. I can not stand the smell.

It was however the perfect base to create a glitter gradient on. First I added a little bit of Holographic Pearls and then went over it with p2 - start wild!.

I really loved the look of this combination a lot and felt like doing a full glitter manicure.

And here is the result. It reminds me a bit of Christmas with all that sparkle, but I think it also looks great for fall.

I wish you all a happy Sunday. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and take care!

Hope you like this glitter gradient. Would you wear it in autumn?

You may also like:

• Stained Glass Flowers
• Purple Gradient With Pansies
• Oyster & Champagne

claire's - Runway & flormar - Atomic Bomb

Hello Beauties!

I am still feeling a bit under the weather and find it hard to concentrate, but hopefully this will be another blogpost you can enjoy reading. Today I want to show you claire's - Runway, from my Berlin Shopping Spree. There are so many gorgeous polishes there. I still find it hard to choose wich one to swatch next...

Runway is a dark purple creme polish with a blueish, pearly shimmer and a slightly metallic finish. My camera always has trouble catching dark purple colours right so unfortunately in the pictures the polish looks a bit more blue and less purple than it actually is. 

The formula of Runway is pretty good. It applied smoothly and spread evenly. For full opacity it required two thin coats. I did also use a topcoat for these swatches.

Even though I really like the colour I felt the need to add some extra sparkles and applied a layer of flormar Genius Glitter - Atomic Bomb (GG06) to my middle- and ringfinger.

Atomic Bomb is an amazing glitter polish. It is packed with tiny round and some small hexagonal iridescent silver glitter pieces and also contains some square glitter that instantly catches your attention. If you are looking for a lovely glitter for a special occasion I would definitely recommend this one. I love it!

And look how dense it is with only one coat! No extra dabbing needed.

If you love a good glitter polish try getting your hands on to this beauty. You won't regret it!

How do you like todays manicure? Are you a fan of glitter accent nails?

You may also like:

• Splash
• Violet Village
• Red Seduction

Revlon - Holographic Pearls

Hello Lovelies!

Happy Friday! We made it through the week! Today I want to show you Revlon - Holographic Pearls (765) that I finally got after searching for it for ages!

Ever since I saw pictures of it online I knew I had to have it. I went into the city and looked everywhere, but couldn't find a single bottle of Revlon polish. Then I looked online. Maybe I could order it via Amazon. That would have been possible, but I wasn't willing to pay €40.- plus shipping for one bottle of nailpolish. When we went to Berlin on vacation I was looking in every store that sold nailpolish and couldn't find anything. Finally a nice sales assistant told me that Revlon is no longer selling in Germany, because of some distribution problems. Wow, had I known that earlier on... Well, I still would have visited all those stores I guess! :-D (check out my Berlin Haul).

A few weeks back my future sister in law went on a business trip to the USA and I asked her if she could maybe get me a bottle of Holographic Pearls. And guess what - SHE DID! She even bought me two bottles!

And finally I can show you swatches of this beauty. I have already used it is an accent in my Aloha shirt manicure, but here are some more details for you. Holographic pearls is a glitter top coat with a transforming effect. It has a clear base packed with tiny iridescent glitter particles that shimmer in all the colours of the rainbow. One layer is enough to cover your entire nail with glitter and make it look stunning.

For this manicure I started to paint my nails in black and white. I then added one layer of Holographic Pearls to my black ringfinger and two layers to my white middle finger. Look how gorgeous the sparkle in the sun!

On my pinkie and indexfinger I added some polkadots and filled them on with the glitter too. I really love the glitter density in this topper. You only need a very small amount of polish to get great results.

On my thumb I decided to stamp on two red roses with my Born Pretty Store stamping polish to add just a hint of colour. I forgot to write down wich plate I used, but I think that's not the most important thing here.

You may have guessed it: I LOVE THIS POLISH! It is so pretty and I reached for it so often ever since I got it.

How do you like this sparkling glitter? Do you own it too?

You may also like:

• Leadlight Flowers
• Sheer Tints Gradient
• Gradient on Black Swan

kiko - Dark Carmine Red & Aloha Shirt

Hello Sweeties!

I hope you are allright and had a good week so far. Today I want to show you another summer themed manicure that I wore last weekend. It was so warm here I totally felt like it and today it is going to be a sunny day too so I am posting this manicure that reminds me of an Hawaiian shirt.

The base colour I used for this manicure is kiko - Dark Carmine Red (287), a deep, luscious magenta creme polish. In some lighting it looks like a pinkish red, in other more like a dark pink. I would say it is something in between. There is also a little bit of shimmer in this polish. It doesn't sit on top like a pearl finish, but is embedded into the polish like microglitter.

The formula of Dark Carmine Red is excellent. With two coats it is perfectly opaque and it applies smoothly. I didn't do any clean up at this point in my manicure and as you can see there is only a little bit of staining on the sidewall of my ringfinger, no running, pooling or smudging. On its own DCR has a slightly glossy finish, but I would use a topcoat to make it even glossier, because I personally prefer that.

Once that was completely dry I added a layer of Revlon - Holographic Pearls (765) to my ring- and middlefinger. I will tell you a bit more about this polish in one of my next posts. Only so much: It was an odyssey for me to get it!

I then stamped on some hibiscus flowers from my DER-31 plate with white stamping polish. (Check out what's on this plate in my beautiful Purple Gradient with Pansies manicure.)

Initially I only wanted to do my pinkie, but it looked so gorgeous on the magenta base colour, that I had to go on and even add little flower accents to my glitter nails. I am 100% in love with this manicure!

I hope you like it too! Look how sparkly that glitter is! I can not stop looking at these pictures...

Are you a fan of flower nails? How do you like this combination?

You may also like:

• Neon Manicure
• BPS Water Decal
• Leadlight Flowers