kiko - Pearly Red & Fall Stamping

Hello Lovelies!

Happy Friday my lovely readers! I hope you are well and had a good start into the new season. I am feeling much better today too and am almost back to normal. So today I want to show you a manicure I created last friday and wore until Wednesday. I usually don't wear my manis that long, but this one was so pretty and I didn't feel like playing around with polish anyway. I guess another reason that it lastet this long is that I was too weak to use my hands for anything else than reading or handeling the remote controle... :-)

But before I go into details to the finished manicure let me take you there step by step and show you swatches of my base colour first. This is kiko - Pearly Red (492).

Pearly Red is not really a red polish. In my opinion it is a wonderful and intense orange (leaning towards vermilion) crelly polish, with lots of micro flakies in it. I find it quite hard to describe, but as you can see it is very sparkly and shiny. The colour is perfect for fall.

The formula of Pearly Red is fantastic. The first coat is quite transparent, but with the second coat it is opaque. The polish applies smoothly and spreads evenly. There was hardly any clean up to do.

I then used a make-up sponge to apply kiko - Vino Perlato (493) to the tips of my nails and create a gradient with it.

Vino Perlato is very similar to Pearly Red only in a deep red tone. This colour is amazing and I have to show it to you another time by itself.

To get an even finish I applied a layer of Seche Vite over my gradient.

I then used a black stamping polish and the heart design from the plate shown above to stamp on all of my nails. I tried to place the center of the design randomly across my nails to give the design a more natural look. The hearts remind me a bit of leaves.

To finish this manicure I applied another layer of top coat to my nails and added a small clear rhinestone to the center of my stamping. 

I love this look. The gradient and the design go so well together and the clear rhinestones add a little brightness to the manicure. After taking the pictures I did add another coat of Seche Vite to seal in my stones too.

I wish you a very happy weekend and hope you like my fall design. Do you like the colours for this season?

You may also like:

• Autumnal Gradient
• BPS Holo #12
• Sashimi Ship

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

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

Berlin Shopping Spree Summary

Hello Sweeties!

I just wanted to do a quick post with all three parts of my latest haul. I am amazed with all the beautiful polishes I bought for a really reasonable price!

Day - 1:

 Day - 2:

 Day - 3:

I LOVE THEM ALL! :-D

Berlin Shopping Spree - Day 3

Hello Beauties!

Happy Wednesday! Today I want to show you the final part of my Berlin Shopping Spree - Day 3. Check out the first two parts here: Day 1 & Day 2.

I want to start with the claire's polishes. They still had the same deal that I mentioned in my previous post (link above): Buy 3 Pay 2. And additionally all polishes were on sale for only 2€. The green one on the left was even down to 1€.

Cloud - Pastel Neons - Magical Unicorn - Velour - Disco Ball - Splash - Mirror Green

Next up are some new kiko polishes:

Violet Microglitter (255) - Vino Perlato (493) - Pearly Red (492)

I also got these two beauties from p2:

good deal (619) - high five (628)

My favourite drugstore is called dm. dm is short for Drogerie Markt wich means drugstore. Simple name huh? :-D They recently launched the new trend it up line (info in the link in German, but still some gorgeous pics!). I bought one Holo Dimension and three Double Volume & Shine polishes. Sadly they don't have names...

040 - 050 - 270 - 210

I also bought some more flormar polishes. I simply had to go back to the store since we don't have one in Munich and I didn't know when I'll get the chance to lay my hands on them again.

395 -236 - Violet Primrose (415) - 391

Candy Apple (SC01) - Sweet Grape (SC07) - Blueberry Gummy (SC02) -

 072 - Atomic Bomb (GG06)

I am so pleased with all my purchases. What would you want me to try first?

You may also like:

• Neon Manicure
• Shopping in Salzburg
• Enchanted Forest

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