Neon geometric Christmas nails

Hi everyone! I thought it would be fun to do a Christmas mani (Christmani XD) in neon colors. I already had the idea of building a Christmas tree and six-pointed star with see-through triangles using tape, and when I stumbled upon China Glaze Surfin' For Boys in my stash, I knew it would be the perfect color for the job. It's so incredibly bright! For these photos I used my iPhone5 camera, it's much more accurate with capturing the true color of Surfin' For Boys than my trusty old Canon IXUS 85 IS, but even in these pictures the brightness is nothing compared to seeing it in reality.

I combined the Christmas ornaments with random triangle shapes in neon yellow, teal and silver. The polishes I used were Orly Glowstick, Color Club Age of Aquarius and China Glaze Millennium. The 'white' basecolor (actually a super light grey) is Essence Enter Wonderland, a very pretty matt polish. To keep that lovely matt finish in the entire look, I finally sealed everything with matt topcoat. Hope you like it and thanks for reading!

OPI DS - Reflection

This post I want to share a beauty from the vault with you: OPI DS Reflection! Oh, how I love this polish... I often reach for it when I'm in a hurry but still want something really pretty on my nails. There's corally red, there's scattered holo and a bit of gold shimmer. Doesn't it look amazing? I applied two smooth and quick drying coats, but it could do with one thicker layer too. Well done, OPI!

South Africa?

Hello everyone! I'm interrupting the 31 Day Challenge for this colorful tape mani. The reaction that I heard most about this mani is how it looks like the South African flag. While it wasn't intended, I agree it kind of does. Not just the design, but even the colors are a bit similar. However, this mani was actually a result from adjusting and experimenting with an earlier design; the fifty-fifty mani. I had worn the corally pink color (H&M Wildflower) for a day and added the muted teal the next morning. And though I already liked how that looked, I had to do something that would cover up my slight tipwear, hence the purple chevrons which you see in the last picture. That was cute too but it wasn't quite finished until I added the little black chevrons. Amazing how much of a difference a bit of black can make. ^^

This mani was also a great oppurtunity to try out two new polishes from Etos (Dutch drugstore), #122 (teal) and #118 (purple). Etos recently released a whole bunch of new exciting colors and I'm thrilled about it, because both their quality and price are quite reasonable (€2.50 for 5ml/0.5 fl.oz). Thanks for reading!

Big thank you to my little brother for taking this picture for me. ^^

Springy stripes

Now that spring is slowly starting to appear, I've noticed I like to wear pastels more often now. This week I'd been wearing China Glaze Lemon Fizz for a few days and when I got tired of it I spiced it up with a colorful tape mani. It wasn't my intention to make stripes though, after I did blue tips with China Glaze For Audrey I wanted to add geometric patterns in coral with Essence Think Pink. However, Think Pink was a lot sheerer than I thought, creating different tones of coral with the polish underneath. (The middle two colors are For Audrey and Lemon Fizz underneath Think Pink.) I was so pleasently surprised by this that I continued playing with this layering effect and ended up with these cheerful stripes. :-) Thanks for reading!

W.I.C. - Roskilde & Hollywood

Hi everyone! For this post I have some polishes from W.I.C. by Herôme to share with you. Herôme is a Dutch nail and hand care brand, they first started selling mainly treatment products but now also have a big, colorful nail polish collection named W.I.C. (World Inspired Colours). Each polish is inspired by and named after a big city. I'm a very, VERY lucky girl for having the entire W.I.C. core collection that I won in a nail art contest, but in addition to that Herôme has kindly sent me four new polishes from their latest limited collections from which I'm going to show you the first two today.

From left to right: Aspen, Hollywood, Roskilde and Frederiksberg.

This pretty from the Denmark collection is called Roskilde. Roskilde is a corally pink creme with a subtle pink shimmer. Because the pink is red-toned, it's a lovely warm color which actually suits my skintone, unlike many other soft pink shades. I know it looks pretty much just coral in the pictures, but that's because my camera just won't capture the pink tones in colors like this. The formula was excellent, like I'm used to from their other cremes, and the application was easy with the flat brush. So a great polish I'd say, although it's not unique. The first time I had Roskilde in my hands, it immediately reminded me of Essie Your Hut Or Mine which I also have. They looked so identical in the bottles that I didn't bother to compare swatches. They both have the same color and amount of the pink shimmer. And both need two coats to cover. Although I absolutely prefer Roskilde over Your Hut Or Mine appliaction-wise, since the latter tends to leave bald spots on me with the second coat.

W.I.C. Roskilde and Essie Your Hut Or Mine

Next up is Hollywood from the Wickedly Glamorous collection. Hollywood is a blend of small iridiscent and silver glitters is a sheer pink base. The formula is smooth and the glitters spread evenly, nothing to say there. It looks amazing in the bottle with the pink base, very princessy, though the pink will not show on the nails so I applied it over Roskilde. It looks so girly! ^^

All in all I think both polishes are nice to have, Roskilde in particular, though you won't need them if you've got something similar in your stash. What's your thought on these polishes?

W.I.C. nail polishes are available in the Herôme online shop for €7.50 per bottle of 0.7ml/0.2 fl.oz., or €12.50 for two. Shipping is worldwide. The products in this post were sent to me for review. This does not influence my opinion on the reviewed product.

Vintage clouds

Hi guys! For this post I have another request to show you. A little while ago I received an email from a reader who wanted me to come up with a funky mani for her informal dance soon. A few colors she liked were teal and coral, so I combined them in this "funky clouds" look. I like how simple this design is to achieve. Just pick three matching colors, one for you base color and two for the cloud shapes on top. The clouds are made by applying three strokes of polish next to each other, each smaller than the one before. My tip is to leave enough polish on the brush (but not too much!) so that when it touches the surface it will leave a nice, round dot as start point. This doesn't even need a lot of precision and you can just use the brush from your polish for this. And that's it :) Though I would advise using a fast drying top coat afterwards if you don't want to wait too long for your nails to dry, after all it's three coats of polish. (Four if you include base coat.) I like the way it looks here with plain cremes, but for a more festive look, a layer of (iridiscent) glitter can be added.

Below you can see the same look with China Glaze Midnight Kiss on the tips, which I made first. But after I took the pictures I noticed how Bella matched the rest of the polishes better so I just redid everything, for your viewing pleasure haha. Have a great night!

The polishes I used:
Essence - What Do U think? Version 1 (It looks less orange in real life)
China Glaze - For Audrey
Essence - Bella

Flamingo inspired nails

Hi guys! There are many nail art contests hosted lately. The last two I entered have just ended and I'm already participating in the next one. This time it's the Animalistic nail art contest at Spooky Nails. I found it hard to come up with something animal-related which was original at the same time. Finally I came up with the flamingo bird, I was attracted by its corally pink color and the long, curved neck. So I went googling for some images and found some beautiful ones where the flamingos are relaxing in the water. Their pinky color formed such a nice contrast with the water and I immediately knew that I wanted to make something that would capture that contrast. I tried to keep the overall look simple by using the flamingo design as accent nails only. The colors I used were Essence You're The One (corally pink), China Glaze For Audrey and Rimmel Sky High for the tips. I also added a layer of White Cap over For Audrey on my accent nails, which is barely visible in the pics. But in the second picture below, where I didn't add the birds yet, you can see it a bit better.

There are many others participating in the contest, so please visit Spooky Nails to have a look at all the creative entries and vote for your favorite!

UPDATE: Unfortunately my entry didn't win in the contest, the winner was Mada with a cute and simple, sillhouette cat creation. Congratulations, Mada! Also thanks if you had voted for me! :)