Lightning

It's go through old photos day at April's house. Here's another quick post with some forgotten nails. I can't quite remember what I was going for here...
I used Sinful Secret Admirer (one of my all time favorites) for the base & the Painted Nail by Nubar OMG Gorgeous for the lightning.

Thanks for reading!
April

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Full Tribal Mani

Hello everyone! And happy Mother's Day to all the mommies out there. :-) Yesterday I already showed you my tribal accent nail. And as much as I liked it, I couldn't stop wondering how a full mani with the black and white pattern would look, et voilà! ^^ I had a lot of fun working on it and I can't wait to do it again in different colors, any color schemes you suggest?

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Black and White Tribal

Oooh, more tribal nails! I hope you don't mind. :-) I just love how detailed it looks with only little effort, especially if you use it for an accent nail only. Also it's a cute eyecatcher that way and a great excuse for being lazy, haha. The tribal print was freehanded with a white striper polish over black and the purple is OPI's Planks A Lot. Thanks for stopping by!

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Chic Chevrons

Hi everyone! For this post I have chic chevrons to show you, in a quite unusual color. I'm talking about my basecolor which is Heavenly from the Dutch brand Koh. Heavenly is a dusty pinktoned beige creme. It's one of the few nude colors I've ever worn. I know nudes are very popular these days, but I never really payed attention to them before since I like bright colors on my nails so much. Then Koh kindly sent me Heavenly (among other polishes) for review and I'm glad they did! I never thought I could like nudes a lot but I actually loved Heavenly, and wore it for several days which is quite long for me. Also the formula and application were really nice. Because of the light color I expected it to be chalky, but it applied like butter and covered in two coats.

After two days I decided to add nail art to my calm mani. I always think dusty pinks look really chic with a hint of black or gold, so I used both of them in these chevrons which I made with tape. First I made the outer black chevron, later I added the smaller gold one and then another smaller black one. The polishes I used for the job were Color Club Where's The Soiree? and China Glaze 2030, both dry extremely quickly which saves a lot of time when you're doing a tape mani. :) Thank you for reading!

Koh Heavenly was sent to me for review.

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Windows

Hi everybody! I hope you all had a great weekend. My nails are still quite short, but I'm actually very comfortable with this length. I think they look edgy and also my polish lasts so much longer on these shorter nails! I've been wearing Color Club Where's The Soiree (the black) for three whole days now and there's not a single sign of tipwear. A year ago I wouldn't really have cared about the wearing time, since I changed my nail polish daily back then, but now that life's busy again I certainly don't have the time or energy to do that anymore. Anyway, after three days of black I really needed a change, so I went for a trusty tape mani. :) Nothing too difficult though, basically the design consists of one big and one smaller rectangle. First I used China Glaze Adore, a wonderful light blue metallic, then I made the smaller rectangles with Where's The Soiree again. So a quite simple design that reminds me of little windows when I look at my nails. ^^ Thanks for reading!

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Wet N Wild Blackmail & Some Quick Nail Art

I won Wet N Wild Blackmail from Painted Pixies blog a few months ago. Thanks so much for all of the cool polish!
Blackmail is a nice black polish with a hint of copper & turquoise shimmer. I'm definitely keeping it but I wish that the shimmer was much more prominent. That would make this one a stunner instead of just fine.

 

The next day I tried to do some nail art inspired by my killer new pair of shoes, I couldn't quite get the look I was going for though. I used Zoya Phoebe for the fan shape.

Thanks for reading!
April

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Chain Nails!

I didn't get very good pictures of these nails which is too bad because I really loved them. These stayed on remarkably well for 2 whole days.
I used one coat of American Apparel Hassid. The chains had earlier been cut with a pair of scissors, just a chain from some old necklace. I added some top coat to one nail & then used a pair of tweezers to add a length of chain. Repeat the process on each nail & then add another layer of top coat and finished!

Thanks for reading!
April

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Valentine's Day

Hi everybody, happy Valentine's Day! The boyfriend and I don't really celebrate it, but tonight we're going out for dinner together with some friends which should be really fun. :) But before that I wanted to share a few Valentine manis I made with you. I'd really wanted to post them earlier, but sometimes life just gets in the way. ;-) Let's see some nails then! I decided to keep the colors classic, using mainly red and black.

The first one up is this heart accent nail. I used China Glaze Phat Santa for my regular nails and went for OPI DS Reflection on my ringfinger for a bit of sparkle. Then I drew on the heart shape with a black creme and filled in the background. (I could've just drawn the hearts on top of the black since Reflection is actually quite opaque, but I discovered that after I'd already finished the first, big heart lol.)

Stripes go well with any occasion in my opinion, so Valentine's Day is no exception! :) I freehanded the random stripes with China Glaze Ink, as usual. Simple but I love it! ^^

I already did a lot of cloud manis lately, but I just had to include one in this post because it's so fitting for today and easy to do. :) Here I went for a single cloud layer which is even quicker to make. You can check out the tutorial for this design here.

I get a lot of my ideas by accident, that's why experimenting with nail art is so much fun. ^^ I noticed a heart shape in the cloud tips from the previous mani, so I outlined the shape with white (Essence Stampe Me! White) and drew a heart in it with black again. I find it pretty hard to draw thin lines sometimes, so by starting with the white and going over it with black, leaving a gap of white, it's easier to achieve the thin line I want. Like with the previous manis I used Phat Santa for the red.

In this post I'd also like to include a few older manis to inspire you (also to add some pink in here haha). You can view the complete post of each mani by clicking on the picture or the description.

Laced up

Vampy French

Guestpost for Ivana Thinks Pink

Cartoon hearts. (You can find the tutorial here).

China Glaze Designer Satin and Essence Blair

Nude with hearts

Cute funky French

Thanks for reading and have a great night!

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Freehand '80s

Hi everybody! This is the nail art I made with H&M's Navy Cosmos as my base color. I was just playing around with my favorite nail art striper China Glaze Ink, looking for an easy freehand design. You all know I can't live without my precious tape when it comes to nail art, but let's face it, using tape can be quite time-consuming! So (easy) freehand designs are a nice alternative every now and then. :-) For this pattern that looks kind of '80s to me, I started drawing the zigzags on each nail. After I'd finished there was still something missing, so I used a dotting tool to fill in the empty spaces with big dots. I thought it turned out pretty cute in the end, but the best part was that the whole job was such a piece of cake. ^^ I used Essence Matt top coat for that ultimate matte finish, but below you can also see the glossy version that I just had to share with you. :) Hope you guys like it!

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Nude with hearts

Hi guys! How are you all doing? :) I've finally finished all my exams for the first semester, so more time for blogging again! :)

For this post I wanted to share this semi-nude mani with you that I made last year. I wanted to make hearts on my nails by making a template with tape and this heartshaped paper punch that I have, but the punch had a hard time getting through the tape, so all I was left with was a little wrinkled, misshapen hole... So I cut out the shape myself from a fold up piece of tape and that's how I got to this design with V-shaped French tip. I still have to get used to nude nails, but I kind of like it like this. ^^ For the rest of my nails I was looking for a smokey purple, the polish that came nearest to what I wanted was Bourjois Bleu Asphalte. But I if I had Frederiksberg from WIC Herôme at the time, I certainly would've gone for that instead, I love that color so much! :)
So what are your thoughts on these nude nails? Would you wear them yourself?

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Grey cloud

Hi everyone! For this post a grey cloud mani to match with today's weather. On my accent nail I used China Glaze Recyle, a black creme and between those China Glaze Concrete Catwalk, which is what I'm wearing on the rest of my nails too. It's the best grey creme I've got. Just two smooth coats for an even, glossy finish. ♥
I don't wear greys on their own very often, usually I just need some color to go with it. You know, to brighten things up. However, I think today's mani is cute in all its greyness :) Do you wear greys a lot?

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Color Club Back To Boho Collection

This is the darker half of Color Club's Back to Boho collection, released for Fall/Autumn 2011. Boho chic is a cross between bohemian and hippy fashion, in a nutshell. Back To Boho offers you a whole Autumn/Fall nail wardrobe of vintage shades.

Left to right: Speedy Top Coat, Blue-topia, Voodoo You Do, Boho Mojo, Artsy Crafty, Nouveau Vintage and Rebel Spirit.

Boho Mojo

This reminds me of those beautifully designed art nouveau silver mirrors. I am not sure if it is what I was using as a base or not, but Boho Mojo was really watery. This is three thin coats shown here.

Nouveau Vintage

This is one of the most bizarre polishes I have come across! It's brown but green but gold but bronze...all in a sheer maroon base! This really is the image of vintage though, isn't it? It reminds me of old wooden furniture with brass hinges and handles.

Voodoo You Do

A deep gunmetal grey shimmer/frost. To me this gunmetal grey leans a little on the teal or green side of things. I feel like it was pulling my red, yet very subtle lobster tones out.

Artsy Crafty

Artsy Crafty is a great bottle green creme. Such a classy looking nail polish! Mum snagged this one as soon as she sore it! She decided to get rid of OPI Jade is the New Black because she loved this one so much more. Really smooth formula.

Rebel Spirit

When I had first tried this on at night, I thought my dreams had come true! A dark charcoal jelly! But when I tried it again in the day time, it was more of a really dark charcoal chocolate and not so jelly. It is very shiny though! I still like it. Nice smooth formula here too.

Blue-topia

Blue-topia is a very vivid navy. It does dry a lot darker than when first applied. Mum tried it on after me and we couldn't believe we were wearing the same colour! Just a nice rich deep blue navy jelly.

Speedy Top Coat

I cannot express in words how blown away I am by this top coat! But I will try. We've all tried heaps and heaps of top coats and as the days go by you get weary of having to try something new. After trying Essie's assorted embarrassments called top coats, I didn't have high hopes for Speedy. 


But as my manicure dried and the day went on, the mind blowing just got better and better! It dries really quickly, doesn't let any denting happen, no sheet marks the morning you wake up... I'm really pleased with it. I have even chosen it over Seche Vite many times.

New Zealanders can purchase the set here, from USA Nails Online for $34.50!

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