Sation Show Off Your Navel Orange & A Gradient

Sation bottles are oval with thick glass bottoms. The new brushes are great for ladies like me that love wide brushes. You can purchase Sation's Big 3 Free polishes at their website. Sation has just released their first limited edition collection, California Gleamin', available now.

Sation Show Off Your Your Navel Orange is super bright, much brighter than I could capture with my camera. My friend saw it, said "Whoa! It's like fluorescent melon!" It's got a bit of shimmer & dries matte, like most neons do. The formula was pretty good for a neon as long as you wait a few minutes between coats. This is a fun color but I've never been a big fan of neons so I think I'll pass it on to friend who loves them.

The next night I added a sponged gradient with the lovely Zoya Caitlin. Pretty fun & unexpected color combination!

 

Thanks for reading!
April

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Delicious Stripes

You probably won't ever see me wear red and pink together when it comes to clothing, I think they clash more often than not, but somehow I think they make a pretty cute pair on nails. In this mani I'm wearing NYC Uptown with red stripes that I freehanded on top with striper polish #36 from brand Janet. Don't these nails look a bit like candy? ^^ I can almost smell a strawberry scent when I look at them... Have a great evening!

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Sation Miss McTeal

Sation bottles are oval with thick glass bottoms. The new brushes are great for ladies like me that love wide brushes. The formula on all the ones I've tried is excellent. You can purchase Sation's Big 3 Free polishes at their website. Sation has just released their first limited edition collection, California Gleamin', available now!

Sation McTeal is a fun polish that reminds me of my Crest Mint Toothpaste. Shown here at three coats; it starts out thin and sheer but build to a beautiful color with lots of depth. It looks very green in the sun, but darker & more blue indoors. Another winner from Sation!

Matched my favorite dress!

The next day I finally tried out some striping tape. It's a bit fiddly, but I love the effect!

Thanks for reading!

April

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Exotic Tribal

Hello everyone! The final weeks of school have started and it's been nothing but chaotic! This explains why I've been posting so little lately. The madness still continues for a couple of weeks but after that I hope to blog more often again, I've got plenty of fun stuff planned.

So yes, I should be studying right now, but I just needed a break to show you these nails. :-) Holland has had great summer weather last week and I wore a bright yellow (Make-Up Studio M67) most of it. After two days I had a bit of tipwear, but I just couldn't take the happy yellow off yet. And the tipwear wasn't noticeable anyway because it's a light color, so I decided to keep it on and update it with a tribal pattern in shimmery blue. The striper polish I used for it is Janet #119. I kind of like the final result, very exotic. ^^ Chiquita, anyone?

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WIC by Herôme - Colourful Curaçao collection

Hello everyone! :-) For this post I have swatches from Dutch brand WIC by Herôme. Every now and then WIC comes up with a limited collection. And I'm always very excited to see them because they often contain interesting colors or finishes that really stand out against their core collection which mostly consists of cremes. This time I'm showing you the Colourful Curaçao collection, a mix of bright shimmers and two frosts, let's have a look at the polishes then!

Kontiki Beach - A lovely violet shimmer. The formula was amazing and it needed two coats for coverage. Usually I'm more drawn to blue-toned purples but I think Kontiki Beach is just gorgeous!

Mambo Beach - A typical old-fashioned pink frost that our mommies used to wear a few decades ago... (Though it appears much more orangy on the pictures.) I tried to be open-minded when I swatched this polish, but I really don't like it. That color combined with the frosty finish is just so dated. The good thing however, is that brushstrokes were easy to avoid. I applied two coats and as you can see, the frosty finish is almost perfectly smooth.

Blue Bay - The second frost in this collection, a silver with small hints of blue/purple. The color was hard to capture in my pictures though, in real life it's less purple and more silver. Blue Bay looked quite interesting in the bottle, but unfortunately it's not that pretty on the nails. I used two coats for coverage and extreme brushstrokes were just inevitable. :-( 

Cabana Beach - A bright turquoise shimmer. Ooh, I love this one! The color, formula and application are great. The only thing that would make Cabana Beach even better is if it covers in less than three coats, other than that it's perfect!

Banda Bou - I was most excited to try out this polish. The dusty, yellow-toned green color is already interesting, but then there's that subtle silver pearly finish that completes it. Yellow-toned greens normally aren't my cup of tea, but this one I like. Look at that unusual color and finish. ^^ I applied 2-3 coats.

Daaibooi Beach - Last but certainly not least! Daaibooi Beach is a rich, blue-toned green shimmer. It's quite an unusual color for a spring collection, but who cares when it's this pretty, it has so much depth! This one also needed three (thin) coats, but you can probably get away with two thicker ones as well.

So here you have it, WIC's Colourful Curaçao collection. I honestly like the whole collection except for the two frosts, but I'm glad to see WIC has the courage to try something different, who knows what they'll come up with next time. What do you think of 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.

These polishes were sent to me for review.

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Color Club Steel of The Night

Long time, no see! How are you doing? I have been swamped with uni work this year. Not sure if I am excited or scared for next year... 

Today I have Color Club's Steel of the Night to show you!

As you can see, Steel is a magnetic polish. I've been painting a lot of my friends' nails at the moment and they just go nuts over the magnetics! I think they're the most used polishes from my stash at the moment. I adore nail art and this is such an easy way to do it.

To get this effect I applied a reasonably thick coat (just one) and immediately held the magnet over my nail for around 15 seconds. The formula is nice too, not thin or goopy.

I was really surprised that you only needed one coat. As always, I was a little bit skeptical over how it would work but it's just so easy.

They will be available in Amazon surf stores and pharmacies. RRP $21.90. But if you are super lucky, you may win the whole set! 

Just send an email to nailjuice@live.com with the subject "Color Club Magnetic Force Entry" along with your name :) I will email the winner June 30th!

A big thank-you to Color Club New Zealand for sponsoring this :D!

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Queen's Day 2012

Hello everyone, here's my belated Queen's Day post! On this national holiday everybody wears orange and sometimes with hints of the Dutch flag, so that's exactly what I did here. I started with the orange and then layered the red, white and blue on top, using tape for crisp lines. This mani took forever to make as I had to wait three times in between for my polish to dry before I could place the tape on my nails, but it was definitely worth it and I received many compliments on it that day. ^^

To show our country a little love on days like these, the Dutch brand Koh set up a little collection with 'Dutch' colors which I've used for my Queen's Day mani. Below are swatches of each polish.

Brilliant Red!. This is a classic red jelly with a hint of orange, it's very pretty and bright but not unique. It does have a great formula and application, like I'm used to from most jellies. This was two coats, and as you can see it still shows a tiny bit of VNL but strangely it doesn't bother me much in this case.

Crystal!. This was my second favorite polish from these four (and the only one I didn't include in my mani because it was too sheer). I honestly expected to hate it as it's a frosty white which looks very dated to me, but I ended up loving it! When you think of frosts, you think of brushstrokes, but fortunately Crystal! doesn't suffer from those with its easy application. :) It takes three coats to get full opacity, but it's totally worth it in my opinion. And I know it's not even summer yet, but Crystal! would be a great color for winter too, look at that pearly shimmer! I already start to feel Christmassy when I look at it haha.

Rock Chick!, my favorite from the bunch. ^^ This cobalt beauty is so bright that it looks like a neon in certain lighting, really gorgeous... And like Brilliant Red! this is a jelly with a perfect, rich formula. It covers perfectly in two smooth coats, love it!

And the last one is Dutch!. Like many other girls, I'm not a big orange fan when it comes to nail polish. But it is the perfect orange for Queen's Day or to show our team some support during the UEFA European Football Championship this summer! Pictured is three coats, once again the application was very nice.

Thanks for reading!

The products in this post were sent to me for review.

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Sation Heather

I have some more Sation beauties to show you over the next week. Sation bottles are oval with thick glass bottoms. The new brushes are great for ladies like me that love wide brushes. The formula on all the ones I've tried is excellent. You can purchase Sation's Big 3 Free polishes at their website.

Here we have the gorgeous Sation heather, a hot orange based coral with just a hint of shimmer.Two coats and excellent formula again. This will be on my toes a lot in the coming months; I love it!

 

Thanks for reading!
April

This polish was sent to me for review. All opinions are my own & were not influenced by Sation! For more information you can read my disclosure policy.

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Nail Art: The Hunger Games

Today I have a manicure to show you that is inspired by the book trilogy, Hunger Games. I think the first movie has just come out or is about to come out. I'm all booked to go and see it a day before my birthday! 

For this gradient I used two lovely Misa's called Under My Sunbrella and Endless Keys. These guys were released last year in Misa's summer collection Paradise Shore.

To create this manicure I started with a coat of yellow followed by orange just dabbed on the tips. The formula of these two polishes made it very easy to blend.

These polishes are quite sheer though. This is a huge benefit when doing manicures like this though! I kept adding layers in the order of yellow/orange/yellow/orange. Only painting the yellow half way down the nail though and slowly bringing the orange up on each coat.

This is how I envisioned Katniss's nails and dress to look when she entered the Hunger Games.

Can't wait for the movie! :D

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China Glaze - Rain Storm

Hello everyone! Today I've got a swatch from the vault to show you. This is China Glaze Rain Storm, a periwinkle blue shimmer. Aside from the nice color, the subtle aqua glitters and pink shimmer are the things that give this polish a little something special. However, the downside of Rain Storm must be the sheerness, I had to apply four coats to reach opacity, which is really too many for me. But the application was nice and next time I can use it over a periwinkle creme to limit the coats of polish. ;-) What do you think of Rain Storm?

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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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