Sephora Divine Purple Fall Manicure

Today I have a fall-ish mani for you! I got my first Sephora nail polish last week, and was eager to try it out. 

Here you see two coats of Sephora Divine Purple stamped with the owl images of BM-309 in Jordana Black Charm, then mattified with Essie Matte about You.

Divine Purple went on like a dream in two easy coats, leveling itself beautifully without any pooling or streaking. It's not really purple, though, more like a dark magenta color. 

I think the owl stamp is super cute, but next time I'll pick some more contrasting colors to make them show up better. 

Some of my nails are also getting a bit long for the full nail images, besides being a bit impractical for every day. I dont know whether I want to nubbinize them again. The whole point of growing them out was to see how long they'd get before peeling or breaking, but they're still going strong! 

I really have to figure out at least a semi-regular posting schedule. Last week was terribly crazy, but I got a feeling the next ones are only going to be worse in that regard. I really missed sitting down to blog every night, but I did miss my bed more :D I'm glad I at least managed to snap a couple of pictures of the manis I did, so I might pre-blog a couple of posts on my day off and publish them throughout the week.

I'm really thankful for every single view I get, even on the days I don't post :) 

31 Day Challenge, Day 29: Inspired by the Supernatural

Hello everyone! I'm cutting it really close today, but it's still before midnight here, so I'll make it quick! For day 29 of the challenge, I was supposed to be inspired by the supernatural. What you see are my Frankenstein nails.

For the base, I saran sponged Sally Hansen White On and Catrice Sold out Forever (1st version) on two coats of NYC Sidewalkers. Then I took out a a thin brush and Jordana Black Charm  to draw on the stitches.

I actually really liked how this came out, especially the saran sponging effect. When I told people how I did this mani, they were pretty shocked and it was funny so see them trying to get into their head that saran wrap is not only for the kitchen :D 

I hope you liked these and I'll see you tomorrow for the second to last day of the challenge! 

31 Day Challenge, Day 22: Inspired by a Song

Day 22 of the 31 Day Challenge: Inspired by a Song. I get that this is supposed to be challenging, but the last days we are facing now are really though for me. I thought so long about how I was going to do this. In the end, I just picked a polish I wanted to wear and then came up with a song that "fit" and inspired me. I hope that's ok :)

 

The song of this mani is by The Police, Roxanne. You might also know it from Moulin Rouge, although that version is a lot less powerful in my opinion. It does feel like it was written for the movie, though. The theme is a popular one, I love this classic song and thought it would be perfect for Ruby Slippers.

Here you see a half moon mani with China Glaze Ruby Slippers and Jordana Black Charm. Ruby Slippers might be my all time favorite red, it's so multidimensional, I could look at it for hours. The formula is perfection aswell. 

I painted two coats of Black Charm, except on the ring finger, where I used Ruby Slippers. At the half moon you can see how light it look next to the other nails, which are layered with two coats over black. For the accent nail, I painted a heart on the black.

Sadly, the weather is still not playing nice and I didn't get the opportunity to take pictures in the sun. That didn't make me put my camera down, though, so here are a couple more pictures for you:

I hope you like how this came out, an I'm super excited to see which songs everyone picked! Thanks for stopping by!

31 Day Challenge, Day 19: Galaxy Nails

We've reached Galaxy Nails day! I have a weird mix of pictures for you, because it was cloudy from sunrise to sunset. I took some pictures under the halogen lamps of our vanity, and others with my desk lamp. Above you see how warm the light in out bathroom looks :D 

I really had fun doing these nails, although what you see here is my third attempt. The ones before ended up too sheer and too glittery, but I'm really happy with this one. My favorite is the spiral on my middle finger! 

For this mani, I started with a base of Jordana Black Charm and then put Catrice Return Of The Space Cowboys on top of it. Return Of The Space Cowboys is one of their Million Styles Effect Topcoats, it has a very fine multichrome shimmer that shifts to green, blue or purple.

For the actual galaxies, I sponged first with Maybelline French White and then with Maybelline Fireball on my thumb, middle finger and pinky. For the pointer and ring finger I used a metallic blue polish that's so old, the label has completely worn off. It's likely some random drugstore brand. 

To define the galaxies a little bit more, I sponged Catrice Blue My Mind! along the edges. 

The "stars" are two dollar store polishes, that have very sparse but partially holographic glitter. One has only small silver & holo glitter, the other has small silver & purple glitter along with holo hex glitters.

This mani sparkled like crazy, and I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to take pictures in the sun. I loved doing galaxy nails, though, so maybe you'll see a part two when the weather report gets better :) 

I can't believe two thirds of the challenge are almost over! I'm really looking forward to the galaxy nails of the other bloggers, I have a feeling this is one of those challenges where every mani is going to look really different! Thank you for stopping by!

31 Day Challenge, Day 8: Metallic

Welcome to day 8 of the 31 Day Challenge, metallic nails! I got my first Orly polish recently, and I'm completely in love! You might have already seen it in my day 6 post, but this is ther first time I actually used it as a base. 

This is two coats of Orly Glitz, stamped with Essence matte black stamping polish and BM-323.  On my pointer I'm wearing 2 coats Jordana Black Charm. I love how sparkly and warm the gold is, you get perfect coverage with 2 coats and it's not gloopy or streaky. When I first applied it, I thought this would show every little brushstroke, but once it dried down, they mostly disappeared. This polish is a win all around! 

The black nail is supposed to break up the pattern a little, because I found out that there is such a thing as too much gold for me :D I've completely fallen in love with Orly (their bottles are huge!), but they're a little hard to get here. I'm really lucky I got this one, though! 

PS: Please excuse my especially shameful looking cuticles here, I've been trying a new cream and somehow it left then even drier than before? So, the hunt for a good, affordable cuticle moisturizer continues!

31 Day Nail Challenge, Day 7: Black & White

We're already on day 7 of the challenge today, that was fast! I feel like we got the easier ones out of the way and now make our path onto more intricate nail art territory.. exciting! But let's not get ahead of ourselves, here.

I decided to do stormy nails today, with a technique I haven't done before: a stamping sandwich! Just like a glitter sandwich, only with stamping instead of glitter.

I applied one coat of Sally Hansen Extreme Wear White On and stamped with Jordana Black Charm and BM-312. Then I topcoated everything with inm Out the Door before I applied one coat of P2 Virgin, a very sheer white. As a last step, I topped my nails with Essie Matte About You. 

It's still summer here, and we'll likely stick above the 20 degree C mark for a while, but due to the humidity, every morning I feel like I'm waking up in Silent Hill. It's so foggy, and recently there was even a wildfire that covered our balcony in ashes. 

This mani perfectly describes my view when I get up in the morning, and I love the cartoon-y clouds. But don't worry, I get a different one in the evening that makes up for all the clouds and fog:

31 Day Challenge, Day 3: Yellow

Day 3 of the 31 Day Challenge, and my spirits are still high, although I have a loss to report. 

This is what's left of my striping brush, I'm glad it pulled through until I finished my left hand! I got it on sale a couple of weeks ago at Kiko, and wasn't too much of a fan when I started playing around with it. The bristles were too stiff, making it hard to get a clean stripe along the curves of my nails, and the opening of the ferrule where the bristles came out (I'm sure there's a real word for that place) seemed too large. This was my first time using this brush, aside from a couple of practice strokes on old manis and paper. I always made sure not to get acetone in the ferrule, because I didn't want to dissolve the glue - needless to say, that didn't really matter. 

I'm glad I only paid 1,50€ for this brush and I think Kiko doesn't even sell them anymore. Now I know why.

Ok, on to the good stuff of this post! For the yellow, I used NYC polish in Lexington Yellow. It's a great, bright, clean, yellow but it got a little uneven on my this time around. I can't recall having any problems with it before, though, so I think next time I will thin it a bit before I use it.

Then I added the black stripes with Jordana Black Charm and my now defunct striping brush. I actually loved the stripes and how easy they were to do, I have to get a replacement as soon as I can.

As an accent, and my inspiration for this mani, I added the little wasp (or is it a bee?) from the BM-301 image plate. 

Here's a close up of her, isn't she sweet? Now tell me, wasp or bee?