Pink and Brown Skittle mani

I'm showing you some nail art again today, but I got some exciting news this week that I'd like to share. I work at a beauty store and am surrounded by amazing makeup every day, but our nail department is lacking a little. My boss noticed my manis so he decided that next week, we're gonna have a nail art event! I'm gonna have a little station to show people how to do some simple designs, and we're offering full manis, too.

I really love doing makeup on people and I think showing them some nail art tricks is going to be really fun aswell.

Now on to my mani!

I did this a while ago, but came across the pictures recently and decided to share them here. For the base color, I used Rare Nails Strawberry Milkshakes and then painted on the patterns in an unnamed H&M color. For the cupcake, I sponged the top with Sally Hansen White On, then gave it some glitter with Essence Circus Confetti and a little dot of Essie Cute as a Button. 

Rare Nails Strawberry Milkshake was a complete nightmare to work with. I think I had four coats on here, and it was still streaky in some spots. It's really sheer, but doesn't level itself at all, so even doing a glitter sandwich with it would be difficult. I have another polish by this brand that is the same kind of pastel-ish color and that one wasn't better either. I think I might try a dark color to see if the formula on those is better, since the bottles are only 2€, on the other hand I could get a nice Essence polish for that money.

I had a fail finger in this mani. I tried to do some argyle on the thumb, but needless to say, that didn't turn out right. It took much longer than I anticipated, and also my technique of dipping my brush in acetone to do the lines within the brown squares didn't work. Next time, I'll paint them on in white first and then go over the white with whatever polish I'll be using as a base. 

I did enjoy doing this mani, my middle finger was my favorite :) Those swirls will be done again in red and white for Christmas! I also think that pink and brown are a match made in heaven, do you agree? It always makes me think of some sort of chocolate and strawberry dessert!

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 24: Inspired by a Book

Wow, we've reached day 24 already! Time is flying by and I'm starting to wonder if I'm even able to come up with my own manis again after this challenge is over! I guess I'll worry about that in 5 days, and for now, show you my "inspired by a book" nails.

I'm a bit late to the Game of Thrones party. I never even heard about it before the series, and even after I watched the first season back to back (twice), it took some time for me to get the first book and read it. The book series is called "A Song of Ice and Fire", with the first installment being "A Game of Thrones". 

31 Day Challenge, Day 23: Inspired by a Movie

Day 23 of the challenge, today the theme is "Inspired by a Movie". I was waffling back and forth forever about what movie I wanted to do.. there were so many on my list. The one that won was the one I wanted to watch the most after I viewed all the trailers: Empire Records!

The movie came out 1995 and starred, among others, Liv Tyler and Renee Zellweger. It's about an eventfull day at a record store (I suck at summaries that don't give away too much). If you like mid-90s teen movies, you should watch this asap :)

Here's a close up for you. I used Essie Mesmerized as a base and then painted on the swirls first in white and then in China Glaze Sun-Kissed, a neon yellow. I painted a record on my middle finger and dotted a couple of swirls with Yes Love 876.

On the thumb and pinky, I also first painted the letters in white and then yellow. The E and R stand of course for Empire Records, in neon yellow, as is the neon sign on top of the store. The record, because it's a record store (duh), and the metallic dots for the coins that A.J. glues to the floor (one of my favorite scenes).

Have you watched Empire Records? It's one of those movies that never get old for me. There was a summer I watched it nearly every day :D

31 Day Challenge, Day 18: Half Moons

Hello and welcome to day 18 of the challenge, I have a quick post with a simple mani for you!

The theme of today is half moons. I needed a bit of encouragement in the form of polish today, so I picked two holos and made a half moon and french tip mani. The colors you see here are both from the Kiko Lavish Oriental Collection, #399 Silk Taupe & #400 Steel Grey. 

I used hole reinforcers for the tip and freehanded the half moons at the base. The pictures I took unfortunately don't do the polishes justice, they are a lot more holographic in person. I can't blame it on my top coat either, I used Essence Better Than Gel Nails and it worked just as well as inm Out the Door.  With three thin coats for the base and the topcoat, they survived a day of hair- and dishwashing just fine. As you can see, I can't say the same for my cuticles, and I still haven't found a solution. I think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and order Lush Lemony Flutter Cuticle Butter online, as Burt's Bees is even harder to come by in this corner of the world. 

Keeping up with the challenge is going to be a little harder for me from now on, but I hope I can continue to come up with fun ideas :) I'm also working on a tutorial for the delicate print nails, so keep your eyes open for that if you're interested! 

31 Day Challenge, Day 16: Tribal

Today I'll show you my first attempt at tribal nails. I had seen this type of design on various blogs for months now, but it never struck me as a "gotta do that!" mani. Now that I tried it, though, I think they're not only pretty to look at, but also fun to do.

More details after the cut!

31 Day Challenge, Day 15: Delicate Print

You guys! We've reached day 15! I can't believe I've made it this far :D It's been so inspriring to see all the other bloggers doing the challenge, and to come up with something different each day.

Today the theme is delicate print. I've been waffling back and forth between stamping and freehanding something, in the end I decided to go the more challenging road for me and set the stamps aside.

31 Day Challenge, Day 13: Animal Print

We've reached day 13 of the 31 Day Challenge, and I decided to do leopard nails.

For the base color, I used a polish I got a while ago at our equivalent of a dollar store. It's a green jelly that is packed and packed with glitter. Above you see two coats in the sunlight.

Here's a close-up so you can see just how dense the glitter in this polish is. It sparkles like crazy  and feels less gritty than I expected. I see myself taking this out of my polish drawer again around Halloween.

For my leopard spots, I used China Glaze Surfin' for Boys and Midtown Magic. Leopard nails are actually one of the first nail art designs I made and they have a special part in my heart. They're just so easy to do and the color/finish combos are endless. 

I wanted to do something that really pops today, and I think I accomplished that :) Though they're probably not for everyone, I really like all the sparkle and glitter together with the neon.

31 Day Challenge, Day 12: Stripes

Welcome to day 12, everyone! Today I have some stripes for you.

As you might have read, my striping brush broke on day 3 of the challenge. In addition to that, I don't own any striping tape. Yes, these are all just excuses for the poor stripes I freehanded. I guess I have to do this a couple more times before it comes out right :)

I decided to go with a nautical theme for this mani. The base is Sally Hansen White On, which is getting really low right now because I've used it so much in this challenge. I layered Catrice Shake it! Flake it! effect top coat over it, and it sparkles in the sun! This is my first flakey top coat, so I'm really impressed. My camera, on the other hand, wasn't. I tried an tried but I just couldn't get it to show up in pictures. I think I might have better luck when I use a darker base.  The stripes are Essie Mesmerized. This is the first time I used Mesmerized and I am completely in love with it. I think this polish would be a great addition to any stash, just for the color. I can't say much about the application yet, but I think I'll put up with a lot to have this on my nails.

The cross, heart and anchor are symbols that were often used by sailors. The cross stands for their faith in god and their fellow sailors, the heart for the loved ones waiting for them and the anchor for the hope of a fruitful and safe return. 

I really like the idea of this mani and might give it another go once I've practiced my striping skills. Now I'm excited to see what all the other talented bloggers came up with!

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?

I spy.. Essie A-Crewed Interest with an accent

This quick and easy manicure was inspired by a cute eye print dress that Moschino Cheap & Chic came out with this fall. I saw it in a magazine and basically put it on my nails right away.

The main color is Essie A-Crewed Interest, with Essie Cute as a Button as accent on my ring finger nail. 

A-Crewed interest is a heavenly, light, creamy, peach color, and the formula is as bad as the color is beautiful. I used it several times and this is the first time it turned out somewhat even without any frustrations. I was genuinly surprised when I was finished, and hope to reproduce this success in the future. What worked for me was applying a thin coat first, that ended up terribly streaky. A second medium coat after the first one was dry almost eliminated the streaks and then a third, thin coat gave me the covarage I wanted. 

Cute as a Button was flawfree after 2 coats, but still a little sheer, so I added a third one there aswell. 

After I topcoated everything, I got out my nail art brushes and just drew a simplified eye on the ring finger with Jordana Black Charm nail polish. The general shape was made with a small bent brush, not unlike the one I line my eyes with. I guess muscle memory took over and my hand basically made the upper lashline by itself ;) I also used that brush for the iris. 

To get the lashes nice and feathery, I used a striping brush an just added lashes until they lookek full enough for me.

I think this is a really fun and cute mani, and that it has the best effect when the eye is used as an accent. Not painting an eye on every nail also saves you a lot of time, so it's relatively quick to do with a great impact.