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 :) 

My first braided mani!

I've seen so many amazing braided manis around lately, I finally decided it was time for me to tackle this design! I expected it to be complicated, but it's really as easy as it looks - the hardest part for me was trying to keep the "overlapping"area centred (failed on that one). Not unlike a fishtail braid, it also took quite a while to do. I knew I wanted to do thinner stripes, just to see what it would look like, but I had no idea that it would take me much longer than in the video tutorials.  

Catrice Steel my Soul - swatch and finish comparison

I'm so happy to report that the some of the new fall colors by Catrice and the new Essence polishes finally arrived in my corner of the world! I never realized how lucky I was in Germany with unlimited and quick access to great drugstore polishes. 

One of the things I was most excited about is a new finish by Catrice - Brushed Metal Effect. I decided to give Steel my Soul a try.

Catrice Steel my Soul is a taupe-y lavender with gold microglitter in it. The Brushed Metal Effect finish is not glossy but not really matte either - it looks and feels a bit rough, like teflon maybe? 

I really wanted to see how this works and ended up rather disappointed. The formula on this polish is bad. I had less problems when first applying A Crewed Interest by Essie, if that gives you an indication. 

It's thick and gloopy and runny at the same time. It's also patchy, but any more than two coats would've made my nails look puffy. It takes longer to dry than a matte (as you can see by the bumps and scratches above) and because I didn't topcoat this mani, I had tipwear within a couple of hours (again, see above). I don't find the color flattering on me either, but that's personal preference.

I read before that some people like these polishes more in their glossy form, so I tried saving it by applying inm Out the Door top coat. While I was at it, I also put Essie Matte about You on one of my fingers.

From left to right, you see the original polish, then mattified an glossy. Somehow the roughness of the original finish brings out the glitter more, while it almost disappears in the mattified version. You can also notice the texture next to the matte nail.. The glossy one is my favorite, though. The color is still not exactly flattering on me, but it goes more towards the wear-it-anyway-direction. 

All in all, I don't think I'll be getting much use out of this polish, but I never know. I gave away a lot of bottles when I moved to Spain last year, and am seriously kicking myself now for not keeping some of them.  The formula definitely leaves something to be desired, though.

What finish do you like most with this polish? 

I hope this little review and comparison was interesting/helpful to some of you, thanks for stopping by!

31 Day Challenge, Day 31: Re-create your favorite Challenge!

The very last day of this challenge! I had the hardest time deciding on a mani to re-create for today, I looked through all the pictures in the interlinks for hours. I also woke up feeling like death warmed over, but that's another story.  In the end, I had to pick something to accomodate my limited skills and stash. Here you see my re-creation of the stripes mani by Polished Criminails! 

The only polish that made it from the inspiration over to this mani is the base, Essie A Crewed Interest. The stripes were originally done in other colors of the same collection, but I just used whatever came closest in my stash. You see P2 Drama and Scandal, Essie Nice is Nice and Catrice Sold out Forever (1st version). 

I love how colorful this mani is and got a lot of compliments on it today (doesn't happen often!). 

I'm so happy to have taken part in this challenge, it was a great learning experience for a newbie like me. I'm so overwhelmed with how many people came to see my manis every day, and especially the comments! I hope some of you stick around, and that I can still come up with manis on my own :D 

Thank you very much for sticking through this challenge with me!