Glorious Aquadelic

Today I'm showing you a mani that I loved to wear so much, I briefly contemplated just keeping it on for the whole week :D

This match made in nail polish heaven is China Glaze Aquadelic and two fingers topped with Essence Glorious Aquarious. I did the pick-up and put-back dance with both of these polishes for weeks. With Glorious Aquarious, there was always a glitter topper that I wanted more. In the case of Aquadelic, well, I ordered For Audrey months ago from my local beauty supply, and this little one just kept taunting me "We're really similar! I'm just not as dusty! Take me home!". So I did, finally. I'm also planning to just order For Audrey online as soon as I find a shop that has a decent shipping rate. 

I'm so glad I gave in to these two in the end. Aquadelic is a bit runny, but otherwise the formula is great and Glorious Aquarious is just packed with the most beautiful multi-size turquoise and clear to orange shifting glitter. It's also one of the easier glitter toppers to apply, with the pieces laying flat and not clumping up at one place.

The above two pictures were taken under artificial light, making the colors a little less vibrant. I love this mani in any condition. The colors and glitter are just so cheerful, I can basically hear "Under the Sea" right now :) 

I hope you like this mani as much as I did, thank you for stopping by!

31 Day Challenge, Day 30: Inspired by a Tutorial

We've reached the 30th day of the challenge, inspired by a tutorial. Last week I was at my local dollar store and spotted a little bag of glequins. I immediately thought of the fabulous glequin manicure by The Nailsaurus. She posted a great tutorial a couple of weeks ago so this is my take on the glequin mani!

31 Day Challenge, Day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

We've reached day 26! Only a couple of days more and then the challenge is over! Unbelievable!

Today we're doing patterns, so I picked my favorite pattern of the Bundle Moster stamping plate set, paisley. I've also been seeing a lot of super cute saran wrap manis, so this is my first try!

I started with two layers of China Glaze Papaya Punch and the "sponged" P2 Drama on with the saran wrap. As soon as that dried, I stamped the pattern from BM-315 with Yes Love #876 (my favorite stamping polish right now!). One coat of Essence Better than Gel Nails top coat, and it's what you see up there.

I'm really happy with this mani, I love how bright it looks. The background is basically on fire! I hope you like it, too and thanks for stopping by :)

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 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 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 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 9: Rainbow, or: Use ALL the polishes!

Finally, rainbow day! Finally, not because I've been looking forward to it, or I had a great vision of my mani today, but because I had 2 complete fails before I finally came up with this. I had lost hope, I really didn't think I'd be able to come up with something I half-like, and here I am, in love with these nails.

Long post with many pictures and all the polishes I used ahead:

China Glaze Señorita Bonita and lots of stamping

Here's a manicure I'm not sure about. This is China Glaze Señorita Bonita stamped with a sh*tload of images. 

I think layered stamping is super fun, but I'm not seeing much of it online. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places? Seeing how the different images interact with each other and then depth you can create with layering is really fascinating to me. 

It does look kind of random from afar, sometimes, but to me it's like a pattern on fabric or a painting where you can discover a thousand new things if you look close enough. 

Señorita Bonita itself is a really rich purple with little orange flecks in it. I stamped mostly with metallic and also some holo polishes. I think using different finishes gives the whole nail more dimension. 

Here are all the polishes and stamping plates I used for this mani. The placements of the stamps differ from nail to nail, but the colors and images are the same. 

The one thing I had a problem with in this mani was the Konad White stamping polish. I used it for the last stamp (the little flowers scattered on top) and the top coat I used (inm Out the Door) smudged the image on most of my nails. 

Sometimes I really want to spend some time with my nail stuff, and layering stamps is the perfect opportunity for that. 

31 Day Challenge, Day 2: Orange

I went very literal with the theme of the 31 Day Challenge today. When I go out to the town, there are orange trees everywhere. You can get freshly pressed orange juice at every little café the whole summer long and it tastes better than anything you could buy at the supermarket. 

So along with the inspiration at every street corner, the BM-308 image plate did the rest and we have glorious, juicy, orange nails. I stamped the image with Sally Hansen Extreme Wear White On.

The polish I used is China Glaze Papaya Punch (so much fruit in this post!), that magically appeared at my local beauty supply. Ever since I saw swatches of it online, I wanted it. I don't even know whether it is limited edition or not, because my store sucks at even keeping any of the regular shades in stock. All the more reason I am so, so glad, that it sat on the shelf that day and I could get my hands on it - to put it on my hands, you know. 

As much as I love the color, the formula in my bottle is below average. I suspect it might have been living a sad couple of months in a hot storage room, because it's gloopy, it's thick, it's streaky and at the same time, it's runny! 

I needed three coats to get a somewhat even look out of it, but there were still streaky parts, and it ran all over my cuticles. I'm definetely willing to practice my application skills with this one because of the scrumptious color. Especially when Halloween comes around this year, can't wait for pumpkin nails!

This is a picture of the bottle on the dress I wore the day I bought it. It was magic, I tell you!

Here's the list of posts you can look forward to for the next month:

This Challenge is really fun so far, I think it's amazing how many bloggers are doing it! I'm finding so many great blogs right now.

China Glaze Surfin' for Boys

China Glaze Surfin' for Boys was part of this years summer neons collection. It's a bright orange with a slight coral tinge to it, maybe because if the pale lilac shimmer in it. This is basically the color of the safety vest you keep in your car. Also, traffic cones and reflective biking equipment come to mind. What I mean to say is, this color screams for attention. 

The formula was great. It leveled itself beautifully, was a bit sheer on the first coat but dried fast so you could add a second one right after you're done with your second hand, and left you with a satiny finish. I prefer it shiny, so this is two coats in the sun plus top coat.

And here we have the same thing indoors under artificial lighting. What keeps me from wearing it more often, is the settling shimmer.

This is after a little more than 10 min solid shaking. You can still see the shimmer accumulated in the bottom of the bottle. As this is about as patient as I ever get, I just painted my nails at that point anyway. 

Vigorous shaking before every application no matter how I store it is sort of annoying, but I'm glad I have this color for those days when I need a really bright pick-me-up.