Essence Mrs. & Mr. Glitter

Today I'm showing you a swatch of a glitter I was super excited about when I first heard of it, Essence Mrs.& Mr. Glitter. We have Black, Blue and Green big hex glitters suspended in a clear base. I decided to layer it over NYC Yellow Cab, which didn't thrill me at all in the end.

I'm not quite sure what I was expecting, but it didn't work :D The glitter is kind of sparse in this polish and after one coat applied with the dabbing method, my nails got gloopy and thick. I had hoped for discoball-like glitter but didn't even want to apply another coat because of how gloopy the base was. 

I think I might try layering it over a blue or green metallic polish next time, just to add a little sparkle, instead of trying to cover a cream shade. 

I took this of right after I took the pictures, because I couldn't live with it :D

In other news, the puppy is still a giant time suck and I'm not even going to make any promises about posting regularly anymore. Last week, we found out he had an ear infection for a long time and no one at the shelter told us. The vet said he'd need to get surgery on both ears, but we gave him ear drops first and now it looks like it's clearing up so well he might not have to get cut open after all! 

Thank you for stopping by and I hope to see you soon!

Purple Glitter Gradient

Hi everyone! I'm so sorry I fell off the face of the earth there for a little while. If you follow me on twitter, you might have seen that there's been a new addition to my family. I have a puppy to take care of now! Although he's generally well behaved, I still have to be on top of him constantly, and it took a while to get to know each other and find the right schedule for him. I do hope I'll have more time to blog from now on!

What I'm showing you today is something I've been thinking about since the 31 Day Challenge. I learned so much about nail art and also about my stash - especially that purple is underrepresented in it. Starting small, I went with a darkened lavender today, Catrice Lucky in Lilac. 

It took three thin coats to be opaque and was a little streaky, but I knew I was going to put glitter on top anyway. For wearing it on it's own, I probably have to be more careful with the application. The glitter is Essence It's Purplicious, a topper I've had in my stash for ages and rarely used. It has purple and magenta square glitter and silver microglitter. 

I hope you enjoyed this simple glitter gradient and thanks for stopping by!

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!

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!

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 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 17: Glitter

For glitter day, I pulled out an untried from months ago, Essence Time for Romance. I got it along with Blue Addicted (which I used on day 5). They're both jelly bases with multiple sizes and colors of glitter in them, but Time for Romance is a bit out of my polish comfort zone.

I used three coats for this mani, and it's still a little too sheer for me. Since this is my first mani with it, I wanted to see how it looks without anything under it, but in the future I'd layer this over a rosy color to get a more opaque finish. 

The base is filled with tiny pink and holographic glitter, and larger pink hex glitter. 

On my ring finger you can slightly see the tiny holographic glitter. This is one of those polishes that really come alive in the sun. I stamped it with Kiko #399 Silk Taupe and an image from BM-317. 

More pictures after the cut!

31 Day Challenge, Day 14: Flowers

Today is flower day at the 31 Day Challenge! I love flowers, but only the ones you put in a vase for a week and then throw out. I have zero talent in actually keeping something alive that doesn't remind me to be fed/watered.

This is actually one of the manis I was a little sad to remove after a day. Pink is one of my favorite colors and I really love what happened on my nails here. I used two coats of Essie A Crewed Interest as a base, and then stamped on the flowers of the Konad m26 plate with P2 Scandal, a magenta color. Since the image is only three of the flowers, I stamped each nail twice or three times.  After that, I applied a thin coat of Essence Cotton Candy, a sheer pale pink, for the stamping sandwich effect, like on day 7. 

But this time, I didn't stop there! 

As soon as that stamping sandwich was done, I added a layer of OPI Nothin' Mousie 'Bout It, but was careful not to catch any of the hearts. I almost think the purple, pink and orange shimmery base of this polish would deserve a bottle of it's own, but it's fairly easy to just spot the hearts when one lands on your brush and wipe it off on the neck of the bottle. 

At this point, I topcoated the whole thing with inm Out the Door to help it dry faster, for the second round of stamping.

Using the same image, I stamped over the nails again, but this time with P2 Passion. I originally wanted to use Essie Cute as a Button for this step, but it was to sheer to stamp. But Passion is a fairly similar color, only without the jelly finish and therefore more opaque. 

To finally finish this mani off, I added one last coat of Essie Matte about You. 

Here's a close up in the shade, so you can see how pretty the (glassfleck?) shimmer of Nothin' Mousie 'Bout It is. 

I really love how this mani came out, so I couldn't stop myself from taking a couple more pictures:

I would love to hear your thoughts!

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 5 : Blue

Welcome to day 5 of the 31 Day Challenge, blue! Blue is one of my favorite colors, in any shade. So why not try to put together as many as I can? 

I used Essence Blue Addicted, which is a dupe of Deborah Lippmanns Across the Universe. Since I don't own any Deborah Lippmann polishes, I can only judge from pictures other bloggers took, but I think color-wise it's pretty much the same. You can check out a comparison at The Polish Well. 

Isn't she lovely? Tiny blue glitter and larger green and pale blue hex glitter suspended in a blue jelly base. Instead of the universe or my addiction to blue, I thought about the sea when I saw this beauty. Especially the sparkle of a light breeze on the surface of the ocean. 

I added a stamp from the BM-313 plate on top with Kiko Peacock Green to simulate the ripple effect of wind on water. I love how much depth this polish has, with one coat applied like regular polishes and a second with the dabbing method. 

I'm still on the hunt for the perfect underwear for this polish, since the bottle is getting pretty empty already from only one manicure and one pedicure. I'm also seriously contemplating getting a back up, because, well, just look at those nails!