14th October, 2011
I hauled these polishes a few weeks ago but never got around to posting them. Most of them are part of the new core range of Essence and Catrice.
From left to right and top to bottom:
- Essence Nail Art Cracking Top Coat in Crack Me Blue
- Essence Colour & Go in Be Optimistic
- Essence Colour & Go in Make It Golden
- Essence Colour & Go in Blue Addicted
- Catrice in After Eight
- Catrice in Marilyn & Me
- Catrice in Rusty But Sexy
- Catrice in Bye, Bye Birdy
- Catrice in Jade Is Not My Name
- Catrice in It’s Rambo No.5
From left to right: Marilyn & me, Be Optimistic, Rusty But Sexy, Make It Golden, Bye Bye Birdy, It’s Rambo No.5, Jade Is Not My Name, After Eight, Blue Addicted and Crack Me Blue over Gosh Lavender Love.
I love the combination of Gosh Lavender Love and the Essence Crack Me Blue crackle. Even though I’m not hugely excited by crackle polishes I really like how these two look together. Essence Blue Addicted is really nice as well, it’s a close dupe of Deborah Lippmann Across The Universe. I accidentally bought two very similar colours, the rusty oranges. Neither of them look good on me so they were definitely a fail! 
I think Catrice Marilyn & Me might be based on China Glaze Ruby Pumps, I’m not sure it’s a dupe but in the bottle it looked similar. Overall really nice colours, I love Catrice Jade Is Not My Name but I wish they wouldn’t have replaced it with my all time favourite, Sold Out For Ever. Sad times! 
Did you buy anything from the new colours? Let me know in the comments below!
3rd October, 2011
Today I have a Vintage Rose nail art manicure to share with you and a tutorial as well! When creating my new blog theme I came across a print I really loved, I wanted to use it for my blog but it was too busy as a background and demanded a lot of attention. What I did do with it however was create a nail art tutorial inspired by it and for the occasion I have changed my background into said print. It will only stay for a couple of days, once I have a new blog post up my background will be back to normal. 
(If you’ve visited my blog before and you can’t see the background try deleting your cache)
Here’s what I came up with!
This image is to clarify why I did step 1. I used clear nail tips and I painted them pink first so it would show through on the bottom side. If you have long nails you can simply paint the bottom side of your nails, you should be able to create the same effect.
And if you’d like to recreate this manicure, here is a step-by-step tutorial!
- Step 1: Paint your nails in a hot pink, I used China Glaze Rich & Famous. Please note: this step should be skipped if you are painting on your natural nails!
- Step 2: Paint your nails in a light grey, I used Essence Got A Secret.
- Step 3: I first sponged white acrylic paint over the grey to lighten it and give it a more vintage look, you can skip this. Paint the rough outline of your flowers with a hot pink, I used China Glaze Rich & Famous.
- Step 4: Add shadow with a darker colour, I used an unnamed polish by Claire’s which is similar to Barry M Bright Purple.
- Step 5: Add even more shadow. I mixed the previously used purple by Claire’s with a drop of black.
- Step 6: Draw your stems and leafs with a darker grey. I mixed Essence Got A Secret with Claire’s purple and black.
- Step 7: Add shadow to the leafs and stems. I used a sheer black by 2B in the colour 30.
- Step 8: Time for the finishing touches, add a light pink to the heart of the flowers, I used Catrice Just Married mixed with white. Add a topcoat and you are done! I used Essence Nail Art Sealing Top Coat.
The nail art display finger is from Born Pretty Store, you can find it here.
I really hope you liked this tutorial! I received several requests to make a tutorial and I thought flowers would be something most people will like. A tutorial for flowers is quite useful and interesting since there’s many layers and steps you need to do. Please let me know if you try it out and send me your pictures if you do, and don’t forget to attach a link back to me if you post them on your blog or elsewhere!
19th September, 2011
Quick nail art manicure today. I called these Aquarelle/Watercolour nails since that’s what they reminded me of. I created these after seeing a tutorial on this Korean nail blog. I’ve been getting a few requests for tutorials lately (I’m working on some!) but since the tutorial by Luuthienluv is so good I couldn’t possibly do a better job. Definitely check it out! It’s basically a bit of a different technique for gradients, I think it’s really fun and easy.
I used Catrice Snow Motion (white) as a base and the colours are mixed acrylic paints.
13th September, 2011
I have another Born Pretty Store review to share today. This one is about a product (or set of products rather!) I am particularly excited about! These are the items I received:
All of these items come in one set: Rhinestone Kit, and are sold for $12,24 – €8,90. Yes, that is for all of these items!!!
- 10 orange sticks
- 5 different sized dotting tools
- 1 nail wheel with heart-shaped rhinestones
- 1 nail wheel with star-shaped rhinestones
- 1 nail wheel with round rhinestones
- 4 bottles of nail glue
Rhinestones are honestly a must-have if you love nail art! Unfortunately they can be very expensive. I usually see them locally priced at €10 a wheel with very little rhinestones inside of them. Here you get 3 full wheels, dotting tools, glue and orange sticks for less than €10. Safe to say it’s a bargain! I can honestly recommend this set to anyone, you get really great items for the best possible price.
Here are a few images of the nail wheels up close, I added a macro image of each of the rhinestones you get inside of the nail wheels. This way you can see the colours more clearly.
From left to right: Red, Orange/Gold, Pale Green, Light Green, Khaki Green, Light Blue, Blue, Purple, Lavender, Pink, Silver and black.
These colours are so beautiful in person! They’re all very bright, my camera really couldn’t capture the beauty of the colours. Especially the purple, blue and red, they’re so deep and bright! The rhinestones are 2mm and there’s 1800 of them, 150 for each colour. You really do get a lot of rhinestones, the wheel is 8cm (3 inches) in diameter if that gives you an idea.
From left to right: Silver, Pink, Lavender, Purple, Blue, Light Blue, Green, Light Green, Orange/Gold, Brown, Red and Magenta.
Same with the round rhinestones, very pretty colours! These are slightly bigger than the round rhinestones at 3mm and there should be 1200 pieces.
From left to right: Dark Green, Bright Green, Light Green, Orange/Gold, Light Pink, Hot Pink, Lavender, Purple, Blue, Turquoise, Light Blue and Silver.
All of these are very bright, only, there’s no red! Such a shame, instead of three blues and three greens there should have definitely been red hearts to complete the colour wheel. These are also 2mm and there are 1200 pieces in total. They’re very pretty.
These are the five dotting tools and they come in pretty colours with a nice swirly design. These nifty little things are a very useful tool to have in your nail art kit. They are double sided, the other side is not pictured since they’re all the same, somewhere in between the darkest blue and yellow. You can use dotting tools to create dots (ahem!) and to pick up rhinestones which is why they come in this set. Do you remember the entire range of dotted manicures I did a while ago? I used a dotting tool for that! If you would like to buy these but already have rhinestones, Born Pretty sells them separately too!
Four bottles of nail glue and ten orange sticks. The orange sticks are very useful to remove nail polish if you accidentally get some on your cuticles. They’re useful to have lying around but I personally don’t use them that often but they are a nice bonus. I have not used the nail glue yet but I look forward to trying it. Usually I attach smaller rhinestones just with clear nail polish but for larger rhinestones or steel balls, glue comes in very handy to make sure they don’t accidentally come off.
And last but not least, the manicure I created with the rhinestones! I used all of the different shapes, hearts, stars and round rhinestones and I used a few steel balls as well which I also got from BPS. The base colour is China Glaze Innocence layered over Catrice Snow Motion (white). Isn’t it cute? I really love it!
Overall I’m hugely in love with this rhinestone set. It’s such an amazing deal I honestly think every girl should get it! Rhinestones are useful not just for nail art but decoration and creative make-up looks as well. I was going to order this set with my next order (which will hopefully arrive this week!) so I’m very grateful they kindly allowed me to write a review on this. It doesn’t change my opinion in any way, I love it and I would happily (re)purchase! If there’s one comment I could make it’s that I would wish instead of hearts and stars there would be 3 sizes of round rhinestones. I won’t use the stars and hearts as often as the round ones, but that’s just me.
If you order with Born Pretty Store do not forget to use a coupon code to save more money! I have two codes for you to choose from just like last time, you can either get 10% off your entire order with the code: EMILYJ61 or you can get $4 off if you order $30 or more with the code: EMILYL73. And of course there’s worldwide FREE shipping!
I was kindly sent these products by Born Pretty Store to review. I am not in any way affiliated with this company nor am I being paid by them! All opinions stated are honest and my own, as always.
11th September, 2011
One of my favourite nail artists is Nagi/Disco Nail, a Tokyo based artist. I found out about her work through tumblr, I unfortunately know very little about her since her blog is in Japanese. All I know is that she is a true visionary with intriguing and most of all truly original nail art. Definitely take a look at her work, it’s very inspirational!
This is my recreation of some of her work, a tribute as it were!
Left Hand
Right Hand
What I used: Catrice Snow Motion, Barry M Turquoise, New Look Black, China Glaze Hey Sailor, Models Own Peach Puff, Essence Studio Nails Top Sealer and Born Pretty Store Half Pearls.
It’s honestly one of my most favourite manicures I have ever worn! I loved it so much, I kept staring at the eye – which kept staring back at me! I did feel a bit strange wearing a religious cross on my nails since I’m not religious myself but it does look really amazing.
Owl ring from Primark
4th September, 2011
If you read the blogs you might remember seeing articles about snakeskin manicures a while ago. Terri Silacci’s salon in California started catering snakeskin manicures, created with real shedded snake scales (i.e. no snakes were harmed, phew!). Beautiful as they are they do come at a price…
Now like most people I don’t have a snake pet at home nor any access to discarded snake scales. I figured there must be an easier way to recreate the effect of snakeskin.
This is what I came up with! I don’t have a picture tutorial to show you how I did these but hopefully my explanation on how I created them will make it clear to you (if not, do ask me questions in the comments!).
- First I painted my nails in a solid white, you could choose any base colour, it’s entirely up to you. I painted two coats and waited for them to dry, then I added a third coat. It is vital that this last coat remains tacky and wet so only paint the final coat of base colour over a few fingers at a time.
- Grab a piece of fishnet or lace (preferably with a small fishnet design) and place it on top of your nail. Press it down so it sits inside of the slightly tacky polish.
- Take a sponge and add any colour you’d like to use, I used a light and dark brown. Sponge over the lace until you’re satisfied with the coverage.
- Remove the piece of lace. It will drag!!! Since we placed it on top of a wet polish it will drag the white up so be careful, when it’s removed pat it down slightly and add a topcoat!
I know it sounds totally bonkers to place the lace on top of wet polish, but if you don’t, your lace will move around and polish will get underneath. The snakeskin effect will be totally lost. Using a slightly tacky base worked for me, it may not work for you but definitely give it a try.
What I used:
- Catrice Snow Motion
- China Glaze Classic Camel
- China Glaze Ingrid
- Essence Studio Nails Top Sealer (my new favourite topcoat!)
- A piece of lace (since I didn’t have any fishnets)
18th August, 2011
Apologies in advance to people who are sensitive around pictures of toes… I usually don’t do any nail art on my toes, I just paint them in a solid colour. This time around I thought I’d change it up a bit. I was inspired by the Tiffany & Co packaging which is absolutely beautiful. I should have done this manicure with China Glaze For Audrey but since I don’t own it (yet!) I settled for Catrice Am I Blue Or Green. The blue came out a little lighter in this image but it’s darker in person.
The bow is 3D and made with acrylic powder and monomer liquid. It’s pretty flat so it doesn’t get in my way. It also hasn’t budged for two weeks now and is still looking great! I think I will do nail art on my toes more often. Let me know if that is something you would like to see. I would love to hear your opinions!
15th August, 2011
It’s been a while since I posted a haul. Mainly since I don’t haul a lot any more. I already have most of the stuff I need, definitely where nail polish is concerned anyway. That’s why I tend to not go wild in the nail polish isle anymore. Though lately there’s been a few interesting limited editions going on and a lot of Essence’s and Catrice’s products are being removed from the core line at 50% off so I saw my chance to grab some items!
I don’t remember the exact prices of all the items, most of them were between €0,90 and €3,45.
Essence Studio Nails remover – Kruidvat Nail Polish Remover – Essence 6 in 1 buffer file – Essence Dotting Tool – Catrice Crystal Clear Glossy Stick in Bird of Paradise (from the Papagena LE)
How awesome is that lipstick! It’s actually a lipbalm in the shape of a lipstick, it looks really pretty so I couldn’t pass it up.
Essence Studio Nails Base Sealer – Essence Studio Nails Top Sealer – Essence Grand-Plié in Black (from the Ballerina Backstage LE) – Essence Do A Floating Pirouette (from the Ballerina Backstage LE) – Essence Magic Wand – Essence Hex Hex
I highly recommend the Essence studio nails top sealer. It’s similar to Seche Vite since it also eliminates bumps and gives a glossy shine. It’s not exactly the same but definitely one of the best drugstore topcoats I have tried.
The Essence Ballerina Backstage polishes were so cute! The black has orange shimmer in it which is really unique, the raspberry shade is less unique but I just loved the lace print bottles. I also got the lace hair band but forgot to include it in my pictures.
Essence Spicy – Essence Absolutely Stylish – Catrice Welcome To The Jungle (from the Papagena LE) – Catrice Enter The Undergrowth (from the Papagena LE) – Catrice Sold Out Forever
They are removing Sold Out Forever from the core line! I’m very disappointed since it’s my favourite Catrice shade. It seems that it really WILL be sold out forever. Sad times! Spicy and Absolutely Stylish are very similar which I only saw when I got home. Oops! Though Absolutely Stylish does have some hidden turquoise shimmer which is very pretty.
The Catrice Papagena LE was very nice I thought. I loved the blush sticks as well but colour pay-off was very bad so I decided to leave them. The new Modern Muse collection isn’t my cup of tea at all so I didn’t get any of that.
Gosh Lavender Love – Essence Blue Ray (from the Holografics LE) – Essence Cool And The Gang – Essence Mystic Mermaid – Essence White Crackle
I usually don’t buy Gosh since I find them way too pricey (€6,99) but this one was 50% off. I really hate the “special edition” lettering at the front but the cap is gorgeous. The Essence Holografics collection was a bit of a joke since the polishes were all duochrome and not holographic at all. The shade I picked up was the only one worth the while, it looks quite pretty in the bottle but is somewhat unremarkable on the nails. I also managed to find the white crackle which I was very excited about.
These are four Essence S.O.S. Nail Glue bottles I found in the discount basket. I already bought a back-up of this in Rotterdam but since I won’t ever be able to buy this again I stocked up and grabbed all the ones I could find. It’s my favourite glue for just about anything. It’s primary use is fixing broken nails and I have to say it does that incredibly well. It’s also great for sticking on rhinestones, glitter and beads.
Did you get any of the clearance items or items from the new limited editions? Let me know in the comments below!
7th August, 2011
I had a post scheduled for yesterday but it has been delayed for a few days so today’s post will be something different in anticipation!
I did these nails a fair while ago and somewhat didn’t plan on sharing these. I didn’t love how my pictures turned out but I kind of like them now. Anyone recognize that feeling? Seems to happen to me quite often.
Anyway, these are so called tie-dye nails or acid wash, whatever you would like to call them. They were inspired by Annie Spandex‘s post.
- Paint your nails in a colour of your choice (preferably at least two coats) and let it dry until it is completely hard. I chose American Apparel Passport Blue.
- Paint a different colour over your nails and let it dry! I chose a white, Catrice Snow Motion.
- Then lastly -this is where the fun starts- grab a cotton bud and dip it in nail varnish remover and start rubbing it over your nails, the colour below will start to come through! Don’t rub too much or you will hit your actual nails.
- Et voilà! Tie-Dye nails!
You could try any colour combination you feel like, I chose to go for the classic blue-white associated with stonewashed jeans and tie-dye. Purple-white will also look beautiful!
The process is honestly one of the easiest nail art techniques ever so if you like how these look definitely try them out for yourself! If you do so please share the pictures I would love to see them! This goes for all of my posts by the way. I love seeing what you create!
20th May, 2011
I’ve been doing so much nail art lately. I’m really enjoying it, I hope you’re not growing tired of seeing them! I cut my nails shorter a while ago for no particular reason. I thought it would be fun to post a manicure with the shorter nails just to show short nails can rock nail art too! If you want to know how I did this keep reading.
For this nail art manicure I used:
- Catrice Blue Cara Ciao
- H&M Spring Nails in Brown
- Black and white nail art pens
I thought it would be fun to add a step-by-step picture tutorial for this. I hope you enjoy it, if you do let me know! I might start doing these more often in the future if you girls would like to see that.
Step #1: Basecoat. I used Catrice Blue Cara Ciao but any colour would do, just make sure it isn’t too dark so your contrasting colour will show up. Blue Cara Ciao is such a fun blue and not like any others I own, I really like it. It’s slightly more green in person though.
Step #2: Add white. I used nail art pens but you could just use any white nail polish or acrylic paints.
Step #3: Add contrasting colour. Any colour that goes well with your base colour, it’s really personal preference. I used a copper brown by H&M that came in the Spring Nails set.
Step #4: Add black lines. Once again I used nail art pens with a fine tip brush, this is the most difficult part because you want the lines to be very thin.
And done! I hope you enjoyed this little step-by-step guide. Let me know if you would like to see more of these in the future.
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