As promised in my previous post I have a step by step tutorial on how I did my nails! It’s supposed to look like roses, I’m not 100% happy with how they turned out but they’re fun nonetheless.

I started with Seche Clear basecoat and Seche Porcelain (or any white nailpolish) as a base colour.

Apply Pink and Yellow dots randomly, I used Check me out and Being on the A-list by H&M.

Make leaves! I used a green nailpolish by Claire’s.

Finish off by tracing with black! I used black nail art polish and a nail art brush, any fine tip brush will do! Finished off with Seche Vite for ultra shine!

It took me at least an hour to finish this! Very time consuming but oh so fun.

I’ve been browsing this tumblr for the past few days and fell in love with the gorgeous manicures on there. I was inspired to do a leopard nail manicure, I thought it was going to be a bit tricky but this is SO easy, trust me! You don’t need a steady hand, and both of your hands will look amazing cause you don’t need your dominant hand to make it look good.

You start by picking a base colour and another colour for the dots, preferably ones that match, like opposite colours (what I chose) or picking a dark colour as a base and the same colour but lighter for the dots (or the other way around) that will work great as well!

Draw random dots all over your nails! Could it be any easier? Looks totally ridiculous and sort of resembles a disease but it will look good don’t worry! The colours I used are I Sea You and I Scream Peach, both by Catrice.

Dot some black nail polish on a piece of paper, grab a cue tip and draw some lines around the dots, leave gaps in between to make it look like a leopard print. This may look slightly hard but it’s really simple and it doesn’t matter if you mess up. It’s fool proof!

All done! Rawr!

Yesterday I went to Antwerp with my boyfriend and his brother. It was really hot outside and it was very busy but we had a lot of fun. I shopped a few things at H&M, they have a great discount going on now, if you buy two items with coloured tags both the items are 50% off. The brothers both bought a great suit which would have been €90 but they were able to buy it for €45 instead!

I let myself go a bit, splashed out and got 5 nail polishes cause I loved the colours that much. They’re more vibrant in real life and the purple is more reddish instead of blue.

From left to right, Check Me Out a gorgeous hot pink, Being on the A-List a bright yellow, Pink Mist a nude colour but it’s not very opaque so more suitable for French nails, Bella’s choice which is a great turquoise blue, and Fashionista which is the most gorgeous shimmery purple.

I love the colours but I’m not a big fan of the formula, it takes a long time to dry, besides Pink Mist they’re all pretty opaque though I am wearing white underneath my swatches, they look pretty much the same without and give good coverage after two layers. They do chip really easily unfortunately.

They’re €3,95 each at H&M.

I also bought some sunglasses, I already had the pink one, I bought it a while ago. I saw the mint green one when I bought the pink and I really regretted not buying it at the time. I saw it again yesterday at the separate accessories H&M store on the Meir and I grabbed it instantly. They’re just €4,95!

I hope you’re not tired of all these nail posts because here’s another one. Me and my mum went to Terneuzen in the Netherlands a few days ago, didn’t find much but I made a quick hop into Kruidvat and bought yet another one of the Catrice nailpolishes. Can you tell I love them? I really can’t think of a bad thing to say about them, the bottles look great, the formula is great (this one is an exception unfortunately), the colours are amazing and it’s cheap!

I picked up Poison Me, Poison You after seeing a-ma-zing swatches on it. I was looking for a nice deep purple, I had no idea this one would be as great as it is, it looks bland and dark in the bottle but if you hold it under a bright light or in the sun it really blows you away.

The colour is more warm in real life, though it changes in every light setting. Like I said the formula of this polish is less good as the others from the same collection, it’s more gloopy and harder to paint your nails with though the results are worth the pain! It really looks like a high end polish, like the shimmery colours from China Glaze (it’s a dupe for Let’s Groove), though it’s from Kruidvat and costs €2,50. Isn’t that amazing?

This is another one of the Catrice nail polishes I bought at Kruidvat. A grey colour called London’s weather forecast. I hadn’t worn it yet so I was dying to try it out. Did two coats for a flawless finish, it wasn’t streaky at all! You could even leave it as one coat if you wanted to, they have that good a coverage. I topped it off with the Seche Vite topcoat to ensure it stays for a longer time and to give it a high gloss. I really like the grey even though I had some reservations as it is not your every day colour. Thoughts?

Catrice available at Kruidvat stores for €2,49, Seche Vite at Enchantra for €6,95.

As promised, the first of the AII Beauty product reviews is the French Manicure set by Seche. I know some of you may not know this brand but if you’re a nailpolish addict like me I’m sure it will ring a bell. Seche has a famous topcoat called the Seche Vite which is the best topcoat in the world! Many webshops in Belgium and the Netherlands stock this so keep your eyes open for it.

From left to right, Seche Vite top coat, Seche Porcelain, Seche Rose, Seche Clear base coat. The box also includes nail stickers to make the half moon for the French nail. I once did an entry on French Nails a long while ago and I mentioned there that I’m not a fan of nail stickers, they don’t work for me so I didn’t use them. I drew the whites freehand which isn’t that easy but they turned out great. It does take some practice.

In close-up

It doesn’t show up in this picture but the Seche Vite is super high gloss, I’ve never come across such a shiny nailpolish even a friend said “your nails look so shiny!” I’m a huge fan of shiny nail lacquer so there’s no doubt I’ll be using the Seche Vite with every nail look I do from now on. I’m a convert!

You can find the top and base coat at Enchantra for €6,95 each.

I was sent these products by AII Beauty, I was free to do this 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.

Some of you may have heard of the following nail polish brand, China Glaze. If not then this is a great introduction, I have seen it mentioned on so many blogs and vlogs, heard only great things about it and really wanted to try it out myself.

I got three polishes in the mail on Monday, a huge box arrived at my house.

The huge box was to protect the polishes in the mail, looks funny doesn’t it? Such a big box for such a small package. Everything arrived in perfect order though so all went well.

These were the three polishes I got:

1. “Light As Air” from the Up and Away Collection
2. “Sun Worshiper” from the Poolside Collection
3. “Stroll” from the Retro Diva Collection

1. Light As Air: An amazing pastel lavender colour, two coats and it looked flawless and stunning. It’s a very fresh and young colour, I really love it! It looks a bit sloppy in this picture, I got over-excited, so my bad! In the same collection there is an amazing minty green pastel as well called Re-Fresh Mint, I really want to get my hands on that one!

I do have to note this isn’t a colour anyone could pull off, I have a yellow undertone skin and it worked on me, when my mum who has a red undertone tried this colour it didn’t look as good on her. Maybe it’s the age gap, I do think this is a really young and fresh colour, it just didn’t look right on my mum, has it got anything to do with skintone I’m not sure, could be.

2. Sun Worshiper: This one is a bright fluo orange, not just any old fluo orange, they really have taken fluo to the next level. I have never seen any polish to be this bright, it pops in shadow even more so than in bright lighting. Nor have I ever come across a fluo polish with this amazing coverage, two to three coats does the job, sounds a lot but it totally isn’t for a colour like this. I bought a fluo green once, looked as though I had coloured in my nails with yellow marker, no coverage whatsoever. This however is TO DIE FOR! The other colours in the Poolside Collection are just as amazing. I really can’t do this polish justice, taking a picture which even remotely resembles the colour in real life is very hard, I had seen reviews on this colour and this collection but it looks so much more bright and stunning in real life. Will look even better once I get a nice tan. The entire collection makes me long for summer even more, so sad it’s mid-May and it’s raining outside and terribly cold. This polish brightens up my day though. Thank you China Glaze!

This colour does dry matte, could be a plus for some people though it was a con for me, not a big fan of matte polishes myself I finished this off with a shiny topcoat and it looked much, much better! Also, look what happened when I went under our sun tanning bed:

How amazing is that! It just lights up!

3. Stroll: This is an amazing deep magenta with metallic golden microglitter. It looks very different in real life, I was having a hard time making a picture that does this polish justice, this one resembles the colours best though it washes out the glitter entirely. it looks different in every light setting, in the sun, in artificial light, it never fails to surprise you. Application is great, it goes on very nicely.

Glitterpolish is usually quite hard to remove, this was fine, though it did leave some glitters after removing.

I have to say this was the first time I ever used China Glaze and they just don’t compare to drugstore brands, they are so amazing, the quality and coverage is superb. Their formula includes hardeners which strengthen your nails, a huge plus for me as I often have to cut my nails short cause they tend to rip and tear. The polish dries really fast, and they have the most amazing colours in their range, I just can’t praise them enough. They’re also very affordable, unfortunately getting your hands on them in Belgium and the Netherlands isn’t the easiest thing in the world, you can get them at Enchantra, though prices are way more expensive than in the US, still worth every penny I have to say. I hope shops in our country will stock this product soon because it truly is amazing.

Their upcoming collection for fall 2010 looks stunning as well, called Vintage Vixen and is packed full of sparkly colours, or as China Glaze calls them: multi-faceted jewel tones. Will be available from July 2010!

I was sent these products by China Glaze 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.

Went shopping with Dries today, we went to the Waasland Shopping Center. He needed some new clothes, I “needed” some new polishes! I had read all over the internet how fabulous the new Catrice nail polishes are. And I must agree, they are! I strongly recommend all of you to run to Kruidvat stores now and buy your favourite colours of the new line, they have such amazing coverage for only €2,5! It’s what I did, I just grabbed all the colours that took my fancy, checked out at the till for €14,94. If you can’t do maths like me, that means I bought six polishes. I don’t think I ever bought that many polishes in one go, I don’t think I even have that many polishes of one brand.

Prepare yourself for a colour overload!

Those are all the colours I bought minus one. The top four colours are from Claire’s, the six bottom ones are from Catrice. I will make proper swatches when I wear a colour on all my nails.

These are the three colours I bought at Claire’s, the fourth one at the picture above is a fluo green I bought for my mom, tested it out and it looked like a nightmare, as if I had splashed yellow marker all over my nail, not the look I was going for. You can still see the whites of my nails through the polish, that just looks off. My boyfriend very kindly helped me return it and I could switch it for a different one, picked the purple one instead, pictured in the middle here. They were €2,5 so they were the same price as the Catrice ones. I’m not wildly enthusiastic about these, they are nice but not nearly as nice as the Catrice, they have less coverage and are still slightly opaque after a few coats. I wouldn’t really recommend them, I’d go for Catrice in a heartbeat, same price way better coverage and way nicer colours! Also beware: DO NOT use these polishes without a basecoat because they will discolour your nails!

Aren’t those the loveliest colours ever? From left to right: London’s Weather Forecast (it’s grey, do you get it? It’s so fun), Sold Out Forever (which wasn’t sold out, thank god!), I Sea You!, I Scream Peach!, Just Married and It Blue My Mind. Aren’t those names great?

I’m so in love with all of those, I grabbed Just Married at the last minute, not sure if it would have any coverage at all but it looks really nice! Honestly I wish I had all the colours in their line and if I visit Kruidvat again I will buy more, they really are that fabulous. I have rarely seen colours that great in drugstores and for that price! Just €2,5 is a bargain. If you want to see all the colours in their range definitely take a look at their website.

Soon I will have an entire entry dedicated to the Sold Out Forever colour, my personal favourite. Keep your eyes open for it!

As I said at the start of this entry I went shopping with my boyfriend, he bought lots of really great stuff at H&M for this summer, an amazing nautical blazer, a t-shirt with long sleeves and three shorts. Summer here we come!

Here’s Dries sporting his new blazer, he’s looking a bit grumpy cause the sun was shining in his face, poor guy ♥

My boyfriend came over this weekend and we went to see Alice in wonderland on Saturday at the cinema in Sint-Niklaas. It was a real treat, first time I’ve ever went to see a movie in 3D, heard some mixed comments so I was curious to check it out for myself… and mixed feelings I experienced afterwards. Here goes my rant… It was a great movie to begin with, absolutely stunning, great performances by once again Johnny Depp (The Mad Hatter) and Helena Bonham Carter (The Red Queen), and the voices of but a few of my heroes, Stephen Fry (Cheshire Cat), Alan Rickman (The Blue Catterpillar) and Matt Lucas (Tweedledum & Tweedledee). I didn’t like the fact of having glasses on my nose, it was a slightly aggravating experience, I really felt the urge to throw them away (though I couldn’t as we had to pay a €5 security on it), they were too loose fitting on my head and I felt the spectacles took away a great deal of the intensity of the colours. In some scenes I really thought that the 3D effect gave a lot of value to the image, though in some I felt it was sort of inappropriate and didn’t do the movie any justice whatsoever. One person gave, in my opinion, a terrible performance and was very, very badly cast and that person was Anna Hathaway (The White Queen), I can’t stand her to begin with but she just didn’t fit that part at all. That being said I loved it very much and can’t wait to purchase it once it’s out on DVD.

The Cheshire Cat, voice by Stephen Fry

My first intention was to do a make-up look based on the movie, though many have been done before, some good some bad, but I had some sort of allergic reaction on my eyelids yesterday, they were glowing red and were itchy and stingy so I’m giving them a rest for a few days and treating them with some of my miracle salve. I decided to do a nail look instead! One character I really loved was the Cheshire Cat, I was really blown away by the colours they used, though a bit muted I think they stood out a great deal. I wanted to do a nail look inspired by the Cheshire Cat, but I don’t have a grey nailpolish, planned on buying one at American Apparel but their nailpolishes got called back cause the bottles broke and now I have to wait until they remake and restock. Anyway, I eventually did a look inspired by the eyes of the mad hatter, instead of an eye look inspired by eyes, a nail look inspired by eyes. It didn’t turn out 100% as I wanted it to but here goes…

I used Orange and Blue from Essence show your feet, Pink from GOSH, Green from 2B and white from Hema.

As Paris fashion week just ended I thought it would be fun to review some nail trends that have hit the runways both in Paris and in NYC! As always, a lot of “old” colours are still “in” this season, black and the always stylish red are still good to go! The nudes have been spotted a lot and white has hit big again too, which I personally love, and lots and lots of grey, in every shade!

The grey nails in the picture above have been finished off with a matte topcoat, which has also been a trend and I think should be available, if not now, then soon, at the drug stores. Personally I’m not a fan, I don’t know, I just love nailpolish to be really shiny and matte black or grey are just not my thing.

These however were my favourite nail looks:

A nude nail polish with a REAL layer of lace added to them!

Black with texture

White, when done perfectly like this, it looks gorgeous! And look at those vibrant orange lips!

One look I didn’t care for at all, this gold and matte black manicure, called “lunar eclipse manicure”.

Thoughts?