Essence ~ 04 Don’t Be Shy! and 01 Start the Blue Rebellion!

Essence ~ 04 Don’t Be Shy! and 01 Start the Blue Rebellion!

Pastel blue crème and denim blue shimmer

Today’s polishes are both from the recent Hip Girls Wear Blue Jeans collection. There are four polishes in the collection and I bought all four of them. Today I’m wearing the two first.

I used the pastel blue as my base colour. It’s very easy to work with and it covered perfectly in two coats. The drying time is really good. Thumbs up for that polish, it’s really a winner.

Let me show you the final manicure already:

Essence ~ 04 Don’t Be Shy! and 01 Start the Blue Rebellion!

I stamped with the denim blue: Start the Blue Rebellion. It’s so great when ordinary polishes stamp! The design is from Infinity Nails-©97. There’s also a layer of topcoat to protect the design.

Essence ~ 04 Don’t Be Shy! and 01 Start the Blue Rebellion!

I almost forgot to mention that there’s also glitter involved – in case you hadn’t noticed it yourself. It’s “Quite Interesting” from LynBDesigns. That’s a clear base packed with microglitter and various shapes of glitter in purple, green, iridescent and blue. I applied one coat of the pretty glitter over the pale blue – here’s what that looked like:

And here’s Don’t Be Shy! on its own. Two coats. It dries up to a silky matte finish, and - It Dries fast. That’s all she wrote.

Essence ~ 04 Don’t Be Shy!

Here are the polishes and the stamping plate I used. I am considering to sell some of my Infinity Nails stamping plates, since I hardly ever use them. It’s a shame that they just sit there when there’s nothing wrong with them!

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Really good

Finish: Pearly matte
Overall impression: Great polishes both of them. I would be surprised if the pale blue stamps too

Buy again: Yes to both

OPI ~ First Class Desire

OPI ~ First Class Desire

Super dark purple with strong golden shimmer

First Class Desire is from the Holiday 2014 Gwen Stefani Collection. It is a really dark purple – so dark it almost looks brown from some angles.

The formula is really good and it covered really well. I used two coats for this mani but I think I could have gotten away with one. The drying time is good too.

Here’s two coats and a layer of topcoat in the sun:

This is taken in my lightbox. It’s the golden shimmer that makes it appear a bit brown.

I decided to stamp a leopard design on it. I found the design on Infinity Nails-60 and I stamped with Barry M’s Foil Effect in gold.

This is the final mani including an extra layer of topcoat:

I had to stamp with gold over this, to match the golden shimmer in the polish.

My leopard designs look way better when I stamp them on than when I try to draw them myself, haha!

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Really good

Finish: Linear holo with shimmer
Overall impression: Good looking rainbows, pleasant colour, prominent shimmer

Buy again: No, but only because the shimmer is golden

H & M ~ 501 – with self made decals

H & M ~ 501 – with self made decals

Silver holo

I got an Überchic Stamping mat for Christmas from my sweet friend Carolyn. That felt like a real treat!

Today I’ll show you one of my attempts of making decals.

Let me start by showing you how it all ended out looking:

I know it is far from perfect, but bear with me!

The stamp would only come off the stamper if I applied a layer of topcoat on the mat, so that’s what I did. The stamp came from a plate from Dashida: Infinity Nails-163. I filled in the pattern with Picture Polish’s Arabian and P2’s “Be My Guy” and #501 from H&M. I applied a layer of topcoat on all of that and then I let it dry.

I cut the decals out in bits I thought made sense: Half a circle on two nails and a triangular bit on two nails. I topped the whole thing with an extra layer of topcoat – that makes three layers in total!

This is what H&M’s number 501 looks like on its own. It’s quite a nice silver holo in my opinion, nice to work with. The brush is relatively wide, but I don’t mind that. This is two coats.

Here are the three polishes I used.

I definitely have to work on my decals. It is so much fun and there are so many possibilities! Have you tried making your own decals yet?

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Holo
Overall impression: Nice silver holo, good basic polish

Buy again: Yes