Summer Challenge Day 21: Inspired by a colour

Summer Challenge Day 21: Inspired by a colour

We’re now entering the last third of this 30 days challenge, and that means that we’ve reached the more fun and creative part of it. We’ve reached the part where it’s cool to be creative. I like that!

Inspired by a colour! I’ve thought a lot about what that really means. I mean… just slapping on one colour of nail polish is plain boring. And how can a manicure be inspired by a colour?

And then it hit me: I’ll let the colour that inspired me for this upcoming mani be: Peacock! I can hear you say that peacock isn’t a colour, but hey, peacocks are all about colour. Take a look:

I dare you to say that peacocks aren’t colours! :D

I started out by making a gradient, using Stargazer 304 and P2 “So Cool”. Stargazer is a seagreen/turquoise, very shimmery polish, and P2 is an almost metallic and very vibrant blue.

I didn’t apply a top coat, because I wasn’t done yet. But here it is, where I’m holding the Stargazer bottle: 

And here’s a pic with the P2 bottle:

I must admit that I really like this! I think I’ll actually do this again some other time. But hey – I said I wasn’t finished! :) Peacocks like to show off, so I wanted to add glitter. I chose Icing’s “Lemme see your peacock” – I mean, with that name I kinda had to, didn’t I!? It’s a very dense glitter, and I didn’t want it to take over the gradient completely, so I dabbed a bit of glitter on a sponge, and then I sponged it onto the gradient. My guess is that this glitter is opaque on its own in two easy layers!

But anyway – I sealed it all up with a layer of Poshé top coat, and here’s my mani, inspired by a colour:

And one more shot because I like it so much!

What do you think? Did you like my take on this challenge?

There are other Danish girls who also did a “inspired by colour” mani today. You should definitely check their blogs out to see what they came up with.  

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for nails inspired by a song! It’ll not be easy to choose a song, that’s for sure. So check in to see what I come up with!

Color Club question

Hi girls,

You've been a great help before, and now I've got another question for you. I bought a Color Club polish in a blog sale, a greyish glitter. I quite like it! 

But it doesn't look like any of my other Color Club polishes at all. First of all there's the height of the bottle. It's the polish on the left, I'm talking about. The one on the right is "Magic Attraction".

You can see that Magic Attraction is a fraction taller than the other one, and the cap is matte, whereas the unnamed polish's cap is shiny. 

And there's something else with the cap: 

There's no flower on the left one! 

Here are the polishes seen from the back: 

Magic Attraction doesn't have any writing on the back at all. That's all in the bottom of the bottle: 

And the left bottle doesn't have any writing at the bottom at all. 

The last thing that I've noticed is that the smell of the two is different. Magic Attraction smells like any other Color Club polish I own. The other one doesn't smell like it at all. It has a glue-ish smell to it. 

Can anybody help me out here? Have I got a fake bottle of Color Club, or have I just gotten my hands on a polish that was sold as a set and therefore different than their usual line?

Summer Challenge Day 20: Water Marbled

Summer Challenge Day 20: Water Marbled

Water Marbling is the most difficult mani in this challenge imo. I’ve never tried it before. Stay tuned to found out if I’ll ever do it again ;)

I started out by painting my nails white with Models Own “Snow White", which is a plain white crème. I wanted to use it as underwear for these three polishes: 

China Glaze: Rodeo Fanatic, 108 degrees, Stella

I deliberately chose three polishes from the same brand to make sure that the polishes wouldn’t clash in the process. I used room temperature ordinary tap water added three drops of polish remover, because I read somewhere that it would be good.

And then I started putting drops of polish into the water. Pretty soon the drops stopped spreading out like they’re supposed to. I made my pattern in the water with an orange stick, and then I dipped my nails into the water, two nails at a time.

Here’s the final result: 

After a couple of minutes the polish started making little bubbles from underneath, leaving white blobs all over my nails. If any of you know the reason, I would love to hear it!

And here’s my thumb nail, that’s the one I liked the best!

All in all I don’t consider this a success, but I thought that I’d give it another go just to see if that would turn out just as badly.

This time I used these three polishes: 

Finger Paints: Vintage Violet, Sinful Colors: Folly, Essence: Style for Summernights

Same water, same temperature, same tools and same method. Drip, drip, drip, polish into the water, make a pattern with an orange stick and dip the nails. I made more drips this time to see if I could get the pattern to be more “water marble-ish”.

And here’s how it ended up looking like: 

 Another shot of it:

So, is water marbling something that I enjoyed trying? No, it’s not. I find it too time consuming and I feel that it’s a huge waste of polish.

Is it my style? No, it’s too random for me, and too difficult to make a nice pattern.

Will I try it again? Yeah, probably once or twice more, just because I can.

Have you tried water marbling? If yes, are you good at it? Please share your secret! :)

There are other Danish girls who also tried to water marble today. You should definitely check their blogs out to see what they came up with.  

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for nails inspired by a colour! I promise it’ll be very interesting to see how I interpret that!

Glitter Review

Hi girls,

Here are three cool glitters:

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I mixed some scoops of each of the glitters into clear polish. I wanted the glitters to be opaque on their own – I wasn’t interested in glittery toppers at this point.

Here are two coats of each swatched on a nail wheel:

And here they are on my nails – still two coats of each polish:

It doesn’t look very glittery, does it? Let me show you another picture, taken in the sun this time:

Wow, right? And here’s a blurred one to show you the holo effect:

The verdict is:

Pros:

- The glitter is quite stunning. I’m especially in love with the magenta!

- It’s easy to make an opaque polish of these glitters

- The price is reasonable for a relatively large amount of glitter

Cons:

- The glitters bleed once they’ve been mixed into a base, so it’ll only take a couple of hours before your base isn’t clear anymore (the clear base becoming more coloured and opaque), and diminishing the colour strength of the individual glitters.

- My polish chipped after less than 24 hours! And I’m talking big chips here!

- The polishes end up being very top coat hungry. I applied three coats of top coat, and they were still textured!

KKcenterHK has been so kind to offer my readers a 10% discount. 

Your unique coupon code is rainbowifyme (easy to remember, right? :D), and it’s valid until January 31st 2013!

Until tomorrow girls - let me hear your thoughts, please!

Summer Challenge Day 19: Galaxies

Summer Challenge Day 19: Galaxies

Galaxy nails seem to be extremely popular, and I understand why. They’re so pretty, and can be made in so many ways! I’ve never ever done a galaxy mani before, so I decided to ask for help to do this challenge. I asked sweet Alice Snow if she would be willing to help me do my nails, and fortunately she said yes! Hooray!

I used Catrice’s “I wear my sunglasses at night” as my base. It’s a dark crème full of microglitters in a variety of colours. I’m not as fond of it as I should be, so I think I put it up for a swap after this :)

Anyway – here’s two coats of “I wear my sunglasses at night”, no top coat:

I think it’s a nice base for galaxies. And then the fun began. Alice used these polishes:

Catrice: I wear my sunglasses at night, Essence: Style for summernights,
Sinful Colors: Folly, Flormar: 431, Essence: Gabriella, OPI: Last Friday night

And after a lot of sponging and dapping and sponging again, and after sealing it all up, first with a layer of OPI: Last Friday Night, and then with a layer of Poshé top coat, my galaxy nails were done: 

Aren’t they pretty? I really like these!

There are other Danish girls who made galaxy nails today. You should definitely check their blogs out to see what they came up with.  

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for water marbled nails! That’s the challenge I think will go wrong the most, but we’ll see :)

Raspberry Milkshake

Chequered Raspberry Milkshake

Have you ever bought a nail polish *just* because it was in a pretty bottle, even though you knew that you’d never, ever wear that colour nail polish? I have. I did exactly that just the other day. I was in H&M, shopping, when I saw this pretty square bottle of nail polish with Bambi on it. The colour was pale pink – not my colour at all, but I bought it anyway.

When I got home, I got rid of one third of the polish and starting mixing other stuff into the rest of the pale pink. I added glitters and pigments, other polishes and also a bit of Spectraflair. I shook the whole thing until my arm nearly fell off, and here’s the result: Raspberry Smoothie!

The little bottle to the left contains the third of polish I poured out of the bigger bottle. Quite a difference in colour, eh?

Here’s a pic in the sunshine to show you the glitter. I’m disappointed that the Spectraflair doesn’t make the polish holographic, but, yeah well…

The formula is a bit thick, but it’s a true one coater. Drying time is fast too! Unfortunately the glitter hides in the polish and is not very visible on the nails, but there are ways to change that.

Here is an indoor picture. As you can see, the polish dries up a bit gritty. I don’t mind so much, because I am not finished yet.

I added a coat of Catrice’s “Godfather of Pearl” from the “Million Styles” collection. It changed the colour completely, and added lots of shine to it. Here’s a sunshine pic. I love it when the sun is out when I do my nails!

And here’s an indoor shot. I really like this.

It’s a bit too girly for me, if you know what I mean. I wanted to stamp on it. I chose Mash stamping plate number 39 and stamped with Max Factor Glossfinity “Amethyst”, which is a lovely squishy purple.

I topped it all with a layer of Poshé top coat.

Sunshine pic:

And an indoor pic:

I must admit that I’m not totally satisfied with this. It’s a bit too pink – and I think I’ll try stamping with black next time to make it more “rough”, if that makes sense.

What do you think of the franken? Is Raspberry Smoothie a good name for it? Would you have stamped with black or does purple actually work?

Summer Challenge Day 18: Half moons

Summer Challenge Day 18: Half moons

This is the second challenge that I haven’t been looking forward to. Not because half moons should be particularly difficult to make – but because I don’t like them very much. Yes, they can be pretty on others, but on me? No!

So I decided to do it in an alternative way. I started of with a deep shimmery purple from the Swedish brand Isadora, called “Papagayo blue”. I don’t know why it’s called something with blue, because to me it’s definitely purple.

One coat of that, and I had exactly the coverage I wanted. It’s a fantastic formula these Isadora polishes have, and the ones I’ve tried have all been pretty opaque. I didn’t put on any top coat yet – because we’re not finished at all yet:

Then I chose a new polish from Icing, “Epic Winning”, a polish that very sweet Sue got for me. It’s a clear base packed with blue, purple and holographic glitter. I love it!

I sponged the tips with it, and was almost sad that I wasn’t finished with the mani. I really like glittery tips! There’s still no top coat involved and there was no sun in sight, so the holo effect of the glitter is not visible, but it’s still pretty in my opinion! 

 Now for the half moons. *sigh*

I stamped the half moons on, because I didn’t want them to be very prominent. I used stamping plate BM-310 from the new Bundle Monster collection of plates, and stamped with Essence “Stamp me! Silver” stampy polish. It was very difficult to get it placed correctly on the nails, but I did my very best.

Here’s the final result, covered with one coat of Seche Vite top coat:

And here’s the only nail that ended up looking like I wanted them all to:

I’m very happy that the half moons aren’t that visible in real life, because that means I can stand to wear them until tomorrow evening without going crazy from looking at nails I’m not satisfied with.

Please let me hear what you think, girls, and be honest. Do you like this?

There are other Danish girls who made half moon nails today. You should definitely check their blogs out to see what they came up with.  

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for galaxy designs! That’ll also be my first time, but I think I’ll team up with another nail polish addict so she can help me! Wait and see!

OPI DS Original

OPI DS Original (Designer Series)

Light plum linear holographic

Sunshine! That calls for holographic nailpolish! I’ve got quite a few in swaps recently, so I actually had a hard time deciding which one to try on first!! I went for OPI DS Original from their Designer Series. I’ve read so much about it, so I was dying to try it on. I had read that no special base coat was necessary, so I just slapped on my Miss Sporty base coat.

Application was easy, the polish just glided on. It was on the sheer side, so I kind of regretted that I hadn’t used some kind of coloured underwear for it. But I thought that this way I could see what this polish was really about. I ended up applying three coats. I didn’t have any problems with pulling on already applied polish or bald spots or anything. Easy peasy!! I didn’t apply a topcoat, because I’ve read that it dulls the holo effect, and that’s the last thing I wanted.

And look at how is makes little rainbows in the sunshine! 

I took about a million pictures to make sure that some of them would actually show the beauty of this polish:

Let me show you another reason why I regretted not having used this as a layering polish:

It’s so dull when it’s out of the sunshine, and too pale to look good with my skin tone.

Something weird happened later! I was applying some oil on my hands, and rubbed it in around my cuticles, like I do every evening. But the polish obviously didn’t like that, because the polish went all tacky and weird, and it dulled the holo effect more than any top coat could possibly have done! So I think that I’ll apply a top coat next time, in order to be able to rub oil into my hands :)

Have any of you experienced that holographic (or any other) nail polish didn’t work very well with subsequent use of hand creams/oils/lotions? I’m really curious to hear if I’m the first one experiencing this.

The verdict:

Opacity: 5/10
Colour, prettiness: 10/10
Durability: N/A/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7.6/10
Buy again: Yes

Summer Challenge Day 17: Glitter

Summer Challenge Day 17: Glitter

Glitter! My favourite finish of them all, and therefore also the challenge I’ve been looking forward to the most. The real challenge was to pick which glitter to show you girls!

I considered to use China Glaze’s Atlantis for this challenge. It’s my all time favourite glitter, and actually also my all time fave nail polish as such. But that would have been too easy, wouldn’t it?!

Instead I’ve decided to show you a glitter that holds a very special place in my heart, namely the very first glitter I owned: Orly’s Bubbly Bombshell. It was also my first Orly polish, and it’s a love that has lasted ever since! I blogged about Bubbly Bombshell here – posted long before I actually had any readers on my blog! :D

Anyway – enough with the talking, on with the polish. Two very easy coats and one generous coat of Seche Vite top coat:

 Isn’t it just gorgeous? I’m totally in love!!

I used Claire’s two way nail art pen and brush and made three white dots on each nail. Then I gave it another coat of Seche Vite, because this glitter is quite top coat thirsty.

Here’s my finished mani.

Glitter, glitter, glitter. How I love it!!!

You should also check out these other Danish girls’ blogs to see what they came up with for nails with glitter on them. I bet they made something pretty as well!

• Neglelir
• Se min kjole
• Mette
• Life is a fairy tale
• Vicki's Polish

Stay tuned the day after tomorrow - same bat time, same bat channel – for half moon designs! It’s my first time, so I’m sure it’s going to be fun!!

Input wanted, please!

Hi girls,

Today I’d like to hear your opinion about something that happened to me. Here's how it went:

In the middle of April I get in touch with another blogger. We’ve been commenting on each other’s blogs, and have now decided that it would be fun to do a swap. We email back and forth about what we like and what we don’t like, and we agree to swap for a certain dollar amount.

As we shop, we keep each other informed about the progresses we make, and by the beginning of May we’re both ready to ship it all off  to each other. We agree to ship it the cheapest way possible, in order to spend the saved amount on more polishes.

I send my parcel to her, and four days later, the girl emails me and tells me she shipped her parcel the day after I shipped mine. In the same mail she tells me that her mum has been in and out of the hospital, so it’s been a hectic couple of days for her.

Five days later I email her and ask her if she and her mum are OK. I receive no answer to that email.

Four days after I sent the email, she puts up a blog post where she mentions that “not so good life stuff is happening”. The following day she puts up two blog posts, but she doesn’t mention anything about her “personal situation”. She doesn't write any emails to me and she completely stops blogging after these two posts.

A month after I sent the parcel to her, I write her another email, asking her if she’s OK, and if she’s received her parcel. I also write that I haven’t received my parcel yet. I receive no answer to this email.

Nine and a half weeks after I sent my package, I suddenly receive an email from her. She writes that she’s happy with the polishes I sent her. She also knows I didn’t get my parcel and that the post office doesn't know why I never received it. She says she has shopped for another parcel for me, to make it fair. She writes that her mum has gone through surgery, and she and her mum have been out of town after that. Her mum is supposed to go through surgery again the day after, but the following day the girl will ship my new parcel and via airmail this time. She writes that she will send me a picture of the parcel this time. I never receive such a picture.

After that I’ve written six emails to her, which all remain unanswered.

Now it’s been 13 weeks since the first parcel was shipped, and 4 weeks since the second parcel supposedly was shipped.

I checked the shipping times on the Canadian postal service’s website, and it states that the cheapest shipping option takes 4-6 weeks for the goods to arrive in Denmark. And 6-10 business days if you ship via air mail.

Now – what would you think if you were me? And what would you do?