Merry Christmas/Happy holidays!

Merry Christmas!

Wasn't really in the mood for Christmas nail art this year to be honest. I watched Ghostbusters recently and I wanted them green. So green it is. Which is still sort of a Christmassy colour.

The green in question is 2True, 'Shade 4'. What a catchy name.

Anyway, enjoy the holidays everyone and have a great 2014~!

Meet Me on the Star Ferry.

Got this OPI polish from my aunt not too long ago. 'Meet Me on the Star Ferry'. I shan't even pretend to have an inkling what that name means or refers to, but it's a nice colour.

It's probably just an unfortunate coincidence, but I've not really been to impressed by any of the OPI polishes I've worn.
The price they charge for them in the Netherlands is a fair amount higher than in the US, and that alone gives me fairly high expectations.

It's a pretty old pink-purplish sort of shade. I'm not sure how to describe it. Very sparkly and shimmery.
Took around 4 coats to properly cover, though it was fairly fast drying.

Flash.

Artificial light.

Complementary, my dear Watson #2.

After quite liking the result of the previous one, I thought I'd try another round of a complementary colour gradient.

Polishes used:
Herôme W.I.C, Utreg 173 (base yellow)
Hema, 76 Neon (yellow)
Hema, 74 Neon (purple)
Miss Sporty, Sparkle Touch (sparkles)

I'm not sure about the sparkles. On one hand, they're pretty distant from the gradient that's going on but on the other hand I sort of like the look of it. Perhaps unnecessarily festive but who cares.

That's blue-orange and yellow-purple done, leaving basically red-green which I won't go to soon. Perhaps for Christmas, but not yet. Not sure what I'll go for next, for now I quite like the look of these!

Complementary, my dear Watson.

Okay, I'm semi-sorrry for this post title.
Anyway, a good complementary contrast always stands out so I wanted to apply that in a nice sponge gradient mani.

Polishes used:
2true, 'Shade no. 25' (orange)
2true, 'Shade no. 15' (blue)
Essence, '01 - Wonderlicious Green' (it's blue, damnit)
Golden Rose, 'Scale Effect 12' (flakies)

2true's shade of blue works very poorly as a polish on itself, so I layered it over the ever misnamed Wonderlicious Green, to have a good blue base. The 2true blue is a very sparkly polish, and so is its orange, so those work together very well. The orange is pretty well pigmented, and though a bit coppery now, is really a very bright orange when used on its own.

And finally, I feel the largely orange flakies tie the whole together quite nicely

Osaka.

Before I begin...

DOCTOR WHO COMES BACK TODAY!

Happy 50th, Doctor Who!

Now on to the regular nail stuff.

I thought it a shame to get rid of Kingston so quickly, so I did a simple tape mani on it using Herôme W.I.C's 'Osaka 91'. A slight variation on my much abused half rhombus, as you see. The nails with gaps on top sadly didn't go as smoothly as I would have liked, though.

Osaka is a red that's bright and quite in-your-face. Such bright reds sometimes lean towards the orange, but this one is proper fire-engine red.

Kingston.

'Kingston 73' by Herôme is a holo polish that's beige with perhaps a hint of gray. As most holos, it's very quick drying and one coat does the job. I must say I really like this colour. It's a very nice neutral polish you can wear with a lot of things but it's not boring or bland.


I did some nail art on it, once upon a time..



Some blurry pictures coming up, so sorry!

Artificial light, flash.

I've kind of run out of things to say on this, but here are some more pretty pictures.

Lisbon.

'T is a continued unfortunate state of affairs the workload my current school provides me does not leave me the time on a weekly basis to do awesome nail art things. I'd also like to see my boyfriend or friends every now and then, which means less time.

It makes me very uncomfortable, though. To see my nail polish chip more each day. I went to school without any polish at all once, it has - literally - been years since I have done that. Highly irregular.

Anywho, I bring to you a swatch of  '105 Lisbon', by Herôme.

With flash.

(Middle finger polish got a little damaged overnight..) A nice purple polish of no real preference to either pink or blue. It's a proper purple. It has a nice shimmer in it that livens up the colour.
It's not the greatest in terms of coverage, in order to be satisfied I had to go for three coats, but on a shorter nail two would do.

Artificial light.

Its longevity is nothing too special, it started chipping rather soon. I do like this shade a lot so I'll be wearing it again sometime soon!

Happy (belated) Halloween!

Themed cupcakes, courtesy of my wonderful mother!

Even though we don't celebrate Halloween as elaborately in the Netherlands as they do in the States, it's still my favourite holiday, and as the years progress more and more Halloween-themed parties are thrown, more trick-or-treaters venture out into the night and more spooky decorations and products find themselves into the stores! I can only wholeheartedly applaud these efforts!

Sadly, October is a busy time for me, and I always seem to fall short for time when it comes to doing nail art of that one day a year I love so much. So here, is my unfortunately rather bland Halloween nail art.

 

It was originally my intention to paint a little ghost on both ring fingers, but a large assignment and having to prepare for tests prevented me doing so. School before nails, after all. 

Orange is Herôme's 'Zagora 150', gray is my trusty NYC '003 Prey of Grey'

"That is not dead which can eternal lie,"

"And with strange aeons even death may die.” 

October is to me basically synonymous with "Halloween" and so nail art must follow.
In keeping with the H.P. Lovecraft project my amazing friend Gillian and I have been doing (check it it out; it's readings of various Lovecraft stories) I wanted to do some tentacly Cthulhu-inspired nail art.

 

I won't go into which white nail polish I used because they're quite terrible and I don't want to recommend them as they do not cover in the slightest. Why must a good, opaque white polish be so hard to find?

Tentacles are various acrylic paints.

Bonus happy stampy pumpkin!

Marbled.

I've been meaning to try water marbling, it being one of those techniques that's so common but I'd never attempted it myself.

Estée Lauder - Blue Dahlia, Catrice - C05 Take It Mint

I then attempted it.
And sucked, terribly.
It was somewhat of a blow to the ego to find out there was a nail art technique I didn't just miraculously take to without all that much effort. It appeared I'd met my match. I did not quit, however, and gave it another shot.
This was my third try. I think it's okay. It is successful inasmuch that it has the marble effect on the nail.

It's not really my technique. Don't get me wrong, I think it can look absolutely amazing but when it comes down to it to me it's messy (which I hate), uncontrolled (which goes against my nature) and rather wasteful. One has to test a fair amount of polishes before you even find out what works with this, and then if you want to do more than two nails .. that's a hell of a lot of drops plopped in water, you know? To me, at least, the amount of nail polish expended is not worth the result. I may experiment with it again in the future, but probably not for more than accent nails like I did here. I can't imagine bothering with a whole hand, let alone two.

✖ Tutorial

Pictured above is my most recent nail art and, never having done one before, I made a tutorial of it in the process! Please click the link for the tutorial!
 

✖

I'm a busy, busy student once more, so the time I have to spend on doing my nails is diminished.. hence not quite up to my usual standard of neatness. Still, I hope you enjoy this nail art!

Anyway - polishes used:
- Catrice C01 - Innocent Toxin (LE: Revoltaire)
- Catrice C03 - Deep Purple (Purple Passion Trend Collection)
- Teeez Big Apple

✖ Tutorial

100th post! + Even More Heavy Metallilac

I appear to have made it to a hundred posts! Have a silly doodle to celebrate.

Originally my idea was to try my hand (pun) at water marbling for my 100th, but it didn't.. really go all that well. Alas. And I didn't want too wait too long to make another point.

I have previously swatched Catrice's 'Heavy Metallilac' and I was exceptionally pleased with it at the time.
More recently (though still a fair while ago) I was given '31 - Even More Heavy Metallilac', one of the more recent Catrice polishes because it has the logo stand out on top of the bottle.

I'd wanted the opportunity to really see them side-by-side, because in my mind the colours were a lot closer.
The original Heavy Metallilac is decidedly closer to pink than its successor. Even More is a truer purple, bearing some similarity to From Dusk To Dawn.

They're both great, eye-popping colours with a fantastic shine to them. Two coats will do you just fine.

Strawberry Lollipop.

Another of H&M's little 'Say No To Racism'-set, 'Strawberry Lollipop'. I've reviewed two other polishes of the set before, and they really disappointed me (especially since I bought the full set mainly for one of them).

Anyone that knows me is aware pink isn't my colour, but one of my best friends - my Pinkie Pie, if you will - loves the colour. So for her birthday party recently I dug this out. Since I quite frankly had no trust in this polish beforehand, I layered it over a darker pink.

I can't wear pink without feeling like I have Barbie hands. It's strange how the colour on your nails can alter your perception of your hands so much.
It's a light, 'sweet' shade of pink. I don't recommend this particular polish because it really doesn't cover very well. I'm sure there's similar pinks of a better quality out there.

Artificial light - flash.

 Whatever your opinion - this polish is definitely suited to a Pinkie party!

I'm Blue (Da Ba Dee)

Are these polishes cousins or..?

I know one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and it's rather childish of me but..
I've basically had these polishes sitting in my collection and not really using them because I thought the names were tacky and derivative. Which is pretty damn rich from a girl that has very cheap puns, references and forced alliterations as her post names constantly.
Anyway.
I wanted a nice blue and figured I might as well give an older one a go. I can't say for sure if I've ever even used it before.
It's an older Essence polish, '37 Just Rock It!'

Actually a really nice shade of blue, a perfect balance of that line between "obviously blue" and "is that black or not?".
It took two coats and held pretty well. It's a pure blue shade, no shimmer to be found. I will definitely wear this one again. Shame on me for ignoring it so long for such a stupid reason.

 

Natural light - flash.

330.

Natural light.

It's hard not to wear copious amounts of green for me, it really is. Anyway, this fresh minty green is a Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours polish bearing the number 330. It requires a good three coats to stop the nail shining through too much, sadly. On that basis alone I wouldn't really recommend it. Yet, it's quite a nice colour, so if you can spare the time for the extra coat it's lovely!

I could give it another positive spin by suggesting it could be something close to a budget 'Island Palm'.

Sadly the second day of wearing it this polish got seriously beat up. This is mainly due to working with my hands (folding boxes, filling boxes, carrying boxes..), but that does mean I can't give a very accurate statement on how long it holds up before it starts chipping under 'regular' circumstances.

Artificial light - flash.

Welcome, listeners, to Night Vale...

When I got back from Norway, it appeared everyone I knew online had been swept away by the 'Welcome to Night Vale' podcast. Out of curiosity I decided to give it a go (it being described as, among other things, 'Lovecraftian', I was very intrigued) and found myself really liking it.
And when I like things.. nail art follows.

I took a few pictures because this nail art proved really hard to photograph properly.

The above is Hema Neon '74', a Herôme nail striper for the eye and black and white acrylic paints for the rest.

Now the polish on the rest of my nails since I find the Hema purple to cover insufficiently..
Herôme W.I.C.'s '105 Lisbon', a stunning purple with a great shimmer.

Top left - artifical light. Top right - flash.
Bottom - natural light.