NYC - Greenwich Goddess

Hi guys! Today I have for you an interesting nailpolish that I bought when I was shopping by myself one day. I hadn't planned on buying any polish that day, but I randomly came across this one and it caught my eye. I ended up liking it a lot more than I originally anticipated, which is always a nice surprise!

I'm talking about Greenwich Goddess by NYC. They don't sell this brand at the drugstore in my town anymore, which is a real shame, because they have some really great polishes in their product line. Their black creme, for example, is amazing and I've used up three bottles of it so far, and still have two bottles of it in my collection.

This nail polish is a white creme with black hexagonal glitter in two sizes. There were a number of similar ones (one was light blue with black glitter, for example) but the white was my favourite. And it really is quite nice. Look how pretty it is!

The formula is really great! I used two coats that applied on very smoothly. I had to dab my brush on my nails a few times to get a more even glitter placement, but that is pretty normal for polishes with big glitter, and it didn't cause any problems. I really, really liked how this looked on me so I actually ended up wearing it for 5 days before taking it off. By then, I only had a few minor chips at the tips, which is very good for such a cheap nail polish. I love it, and I will definitely be wearing it more often.

Essence - Mashed Berries

Hey guys! Today I have a really awesome nail polish to show you that reminds me of summer and smoothies. It was actually part of a collection from last year, but that doesn't make me love it any less now.

This is Essence Mashed Berries, which was obtainable from their Fruity collection from last year. There were three different polishes that looked similar to this one, but this is my favourite. They unfortunately have no names on the bottles, but I do know that this one is named Mashed Berries.

It's a very sweet pink creme with purple glitter in it. Because the glitter is tiny and dark, the polish totally resembles a smoothie. It looks delicious! It's not that noticable in my pictures, but the glitter does sparkle, you just need to be looking at it from the right angle. 

I used three thin coats for full opacity and I had no problems applying it. I'm very happy with this polish. It makes me want to eat my nails. :D

Essence Floral Grunge - Black To The Roots

Hey everyone! I already showed you Madly Purpled, the matte polish of Essence's Floral Grunge collection, and today I'll be showing you the other polish I got.

This is Black To The Roots. It is called 'The Rough' one of this collection which is why I was very curious about it. With all the hype around textured polishes nowadays I thought that this might be Essence's version of the trend.

And it is. Sort of! Black To The Roots is a dark gray base with gritty silver glitter in it. This is definitely not a textured polish like the Liquid Sand collection for example. But there is texture in it, as you can see in the pictures. The base dries up with a sort of matte, almost rubbery finish, while the glitter leaves a gritty texture. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but it is definitely interesting.

The application was pretty bad. The formula is kind of weird and streaky, making it difficult to paint even coats. I used two coats for full opacity and no top coat to show off the grittiness. I definitely like Madly Purpled a lot more!

What do you think of this polish?

Wet 'n Wild - Back Alley Deals

Today's polish is one of my overall personal favourites. This was actually the first one I ever ordered off the internet - I just HAD to have it after seeing swatches from All You Desire a long time ago.

I mean, just look at it, because it screams 'me'. Purple, pink, AND glitter? That's definitely a Tess-polish. I love it. :')

This is Wet 'n Wild Back Alley Deals. An absolutely gorgeous glitter polish. It has a clear base that is packed with very small purple glitter, and slightly larger round pink glitter.

The glitter is very dense and it could be worn on it's own. But if you have this polish, please don't, because it looks even better if layered over a dark creme. Plus, you use less polish, so you can wear it more often. ;) Here I have one coat layered over Revlon Plum Night, a simple dark purple.

It does dry up rather gritty and dull. Even though that works really well for this polish, I prefer to use two layers of topcoat to make it shiny and sparkly. The formula for this polish is great! Even now it's starting to thicken a bit it was very easy to apply, and because the glitter is so dense you generally get an even amount of purple and pink everywhere.

For reference - this is a picture without topcoat. Still very pretty! Sometimes I wear it like this as well.

Art De Lautrec 04B

Guys, it has happened again. I fell in love with another nail polish.

Today's polish is one by a brand that seems to be fairly unknown! I had heard of the name Art De Lautrec before and I was pretty curious about their nail polishes. So when I found them for sale at a Christmas Fair I visited back in december I got myself this one.

This beauty is 04B (I wish they had nice names!). It has a blackened base that is absolutely packed with gorgeous and very sparkly holo glitter. How pretty is that? I keep looking at my nails! 

I have painted one coat of it over Essence Black Is Back. It's apparently possible to wear it on it's own, but I haven't done that for reasons listed below.

So, I have one problem with this polish. My bottle has a very weird formula. It feels really gloopy and thick even though it's not that hard to apply. It is, however, impossible to paint thin layers with this one which is why I decided to layer it over a black creme. I do think this is just my bottle, so if you ever want to try it out, no worries! I probably just got unlucky. :)

It dries up a bit dull, but one coat of topcoat was enough to make it super sparkly. And despite the thick coat I had to use, it dried up very fast and looks very smooth and shiny!

I have never seen Zoya Storm with my own eyes, but if I look at the swatches of it, 04B looks like it could be a dupe.

What do you think of this polish? And are you familar with Art De Lautrec?

Essie - Escapades with a simple accent

The weather here has been very nice recently! It's finally warming up and I'm really enjoying it. Time to wear bright nail polish! Today I have an awesome bright red by Essie to show you guys.

I love this colour! Escapades is a very pretty red creme that is not quite as bright as the above picture, but it's a great shade for summer that really pops. I chose to wear this colour because I wanted to do something with some nail glitter I got as a gift a few months ago, specifically the hollowed out silver hearts, because I figured it would go well together.

And I think it came out cute! I originally planned to use just one heart, but then I found some smaller pieces hidden in between the heart glitter and I like this much better. The glitter stayed on my nails surprisingly well, though I did add an extra layer of top coat.

I also had no problems applying Escapades. The formula is a bit thin but it's easy to control and I only needed two coats for full opacity. It stayed on my nails for about 4/5 days before it started chipping, which is great. :) All in all, a lovely polish and a nice addition to my stash.

Nail Polish Rings

Hello everyone! Today I have something different to show you. If you have been with me for a while you might remember the nail polish earrings I have posted about before. A while after I made that post, I decided to look into rings as well, and I have made quite a few. I took pictures of some of my favourites, which I will be showing in this post!

Also, would a how-to for nail polish jewlery be interesting? When I looked around for tutorials, I couldn't find many helpful ones, so if you're interested in seeing a tutorial by yours truly, let me know!

Anyway, let's start, shall we? Purple is my favourite colour for nail polish, so it's no surprise that my most favourite rings are all purple.

1. This picture does not do it justice, but this ring is SUPER sparkly in real life. I made this one with Claire's Purple Holographic Glitter that does not seem to have a name or number.

2. This ring is made with one of my favourite polishes in the world: Wet n' Wild Back Alley Deals. Guys, it's so pretty. I backed this one with black because the glitter didn't fully cover the back of the cabochon.

3. I don't remember what purple polish I used for this, but I do know I used the Spectraflair Topcoat by Piper Polish to give it a holographic shine. Again, the picture does not do it justice, but it looks amazing!

4. This one was an experiment that just happened to turn out awesome. I stamped NYC Platinum Card on the back of the Cabochon and then backed it up with Catrice Poison Me, Poison you. I love the result.

And now for some blues.

1. Oooh, sparkles! I used Claire's nameless blue glitter backed with black. I wear this one pretty often!

2. I'll be honest... I bought Essence Mr And Mrs Glitter just because I wanted to make a ring with it, since I don't like it on my nails very much. I'm glad I did, because this ring looks awesome. I backed it with black.

3. This ring didn't turn out the way I wanted it to, but I like it nonetheless. This is Essence Glorious Aquarius, backed with NYC East Village.

4. The crackle hype is long over and considered 'lame' by many people nowadays, but it honestly works great for jewelry! This is Barry M's black crackle backed with Essence Choose Me!. I love this combination.

And some other ones, these had to have their pictures taken at an angle to show off how pretty they are.

1. Another crackle! This is Barry M's black crackle again, this time backed with Catrice Genius In A Bottle. My sister thought of this combination of colours and we both have earrings like this. Reminds me of tigers!

2. This was another experiment that turned out nice. I used Catrice Hot Or Not? for the hot pink, Essence Stampy Polish for the white, and Essence Sweet As Candy for the background.

3. This was actually the first ring I have ever made, and I used Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple backed with black. Very pretty!

4. And ofcourse, this is Essie Leading Lady. It looks amazing enough by itself, so that is the only polish I used for this ring. I probably wear this one most often out of all my rings. :)

I have more, ofcourse, but this post would be much too long if I wanted to show them all. I do hope you enjoyed seeing pictures of them! Nail polish jewelry is so much fun to make and I'll definitely be making more, so expect more posts about this sometime in the future.

Paint It Blue For Autism - Jelly Sandwich

As you may already know, April is Autism Awareness month and today is World Autism Awareness day. Many nail polish bloggers have decided to join forces and spread awareness by painting their nails blue for this day, others have decided to do a weekly blue manicure. I will be doing the latter.

I'm not usually very open about this, but the reason I decided to join this awesome initiative is because it's important to me personally. When I was very young, I was diagnosed with an autistic disorder. I wasn't an easy child and it has been a long and sometimes very difficult struggle to get where I am today, but I'm proud of myself for how far I've come, and for how much I am still improving day by day. I know what it's like to be misunderstood and mistreated and that's why this month is so important to those with autism.

So, to start it off, I have pulled out all the blue nail polishes I own (which is surprisingly not a lot!) and for the first day I decided to do a blue jelly sandwich. I'm not familiar with these, and this was only my second ever attempt.

I really wish the pictures did this manicure justice. In real life it looks a bit darker, and it has a lot of depth. The holographic square glitter looks amazing squished in between the layers of blue.

The blue polish I used to create this sandwich is a nameless and brandless blue I got together with my nameless green a while ago. I actually figured out the bottle shape is the same as Safari's bottles, but the caps are different and the only label it has on it says '145'. I bought this one because I'm looking for a TARDIS blue creme. When I tried it out for the first time I was disappointed because it's a very sheer jelly-like polish. Not exactly what I wanted, but great for this manicure.

First I painted two coats of the blue, because it's really sheer. It has a thin formula so I had to be very careful not to flood my cuticles. I let the two coats dry for a while and then I added glitter. I used Essence's glitter topper known as Julia as the glitter in the middle of the jelly sandwich and then painted another thin coat of my blue jelly on top of it. The result is pretty awesome, but it feels very thick on my nails, and it's drying very slowly, despite me waiting a long time for each coat to dry. I'm still happy with the result, though! :D

Essie - Leading Lady

So, I still haven't been painting my nails very often! It's not that I don't have the time to, I just don't really feel like it. However, my nails do look much better now - they're not as stained anymore, so that's a plus. :)

Anyway, I do have some pictures to show you from a few weeks back from an amazing polish by my favourite brand - Essie!

This nail polish is Leading Lady by Essie, from their winter collection of this year! If you visit a lot of nail blogs you've probably seen this one a few times already. I know I have! So when I saw it in store, I was really excited. I wanted to use gift vouchers I have to get it, but I wasn't able to use them in the store it was sold, and I couldn't afford it by myself... so then my boyfriend secretly grabbed it and got it for me! I have trained him well- I mean, he's a sweetheart. :D 

However, he told me I had to make a blog post about it, so here it is!

Leading Lady is a polish with a dark red jelly base full of gorgeous red glitter. Despite being so glittery, it has a very easy and smooth application. I needed two coats for full coverage. It dries up rather gritty, however, so to really bring out the sparkle I added a generous coat of topcoat.

The result is really squishy and sparkly nails, and I love it. There's so much depth in this one! I had a hard time choosing which pictures to use, because the polish is just so pretty there weren't any bad pictures, haha.

And here is a picture of it in a different light, to show you just how much glitter it has. I am in love. As for removing it... I'm not sure how difficult it is, as I personaly used my peel off basecoat. But I'm sure it's nothing the foil method can't handle!

Reddit Challenge - Week 11: Glitter

I've been looking forward to this week's challenge! I love glitter polish, though I don't have nearly enough, and I wasn't sure what to do for this week. I ended up with something simple, but very pretty and sparkly. You see, I keep seeing gorgeous nails with a nude base, and a glitter gradient at the tips, and I've always wanted to recreate that in my own way. And then I realized I have a very good glitter for that.

This has been my manicure for the past week. I didn't want to take it off because I was very glad with the result, even if it's kind of simple.

I used two coats of Essie Mademoiselle to give my nails a lighter but natural pink, because they're a bit orange tinted from all the nail polish I wear. Once this was dried I simply freehanded the tips and then used a sponge to make a fade effect. The glitter I used is a purple holographic one by Claire's, which doesn't have a name but is extremely pretty.

As a finishing touch I applied one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust over all my nails, and I was done.

It also didn't chip at all, so I wore this for almost a full week, which does not happen often... mostly because I tend to get bored and change my nail polish before it even gets a chance to chip.

I hope you like it! :D

Holo glitter gradient

Hey everyone! Today I have a pretty simple manicure to show you. This is the first 'wintery' manicure I have done this year. At least, I thought it was wintery. :)

I love glitter gradients. They're really simple to make and they always look good. I've been in a glittery mood lately, so I think it's safe to expect more glitter this month, since I have a bunch that I don't use as often as I should!

For this manicure I used Essence Absolutely Blue, which is a soft light blue colour. I've often heard people say this is a perfect colour for summer, but I think blues are perfect for winter, which is why I chose this colour. Temperatures are starting to get cold and The Netherlands has had its first snow already, so it was fitting. The glitter is Essence Hello Holo.

I love Hello Holo, as you can see in the bottle in the pictures, it's super sparkly! I have worn this one so often, it's definitely my favourite glitter that I own. It goes with practically every colour, plus it's great for jewelry making as well, in my opinion.

I definitely was happy with this manicure! What do you think?

Pink Wednesday: Mod Squad and Fairy Dust

Hello! As most of you might know, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, an international health campaign that is organized to raise funds and awareness, and a bunch of nail bloggers decided to post pink manicures on each wednesday of this month. I sadly missed the first one, but I'll be posting pink today and the next ones, to show my support and in honor of survivors, or those still battling the disease.

Today I have for you two very recent additions to my collection, that I got thanks to an amazing friend of mine. This is Essie Mod Squad and China Glaze Fairy Dust.

Mod Squad is a gorgeous and bright blue based pink creme. The pictures make it seem more red toned than it is, but the last picture in this post is the most colour accurate one. It's a lovely colour that applied very nicely and reminds me of Barbie. It's perfect. I needed two coats for it to be opaque.

To make the manicure a bit fancier, I applied a coat of Fairy Dust on top. Oh, Fairy Dust. I can't tell you how happy I am to finally have this amazing glitter. It's been my lemming for a long time and now I have it and I'm probably going to use it a lot. Fairy Dust is a top coat with very tiny holographic silver glitters, and the name is perfect for it, because I definitely felt like I was wearing fairy dust on my nails.

What do you think? I think the two of polishes go very well together. I can't wait to try out more combinations with Fairy Dust. I definitely want to apply it over a gradient sometime!

Eyeko - Vampira

Hi guys! Today I have for you another very nice vampy colour. This one is by Eyeko.

If you're not familiar with Eyeko, it's a British company that focuses on eye makeup. However, they used to sell some very cute polishes as well. They were discontinued quite a while ago though, so I'm happy I managed to get my hands on this polish.

This is Vampira, and it has a black base full of amazing red glitter. The name is very fitting for it! I suppose this could be considered a dupe for China Glaze's LubuHeels, but Vampira seems a bit brighter. Also, the bottle is adorable.

The application of this polish is very smooth and on most nails I got away with two coats. In some places I still saw some bare spots an I used 3 coats. It also dries up rather bumpy because of the glitter in it, but a topcoat fixes that and gives it a real nice depth as well.

So all in all, I really like this polish and it's definitely a little jewel in my collection. Because it's discontinued I try to not use it too often because I don't want to use it all up! :P

What do you think? Do you own any Eyeko polishes?

H&M Duo - City and Zoo

Don't you love it when you end up really loving a nail polish you had your doubts about before? Today I will be showing you the duo City & Zoo by H&M. When I saw this in the store I bought it mostly because it was cheap and I have only ever tried out one other H&M polish before. Today I finally decided to wear them together to see what they'd look like.

This is City, the base colour of the two. It's a very pretty bright pink colour that looks good by itself. It's super glossy, the above picture is without a topcoat. It looks like a jelly but it really isn't. I used two coats, and there is still a bit of VNL but I figured the glitter would cover that up. Application was fine. The polish was pretty thin and runny but nothing too hard to control.

Then I applied the topcoat, Zoo, which looks like a dusty pink with holographic glitters in the bottle. This is why I had my doubts about it, because it just does not look appealing in the bottle to me. 

I ended up liking it a lot, though! I didn't expect that at all. The tiny glitter is super pretty and it sparkles like crazy. Me gusta.

I used one coat of Zoo to get the glitters on. It dried a bit gritty but a topcoat fixed that very easily and you end up with a super shiny and glittery manicure. :)

Also, I can finally show my thumbnail! Two months ago it broke and it ripped right into my nailbed. It hurt a lot and it looked terrible for weeks, so I'm glad it looks fine again!

A blurry closeup to show the sparkle. Look at that bottle. I'm sure you can understand why I keep staring at my nails...

I'm very happy with these polishes! I'm definitely going to try out Zoo over other polishes sometime and see what I end up with. :D Have you ever been pleasantly surprised by a polish?

Pink French Tape Manicure

 A few days ago the rolls of striping tape I ordered finally got here! I already tried it out for my Dalek nail art but since I watched the season premiere yesterday I decided to do a full manicure with my striping tape.

... speaking of Doctor Who, if you have seen it, wasn't it amazing? I'm not going to spoil anything for those who still need to see it, but I loved it! :D

Anyway, the manicure I did was not an original idea of mine. I pretty much copied a manicure I found on Google, and I wanted to give proper credit to the person who did it but I forgot to save the link to their blog and I can't find it on Google anymore. So if the idea seems familiar, that's why.

This is my result. While striping tape is very helpful for making shapes and sharp lines I really love to add them to the nail as an accent. So for this manicure, I first used some regular scotch tape to create the diagonal french tips. After that had completely dried, I carefully added the silver striping tape. I really need to practice with putting the tape on properly because some bits of tape at the edges are letting loose as I'm typing this. Oops.

After I had added the tape I added some glitter to my tips. I'm still not sure if I like the glitter or not, though.

The polishes I used were Catrice - Hot Or Not? for the pink tips and Essence - Party Princess for the glitter. The striping tape I purchased from eBay. I have 10 different colours that I got for about 4 dollar from this seller. I'm pretty happy with it and ofcourse I'm already thinking of other manis to create with it. :)

NYC - Rock Muse

On friday I finally had a chance to go to town and get some things I needed. And while I was there, I decided to pick up some new polishes as well, because every brand seemed to have some new ones in their collection. I picked up 7 of them and today I am going to show you one.

This is NYC - Rock Muse. It's limited edition, and I think it's pretty similar OPI - Metallic 4 Life so I'm glad I managed to get this one!

This polish has silver hex glitter and micro glitter in a sheer dark grey base. It's actually a topcoat, meant for layering over other polishes. In these pictures I have layered one coat over black. Application wasn't that great. The formula seemed a little thick, and I had difficulty spreading the glitter on my nails evenly, which you can see by comparing the glitter on my pointer finger to that on my ring finger. That was a shame.

Even with a top coat it looked a bit bumpy and odd, but it did feel smooth on my nails. I do love the silver glitter on black, it really gives me a punk rocky feeling, which I always like!

Overall not a bad nail polish, and if you like OPI - Metallic 4 Life and want to own something similar, I'd definitely get this one. Considering how cheap it is, it's worth it.

Essence - It's Purplicious Comparison

As some of you may know, Essence has a series of special effect toppers, including glitter top coats. These glitter toppers are some of my favourites because they are very pretty and very cheap.

While I was going through my stash I noticed I have two polishes named 'It's Purplicious'. They're both purple glitter top coats. I'm not sure why Essence gave them the same names, because they're completely different! Today I'm going to show you both of them.

Here they are next to each other, 'Version 1' (left) and 'Version 2' without any base colour underneath. 

In sunlight

Version 1 has pretty small and round purple and silver glitter, with some bigger holographic glitters scattered around. The holographic glitters really add to this top coat, I love it! It's very easy to apply evenly and even without a top coat it's not very bumpy. This one is my favourite.

Version 2, which is apparently harder to find, also has small purple and silver glitter, with big chunky square glitters that are super shiny. It's fairly easy to apply but I did need to dab on the bigger glitters to ensure they were spread out evenly. It's also a bit bumpy, but nothing that top coat can't fix.

I have also layered them over black to see what it would look like!

Ahh, so pretty, aren't they? I love purple, it's my favourite colour for any polish, be it glitter or creme.

In sunlight

So overall these glitters are very pretty and a great addition to my stash! I'm wearing version 1 on my toenails right now and it's super sparkly and gorgeous. If you like these, you should definitely keep an eye out for any of the other glitter top coats by Essence.

Lavender French Tips

Today I was feeling inspired. I saw a lot of pretty french manicures on several websites, and I decided to try my own. I have these french tip nail guide stickers, but they were absolutely terrible, and I am horrible at freehanding anything except for dots. As a result, my first ever attempt at taping was born!

It's definitely not perfect, but also not bad for a first try. It was surprisingly easy, and I'm very happy with how it turned out! I'm probably going to try out different colour combinations.

As for the colours, I used Essence Pink Diamond for the stripes and NYC Lavender Cupcake for the tips. Topped it off with the Essence Gel-Look Topcoat. I think I would have liked silver stripes better, but I like this combination as well!

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple

Today I want to show you one of my favourite nail polishes: Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple.

Anyone who knows me, knows I have a weakness for glitters and shifting colours. That is why I just had to have this polish. I lusted over it for about a year before I finally saw a cheap bottle on eBay and bought it, and I'm so glad I did! I'm also definitely planning on getting more of the set, Chunky Holo Black in particular. :)

This is Chunky Holo Purple layered over Essence Purple Cherry, a dark purple. As you can see the polish is definitely not holographic, but look at that gorgeous glitter! It's a multichrome glitter in a very sheer purple base. The glitters mostly seem orange and green to me, but shift to blue and yellow depending on the way you look at it. Absolutely amazing.

Look at that colour shift! Isn't it pretty? :D

Colours like these are also perfect for earrings, so I immediately made a pair.

I love how different it looks this way.

So, if you like mulitchrome and glitter, this one is definitely for you. And be sure to check out the others of the Chunky Holo set as well!

My first post.

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Hello!

My name is Tess and I'm a 20 year old girl from The Netherlands. My biggest hobby and obsession is nail polish and anything that has to do with it. This hobby started two years ago, and I have mostly done simple manicures. However, I'd love to start trying out new things.

I like sharing pictures of my manicures on Twitter and Instagram but I have decided to start a blog. I don't expect to get many followers at all, but it's something I enjoy that keeps me busy. So, if you do decide to follow me, I hope you will enjoy my posts!

To start off my blog, I want to share some of the nail polish earrings that I've made. :)

This is probably the favourite pair I have done. I used Golden Rose Scale Effect 11 on top of NYC City Blackout. They look like little gems!

More after the break!