Leopard mani with Bluesea bow review

Hi guys! Today I have another review for you. I already showed you the studs from KKCenterHk, but they also sent me some adorable 3D bow decorations by Bluesea.

These bows come in a ton of different colours and patterns but I personally decided to go with these with a white background and a pink and black leopard print because I'm a big sucker for leopard prints... I'm pretty sure I've said that before, though.

I made a matching nail art with them, using Essie Mod Squad as my base and NYC City Blackout with white acrylic paint for the leopard print. 

The bows are fairly small and should apply to every nail with ease. The site recommends you to apply them with nail glue. DO NOT apply them with topcoat if you intend to reuse them! I personally used topcoat, having no nail glue, and with removal of the bow I had to be very careful not to ruin it. Keep this in mind if you plan to order them. However, even with just the topcoat it stayed on an entire day before I removed it before going to bed. That's pretty great, in my opinion.

These bows retail for $4.00, which is a very fair price considering that these are intended to be reusable. They come in packages of two, which means you can use them for a cute accent nail on both of your hands. Yay!

Also, don't forget about my coupon code!

When ordering at KKCenterHk you can use the code POLISH-SMOOTHIE at checkout

to receive a 10% discount on your order.

Essence Sparkle Sand Effect - Hey, Nude!

Hey guys!

A while ago I posted about Essence's attempt at a 'rough' polish. I thought it was going to be a textured polish like the Liquid Sands we all know but I was slightly disappointed when I found out that wasn't the case. I've been dying to try out a textured polish but I haven't been able to get my hands on one yet.

Well, Essence recently came with actual textured polishes! I was very excited to try them so I picked them up. They come in three different colours and today I'll be showing you the nude variant.

Essence Hey, Nude! Is the Sparkle Sand Effect in an elegant nude colour. The base is a very light pink with silver shimmer and a few different sizes of silver glitter in it. As you can see, there is some VNL. It didn't bother me on my short nails so it's up to you if you like it or not. 

In the picture I'm wearing three layers, and let me tell you... if you are in a hurry and have to do your nails quickly, this is possibly the WORST polish to pick at that moment.My first attempt at swatching this polish failed horribly because every coat takes ages to dry. I probably waited 15~20 minutes for each coat to dry, and even then it stayed squishy on my nails and I got dents everywhere. :( It may just be this colour though, because I tried one of the other Sparkle Sands and it was absolutely fine.

If you have all the time in the world and don't mind having to wait a long time for your nails to try... this is a very pretty polish to have. I think it looked very elegant on my little nubs. I can't say anything about the wear though, because I took it off after a few hours... very, very disappointing.

It's my birthday!

Hi everyone! As you can read in the title, today is my birthday. I turned 21 years old, so I am really officially an 'adult' now. :P Which is why today I'll be showing you what I'm wearing on my nails for my birthday mani!

I think I am starting to get the hang of my new camera!

Here's what I did - a simple manicure with a half moon accent. It seems I always grab this particular polish when I want something pink. It's just a lovely shade with an awesome formula. This colour is NYC Perpetual Peony, ofcourse!

To make it even cuter I added some rhinestones I found while shopping a few days ago. Apparently these are meant for application on clothing and other things but they are fine for on nails as well! For the Dutchies that read my blog, these can be found for €1.99 at the Action in a wheel with a bunch of different colours. I also got some studs at the same place, that I will hopefully try out soon.

I love half moons because they look so classy! I'd love to do a similar manicure sometime, but with a lighter, soft pink colour. That's originally what I wanted, but I didn't have the right polish for it.

Anyway, that's it for today. I'll be spending my evening with my family... and cake! Yay, cake. Have a lovely day! :)

Nubs with polka dots

Hello, readers! Things have been a bit quiet from my side because I haven't really felt like posting. This is why:

Yep. As you can see, my nails are short little nubs now. :/ I had a really dumb accident in the kitchen last week and the tip of the nail on my middle finger popped off completely. I had to file them all down. They are a bit longer now, but it sucks!

I thought I would make them look cute to distract myself from how short they are. Polka dots are always cute, right?

For the base colour I used H&M City. This polish actually belongs in a duo but it's a very nice pink crelly so I like to wear it on its own, too. For the dots, I used acrylic paint. I have been trying to use my acrylic paints for nail art, and so far I really like it. I only have a limited selection of colours, but I am thinking of getting more. :D

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

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.

Lavender Stamping and a new layout!

Hey guys! I am back from my little break. I caught a nasty cold so it took a bit longer than I wanted to. I'm still not completely better but I did feel like fiddling around with nail art stuff, AND my blog layout. What do you think? I mainly wanted to change it so I could actually respond to the comments I get. I was starting to feel bad for not being able to interact with you guys properly. I hope you like the new layout. :)

So, I decided to try my hand  at stamping once again, since it had been a while. :D

Okay, my colour and plate choice was a bit random this time, haha. And as you can see, my stamping skills could really use some improvement. But keep in mind this is only about my fifth time doing a full manicure with stamping and that I have a lot to learn!

The base colour is NYC Lavender Cupcake, one of my favourite cremes. Since I don't have any Konad polishes (they have been on my wish list for a while now...) I rummaged through my stash trying to find a decent polish to stamp with. I ended up with Essence Unexpected Galaxy which is actually one of their colour changing nail polishes. I knew it was an opaque polish, though I wasn't sure what it was going to look like after I applied my top coat, haha Fortunately, it wasn't too bad!

I ended up stamping an image from one of my Born Pretty Store plates. This one is from stamping plate m65 and I thought it looked pretty groovy.

So what do you think? How bad of an attempt is this? Also, feel free to share any tips and tricks you might have for me!

Essence - Modern Romance

Hello there! So, my computer stopped working for a few days which completely threw me off my posting schedule for a short while. Sorry about that! Though, my new gametime for World of Warcraft is also partially to blame... um... oops. :)

Anyway, today I am showing you another Essence polish from their Colour & Go line!

Modern Romance is a really cutesy peachy nude colour. I'll say it right away - the pictures show the colour much brighter than it is. I couldn't get it right for some reason! It's a pretty soft colour that shows a subtle pink shimmer in the bottle. Unfortunately, this does not translate to the nail very much, which was slightly disappointing for me.

I'm also not happy with the formula. It was very hard to paint neat, thin layers with it and even after three coats I was still seeing bald spots on my nails. :( The colour is very nice, but bald spots bother me so much! I'm honestly quite disappointed by this polish, which is a shame because I do really like the colour.

I have said this before, but Essence's nail polishes are often a hit or a miss. While I love the brand, this one was a miss for me.

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.

Nude + Pink taping

So it has been a while since I have done anything but a simple manicure with only one colour. However, I decided that I was in the mood to do some taping again, and I wanted to use one of my favourite new additions to my stash!

For this manicure I used Essence Cookies & Cream as a base colour. I used two coats on my index- and middle finger and my pinky, and three on my ring finger and thumb. This is a sandy nude colour with subtle shimmer in it. For some reason, nudes always look odd on my skin tone, but not this one! It's very pretty and I also like to wear it on my toenails because it gives a clean, neat look.

I added a quick drying top coat and after it had dried enough I used striping tape to tape off 4 lines on each finger. Then I painted over it with a coat of NYC Perpetual Peony, a simple pink creme, and quickly but carefully pulled off the tape. I smudged it in a few places... whoops! Nothing too bad, though. I think I'm getting better at it. :P

After that I added a silver rhinestone to my ring finger and thumb, just because I'm obsessed with my rhinestones. :) I really need to think of some new creative ways to use them! Anyway, then I topped it all off with another coat of fast drying topcoat and I was done. Even though it's a simple mani, I enjoy it a lot, and I think this colour combination works very well! I hope you like it too!

Essie - Mod Squad

Hello everyone! Since it has been ages since my last nail post, I thought it would be a good idea to start off with a polish of my favourite brand. Today I'll be showing you one of my favourite pinks in my collection. I have shown it before, but I decided it was worthy of its own blog post.

Mod Squad is a perfect bubblegum pink creme with a cool undertone. A colour like this is a must have for polish fanatics! I simply love polishes like this, and I personally like to wear this one when I'm in the mood for something simple but pretty. 

As (pretty much) always with Essie, the quality and formula of this polish was great, and I don't have much else to say about it. It applied smooth like butter and I only needed two coats for full opacity. I also wore it for several days without even a minor chip. I'm very happy with this polish and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for a pink shade like this one.

Lavender Skies

So this week I have been doing my nails a bit more often! I recently got a Helmer (which I am going to write a little post about soon) and have sorted out my collection which has definitely helped.

Anyway, when I did this manicure I was in the mood for something simple, but I didn't want to wear simply one colour, because that was TOO boring. ;) I always see people do all kinds of accent nails and I think they are super cute and a great solution if you don't want something too plain. So that's what I did!

For this manicure I used a really cute pastel nail polish by NYC. It's called Lavender Cupcake and it's a simple creme. The colour is really pretty and I like how it looks on my nails. It needed two coats and the quality is good. No remarks there.

The silver on my accent finger is Platinum Card, also by NYC. I kinda wish I had a nice silver glitter to add to this, but it looked good on it's own too! And, a while back I ordered some star shaped rhinestones from eBay. I thought they would go well with this manicure so I added some on all the other fingers.

I really liked this manicure! I hope you like it as well. :)

HEMA 826 - Super cheap holo!

I'm really excited for the polish I'm going to show you guys today! This was a completely unexpected find for me. A few days ago I was doing some gift shopping with my mom when we entered the HEMA to get some skin care products. I noticed they had a bunch of new polishes so ofcourse I went to take a look... wait, what is that? IS THAT A HOLO? Oh my gosh, it is!

Okay, it's subtle. But it's holographic! HEMA 826 is a gorgeous deep berry colour with a very subtle but still noticable scattered holo, and I am in love with it. And please understand my excitement, haha. In the two years I've been a nail polish addict, I've always been in love with them, but I have only found a total of three holographic polishes in drug stores around here. They aren't really that common to me. I'd order them off the internet, but most of the holos I want have ridiculous prices, which I can't afford. I found this one in the HEMA for the cheap price of €2,50.

The holo is more noticable in this picture. I love subtle ones - they are definitely my favourite kind of holo. This is two coats without a top coat. The formula is great, the polish is easy to apply neatly. It's not gloopy or thin, it's just right. I also really enjoyed the brush of this polish. I didn't need any cleanup. :) It dries up fast with a nice shiny finish.

Yep, this polish has made it into my top favourites, and I'm going to be wearing it a lot more often! I feel so classy wearing this on my nails. If you live in Europe and have access to a HEMA anywhere, I definitely recommend you take a look for this polish.

Pink Wednesday: 112

Hey guys! It's wednesday, so it's time for another pink manicure. Next week will be the last wednesday of October already. This month sure is passing by quickly for me!

Anyway, today I have for you a polish by a brand that is unknown to me. I think it's a Polish brand, and it is named Qltowy Kosmetyk. This nail polish doesn't have a name, but a number: 112, which happens to be the emergency number in The Netherlands, lol!

So 112 is actually a pretty nice polish! It's a cute shimmery, kind of dusty pink colour. I don't have a polish similar to this in my stash, so it's a nice addition and I have occasionally worn it already.

I only needed two coats for full coverage. The formula is a bit thin and runny though, so I did need quite a bit of cleanup around my nails. This is no biggie, though - the colour makes up for it.

And if you are wondering where I found this polish... my mom works at a local store where they were selling cheap nail polishes of unkown and foreign brands, so she picked some out for me to bring home. So I don't know if this is normally available in The Netherlands at all and I know next to nothing about it. All I know is that I like the three polishes I own by them! :)

Pink Wednesday: Sweets for My Sweets

Hello! Today is wednesday, that means I'm posting another pink manicure in honor of Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Today I have for you a super cute baby pink colour, Sweets for my Sweets by Catrice. I love the colour, but do I love the polish itself?

Answer: No, I don't. :( It's very disappointing. The colour is a perfect bubblegum pink and I love it, but the application was downright terrible. Maybe that is because my bottle is about a year old, but I've barely touched it. 

It needed three coats to be opaque, which in itself is not a problem, but the formula is. The polish was thick and gloopy and it was almost impossible to apply decently. Even with a quick drying top coat, it simply refused to dry, and I ended up taking it off soon after.

So while I love this colour, I probably won't be wearing this anymore. I'll be on a search for a similar colour with a formula that is much nicer, though. If you have any suggestions for me, please do tell me!

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!

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?

Essie - Pink Diamond

Even though I only have three polishes by them so far, I love Essie. I love their colour range, their brushes, their bottles... the only thing holding me back from buying them is the price.

Anyhow, today I'm showing you my first Essie polish. I got this one two months ago as a birthday gift from my boyfriend. He got me Pink Diamond, because pink is my favourite colour and everyone knows it.

Pink Diamond is an adorable light pink colour with kind of a frosty finish, and I'm in love with it. I don't always like frosty nail polishes but this one looks good on me and the finish doesn't bother me very much. This is three thin coats of it. It applies like a dream.

This colour is perfect for when I feel like wearing something simple and subtle. :)

The only problem I have with this nail polish is the minor bubbling because no matter what I do, I always end up with some bubbles when I wear Pink Diamond. I'm not sure why this happens, maybe I have a bad bottle? At least they aren't very noticable. 

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. :)

Pink manicure with rhinestones

A few weeks ago I decided that I wanted to try out a manicure with rhinestones, so I snooped around on eBay and purchased 3000 small nail art rhinestones in 12 different colours. They arrived yesterday and I went to make a manicure with them right away! As this was my first time ever using rhinestones, I went with something simple.

This is what I came up with, and I'm very happy with how it looks! I have to apologize for my dry skin. Every few weeks I do volunteering work at a local boarding kennel, and we have a new cleaning method... one that apparently is not nice at all for my nails and skin!

For the base I used Essence - Roy's Red from the Whoom! Boom! collection, and on top of that I placed one clear rhinestone on each nail using a toothpick and clear polish. I was surprised with how easy this was, because I have extremely shaky hands. It was very fun to do, so I'm already planning on some other manicures I can creature using my brand new rhinestones.

After putting the rhinestones on my nails I sealed them in with a layer of topcoat which for some reason made them a little 'matte', though not completely, as they are still shiny. I actually really like the look of it, so I don't mind. I'm curious to see how it will look with the other colours, though. :)

This is my little case of 12 different coloured types of rhinestones. They're all round and very tiny. I think it would be fun to get some differently shaped ones sometime. In case you're wondering, I purchased this case from the seller directsz on eBay for $2,06 which is dirt cheap! You'll have to be patient though, for me it took 20 days for them to get here.