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.

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.

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

Catrice - Dirty Berry

What do I do when I'm not in the mood to wear something bright and flashy but still want to wear an amazing colour? Well, I usually pull out the polish I'm showing you all today, which is awesomeness in a bottle.

I'm talking about Dirty Berry, by Catrice. I think I bought this one for a 2 for the price of 1 type of deal, because I wanted a different one I saw. I randomly picked Dirty Berry to make good use of the deal and I'm glad I did, because little did I know this is one of Catrice's most famous polishes. And with good reason!

The polish is a muted purple colour... and while the pictures don't show it, it's a holo! It has scattered and subtle holo. The weather has been gloomy and dark here, so I could not take better pictures, but the holo is very noticable in sunlight and it looks amazing. It looks great in shade too, though, because you can still see silvery shimmer.

As for the formula, I'm afraid I can't say much about that. I've had my bottle for a long time, and it's thickened just a bit. I can still apply it just fine though. I needed two coats for coverage.

Oh, and did you notice the different nail shape? I grew my nails out pretty long, and I wanted to try something new. I was curious how they would look with a more oval shape. My nails are short nubs again as I'm typing this but I still haven't figured if I like it more than my regular shape, so I don't know if I'll be shaping them like this again. What do you think? Let me know!

Catrice - Poison Me, Poison You + Stamping

Something really stupid happened two days ago.

I was craving chocolate milk so I opened up the fridge and grabbed the carton from the door. Then, I dropped it. And in an attempt to save the carton from falling on the floor I broke my middelfinger nail. Oops.

The difference in length looked too silly to me so I shortened all my nails to sad little nubs and gave myself a simple manicure, since it also ruined my previous one.

This is Catrice - Poison Me, Poison You, a gorgeous shimmery dark purple with warm undertones. Purple is pretty much my favourite colour for nail polish and this one is one of my favourites.

It's opaque in two coats and it dries pretty fast. I had no trouble applying it, the formula is great and ofcourse Catrice has a wonderful brush which made it very easy to apply.

I wore it by itself for one day but today I felt like it needed something extra. I did my first real attempt at stamping. Sure, I have used my stamp for creating my earrings, but I never had a succesful attempt on my nails yet. I recently bought a new silver, NYC Platinum Card and it was surprisingly good to stamp with!

I used one of the Essence stamping plates that I own and I think it turned out pretty cute. As you can see, the stamp didn't transfer that great everywhere, but I think that mostly is to blame on the plate itself.

However, I recently ordered a set of stamping plates from Born Pretty Store so hopefully those are of a better quality and you'll see more manicures with stamping soon! It's such a simple way to spice up a manicure and make it look awesome, so I'm looking forward to fiddling around with my new plates. :)

To end this post, have a gerbil.

Little Ben here tried to eat my camera!

Piper Polish - Spectraflair Topcoat

Hello! Today I have for you an absolute must-have if you're into holographic nail polishes. The Spectraflair topcoat by Piper Polish is made with a highly sought after holographic pigment that can change any colour into a gorgeous holo. This is perfect for people like me who simply can't afford to buy a lot of different holographic polishes.

For this post I have layered it over Essence - Break Through, a perfect purple creme. This is two layers of Break Through and one layer of Spectraflair. No topcoat. Look at that holographic effect! It's subtle but gorgeous. You can make the effect stronger by adding more layers to it.

The topcoat applies like a charm and you only need a little to create the effect. Even a mini bottle will last you a while.

Even when the holo effect isn't noticable you can still see a very pretty shimmer over your polish!

Close up. The topcoat has tiny particles and even without topcoat it's super smooth and shiny.

Needless to say, I'm a fan. A huge fan. This topcoat is gorgeous and it's great for any colour you can possibly think of. I personally have been layering it over bright cremes but it also looks amazing on darker colours and shimmers. The possibilities are endless.

If you're interested in the Spectraflair topcoat then I recommend you check out the Piper Polish Etsy shop, where you can purchase both the mini (5 ml) and the full size (15 ml) version of it!