Evanora inspired nails

Have you seen Oz: The Great and Powerful yet? I haven't, but I definitely have to see it sometime. It looks really awesome. Since the movie came out I have seen some manicures inspired by Evanora's 'claw' nails in the movie. I really liked the look and so I decided to recreate them!

The result is a pretty edgy, but awesome manicure. When I was wearing this I kept looking at my nails, because it really felt like I had claws!

As you can see in the screenshot I linked earlier, Evanora doesn't seem to have a base colour on her nails and her nail line is visible. I didn't like that all too much which is why I used a nude base. I used two coats of Essence Cookies & Cream for this with a fast drying top coat. After that was dry, I taped off the sides of my nails to create the claw shape, and went over it with a coat of Essence Black Is Back, a simple black creme.

And, instead of two gold lines on each side of the claws, I decided to go with one gold line in the middle. I used gold striping tape that I got off eBay, but as you can see in the pictures it started curling up just minutes after I applied it, which was quite a shame. I do like the end result, though, and I love seeing all the different variations people are coming up with.

What do you think of this 'claw' look?

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!

Seven Nation Army

Hey everyone! ... it's been a few weeks, I know. I haven't forgotten about you guys or my blog, but I guess you could say I was taking a little break. I promise I will try to make my posts more consistent, haha. :P

So today I want to show you a manicure I did a while back. It was done for the Reddit nail challenge, which I decided I won't be taking part in every week anymore. I just have not been doing my nails as often, and when I do, I want to do my own thing, and not be limited to that week's theme, or by my horrible art skills. So I'll do a manicure for the themes whenever I feel like it and have an idea I can use.

This week the theme was a manicure inspired by a song. And for me, it wasn't very hard to pick a song to use as my inspiration. I went for 'Seven Nation Army' by The White Stripes. It's an awesome song, that I have liked since I was a lot younger, and it has one of my most favourite music videos ever, which was the main thing that inspired me. I tried to translate the red/white/black shapes to my nails.

Also, I am sorry for the shape my cuticles are in. I ran out of Lemony Flutter and can't afford a new pot yet, and nothing else works well enough for weather like this. 

All the polishes I used for this are by NYC, and I did the manicure as follows:

First, I painted my nails with two coats of I <3 NY, a red creme that I seem to use pretty often for nail art. After this was completely dry I taped off a chevron shape and painted one coat of Platinum Card. I chose silver instead of white because I felt it fit the manicure better. Then, when that was dry as well, I taped off a smaller chevron and used City Blackout for the tips.

I enjoyed making this manicure and I thought it looked really nice on my nails, so I must say this is probably one of my favourites that I have done so far. I hope you like it as well, let me know what you think! 

Reddit Challenge - Week 1: Taping

Hi guys! As some of you may know I am a frequent Redditor. :) Yesterday I found out that the laqueristas on there are hosting a 52 week challenge. That's right, fifty two weeks, each with a different theme. And it seems very doable, even for a nail art noob like myself, so I decided to have a shot at it. I will try my best to come up with a manicure for each week, so hopefully every week I will have a challenge post for you!

The theme for week 1 is taping, which just happens to be my favourite technique for nail art. I often use scotch tape to spice up some manicures, but this time I decided to try out my striping tape. So far I have only used my striping tape as accents on my nails, but this time I used them for masking.

And this is my manicure for the first week! I started out with Essie Turquoise And Caicos as my base coat. Once that was dry I applied a lot of small strips of striping tape on my nails. This was such a hassle to do and it took me quite a long time. Anyway, once I was done applying the tape I went over it with a coat of Essence You Belong To Me and then quickly removed the tape while the polish was still wet.

I personally like the outcome a lot, even if it's sloppy in some places. Overall though, I think I did a good job, especially for a first attempt at using my striping tape like this! I also love the colour combination.

Here's a picture of Turquoise And Caicos by itself. It's a very pretty creme and for me it was opaque in three thin coats. You could probably get away with two coats if you have shorter nails, though.

Vampy Chevron Nails

Today I'm showing you another tape manicure. I really love to do these just because it's so fun and simple and it's easy to come up with awesome looking results.

So today I decided to do chevrons. I have done these as accent nails here and there but today I wanted to try my hands at a full chevron manicure. And I wanted it to be vampy, so I chose black and red as my colours.

I started by painting the red on my fingers, which is NYC I ♥ NY. Which is a gorgeous red, by the way! I've worn this one pretty often, and so far it's my favourite red I have owned. I also used only one coat for this picture, which is pretty awesome.

After that tried I went ahead and applied the tape to all of my fingers and then add the black. I personally prefer to do it in this order, but you can also start with the black and then add the red later. The black is also by NYC, it's called City Blackout. Again, lovely polish. My favourite black so far.

I really, really like the outcome of these nails! But, sadly, they got ruined about 5 minutes after I was done... I spilled nail polish in my carpet. D'oh! I was so glad I managed to shoot a few pictures before that happened. I'm definitely going to be remaking this manicure, though!

Stargazer 138... plus taping!

Hi guys! I'm at my  boyfriend's house right now, and I will be staying here for a few days. I have some posts planned ahead but I probably won't be able to comment anywhere. Just a heads up. :)

Stargazer is a very cool brand. So far I own three polishes by them and all of them are gorgeous and awesome additions to my collection. Today I'm going to show you one of these pretties plus some taping I added to it!

The nail polishes don't have names but this is 138, a very pretty green. I only picked up this polish because it was on sale for super cheap. I figured 'Why not?' and got it because I didn't have a colour like it yet. When I put it on my nails for the first time I loved it!

It is slightly duochrome, flashing to a greenish blue on certain lights, as you can clearly see in the bottle in the picture above. It's also crazy shiny and has a gorgeous depth to it. I keep looking at my nails!

Now the formula of this one isn't that great because it is a bit thick and gloopy, which made application a bit tricky. But for the price I got this for, I can definitely live with that.

After a few hours of wearing it, though, I got bored and tried out some more taping.

So I added black tips and a chevron tip as an accent nail! I really like how this looks, the black tips make it look very classy. :)

Do you own any Stargazer polishes? Which is your favourite?

Coral and silver french tips

 Hey guys.  Today I have something pretty simple for you. I was feeling a bit uninspired so I wanted to give myself some simple french tips which for some reason just wasn't working out. That's why I came up with some differently coloured and diagonal tips!

This is how it turned out. The coral is Essence - Off To Miami! I originally bought this colour just so I had a coral and orangey colour in case Iever needed one but I ended up really liking it. I let it dry for an hour and then I added the silver tips which is NYC - Platinum Card. 

So yeah, pretty simple but I think it came out pretty nice! I really need to practice with tape some more to get sharper lines. Good thing I have a ton of ideas for tape manicures. :)

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!