Stripes.

I don't know if I ascribe to the concept of love at first sight in humans, but I sure as hell do when it comes to clothes. Every now and then you'll see something and you just know it was destined to be yours.
These sports leggings showed up in the second-latest H&M catalogue and my heart skipped a beat. I can't even explain in words how incredibly visually fantastic I think they are. Stripes! Black! Grey!
It's like they were designed with me in mind, and so I had to have them - and got them! They've improved my running by making me feel considerably more awesome. And I've done some nail art inspired this great new addition to my sports wardrobe.

I'm still a big fan of the accent nail, so that's what I went for. The technique used is good ol' fiddling with some striping tape. The bottom (or top, depending on your angle) row of stripes could have gone better.
The grey is my precious NYC's '003 Prey of Grey', which is sadly starting to go bad. Thinner doesn't seem to restore it to its past self any longer, so I'm hoping now that autumn collections are hitting the stores I'll be able to find a decent replacement for this baby. The black is Koh's 'Black!'. Succinct naming, that one.

NYC - Strip Me Off review

Some simple nail art, because what I wanted to try out was NYC's 'Strip Me Off', a peel-off top coat.
Since OPI's version of the product I've definitely been interested - doesn't everyone hate the clean up of glitter nail polish? - but OPI is pretty pricey in The Netherlands so I've held off. A little while ago, a friend told me NYC now had essentially the same product and it just so happened the Kruidvat had some 2-for-four-euros sale going on. I unashamedly love a bargain.
The glitter polish used is W7's '125 Twilight', and the whites are a Hema white numbered 809 and Safari's No56 (which I'm fond of, but tends to goop a little too much for comfort but I'm afraid to dilute it with thinner.)

I wore this nail polish with Strip Me Off for about three days. What I noticed was that tip-wear started to occur sooner than it usually did. However, this mani went to work with me twice - that's two evenings of cleaning, so it's basically all hands - and it survived that very neatly.

I can summarize the removal experience in basically a single sentence - "works as advertised". It takes a little doing, but it's definitely less of a messy process than normal. After the biggest parts were peeled off I needed a drop of nail polish remover to get rid of some stray flecks here and there, but all in all it was less work.

'Strip Me Off' is (regardless of the oddly suggestive name) a very decent alternative to 'Glitter Off', and given the lower price but not significantly lesser quality, is the one I'd recommend!

I'm not mean, I'm a 1000 years old..

And I just lost track of my moral code.

Marceline, the Vampire Queen

Needed nails to suit a cosplay of Adventure Time's Marceline, and chose to do a  colour variant of the French manicure.

Colours used:

NYC - 003 Prey of Grey (base)
Herôme W.I.C. - Oslo 124 (top grey)
Herôme W.I.C. - London 95

I used some old Hema French manicure stickers in the attempt to get a smooth curve, but they never quite seem to work out the way I hope, and then I end up repainting the edge myself anyway. Ah well.

And So On.

The idea was simple.
Take another set of brown and blue and do another nice little manicure.
It did not go the way I'd hoped. This mani seemed doomed from the beginning.

You know that colour that you LOVE, that's so beautiful in the bottle.. but.. that's really sheer, and basically useless? But you want to give it another chance despite knowing it's a bad idea?
NYC's '206 East Village' is that for me.

Ughhh.

Because it's so sheer it would need about 10 coats to build up, I figured I'd layer it over a base white. And this white base is really awful and doesn't cover worth a damn either and I was up to way more layers than I had wanted to use at this point, and then the picture on the left happened. Picked up the brush handle thinking it was screwed on but .. well, you see for yourself.

I think it turned out alright in the end. Because it took so long to dry it ended up with some damage but it doesn't bother me too much.
Halfmoon shapes were achieved with reinforcement rings.

Blue NYC '206 East Village', brown NYC '220 Canal Street'.

Try, Try, Try Again.

That's the only way to learn, isn't it?
I'll probably do 499 terrible water marbles, but if the 500th attempt is the one, so be it.

Again went for more of an accent nail because that's just the visual aesthetic I prefer.


Colours used;
NYC, '003 Prey of Grey'
Bodique, '07 Red Love'
Hema, '809' (nail art striper)

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'

Easter Chocolate.

I hope everyone had a great Easter and enjoyed delicious chocolate! In honour of chocolate, this lovely rich brown NYC polish '220 - Canal Street'. With my exams still going on, I'm still reluctant to do anything elaborate to my nails so instead I'm trying to get some more polishes in 'My Stash' swatched.

Can't wait for my exams to be over so I can rock some awesome nail art again!

 

Bonus cat.
Say hi to Mojo~

Is this not what you expected to see?

If you wanna find out what's behind these cold eyes,
You'll just have to claw your way through this disguise ♪

I really, really love The Wall. I'd been meaning to do this for a while but kept putting it off (dreading the effort I expected was involved in getting the bricks properly across both hands) but I did it now!
Not really as planned, and my right hand definitely came out looking less than stellar. If I can have a superpower, I want it to be ambidexterity.

Polishes used;
Koh 'Black!'
Miss Sporty Clubbin Colours '70'
Rimmel 'Nail Tip Whitener'
NYC '003 Prey of Grey'
Bodique (Hunkemöller) 'Rood (red)'

Black on Black.

It frustrates me so much how impossible it is to take reasonable pictures in my room. The lighting just doesn't allow for it. Bah!

Anyway. Wanted something stylish but simple; black-on-black French mani utilising the contrast between matte and shiny.  Koh 'Black!' and NYC's 'Matte Me Crazy'. 

Red Means Stop.

I'm pretty bummed out by the fact that when I get home, it's almost inevitably dark out. This means I don't really get the chance to take much colour accurate picutres, so doing a lot of swatching is kinda pointless. But my nails - naturally - do remain polished!
Autumn and Halloween left me with a desire for classy red nails. I blame Morticia Addams.

Look at 'em!

I think I've largely gotten over my previously named 'weird relationship with reds'.
Anyway, this somewhat sloppy half-moon mani consists of Essence's '03 - Cotton Candy' as base, topped off with NYC's '235 - Fine Red Wine'. It's funny how I wasn't even sure this polish was one I wanted to keep but now I've grown to really like it.

 On a somewhat unhappier note, I've broken a nail on my left hand (hence my right featuring in the pictures, which doesn't often happen) so now that this is posted I may trim down the rest a little to compensate. Ouch!

Grey Matters.

...Grey Matters, because grey matter.. brain.. get it? Man, I am corny. I am just sort of driven to start posts with cheesy puns and such, but you know this by now, I'm sure.

Quick polish review today! NYC 003 'Prey of Grey', which isn't necessarily any better than the title I chose. There was a buy one get one free thing going on, so I bought this and as my freebie got the previously swatched Fine Red Wine.

Now, this polish came with a quality I did not actually believe existed.
It is an actual one-coater. Thick and pigmented enough to actually cover in one damn layer. I've genuinely not experienced it before.

So, y'know, that said, I'm pretty pleased with this polish on those grounds alone! And I like grey.
It's a nice warm grey, this one.

That's all I've got to say for now~!

I never drink... wine.

Get it? Because the polish is NYC 235 - 'Fine Red Wine'.
Thanking the marvelous count Dracula for the quote, of course.
Anyway, this polish. Doesn't actually remind me of a fine red wine. It's much too light and there's considerable pink undertones in this one. The colour, as my boyfriend quite aptly pointed out, is more of a cherry red.
Though I suppose staying on the Dracula route, describing it as arterial blood would suffice just as well. Bit morbid, maybe.

If you've read my blog before you may have read I've got a bit of a struggle towards red nailpolishes and have developed a bit of a love/hate relationship with them.
I tend to dismiss bright reds and find most reds look terrible on my skintone at first, only to fall madly and completely in love with them later. In this case I was deceived (just as with another red polish, W.I.C. London) into thinking it was a darker colour than it turned out to be.
What's a girl gotta do to get her hands on a crimson around here, anyhow?
In putting it on I thought it was much too pink, much too bright, and much too whatever I dislike in a polish. It grew on me after a short while, though.

The application of this one was actually very pleasing and would have covered nicely in two thick coats (my layering here was fairly thin, so it's not very opaque.)

One day, I'll get over my weird relationship with reds!
One day..!

Artificial light - flash.

How do you feel about reds? Hate them, love them?

Nothing Else Matte-ers.

Again with the puns, I'm not sorry.

In my Let Them Talk-nails post I mentioned I'd been on a bit of a matte kick, as such, these nails were done prior to the others. I'd often seen the 'glitter polish with matte top coat'-thing on other blogs and always liked it but never actually tried it myself! So, here my first experiment with it, using Rimmel 825 Sky High, a Herôme glitter polish, and NYC Matte Me Crazy.

I like how it turned out! I'll definitely do this again sometime.

The Doctor is in the House.

You should know by now I'm all about the cheap title puns. I'm not sorry.
Gregory House; everyone's favourite acerbic, cynical jerk! And don't we all just love him for it. I don't actually have all that much to say about the nail art. I'm fairly pleased with it. Gray is '02 Pointbreak' from Essence's Surfer Babe collection from way back when. Details are my trusty Hema French manicure striper (which to date I have never used for an actual French manicure), painted on with a small brush. The whole is covered with NYC 'Matte Me Crazy' - which I am very happy with indeed!

Zzzap!

Oops!

I've been dying to try the double lightning bolt as seen in a tutorial on Nailside, and when I bought Catrice 'C01 - Innocent Toxin' and NYC '206 - East Village' I knew I had to use them to do it. The separating lightning bolt is a Koh holo by the name of 'Metallic Green (127)'.
It didn't all go.. exactly according to plan. I did learn some valuable lessons for next time! For example, the drying time for holo polishes is so short that you can't do your whole hand and then go back and peel the tape off; it's really a one-at-a-time thing. And East Village turned out to be a lot sheerer than I had anticipated, resulting in me making a mental note to check the polishes I want to use before hand and not rush into an idea, no matter how nice it seems at first. Sadly it has been a teeny bit damaged already (as you can see on the ring-finger there), but packing will do that to your newly polished nails.

A decent looking, flashy (pun intended) mani, some experience gained and lessons learned!
What more could I ask for?

Updates.

Heya! I realise I don't really post all that frequently; namely because I polish my nails predominantly in the weekends, when I have time to do it properly. I figured I'd at least put in a little update on the polishes I've acquired rather recently.

 

I have complained about being dissatisfied with the matte top coat I had, and the NYC matte top coat came recommended by the very friendly Miriam over at NailTalk.

Then, NYC '206 - East Village', which in colour reminded me a bit of Orly's "Halley's Comet", but less glittery. I'm not a very glittery girl, so I'm not complaining.

Followed by Catrice 'C01 - Innocent Toxin' from the Limited Edition 'Revoiltaire'. Now, it's not hard to see this is pretty much a dead ringer for their ACid/DC. Holding them next to each other in store lights, I couldn't make out any difference at all. With polishes so similar, I'll go for the one with the prettiest bottle.

I wasn't going to buy any more Catrice polishes, but I'd seen '800 - Heavy Metallilac' swatched on some other blogs and I was just in awe! What a stunning purple! Basically, I had to have it. And now I do.

Here's Innocent Toxin on my nails. Sadly, it's not very sunny out, so the pretty shimmer is very difficult to be seen on my picture. The shimmer itself looks a little blueish if you look close enough.

Further more, I want to post more of my older polish jobs and nail arts. However, rather than just mentioning it, I whipped up a little header for those posts. (I'll also be going back and stick it in older posts of the kind already up.) I must say I'm quite fond of kitschy, gimmicky aging effects. Anyway, featuring two fairly old polishes;