Garfield.

I just enjoy the challenge in nail art of painting characters on one's fingernails. It's far from perfect but though hard to do, they are fun.
Base colour is Catrice's '240 Sold Out Forever', which I've strangely never used before even though I own two bottles. Garfield and his tail were done entirely in acrylic paints.

Diamond in..

"Diamond in the rough", get it? Because the bottle says.. nevermind.

One from Essence's 'Floral Grunge' LE, '05 Black to the Roots'. A not-truly-black-but-more-really-dark-gray with little silver shinies spread throughout that (unless tampered with) has a .. something between matt and 'regular' finish.
I didn't like the finish the polish itself had, so I covered most nails in regular top coat and did my ring fingers in matt. I didn't really like the application of the polish either. Dubious coverage and it took more than usual doing to get it on properly. Not one I'll quickly use again, I'm afraid.
I would've liked to do a neater half-moon mani, but the unpleasant application of the polish kind of made me throw the towel in. Meh.

Lilac Fever.

 My previous mani left me wanting to experiment some more with sponging and gradient techniques. How could I not try to combine it with my other favourite style of nail art? 'Half rhombus' style counting 6 now.

I thought it'd be nice to try this with shades of purple but.. I don't know, it gives off a bit of a '14-year-old-girl' vibe in my opinion. I think the lilac shade is to blame. Oh well. I quite like the result of the experiment anyway - pretty much what I had in mind! And slapped on some rhinestones because I just have too many of those.

  

Essence, Crazy About Colour, '02 Lilac Forever' 

&

Herôme W.I.C. 'Dakar 107'

Good Riddance.

Polishing your nails is the fun part. Removing it.. less so. I now have three nail polish removal products in my possession, and I thought I'd write up a little article on how I find each method.

• Ol' trusty bottled nail polish remover. In this case, Kruidvat's own brand, acetone free.
• 'Quick & Easy' nail polish remover. Also Kruidvat, but other brands carry the same system as well. Acetone free.
• Herôme nail polish remover pads, also acetone free.
  

   

  Bottled nail polish remover

   

Everybody's used it, I don't have much to say. Reliable in that there's not much that can go wrong, annoying in that you need the added product of cotton pads. With sufficient rubbing it gets the polish off. Can leave residue in the cuticle a bit.

 

'Quick & Easy' nail polish remover

I honestly had no real idea what to expect with this product. It seemed a little gimmicky to me so I was skeptical. I'm always reluctant to trust products that claim to be quick and/or easy. Still, worth a try, right?

I was very pleasantly surprised about the product.

Simply put, you stick your finger in there, and swoosh it around in the moist cushiony thing. Take it out, voila, nail polish gone. And your finger smells somewhat floral. It really works very well. No polish in the cuticle and no excess garbage in the form of cotton pads or whatever!

Nail polish remover pads

Herôme's nail polish remover pads; 30 thin little pads in a plastic box. Works in essentially the same way as the bottled nail polish remover except the remover is already in the pads. This much was obvious.

I'd also used these before so I had some bias. I'm just not a fan of them. It takes longer than bottled nail polish remover to get the nail clean, and I hate that it leaves your fingers so oily. Now, I for one, hate my fingers being icky. They eventually get your nails clean, but I've yet to be able to do an entire hand because I don't like the texture and oiliness of the pads. I tend to just use them for finger-clean up. 

Flash Gradient.

No Queensday nail art from me, I'm afraid! I'm not a great big fan of orange, and since I'll be away from home for tomorrow I don't want to be stuck with such a specific type of nail art.

Okay! I wanted to do something cool again. I love the complimentary contrast of green-purple, and these two are from Hema's Neon set (74 - purple, 75 - green). Though as somebody told me when I wore these colours once before "you can make even neon look dark".
I have only one gradient under my belt prior to this one (of which I sadly have no good pictures) so that's not much experience in the area. I didn't know if I was going to manage to blend these two very different shades well enough for my liking. Of course, it's not a perfect gradient - but I still think it looks pretty nice.

Lightning bolts are a gradient variation on this tutorial from Nailside.
Black is 'Black!' from Koh.

Picture taken out of direct sunlight.

Outta This World.

My birthday was earlier this month, and a friend of mine got me some polishes! (All Rimmel; 035 Wine Not, 198 Azure, 519 Desert Beauty, 600 Deliciously Dark & 700 Block Your Green)

I've already worn Wine Not and Deliciously Dark in a pretty nice layering experiment which I sadly (due to lack of camera) didn't get to photograph but which I may have to repeat in the future because it created a lovely dark burgundy sort of shade.

For today's mani - which is another half rhombus - I used Azure.

 The tape came off very smoothly so I got excellently crisp lines in this one! The silver under Azure is YSL shade 141 - White Gold.

Post title brought to you by this little alien guy.

No Worries.

 

This amazing blue is Koh 'No Worries (217)', one of the most vibrant nail polishes I've ever seen in my life. The pictures truly don't do it justice, it's absolutely astonishingly beautiful. It takes a few layers, but then you've really got something.
Not sure when this picture was taken, but we can judge it was a once upon a time where I still painted down to the cuticle.

I wholeheartedly recommend this polish to anybody that likes blue even in the slightest. You won't regret adding it to your collection.