Marbled.

I've been meaning to try water marbling, it being one of those techniques that's so common but I'd never attempted it myself.

Estée Lauder - Blue Dahlia, Catrice - C05 Take It Mint

I then attempted it.
And sucked, terribly.
It was somewhat of a blow to the ego to find out there was a nail art technique I didn't just miraculously take to without all that much effort. It appeared I'd met my match. I did not quit, however, and gave it another shot.
This was my third try. I think it's okay. It is successful inasmuch that it has the marble effect on the nail.

It's not really my technique. Don't get me wrong, I think it can look absolutely amazing but when it comes down to it to me it's messy (which I hate), uncontrolled (which goes against my nature) and rather wasteful. One has to test a fair amount of polishes before you even find out what works with this, and then if you want to do more than two nails .. that's a hell of a lot of drops plopped in water, you know? To me, at least, the amount of nail polish expended is not worth the result. I may experiment with it again in the future, but probably not for more than accent nails like I did here. I can't imagine bothering with a whole hand, let alone two.

✖ Tutorial

Pictured above is my most recent nail art and, never having done one before, I made a tutorial of it in the process! Please click the link for the tutorial!
 

✖

I'm a busy, busy student once more, so the time I have to spend on doing my nails is diminished.. hence not quite up to my usual standard of neatness. Still, I hope you enjoy this nail art!

Anyway - polishes used:
- Catrice C01 - Innocent Toxin (LE: Revoltaire)
- Catrice C03 - Deep Purple (Purple Passion Trend Collection)
- Teeez Big Apple

✖ Tutorial

100th post! + Even More Heavy Metallilac

I appear to have made it to a hundred posts! Have a silly doodle to celebrate.

Originally my idea was to try my hand (pun) at water marbling for my 100th, but it didn't.. really go all that well. Alas. And I didn't want too wait too long to make another point.

I have previously swatched Catrice's 'Heavy Metallilac' and I was exceptionally pleased with it at the time.
More recently (though still a fair while ago) I was given '31 - Even More Heavy Metallilac', one of the more recent Catrice polishes because it has the logo stand out on top of the bottle.

I'd wanted the opportunity to really see them side-by-side, because in my mind the colours were a lot closer.
The original Heavy Metallilac is decidedly closer to pink than its successor. Even More is a truer purple, bearing some similarity to From Dusk To Dawn.

They're both great, eye-popping colours with a fantastic shine to them. Two coats will do you just fine.

Strawberry Lollipop.

Another of H&M's little 'Say No To Racism'-set, 'Strawberry Lollipop'. I've reviewed two other polishes of the set before, and they really disappointed me (especially since I bought the full set mainly for one of them).

Anyone that knows me is aware pink isn't my colour, but one of my best friends - my Pinkie Pie, if you will - loves the colour. So for her birthday party recently I dug this out. Since I quite frankly had no trust in this polish beforehand, I layered it over a darker pink.

I can't wear pink without feeling like I have Barbie hands. It's strange how the colour on your nails can alter your perception of your hands so much.
It's a light, 'sweet' shade of pink. I don't recommend this particular polish because it really doesn't cover very well. I'm sure there's similar pinks of a better quality out there.

Artificial light - flash.

 Whatever your opinion - this polish is definitely suited to a Pinkie party!

I'm Blue (Da Ba Dee)

Are these polishes cousins or..?

I know one shouldn't judge a book by its cover, and it's rather childish of me but..
I've basically had these polishes sitting in my collection and not really using them because I thought the names were tacky and derivative. Which is pretty damn rich from a girl that has very cheap puns, references and forced alliterations as her post names constantly.
Anyway.
I wanted a nice blue and figured I might as well give an older one a go. I can't say for sure if I've ever even used it before.
It's an older Essence polish, '37 Just Rock It!'

Actually a really nice shade of blue, a perfect balance of that line between "obviously blue" and "is that black or not?".
It took two coats and held pretty well. It's a pure blue shade, no shimmer to be found. I will definitely wear this one again. Shame on me for ignoring it so long for such a stupid reason.

 

Natural light - flash.

330.

Natural light.

It's hard not to wear copious amounts of green for me, it really is. Anyway, this fresh minty green is a Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours polish bearing the number 330. It requires a good three coats to stop the nail shining through too much, sadly. On that basis alone I wouldn't really recommend it. Yet, it's quite a nice colour, so if you can spare the time for the extra coat it's lovely!

I could give it another positive spin by suggesting it could be something close to a budget 'Island Palm'.

Sadly the second day of wearing it this polish got seriously beat up. This is mainly due to working with my hands (folding boxes, filling boxes, carrying boxes..), but that does mean I can't give a very accurate statement on how long it holds up before it starts chipping under 'regular' circumstances.

Artificial light - flash.