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'.

Underrated.

Though I usually prefer to paint my own designs or get them through other techniques, I do enjoy the occasional stamping adventure. One of the things I really like in stamping is a pattern that covers a full nail. I don't get the chance to try that very often, because I generally like my nails to be longer than the plates will allow for. I trimmed my claws a fair bit the other day, so I hoped they would be short enough to allow this to work!
The plate is BM21, in case you struggle reading upside-down.

Not.. entirely a success.
I love the colour combination of blue and brown, and I think it's a vastly underrated one. It has been some time since I used it, so it was about time to give it another go in a different styling. Miss Sporty's '455' is my go-to brown and I was already previously aware that it carries a matte finish well, so that was an easy decision. I originally had a different blue in mind, but it looked very dark when stamped on so I switched that for a MAX (Action's own brand, I believe?) Nail Art Polish called 'Blue Galaxy'.

In real life the look is a lot more subtle as here I obviously tried to photograph it in its most visible state. As you can see the stamping didn't go all that well. Since I'm not too experienced a stamper, I struggle with placement and end up not getting part of the design on. Oops. I don't mind too much, though. It's not that apparent unless you're on top of my hands.

For my thumb, which is too broad and still too long to fit the full-nail design on, I went for a small detail. It came from one of Essence's stampy plates.
I had meant to center it more, but like I mentioned, my stamping-aim is not that great.

Half Rhombus Tutorial.

Please click the link for the tutorial!

You Belong to Rambo No. 5

And with this - another version of my beloved half rhombus - I complete the Catrice section of my Stash page. Post title is a mash-up of the two polishes used. The green is Catrice's '670 It's Rambo No. 5' and the mint blue is an Essence colour & go by the creepy name of '53 You Belong to Me'. No, nail polish, as a matter of fact, you belong to me. The 'colour & go' polishes were such a hit and miss in terms of quality that I almost never bought them for myself, but since they were very affordable I was often given them as little presents. This one falls under 'miss', which is a shame because I like the shade, but its coverage is terrible and the formula is very disappointing, very streaky. It is however fine for this type of thing.
Added a little rhinestone because I don't often do, and made the rest matte because I think it's suits the army green of Rambo.

>> Click for tutorial <<

Blurple.

Continuing with the effort to have my Stash completely full, two more old Catrice polishes. Today I've got '120 Plum Play With Me' & '260 Blue's Brother'. I got these in a time where my collection was still starting to develop, so they're pretty much my kind of 'basic'.

120 Plum Play With Me

These older Catrices have a much stronger chemical smell about them than they do nowadays. Let's cherish what we have now.
I used two coats, which, as you can see, didn't cover all that evenly. I don't intend to wear these colours for long, so I let it be.

Artificial light, flash.

260 Blue's Brother

This picture sadly didn't turn out too hot, but by the time I noticed, it was too late and I had altered the polish already.
Unlike the purple, this sparkly blue covered fine in two coats, which is a plus.

Flash, artificial light.

I.. wish I had more to say about them, but it's pretty straightforward. I guess my final thoughts are that they are decent for what they are, but I'm grateful for the changes Catrice has made over time (brush size, chemical smell etc.)

To give some semblance of unity when wearing two different colours (on top of which one being sparkly and one opaque) I threw a matte top coat over them (NYC - 274 Matte Me Crazy).

We've got fun 'n games.

One of my goals is to have every polish on my Stash page linked. Which means I'll have to use them all.

Filling out all the Catrice polishes then seems like an attainable sub-goal, because I've got most of those up already!

Here 'C02 Welcome to the Jungle', from the Papagena LE in 2011. I've worn it, just not posted about it.

I should hope the post title reference is an obvious one.

I think that bottle cap has been strangely sticky and crackly since I got it. What's up with that?
Anyway.
Aside from whatever mysterious affliction the bottle has, I have basically no complaints about this polish. The colour is an interesting one. Sort of like an aged gold, if you see what I mean? It went on just fine in two coats and held up for a few days before any damage started to appear.
Whilst most shades can greatly vary depending on the lighting, this one seems to be continuously cut from  the same cloth.

Artificial light, flash.

Essence Gel Nails.

One of my friends owns all the necessities to do gel nails the Essence way, and let me borrow all of it to give it a shot. I'd never tried anything of the sort so it was fun to give a go.

The colour I used with the process is this gray/lilac from Essence's Crystalliced LE. It's '01 It's a Snow-Woman's World', and I haven't used it since 2012. Sorry, Snow-Woman's World.

One of the details I really love about it (which is a pain to get to show up on photographs, unfortunately) is the little detailing of snowflakes around the brush handle.

I think it went decently for a first try, but I have many of the same hang-ups with this technique as I do with water marbling. Those mainly being that it requires a lot of products (four separate bottles of stuff, and a lamp!) and the time it took (in this case) is disproportionate to the quality of the mani (though I imagine with a little more experience that'd be a lower ratio). During the drying process the mani also creeps away from the cuticle a bit further than I'd like.

 

I had a nice time playing around with an unfamiliar process but I don't think I'm likely to try it again very soon.

The peel-off base is both a blessing and a curse. I really loved being able to remove it so quickly and easily without the use of any additional products and messiness, but on the other hand it leaves your nails reasonably damaged. That alone makes the gel nails not something I'd recommend doing too often.