Blue Leopard

Good morning people! How was everyone's weekend? I've used my weekend to regain some energy after the busy day on Friday but I'm totally feeling good and happy to start with this new week. Strange isn't it, especially since it's Monday and normally I think that is the most terrible day of the week. Now I can't be bothered! Hope you all have the same good mood like I have! :-)

Today I want to show you all something I made a couple of weeks ago.


It's a strange blue leopard design! I've seen a couple of these designs being posted on the interwebs and I think they look pretty darn cool so I decided to make one myself.

First I applied Misa Quirky Smile (pretty blue, you should get it) and applied H&M Love at First Sight on top of that (and the other way around for my pinky). After that I created the leopard spots like I showed you in my DIY Leopard Tutorial. I used the black Herôme striper and Zoya Robyn as my colours and then I used the silver Essence striper to create some silver lining. Last, it's sealed with a top coat.

This design is pretty easy to make, you just want to make sure you apply the polish in a right order (this causes less frustration) and if there's polish flooding your cuticle you can easily remove this with a small brush. If you can't create straight lines by hand you can also use tip guides - sometimes you find some with a nice shape but you can also cut some yourself - or painters tape.

Thanks for visiting!
Michelle

I love you, Blue

Good evening all! Today I wanted to do some stripes but as you all know I always come up with the same stripe design. The lines are always vertical. Not that I mind, not at all, but sometimes I feel so cheesy doing the same thing over and over again. That's why I decided to do something different with my beloved striped design: I got myself striped, diagonal and in my favourite colour. Now how's that for a change?! ;-)


My base colour is Zoya Robyn, a polish that is in my closet for a loooong time. I finally picked it out today and wasn't disappointed! It's a very pretty bright blue creme and it applied good. I'm wearing three coats. After that I took out OPI Absolutely Alice, the famous blue and gold glitter polish, and started putting on stripes on my nails. These stripes are made freehand with a striper brush - everyone should own one! They are very handy when you want to put stripes on your nails.


I topped it off with China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat. It evened out this manicure quite good so I was happy with that, I hate it when I feel uneven bits on my nails.

Thanks for stopping by!
Michelle

Purple Marble

Hi guys! I did a water marble today and I really enjoy doing them. I hate the clean up though, to me that is probably the most awful thing I've ever done clean up wise. It doesn't matter what method I try, it always looks super messy (so I never show them). I used vaseline today, using a small paintbrush to greasen up my cuticles and guess what.. No more terrible clean up, NO MORE! Vaseline is my new hero for doing this stuff - I could swipe all the excess polish off with a brush.

As far as the marbling, I like the really neat patterns but I enjoy the crazy swirls more because of the difference in patterns. So for the first time on my blog, finally, a marble.


I used Zoya Yasmeen and Orly Lollipop for the marble. Excusez moi for the bad quality of the picture but it has been raining non stop which means craptastic lighting. Now, I could do a tutorial about marbling but you really want to see the queen of marbling do it: Colette from My Simple Little Pleasures. She has a lot of handy tutorials up so if you want to know more about marbling I highly recommend you visit her site (and youtube channel). :-)

What's your take on marbling? Do you like it or not?
Michelle

Nail Art Tutorial: Striped!

Hi everyone! As promised the nail art tutorial of my striped manicure. :-)


First of all, pick the colours you want to use. If you do this while working on this manicure (and you are terribly clumsy) you will have a chance of ruining your manicure and we don't want that to happen! I have used: Essie Pretty Edgy, OPI Green-wich Village, OPI Damone Roberts 1968, Zoya Ivanka and Zoya Veruschka. I'm someone who wants their colours to match otherwise I'll start to annoy myself but do whatever you like! :-)

The other thing you need for this manicure is a striper. You can use a small brush for this or a striper brush. Striper brushes can be bought apart or in a nail art brush set. Mine has gone to heaven a while back so I cleaned out a striper polish I never used and I took that striper brush.


Make sure you clean it right after you've used it, otherwise you'll mix up polishes. You can use a cotton pad soaked in polish remover for this.

Now, on to the manicure. After you have applied your base coat, apply your base colour. I chose OPI Green-wich Village as my base colour, a very fresh green. You can wait for it to dry but I'm always kind of impatient so I continue right away with the next step.

Before you start keep in mind you don't want too much polish on your striper. If so, than can turn runny and become a droopy mess on your nail. Is your line too sheer? Wait a minute and pull another line on top of the first.

1. Take a polish and dip your striper in it. Pull a vertical line from the bottom of your nail to the top. I've created one stripe on the left side of my nail with Zoya Veruschka.

2. Repeat step 1. I created two lines on both sides of my nail with OPI Damone Roberts 1968.

3. Again, repeat step 1. I created one line on the right side of my nail with Essie Pretty Edgy.

4. And for the last time, repeat step 1. I created two lines on both sides with Zoya Ivanka. After that you seal it with a top coat.

If you don't like to read, here's picture material. You can click on these for an enlargement:



And the result:


Done! Easy nail art that everyone can create. If your hand isn't that steady make sure your wrist rests on something, like a table. This way your hand doesn't shake that much. I hope this was helpful for you!

Have a great day!
Michelle

Blue Gradient

Hey all! I've got another gradient manicure for you today. I like this one wayyyy better than the pink I did before but that's probably because it's my favourite colour: BLUE.

The base colour is China Glaze For Audrey, the second colour is Zoya Robyn and the dark blue is Misa On the Edge. I've topped the gradient with China Glaze Snow Globe, different sizes of glitter that gives a really nice effect. For this one I've also used a simple cleaning sponge cut into pieces.

That's it for today, not much too share. I have a headache so that's why the post is so short.
Have a nice day!

Zoya - Ivanka

Hey guys! How was your weekend? Hope you had a good one. Today I'm showing you another polish from Zoya's Sparkle collection. I've showed you Charla before and today it's Ivanka's turn!

Ivanka is a green jelly that is packed with gold and green glitter. It's hard for me to turn down a green, I absolutely love almost every single green colour, but this one is my new number one on the green list. The sparkle, the glow, the glitters. It's absolutely amazing. Zoya did a great job on these sparkles. In the picture I'm wearing three thin coats of Ivanka. The application was good, maybe a little watery, but I had no problems with it.

Meet Ivanka in matte. I've used China Glaze Matte Magic to mattify this pretty and it's also very pretty. The golden glow stays when matte and that makes it really nice. What else is there to say?!

How do you feel about Ivanka and the rest of the Sparkle collection?

Win me in a Bottle!

Hello dear readers, I'm back a little early but it's for a good thing. I'll be showing you a polish that you can win - so read on for a description, pictures and the details of this one bottle giveaway.

Here she is. Zoya Michelle. I love things with my name in it so I had to buy this polish, even though it was pink. When I had it in my hands I noticed HOW pink it is - and you all know I'm not a pink polish girl. Michelle is a bright medium pink with lighter pink shimmer in it so it'll give you a pretty pink flash. Applying it was good, like all Zoya's I own, but why does it had to be pink? Why isn't my name polish blue or green or a freaky mud colour?

That's why I decided to make one of you the new happy owner of Michelle. If you want to receive this baby, please leave me a comment with your email address in it. Also make sure you follow me through GFC so I can check. You can earn one extra entry by tweeting/blogpost/sidebar as long as you provide the link. This is open internationally and will close on July 31, 11:59 CET time, the same date as my horror nail art contest (if you haven't joined yet, please have a look!). I pick the winner with random.org.

Good luck!

OPI - Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow Suede

Hi everyone! Last year OPI brought out six amazing suedes and today I'm showing you their latest addition! Here Today,  Aragon Tomorrow is originally from the Coleccion de Espana that was brought out in fall 2009. I got this from Margot after I sent her some polishes.

Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow in daylight, three coats

Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow is a gorgeous darker green suede. This feels like another formula than the previous suedes. It's less pigmented - first coat was really watery, the shimmer is much more dense and this looks kind of dusty to me. I did prefer applying this suede, it was much easier. Drying time was the same as the other suedes. This suede version is less darker than the original.

Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow Suede with top coat

I applied one coat of Nubar Diamont and this makes the polish amazingly beautiful. It so shiny and shimmery, I love it!

Comparing with Zoya Veruschka

I've did a comparison of Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow Suede and Zoya's Veruschka (left on the wheel). Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow is much dustier: Veruschka is a deeper green. Other than that they are not that different from each other. Which one do you prefer?

Have a nice day!

Zoya - Jade

Hi all! Meet Zoya Jade, not a green as you might expect but a red. I'm not a huge fan of red polishes but once in a while one catches my attention - and this one did. I saw Jade on a blog first, can't remember which blog, and I just had to have it.

Jade is a bright fire truck red jelly packed with red glitter. It's really gorgeous, I'm not telling a lie, no! This red is one of the best reds I've ever come across. Jade applied good and with every layer you put on it gives you  more and more of glitter fun. I'm wearing three coats in the pictures.

Now tell me, what is your favourite red?

Zoya - Charla

Good afternoon everyone! I'm happy to announce you all can visit my blog on http://www.thelacquerfiles.com/! My laptop is still gone and missed dearly but luckily there's a desktop downstairs so I can upload my pictures and keep on blogging. :)

Today I want to show you Zoya's Charla. This polish is from the Zoya Sparkle Collection and I bet you've seen this one a thousand times but it's so pretty, it would be wrong not showing it again!

Charla in daylight, three coats

Charla's base is a medium blue jelly and it's packed with glass flecked glitter in blue, gold and green. It's absolutely stunning - you want to add more and more layers of it because it gets better every time! Application was good and it dried pretty fast. This is one for my favourites list!

Charla with Matte Magic

This is Charla topped with China Glaze's Matte Magic. As you can see, the polish still has that gorgeous blue and green, it makes me think of the ocean. What is your take on Charla?

Have a nice day!

Zoya - Reece

Hi all! I wanted to show you something else after some badly chipped polish. So here's something I did before but wanted to do again and take better pictures of it.

Reece in daylight, three coats

Reece is a deep rose pink with gold shimmer and a gold/green flash from Zoya's Reverie collection (2010). It's pretty and the changes between gold and green is nice to see. However, having an absolute dislike for pinks this isn't my kind of polish.

I've seen a lot of comments and messages that Reece is a dupe of China Glaze's Strawberry Fields. It isn't, see:

Left: Strawberry Fields, Right: Reece

I think it's pretty clear. Reece is lighter and more rosy, has the gold/green flash and no glass fleck shimmer. Application wise I like Strawberry Fields a little better because Reece is thinner, it can flood into your cuticles and we all know that's a pain to remove with a brush.

Which one do you like most?

Zoya - Veruschka

Hi dear reader!

Today I'm showing you another polish I received from a very sweet person, Kris from My Lucid Bubble! She offered to do the Zoya exchange for me and of course I wanted that - so we swapped. One of the Zoya's I wanted and received was Veruschka.

Veruschka is a deep matte green packed with loads of shimmer. This isn't a matte like the mattes from OPI, this has the finish of a suede polish. It is gorgeous!

Veruschka in daylight

I'm wearing two coats in the picture. Application was good, the texture of the polish is very smooth so you don't have to worry about uneven lines. The drying time wasn't as fast as a matte or suede from OPI but since this is a matte polish, it still dries very quick.

Veruschka with topcoat, in daylight

Okay. Wow. This totally rocked me off my socks. Look at the friggin' shimmer! It's everywhere! In the picture you see two coats of Veruschka topped with Nubar Diamont.

I definitely think Veruschka is a must have. Even if you hate matte polishes you must have it: with top coat you can make it gorgeous. This has to be one of the prettiest greens I own, it just stunned me.

Have a great day!

Michelle

Zoya - Zara

Hi dear reader!
How was your weekend? Mine was fine - very relaxing. Went to my internship today and it was nice. Too bad I'm having a serious cold! Spoils all the fun.

Currently I'm wearing Zara from the Zoya order I received a couple days ago. I must admit that I'm more into dark and bright colours than really light ones (you know, the light purples and pinks) so the first hour or so I wasn't that comfortable wearing this polish. Now, after one day, I'm really in love with it because it truly is an amazing polish. Zara has a lavender base colour, is full of golden shimmer and sometimes you see a golden glance. It's very pretty and it's definitly a colour for spring!

How do you feel about Zara?
Have a great sunday!
Michelle

Zoya - Adina

Goodmorning!

How are you doing? Hope you are all well! A little reminder that my Essence Giveaway is closing tomorrow. Thanks all for spreading the word and entering the giveaway!

I'm wearing Zoya's Adina today. What an amazing polish! It's really hard to photograph and the light isn't working with me either, so there will be a repost in the summer when there's plenty of sun.

As you can see, Adina is a fab looking duochrome. You really should click on the pictures for a better look at her. It is a purple based polish with green, pink and silver duochrome. There might be more colours hidden but I really can't tell, the light here isn't that good. :) When the light is dimmed it shows green and pink, in little light I receive from the sun it shows green, pink and silver. This is really an unique polish, I've never seen anything like it. In the pictures you see my tips showing through the polish but that isn't in person!

I also received Reece which is, according to a couple of blogs, a lookalike to China Glaze - Strawberry Fields so I'll do a comparison when I have the time. I'm very curious about those two!

That's it for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Michelle