Halloween-Mani #2 - playing around with Zombie Zest

Okay, another late Halloween-Mani. I won China Glaze Zombie Zest in a giveaway this summer and had been waiting for fall/halloween so it would finally be an appropriate color. This is my very first China Glaze polish and I love the color!

I was a bit surprised though how sheer it was. And since it is my first China Glaze I was a bit greedy and decided that I need to layer Zombie Zest to preserve it ^^; I swatched it over every green and brown polish I own and finally decided to layer it over a metallic green polish from the drugstore brand basic. This is my second time wearing this green.

This is the basic polish on its own. It doesn't have a name or a number like most of basic's polishes. Annoying. It's a dark green metallic polish with slightly blue hue. It looks bluer in the picture than it really is. It's pretty streaky, but since I wanted to layer anyway, it didn't bother me much.

Two thin coats of Zombie Zest on top and it looks completely different. I needed two coats because the pretty glitter didn't spread completely evenly... which I didn't like.

The last picture was taken in daylight on a cloudy day. The pictures don't do the polish justice though. It seemed to have an inner glow somehow. Soooo pretty! I was staring at my nails a lot and because I liked it so much on its own, I didn't even add nailart until the very last day.

On the last day of wear, I was going through my nailart stuff and found out that I had a halloween themed stamping plate all along. Duh. I completely forgot about it. So right before taking this pretty green off my nails, I decided to play with the plate.

Hm. I even used my special white stamping polish by Konad, but on most nails the image didn't transfer well. A lot of the polish would still be on the stamper too, even if the image transfered properly. Maybe the plate's engraving is a little bit to "deep"? No idea. The spider from the same plate didn't transfer at all. In the end, I quickly painted some with the stamping polish and added some red rhinestones for contrast.


I wore this for like half a day. I still like Zombie Zest a lot better on its own, but I got to play around with a forgotten stamping plate, so it's okay. One thing I noticed again while looking through my photos of this mani... my camera really doesn't like greens. It failed before and this time once again! If my other camera weren't so bitchy with her batteries, I would use it more... :(

How do you like my Zombie Zest-layering? I yet have to wear Zombie Zest on its own... buuuut, so greeeeedy... can't waist it!!! ^^;

Halloween-Mani #1 - mein Beitrag für Stephs Contest

After one tiresome week being sick but working, I finally get around to post my first Halloween manicure. I'm very early with those, but whatever.

Not even thinking of Halloween, I bought this p2 polish from their new color range and really wanted to use it. I had been looking at all the amazing Halloween manicures other bloggers have been posting in the past weeks and decided that I wanted to do a classic orange and black manicure. As it turnes out, my new p2 polish notice me! was a very nice Halloween orange, so I got to use it! Yay!

This is nothing that hasn't been done before by someone else, but I think it's a classic design and I just totally love it. I painted my nails with p2 notice me! first, except my ringfinger. That one got painted with p2 eternal. I then painted the black motives using black acrylic paint, but I sponged the tree on my middle finger with p2 eternal. On my ringfinger, I painted a circle using white acrylic paint and then painted this with Zoya Tanzy. After it had dried, I continued with black acrylic paint for the house and the hill. For the orange details I used white acrylic paint again and then some more drops of Tanzy to make it glow. For the spider web on my thumb I first painted the spider web using white acrylic paint and then black acrylic paint on top. After a generous layer of top coat, this was done.

 I wore this for 5 days, but I have to admit that I basically had to touch up the tips almost every night. Even though I used a top coat that usually prevents tip wear for 2-3 days, it wouldn't keep the black acrylic paint from rubbing off. The orange nail polish underneath was perfectly fine still.

I have been thinking about doing a halloween manicure for a while, but it was Steph's Halloween contest that made me do it in the end! I actually like the idea of her contest. It's easy to just fill out a form to participate in a giveaway, but a contest is so much more fun! And hers is not even limited to nailart, so I'm really curious what the other girls did for her contest!

The Halloween contest over at Lacquer Passion is still open until November 2 - only for Germans though. Here's what you might win ;)

And since Steph wants to see what was used to create the contest entry, here's a picture of what I used. I forgot p2 eternal though...

Ein paar neue Fotos von Mio

Fast 10 Wochen ist es her, dass ich das letzte Mal Fotos von Mio gepostet habe. Damals war Mio gerade aus der Tierklinik zurückgekommen, wo er ja um sein Leben gekämpft hat. Seitdem hat er auch ziemliches Glück gehabt, muss man sagen. Er war nicht mehr krank und alle seine "Unfälle" sind glimpflich ausgegangen.

Derzeit ist echt ein richtiger Halbstarker. Er legt sich mit allem und jedem an und zieht dann doch meistens den Kürzeren - aber das ist egal, einfach wieder drauf!

Momentan ist der Kleine im Zahnwechsel und nagt echt alles an. Gerne hängt er von hinten auf meinem Laptop und beisst in die Ecke. -.-" Wenn man ihn streichelt, fängt er auch über Kurz oder Lang an auf der ihn streichelnden Hand herumzubeissen. Oder eben in anderer Katzen Ohr, usw.

Seit einigen Wochen darf er auch endlich raus. Er hat ja ewig versucht irgendwie raus in den Garten zu kommen, als wir ihn noch für zu jung befunden haben. Er dreht auch richtig auf, wenn er draußen ist, aber seit es langsam kälter wird, sieht man ihn kaum noch im Garten. Lieber hängt er im Haus rum und nervt die Anwesenden. Besonders unser zweiter Kater leidet unter dem etwas unausgelasteten Mio. Aber er könnte ja raus, wenn er wollte.

Und wenn wir schon dabei sind, auch mal ein paar Fotos von unseren anderen tierischen Mitbewohnern - Mascha, unserem Hund und Montag, Katze No.2.

Ist schon Wahnsinn, wie schnell Tiere groß werden. Montag ist selbst erst 3 Jahre alt und war auch mal sooooo winzig, wie Mio. Auch er hat dieses Jahr eine Menge durchgemacht. Auf dem einen Foto sieht man ja, dass ihm am Schwanz Fell fehlt. Da hat ihn im Frühjahr ein Marder gebissen und die Wunde hat sich schwer entzündet. Das Fell wird leider nie mehr nachwachsen. Mascha hingegen hat sich dieses Jahr zwei Mal auf dem Feld fast das Auge mit einem Strohhalm ausgestochen und rannte diesen Sommer die meiste Zeit mit so einem Kragen rum, damit sie nicht an ihrem Auge kratzt. Sie hatte aber auch Glück.

Die Tierärzte haben dieses Jahr echt gutes Geld mit unseren drei Grazien gemacht... hoffentlich war's das mit Unfällen dieses Jahr ^^;

Zoya - Julieanne

Julieanne is my fourth Zoya I bought. I got it for little money from Kleiderkreisel. The picture of the bottle looked soooo pretty! It showed so many colors embedded in the purple base. I just had to get it. So I did.

After applying, I noticed that I hadn't used rhinestones in quite some time and decided to add a few. I also noticed that the small container with my bullion beads had "leaked" somehow. Nargh. Since I had them there already, I decided to add those as well. It's nothing fancy, but I thought it fits Julieanne's pretty purple.

I played around a bit with those bullion beads. I did one circle on my right hand and and added another on my left hand. In RL I actually liked the simple one circle-design better, but on the pictures it's the double circle, I prefer.

The pretty multi-color the bottle showed, didn't show on the nails, sadly, but I still like Julieanne a lot. I really like those glass-flecked polishes. It's like they have something special going on. Just like holo polishes do as well. ♥

Catrice - Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans

Just a quick post. A while ago, my local Douglas store started selling Catrice nail polishes. Catrice is actually not available in my city normally. I have to drive about 40km, if I want to buy some. So I was happy when I found a Catrice nail polish display in my city. It would be great if they would be selling other Catrice stuff as well, but I don't want to complain - it's better than nothing. And next year every DM store is going to sell Catrice anyway. :)

Okay, so to the manicure. I got a few polishes from the Catrice display of course. One of them is Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans. I had seen swatches on several blogs and really loved the shade. I still do. I liked it enough to not add anything to it! That rarely happens. Sadly, I completely failed at taking pictures! There's only one that actually turned out okay. I should really transfer pictures to my computer more quickly. Like before removing a manicure...

Anyway, this is Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans. First is in morning sunlight, second in evening sunlight. Quite a difference, right!?

And yes, my nails are longer here, because this is the manicure I did before my fail. I forgot to post this one first ^^;

Fail: Silver polish stamped... and shattered...

Okay, I consider this mani a huge fail. It didn't turn out right at all. I had this idea, but it just didn't turn out the way I wanted. Meh.

I have these metallic polishes by drugstore brand "basic". They are very cheap and actually aren't too bad. I chose the silver one. My idea was to try essence - Style me love for stamping and I thought that silver would make a nice base for that. Style me love actually works for stamping, but the stamping design I chose is too weak for a silver background. I'll try again some other time.

I didn't like the result enough, so I added one coat of Flormar 392 to give it something extra. Well, failed. I didn't like it better at all. But I still like 392 a lot.

After wearing this for 2 days, I felt like I had to add something else. I had seen several blogposts painting crackle polishes diagonally, so I tried that.

 

I think it looks a lot more cracked that way than when you paint it straight. I like that. But I still didn't like the manicure... ^^;

Well, there have to be fails to appreciate a nice mani. ^^;

Nubar 2010 vs essence - Waking Up in Vegas

So I got lucky yesterday and found an almost full display of the new essence LE "re-mix your style". They actually already removed it from all the stores that had it last weekend. Sometimes, I'm glad that one store is always late with the displays...

Anyway, this means, I finally got my hands on essence Waking Up in Vegas, the "sparkling finish" top coat. From the promo pictures I already guessed it would be similar to my beloved Nubar 2010. Seeing it now, makes me think it's pretty much a dupe. So I had to find out how close immediately.

They look similar in the bottle, right? The left one seems to be glowing a bit more, but I guess that's just my lighting. ^^;

I used a darker color as a base this time. It's a no name polish... that actually has the most aweful smell among all my polishes. Bleh. But from all the manicures with flakies I did so far, I actually like this the best. Tera was right :D

And now the comparison:

I have one coat of Nubar 2010 on my index and ring finger. My middler finger and pinkie are painted with one coat of essence Waking up in Vegas. Do you see a difference? Not really? Me neither.

If I had to say anything, I would say that the flakies in Waking up in Vegas are slightly bigger and maybe a bit more dense, but nothing really noticeable. The consistency is the same: both are a bit thicker than your usual polish, but both apply well. Drying time was good with both of them.

My final verdict: pretty well done dupe! Considering that Waking up in Vegas retails for 1,75€ ($2,40) and Nubar 2010 for about $7.49, I would say grab Waking up in Vegas while you can!

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Glitter Sandwich in Red

Since I finally found a few jelly polishes here in Germany, I had to try more of those sandwiches, that I got to love so much... especially while the weather was nice and a jelly could really glow!

One of my newest jellies is essence - Call it Fame from the now discontinued multi dimension series. It's a really nice bright red. Red is a color I haven't really been wearing so far. I own a few reds, but none as bright as this one. I prefered darker red shades. But Call it Fame really screamed 'buy me', so I bought it, haha. I got it while the essence polishes were on sale.

 

The first two pictures show the polish in direct sunlight, the latter at the window in my room.
 As much as I avoided bright reds so far, I love this one! I wasn't really bothering with clean up here, because I would be layering anyway :D

This time I actually remembered taking pictures before layering ^^; But that was partly due to me being stunned by this beautiful red...

Anyway, I still wanted to do my glitter sandwich. I decided on essence - make it golden, the new golden glitter polish and essence - 04 carrie, a pink glitter topper from the nail art twins that has been discontinued as well. Finally, I finished my sandwich with one coat of OPI - Y'all Come Back Ya Hear? - I really love this one. I love orange polishes :D

It's kind of busy looking, but I like it. My sister hated it. She kept being noisy all week while I was wearing this. I basically like the combination, but I'm not sure I like the fine golden glitter in make it golden. I might have to buy another gold glitter that's not too golden, when you know what I mean.

Hm, I think I might have liked this with my dress today. ^^

What do you think? Do you wear bright reds like these?

Gewinnspiel bei Nagellackprinzessin

Bis heute abend noch verlost unsere liebe Nagellackprinzessin ein Set bestehend aus 5 verschiedenen Kleancolor Nagellacken. Allesamt schöne Farben und es sind zwei der Chunky Holos dabei!

Wer noch mitmachen möchte, bitte auf das Bild klicken!
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Fairylike Layering?

The manicure, I'm showing you today is a layering experiment I did a while ago. (I still had long nails... man, I regret cutting them short...)

I really wanted to try another of the Model's Own polishes I got this summer and I chose Utopia. I'm not sure how to describe this shade. It's kind of grey/beige/lavender all mixed together. A really unusual color. I'm glad it was in the lot I got!

When I applied it, I didn't like it on my skintone. It was late at night and I only had my usual bad lighting. Well, this is basically the reason I decided to layer something on top. I used Golden Rose #156, a really sheer pinkish gold. I really liked how one coat of Golden Rose #156 changed the appearence of Utopia. It's not a very pronounced change, but it made me like Utopia on my nails!

Not enough for me that night though! In one of my last posts, I showed Nubar 2010 layered over Nubar Mali-Blue. I didn't really like the combination that time (I liked it on the photos ^^;), so I decided to give it another shot. It seemed fitting to me, because the flakies in Nubar 2010 gave me the impression to be similar to Golden Rose colorwise.

It did change the manicure a lot though. I really liked the combination, even though I got quite a lot of negative comments, haha. But I guess a lot of people don't like light polish, so it was to be expected. I really like how 2010 looks completely different on Utopia depending on the lighting.

Also, since my nails were actually long enough, I finally tried painting the back of my nails. I really loved the idea, when Tera from Nails in Nippon posted her try on this. Not that people would notice it as subtle as it was ^^;

Okay, and because I forgot to take a picture of Utopia on its own, I quickly swatched it... please excuse the messy application. :D

essence - Style me Love

Today, I have one of the polishes from the essence LE called "Nails in Style". It was released this summer. My local drugstores got it quite late... around the time when I had asked my friend to get me all these nice polishes in the states. I felt so poor... and still couldn't stop buying more here in Germany. ^^; I remember that I felt all these stares when I paid like 8 polishes on the register. Tehehe.

After Milani's Hi-tech, I felt like wearing another bright color and stumbled upon "Style me Love", a pink/silver metallic polish. For some reason, I forgot to take pictures when I had this on my nails. I didn't copy my pictures to my computer for a while, so I didn't notice! When I noticed later on I quickly took some... the thing is, I had cut down my nails in the mean time...

I was quite opaque after just one coat, but I applied two. Also, it dried really fast on the surface. I had to apply this polish very quickly or I would have dragged it. But I like the result.

When I took it of, I discovered another side of this polish:

The same polish! While taking it off, I noticed that the pink would go away really quickly, leaving the silver that was harder to remove. The silver has a lilac tint, that I adore!

I'm so glad my nails are already longer than the first pictures in this post. My fingers felt so short, haha.