Late Christmas Mani featuring essie - Angora Cardi

Good morning!

I only did a single real Christmas manicure this year. And a simple one at that. I wasn't in the mood at all and honestly, I'm glad it's over for the next 48 weeks. I'll stay with my wintery manicures. Those are more my cup of tea.

Dieses Jahr habe ich nur eine einzige Weihnachtsmani gepinselt und eine super einfache noch dazu. Ich war echt so gar nicht in Weihnachtsstimmung und bin auch ziemlich froh, dass jetzt erst mal wieder 48 Wochen Ruhe ist. Ich bleibe da lieber meinen winterlichen Manis, das ist mehr meins.

I wanted to create a simple manicure using one of my untrieds, essie Angora Cardi. I remember seeing a manicure similar to this, but I think they used green. Even though it's so simple, I got a couple of nice comments on it.

Ich wollte was ganz einfaches haben und dabei einen meiner vielen unbenutzten Lacke verwenden, den essie Angora Cardi. Ich hatte mal so eine ähnliche Maniküre irgendwo gesehen, die aber grünen Lack verwendet hat, glaube ich. Obwohl das ganze so simpel war, habe ich aber doch ein paar nette Kommentare bekommen. Das erfreut das Herz. :)

Products used:
- essie Angora Cardi (2 coats)
- Revell Email color

Thanks for reading!!

TNCC - Inspired by Art - #2

Hi everyone! 

Today, I want to show you the second art inspired manicure I did for the Nail Challenge Collaborative. 

Heute habe ich meine zweite kunstinspirierte Mani für euch! Meine Inspiration habe ich wieder auf Pinterest gefunden. Das Bild heißt "Before Morning" und wurde von Leonid Afremov gemalt. Die leuchtenden Farben auf dem dunklen Hintergrund gefallen mir wirklich sehr gut. Außerdem dachte ich, dass die verwendete Technik sich auf den Nägeln leicht nachmachen lässt. (Naja...)

I have also found my inspiration on pinterest for this one. The original work is "Before Morning" by Leonid Afremov. I love the bright colors on the dark background. Also, I thought that the way it has been painted should make it rather easy to recreate. ^^;

The accent nail was painted using acrylic paints on top of black polish. It's just easier for the details. The rest of the nails were painted with polish only.

Alles bis auf den Akzentnagel ist vollständig mit Nagellack gemalt, während der Akzentnagel fast gänzlich mit Acrylfarbe gemalt wurde. Ist einfach einfacher für die Details und leichte Farbabstufungen.

Products used:

- p2 eternal (black base)

- OPI Jade is the new Black

- Nicole by OPI Daffy Dill

- Kiko 356, 386, 389

- Catrice Nautica

- essence berry me home

- beauty uk nameless yellow polish

- acrylic paint

In general, I think this turned out ok. Sadly, the colors don't pop as much as I had hoped. I didn't want to layer too much, because I think that would have destroyed the effect somewhat. Some of the colors were actually more opaque before topcoat. The yellow for example. 

Mein Ergebnis finde ich soweit ok. Leider sind die Farben nicht so schön bunt wie beim Original. Ich hatte die Befürchtung, dass Schichten dem Ganzen abträglich wäre und habe deswegen jeweils nur eine Schicht draufgekleckst. Seltsamerweise waren auch alle Lackfarben vor dem Topcoat deutlich leuchtender als danach. Ganz stark z.B. beim Gelb.

What do you think?

Was meint ihr?

TNCC - Inspired by Art - #1

Hello everyone~

yay, I'm (kind of) in time with this month's challenge!! The theme for December is "Inspired by Art". That sounds fine at first and of course, I voted for it too. But in the end it caused me quite a headache. For today's manicure, I scrolled down the long list of art-themed pictures on Pinterest and stumbled upon a watercolor picture that I have used as my inspiration.

Diesen Monat bin endlich mal wieder im offiziellen Zeitraum, um meine Nail Challenge Collaboration Kreationen zu posten. Das Thema für diesen Monat ist "Inspiriert durch Kunst". Das klingt erst mal gut und ich habe auch dafür abgestimmt, aber letztlich hat es mir doch ganz schön Kopfschmerzen bereitet. Letztlich habe ich Pinterest bemüht und bin dort für die Mani fündig geworden, die ich heute zeigen möchte.

I thought about using actual watercolors for this manicure, but I couldn't find the box with my watercolors. So I ended up with my usual acrylic paints.

Ich hatte mit dem Gedanken gespielt tatsächlich Aquarellfarben zu benutzen, konnte meine aber in meinem Chaos leider nicht finden. Also wieder meine üblichen Acrylfarben.

Products used / Verwendete Produkte:
- Barielle Enduring (white base, 3 coats)
- China Glaze Keep Calm Paint on (the light turquoise brush strokes behind the flowers)
- blue, green, black and yellow acrylic paint

And of course, this was the picture that inspired me. Sadly, I don't know who painted this, but I really like it!

Thanks for reading!!
Please take a look at the other girls' manicures too.

TNCC - Favorite Color - #4

Hi,

since I finally finished my first manicure for the December theme, I feel like I have to rush this post a little bit... This is my final manicure for the Favorite Color month of the Nail Challenge Collaborative.

I tried making stamping decals for the first time. I ordered my first MoYou plates a little while ago and this one image on Suki plate #6 actually reminded me of a pattern I saw in Japan. I guess I shouldn't have tried doing full nail decals when trying for the first time, but I think the manicure turned out okay. Of course, there's a lot of room for improvement, but I think you'll see me try again with stamping decals. There are some nice combinations possible - especially with the MoYou plates I got....

Sorry for the crappy pictures. All of them were taken on day three, hence the damage at the tips.

Products used:
- essence gabriella (from the first range of nail art twins)
- essie good as gold
- Barielle Pin Up
- MoYou London - Suki plate #6

For the stamping process itself, I followed this tutorial - the first that pops up when you search for stamping decals on google. ^^;

What do you think? Have you tried making stamping decals and do you have any tips to share?
Thanks for reading!

TNCC - Favorite Color - #3

Hi everyone,

while I'm already researching the next theme of The Nail Challenge Collaborative ("Art"), I still have to show the final two manicures for the last theme. So here's the third.

This manicure was inspired by one I saw in a Japanese nail art magazine, I bought in Japan. It didn't work out exactly how I wanted it. I tried my new acrylic paint, but I feel like my hand is not steady anymore and/or my brushes suck. I already ordered a couple of new ones...

Materials used:
- essence Tip Painter in Natural White (I poured two of those into a normal, empty polish bottle)
- purple, red, pink and white acrylic paint
- white half pearls
- golden buillon beads

So, yeah, the only polishes involved here is the essence Tip Painter and the Top Coat. I really like the essence one. I was curious when they released the natural white variation, because I'm looking for my perfect off-white polish - not too beige, not too grey, not too pink. This one is pretty much the shade I have been looking for. I just wish it was a little more opaque. Those are three coats and it's still not entirely opaque.

I need to find buillon beads bigger than the ones I have. I should have bought that set I saw in Japan. I just thought it's so expensive...... Does anyone know if BPS or some other similar online store has "big" buillon beads? It's hard to tell from the pictures on the web.

Thanks for reading!
I hope you have a great day~

TNCC - Favorite Color - #2

Hi everyone,

gah, time just passes too fast without me realizing. And here I wanted to improve my posting habits...

For this manicure, I didn't have any particular plan. I had played with some polishes and noticed she sheerness of the purple and blue I ended up using for this manicure. I then remembered that I haven't done any checkered nails in a while and also have this cute matching topper from Japan in my untrieds... that's how this manicure was born.

Okay, I failed the checkered part here, but I like those colors together... and the topper ist just sooo cute. I'm glad I bought it. (I need to plan my next trip to Japan <3)

Products used:
- p2 open your heart (3 coats)
- Color Club Evolution (3 coats)
- Barielle Enduring (3 coats)
- Homei Spangle Nail "Princess no Negai"
- white acrylic paint

Thanks for reading!
Have a nice day~

From the Vault: H+M - Norwegian Sky (inspired by Maria)

Hi everyone,

as I didn't get around to work on the pictures of my purple TNCC manicures for the current month, here's another manicure from the vault.

The base for this manicure is H&M Norwegian Sky, a light blue with pink to blue duochrome shimmer. It looks a little minty on me though. The shimmer is quite obvious in the bottle, but it gets rather lost on the nail. The shimmer is probably at fault for the weird consistency of this polish. You have to be quite careful while applying this one. It's a pretty blue still.

Since the shimmer is taking a back seat here, I decided that the manicure needed something else and I decided on adding a couple of flowers inspired by Maria. While Maria's flowers look so flawless, mine look a bit forced, don't they? Haha. Well, gotta practice!

I totally forgot about the week with my glued broken tip, haha...

Materials used:
- H&M Norwegian Sky
- white, blue and green acrylic paint

Hm, I feel like wearing this again, but I feel the stares of aaaaall my untrieds...

As always, thanks for reading!

Misslyn - Dark Seduction (Swatch)

Hello everyone,

today I want to show you a quick swatch of one of my newer polishes. I never intended to buy it from just the promo pictures, but seeing it in store, this and one more polish ended up coming with me to the cashier. Today's polish is by Misslyn and has both the number 211 and the name Dark Seduction. It belongs to their current trend edition "hot glam".

Dark Seduction was not my first pick from the collection, but I think I like it the best out of the three I bought altogether. It's a dark red jelly base filled with tiny black and golden glitter. Due to the jelly qualities, the golden glitter turns to different shades of pink depending on how deep it is 'buried' in the layers of polish. I like that. Well, I like jellies... + glitter in them = love.

I'm wearing two coats without topcoat here and looking at my pictures, it could definitely use a third to make it more opaque.. In real life, it didn't look patchy around the cuticle at all and due to all the glitter there was no visible nail line either. Drying time was average, removal rather easy for a glitter. At least on me.

I'll definitely wear this again. It's a red and I like it which is rarely the case!

Thank you for reading!

TNCC - Technique Month #1 - Galaxy Nails

Hi guys,

today, I want to show you the first manicure I intended to post for the The Nail Challenge Collaborative's September theme "techniques". I decided to try techniques that I never did before and the first thing I knew I had to try were galaxy nails. I never tried them. I know that they're not very hard to do, but you know, there are so many awesome galaxy manicures floating around the internet... and I seriously love looking at them. I didn't want to try and end up not liking mine... So I kept hesitating. But when this theme was decided, so were my first galaxy nails.

I wanted to start with an easy one, so I did not attempt to recreate real nebulae. (But those are awesome!) I'm happy with my first try and it will certainly not be the last.

It's intersting how different they look just depending on the light. They looked a little bit more awesome in real life, but my camera just couldn't capture the shimmer and the scattered holo bits.

I'm a little sad that I didn't manage to take pictures before going to work... pleae excuse the tip wear. And ignore my sad cuticles too, please. I had tears in my eyes while going through my pictures... o.o"

Materials used:
- p2 eternal
- p2 gigantic
- p2 trouble
- p2 flamboyant
- p2 attraction
- p2 elegant
- Manhattan 124
- Illamasqua Load
- KosmetikKosmo Polarlicht

Yeah, a lot of p2. I had just bought a huge batch of used ones for very little money...

Thanks for reading!

From the Vault: Nicole by OPI - Dream Catcher stamped

Hi everyone,

here's another oldie, that I had totally forgotten. I remember that I originally wanted to do a comparison between Nicole by OPI Dreamcatcher and a BeYu polish I had just bought. Looking at the pictures I haven't worked on so far, it appears that the BeYu polish never made it onto my nails. Which means... it's still in my growing box of untrieds... (I don't want to count...)

Nicole by OPI Dreamcatcher is a beautiful light shade of pink with golden shimmer. But an incredibly sheer one. These are at least four coats and it was not entirely opaque with those. So I sponged on some gold polish - I forgot which - and then stamped with white Konad polish and PUEEN 47.

I liked this manicure. It was unusually delicate for me back then, so it was kind of refreshing to wear something so sweet/girly. Also, I liked this polish better on me than OPI Pedal Faster Suzi, which is close, but has silver shimmer.

Thanks for reading! :)

TNCC - Around the World #3 - China

Hello,

I hope everyone is having a great weekend so far! It's a short one for me, but I hope I'll get around to do some more nail art later!

As I wrote in my second-to-last post, I did most of the manicures for the Nail Challenge Collaborative. I'm going to post these from time to time with the according theme mentioned. So today, I want to show you the last manicure for the theme of August: Around the World. I didn't want to do a "Japan" manicure... I'm doing too many of those. So I decided on China. Close, but something else. Aside from asian food, architecture and silk, I associate pandas with China. A panda manicure it is!

Materials used:
- essence Black is back
- Kiko 626 Lawn Green
- black and white acrylic paint
- Stamping Plate

From the Vault: A Blue French

Hi again,

I still have so many manicures ready to post that I did ages ago. Today, I'm going to release one of those from the "ready" folder...

I was inspired by some manicure I saw on Pinterest, but I can't find it anymore. I pretty much recreated it, but I just couldn't paint thin lines that day. Haha... it looks a little silly. ^^; My nails are too short for this sort of manicure.

Materials used:
- OPI Bubble Bath
- OPI Last Friday Night
- white, pink and blue acrylic paint
- loose pink glitter

I practiced simple one stroke leaves here... again. I really want to master this technique, but it's so hard o.O""

Thanks for reading!

TNCC - Favorite Color - #1

Hi everyone,

it has been ages... again. Partly, this was planned, partly... not. In September, I was on vacation and travelled a lot, so I was pretty sure beforehand that it would be a quiet month. But I had planned to still do all four manicures for that TNCC month afterwards.

Well, I had a great time in Japan and, maybe, I'll even write a post about it. But all of that has got a really bad aftertaste now, because I had to find out the night I returned, that three days after I left for Japan... my cat had disappeared and nobody told me. While I understand why my family decided to keep quiet about it, it made things difficult for me - emotionally. My pets are very important to me and when something happens to them, I get extremely emotional. And lagging two weeks behind everyone in that aspect was terrible. They had long accepted the fact that Mio had disappeared and were not really understanding/supporting in any way. They all appeared rather indifferent to me back then and I still can't understand how they could give up searching actively after a mere two weeks and bake elaborate cakes instead of putting up new posters.

I don't know if it would have been better if I had known while being in Japan. Maybe. What I know for sure is that it threw me out of my loop completely. I didn't really do my nails for a couple of weeks, didn't read any blogs, just worked and kept looking for my cat. He's still gone and there's little hope that he will return considering his character. He loved being with the family, so he wouldn't just disappear without any reason. It's too quiet in the house with him missing and even though it has been 10 weeks by now, I'm still not used to him not being here...

But I started doing my nails again. I feel really uncreative since then, but I can't stay in this slump forever. So starting this post, I'll try to not only do my nails, but post the pictures to my blog as well. The posts might be shorter on text for the time being though.

So to get back on track, I'm going to ignore the fact that I have been missing about 9 TNCC manicures until now and just start with the first one for the month of November. The theme is easy: favorite color. I decided on purple, because there were a couple of purple untrieds on my desk. So here you go, a Japanese nail art inspired manicure in purple!

I tried to paint one stroke flowers, but failed. I liked the one on my thumb though...

Materials used:
- p2 sensual purple from the Mirror Mirror on the Wall LE
- Biocura Fliederzauber
- essence Steel-ing the scene from the metal glam LE
- white and purple acrylic paint

That's it for now! Thanks for reading!

TNCC - Around the World #3 - Arabian Night

Minna-san, konban wa!

I arrived in Japan after a very long trip... 55 hours of staying awake are really not a lot of fun. I'm getting too old for that. ;__; But here I am in my hostel with working (!) wifi and I want to show you my overdue manicure for the third installment of "Around the World".

I knew I wanted to do something arabian, but even though I tried a couple of times, my original idea just didn't work. This manicure here was not planned. I basically only did it because I didn't want to take of my polish at the time yet. I saw a picture of someone else doing a manicure like this, found it very pretty and decided that this was going to be my third mani.

So the base of this one is Barry M Blue Grape with 2 coats of Max Factor Fantasy Fire on top. These two are from my recent trip to London where I barely bought polish, because I had to keep my money together for my trip to Japan (^.^). But since this combo is sooo pretty after all, you can probably understand that I didn't want to remove it after just one day. So I grapped Zoya Faye and Misslyn Las Vegas and did a gradient. On top I painted the skyline using black acrylic paint. Some highlights with Las Vegas and then I added topcoat - done.

What do you think?

I'm really happy that even on my third day here in Japan, I have not bought any polish yet! But I admit that I was close... I'll do my shopping after travelling. So looking forward to that~~

*And sorry that I'm only using English this time...*

TNCC - Around the World #2 - Greece

Hello~

I'm almost done packing and currently waiting for my travel manicure to dry. So here's the second of my August manicures for the Nail Challenge Collaborative. For the second one, I wanted to do something mediterranean and I ended up being inspired by Greece. I wanted something simple, maybe some stamping. Sadly, I didn't have a matching plate, so I ended up painting my Greek pattern by hand.

Ich bin jetzt fast fertig mit dem Packen und warte gerade drauf, dass meine Urlaubsmani trocknet. Also genug Zeit noch einen Blogpost zu schreiben. Hier ist also die zweite meiner Augustmanis für die Nail Challenge Collaborative. Ich wollte diesmal irgendwas Mediterranes machen und habe mich letztlich von Griechenland inspirieren lassen. Ich wollte etwas eher simples, vielleicht ein Stamping. Leider hatte ich aber keine passende Schablone und habe meine griechisches Muster letztlich mit der Hand gemalt.

For this one, I only used three products. The white polish is W7 Polar Bear, a white shimmer polish. It appears to be opaque quite fast, but I continued until fully opaque at 4 coats. When that was really dry, I painted the pattern with blue acrylic paint. One coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer sealed it in... and I was done. Sounds simple, but painting patterns like this is no easy task for me. It was a challenge for sure.

Für diese Mani habe ich lediglich drei Produkte verwendet. Angefangen habe ich mit vier Schichten von W7 Polar Bear, einem weißen Schimmerlack. Als diese vier Schichten dann trocken waren, habe ich mit blauer Acrylfarbe das Muster aufgepinselt. Mit einer Schicht des BTGN Top Sealer von essence habe ich das Ganze dann versiegelt. Klingt recht simpel, aber Muster zu malen ist für mich gar nicht so einfach. Blümchen sind so viel einfacher...

What do you think of this?
Was meint ihr dazu?

TNCC - Around the World #1 - Mexico

Hallöchen!

There's a total of four days left in this month, so I have four days to post all four manicures for The Nail Challenge Collaborative's monthly theme. This time the theme is "Around the World". I was really happy about this at first, but in the end it gave me quite the headache as I didn't want to do my stereotypical manicures... you know, another Japan inspired one for example. For this first post, I wanted to do something ethnic and ended up with a mexican pattern. I ended up simplifying it, but I liked the result.

Vier Tage hat der Monat noch, also noch vier Tage, um die vier Manis für die Nail Challenge Collaborative zu posten. Das Thema für August ist "Around the World". Darüber habe ich mich zunächst gefreut, aber letztlich hat das Thema mir doch etwas Kopfschmerzen bereitet, weil ich nicht so auf meine üblichen verdächtigen Themen zurückgreifen wollte. Noch eine Japan inspirierte Mani zum Beispiel. Für die erste Mani wollte ich irgendein ethnisches Muster aufgreifen und habe mich dann für was mexikanisches entschieden. Das habe ich dann letztlich noch ordentlich vereinfacht, aber das Endergebnis fand ich nicht übel.

I started with two coats of essence Hello Summer!, a bright orange creme polish. It applied very nicely. I don't remember what polish I used, but next was a stripe down the middle of the nail. Using the same orange polish, Kiko 336 and white acrylic paint, I painted the triangles on top of the stripe.

When all of that was really dry, I started my little experiment with the Born Pretty Store Nailart Pen in Black. I used that to outline the stripe and triangles. I wish it the tip was a bit smaller, but it works quite well. The black dries matte and you can easily rub it off, so topcoat is a must. Apparently, I didn't let it dry long enough... I managed to damage it a little with topcoat.

Angefangen habe ich mit zwei Schichten essence Hello Summer!, einem orangenen Cremelack. Er ließ sich echt super auftragen. Ich erinnere mich leider nicht welchen Lack ich dafür verwendet habe, aber als nächstes folgte dann eine Streifen in der Mitte der Nägel. Darauf habe ich dann mit dem orangenen Lack, Kiko 336 und weißer Acrylfarbe die Dreiecke gemalt. 

Das Ganze habe ich dann wirklich gut durchtrocknen lassen und dann mein kleines Experiment mit dem Born Pretty Store Nailart Pen in Schwarz gewagt. Mit diesem Stift habe ich den Streifen und die Dreiecke schwarz umrandet. Funktionierte ganz gut, aber ich wünschte die Spitze des Stifts wäre noch etwas feiner. Den Pinsel wird er nicht ersetzen. Das Schwarz trocknet matt und lässt sich einfach wegwischen, darum ist Topcoat ein Muss. Ich habe aber wohl nicht lang genug gewartet und mir mit dem Topcoat die Umrandungen etwas versaut.

I hope you like it! :) See you next time!

Priti NYC - Lipstick Impatiens (Swatch)

Hi everyone,

hm... I guess I'll just pretend that the past 3 weeks without any post didn't happen... There was a lot going on and even though I was painting my nails quite regularly, I didn't get around to write a blogpost for some reason or another. Oh well.

Hm... ich denke, ich tue einfach mal so als ob die blogpostlosen letzten drei Wochen nicht passiert sind... Es war eine Menge los und obgleich ich meine Nägel relativ regelmäßig lackiert habe, kam ich dann doch irgendwie nicht dazu einen Blogpost zu schreiben.

Anyway, it's Wednesday, hence Lacke in Farbe und bunt-day, and I'm going to post today! I skipped a couple of Wednesdays, but only in terms of posting... I painted my nails according to the respective week's color, took my pictures... yeah, that's as far as I got with it. Maybe I'll show them nonetheless... later. This week's color is pink! Like bright pink, not the rosé kind of pink.

Wie dem auch sei, heute ist Mittwoch und damit Lacke in Farbe... und bunt!-Tag und diesen Mittwoch poste ich auch was! Die letzten paar Mittwoche gab es keinen Post von mir... obwohl ich meine Nägel jeden dieser Mittwoche passend lackiert hatte, Fotos gemacht habe... und ja, bis dahin bin ich gekommen. Vielleicht poste ich die swatches trotzdem noch... später. Diese Woche steht jedenfalls unter dem Motto Pink!

Today's polish is Priti NYC Lipstick Impatiens. It's "from the vault", though. I wore this in summer last year, but well, I prefer nail art posts, so swatches are usually sitting in my blog folder for quite some time... My notes say that I applied two coats here without topcoat. Every single Priti NYC polish that I own is a pleasure to work with. So although I don't remember, I don't think this one was any different. It's a classic pink creme with a hint of coral that only showed on the nail. Also, it's quite shiny on it's own. I think I'd even wear it without nail art.

In diesem Sinne möchte ich heute einen Swatch von Priti NYC Lipstick Impatiens zeigen. Lackiert habe ich den Lack schon letztes Jahr, aber wie die meisten Swatches ereilte auch diesen hier das ewige Dümpeln in meinem Blogfoto-Ordner. Darum soll er euch heute ein bisschen erfreuen und aus besagtem Ordner entlassen werden. Meine Notizen zu dem Lacken sagen, dass ich hier zwei Schichten ohne Topcoat lackiert habe. Super speziell ist er jetzt nicht, aber ich mag die korallige Seite an diesem pinken Cremelack ganz gerne. Ich finde, er passt gut zu meiner Hautfarbe. Und glänzt er nicht solo schon toll? Ich würde spontan sagen, dass ich ihn sogar ohne Nailart tragen würde.

That's it for now... I have been working on my pictures all day yesterday and I plan on preparing a couple of posts before leaving for Japan on Friday. Let's see if I manage to really do that...

Das war's dann auch schon wieder. Ich habe gestern fleißig Fotos bearbeitet und habe vor noch ein paar Blogposts vorzubereiten, ehe ich mich am Freitag dann auf den Weg nach Japan mache. Ich bin gespannt, ob ich es wirklich auf die Reihe bringe... ^^;

In diesem Sinne...