Color Club - Red-ical Gypsy (Swatch)

Hi-hi~

It's Wednesday again, so here's another installment of the "Lacke in Farbe... und bunt" collaboration that's actually growing with each passing week! I chose yet another polish from my stash of untrieds to add to this week's theme of "Red".

Und wieder ist Mittwoch... also heute wieder ein Swatch-Post zum Thema "Lacke in Farbe... und bunt". Die Aktion hat ja wirklich Form angenommen! Könnte mir gut vorstellen, dass das dieswöchige Thema "Rot" einen neuen Rekord aufstellen wird. Ich habe jedenfalls wieder einen Lack aus meinem Haufen unbenutzter Lacke ausgewählt.

I chose Red-ical Gypsy by Color Club. One of the few from those Color Club sets I got that I could actually put a name to. It's not a 100% untried polish. I used it before as part of some nail art, but it's the first time wearing it as a full manicure. It's definitely a fall color being the wine red it is. It looks lighter in the bottle than it dries on the nail, but it's not too dark for me. These are three coats, because Red-ical Gypsy was sheerer than I expected... and I didn't pay enought attention once again. Sadly, my base coat bubbled on me, so I had to set aside a couple of nice pictures because they were highlighting the bubbles too much.

Für diese Woche habe ich Red-ical Gypsy von Color Club ausgewählt. Es ist einer der wenigen Lacke aus meinen Color Club-Sets, denen ich sicher einen Namen zuordnen konnte. Ganz ungebraucht ist er nicht - ich habe ihn schon mal für Nailart verwendet. Aber für diesen Post habe ich ihn zum ersten Mal solo getragen. Er ist ein schönes Weinrot und für mich eher eine Herbstfarbe (was ja aktuell mal wieder ganz passend ist...). Er sieht in der Flasche etwas heller aus als er letztlich auf dem Nagel trocknet, gefällt mir aber trotzdem ganz gut. Nicht zuuu dunkel für mich. Ich trage auf meinen Bildern drei Schichten, weil er einerseits weniger deckend war als erwartet, andererseits meie Konzetration beim Auftrag wieder zu wünschen übrig ließ. Leider hat mein Basecoat Bläschen geworfen und mir ein paar schöne Bilder ruiniert. :/

After all, red still isn't my cup of tea. I like wearing it, but not very much on my nails. Not as a full manicure. This particular one, scarred with basecoat bubbles, didn't catch my heart either. But since I didn't feel like redoing a full manicure, I added one coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Fuchsia to spice it up a bit. That kept me interested in it until I got home from work the next day.

Rot ist einfach nicht so meins. Ich trage es gerne, aber nicht unbedingt auf den Nägeln. Auch wenn es die klassische Nagelfarbe ist. Auch diese spezielle Mani hat mich, mitbedingt durch die Basecoat-Bläschen, nicht wirklich überzeugt. Da ich aber keine Lust hatte das ganze zu entfernen und noch einen anderen Lack zu lackieren, habe ich eine Schicht Kleancolor Chunky Holo Fuchsia drüberlackiert, um ein bisschen Leben reinzubringen. Das hat mich die Mani immerhin bis zum Feierabend des nächsten Tages mögen lassen.

That's it for today... another omake post for the Nail Challenge Collaborative coming up next.

Das war's dann für heute! Als nächstes werde ich wohl einen weiteren Omake-post für die Nail Challenge-Collaborative posten!

Bis demnächst!
Thanks for reading~

Let It Snow! Challenge 1: Snowflakes

...or: In Memory of my favorite sweater.

I guess it was to be expected, but I'm going to participate in the newest seasonal challenge by same group of bloggers who did the past three challenges. The group decided to name itself The Nail Challenge Collaborative from now on. Makes it easier to refer to the group. So two weeks late, I'm starting to post my first manicure for the new Let It Snow challenge.

At first, I wanted to do something totally different. I bought a new skirt last winter and I loved the snowflake print on the label. I wanted to recreate this print, but failed somewhat. I can't find the label after my last move... -.-" But the same day, I got some sad news... my favorite sweater was ruined... A pair of new green jeans discolored my snowflake sweater. Even after trying to reverse the process three times, the white parts stay bright green. So in memory of this sweater, I did another snowflake mani - a more or less classic one.

Excuse the following pic spam... :P

I used only few materials for this mani, obviously. On top of two coats of essence Black is Back, I painted my white snowflakes using acrylic paint. One coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer on top to seal it.

While painting these nails, I thought once more that I really want some more pigmented white acrylic paints. I got a couple of paints for free at work yesterday and I hope some of the brands are worth the money I usually would have had to pay for them. :)

And here two pictures of the first snowflake mani I did. The other one looks nicer, right!?

For this one, I used essence trendsetter, essie Good as Gold, Orly Solid Gold and Kleancolor Metallic Pink.

Thanks for looking!

essence - Alice had a Vision-Again (Swatch)

As I mentioned before, I'm running a little low on nail art to post since I broke my left pinky nail. It kind of discourages me, because the rest of the nail is so tiny... (imagine the pinky nail down there with only half the length...) But I have tons of swatches to post, so I'll increase their share for the time being!

Today, I want to show you a couple of pictures from a recent polish by essence. It belongs to the breaking dawn - part 2 LE. I'm not a fan of the movies, but I like the polishes essence released in connection with them. I only bought two of the four polishes from this years' edition and one of them is called Alice had a Vision - Again. It's a dark purple jelly based polish with lots of purple and a few teal flecks. A real beauty in the bottle! I didn't plan on buying it when I saw the promo pics, but when I saw it in the stores, it was instant love.
 

The three pictures above where taken in my tiny DIY lightbox. They show how packed the polish is with flecks. You're seeing two thin coats here. The lightbox pictures were taken when I wore the polish for the second time, so I knew what I'd be dealing with. Alice had a Vision - Again is rather goopy, but still runny enough to gather at the sides of the nail if your coats are too thick - which happened when I wore it the first time.

These two pictures are from the first time I wore it. I applied two coats as well, but they're rather thick. Also, those pictures were taken in the sun. Aside from being on the difficult side, this polish is also rather slow-drying. That's why I had to take it off the first time. I smudged it soon after I took my pictures.

As I said, Alice is really pretty in the bottle. But on the nail, it doesn't wow me as much. It is pretty and I'm glad I got it. But it doesn't meet my expectations at all. I don't know, maybe I hoped it would have a little more depth. Despite being a jelly, it looks... flat to me. That's why I decided to try pimping it a little when I wore it for the second time.

I just added two coats of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Purple on top of Alice had a Vision - Again... and liked it a lot better instantly. Of course, the teal flakes got lost that way. They're way too subtle against that bright orange.

What do you think of this polish? Have you bought it yourself maybe?

The Lazy Days of Summer 14: BBQ Fun

Hello,

I'm finally at the end of the Lazy Days of Summer Challenge! I can't believe I made it before the autumn challenge starts, lol. So for the last theme, I actually planned something else than I did in the end. Originally, I wanted to create a layer mani picturing this layer salad we usually did at home whenever we barbecued. But when I went through my stuff to pick what I needed, I suddenly had a change of heart and decided to create something different.

You know, when I was a kid, we used to barbecue over hot charcoal. It is a bit messy with all the clean up afterwards, but I think stuff tastes better because of the charcoal smoke taste that clings to the meat. A couple years ago, my parents decided to use a propane gas grill and since then I haven't had any charcoal BBQ. Even though we sell it a lot at the store I work at, I rarely know somebody who still uses it. So just because I miss it, I decided to do a glowing charcoal mani.

Yep, I revisited the good old crackle polish. It just seemed so fitting for this mani.

Anyway, I started this mani by creating a red jelly sandwich. For the base of the sandwich, I started with an unnamed polish by the brand Sabrina, a 1€-Shop brand. It looks awesome in the bottle and surprisingly, it's a one coater and doesn't even stink as badly as the other Sabrina polish I tried before. The pretty golden glow from the bottle doesn't translate perfectly to the nail, but you can see it.

Next, I added one layer of essence gold fever on top, a gold glitter polish that has tiny red glitter pieces thrown in. I had hoped the red glitter was more prominent... But it doesn't matter all that much, because I was going to cover it up anyway. For my red jelly polish, I used Kleancolor Red-hot. I'm not very much in love with it, because I find the glitter pieces slightly too big for my taste. But the red jelly they are suspended in is just great. I placed a couple of those big glitters too, just about 2 per nail. I ended up applying two coats of Red-hot, just because I liked it better a little deeper red.

Pointer & Pinky: Sabrina + gold fever; Middle & Ring: Sabrina + gold fever + Red-hot

On top of my glitter sandwich, I applied p2 black explosion, a simple black crackle polish. It crackled fine. Maybe I could have applied slightly thicker coats, but it's always a thin line between pretty crackles and barely any crackles at all...

Originally, I wanted to keep it this way, because charcoal is not glossy. But after I took my pictures, I felt like trying how it would look like topcoated. Totally different, but also pretty. Well, if I consider my theme, I like the no top coat version better, because it is so much closer to my memory. But I have been sporting it all glossy for 3 days now and got a couple nice compliments.

What do you think? Which version do you like better, glossy or non-glossy?

Last but not least, one more time, the list of participants to this challenge:

Victoria @ Manicurator

Alyson @ BEADS. NAILS. FOOD.

Mandy @ Mandy's Polish

Hannah @ Polished Prisms

Sue @ Creative Nail Design by Sue

Katee @ A Girl and Her Polish

Charlotte-Louise @ Charlotte's Nails

Karine @ Karinea0a

Jen @ The Polished Zombie

Jessica @ Jessica's Nail Tales

Ashley @ One Nail to Another 

Pryanka @ Nail Sparks*

Anna @ Polished Cousins

Maribeth @ Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite!

Sharra @ The Blahg

Stephanie @ A Little Polish

Amanda @ Counting Down to Bliss

Jess @ NearlyNaturalNails 

Heidi @ DIY Polish 

Becky @ Glamfiend

The Lazy Days of Summer 4: Flip Flops

Hello~

I guess, I'm the slowest out of all the participants of this challenge, but I hope I can pick up my slow pace when I'm on vacation 10 days from now.

So here's my manicure for the fourth theme, flip flops. I did this one a few times, never really satisfied, because I lacked ideas and that shows, I think. I liked my last one best and this is the one I'm posting about today.

My camera doesn't like holos very much...

I started with one coat of essence ready for boarding base coat, followed by two coats of Make Up Store Greta, my only linear silver holo... and by far the most expensive polish in my stash. When I bought that one, I really crossed a line I hadn't dared to cross before, hehe. Well, I thought, why not use a holo while we're having sunny summer weather here in Germany~

Then, I picked a black liner polish and painted a flip flop shape on my nails. Outside of this line, I applied Kleancolor Metallic Aqua using a striper brush. Using the same material, I also painted the v-shape. I topcoated that and applied the pink rhinestones. Done.

Totally nail polish unrelated... I really love how we're finally having summery weather here. After all, I get to go to the pool for the first time this year! But you know, I hate how the suddenly rather warm weather turns everyone into these aggressive moody people, being one of them myself. Getting yelled at for something ridiculous just because it is hot..? Seriously!? I'd rather have a cool summer, if that is what it takes for people to behave better.

And here's the list of all the lovely ladies participating in this challenge:

Victoria @ Manicurator

Alyson @ BEADS. NAILS. FOOD.

Mandy @ Mandy's Polish

Hannah @ Polished Prisms

Sue @ Creative Nail Design by Sue

Katee @ A Girl and Her Polish

Charlotte-Louise @ Charlotte's Nails

Karine @ Karinea0a

Jen @ The Polished Zombie

Jessica @ Jessica's Nail Tales

Ashley @ One Nail to Another 

Pryanka @ Nail Sparks*

Anna @ Polished Cousins

Maribeth @ Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite!

Sharra @ The Blahg

Stephanie @ A Little Polish

Amanda @ Counting Down to Bliss

Jess @ NearlyNaturalNails 

Heidi @ DIY Polish 

Becky @ Glamfiend

Spring Challenge 13: The Paper Gal (Newspaper Transfer)

I really don't know what's going on lately, but bad things keep happening again. First, my notebook died on me, so I had to get myself a new one. A day later I was diagnosed with a dead tooth thanks to the dental braces I wore until about a year ago. More money gone. And friday my router died too, so I had a weekend with no internet. That was probably the worst. I'm using an old one for now, but it's not working properly, so I'll probably have to spend some more money to get myself a new router. Just why are those things always happening at the same time!?

Well, I used my offline time to work on the many pictures that are still sitting in my blog folder. So today, I present my take on the 13th take of the Spring Challenge. The theme was pretty open. It just had to include a newspaper transfer.

I didn't really think this one would be a problem, because I have done newspaper transfers before and it worked just fine. Not this time though. Just like a lot of other participants in this challenge I was sitting on this mani for hours, trying to make the transfer work.

I had seen a mani before that looked pretty similar to what I did here, but it was some kind of lace sticker. When I saw it, I had the idea to do a use newspaper here instead of the the patterned lace sticker. In theory not even a difficult design. In theory...

I started with two coats of Color Club Little Miss Paris. Then, I taped off a chevron, to create the french using Kleancolor Holo Pink. When that was dry, my misery began. The plan was cutting thin lines from a newspaper and transfering it along the french edges. But it wouldn't work. I tried different alcohols (rubbing + vodka), all kinds of newspaper, dipping the newspaper in the alcohol, dipping my nail into the alcohol and then putting the newspaper on my nails. All I did was smudge the pink polish.

I noticed that the newspaper would only transfer slightly on the pink holo, so I started to wonder if my nail polish may be too smooth!? Then, I had an idea that proved successful at last. When essence changed their range of goods this spring, they started selling a base coat called studio nails 24/7 nail base. The interesting thing about this base coat is the fact that it is drying to a velvety finish providing grip to any nail polish. So along the inner edge of my french, I applied a thin stripe of this basecoat... on top of Little Miss Paris, let that dry and then tried to transfer my newspaper again.

...and it worked! Still not as well as the last time, but something was finally happening. After I had transfered newspaper to all ten nails, I painted the white lace design around it and finished the whole thing with a generous layer of my favorite BTGN Top Sealer. I placed a few rhinestones while it was drying.

I'm a bit embarassed about my lace design.... and how it is inconsistent. But I have to admit that I was so fed up with painting my nails when I finally got to the stage of painting the lace. The transfer on my right hand turned out a bit better in my opinion, so here's a rare picture of my right hand. The design looks better on the longer nails on my left hand, but you can tell that there's a newspaper transfer on my right.

I think in about a week I can finally take of the annoying gel on my left hand and cut them down. I can now see the broken edge from underneath. Yay. I'm still surprised that I didn't experience any liftings...

One more design and it's time for a few summery designs~ Still waiting for the summer to arrive here though... :(

Spring Challenge 7: Glitter Tips

So I finally got around to write a new blog post... I don't know where time is running of to lately... I never would have guessed that taking care of six bunny babies would be this exhausting. We are doing it for about two and a half weeks now. Which means, two and a half weeks of planning every day around the bunny babies feeding schedule. I still got my job to do as well, so as much as I love doing nail art, I just couldn't find enough time. So today's manicure is actually from April 30. That's when I felt like spending time on nail art the last time...

And yet, it's not even real nail art, in my opinion. I just layered polishes. This kind of mani works well with the feedings, because I could just pause inbetween.

Anyway, I had a lot of ideas for this one and actually did another one before it. I'm going to show it at the bottom of this post. I'm just not really proud of it, haha. For some reason, thinking of "glitter tips" made me think about candy too, so I decided to do something pink and glittery. Also, I decided to take "tips" as my whole nails, not just the tips of my nails. It was just easier that way.

indirect daylight

shade

direct sunlight

The materials I used include
- essie Marshmallow, 2 coats
- Canmake 05, 1 coat
- essence Candy Kiss, 1 coat on half of each nails
- essence Space Queen, 1 coat on top of Candy Kiss
- BW Anc 591C, 2 coats on the tips only
- Kleancolor Aurora, 1 coat

I finally used Aurora... I had it on my desk for a while now and always wanted to use it, but I never did... I love the little stars in there. I just wish they were a bit more flat. If you enlarge the pictures, you can tell that they are bent... My beloved essence BTGN Top Sealer took care of that, but still, I think it would look even better. Also, I noticed that my favorite glitters tend to be Japanese polishes. I only used two for this mani, but I was pondering to use another Japanese one instead of Space Queen. I have been neglecting the latter though.

It was very sparcle-licious! I felt like sprung right out of a princess movie for little girls. The whole mani was incredibly thick on my tips and due to that reason, didn't last very long. It didn't chip or anything, but the tip wear was just very visible, if you know what I mean. You could even tell the layers apart. I found that funny though.

And finally, my first attempt on the glitter tips. I decided to re-do the theme because it's just not meant for spring. I loved the look, but the colors are too dark. I only wore it for a day. And those glitters were a pain to remove! The princess mani was nothing compared to this beast, even though there was twice the amount of glitters to remove.

For this one, I used p2 rich, mattified it and then applied the glitter, OPI Sparcle-licious, on the tips. I tried to do a drip mani here. I'm glad I took pictures right after finishing it. When it was completely dry, it looked only half as good!

Valentine's Mani Take Two

So, this weekend I felt like doing another Valentine's Day manicure. I'm not a big fan of the day itself and I ignored it this year too, but there have been a few really nice designs I wanted to try. So today's mani has been inspired by some Japanese nail art I have seen on several blogs. Also, I'm entering another nail art contest with this mani.

The design looked easier than it was, but I have done more complicated stuff. I guess I should somehow plan nail art like this ahead.. like on a piece of paper. :D

Anyway, here's how I did it. I first painted my nails with Color Club Femme à la Mode, two layers. Then, I painted the tips with essence white glam. The hearts were done with Kleancolor Metallic Pink, China Glaze LOL and a golden p2 tip painter. The white is acrylic paint. Added some rhinestones and a bit of golden glitter and that's it.

Last but not least, as I already wrote at the beginning, I'm entering another nail art contest with this manicure. It's going to end tonight, so I have to hurry with this post :D Sarah from The Beauty Family asked for a nail art that was not wearable every day. I guess, most people (non-nail art addicts) wouldn't wear this one ^^;