TNCC - Inspired by a Tutorial #1 - Butterfly Nails

Hi everyone,

today, I want to show you my very first butterfly nails! There was a time when a lot of people would do them all the time in the blogosphere. Even some stamping plates with the image turned up! I always found them really pretty, but same as the Galaxy Nails, something kept me from trying them. So when the prompt for January was released, this was one of my first ideas.

I don't have a link to a specific tutorial, but I think we have seen them often enough and there are a couple of tutorials floating around, so if you wanted to try, you can easily find them using a search engine. They're fairly easy to do even without the stamp.

Materials used:
- Zoya Crystal
- Nubar 2010
- Color Club Sparkle and Soar
- black acrylic paint

I used black acrylic paint for the wing shapes, but I originally wanted to use my black striper polish. I couldn't find it due to my stash reorganization I did after Christmas. I think the black polish would have been easier. More opaque, less tipwear after a day at work. Because even topcoat can't help a lot with that.

The color combination I chose was nothing original. I didn't save the pic back then, but 2012(?) someone else chose a blue base with a flakie topper to do butterfly nails and I found it so pretty, it burned into my mind ;) I kept looking at my nails all day...

But something magical is gone now... hm.

What do you think?
And one more question to those who read: I actually did most of my TNCC manicures for the fall themes but didn't post them. Would you find it weird for me to post Halloween inspired nail art now!? ^^;

Orly - Iron Butterfly

A while ago, I bought a couple of Orly polishes from a German online store that had a sale going on. Among those polishes was Orly Iron Butterfly from the Metal Chic collection. This collection consists of three matte metallics and it was Iron Butterfly that initially caught my eye. For a mere 5 € it had to be mine.

When they had finally arrived, I felt like doing a gradient mani with Iron Butterfly, a very dark grey, and its sibling Glam Rock, the coppery colored equivalent. The polishes are both unique in my stash. I love how they transform their looks when you apply topcoat!

Anyway, there's not much to add about doing a gradient, so here are a couple of pictures.

To add a little extra, I dabbed on some Nubar 2010 as well. Sadly, I went in a little too far, I think. I didn't want half the nail to be covered in Glam Rock... I love how Nubar 2010 shifts on the nail though. In case you're wondering, I added some topcoat to make it shiny. I liked it better that way. Aside from that, both Orly's were very nice to work with. They dry quickly, but not super fast, so you have a liiittle bit of time to correct application.

What do you think about this? I really like gradients. They're easy to do, are not very time-consuming and still look fabulous. Nice for those days when you don't want to smell polish/polish remover a lot...

Fall into Autumn 2: Apples (2)

And here's the second manicure I did for the second theme of the Fall into Autumn Challenge, Apples. Let's call it the traditional take on the apple manicure. But I just love the look and wanted to do it too.

For this one, I used three coats of OPI Bubble Bath as my base. I'm glad it doesn't look as pink on the pictures as it does in RL... Three coats are definitely too pink for my skin tone, hehe. On top of that I applied one coat of Nubar 2010 to give it some sparkle.

First, I painted the apples with white acrylic paint to make the red pop a lot more. The apple's red is essence Call it Fame from the discontinued multi dimension line. How I loved those polishes... The brown for the tiny stems is Bourjois Brun enrobant and the green is a mixture of OPI Green-wich Village (see, there it is again) and essence Colourbration.

On my ringfinger, I tried to create the apple's shape using green rhinestones. Hm, I wish I had smaller ones. Like 1mm. Those are the 2mm ones. The stem consists of brown glitter flakes I put into the wet polish. After I sealed the whole manicure with a generous coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer, it held really well. I didn't loose a single rhinestone in 3 days.

On the last day, I added a little worm to my mani. I get the feeling that every single apple from our trees has one this year, so how could I not add one to my apple manicures ^-^" It's painted using acrylic paints.

What do you think of this one? Do you like the "traditional" look as much as I do?

Stephanie Oblas A Little Polish 
Sue O'Connor Creative Nail Design by Sue
Hannah Fabiny Polished Prisms
Katee Baum A Girl and her Polish
Ashley Rowlands-Vanderzande One Nail to Another 
Karine Assemien Karinea0a
Charlotte-Louise Bennett  Charlottes Nails
Alyson Epstein Beads Nails Food
Sharra Farivar The Blahg
Maribeth Obsessive Cosmetic Hoarders Unite
Becky Barnett Glamfiend
Angie Moore OurPaintedWorld
Sarah Jürgens Dakila's
Alethia Neverending Nailart
Amanda Murphy Mandy's Polish
Lisa Oswald Lisa's Nail Obsession

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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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

Nubar - Mali Blue + 2010

After my first real glitter sandwich, I also had to try Nubar 2010! My friend brought this polish back from her trip to the USA, too. I love her for bringing it! In the mean time, I acquired Nubar - Mali Blue on ebay for little money and decided that I want to see these two polishes combined.

I forgot to take pictures of Mali Blue without 2010 on top of it. I really like the color. Really summery blue.

Excuse the non-existant clean-up. I took this right after applying the polishes :)

2010 is kind of bright on top of Mali-Blue. I don't really like the combination. It looks okay on the pictures, but I just couldn't get myself to like it while wearing... No combination I'm going to do again.

Also, my favorit top coat essence BTGN Top Sealer failed me here. I think it doesn't like to be put over Nubar polishes. You can see here that there is some weird texture that is not caused by my impatience this time! This happened again, when I used 2010 for the second time, so it's either 2010 or the combination with my top coat... :(

What do you think of the combination Mali-Blue + 2010?

Haul~~

Ya~~~~y!!

My friend is back from her trip to the USA and brought the treasure I had sent to her boyfriend's place. *-*
My account is not happy right now, but I'm sooo happy - it's all worth it. Hehe.

3x Milani 3D, 3x Zoya, 4x OPI, 1x essie, 1x Nubar, 2x Catrice

I also found the Catrice Out of Space LE in my favourite drugstore and had to buy two of the polishes. My drugstore usually doesn't sell Catrice. I have to drive about 45km to buy Catrice, so this was a nice find. They still didn't restock the p2 Deep Water Love though. I asked last time and they said it would be restocked within the week. That was at the beginning of last week. >___>" Still trying to get one of the polishes for a fellow polish addict.

Just one teardrop... There were two more polishes my friend brought... one OPI and one China Glaze. The OPI is definitely a fake... not sure about the China Glaze. Does somebody now if there are fake CG polishes and how to identify them? Let's see what PayPal purchase protection will do...

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