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!? ^^;

The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Flowers - Week 3 - Tropical

Hi everyone!

I'm back after a little hiatus that wasn't exactly planned, but which I anticipated due to family circumstances. I wrote about it in my previous post: My father just underwent major surgery to hopefully beat the cancer he developed this past spring. It mostly went well and he might even get discharged next week, so we're all very optimistic right now. I'm lacking time though, since the hospital is in a different city and visiting there every other day is taking its toll when working full time too. But of course that's more important than posting about my nails ;) Plus, it's super hot here once again...

Da bin ich wieder nach einer kurzen Auszeit, die nicht geplant, wohl aber absehbar gewesen war durch die derzeitigen familiären Umstände. Ich habe es in meinem letzten Post angekündigt: Mein Vater hat gerade eine schwere OP hinter sich gebracht, um hoffentlich den Krebs endgültig zu besiegen, der sich bei ihm diesen Frühling entwickelt hat. Es ist fast alles gut gegangen und vielleicht wird er kommende Woche sogar schon aus dem Krankenhaus entlassen. Wir bleiben optimistisch. Leider hapert es aber ein wenig mit meiner Zeit, denn das Krankenhaus ist leider in einer anderen Stadt und jeden zweiten Tag besuchen fordert so seinen Tribut, wenn man Vollzeit arbeitet. Das ist mir natürlich wichtiger als Blogposts verfassen ;) Außerdem ist es ja schon wieder so ätzend heiß...

I finished my flower manicures though and I'll try writing some more posts in advance, so I can post something even when I'm too tired after a long day. Yeah, I don't usually do that. ^^;

Meine Blumen-Manis habe ich allerdings fertig und ich werde versuchen ein paar Posts im Voraus zu schreiben, damit ich auch nach solchen ermüdenden Tagen was zu posten habe. Jaaa, ich schreibe sonst eigentlich nichts im Voraus. ^^;

So here's a manicure I had planned to do when it was decided that the theme for July would be flowers. I did this manicure once before in 2011 following the steps explained by Robin Moses in one of her videos. So this is just a new take on it... looking almost the same, but I like it better on my current slightly longer nails. There's just more room for nail art that way!

Hier also die dritte Blumen-Mani, die ich schon geplant habe seit klar war, dass das Juli-Thema "Blumen" sein würde. Ich habe diese Mani schon mal 2011 gepostet. Sie ist durch ein Videos von Robin Moses inspiriert gewesen. Ich wollte sie schon eine Weile noch mal pinseln und sie sieht der ersten schon ziemlich ähnlich, allerdings mag ich das Ganze auf meinen derzeitigen, etwas längeren Nägeln lieber. Es ist einfach mehr Platz für Nailart!

There's not much to explain about this one. I, once again, followed the steps explained in the aforementioned video by Robin Moses, so if you're interested, I'd recommend to watch it! The base is OPI Bubble Bath followed by different shades of acrylic paints. The glitter polish is a mix of Zoya Faye, Color Club Ulterior Motive and Misslyn Las Vegas. Plus topcot, of course.

Viel zu sagen gibt es über diese Mani eigentlich nicht. Ich bin erneut den Schritten in Robin Moses' Video gefolgt. Wer interessiert ist, dem kann ich das Video nur empfehlen! Angefangen habe ich mit OPI Bubble Bath, gefolgt von mehreren Schattierungen von Acrylfarben. Der Glitterlack ist ein Mix aus Zoya Faye, Color Club Ulterior Motive und Misslyn Las Vegas. Und natürlich Topcot.

What do you think? Do you like the nail art Robin Moses does? Have you every tried recreating some?
Was meint ihr? Mögt ihr Robin Moses' Nailart? Habt ihr mal versucht eine Mani nachzumachen?

The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Neons - Week 4

Hi everyone!

With this post, I'll finally be done with the Nail Challenge Collaborative's Neon month! Yay! And since this post will go online on June 30st, I'll even be done in time! This theme really wasn't my cup of tea, but next month's theme "Flowers" will be! So without much further ado... my final neon mani... that's not looking very neon, but was done using neon colors!

Mit diesem Post beende ich - endlich - den Neon-Monat der Nail Challenge Collaborative! Juhuu! Und da dieser Post am 30. Juni online gehen wird, bin ich sogar rechtzeitig fertig damit! Das Thema Neon war nicht so meins, aber das Thema für Juli, Blumen, wird es sein! Ich freue mich schon. Nun denn, dann hier die letzte Neon-Mani... die nicht sehr neon aussieht, obwohl sie mit Neon-Lacken gemalt wurde!

The base for this mani are two coats of Barry M Indigo. I really love this polish. Application is flawless, drying time could be better, but it's really shiny even on its own. I was lazy to take picture though. On top of Indigo, I pre-painted the pattern using white acrylic paint, because most of the neons I wanted to use are rather sheer and I wanted them to show up properly. I traced the white lines using the yellow Woo neon, Zoya Robyn and three unnamed Color Club neons (green, orange, pink). Some were easy, some were not. The yellow was too runny, sadly. But overall, I liked this mani.

Angefangen habe ich mit zwei Schichten Barry M Indigo. Ich mag diese Farbe wirklich sehr. Der Auftrag ist unkompliziert, die Trockenzeit könnte zwar besser sein, aber der Lack ist auch solo wunderbar glänzend. Ich war aber zu faul, um davon Bilder zu machen. Dann habe ich die Muster mit weißer Acrylfarbe vorgemalt, da die Neons doch etwas sheer sind und man sie ja gut erkennen sollte. Diese weißen Linien habe ich dann mit dem gelben Woo-Neon, Zoya Robyn und drei namenlosen Color Club-Neons nachgemalt. Das klappte je nach Farbe unterschiedlich gut. Das Gelb war leider etwas zu dünnflüssig. Aber so alles in allem war ich recht zufrieden mit der Mani.

What do you think? Doesn't really look neon, does it? :D
Was meint ihr? So wirklich neon sieht's ja nicht aus, oder?

Thanks for reading & bis zum nächsten Mal!

Zoya - Tru framed with poppy flowers

Good evening!

A couple of days ago, I finally received my Zoya order in the mail. I had ordered a total of five Zoya polishes and among them was Zoya Tru, a beautiful red-tinged purple with gorgeous red shimmer. I chose Tru as the first out of my five new Zoyas to be worn as a full manicure.

Vor einigen Tagen ist endlich meine Bestellung an Zoya-Lacken eingetrudelt. Fünf Stück habe ich mir gegönnt und darunter war Zoya Tru, eine rotstichiges Violett mit tollem rotem Schimmer. Tru war der erste der fünf, der einmal komplett meine Nägel zieren durfte.

Compared to my glassflecked Zoyas, Tru was opaque in two coats, which was really nice! I didn't expect that. The rest of this manicure was either acrylic paint (red, black) or email color (gold). I really suck at painting frames. While trying to make the line straight, they always end up too thick. Haha. But I think the poppy flowers turned out nicely.

Im Vergleich zu meinen anderen Zoyas, deckte Tru bereits in zwei Schichten. Hat mich sehr positiv überrascht. Der Rest dieser Mani besteht aus Acryl- (rot, schwarz) bzw. Emailfarbe (gold). Solche Rahmen zu malen ist nicht so meine Stärke. Bei dem Versuch die Linien möglichst gerade zu bekommen, werden die Linien immer etwas zu dick. Naja. Dafür sind die Mohnblumen aber ganz nett geworden.

Originally, I hadn't painted any frames, jus the poppy flowers accent. But I felt like something was lacking. Compared to the "plain" manicure, I think the framed one if a little bit too much. Something in-between would have been nice. Maybe... if my frames weren't as thick...

Ursprünglich gab es gar keine Rahmen, sondern nur die Mohnblüten. Aber mir hat irgendwas gefehlt, deswegen letztlich die Rahmen. Schlussendlich wäre so ein Mittelding wohl das beste gewesen.

That's it for today~ Thanks for looking!

Danke für's Lesen!

p2 - Hot Berry (Swatch & Comparison)

Hello,

The p2 Summer Attack collection has been on the shelves for a while now, but I have yet to show swatches for the other two polishes I got, aside from the green one, I posted already. I decided to continue with the red polish called Hot Berry. I wasn't sure at first, if I really wanted that because there has been talk about it being similar to Zoya Rica, which I also own. In the end, I decided to get it nevertheless. Obviously, I did a comparison which you can find at the end of this post.

In diesem Post möchte ich p2 Hot Berry vorstellen, einen Lack aus der Summer Attack-Kollektion, die ja schon ein Weilchen bei dm im Regal steht. Ich habe mich letztlich doch entschlossen den Lack zu kaufen, weil ich neugierig war, ob er Zoya Rica wirklich so ähnlich sieht.

I found myself liking this polish quite a bit and I rarely wear red polish. It's a bit difficult to describe. In store, it looked like a dark red leaning orange to me, which I found appealing from the very start. At home, it was more of an orange leaning red, but still nice. When painting it on my nails, the first layer turned out to be quite pink, so I guess the base is neither of the above.

Ich mag den Lack überraschend gern, dabei trage ich Rot mit am Seltensten. Im Laden erschien er mir immer wie ein dunkles Orange, zuhause dann eher wie ein orangestichiges Rot. Die erste Schicht war aber eher Pink.

indoors

It turnes orange-y, because of the massive amount of gold particles in Hot Berry. It has the same kind of finish as the glittery/shimmery polishes by Zoya, which I love so much. But Hot Berry is a lot more dense than the Zoya polishes I can compare it to. Since Hot Berry consists of tiny particles, it's a bit messy to remove. You'll end up with glittery fingers, if you're not careful. The foil method worked great to avoid this problem though.

Der Eindruck, dass der Lack so orange ist, stammt von den goldenen Glitzerpartikeln, die zuhauf in dem Lack herumschwimmen. Die ganze Kollektion hat ja dieses Glitzerfinish, das ich an so vielen Zoya-Lacken liebe. Diese Partikel sind leider nicht ganz einfach zu entfernen. Man hat schnell glitzernde Finger, wenn man nicht aufpasst. Um dieses Problem zu umschiffen, kann ich die Folienmethode zum Ablackieren dieser Art Lack aber sehr empfehlen,

Drying time on these was so-so. I didn't want to apply a fast-drying topcoat for a swatch, so I ended up denting my pinky a bit. On my pictures, I'm wearing two medium coats, except for my pinky which got a third due to the dent. Depending on the light, you can still tell where the nail line is, but I'd say you only need three if you have rather long nails.

Die Trockenzeit war so lala. Ich habe nicht so super aufgepasst und mir eine Macke in den Nagel meines kleinen Fingers gehauen. Darum hat dieser Nagel im Gegensatz zu den anderen drei Schichten Lack abbekommen. Ich denke, zwei Schichten reichen, es sei denn man hat längere Nägel - dann sieht man in bestimmten Winkeln den Nagelrand doch ziemlich durch.

Next, my comparison with Zoya Rica, which some others found similar.

Und dann noch mein Vergleich mit Zoya Rica.

I don't really find them close. As mentioned above, they're the same kind of polish, but the colors are quite different. Rica is more of a pink leaning coral with loads of gold particles, while Hot Berry is a dark vivid orange with the same kind of gold particles thrown in. Rica looks a lot softer than Hot Berry. Definitely no dupe here.

Also ich finde nicht, dass sich die Lacke so besonders ähnlich sind. Das Finish ist das Gleiche, aber die Farben nicht. Rica ist mehr ein pinkstichtiges Koralle, während Hot Berry doch richtig Orangerot ist. Rica ist insgesamt weniger intensiv. Also meiner Ansicht nach kein Dupe.

Also, these are four coats of Rica next to two coats of Hot Berry. That's what I meant with the Zoyas being rather sheer... I wouldn't want to miss Rica. It has been on my wish list for so long and I think it goes so nicely with my skintone. I still love it a lot. (Once again, thanks to Chester!)

Auf den Bildern trage im Übrigen vier Schichten Rica. Die Zoyas, die ich mit diesem Finish habe, sind alle recht sheer, daher hat mich das nicht gewundert. Ich würde Rica trotzdem nicht missen wollen. Er stand ja lang auf meiner Wunschliste und ich mag ihn sehr. Danke noch mal an Chester!

By the way, it's really no fun writing blog posts about summery polishes while it's raining hard outside...

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 7: Fireside Glow

Hi again!

I feel like I'm spamming, but I really want to post my Winter manis, haha... I'm continuing with theme 7, fireside glow. The fireside at my house is probably going to keep glowing for at least another month, but it already has a completely different feeling to it than in January. Which is interesting, because it's actually colder now than back then.

Another gradient. I love gradients. I used orange, red and burgundy polishes for this one, but I can only name three of them. One of the Flormar duochrome, Zoya Rica and p2 celebrating red. I still like this mani a lot. On the tips I used alessandro Black Dots, which has a similar effect as OPI Black Spotted. I think it does look a bit like charcoal.

Once again, thanks for reading!

Zoya Faye

Zoya Faye has been a major lemming of mine last year. It was the first polish I ordered from the United States. But for some reason, I never wore it after it arrived at my house. Since I decided that I need to wear all my untrieds, Zoya had to be one of the first. So here it is.

I still think it's a pretty polish and looking at the pictures, I would even say it suits my skintone (unlike Happi). It's a plum colored metallic with heavy golden shimmer. It was a little sheer, but it built up well.

I love it. Why haven't I worn you before, Faye!?

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...

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. ♥

Zoya - Tanzy... plus holo

Weather continued to be bad... so after finally taking off my starry night sky, I chose one of the polishes my friend brought me from her trip to the US. It's Zoya - Tanzy, a bright orange shade. I loved the swatches I have seen on other blogs. I just had to have my friend bring it.

No sunlight... the picture is kind of dull... and it's the best out of those I took. I'm not exactly sure if I like it on my nails, even though I adore the color.

Later, the sun actually showed itself. I took the chance to take some more pictures. Please excuse the tip wear...

I probably wore this for about 5 days. I would have taken it off after 3 days at most, if I hadn't been in a slump since a few weeks ago. But at least I got the chance to spice it up a bit in my opinion. While checking my local drugstores for a polish a fellow blogger from New Zealand was looking for, I also walked into my local Douglas store to see if they had some more OPI on sale: No luck. But I found another polish I had been looking for. It's Flormar - 392, the one I mentioned in my Essence - Holo post.

Flormar 392 has much finer holo particles and applies really well! I put one coat of it on my Tanzy mani just to see the effect... and loved it so much on Tanzy that I did my other 9 nails as well. I like it much better this way! Sparclelicious~
.

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...

.