Practising the art of water marbling...

...and actually getting a little better at it!

I remember that I chose the manicures I wanted to recreate for the Nail Challenge Collaborative under the aspect of "trying again". This is another one that might not look like a total failure, but it basically is. The first one was painted, because I couldn't get the marbling right, but I liked the color combination so much, that I did it the simple way. But this time I managed to do a pretty decent water marble. Yay!

"And the third manicure for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's month of July. Another recreation. In this case a failed #watermarbling that worked out so much better this time. But it's never going to be a go-to nail art technique for me. Polishes were the same as in 2011! Essence - Replay, Manhattan - 51K, p2 - virgin."

The original manicure can be found -->here<--


I still like the original manicure. :) But... I had nubbins! That's like half of my current (December) nail length!

Off season: Nightmare Before Christmas inspired nails

Today, I'm throwing in one of those manicures I did for the Halloween theme last fall: a Nightmare Before Halloween inspired one. I'm still not happy with my tutorial manicures and I'm starting to think that I should just redo them...

So, yeah, this is not the season for either Halloween or Christmas, but I have a friend who loves Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas and she can watch it and sing its songs all year long, so I'm just doing the same with this manicure. I wanted to do a Halloween Before Christmas manicure for about 3 years, but only 2013 I got around to do it. And I haven't even shown it to the aforementioned friend...

Aside from this, I'm choosing this manicure because it also fits the tutorial theme. I can't find the tutorial anymore and I can't even seem to remember the name for the technique, but well, it was inspired by a tutorial too. Maybe anyone knows which tutorial I'm talking about?

I remember that I was quite frustrated while painting the details on my ring finger. I just couldn't paint them fine enough. In the end, I ordered new brushes. ^^;

After one day of wear, I decided to mattify this manicure...

It looks more spooky this way, doesn't it?

Materials used:
- p2 eternal
- my go-to Color Club white
- essie matte about you
- white and black acrylic paint
- acetone

Basically, you paint your nails with your base color (black) and let it dry thoroughly. (You might want to apply one coat of topcoat here...) Then you apply random lines of your second color (white) and immediately dilute them with a fine brush dipped in acetone. You best do one nail at a time here. I managed to smudge my base a couple of times. Luckily, it doesn't show in the pictures.

What do you think about this manicure and the technique?

Thank you 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 - 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~

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!

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!

The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Flowers - Week 1 - Dotticure

Hi everyone,

once again starting a bit late, but here's my first post for the Nail Challenge Collaborative's next theme: Flowers. That more my thing compared to neons, so I had/have quite a few ideas. For this first mani, I was inspired by camisole I own. The colors are a bit different, but it looks quite similar.

Ich fange mal wieder tierisch früh an, aber hier ist mein erster Beitrag zum Juli-Thema der Nail Challenge Collaborative: Blumen. Das ist viel mehr mein Ding als das leidige Neon-Thema. Darum habe/hatte ich dafür auch einiges an Ideen. Diese erste Mani ist inspiriert durch ein Trägershirt, das ich mein Eigen nenne. Die Farben sind ein bisschen anders, aber es sieht schon noch ähnlich aus.

I started with two coats of a bubblegum pink Color Club polish that has no label. Then, I grabbed my palette and put a couple of drops of
- essie Marshmallow
- a yellow Color Club
- priti NYC Queen of the Pink Hyacinth
- Manhattan 51K
- p2 love connection
and started dotting my flowers using a medium sized dotting tool. In the center of the flowers, I dabbed a little gold enamel, and on top of that, I added a tiny little bit of gold glitter. Lastly, I added one coat of essence BTGN Top Sealer.

Für diese Mani habe ich mit zwei Schichten eines unbenannten rosa Color Club-Lack begonnen. Dann habe ich mir meine Palette geschnappt und von den oben genannten Lacken jeweils ein paar Tropfen draufgegeben. Mit einem mittelgroßen Dotting Tool, habe ich dann meinen Blumenteppich gepunktet. In die Mitte der Blumen habe ich ein bisschen goldene Emailfarbe gegeben und darüber noch etwas goldenen Glitter. Beendet habe ich das Ganze mit einer Schicht BTGN Top Sealer.

Taken with my Android. It was sparkling~

It's another easy manicure, it's just a bit time consuming. I had to redo my thumb, because I messed it up with topcoat... I was really wowed by my own impatience. But I was quite pleased with the result. It was bright enough for summer, but still retained a spring feeling. And it made me wear perfume... I rarely do that. I thought that was kind of funny.

Auch das ist eine eher einfache Mani, die lediglich ein bisschen Zeit braucht. Ich musste meinen Daumennagel neu machen, weil ich ihn mit dem Topcoat verschmiert hatte... man, da war ich echt mal wieder begeistert von meiner Ungeduld. Alles in allem war ich mit dem Endergebnis aber recht zufrieden. Es war bunt genug für den Sommer, hatte aber irgendwie noch was frühlingshaftes. Und was ich lustig fand... ich habe in der Zeit, in der ich diese Mani trug, jeden Tag Parfum getragen - etwas das ich sonst nicht regelmäßig tue. :D

Anyway, thanks for reading! Please take a look at the pretty flower manicures of my fellow challengers too!

Blossoms on p2 - bluish green

Hi ladies,

I finally got my photo editing software running again and managed to finish a couple of pictures to show you. Since it's Wednesday, again... times goes by so fast..., I'm dedicating the swatch to the "Lacke in Farbe... und bunt" collaborative's theme of teal. Although I don't think this one will me unique, because it was just recently released! I chose p2 bluish green from the Far East. So Close. limited edition, because I noticed that I have been wearing a lot of teal lately and didn't want to add one more, when I have some teal nail art sitting in my "to publish" folder. So I just wore it once more today to take some pictures sans nail art.

Nachdem ich meine Fotoeditier-Software endlich wieder zum Laufen gebracht habe, habe ich schnell ein paar Fotos fertig gemacht, um sie euch zu zeigen. Da schon wieder Mittwoch ist - die Zeit vergeht echt unheimlich schnell... - widme ich den Swatch wieder der "Lacke in Farbe... und bunt!"-Aktion, deren Thema diese Woche Türkis ist. Ich denke nicht, dass der Swatch diesmal einzigartig ist, denn der Lack wurde erst kürzlich in einer Limited Edition angeboten. Ausgewählt habe ich p2 bluish green aus der Far East. So Close. LE, da mir aufgefallen ist, dass ich in letzter Zeit sehr häufig Türkis getragen habe... und was soll ich noch mehr tragen, wenn noch so viel Türkis zu posten ist - und auch noch ein Nailart-Post in Türkis bereit stünde... Also habe ich den Lack heute einfach noch mal getragen, um noch ein paar Fotos ohne Nailart zu machen.

It really is a bluish green (blueish green?) and a pretty one too. At first I wasn't too excited about this LE, but this one turned out to be quite pretty with the golden shimmer running through. I think it's unique to my stash. I'm wearing three coats on my nail art pics and two on the swatch picture. Two normal or three thin coats do the job if your nails aren't too long. Drying time is okay, but you should let the coats dry, because there was a tiny bit of dragging the first time I wore bluish green.

Ein bläuliches Grün ist das in der Tat und ein hübsches noch dazu. Ich war ursprünglich nicht so tierisch gespannt auf die LE, aber dieser Lack war dann doch ganz nett mit dem feinen goldenen Schimmer. Ich denke, ich habe auch nichts vergleichbares in meiner Sammlung. Auf den Nailart-Bildern seht ihr drei, auf dem Swatch zwei Schichten von bluish green. Zwei normale oder drei dünne Schichten sind ausreichend, wenn die Nägel nicht all zu lang sind. Die Trockenzeit war ok, aber ich empfehle die einzelnen Schichten wirklich antrocknen zu lassen, denn ich hatte ein klein wenig mit kahlen Stellen zu kämpfen, als ich den Lack das erste Mal trug (deshalb auch drei Schichten)

Somehow, this polish reminded me a lot of turquoise silk, so I think the makers did a good job considering it's part of an Asian themed edition. So what nail art should be done... I felt like blossoms. It just seemed the most appropriate. This was done using acrylic paint and some pink dots with a Barielle polish I don't remember.

Mich hat der Lack irgendwie wirklich an türkise Seide erinnert und ich denke, dann haben die Lackmischer doch einen guten Job gemacht, denn es ist ja eine asienorientierte LE. Was könnte man darauf nun für Nailart machen? Ich hatte Lust auf Blüten - schien mir einfach angebracht. Verwendet habe ich Acrylfarbe und einen pinken Lack von Barielle, den ich vergessen habe.

And here it is on its own under my daylight lamp. I waited to long and the sun had already set. Haha.

Und hier haben wir den Lack unter meiner Tageslichtlampe. Ich habe rumgetrödelt und dann war die Sonne weg. Tjaja.

Okay, that's it for bluish green. What do you think?
Und das war's dann auch schon zu bluish green. Was meint ihr?

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!

The Nail Challenge Collaborative - Pastels - Week 1: p2 adorable

Hi there~

last week I was out with my sister and mother for some shopping. We also came across a dm store I don't usually frequent and there I found the one p2 sand polish that has always been sold out in the stores I usually go to: p2 adorable. It's the baby pink one and apparently the most sought after. Well, they're just refilling the display, so I obviously grabbed one.

I really like this color. I wasn't sure about it at first, because the color is so light and my skintone is kind of yellowish, but I really fell in love with this one. At first, I wanted to wear it for one day only, but in the end, I decided to turn it into my first mani for the April theme of The Nail Challenge Collaborative (the group that came up with the four seasonal challenges I have been participating in).

This is three coats of p2 adorable, but two would have been enough. I just broke my index nail while wearing it that first day and decided to add one more layer after filing down. Yes, I was lazy. I stamped the plum flowers with black polish and did not seal it with topcoat. The black started to wear off a lot on my right hand... but topcoat would have ruined it.

And this is why:

top coat on ring finger nail

no top coat

My pictures didn't capture reality well enough... but this polish turns into a weird kind of pink once you add topcoat. I really didn't like the color. It's also loosing its blingy character. It just turns boring. I tried two other sand style polishes by p2 and I liked them better with topcoat, but this one... nah, best to leave it as it is. I also tried with matte topcoat - no good either.

So, that's my kind of boring first pastel mani. But did I mention that I like this polish..? <3

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 16: Late St. Patrick's Day

Hey everyone~

With this final post for the Let it Snow! challenge, I'll be done! :D Then, I can finally catch up with everyone else!

So without much further do, here's my "St. Patrick's Day" mani. I was a bit at loss for this one. I just felt like wearing the green polish from the essence Fruity LE from last spring. I think it was called kiwi something? So I went with that and just added a couple of dots and clovers with p2 green palm tree. Dots seemed to be appropriate because of the glitters in the base polish.

Nothing spectacular, really. It was too green for me after one day, so I removed it for another untried. But I wore the kiwi polish ;) It's just kind of sad that my camera was so shy picking up those glitters. They were a lot more prominent in real life.

And two pictures of the polish on its own. I remembered taking them before continuing, haha.

So, with this, I'm finally done with the winter challenge. I basically only finished it 3 weeks late, but oh well. On to the next~ pastels~

Thanks for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 13: Winter Ombre

Hello~

here's number 13 from the Let it Snow! challenge. I decided to do an ombre instead of the other possiblity, gradient, because I'm obviously doing too many gradients lately. I love gradients, because there's not much effort involved for an awesome effect.

But I think an ombre mani is interesting too. Especially if you have a crazy amount of polish. Finding the perfect shades can actually take a little bit. Hehe.

Sadly, my pictures turned out like crap, so there's only one decently presentable one.

I wanted to do some cool colors. If I'd do it right now, I'd probably do pinks?

But hey, for this one, I actually remember what I used!

thumb: p2 590 who cares?
index: Kiko 389 Mint Milk
middle: unnamed Color Club
ring: p2 620 artful
pinky: mix of p2 artful and Catrice Be Pool 

On top is one coat of another unnamed Color Club, an iridiscent white glitter. That made some of the colors almost neon looking. Especially Kiko Mint Milk. p2 who cares looks quite grey, but it's not. It's a really nice light mint creme, but sadly didn't go all too well with my skintone. (My family even hated it on me ;__;)

So that's it! Three more to go and I'll start posting my pastels :D

Have a great day and thank you for reading!

Let it Snow! Challenge 11: Valentine's Day

Hallo zusammen!

About two months late, I'd like to show you my Valentine's nails. Valentine's Day was theme 11 from the Let it Snow! Challenge. I still had some ideas from last year's brainstorming, but I ended up being inspired by another nail artist.

Compared to the original, I changed colors to a couple of untrieds in the purple range. It still works with the silver. I sponged the gradient (yes, another gradient) on top of two coats of white polish. It took two layers of sponging though, because some of the polishes turned out to be quite sheer. The hearts were painted with a dotting tool, because I was too lazy for a brush.

At first, I was kind of worried if those colors make my nails look frozen. But I think it's fine... I got to use my first essie, French Affair, again. I wonder why I always end up using this polish for Valentine's nails..? :D

Thanks for reading!