#52weeks52polishes - week 1

One of my favourite Danish nail bloggers resurfaced last week - Rijah/Maria from Polishing the Nails. She took a break from nail blogging two years ago but I have kept up with her on instagram where she has mostly posted a mix of beauty related pics and pictures from her private life.

She spoke about wearing polish again and what she would like to do with her blogging this time around. And she suggested a small challenge so she could keep up with doing her nails: Posting once a week, showing a polish she hadn't shown her readers before. Which I thought was a wonderful idea and I decided to hop on that challenge since I have so many untried polishes I need to wear.

So after a poll on  insta Maria decided to call the challenge #52uger52lakker which translates to 52weeks52polishes - and here we are. I am already a week or two late which is just so typically me but I am trucking along anyway.

For my first polish I decided to go deep down and trawl through my old indies. One of my favourite brands - and one I was sad to see leave the indie nail polish world - is still Dandy Nails. Considering she left three years ago her polishes are still awesome and she had perfected her formula.

I am proud to say that considering the amount of nail polish I own this is still a one-of-a-kind in my collection: Bathed in Light. A light gray with a huge amount of maroon shimmer and a dash of holographic glitter to give it some oomph when the sun comes out - so gorgeous!!!

The polish seemed to be rather sheer on the first layer, but was almost opaque in the second. But I loved the maroon shimmer so much I had to add an extra layer and ended with 3 for this mani.

The stamping polish is Moyra Metallic Gold and the stamping plate is Moyou London Arabesque

Will you join us in this challenge? If you post on instagram remember to use #52uger52lakker and #52weeks52polishes.

See you around - have a great weekend :).

Fancy Friday #72: Reverse Stamping

Oooooohh I'm excited about this challenge. Up until now I've actually done this without realising I did reverse stamping, since I have made quite a lot of stamping decals.

This time around I wanted to try the technique where you do the colouring on the stamper and then do a direct transfer to the nail.

I did not succeed in any way :D. I didn't have time to do it all over again so what you get is my work-in-progress.

I actually started with my middle finger...and progressed to the ring finger. Certainly not an improvement!! I think I was too impatient, the polish seemed too wet which can explain the squashed pattern.

And the image turned out to be too small for my thumb :(

So when all else fails? FAIRY DUST ALL THE THINGS!!!

Det der reverse stamping? Det er jeg ikke så god til...endnu! Jeg har besluttet mig for at det skal prøves af igen, for det var rigtig sjovt at lave.

An InLinkz Link-up

Golden Oldie Thursday #23: Red

Those of you that have followed me for a while know that red isn't a colour I wear much. I do have a select few that have come into my collection either as gifts or because I found them awesome :D

A couple of years back I was very much in to Cult Nails (a passion that was reignited recently) and bought entire collections back then. When Coco, one of Maria's daughters came up with five gorgeous colours that was released as Coco's Untamed Collection - one of which was a most amazing red - I felt compelled to own them all.

Cult Nails Annaliscious

Annaliscious was named after Coco's best friend - and is the most juicy red polish I own.

It has the most amazing golden glassfleck finish I have ever seen, and I have been constantly looking at my nails these past two days I've worn it. It'll be almost a shame to remove this mani.

The glitter topper on my thumb and pinkie is a one of Red Dog Designs Crooner polishes called Hey! Jealous Lover. An amazing array of glitters, I believe there are more than 20 different glitters in this bottle - some of them are red hearts!!

 

I used a MoyouLondon plate for the roses on my index and middle fingers. And then I left my ring finger alone ;)

 

I always get surprised when I wear red - it makes me quite happy :D

Remember to check ALL THE RED MANIS WE GOT:

An InLinkz Link-up

Fancy Friday #39: Music

The challenge is music - and I stamped. I reused my Dior mani from Tuesday and used the gold polish from my YSL Manicure Couture Duo no. 2 to stamp with. Worked like a charm :D

One of the plates I bought from Moyou London last year was one of the Rockstar plates: Roxy Collection 06, so I immediately grabbed that and looked over the faces. I've been a Prince fans in like forever so I used that stamp as an accent. The other two images are from a random plate I purchased at Messy Mansion, CF09.

So here is the finished look:

Next Fancy Friday is "Something about me" and for that I've got something REALLY exciting to show you!!

Fancy Friday #38: Favourite Technique/Go-to mani

This was supposed to be a tape mani since that is my favourite technique these days - BUT everything I tried failed in a way that I didn't even wanted to show you, so instead I did my go-to mani which is the Skittlette. The term was coined - as far as I know - by Nail4Dummies in reply to Marta from ChitChatNails in fall 2012 when Marta asked on twitter what one would call a two-accent-nail mani. You can go and check out her very informative blog post about it HERE where there is a basic how-to if you should feel encouraged to try it out after you've seen my version of it.

As you will notice I am not doing the same pairing of nails that she does but that is what is so wonderful about the Skittlette - you can combine it almost endlessly as long as you keep to the 1-1-2-2-3 rule. How you mingle that combination around is all up to you!!!

First off I had to decide which colours and nail combination I'd use. I set out that I wanted to do a 1-2-2-3-1 combination. I used nails inc. prince albert road for my thumb and little finger, OPI Purple with a Purpose for my index and middle finger and nails inc. montrose place for my ring finger.

So with the colour combinations covered I then thought how I'd "dress" them up. And since I put the glittery one on already I just had to decide what to do with ring, middle and index. I had some very large non-solvent resistant glitter circles that I've wanted to use for a long time so I put them on the ring finger. Unfortunately they went all Taco on my after ten minutes, as you can see several of them started dissolving. Then I stamped the middle and index with a dark lilac stamping polish, using my Moyou London plate Pro 02.
 

 And...TA-DA - a Skittlette mani to enjoy ;).

Please also go and check out what the other girls have as their Go-to mani/Favourite technique.

Jeg havde egentlig lagt planer for en vild tape mani, da det er min favoritteknik for tiden, men alt jeg lavede var så fyldt med ARGH at jeg ikke engang synes det var værd at vise frem her. I stedet har jeg så valgt min go-to manicure og for mig er det Skittlette. Hvis du følger linket oppe i starten af indlægget, kan du der se en introduktion til den type mani. Jeg laver næsten kun skittletter når jeg skal lave noget "udenfor" bloggen og instagram, og jeg er vild med den fordi kombinationsmulighederne er uendelige - for slet ikke at glemme at jeg får brugt tre lakker på én gang :D.

Moyou London Christmas stamping on WellNails

I am fast becoming a fan of the relatively new stamping plate company Moyou London. Their designs are very imaginative and they stamp extremely well.

A little more than a week ago Moyou London began a nail art competition on Pinterest and I decided to enter. Not that I think I can win but I believe this design is so pretty other people should be able to enjoy it :D.

I am really so happy with this design - and I thought it was a pity not to share it with you guys. And I really couldn't choose which pics to show you so here goes everything, haha:

My two base colours are WellNails Christmassy Winter Wonderland and Wellnails The North Pole is a Real Place (over nails inc. floral street). The holly leaves were stamped with China Glaze Jolly Holly, the berries were made with a-england Perceval and the snowflakes were done with a white stamping polish.

My Christmassy polish has gotten a little bit thick over the last year so I had to put some thinner in and that took care of any problems I had. The really good thing about this polish is that it covers in two layers but you don't loose sight of the glitters in the first layer, so you get the jelly sandwich effect with a lot more opacity.

I also had to thin The North Pole, more than Christmassy since it has become even thicker, but I have other older Glow-in-the-Dark polishes that also have become thicker over the past year so it could be the GitD pigment that makes the polish thicken more. And once more thinner solved my problem instantly.

And incidentally this mani is a skittlette - the third colour is the fantabulous 479 Kaleidoscope from Chanel. Now, I have a love/hate relationship with my Chanels. Those I own I have bought because I love the colours but Chanel chips like nobodys business when I wear them, I can hardly wear them one day. But this little gem...I wore it for two-and-a-half days with no tip wear or chipping AT ALL!!

Oh for the record: the Moyou stamping plate I used for this mani is Christmas Collection 03.

If you like my design why don't you head over to the Moyou competition on Pinterest and give me a like and a repin.

You can purchase Moyou plates here - but beware once you shop you just can't stop :D, no wonder they are one of the brands of the year at The Crumpet.

Fancy Friday #33: Red Rocks

Christmas is getting closer and Fancy Friday is all about this during December. Surprisingly I seem to want to wear red all the time these days - but it is one specific red in my stash I want to wear: a-england Perceval. I never thought I'd say it but I am in love with that colour! It is a perfect red for me and a one coater! Even though there is a tendency to brush strokes due to its metallic like finish, it is so worth it, the colour payoff is beyond incredible.

So it is the base for my mani for this Fancy Friday:

It called out for something and I decided on the candy canes on my Moyou Christmas Collection 03 stamping plate (yes I know everybody else and their mother calls it the Festive Collection, but on my plate it says Christmas, so that is what I'm sticking to ;) )

Love this so much so here is some nail art spam:

It wasn't until today that I realised that today is actually Friday 13th and that I should have done something a little bit different than this, but then again - these are actually more to the point and seasonal than a F13 mani would have been.

Still can't help thinking how spectacular F13 nails could have been with Perceval as base. *note to self: must be used next time there is a Friday 13th...)

By the way I found a new font for my mobile camera pics which I like better than the one before. Much less "in-your-face".

And pardon my rough cuticles - the weather makes it almost impossible to keep moisturising enough for photos, they seem to swallow every drop of moisture and then look like they've not seen moisture in a fortnight... 

 Do you wear red all year long or are you like me - this is an extremely seasonal colour?

Remember to check out what kinds of red the rest of the girls are wearing this week.