Challenge Week 16 & 17: Dotticure Mani and Earth Day Mani (Extremely Pic heavy)

I have been a bit tardy with my challenges, at least with posting about them, hehe. So here they are:

I did my dotticure mani with Sinful Colors Cast Away Collection that I won in a giveaway over at Munia's Nails last month. April is a wonderful person whom I also got to do a swap with.

It is a gorgeous collection and the cremes are one coaters if you apply them with care. I totally fell in love with Neptune (this should have been named Poseidon, Neptune is the Roman God *shakes fist at Sinful Colors*), no wonder: it is blue and glass flecked :D

Neptune with Athens, Olympia and Be happy dots

Pinky: Pandora. Ring: Grecian Sun. Middle: Zeus. Index: Greek Isles. Dots like on Neptune.

Here you can almost see the pink shimmer in Zeus.

 

Greek Isles and Grecian Sun are wonderful cremes that glide on like melted butter.

I had some problems with Pandora but that turned out to be because of a faulty brush.

They all applied great, and though you could get away with one coat of the cremes...

...I chose to do two just because ;)

When looking at these pictures again I do think Grecian Sun might almost be BarryM Blueberry Ice Cream's twin sister...


For my Earth Day manicure I really couldn't get excited enough to do some nail art, instead I chose to wear a colour I have had since October but have never worn despite it's obvious gorgeousness. Colour wise it fits nicely into the earth theme - ladies and gentlemen I give you the awesome holo beauty that is Nubar Reclaim:

Look at this, it is amazeballs with awesomesauce on top!!!!

It is an amazing holographic polish but the weather in Denmark was crappy that day...

...so I had to take them indoors under artificial light...

...and I had to accept that the best lighting was in the bathroom...

Unfortunately that particular light gives me amazingly ugly...

LOBSTERHANDS!!!!

But the polish is still awesome :D

 So there you go, another two weeks worth of challenges. See you soon.

Lynnderella Mysterious Ways - picture heavy!!!

This is just a very short blog post, I just received my back order from my Lynnderella wish list, but since I haven't had time to swatch thme I thought I'd post pictures of a polish I was lucky to get in late December. Lynnderella's Mysterious Ways is a love very pale greyed-out lilac glittertastic polish. The base colour of it is rather sheer so it is good for layering as well.

For this I chose Zoya Caitlin as underwear and it looks absolutely stunning I think. I did this mani in early March and was so lucky the day was sunny which doesn't often happen that time of year here in Denmark.

Application was very easy for a Lynnderella, I didn't have to place the glitters, which you often have to with the more heavy packed glitter polishes she makes. Zoya Caitlin was a dream to work with, I don't think I have a Zoya that is  problematic - they are very opaque and levels out perfectly.

But on to the pictures:

There is so much going on in that polish, it is amazing. There are black squares, holografic hex, silver hex, bar glitter, holo flakes, micro glitter and a lot of other gorgeous things :D

Lynnderellas can be purchased through a wish list system that Leah Ann LaRowe (the only retailer of these gorgeous polishes) has set up through her web shop. They retail for 15 $ with reasonable shipping, and she does international shipping as well. At the moment she is finishing the last of the first rotation and will soon take new wish list orders. Make sure to sign up for emails, she will announce all specificities in a future mail list email. It takes some time to get them, but in the future she will also randomly put some of them for sale on the site but beware that will be a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of sale ;)

Do you have any Lynnderella's? Or do you think they are totally overrated?

Challenge Week 15: Easter Mani

I am super stoked to show you this challenge because this time I think I really was able to do that nail art thang properly!

I have had great success with my BarryM's and I finally got hold of Berry Ice Cream thanks to Raych from Polished Criminails, and the Ice Creams are sooo Easter appropriate that it is ridiculous :D

The colours used are:
Strawberry Ice Cream
Lemon Ice Cream
Berry Ice Cream
Mint Green
Blueberry Ice Cream

Chicken Yellow: Cult Nails Feel Me Up
White: nails inc. floral street
Black: a-england Camelot
Orange: BarryM Block Orange

Now onto my nail art win:

I am left handed, so most of my nail art only happen on my right hand

At first when I made the rabbit I thought I wouldn't succeed with it

...but it turned out REALLY cute, I think.

And this is how my thumb looked like.

My left hand was just a BarryM skittle mani in the colours used for the nail art.

Except the ring finger, this is Lemon Ice Cream, right hand is Cult Nails Feel Me Up

I was soooo happy with this one, I had a smile on my face every time I looked at my nails. And I got the nicest comments from complete strangers when I was out shopping the first day after Easter - which was a huge thing!!

Did you do an Easter mani? Skittle nails, nail art or anything special?

Challenge Week 14: Stripe mani

I am very late with updating my challenges but life in general and going on Easter Vacation in particular meant a lot to me and my family, so I decided not to beat myself up about it.

I don't think it is any secret that I love Cult Nails. I have quite an extensive collection and with good reason: The formula is awesome, colours are outstanding, they are affordable and Maria Morrison, the creative genius behind it, is a total sweet heart.

I find myself returning to those polishes again and again when considering what to choose for my challenges - and this was no exception.

For the first time I swatched!!! I did this manicure and immediately removed it!! That was all kinds of crazy to me since I wear my manis for at least two days, but hey there is always a first :D.

The colours I chose are:

• Bad Devious Nature, a bubble gum pink that was a lab fail, but she liked it so much she is selling it as a regular colour now.

• Feel Me Up, an egg yolk yellow (I know Maria has described it as buttercup yellow, but my eyes see this totally as an egg yolk!!) This is not available for purchase.

Bad D.N. as base colour and Feel Me Up for stripes, and did an accent ring finger with Feel Me Up as base and Bad D.N. for stripes:

 

 

Though I only wore this shortly it made me feel happy, so I might try it as a regular mani another time.

Challenge Week 13: Ruffian Nails

This week has been super busy and filled with marvellous nail mail (of which I will write about in another blog post).
The challenge this week is Ruffian Nails, also known by some as Upside-down French manicure. I first heard about Ruffians two years ago, when I read a blog post at All Lacquered Up about CND's collaboration with the fashion house Ruffian at their Fall 2010 runway show. The post can be read in its entirety here: Ruffian Matte Moon Manicure.

Two days ago I got five of China Glaze's The Hunger Games polishes in the mail among which was Stone Cold, so I had no doubt that I wanted to do the Ruffian as close to the original as possible, so I could get to try that beautyful charcoal matte polish. For the gold accent I chose my favourite gold polish, nails inc. westminster abbey. I did the moons free hand though I am not really good at it. First I tried to use my dotting tool to draw up a guide line. But matte polish is really fast drying so that turned out a lumpy mess. I then got a striper and that was way better :-D - you could do it with scotch tape or manicure guides instead but they are a hit and miss for me, so I thought I might as well practice my free hand skills.

I really like the look of this though it is a bit "wobbly" here, I am very pleased with the colour combination and have to say Stone Cold is a ridiculously gorgeous matte polish.

Sorry for the slightly unfocused picture, I couldn't get my camera to focus properly here.

Another apology for the dry cuticles - I have had my hands in so much water today that no amount of creme seemed to help.

Unfortunately my nails seem much shorter with this mani, I think they look sort of cut off...

As usual I really enjoyed doing the challenge and think I will do this again, though it is not too flattering on my nails.