Dandy Nails Wonderwall

I am so happy to be able to present this wonderful indie polish. Sandy Gallo, the creative genius behind Dandy Nails, started out as a blogger but after releasing her own polish line she hasn't been doing much blogging. Which is kinda okay since her polishes are so frackin' awesome!!

I have been wanting some of her polishes for a long time but since she doesn't ship outside USA* I have had to have some help from a fellow polish fiend over there. The beauties I bought is part of the reason for my nobuy - I spent 3 months worth of my polish budget in July!!! Not just on Dandy Nails, mind you ;)

I had been drooling over  Like Disco Lemonade and Caught in the Crowd, but Wonderwall was the one that I thought I could not live without. And boy, was I right!!! As some of you may know I lurve blue nail polish and this is no exception. For undies I chose one of my untried nails inc. polishes, Instyle Bluebell.


And these two really match each other, just feast your eyes on the loveliness:

One coat of nails inc. InStyle bluebell, two coats of Dandy Nails Wonderwall.

A note on application: The brush is extremely tapered, I don't think I own a polish with that thick a brush, and that did take me some time to get used to. Furthermore this is a glitter bomb which means the consistency is on the thick side, and because of that it took me a little longer than usual to apply it. But by the second coat I had it nailed.

It also wears well. I have a job where my nails are constantly at work either opening film cans or writing on the computer. This mani lasted four days without any noticable tip wear.


*Since I got my beauties, Ninja Polish has started to carry Dandy Nails!!!! And they have international shipping!!! Now hurry on over and order some, they are sooooo worth it.

Blogiversary Giveaway, part two

So to continue the celebration of this blog's  first year of existence, I give you part deux of my giveaway.

This time these gorgeous polishes are up for grabs:

The colours are:
Choose Me!
Make it Golden
Circus Confetti
Time for Romance
Space Queen

This giveaway will run for two weeks and will end on September 10th. It is open internationally with no limitations - but be aware that shipping can take a long while some places and therefore a shipping delay is to be expected.

For easy entry please fill in the Rafflecopter form below - I cannot enter you if you leave your entry in the comments section.

If you win you will have 48 hours to answer your winning email. If you don't answer within the time frame, a new winner will be chosen.

Disclaimer: All polishes were purchased by me a Rafflecopter giveaway

I am Guest Blogging at Karine's today

So today I am helping out a good friend of mine, the lovely Karine by guest blogging while she's on holiday.

Check my post about Nubar Indigo Illusion HERE and be sure to give her a follow, her blog is wonderful.

And just to remind you, there will be another giveaway lined up for tomorrow :)

One Year Blogiversary!!!

Holy Wow...Today a year ago I wrote my very first blog post. It was nothing big, just a few words, but never the less...a start. It took me the most of a month to get it going - and even then it wasn't really going anywhere - no wonder I had very few followers. Then January came along and the 52 Week Challenge entered the blog - and lo and behold: Relatively regular posting, at least four times a month :D

And a year later my blog is growing slowly but steady and in order to celebrate I have planned a Birthday Extravaganza that will run for the next month - with one giveaway each week.

For this first installment there are these two beauties up for grabs - there will be one winner:

NVL Floam, Ninja Polish version (new bottle) and Depend Holographic Sand Grey 2026

This giveaway will run for two weeks and will end on September 3rd. It is open internationally with no limitations - but be aware that shipping can take a long while some places and therefore a shipping delay is to be expected.

For easy entry please fill in the Rafflecopter form below - I cannot enter you if you leave your entry in the comments section.

Disclaimer: Both polishes were purchased by me

Good Luck :D

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Challenge Week 34: "Bling" Mani

So I have finally caught up on my challenges, hooray!!!

As some may have noticed I am going through my untrieds in order to get through that huge part of my stash that I still haven't worn. And this is true for this manicure as well.

When I first thought about this manicure I decided to choose the glitter polish first and then decide which underwear to use.

I have been wanting Deborah Lippmann Today Was a Fairy Tale since I first saw Michelle Mismas from All Lacquered Up posting about it on her blog a couple of years ago. A couple of months ago one of my fellow Danish polish-a-holics had a purge sale and I was lucky enough to get it!! I find it fittingly blingy to use it for this mani :).

I love a-england polishes but haven't worn any of my newly acquired yet. So I looked through them and found King Arthur would be a good match for TWAF.

 I then blinged it further up with an accent nail with rhinestones I found in a box with pearls.

So this is it for now, I hope I can find time to blog on other polishes than my challenges during the next couple of weeks :). Look out for some DandyNails love...

Challenge Week 33: Galaxy Mani

I've been wanting to try this for a long time, but haven't really been able to find the time - but suddenly the challenge is upon me, and I had to take time to do it.

There are a lot of tutorials on youtube and I have sort of taken a little from a couple of them, but since I have seen the one CutePolish has the most times, it is mostly inspired by hers:

But I also found this very interesting:

The polishes I used for this mani are:

Base colour: Pretty & Polished Sphere
Nucleus: Nfu Oh JS 45 and a light pink franken polish
Blending colours: Orly Out Of This World and a purple shimmer franken polish
Stars: nails inc. floral st.
Glitter topper: Guerlain Silver Sparkle and Nfu Oh GS 03

One thing I know for sure: I'm not going to use Sphere again as base colour, all the gorgeousness from that polish drowns in all the other effects :/

Somehow I totally missed some orange polish when I cleaned my middle finger.

I had a hard time photographing this, I don't think I caught how well the glitter topper work.

It is definitely not the last time I try this - it looks utterly amazing, even though I'm not quite satisfied with my first try. It lacks something that I can't quite put my finger on...

Have you tried galaxy nails? Feel free to leave a link in the comments so I can learn what tricks you got for making a good galaxy mani.

Challenge Week 32: Needle Marble Mani

So I am catching up on my challenges, only two to go. First up is a needle marble mani, which basically is using a pin or needle to make paterns in the wet polish. There are lots of tutorials on youtube, which was where I go my knowledge as well ;)

I wanted this as a green manicure so I rummaged through my untrieds and found these two gorgeous gentlemen from BB Couture: Sexy Centerfold (male Eye Candy collection) and Clyde (male Infamous Lovers collection), and they look stunning together.

This is my second attempt at needle marbling, my Hunger Games nails sported two nails where this tecnique was used. Hope you guys enjoyed this - and keep your eyes peeled...it is almost giveaway time :)

Challenge Week 31: Crackle Mani

I never really got the crackle craze, I saw oodles of swatches but never thought I'd buy one, though the OPI crackle "Shatter the Scales" from the Spiderman collection did look totally awesome - mostly because I love green.

So when I initially saw the crackle mani on the list I was arguing with myself what I would do when the time came. Well, no need to worry 'cause in my last nails inc. lucky dip (you buy six polishes for no money at all, they pick which polishes to send you) there was a crackle polish. A purple one, yay - and I actually quite like the effect. Colour me surprised!!!

First coat on my little finger was waaaaay too thick, but it did inspire me to try...

...thin layered stripes on my ring finger and a very thin layer on my middle finger.

Index finger is half circles...

And thumb is full circles.

I used nails inc. In Style Power Pink as base colour and the name of the crackle is hoxton, also from nails inc. I really like these two colours together and it's definitely not the last time I'll wear my hoxton :)

Challenge Week 29: Rockstar Mani

I looked at this one for a loooong time, I was trying to figure out what Rockstar Mani could possibly cover. Then I did a search and found out that it is a brand that is used for doing gels and acrylics - but I also found a tutorial on how to do a home pedicure that could be something I could make use of:

Rockstar Toes tutorial

And I immediately thought of my GOSH nail glitter!! So I simply did a layer of base coat, sprinkled on a generous layer of my nail glitter, applied a layer of gelous and nails inc. caviar top coat - and thought meh...this needs to be blinged out :D

And then I brought out the blingiest nail polish I own: Lynnderella Shape Shifter. And holy wow it blinged the c*** out of it.

So how do you like these rockstar nails? Totally awesome or just not doing it for you? I'd like to hear your opinion.

Challenge Week 30: Water Marble Mani

This one had me quite excited, I've been wanting to try it for some time now, but I never got around to it - so this is actually my first.

I used the following colours:
Jordana Mint Candy
Milani Orchidia
Maybelline Colorama Party Blue
Color Club Magic Attraction

I had to have a few trials before I got the polish to spread out properly, and I found the glitter from the Color Club prevented Milani Orchidia to spread out - so in the end I only did one drop of glitter, as the last.

So here we go, my first water marble:

I had a ginormous bubble on my middle finger that burst.

I got bubbles almost instantly on my thumb, I think I took it out of the water too quick.

 So, what do you think? Do you like that each nail is distinctly different, or do you prefer them to be alike?

Dotticure Fun: another Blog Collaboration Manicure

As the title suggest it has once more become time for a blog collaboration post. I really enjoy these, I love to see what my blogger friends come up with. Mine is not terribly artistic since it collides with my husband's birthday which means limited time to do creative manicures, not to mention writing an elaborate post about it ;)

What I did do was a manicure using FIVE of my untrieds, all of them from Cult Nails, one of my favourite indie brands. I actually own A LOT of them - and their birthday sale earlier this week made me surpass my collection of RBL's which is quite extensive.

Base colour is Blackout, a slate grey crelly polish that was opaque in two layers. I really love this formula, though it is very thin and a little runny. First layer will seem a bit patchy if you put on a thin layer but it will cover in two layers without any work on your part, the self levelling on Cult Nails polishes is really exceptional :).. This crelly formula is one that Cult Nails' creator Maria Morrison uses for the bigger part of her cremes and gives them exceptional luster without top coat.

The dots are all colours from their newly released Coco's Collection, created by Maria's daughter Coco - five colourful and joyful polishes that I really look forward to use as individual manicures.

Red: Annaliscious, a wonderful bright orange leaning red shimmer polish filled with red microglitter.

Green: Deal With It, a bright lime green polish filled with goldgreen microglitter.

Pink: Untamed, a bubblegum pink with blue, pink and silver microglitter, a bit more sparse than the other two.

Purple: Spontaneous, a dark purple shimmer polish with pink and purple shimmer, though you really need some bright sunlight for it to show. BTW it is really hard to see these since the base colour seem to swallow the purple on my index and ring finger.

I hope you enjoyed this, now go and check out the other wonderful dotticures you can see at my friends' pages.