Rimmel "Out of the Blue"

Hey there!

Here's a quick swatch of one of the nicest teals EVER!!! A teal creme by Rimmel called "Out of the Blue". Opaque in 2 coats, application flawless. (Taking it off was another tale entirely, but that is not strange for blue polishes). 

Ten Tuxedos

Hey lovelies!

Just got back from a wedding. It was marvellous. The bride was gorgeous and the groom very handsome. He is my cousin. It was a great party and I'm typing this with one eye already shut (litereally). 

So in short. One of my sisters was wearing black and white, so I decided to do a tuxedo mani (which had been on my to-do list forever:

I used Etos long lasting white, a black striper from Janet for the contours, Essence "Ticket to the Show" to fill in the tuxedo and for the bow tie I used Essence striper "Mysterious Black". For the button, I used a bobby pin (I was being stupid and couldn't find my dotting tool) and Ticket to the Show, again. 

I really love it. It is how Zooey Deschanel had her nails a long while back.

Ok that's it, ladies, my other eye is falling down too!

Lots of xo's, 

Captain

Friends on Friday: Two different gradients

Hello Ladies!

Time for some friends' nails :) One of my friends gave me a small collection of Columbian nail polish, of the brand Vogue. I have yet to do swatches, but I already used them in some nail art on The Lieutenant's nails. My friend gave me 4 of the most vibrant neon colours ever and I fell in love with them instantly. I had a design in mind for a while, but I didn't have the appropriate nail polish, and while I was almost about to break my no-buy policy, she showed up and gave me what I needed! <3 Here goes:

I first applied a white base of Etos Long Lasting, and then sponged the Vogue colours: First neon yellow (Cítrico), then green (Limón Néon), then orange-ish red (Mango Néon) and then some neon purple (Violeta Néon). Then I applied two coats of  l'Oreal Confetti on top, to give it an extra summer party boost ;)

The second gradient was entirely made up by another friend. She picked out all the colours and told me to do something with it. This is it!

I first applied a sheer yellow shimmer from Hema. Then I sponged on some Hema no. 19 and some Essence "Purplicious". All yellow goodness with a hint of purple in the glitter, perfect!

Until later,

xoxoxo

Captain

Once in a Blue Moon - Painting it Blue for Autism Awareness

Dear followers,

We're painting it blue again, this time on my, the Captain's nails. I really needed to try out these multicoloured caviar beads that I recently purchased from Max Make-up. They were really really cheap! And since I have no money, that comes in handy ;) They really made this mani a happy, yet sophisticated one:

Both with flash

I first painted my nails with a base coat and ridge filler from Etos. This one is very gloopy and hence does not apply easily. It does however fill out most of my irregularities (and there are a LOT). Then I took one of my favourite blues, that unfortunately remains nameless, HEMA no. 23. It is a dark royal blue creme, that appears lighter in the bottle than on the nails. I painted my nails with one coat (which is almost opaque). Then I waited for it to dry and harden. As soon as I thought it was ready, I took out some french tip guides from Essence, and placed them, not at the tips, but at the base of the nail, as to create half moons. Never had a half-moon mani before, so I thought I'd try. They're not supposed to be be done with the french tip guides though, but it was the only way it would work with the caviar, of course. Normally one would create the moons the other way around, namely by sticking a circular piece of tape on the base and painting over the rest of the nail. But of course that would not work in this case. Anyway, after the tip guides, I put some top coat on the base and poured over it the caviar. Then I gently pushed down the beads, in order for them to stick better. Then I removed the tip guide, and to my shock, only half of it would come off! OH NO!

Apparently, my polish was not as dry as I had thought. Oh well, I thought, let's try and salvage this horror. I gently scratched off the stickers and that worked reasonably well, except for one or two fingers. I had started with my right hand, so when I started working on my left hand, I made sure to make the stickers less sticky (place it on various parts of skin on your hands and arms first ;) ) and applied them one by one. This worked better.
After the caviar, I added one more coat of blue to the non-caviared parts of the nails, and took the two upper photos. 

I did not want my mani to be ruined by the upcoming hair-wash festivities that I have each morning, so I decided to add another layer of top coat to it all. This is tricky, because the colour of the beads is easily dissolved in the varnish. So dabb it on quickly and don't touch it anymore! I learned this the hard way... Below, you can see the vast colour difference between my middle and ring finger caviar beads... 

These photo's were taken the next morning, and as you can see, the mani survived sleep and hair washing! Although, you can see some sheet imprints... Oh well.. As we speak, I'm still wearing the mani and it has survived a second night of sleep and a second shower! However I didn't have to do dishes yesterday, so it's lucky ;)

Daylight & Outfit

My right hand (that I couldn't have done without the Lieutenant) in daylight: 

Flash

I'm totally in love with this mani. It makes my nails and fingers look longer! As you can see, I have very short fingers, and they can appear very much like sausages, but with this mani, my hands look pretty <3

Do you like the half-moon/caviar look?

xoxoxo

Captain 

My first Stained Glass!

Happy Tuesday!

I entered my first Stained Glass mani ever into a contest of Tip Top Nails SA, as part of a 12-week during contest, in which you have to submit a new mani every week. The first task was to create a stained glass or mosaic effect, using only red, pink, purple, brown and nude shades. I wanted also to create a pattern, but that is easier said than done! In the end I was semi-pleased, as I hope I will eventually be able to do this a lot more neat. And since acrylic paint was forbidden, it was hard ;)

I used Essence "Iced Latte" as the base, and then drew on the frames with my black striper from Etos. Then I added the colours. Red is Essence "Fame Fatal" and the violet-red is "Berry Me" form Gosh. 

Do you like it or do you think it's too messy? 

xoxoxo
Captain

Sassy Classy Latte

Hello lovelies!

An übershort post today, I have to study. I did a simple mani on my right hand. Yesterday, I painted my nails with a nude, it's very pretty! It is "Iced Latte" from Essence. I love how it's nude, but pink and special! But after one day, they had to be styled up! What I did on my left hand, I will show you tomorrow, but my right hand needed to be simple, of course. 

I painted the tips with my black striper from Etos, and then I took out my striper brush and added lines of Catrice "Oh My Goldness!" Added a sealing topcoat from Essence and done! 

This is the nude alone:

Until tomorrow, 

xoxoxo

Hygieia

Dear followers,

Sorry for not posting yesterday, I didn't get to finish my mani yesterday! It's done now, and I hope you like it! 

This mani is inspired by Hygieia, Goddess of Health, Cleanliness and Sanitation. As you probably see, this is where we got the word 'hygiene'. She was one of the daughters of Asclepius, god of medicine. She is often depicted with a snake, symbol of health (which is still visible in many signs of pharmacies, health care institutions and so on..). 

When I think 'clean', I think 'white' and 'silver'. So I started off this mani with a white base, using white long lasting polish of Etos, which is like white-out on your nails, it's awful. Then I saran marbled with W7 silver polish. I finished the design with some W7 caviar, arranging it in a snake form. I used some gold glitter from my Essence Nail Art Kit.

It ended up like this!

Comments and suggestions are very welcome!

xoxoxo 
Captain Lothwen

Demeter

Hey lovely followers!

First, we would like to extend our gratitude to you guys! Thank you so much for following, it is so nice that what we love doing, is appreciated by others!

Now, for the next goddess, we have Demeter! The goddess that presided over harvest and the fertility of the earth. Her greatest gift to humankind was that of grain and agriculture. So with harvest, we were thinking autumn colours, and with some grain:

We applied two coats of Catrice "Yellow Submandarine" and marbled with "Copper Cabana". The grain was added with the black striper from Etos. The hand model is one of our sisters, who crashed at the Captain's place two nights ago :) That's always fun! And since she's moving abroad soon, for a year, it was really nice :) 

See you tomorrow, with Hera! Still working on that design, though ;)

xoxoxo

Lieutenant & Captain

Last Minute VDay Mani - Marbled Love

Hey hey, Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm sure it's still Valentine's Day on some continents now, so it's completely legit for me to post this last minute VDay mani! I was in such a lovely mood after winning Herôme's VDay Nail Art Contest! So my friend had to undergo a fiery love mani. I wanted to keep it relatively simple, since there wasn't a lot of time and we were also watching "How To Train Your Dragon", which might have had something to do with the fire ;) (Excellent movie btw!)

This is the result - Marbled Love:

I did a saran wrap mani with Bourjois "Rouge In Style" and Rimmel "Black Out", freehanded a heart on the basecoat (Rimmel "5in1 Nail Treat") with a black striper from Etos, and then added glitters from my Essence Nail Art Kit "Designer for a Day". Topcoated everything and voilà: A Sexy Valentine's Mani :)

Hope you like it!

xoxoxo
Captain

Oriental Blues

Hi hi hi! 

So, Captain's cousin likes BLUE :) But she didn't want her nails to be all cute and girly. But I did want it to be feminine. So I came up with this:

OK looking back, I could've done a better job, with the neatness of the stripes and all. But we were on the clock, the carnival parade was about to start! 

The blue is Essence "The Boy Next Door". The terracotta coloured polish with the pretty shimmer and glass flecks is Essence "Gorgeous Bling Bling". The black stripes are done with my Etos striper and the dots were placed using a nail art striper/pen from Primark, a new acquisition of mine.

I love how the bright blue and earthy orange make this look oriental. 

What do you think?

xoxoxo

Captain

Salt, Pepper & Sophistacation

Hi beauties!

Last night I was craving for something new on my nails, so after going through my stash a few times, I decided that I wanted a jelly glitter polish (of which I only have 2, since they're not so easy to come by out here). Of course it needed to be nail-arted immediately, so I got my new black striper (YAY! waited so long for it!) and this is the result!

Salt, Pepper & Sophistication

The glitter polish is W7 "Salt 'n Pepper" and the striper I used is from Etos.

I personally love this funky sophisticated look. What do you guys think of this?

xoxoxo

Captain

Bubble up! For short & long nails

Hi people! 

Today we want to share with you an easy dotticure, that is flattering on both long and short nails. 

We used Catrice "Heavy Metallilac" for the base, and dotted with La Femme white polish and Essence "Let's get lost" (blue) and Etos Quick Dry nr. 09 (orange). The dots were placed using my trusty dotting tool. We used 2 very different hand models: One girl with medium/long length nails, as shown here:

And one girl with short nails:

As you can see, this simple mani works well on both! The asymmetric design optically lengthens the nails.

What do you think?

xoxoxo

Lieutenant & Captain

Queen of Green, is all I can Blue

Hi there!

Two good friends lent their hands. And this is what happened:

Green Fanta

Yes, green fanta is what it reminded her of! This lovely lady is a sucker for green, so we went all out with this dotticure. She was content with the result. All the bubbly green delight was able to wipe all exam stress off her mind :)

The colours we used were Catrice "ACid-DC" and "King of Greens" (the lightest and darkest respectively), Etos nr. 115 and NYC "High Line Green". 

 It's all I can Blue

A more quiet design, but no less lovely! This good friend got a blue cloud mani, as described here on Nailside (which is a truly lovely web page! Very inspiring... Go check it out!).

The colours are (from light to dark): Essence "Absolutely Blue", "I'm Bluetiful" and "The Boy Next Door".

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions for our next manis!

xoxoxo

Lieutenant & Captain

First Mani - Snow Glam

We thought to start of with the current mani, since it is very weather appropriate for the moment. It's a winter wonderland in Holland at the moment.

Love the design Captain! An excellent design that can actually last pretty long for those that can keep the stones on, since your nails growing out at the bottom will not be so noticeable because of the light color you use for the baselines ;)

You wanna briefly walk us through the steps?

Sure ;) 

First; the things needed for this design are a base coat, a light white-ish colour, a blue one, glitter polish, a white striper, glequins/chunky glitter polish and rhinestones.

I used Rimmel "Stronger" base coat, Essence "Ice crystals on my window" for the base colour, and "I love bad boys" from Essence for the blue, which I sponged on in two coats, creating a gradient effect. Then I added Etos Glitter Nails 003 (which has a purple, but very sheer base) to mimic snow falling. I used a white striper from the Etos Nail Art collection to draw on the snow flakes. For some snow flakes I added rhine stones to the hearts, for others I picked out a big glitter piece from Essence "Mr. and Mrs. Glitter" and placed it in the middle with a small dotting tool. Then I added two layers of topcoat to secure the design, and that's it!

You know what would be chic? Wear a nice fluffy sweater (white-ish, or blue-ish, or any color will suffice) with sleeves that come quite long, and just have these nails peek out. And then you have an irresistible snuggly-cutie look ;)

Haha, yes ;) Soooo, it's easy, but only with steady hands, which I rarely have (odd hobby I picked out then, eh?), but I managed okish. Excuse the dry skin and cuticles, with this weather it's very hard for me to keep them moisturized.

xoxoxo Love,

Lieutenant Akira and Captain Lothwen