Graveyard Groovy

Hello lovelies!

Yay Halloween! I always love halloween manis! Here's what I'm wearing right now, some graveyard groove!

Beauty Big Bang Cuticle Protector Peel Off Tape

Hello lovelies!

I was recently approached by Beauty Big Bang to review some of their nail products and of course I said yes! The first thing I chose was this peel off tape. You may have noticed that I suck at water marbling. But with these cuticle protectors I thought, what the heck, I'm gonna give it another go! 

Vondelpark Roses

Hello lovelies!

So if you're not wanting that whole pink Valentine's Day manicure with hearts and stuff, but you still want to wear something romantic, you can do this:

Born Pretty Purple Shimmer Stamping Polish

Hello lovelies!

Get ready for more BPS stamping; today we have the purple shimmer polish!

Hema Glitter Polish: Blue & Green

Hi lovelies!

Happy ManiMonday! I'm super tired, so I'm gonna keep it short.. I have 2 of HEMA's new glitter polishes for you today! They are part of the "Special Effect Nailpolish" line. Let's start with the blue one, no. 91.

Green plaid design

Hi lovelies!

A simple manicure today with some decals from BPS!

Red Coat Tuesday - Season Finale

Hello lovelies!

You know, I actually have had a red winter coat for three years now. Red with black details. So again, a red and black mani, because subconsciously I have been influenced by my own coat ;)

Neon Cartoon Nails with Esmaltes Fantastic de Vogue

Hey lovelies!

Today's mani is inspired by two things: first, I wanted to create something awesome with the gorgeous polishes my Columbian friend got me and second; Cutepolish put this in my head and I had to do it! The two merged and this is their baby:

I used Vogue "Neon Mango", "Neon Limón", "Neon Violeta" and "Cítrico" for the orange, green, pink and yellow respectively. For the blue, I used Hema no. 12. The Vogue neons have a matte finish, which is great (and dries fast)! Application is very easy, though opacity is not reached with two coats. Since I was going to do nail art anyway, I only applied a third layer for the yellow. Then I took out a black striper and outlined my nails. Then, with a white striper, also from Vogue ("Blanco Armino"), I painted a white curve and with some white and my trusty dotting tool, I placed a dot beneath the curve. Then I sealed everything with a fast-drying topcoat and then mattified it again with 2 layers of Hema Matte top coat. (This may seem redundant, but I wanted the whole design matte, and since matte top coat tends to smear the design, I first used a normal one.)

I love it! It seams as though my nails are fake, make-belief paper thingies. And the colours, whoa! Love them!! 

What do you think of this design?

xoxoxo

Captain

Friends on Friday: Glitzy gradient, oh so radiant!

Hello dears!

Now I know it's Saturday, but who cares ;) My friend saw me with my Catrice "Mint me Up" nails and was mesmerized by the colour, so I told her I would do her nails too! She asked for a design with minimal texture (height differences annoyed her the last time I did a dotticure, even though she liked the way it looked, of course), so I decided to go for gradient, and a sparkly one at that! Since Mint Me Up contains a gold shimmer, next to the bronze flakies, I thought it made sense to go with gold:

I sponged up some gold from Miss Sporty and then topped that with some gold glitter from HEMA no. 03. Topcoat and done!

She made it last for days! Very nice :)

xoxoxo

Captain

Spring Clouds with Essence new spring polishes "Hello Marshmallow!" and "Upper Green Side"

Hi Beauties!

Today a quick post with yet another cloud mani! 

I just love how this design can give such different results, while always optically lengthening the nails <3 Today I show the same design, for which a simple instruction can be found here, but with all pastel spring colours, including two of the new Essence Colour and Go nail polishes: "Hello Marshmallow!" and "Upper Green Side":

source: Essence.eu

I also used Hema no. 19 for the yellow and Essence "Alpha Better Gamma" for the pink. I Started with a base of Hello Marshmallow and then alternated all other polishes to get te following result:

Hello Marshmallow suffered a bit from bubbling, but it's ok. The colour is really nice and there is a very subtle blue shimmer that makes it sparkle a bit. Gorgeous.

Hope you like it!

xoxoxo

Captain

Swatch-It Sunday: HEMA Glitter nail polish (part 1)

Hello beauties!

This might be especially interesting for those of you who live in The Netherlands, Belgium, France or Germany. I will review and swatch 2 of the new nail polishes of HEMA, glitter nail polishes called (first time ever they have names (albeit not such exciting names) instead of just a number!) "Glitter Pink" and "Glitter Fuchsia". HEMA has a whole range of new nail polishes, including holos, duochromes and pastels, and a huge amount of fast drying polishes in flashy colours. But first, the glitter:

Let's start with Glitter Fuchsia:

This is two coats over one coat of NYC "Fashion Ave Fuchsia", adding the base to ensure opacity, although I'm not sure it really needed it. Then I added some topcoat and could NOT stop staring at the beautiful sparkles... <3 It's a deep fuchsia jelly with tons of silver glitter. Application is very easy, no dabbing needed. 

But as with all nail polish, I must try some nail art. I did a simple cloud mani with two other Hema polishes, namely no. 22 for the green and a black one. But first I used a matte top coat, also from HEMA, to mattify the glitter... WOW! Look at it!

I adored this mani, but, as with all manis, it left me after 2 days (that is because I do dishes and clean stuff, but have not found gloves yet that fit my tiny hands). But no worries, I had another glitter bomb! This is Glitter Pink in direct sunlight:

Sparkle sparkle sparkle! This is two coats over Bourjois "Rose Cupcake". The polish consists of a light pink jelly with silver and pink iridescent big glitters and silver micro glitter. Application is good, sometimes it needs some dabbing but that is not a problem. The different glitters are even better visible in daylight (so out of direct sunlight):

Again, some nail art, with Hema no. 12. and a silver striper from Essence. I taped off all parts but where the blue is and hence created a v-gap and then added the silver.

So that's it! I can't wait to acquire the other new HEMA polishes, so if money permits, you'll be seeing more of them :)

xoxoxo

Captain

Friends on Friday - Belated and Bugged

Hi hi! 

Sorry for this very late FoF post, it's not even Saturday here anymore, but oh well.. 

One of our friends is came back from spending a few months abroad and had some nail art requests, one of them being ladybugs! I did her nails, the Lieutenant's and later on, even mine, since the design is extraordinarily cute :) So here goes:

I used Hema nail polish no. 5 for the red, and Rimmel "Black Out" for the head and black dots, and a black striper from Max for the straight line. For the white eyes, I used Etos Long Lasting nail polish in white.

It made us all instantly happy :D :D

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 

Part of Your World - Painting it Blue for Autism Awareness

Hi dears!

Yesterday was autism awareness day, and I believe this whole month is autism awareness month, so blue is the colour to choose in order to support that! We all know someone with autism and see them struggle sometimes, so it is important to sometimes stop to think about that and imagine how it would be to be in their shoes. 

Today's mani is therefore blue, incorporating a new technique (and by new, we mean new to US ;) ):

The mani reminded us of the Ocean, which in turn made us think of The Little Mermaid, and therefore this mani is named "Part of Your World", which we thought was very befitting. 

The base colour for this mani is a HEMA polish, nr. 10, a funky bright blue. Then we took out a fan brush and brushed on some Rimmel "Peppermint", HEMA nr. 23 and a tiny bit of Essence "City that Never Sleeps". 

Tomorrow another blue mani!

xoxoxo

Lieutenant & Captain

ManiMania in Paris Part 1

A Good Friday to y'all!

When in Paris, I had the pleasure of polishing some nails :) I had very limiteds supplies, only about 10 polishes, but here goes! The first mani I got to do was on the hands of the cutest 4-year-old ever (my friends' niece):

I used Essence "I'm Bluetiful" as my base, and then drew the lines with my silver striper. Then I added the flowers with a bobby pin, using Essence "Shopping trip in Soho" (pink) "A walk in the Park" (green) and HEMA nr. 19 for the yellow. 

Then walked in a friend of my friend, who is now also my friend, and since we only had about 10 minutes, I decided to do a simple design on top of her already (albeit somewhat chipped) read nails, with my black and silver striper. 

These are the hands of my friends mom, to whom I am so grateful for taking me in for 4 days. She was so sweet and cooked all these delicious dishes for me; I was in heaven :)

I used Essence "Shopping trip in Soho" and created the gradient with the accompanying "Party all night long". Then with W7 "silver",  I added some flowers to the accent nails, and some black for the centres. 

Tomorrow I'll show you what I did on my friends nails, in part two of the mani mania :)

xoxoxo

Captain

Crazy easter chicks

Hey lovelies!

Looking forward to Easter? I am! Here's a cute and crazy mani you can easily recreate (if you do, we'd love to see it, so please share your design on our facebook page!) :

My right hand, no deco on the eggs, just a splash of colour.

I used for yellow HEMA nr. 19 (dupe of Chanel "Mimosa") , for blue "Peppermint" by Rimmel, the orange is Catrice "For Bright Guys", the green and pink are Essence "Lime up!" and "Very Berry". I placed the googley eyes (that one of my lovely friends sent me as a surprise) in the still wet paint. Then I took a black striper for the little paws, and some red polish and a dotting tool for the beak. With some white polish and my dotting tool I created the dots on the "easter eggs" and with a white striper I painted the lines.

This makes me super duper happy to look at. Unfortunately I now (on day 2) have the weird craving to pull off the eyes. Let's see how long I can resist... I always have that with 3D stuff...

xoxoxo

Captain

New Essence Glitter Topper swatches

Hey hey!

So, Essence nail polish was on a discount at my local drugstore, so I picked up some glitters! I'd like to show yo two of them, and also my favourite Blue polish, that my second cousin gave me as a present :) Let's start with the blue:

This is Miss Sporty Clubbing Colours nr. 320. It's a fast-drying bright blue polish, with a broad rounded brush, that applies easily and only needs 2 thin coats for full opacity. 

Next there is the first Glitter: 

This is Essence "Glorious Aquarius", a sparkly blue glitter topper. It's not densely packed with glitters, but it's nice. There are blue and silver hexes and blue mini hexes in there. Application is somewhat difficult, because of the low density.

And here we have "Glitter on Me", densely packed this time, with silver holo micro glitters, and multicoloured stripes. Like a disco ball in a bottle! Application went smoothly, I'm very pleased with this one. I applied it over Glorious Aquarius, which are the blue hexes you see here and there.

Then I applied a milky white polish from HEMA, from their "wet look" series. This is the effect:

Artificial Light

Artificial Light

Direct Sunlight

Direct Sunlight

Likey likey! It's like a party! Suddenly one can see the hexes from Glorious Aquarius again, and combined with the multicoloured stripes, it's really nice! The blue isn't as bright anymore, it has been muted to a nice spring colour. But I still like it a lot. So is this what they call a sandwich?

So what do you think of this experiment?



UPDATE:
I underwent a heavy case of tipwear, so I added a geometrical tip to the design, with Catrice "Pinky and the Brain" and a brush of which I clipped off most of the hairs:

I kinda liked it :)

xoxoxo

Lieutenant & Captain