The Nail Nerd

Illamasqua polishes!

2010-05-15T14:35:00.004+02:00

First off, I thought I was back in the game, but I am not. My life is still very hectic so the blog had to drop to the bottom of my priorities and posting will most likely be very sporadic in the near future, just so you all know whats going on. Now on to some better news! :D

Illamasqua Wink and Blow - Was trying to get creative with the bottle picture :P

The nice people at Illamasqua sent me some polishes to review. I got Blow, which is a pretty pale yellow and Wink, a nice pale purple. These are my first Illamasqua polishes so I'm of course very excited about them. But due to lack of time they have been sitting on top of my Helmer for quite a while but I hope to have worn them both soon. Pictures and reviews should be coming shortly!

NOTD: Claire's Dream Catcher

2010-04-06T14:58:00.004+02:00

I had been lemming this for soo long, after I had given up on ever finding Chanel Jade anyway.
Thanks to the lovely Ange-Marie over at Scandalously Polished I own this beauty, thank you so much girl! Also got a bunch of other polishes in the swap with her, which I'll show you at a later point. Anyway here's Dream Catcher!

Claire's Dream Catcher

This is a perfect spring colour, it's green, colourful but soft and easy to wear at the same time. I LOVE IT and I already want to wear it again! The picture is showing it to be slightly paler than it really is, but it was the best picture I got of it. Application was good, this is three coats and the formula was really nice to work with. Can definitely see myself breaking my rule with this one, not wearing a polish for a second time before I've gone through all my untrieds.

I'M BAAAACK!

2010-03-31T12:18:00.004+02:00

Hope you all are doing great, I know some of you have wondered where I had gone to and things have been really hectic lately and doing my nails have felt like a chore rather than something fun and enjoyable. But things are starting to slow down I think, and hopefully nails and blogging will feel fun again :)

Today I have a blue(?) beauty for you guys, looks more lilac in my eyes but her name is Beth's Blue and she comes from Models Own. Maybe Beth is color blind? Or maybe I am, judge for yourselves!

Models Own Beth's Blue

I'm almost embarrased to post this picture, look at my cuticles they're in dire need of some TLC but this colour was great and I had to show it to the world. It's a gorgeous and light colour, very wearable. The best thing about this polish though, it was a one coater and the formula was great, thick but still easy to work with.

I've gotten loads of new polishes while I was MIA which I will show to you soon, it's too much for me to photograph and post in one day. Please bear with me!

NOTD: H&M Bella's Choice

2010-03-11T15:21:00.006+01:00

I wore this beauty for 3 days and I didn't want to take it off! This colour made me truly happy, it's so bright, pretty and cheerful, LOVE IT!

H&M Bella's Choice

This is a super pretty and bright turquoise creme, it's leaning a tiny bit more to the green side than I managed to capture on camera but still pretty close to reality. The application was pretty bad, it was streaky, the brush bristles were kind of hard but after 3 coats and a thick coat of Poshé it looked smooth and even. This colour is totally worth it though, I already feel like wearing it again cause it made me so happy. That's all I had for you today! :)

NOTD: Isadora Vintage Mint

2010-03-04T15:47:00.004+01:00

On my way home from work yesterday I stopped by H&M and I found this beauty, and I just had to have it! It the most perfect mint green I own, it's one tone lighter than in the picture. Lighter than Claire's Dream Catcher and definitely more green than Essie Mint Candy Apple and Eyeko Vintage. It's just lovely!

Isadora Vintage Mint

This gorgeous mint green seem to be a part of the Isadora spring collection, I normally don't buy Isadora cause I think their colours are boring, normally a bunch of reds and pinks, and you get very little polish for the money, 6ml for roughly $11, but I couldn't pass this one up! Definitely a must have for me, especially after being a little dissapointed in all the blue toned mint "greens". This is three thin coats and the application was interesting. First coat was streaky but it got better and smoother with more coats, what was interesting though is their brush. It says Wide Brush on the bottle and they weren't kidding! Imagine OPI's Pro Wide Brush and add 50% to that. It's wide, kind of long and thick and full! I could easily cover a whole nail in one stroak but the way the brush was shaped made it a little hard to get a nice curve around the cuticles. I also ended up fanning the brush a bit too much sometimes and got polish outside of the nail. Took a little clean up after I was done, but maybe with practice I'll learn to use their brush. Overall I'm happy with the polish, and the colour was a nice surprise for an Isadora!

NOTD: China Glaze Coconut Kiss and Foil Fail Question

2010-03-03T16:46:00.005+01:00

Today I'm wearing this beatuy from China Glaze. A gorgeous medium purple that looks lit from within and super shiny on the nails. Love it!

China Glaze Coconut Kiss

It took 3 super thing coats to get it opaque. I tried doing thicker coats but as the formula is really runny I got a lot of polish pooling around my cuticles, other than that the formula is nice and pigmented. It's a warmer purple than the picture shows, you all know how cameras tend to hate purple and won't photograph it correctly.

I have a question for you readers. I did my first attempt with nail foils earlier this week, and it was a disaster! A real foil fail! I had no issues applying them at all, and they looked great at first then after a while they started to go a bit matte so I slapped on some Poshé on 2 nails to get the shine back and the foil started cracking and lost all of the holo effect it was supposed to have. I then decided to leave the rest of the nails as they were without topcoat. In just a matter of hours they looked worn, I had MASSIVE tipwear and they just looked horrible, almost like the foil had turned sticky and was peeling off. I followed the instructions that came with the foils and it didn't say anything about topcoat or what to do after applying the foils.

Any ideas? Does a regular slow drying topcoat work better with foils than a fast drying? Or is there a trick on how to apply and wear foils without topcoat?

I was really dissapointed cause the foils look great and I keep seeing great foil mani's on other blogs. Would love some help from someone with more foil experience :)

NOTD: Models Own Slate Green

2010-02-25T15:27:00.003+01:00

Oh this is a beauty! I've been lemming Dirty Sexy Money by Misa so I'm thrilled about owning this Models Own polish as it is a pretty close dupe to the Misa. I love this type of colour, dusty and toned down but still bold and colourful.

Models Own Slate Green

This is three coats and application was good. Formula seemed very good but the brush was a bit stiff and the first coat ended up streaky, it was easy to even out with the following coats though. The only real complaint I have really is the smell. All the Models Own polishes I bought have a very strong chemical smell, almost got a headache when I swatched them on a wheel and it wasn't better applying it in 3 coats on all 10 nails. But the colours are really pretty and I'll just have to keep the window open when I use one of them next time

NOTD: China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic

2010-02-19T16:07:00.003+01:00

Today I have a lovely blue-green duo chrome for you guys, Rodeo Fanatic by China Glaze. I bought this bottle AGES ago but I haven't worn it and I don't know why. Once I had applied it I just LOVED the colour!

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic

This is a blue shimmer with a slight green duochrome, I tried to capture it in the picture but I don't know if I was all that successful. The purple flash you see in the bottle is just not there in reality, not on the nail nor in the bottle. This colour makes me think of scarabs, I wish I owned a real scarab coloured duochrome polish, but this is the closest I get with whats in my collection. It applied like a dream, took 2 coats for it to be opaque and it wasn't as runny as blue shimmers tend to be. I took the picture pre-cleanup but I can tell you that clean up also was easier than normal for a blue polish, no smurf fingers!

As you might have noticed the rate of my posting have dropped lately and it's cause of multiple reasons. Some personal reasons but also I'm working on a new blog/website, as I'm planning on moving to my own domain sometime in the near future. There's only so many hours in a day and I try my best to get the everyday things done, work on the new site and still do my nails and blog here. Just bear with me and hopefully I'll get back to my normal posting once the new website is up and running.

Give away Winner!

2010-02-17T21:05:00.003+01:00

Ok ladies, I've gone through all of the entries and added them to The Hat program to let it pick my winner, and here it is...

Congratulations to Thess! I'll send you an e-mail!

Thanks to everyone who participated, wish I could give something to every one of you who takes time out of your day to read and comment on my blog. You guys is what makes blogging fun!

NOTD: Pink Zebra

2010-02-15T14:31:00.005+01:00

Hey guys!
Hope you all had a great weekend, I've been sick with a fever again! I've been too tired to do my nails so I was rocking No Way Jose for a few days, but yesterday I wanted to do something for valentines. But after paiting the base colour I wasn't feeling the hearts and cute stuff at all so I went with a zebra print instead!

This is 2 coats of Essence Most Wanted with Konad m57 and Konad Princess polish in Black. Most Wanted is a bit darker in reality, but I just couldn't get a good shot of it. The formula is great, was almost opaque in one coat!

My 200 followers/valentines giveaway is now closed! And I hope to bring you the winner tomorrow! Good luck everyone!

NOTD: China Glaze No Way Jose

2010-02-11T21:54:00.001+01:00

I finally got around to wearing the 2nd polish that I am giving away here. This is version 2 of China Glazes popular and discontinued shade No way Jose. It's more pink toned than the original, but has the same pretty glass fleck shimmer. I'm normally not a pink fan unless they're hot or neons but I actually like this one, a lot, it compliments my skin tone and it's just pretty to look at.

China Glaze No Way Jose

This is three coats and it applied smoothly, no application problems what so ever. Only downside with the formula is that it dries kind of slow, even with quick dry topcoat, almost 2 hours after applying it I managed to dent my right pinky nail a bit. It was hard to get it colour accurate in the pictures, it wanted to come out more bright than it really is. It's a bit more muted or dusty but the actual base colour looks pretty accurate to me. Anywho, it's really pretty. Wish I owned the original but I'm happy I got my hands on this version anyway!

NOTD: Make Up Store Siw

2010-02-10T14:11:00.007+01:00

Siw is the first Make Up Store polish I ever bought, I've picked up a couple more after painting this on. This is the best holo in my collection, there's no contest. It doesn't look like much in the bottle but I decided to give it a chance anyway. Painted it on, still nothing. Waited a few minutes until it was fully dried and was shocked. Super mega holo goodness! Like superhero holo! These pictures don't do it justice, and I guess the holo extraordinaire freaked my camera out so it didn't pick up much of the base colour, which is a icy blue.

Make Up Store Siw
Overcast daylight

Make Up Store Siw
Flash on lowest setting (mimics sunlight or lamplight)

This is three coats with base and top coat, application wasn't exactly anything to rave about. As you can see I still have some bald spots on my ring and pinky, the only trick to apply this is to have plenty of polish on the brush and work FAST. Never do more than 3 strokes on the nail then let it dry properly before next coat. I didn't have enough patience and got bald spots anyway, but thankfully you can't really see them in person cause of all the holoness going on. Another con is the price, at $16 a bottle I didnt't exactly go shopping crazy even though they had many colours I found pretty. Is it worth the price? For the holo's I'd say yes but I'm a real holo lover and I'm always on the look out for new ones. But for the rest of the collection I'd expect them to apply themselves for $16, you can probably find a much cheaper dupe or atleast a good enough substitute. I did pick up one creme to see what the formula is like, will it apply itself or not? I have yet to find out!

Haul: My First Models Own Polishes

2010-02-09T12:28:00.009+01:00

As many others I jumped on the 50% off offer from Models Own, and I picked up 6 bottles. Wanted many more but had to limit myself :P I recieved them yesterday, and here they are:

L to R: Top Turquoise, Slate Green and Emerald City

I loved all these 3 colours, not much else to say about them. Pretty pretty pretty! I only wish the glitter in Emerald City was a bit more dense, tried them on a swatch wheel and I lost count on the coats I had to use to make it opaque.

L to R: Beth's Blue, Lemon Sherbet and Fuzzy Peach

Beth's Blue isn't really blue at all in my eyes, more lilac or maybe a pastel lavender, I'm happy though cause it's exactly how I had hoped it would be. Lemon Sherbet is as bright as in the picture, it's fantastic! Come on spring and summer, I want to wear this baby! Fuzzy Peach was alot darker and brighter than I had hoped, not sure if I like it at all at the moment. Had hoped for a more soft pastel'y peach colour, still need to try it on and see how it looks against my skin tone. Worst come to worst I'll just mix in a bunch of white to lighten it up.

After seeing swatches of some of these over at Plane Beauty I'm bummed I didn't pick up Purple Grey instead of Fuzzy Peach. I was looking at it when I was placing my order, I should have googled for swatches before deciding against it! Maybe next time, cause I'm sure I'll be wanting to shop for more Models Own!

Well, it happened..

2010-02-05T19:29:00.005+01:00

What I hoped wouldn't happen, happened. One of the winners of my Viva la Diva giveaway never got back to me to claim her prize. So I was forced to re-draw a winner for the 2nd prize...

And the new 2nd prize winner is...

(I forgot to get a screen shot of The Hat window so just imagine it's here displaying the right name :P)

EVIL ANGEL!

Congratulations! I've sent you an e-mail =)

Poll and a little Request

2010-02-04T14:13:00.005+01:00

Hi everyone!

Hope you're all having a good day! I'm feeling productive, lots of posts today, 3 so far, whew! I have a poll going in the sidebar. Since I've had no motivation for nail art lately I thought maybe it'd be fun to do a nail art contest for inspiration and maybe get some new ideas. I wanted to check on the response from your readers first to see if there's even an interest in one, so please place your vote :) Also feel free to come with suggestions for themes and prizes for such a contest!

I also have a little request, to anyone who happens to live close to a Claire's. Like many others I read Brookes blog, Getcha Naild Did and recently she posted the most fantastic mini collection from Claire's with bright pastels and I NEED it! I'm also on the hunt for Claire's Dream Catcher as I completely missed out on Chanel Jade. So, is anyone out there interested in maybe doing a swap, or could help me shop for them and ship them over here? Pretty please *puppy eyes* If you are willing to do this, please send me an e-mail!

EDIT: I found someone to swap me get the polishes I wanted, BIG thank you to everyone who offered to help. You all ROCK!

Giveaway Roundup!

2010-02-04T13:36:00.004+01:00

I'm not the only one having a giveaway right now, here's some other giveaways you all should go enter! These ladies all have lovely blogs!

Kelly from Plane Beauty is celebrating 100 followers! Congrats Kelly! She's giving away lots of great stuff.

Click the Picture above to read the rules and enter!

Gildedangel from Naive Nails is celebrating 300 followers and is giving everyone a chance to win some great Milani holograpic polishes!

Click the picture above to get to her awesome giveaway!

Diana from Painted Lady Fingers teamed up with Color Club and is giving away their new Rebel Debutante Collection, how awesome is that?

Click the picture above to get magically transported to Diana's little corner of the web and to her contest!

Last, but definitely not least, Andrea from Black Nail Polish and Lipgloss hit 300 followers and is celebrating that by giving away some really awesome loot! So much it takes 2 pictures to fit it all, check it!

Click any of the two pictures above to get to her giveaway!

What are you waiting for? GO! NOW!
But come back soon! and don't forget to enter my giveaway :)

NOTD: China Glaze 100 Proof Pink

2010-02-04T12:46:00.004+01:00

As promised here's a nail picture of the first of the two colours that you can win in my 200 followers giveaway, the discontinued 100 Proof Pink from China Glaze.

China Glaze 100 Proof Pink

This is three coats of this pretty hot pink colour with silver glass fleck shimmer. This is a colour that makes me happy and feels like a real spring shade. The formula is great, had no application problems at all and it was really easy to control the polish with the brush. Note that this is the old China Glaze formula and it is NOT 3-free as their new polishes are. This isn't anything that bothers me personally but figured it was worth pointing out anyway. I'm really tempted to do some cute nailart on this polish, maybe something fitting for Valentines but I've had no inspiration lately, hope that changes soon!

200 Followers/Valentines Giveaway!

2010-02-03T12:02:00.007+01:00

***CONTEST CLOSED ***

Things are just happening too fast on my blog! Have barely finished one giveaway before it's time for another, but I'm having alot of fun doing this! This time I'm celebrating 200 followers and that Valentines is coming up so I thought it was a good idea to give away some pink polishes! One lucky person will win 2 discontinued and hard to find China Glaze polishes! I managed to get my hands on doubles of these 2 colours when I was looking for them for myself and with the ammount of polish I own I will never ever finish a bottle of any colour so I'm giving away my unused backups of 100 Proof Pink, hot pink with silver glass fleck shimmer and No Way Jose, this is version 2 which is more pink toned than the original but still gorgeous with the same glass fleck shimmer.
I will post nail pictures of both colours shortly so you get a better idea on what they look like, until then here's a bottle pic!

Left to Right: China Glaze No Way Jose and China Glaze 100 Proof Pink

***CONTEST CLOSED ***

Here's how to enter:
Post a comment where you list your entries and include your e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. Please post only one comment with all entries, this will make it alot easier for me. To make it fair for everyone I will disqualify entries that does not follow the rules or haven't included an e-mail address.

Mandatory:

1. Become a follower, if you are already a follower that's certainly fine! Use your blogger/google friend connect account to post your entry and make sure you're not following privately, that's the only way I can check that this mandatory rule is being followed. (1 entry)

Optional extra entries:

2. Tell me which rare and discontinued nailpolish you most would like to get your hands on! (1 entry)

3. Spread the word! Make a post about the contest on your blog that links back to this page and contain the picture of the prize. Please provide a link in your entry comment. (2 entries)

4. Add me to your blogroll, if I'm already on it that counts too. Please provide a link in your entry comment. (1 entry)

***CONTEST CLOSED***

You can get a total of 5 entries! This contest is open to everyone, doesn't matter where in the world you live, it ends February 14th at midnight GMT+1 (6pm EST).

Good luck ladies! :)

Best Blog Award!

2010-02-03T11:16:00.004+01:00

I got tagged by Solveig who has the great blog Nailin' It! Thank you so much Solveig!

The rules of this tag are as follows:

1. To accept the award, you must post it on your blog, with the name of the person who has given you the award, and a link to their blog.
2. Pass the award on to approximately 10-15 blogs that you have recently discovered and think are great!
3. Contact the bloggers to let them know they have been chosen for this award.

I nominate:
Nail-Design
Mon Coin à Moua
Catch the Beauty with Arie
Nails of the Day
The Chain Nail

and everyone else who is on my blogroll and haven't been tagged yet and wants to play!

Viva la Diva Giveaway Winners!

2010-02-02T21:27:00.008+01:00

It's been a long wait but now it's finally over and I have drawn the 2 winners!

The second prize winner is..

Polish Passion!

and..

First prize goes to..

GINA!

Congratulations to both of you ladies! I have sent out e-mails to you, please reply as soon as possible. If I for some reason have not gotten a reply within the next 48 hours I will have to re-draw a winner for that prize.

Thank you to all who participated, I had alot of fun doing this and I hope you did too! And soon there will be a new chance to win some rare and discontinued shades!

NOTD: OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede

2010-02-02T11:47:00.005+01:00

Hello everyone!
Hope you all had a great weekend! Today I'm showing you this beauty, Lincoln Park After Dark from OPI's suede collection.

Lincoln Park After Dark Suede - with topcoat

I love these suede polishes, they have this superpretty silver microglitter in them which makes them different and special. I prefer to wear them with topcoat because I love the shine and dimension it gives. It also helps a great deal on the durability of these polishes. This was 2 coats and application is good if you work somewhat fast, they dry really fast so if you don't cover your whole nail fast enough you might get dragging, streaks etc. but OPI's wide brush really helps with that. I don't own the original LPAD but as far as I know this looks nothing like it, imo they should have named it something new. It's really gorgeous, almost like a slightly blackened purple basecolour, in most lights the egdes look really dark and the middle is purple and the silver glitter brightens it some and makes it interesting to look at.

Coming up: My Viva La Diva giveaway has come to an end, I will draw and post the winners later today and soon I will announce my new 200 followers giveaway!

NOTD: Glitter Gal 3D Dark Purple

2010-01-30T16:19:00.003+01:00

Here's the other holo polish that I recived from Kerry at Glitter Gal. A gorgeous dark purple with chunky holo glitter.

Glitter Gal 3D Dark Purple
Excuse my ghastly pale hands, they're not this bad in reality but for some reason they looked like that in the only colour accurate picture I got

I took the picture using flash on a low setting as it was late and dark, but it looks pretty accurate to how it looks in sunlight and lamplight. It's super pretty and I love how dark it is compared to other purple holo's I own. I had a little application issues with this, it was like it wanted to grab and drag itself and I had some bald spots after the first coat but I waited for a little longer than normal for it to dry before applying 2nd coat and that smoothed it all out and made it perfect. Maybe I should let my basecoat dry for a little longer before using this next time.

*Product courtesy of Glitter Gal

NOTD: Glitter Gal 3D Copper

2010-01-29T12:51:00.009+01:00

Today I'm wearing Copper from Glitter Gals 3D collection and it's gorgeous. The finish is definitely compareable to China Glazes OMG collection, which is pretty much as good as a holo can get in my book!

Glitter Gal 3D Copper

As all holo's this one is much more impressive in reality than in pictures but I did my best to catch the effect and get it colour accurate at the same time. This is three coats and application was flawless, I love how there's a full size brush in that little bottle. The colour makes me think salmon pink, not copper. It does look more like copper in the bottle though so it might be my skintone that is changing the colour, but that's only a good thing as I think this colour is much more flattering on me than any copper would be. As usual when wearing Glitter Gals products I feel the need to go shop for more. I'm a sucker for holo's and they have a big range of colours to chose from. Me likey!

Every time I post GG NOTD's I always get asked where to buy them so I figured I'd add it to the post instead :) Glitter Gal polishes can be purchased directly from their website http://www.glittergal.com.au/. They ship worldwide!

*Products courtesy of Glitter Gal

PS. Saw that I've hit 200 followers, there will be a new giveaway starting next week when the first one is over! Keep an eye out for that!!

Coming Up: Glitter Gal Holographic Polishes

2010-01-27T13:06:00.004+01:00

Kerry at Glitter Gal sent me 2 of their holographic, or 3D, polishes that I didn't own to review. I'm really excited about both of these colours, check them out!

Left to Right: Glitter Gal 3D Copper and 3D Dark Purple
The white balance on my camera was set all wrong, therefore the yellow'ish background, but the bottle colours still look pretty accurate to me.

The purple has the same chunky holo glitter as in the previous Glitter Gal polishes that I've tried. The copper on the other hand look more like a China Glaze OMG holo in the bottle, with the fine glitter and more of a smooth holographic finish. I'm definitely excited about these, I had been eyeing the purple before and the copper one with the different holo finish definitely looks interesting. Pictures of these on my nails are coming up later this week!

NOTD: China Glaze Dorothy Who?

2010-01-26T15:18:00.004+01:00

This beauty had been sitting in my untrieds for way too long! Haven't really been in a glitter mood, but decided to wear this one anyway and I'm glad I did! It's gorgeous!

China Glaze Dorothy Who?

China Glaze Dorothy Who?
Blurry to show the glitter

China Glaze Dorothy Who? bottle

This is a blue jelly'ish base packed full with blue and silver glitter. Absolutely gorgeous, no pictures do this polish justice. It took 3 coats to get it opaque which isn't bad at all compared to other glitters I own. I could rave about how pretty this is for hours, but other than that there isn't much to say about it. If you like blue glitters you NEED this!

Giveaway Reminder!

2010-01-24T12:28:00.001+01:00

Hello Ladies!
Just wanted to remind you about my giveaway, there's still one more week to enter! I would also like to thank all of you who already entered, one of the best things about this is all the new blogs I've found by reading all the comments. Awesome blogs I didn't even know exsisted!

This is what you can win:

First Prize
Left to Right: Viva la Diva #1, #2, #3, #5 and #6.

Second Prize
Left to Right: Viva la Diva #2 and #6.

Click any of the pictures above to get to the contest!

I noticed I was getting close to 200 followers and that's the mark for my next giveaway! I won't reveal the prize just yet but I can tell you it's something most of you will recognize but it's also something that is really hard to come by now a days.. curious? ;D

Polish Bloggers Network: Lacquer Link Love 1/22/10

2010-01-22T12:50:00.001+01:00

Chromatic Misadventures has put together a wonderful array of swatches that include nail colors from Nails Inc., Zoya, Butter London, Essie, and so many more.

Polish Up brings you the sparkled beauty OPI Blues in the Night.

Can you appreciate a good haul? Well if so, let Black Nail Polish and Lipgloss show off the awesome goodies that she received from Lisa of Glammed Up.

The Nail Nerd has a polish sweet tooth caused by Orly's Sweet Collection.

Happy Vamp Valentines Day! The Swatchaholic shares a wonderful Konad sweet... I mean treat with all of you.

Raz from Manicure Mommasswatches her CND survey goodies and gives you an up close and personal preview.

Are you quite unfond of the scent of polish remover and feel you could live without the smell?! Well if so, Polish Galore gives a wonderful review of the lavendar scented polish removers Seche Erase & Zoya Remove.

Kellie from "Also Known As dazzles us with the gorgeous new shades of OPI's Designer Series featuring polishes infused with diamond dust.

Probably one of the most popular colors in the China Glaze Up & Away Collection, Prim and Polished brings you gorgeous swatches of Four Leaf Clover.

Naive Nails gives us a little Absolutely Alice from OPI's Alice in Wonderland

Green is the hottest color of the season... and polishSWATCHES brings you a shade you'll adore.

and now for the goodies....

Bring on the Network Giveaways!!!

How would you like to add 3 bottles of China Glaze polish to your collection? Well, let Polish Galore show you how!

You'll definitely want to be sure and check out the Nail Nerd Giveaway... she's giving away some gorgeous Viva la Diva Nail Lacquers.

Black Nail Polish and Lipgloss is having a fun and creative contest that you just have to see for yourself. I just can't spill the beans on this one!

And lastly, have you been dying to get your hands on polishes from the China Glaze Up & Away Collection?! Well, if your answer is yes... check out the Polish Freak and she'll be glad to give some to you.

Orly Sweet Swatches

2010-01-22T00:16:00.005+01:00

Here they are, what you've all been waiting for! Or even if you didn't, here's swatches of the half of the Sweet collection that I recived.

L to R: Gumdrop, Cotton Candy and Lollipop
This is half of the Sweet collection - available April 2010

Orly Gumdrop

Gumdrop is a turquoise pastel creme. I had expected this to be more mint green for some reason, the promo text says turquoise though and that's exactly what it is. It's really flattering on me and I can definitely see myself wearing this alot later this spring. It took 2 coats for it to be opaque and I had no application issues what so ever, the formula was smooth and easy to work with.

Orly Cotton Candy

This baby was a surprise! As I've said before this wasn't really appealing to me. Never had a thing for light pinks and this one looked like a pig pink in the bottle, the colour a cartoon pig would have, but with a slight peachy tone. My skintone brought out all that peachy goodness though, to my delight. It really is peachy, or like a pastel coral on me. It's a great spring and summer colour. Really want to wear this on my toes. This one was a bit streaky and stringy and it took 3 coats and topcoat for it to be opaque and even.

Orly Lollipop

This was a colour I thought I would love but I didn't, I like it but I don't love it. It is a pretty purple pastel, but it made my hands look super pale, like I'm undead or something. I have a golden undertone, that shows in the picture but in reality it made my skintone look grey and pale. I will give it another chance when I've developed a little tan, or atleast got more colour on my skin from not being freezing all the time! On the good side it was almost opaque in one coat, had I put a little more polish on the brush to cover my whole nail I would have stopped at that. But I didn't and got some streaks so I needed a 2nd coat to even it out.

Over all I'm happy with these colours, and I want a few more from this collection especially the yellow one, it looks great in the swatches I've seen! I thought the formula was good on all of these, was only Cotton Candy who gave me a little problem but it was easily fixable by applying 3 coats so it was no biggie. I think Gumdrop is my favourite and Cotton Candy as the close 2nd and last Lollipop, but I have a feeling I'll change my mind later on when I try them against more tanned skin. I'm again happy that Orly sent me a colour I would never have picked myself cause I ended up liking it far more than I thought. They came with little lipglosses but one was missing so I decided not to swatch those, I can tell you that they smell GREAT though, like fruity candy, I just love sniffing them, too bad they don't taste as good as they smell! These colours will be available in april so keep your eyes out at your favourite e-tailers!

*Products courtesy of Laforce + Stevens

Orly Bloom Swatches

2010-01-20T19:13:00.007+01:00

I've finally swatched the Orly polishes I got, all but 2 anyway. So I'll show you the Bloom colours today and Sweet tomorrow

L to R Thorned Rose, Wandering Vine, Blushing Bud
This is half of the Bloom Collection.

Orly Thorned Rose

Thorned Rose was the one colour out of the 3 I didn't find appealing at first. In the bottle it looks like a dark berry red creme, but I was wrong! It's a blood red jelly and it's really pretty on the nail. I can definitely see myself wearing this again, it makes me think of vampires. This is 3 coats, it was kind of opaque after 2 but I had some lighter areas and did another coat to even it out.

Orly Wandering Vine

Wandering Vine is everything I had hoped Enchanted Forest (Orly Fall 2009) would be. I wore that shade once and then I trade it off, it just fell flat on me. This on the other hand is gorgeous! Pretty dark green creme, that looks green in pretty much all lights. It's shiney and I love this colour. Took 2 coats for it to be opaque and it went on smoothly.

Orly Blushing Bud

Blushing Bud is a hot pink creme. Nothing spectacular about it, but I didn't own any pinks like this so it was very welcomed in to my collection. I like pinks, even though I tell myself I don't when I go polish shopping, hardly any pinks end up in my basket and I'm not sure why. This colour looks brighter and almost with a neon touch in some lights and like a regular hot pink creme in others. It would have been opaque in one coat if I had been a little more careful, but I had to do two to even it out. The formula was a little thick and I think I might thin it a little to make it easier to work with next time.

I ended up liking all 3 of the colours Orly sent me from this collection. Wandering Vine was my favourite as I had thought but Thorned Rose was a surprise and is a very close 2nd. I'm really happy they sent it to me cause I would never have bought it myself judging from how it looks in the bottle. Over all the formula was good and they were easy to work with, and the colours were gorgeous even though they kind of feel like fall colours more than spring to me.

*Products courtesy of LaForce + Stevens

NOTD: China Glaze Octa Gone Wild

2010-01-19T11:04:00.004+01:00

Hi guys!
This weekend has been super hectic, and I didn't manage to get anything done which means no Orly swatches yet =( But I've got tomorrow off work so I'm gonna try and get all of them done in the morning. Today I'm wearing an "old classic", kind of, Octa Gone Wild from China Glaze's Kaleidoscope collection. The only colour I own from that collection, and I regret not buying the rest. Think a few colours are still available at some e-tailers though.

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild -low light

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild - Bottle

This is the holographic collection that came out before China Glaze's OMG collection, if you compare the two Kaleidoscope has bigger holographic particles versus OMG who is much more fine. They both have that real holographic finish though, it's not just holo glitter or shimmer in a coloured base. It is super interesting to look at, you can see the holo effect even in low light but it's in sunlight or direct light this polish really pops. It applied smoothly and I didn't have any problem with dragging when appyling multiple coats, like some have experienced with holo polishes. By the time I got to the last nail on the hand the first one was already dry enough to apply next coat. After 2 coats some nails were opaque while others weren't so I did 3 coats on all. Would probably have been enough with 2 if I had applying more even coats. I topped it off with Poshé as I always do, some say topcoat lessen the holo effect but that isn't anything I have noticed. At first when you apply the topcat it will lessen, but as soon as it's fully dry all that holo goodness is back again and I need topcoat or I'd have all nails chipped within 15minutes at work :P

Polish Bloggers Network: Lacquer Link Love 1/15/10

2010-01-15T12:53:00.000+01:00

Get prepared as The Swatchaholic shows off her Konad skills. Bringing you her fabulous "throwback" Hello Kitty Manicure inspired by MAC's Love Lace collection.

As Magic-Maid takes you to the Land of Oh Ahz and makes you think twice about clicking your heels to leave.

For those of you who have been pining over Chanel's Jade nail color, PolishFreak brings you a possible dupe. And if that particular green wasn't enough for your color fix check out Polish Up's shade from Charlotte Russe.

The Nail Nerd gives us a little "Viva la Diva" .... as Helens Nice Things shows off a lust worthy Holographic polish from H & M.

Bright Lights Big Color shows us how to "Step Outside the Box" all while Phreshmentality shows us that a little money dedicated to our nails never hurt anybody.

Also, check out Network Giveaways....

PolishFreak is giving away a set of American Apparel's backordered nail polishes.

Polish Galore is giving away Cina Glaze's Up & Away Grape Pop, Seche Vite Top Coat, and a bottle of Matte Magic.

The Swatchaholic is giving away a host of different polishes along with some nail jewel accessories.

and Body Soul Beauty is hosting her weekly Friday Freebie giveaway.

NOTD: Viva la Diva Fall #4 + Konad

2010-01-14T11:06:00.004+01:00

Hi guys!
The Orly colours will have to wait until the weekend when I'll have more daylight hours to swatch on. Today I'm wearing a polish from the Viva la Diva collection I'm giving away here. Of course I had to pick the only colour not in the contest, but #5 is a very close relative to this one. I wanted to add some Konad and it took 5 (yes, five!) tries to get the little bow straight, don't know what was up with me when I was trying to do this. Didn't clean up the old stamps enough either so after adding topcoat I saw the whole nail had a thin coat of silver shimmer. It would look nice, if it was on all nails!

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #4

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #4 Bottle

I've said it before but it's worth saying again, I really like this collection! The colours are nice and dusty, wearable almost all year around and they are opaque in one to two coats, I did 2 coats for this manicure. This purple is super pretty, I would call it a dusty grape. It's slightly more dusty than it shows in the picture, looks closer to the bottle picture. I was pretty uninspired with the Konad, but I really wanted some decoration so I used China Glaze Sci-Fi and m56 on the ring fingers and finished off by placing a little rhinestone in the center of the bow. That's all I had today, have a nice thursday everyone!

Coming up: Orly Spring and Summer Collections

2010-01-13T12:51:00.009+01:00

I know you guys might have already seen these, but I am super excited about these colours. Orly was super kind and sent me 3 bottles each from the Bloom (Spring 2010) and Sweet (Summer 2010) collections to try out. They look great, most of them are colours I had planned on buying, and the rest looks much better in real life than in the pictures I had seen so I'm excited about them too!

Here is what I got

Orly Bloom Collection - Available now
Left to Right: Thorned Rose, Wandering Vine and Blushing Bud

Orly Sweet Collection - Available April 2010
Left to Right: Gumdrop, Cotton Candy, Lollipop

Out of the Bloom collection I had already been eyeing and thinking about buying Wandering Vine and Blushing Bud, they look great in the bottles! Thorned Rose is not a colour I would have picked myself, it is pretty though and look better in reality than in pictures. I don't own anything like it so it'll definitely be interesting to try it out. I'm a sucker for pastels so I've been looking forward to the Sweet collection. Gumdrop and Lollipop are my spontanious favourites out of the three I recieved. I hadn't planned on buying Cotton Candy at all as I thought it'd be a straight pastel pink, but it kind of has a peachy tone which makes it much more appealing to me. Going to be interesting to see how these look on the nails!

*Products courtesy of LaForce + Stevens

NOTD: Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue

2010-01-12T14:52:00.006+01:00

Wanted something brighter today and went with this pretty electric blue colour with holographic glitter from glitter Gal. I wouldn't call this a real holographic polish as the glitter isn't as dense as in China Glaze's OMG collection for example, but it's pretty none the less and the blue colour makes me happy!

Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue

Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue with flash

Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue bottle

This polish looks on the nail as it does in the bottle in the bottom picture, the holographic glitter is much more visible than I was able to capture in the pictures of my nails, the electric blue colour is accurate though. It went on smoothly and was almost opaque in one coat, had a few spots that weren't so I did two coats to even it out. This polish is really fun, bright and pretty and the Glitter Gal formula is very good. I'm really taking a liking to their polishes, even though I've only worn 2 so far, when my budget allows it I need to buy a few more I think!

NOTD: P2 Glory

2010-01-11T22:01:00.005+01:00

Just a quick post to show you guys I'm still alive. I've had alot going on this weekend and now I'm feeling ill, sore throat and fever'ish :( Decided to paint my nails today to cheer myself up and I grabbed this pretty from my untrieds box. P2 Glory, a colour I can't really decide if it's green or gold. Antique gold maybe? It looks almost olive green in some lights, it makes me think of one of my major lemmings China Glaze Out on Safari, wish I owned that so I could do a comparison. It's a friggin' awesome colour anyway!

P2 Glory

P2 Glory

P2 Glory Bottle

This beauty was almost opaque in one coat, but I did two anyway to even it out. It was a tiny bit thick but still very easy to apply, probably thanks to the P2 brush shape which is a bit wider than regular brushes and spreads more polish on the nail and makes it easier to control. I liked this polish in the bottle, I LOVED it on the nail! Don't own another colour like this but have a handful on my lemming list so I have a feeling this will be used alot! Wish P2 was sold in Sweden, so far I have really liked their colours, brushes and formulas.

You've Got Nail Giveaway!

2010-01-09T22:03:00.003+01:00

Who wants some polishes from down under? I know I do! Jacie from You've Got Nail is having her January Giveaway, and is giving away 5 bottles of Models Prefer polish! Check it out!

Click the picture above to get to the contest!

The Story About the Missing Followers Box!

2010-01-09T16:52:00.005+01:00

I have been recieving e-mails from readers who are unable to follow my blog, so I thought it would be a good idea to make a post about it to explain it and try to solve it for you guys.
The problem is when the followers box (located in the right most column, named Other Nail Nerds) either go missing completely or will load as an empty white box, sometimes it'll even load a part of an ad which is not supposed to be there!
It can look something like this:

WRONG!
Using latest version of Mozilla Firefox

If this is happening to you, note what browser you are using. It seems to only happen in older versions of various browsers and in Firefox (doesn't matter which version here). The easiest fix is to install and use the latest version of Internet Explorer or Google Chrome and you shouldn't have any problems viewing my site. I know Firefox had some issues in their latest update, maybe something that affects this, so I hope that soon there won't be any problems using that browser either.
This is what it should look like:

RIGHT!
Using latest version of Internet Explorer

I know which script is the "bad guy" and interfers with the follower box, but I do not know why it would not display correctly, why it's only the followers box that is affected by it or why some browsers have no problems with it while others do. I have been trying different things to try and solve this but so far I've got nothing. I'll keep trying, but updating your browser might still be a good idea!

If you find any other problems on my site, please let me know so I can get right on to fixing it, try to anyway :P

NOTD: Orly Happily Ever After

2010-01-08T18:54:00.006+01:00

Today I'm wearing Happily Ever After, a dark berry pink creme from Orly's 2009 fall collection, Once Upon a Time. I call it a creme even though it has a slight shimmer, in most lights it isn't visible so it's like a creme with a little surprise. This is a colour I've changed my mind about a million times, especially during application. Do I like or is it just not for me?

Orly Happily Ever After
Note that it is darker in real life than in the pictures. For some reason my index finger nail looks darker than the rest, that is closer to reality

Orly Happily Ever After with flash
See the tiny ammount of shimmer? It definitely shows more in the bottle
than on the nail

Orly Happily Ever After bottle

I think I do like it, maybe even more than I thought I would when I bought it. The first coat of polish made me think "Oh, no! Why did I buy this?!", it was an extremely unflattering dark pink. Then it just got better with each coat, the colour got deeper and more berry, after 3 coats it was opqaue and it looked okay but thought it would need some Konad to be wearable for me. Now though, after it has dried and darkened and I've worn it for a couple of hours it has definitely grown on me. It doesn't need Konad! It's pretty as it is!

Nail Art: Burberry Print

2010-01-07T20:00:00.004+01:00

Hi guys!
I couldn't get myself to remove the gorgeous Nfu-Oh combo from yesterday, gonna leave it on til tomorrow, so instead I have some archive pictures for you. I have loads of old pre-blog nailart pictures so I figured why not post one of those? This is my take on the Burberry print on nails.

Burberry Print on Nails

Materials I used
L to R: My little mini franken, Burberry, I mixed especially for this manicure, No name nail art colours in Black, White and Red

Aaah! Look at my little nubbins! This picture is from late summer I believe, had much shorter nails back then. Keep seeing cute short nails on blogs and swatches and start to think that maybe I should file mine down too, but when I see these pictures I change my mind, this just isn't me.
For this manicure I started with 2 coats, I believe, of my very crappy and chunky franken. Then striped with the white colour, 2 lines going in each direction with just a small space between. Alternating doing the horizontal lines at the top and bottom of the nail. Filled in that space with a black stripe and added another one on the inside of the white lines. Finished by drawing the red lines and top it with Poshé. I'm surprised the lines look this good cause the brushes in these eBay nailart polishes are horrible. Some are short and thick, others long. Some have bristles sticking out in every possible direction and some are just bent. Ugh! Anywho, I can't decide if I like this design or if I just find it kind of cheesy.

What do you guys think?

NOTD: Essie Midnight Cami meets Nfu-Oh #52

2010-01-06T23:19:00.006+01:00

I just can't stop looking at my nails! As you know I recieved some Nfu-Oh's recently in a swap with Kirsten, but I hadn't tried them out on my nails yet. Experimented some on fake nail tips to figure out nice combinations for layering, this was one of them. But it's just so much better on the nails, check it!

Nfu-Oh #52 over Essie Midnight Cami

Nfu-Oh #52 over Essie Midnight Cami with flash

The happy couple! L to R: Essie Midnight Cami and Nfu-Oh #52

This is 2 coats of Essie Midnight Cami with one coat of Nfu-Oh #52. It's absolutely stunning, it's like a flakey duochrome. It shifts between blue and green depending on the lighting and I think I've seen some purple flash by a few times, and it has shimmer and flakies. All that mashed up in to one manicure is just awesome overload! The top picture shows how it looks in daylight, can really see the green and blue flakies pop on the blue bottom. The flash picture is how it looks right now in lamp light, it's just packed with green shimmer, looks like an emerald green shimmer fest! I keep moving my hands around to see how it changes in different lights, the pictures just don't do this manicure justice. It's impossible to capture everything that is going on with this polish, I need a friggin' video blog or something! As for application, the Essie is an Essie, never had any problems with them. It might have been a tiny bit runny but that seems to be common with dark blue colours and I'm always a little extra careful when applying them, it took 2 coats to get opaque. I had expected the Nfu-Oh to be more sheer but one coat was enough to get that shimmer and flakie madness going on. I need to try this beauty on it's own, it's real base colour is purple so it can't be anything else than fabulous! I definitely need to get my hands on a few more Nfu-Oh's when my budget allows it.

Happy hump day everyone!

NOTD: Zoya Yasmeen

2010-01-05T15:55:00.007+01:00

Today I'm wearing the gorgeous Zoya Yasmeen, probably one of the most perfect purples out there. Not much else to say about it, check it out!

Zoya Yasmeen

Zoya Yasmeen Bottle

This beauty is definitely my favourite purple shimmer, it's so gorgeous. It's perfectly balanced between blue and red and the slightly lighter shimmer makes it looks really deep and interesting. The formula is great, it went on smoothly and was opaque in 2 coats. I have been wearing this for the past few days actually and I am impressed with the wear, it almost looks like I just applied it. No chips, no tipwear and it's still shiny and pretty. If you only plan on buying one purple ever, it should be this one!

Tip and Toe Care: Part 4 At Home Manicure

2010-01-04T19:13:00.003+01:00

Now we're finally up to one the fun parts of this series, at home manicure! This will be as a step by step guide to walk you through a good weekly manicure routine for natural nails, but of course most of it can be implemented on artificial nails as well. I'll try and explain things along the way but if something isn't clear just ask, or maybe you can find the answer in one of the previous articles, you can find the links at the bottom of this post. Let's get started!

Preparation
Start by removing old polish, don't forget to clean under the free edge. To affect your nailplate as little as possible try not to rub while removing polish. Moisten a cotton pad or ball, gently press against the nailplate and hold until the nailpolish is dissolved then swipe towards the free edge. For nailart items, glitter polishes or other hard to remove nail polish you can wrap the finger tip in aluminium foil instead of holding the cotton down. This will prevent the remover from evaporating before the polish or nail glue is fully dissolved. Use a cotton bud or a orange stick wrapped with cotton to remove any polish that might be under your free edge.

Filing, Shaping the Nails
The aim of filing is to shape the nails without causing damage to the nailplate. Make sure you have a good file or emeryboard (you can read more about nail files in Part 3). Hold the nail file lightly between your thumb, middle finger and index finger, never apply pressure while filing, let the file do the work. Holding the nail file at a 45degree angle, leaning the bottom part towards your finger tip, start filing in one direction only, from the outside corner towards the middle. Sawing back and forth across the free edge can distrupt the nail plate layers and cause splitting or peeling. Some say the ideal shape of the nails should mirror the shape of the cuticle i.e. oval cuticle should have a oval free edge. I personally think you should pick the shape you like and feel comfortable with.
Here are the most common nail shapes:

Round Nail Shape
A round nail shape will give your nails strenght and a natural look. Start by filing the lenght down as much as you want, file off the corners to make them round and make the curve of the free edge smooth and rounded.

Square Nail Shape
A square nailshape has a straight free edge with smooth corners. This shape is fairly strong and is a popular shape. To get a square nail shape you have to file down the free edge to the length you like. Make the side of the nails straight by holding the nail file along the side wall. Finish by slightly curving the corners and smooth the free edge.

Oval Nail Shape
The oval shape is probably the most classic and elegant shape but unfortunately it makes them easier to break. To make an oval shape you start by filing the lenght down as you like. Start shaping the nail by creating an arch from the side wall to the top (middle) of the free edge. Make sure you get both sides symetrical, creating a smooth oval, egg shape.

Squoval Nail Shape
Squoval is a fairly new shape that is becoming more and more popular, especially for longer nails. It's a mix between square and oval with the straight side walls but the tip is rounded or oval instead of straight. Start by filing down the free edge to the lenght you like. Make the sides straight by holding the nail file along the side wall. Depending on how much of a rounded tip you want, start a little bit down on the side wall and start making an arch towards the top (middle) of the free edge, make sure you start at the same spot for both sides to make the curve symmetrical.

When you have achieved the shape that you want, smooth and seal the free edge by using a 3-way buffer. This will seal the layers of the free edge to prevent splitting or peeling.

Cuticle Care
There are a number of ways to remove the lose skin around your cuticles. Here are the ones I find the most gentle but effective.

Removing cuticles without a specific product.
1. Soak your fingers in warm water for a couple of minutes. Add some aroma oil or liquid soap to the water to help cleanse and relax you fingers.

2. Thoroughly wipe your hands

3. Apply cuticle cream, oil or lotion to the entire cuticle line and rub it in.

5. Use a cotton bud or orange stick wrapped in cotton. Dip it quickly in water to make it damp and gently push the cuticle back and by using circular movements removing the excess skin.

6. Wipe off excess creme.

Removing cuticles using a cuticle remover
There are various types of cuticle removers, make sure you read what it says on the product you have as the directions might be slightly different.

1.Apply the cuticle remover all around the cuticle area and soak your nails for a few minutes in warm water.

2. Remove the fingers from the soaking bowl and start removing the lose skin by pushing the cuticles back using an orange stick or a metal cuticle pusher. Do not use downward force as this might damage your matrix. Keep in mind that you only want to remove the dead skin, not break the seal between the nailplate and the nailfold or damage the live skin.

Some removers are already watered out and you do not need to soak before starting to remove the cuticles. Just apply, wait a little bit and start pushing your cuticles back and soak your fingers afterwards to clean your hands and make sure there's no product left on your fingers.

Never soak your nails for longer than 3 to 5 minutes. Soaking longer than that will fully saturate your nails causing the nail plate to swell. Once the plate returns to it's normal shape any nail polish that is applied will crack and chip.

If you have hang nail it's best to use a cuticle nipper and gently, following the curve of the cuticle, cut the dead skin off. Be careful so you do not cut any live tissue.

At this point you may want to exfoliate your skin. Gently massage your scrub product all over your hands for a few minutes. You can use olive oil and salt mixed together if you don't have a scrub or just like to do things yourself.

When you are all done wash your hands using liquid soap and a nail brush, don't forget the underside of the free edge! Moisturize using a regular hand lotion.

Buffing
If the nail plate is ridged or otherwise uneven you may wish to smooth it using a buffer. Buffing also makes your nails shiny and will seal the nail plate making it more durable if you do not wish to use nailpolish. If you're going to apply nailpolish and your nail surface already is smooth you can skip this step.

Whenever the nail plate surface is filed in any way, even with a buffer, it should be filed in one direction only. Buff from the matrix towards the free edge, by moving in the direction of nail growth you don't disrupt the nail plate layers as you would if you used a sawing motion or moved from side to side. Keep the speed under control, if you start feeling heat in your nail it's time to slow down or the nail might get dehydrated.

Once you have buffed all nails, using all 3 sides of the buffer apply some cuticle oil and gently massage in all around your cutucle area. I like to put a few drops of olive oil in an eggcup, heat it in the microwave and apply that. The warm oil feels great!

Applying Polish
Applying polish sounds easy enough, but there are a few things that are good to think about.

Start off by removing any moisture, oil or lotion left on your nails, as the polish wont adhere properly to an oily surface. Wipe your nail plate with a cotton pad damp with nail polish remover or a 'prep' product. Don't forget the underside of the free edge.

Always use a basecoat as this will prevent staining and also make the colored polish adhere better to you nails. As I've mentioned in previous articles, nail polish protects your nails from water and fully saturated nails is a bad thing. I always apply basecoat to the under side of my free edge as well, it helps them keep their shape and not curve from constantly being saturated and dehydrated.

Start applying the colored nail polish by painting a little bit of polish on the free edge, the very tip of the nail. This will bind together with the rest of then polish preventing tipwear and chips for a longer period of time.

Starting from the center of the nail, touch the brush right before the cuticle line and carefully push up the polish towards the cuticles leaving a small space, ideally the width of a hair but do more if you need to, then stroke down towards the free edge. Draw the cuticle line with the corner of the brush and stroke down towards the free edge on both sides of the middle stripe. 3 or 4 strokes should be enough to completely cover the nail, additional stroking might lift and move the enamel leaving behind streaks and/or bare spots on the nail surface. It's important that the polish do not touch the cuticles or surrounding skin as that will dehydrate the skin and block the nail folds from absorbing necessary moisture. If your hands don't feel steady or if you for other reasons have a hard time getting that little gap you can clean it up afterwards using an orange stick or a toothpick.

Repeat the previous step and do as many coats as needed for the polish to be opaque and even.

Finish off by applying topcoat! Using a slow drying top coat will make the color more vivid as slower evaporating solvents produce brighter colors. Using a polish dryer that blow air on your nails might lower the adhesion and gloss of your polish.
I'm personally a fast-dry topcoat junkie, when I paint my nails I want it to be done fast! And changing my color almost every day it doesn't matter if it would start losing brightness versus if I had used a slow drying topcoat. Some fast-dry topcaots migth cause shrinkage or cracking, it's a whole science and it has to do with how your body react to the ingredients. So try different products until you find the right one for you! Might be something to think about if you want to wear your manicure for as long as possible.

Now when you're all perfectly polished, finish up with a little bit of cuticle oil and you're good to go!

Links to previous articles in the Tip and Toe Care series:
Part 1: The Nail Anatomy
Part 2: Nail Growth
Part 3: Natural Nail Care

Sources:
My own knowledge
Marti Preuss - http://www.hooked-on-nails.com
Minnie Matsumoto - http://www.create-magical-nails.com
Various other websites where no author or sources were mentioned,
therefore I do not know who to credit.
If you recognize any of the material posted here as yours don't hesitate to contact me.

Beautiful Blogger Award!

2010-01-03T23:16:00.009+01:00

I got tagged by the lovely Arie from Catch the Beauty with Arie. This is my first tag *squee* Thank you Arie :)
For this tag you're supposed to tell 7 random facts about yourself, here are mine

1. I really am a nerd. I love video games, anime movies and fantasy books.

2. One of my personal goals is to own, and to read of course, all Dragonlance books.

3. I love to sing in the car, loudly! But hate to sing when other people could hear me.

4. I sell shoes for a living, but wish I was working with nails or interior design.

5. I've been dying my hair for so many years I'm not sure I know what my real colour is. I've had everything from blonde to red hair, I'm currently dark brown.

6. I have 2 cats which I love and talk to all the time when I'm at home. I can have the weirdest conversations with them. But that ok cause they don't judge me! :P

7. I like to think I can speak alot of languages, but in most cases I understand more than I actually speak. The languages I can speak fluently though are Swedish, English and sign language.

I'm tagging:
Kirsten from Een Minder Mutsig Nagelblog
Gildedangel from Naive Nails
L from Bright Lights, Big Color
Evil Angel from Black Nail Polish and Lip Gloss
Deez Nails from Deez Nails
Kelly from Plane Beauty
And everyone else who feels like playing and haven't been tagged yet!
Looking forward to reading your random facts!

No Nails but a New Blog Design

2010-01-03T22:53:00.005+01:00

Hi everyone!

I got a new blog design as you probably can tell! Wanted a cleaner look with more features, hope you'll like it as much as I do. If you have any ideas or inputs, notice that something is missing or not working, let me know!

I've not only made a new design this weekend, I also formated both of my computers and forgot to save Photoshop, doh! So until that is sorted there wont be any new NOTD's =(
Just letting you guys know why the blog has been quiet for a couple of days, hopefully I'll have all necessary programs back up and running shortly and I can get back to my daily posts!

Until then, take care and don't forget to enter the giveaway! It's open to EVERYone!

My First Giveaway!

2010-01-01T18:15:00.015+01:00

*** CONTEST CLOSED ***

What better way to start the new year than with a giveaway? Initially I had planned on having my first giveaway at 50 followers, but it happened so fast and at that point I didn't have any good prizes :( Then I planned for 100 followers but what the heck. I don't want to wait!
I have polishes from the collection I just swatched to give away. If you missed that post click here. I picked up every bottle they still had in the rack and ended up with a 1st and 2nd prize! Figured it was a good collection since I personally like them, they're not available outside of Sweden and they're discontinued and HTF which I hope will make them appealing to all of my followers! Anyway, less talk, more contest!

First Prize

Left to Right: #1, #2, #3, #5 and #6. The first prize winner will recieve almost the full collection, unfortunately I wasn't able to find another bottle of #4

Second Prize

Left to Right: #2 and #6. The second prize winner will walk away with 2 of my favourites from the collection.

All of the bottles are in unused condition, have my own set of the collection which I used for the swatches.

*** CONTEST CLOSED ***

Here's how to enter:
Post a comment where you list your entries and include your e-mail address so I can contact you if you win. Please post only one comment with all entries, this will make it alot easier for me. To make it fair for everyone I will disqualify entries that does not follow the rules or haven't included an e-mail address.

Mandatory:
1. Become a follower, if you are already a follower that's certainly fine! Use your blogger/google friend connect account to post your entry and make sure you're not following privately, that's the only way I can check that this mandatory rule is being followed. (1 entry)

Optional extra entries:
2. Spread the word! Make a post about the contest on your blog that links back to this page and contains one or both of the pictures of the prizes. Please provide a link in your entry comment. (2 entries)

3. Add me to your blogroll, if I'm already on it that counts too. Please provide a link in your entry comment. (1 entry)

You can get a total of 4 entries! This contest is open to everyone, doesn't matter where in the world you live, it ends February 1st at midnight GMT+1 (6pm EST). A full month from now so that everyone that wants to enter gets a chance!

Good luck everyone! This is my thank you to all of you who are following me and comment on my blog. That's what makes blogging fun! Hope you will enjoy this giveaway as much as I do!
Thanks ladies! (and gents of course, if I have any that read my blog)

*** CONTEST CLOSED ***

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 Swatches

2010-01-01T15:29:00.012+01:00

Viva la Diva is a Swedish drugstore brand. A brand I didn't care much for until recently, always thought Swedish drugstore brands were expensive for drugstore brands :P But Viva la Diva's quality is surprisingly good and they have a wide range of colors and finishes. This specific collection came out for Fall 2008, but I didn't pick them up until recently. It's discontinued but one store in town still had a few bottles left! Woo! They're more expensive than most brands you can find at e-tailers but cheaper than buying those name brands at the stores here. Nail polishes and make-up is generally expensive in Sweden, so I guess these are "cheap" considering.
This collection consist of 6 colors, conviniently named 1 through 6. I did some quick one finger swatches, and why am I showing you this now you might ask? You'll find out in my next post! ;)

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #1

This is a light dusty, greyed out purple. Super pretty colour. Really pigmented, it was opaque in 2 thin coats, probably would have been fine with only 1 thicker coat.

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #2

Muted army green colour, looks a bit olive green in brighter lighting. Used 2 thin coats, for shorter nails or if you do thicker coats 1 coat will suffice. One of my favourites of this collection.

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #3

Dusty, muted pink. It looks "pig pink" in the bottle, didn't think I would like this at all but on the nail it dried to a darker, more dusty pink which is much more flattering. Took only 1 coat to be opaque, I like!

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #4

Medium, dusty grape purple. Really pretty, don't own a color like this and I dont know why! I seem to only buy lilac cremes, and purple shimmers but no real purple cremes. I've been missing out, this is gorgeous! This was 2 coats but just as the rest of the collection, 1 thick coat probably would had been enough.

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #5

This is another gorgeous purple creme, #4's darker sister. Not quite as dark as in the pictures, but a very dark purple. Looks purple in all lights though, not black as dark cremes have a tendency to do. Used 2 thin coats but 1 thick probably would have done the job.

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #6

Dusty, tan, nude colour. Another one of my favourites. It gets a grey tone in some lights, it's really pretty if you like nudes. Bet this is gorgeous as a base for some Konad. Very work appropriate but still not boring. This was a bit more chunky than the rest of the colors as you can tell in my picture, maybe it's just my bottle, gonna add some thinner to it before I use it next time. I'm sure a topcoat would even it out, but I did all the swatches without and didn't want to do this one different. Used 2 coats but 1 would be enough if you're careful while applying.

I like this whole collection, they're all really pigmented, the colours are super pretty and perfectly dusty. Could work both in the spring and the autumn. The few cons are that they're only available as mini bottles (but since they're so pigmented you wont need to use as much for a mani) and their names, I guess it makes sense to call them 1 to 6, Viva la Diva name all of their polishes by numbers. But they already have those numbers on other colours in their core collection, might get confusing. The biggest con is probably that it's discontinued and pretty much impossible to find now, I bet it would sell well as full size bottles in the core collection!

HAPPY NEW YEARS! Party Manicure!

2009-12-31T16:32:00.008+01:00

HAPPY NEW YEARS EVERYONE!
Just got off work and in a rush to get ready for tonights party but figured I'd have time to post the party manicure anyway! I started with maybe 5 design ideas, narrowed it down to the 2 I thought would be fastest to make and ended up running out of time and doing none of them but a even easier design that still looks festive and more complicated than it is! I'm wearing all black and thought white nails would be a nice contrast.

Left Hand
I'm a leftie so this naturally isn't as nice as the right one

Right Hand

Thumb Close Up

For this I started with 3 coats of Essie Blanc, the only white polish I own. Then I used a black nail art liner and outlined the petals, filled them with Zoya Trixie. Did the dots using Color Club Black and a dotting tool. I really need to buy a smaller dotting tool, could barely touch the nail with it or the dots would be too big, but I used what I had! You can tell I was in a hurry cause pretty much all the dots got dragged in the topcoat :( On a good note it isn't as noticeable in real life as in the pictures.

Hope you all have a great day and evening!

NOTD: China Glaze Channelesque

2009-12-30T11:24:00.010+01:00

A while ago I managed to get my paws on some discontinued shades I had been lemming. Here's one of them, the gorgeous China Glaze Channelesque. I'm not sure what to call this colour. Purple'ish taupe? Taupe'ish purple? Super dusty, toned down purple? It's like a more purple version of OPI YDKJ. It's gorgeous none the less, I love these murky, dusty, mushroomy (is that even a word?) colours. They have a special place in my heart.

China Glaze Channelesque

China Glaze Channelesque with flash

China Glaze Channelesque - bottle

I love this color, been wearing it for almost 3 days now which is super unusual, I normally get bored in less than 24 hours and feel the need to change my polish colour. There's no chips or tipwear and would keep wearing if it wasn't for the fact I have to do my new years manicure tonight after work. As most China Glazes the application was great, took 2 coats to get it opaque. It was really late when I applied this so I was a little sloppy and some got stuck in my cuticles and it was surprisingly hard to remove. Not sure why that is, but I couldn't get it all off as you can see in the pictures. Very odd for such a light color, maybe it's because my cuticles were dry after all the swatching and removing I had been doing right before. We'll have to see how it goes tonight when I'm removing it all. Anyway, I love this color. And if you as me like muddy colours and find this somewhere, pick it up! It has been discountinued for quite a bit now but there's still places online to buy it.

The Remaining Eyeko Swatches

2009-12-29T13:50:00.005+01:00

I got 4 Eyeko Polishes in the mail a while ago. I was really excited about them, pretty colors and I love the new bottles. Way better than the old ones although the old bottles were cuter.

L to R Vintage Polish, Lilac Polish, Purple Polish, Cosmic Polish

Decided to wear Vintage polish right away. You can find that post by clicking here. And here's the remaining three!

Lilac Polish

Lilac Polish with flash

Lilac Polish is exactly what the name says, a pretty lilac creme. It took 3 coats to get it opaque but not even. It's like the formula was a bit gooey and it didn't want to flow out on the nail. The brushstrokes kind of stuck in the polish and it took a thick coat of Poshé to even it out. I always wear topcoat anyway so it wasn't a big problem, just odd, maybe some thinner could fix it up.

Purple Polish

Purple Polish with Flash

Purple Polish is a dark purple neon, it reminds me of Essie perky purple. Impossible to capture on camera. It's bright as the flash picture but dark as in the first picture. It took 2 coats to get it opaque and it went on alot smoother than Lilac Polish, had no application problems what so ever. Really fun and pretty color!

Cosmic Polish

Cosmic Polish with flash

Cosmic Polish is a black jelly with multi colored glitter. The glitter pops alot more in the bottle so I was a little dissapointed after I had applied it. There's loads of silver glitter in the bottle that doesn't show on the nail at all. It's still a pretty polish even though it wasn't exactly what I had expected. It took 3 coats to get it opaque and application was a dream.

These polishes, with the exception of Lilac Polish, are way better than Eyeko's old collection, both formula and bottle shape. Think I can fix the Lilac one up though. All my old Eyeko's are dried up cause the caps wont close tightly, don't think I'll be having that problem with these bottles though. Good job Eyeko, think I need to buy the remaining colors soon :)

Tip and Toe Care: Part 3 Natural Nail Care

2009-12-28T17:50:00.008+01:00

Time for part 3 of my nail care series. This time it's natural nail care tips and a list of good-to-have products!

Natural Nail Care
Now that we fully understand the nail structure and how the nail grow it's time for some nail care. There are a few things you can do to improve the health of your nails, some of which I've mentioned earlier. I wont be explaining much in this post as I feel much have been thoroughly explained before and some things are for an upcoming manicure post, where it will make more sense. This post is more to prepare for the real manicure.
If you have any questions just post a comment or send me an e-mail and I'll answer it as fast as possible :)

Finger Nail Care

Keep your hands moisturised, the skin and nails are constantly bathed in natural oils and moisture but excessive hand washing, using cleaning detergents, weather and other every day factors will dehydrate the skin resulting in dry skin and split and peeling nails.

Wash your hands and nails regulary, using a brush, to remove any dirt or bacteria that might be under your nails or around your nailfolds. Remember to moisturise afterwards.

Wear protective gloves while gardening, doing dishes or cleaning to protect your hands and nails from strong detergents.

Regulary use cuticle oils or cremes. My own favourite is to heat up some olive oil and massage in to my cuticles, it will absorb fast into the skin and the warmth from the oil feels great.

By pushing the cuticles back you remove dead cells and make the nail plate look longer.

Use a nail file instead of clippers when trimming the nails as clippers might cause the nails to crack or weaken. To cut a bigger length off the finger nail use scissors and file the last bit. More about filing in the upcoming manicure post.

Do not use your nails as tools!

When removing polish try not to rub as that will disturb the nail plate. Moisten a cotton ball or pad with remover and gently press down on the nail plate. Hold until the polish is dissolved and swipe toward the free edge. For glitter polishes, nail art, as bullions or rhinestones, or other hard to remove nail polishes and items I soak a cotton pad, place it on the nail. Wrap the finger tip up in aluminium foil and leave it for a minute. This will prevent the remover to evaporate before the polish is fully dissolved. Then just swipe towards the free edge and the nails should be nailpolish free. And the best of all, no pesky glitter stuck on the surrounding skin!

Toe Nail Care
Toe nails aren't much different from finger nails. They need TLC too!

It's important to keep the toe nails clean as bacteria are more likely to grow on the feet than on the hands.

Scrub the feet once a week to prevent skin build up and to make them smooth and nice.

If you already have build up, use a wet pedi rasp in the shower after the scrub. More about this is an upcoming pedicure post

Apply foot cream or rich body cream right after showering. The skin will absorb the moisture better while it's still a little damp.

Toe nails are harder and can often handle the pressure from nail clippers, but it's more gentle to file and it will strengthen the nails further.

Don't forget the toenail cuticles. Push them back regulary and make sure you massage the foot cream around the nail walls and cuticles, not just on the soles of your feet.

Tools, Implements and Products
Things that are good to have at home and what they are used for

Finger Bowl

To soak your fingers and nails, softens the cuticles and cleans the nails. This can also be used for hot oil manicures. If you don't want to buy a professional contoured finger bowl (they're pretty cheap on e-tailers) you can use a regular glass bowl or dish that fits the size of your hand.

Liquid Hand Soap

To use with the finger bowl. It's a good idea to use a soap with anti-bacterial properties.

Nail Brush

A small brush designed to clean your nails. Use with warm soapy water and scrub the surface and underside of the nails to remove dirt, bacteria and pathogenic organisms that won't come off when only washing the hands.

Exfoliator or Scrub

Using a scrub will remove dead skin cells and make your skin look younger and fresher. I like to make my own with salt and olive oil or a rich creme.

Cuticle Creme or Oil

Used to moisturise your cuticles and surrounding skin. I personally prefer oil as I refuse to use silicones and mineral oils on my skin which are common ingredients in cuticle and hand cremes, but each to their own. It's best not to listen to much to others and just try different products until you find what works best for you.

Orange Stick

Orange sticks are used to push back the cuticles, but also for correcting imperfections when applying nail polish or cleaning under the free edge of the nails. They are normally made of orange wood, but there are also plastic ones to buy.

Cuticle Nipper

The nipper is used to remove excess cuticles or hang nails without pulling or harming the surrounding skin.

Nail Clippers and Scissors

Nail clippers has a cruved cutting edge and are designed to quickly cut the lenght of your nail. Nail scissors have a small curved blade and are mostly designed for use on finger nails. It doesn't apply as much pressure on the nail as clippers do.

Nail Files

Nail files come in many shapes and sizes, for natural nails it's best to use a glass/crystal file or a emery board with a high grit number. The higher the number the smaller the grit. If you use a file with a too coarse grit you might shred your nail plate, causing it to split. Many emery boards you can find at your regular drug store have a grit of 80 which is way too coarse for use on natural nails. It's recommended to use a file with a grit number higher than 240 for natural nails.

Buffers
Same thing with buffers as files, they come in various grits. Don't use one with a lower number than 240 on your natural nails. The regular '3-way buffers' normally have a grit higher than 3600 and are safe to use on the nail plate to smooth it out and give it a glossy surface.

Pedi Rasp

Used to gently remove skin build up and soften hard areas on the soles of the feet.

Links to previous articles in the Tip and Toe Care series:
Part 1 The Nail Anatomy
Part 2 Nail Growth

Sources:
My own knowledge
Marti Preuss - http://www.hooked-on-nails.com
Minnie Matsumoto - http://www.create-magical-nails.com
Various other websites where no author or sources were mentioned,
therefore I do not know who to credit.
If you recognize any of the material posted here as yours don't hesitate to contact me.

NOTD: Essence All Access

2009-12-27T21:56:00.004+01:00

Today I'm wearing one of the colors from the swap with Kirsten. It's the Essence polish I was the most excited about and it sure lived up to my expectations! This is officially my new favourite green! It's so deep and gorgeous! Even had a customer walk up to me at work complimenting on it and wanting to take a closer look.

Ooh. Aah. Can't stop looking at my nails!

Was a little worried about the quality of Essence polishes, but this was great! Applied smoothly, completely opaque in 2 coats. It lasted a whole day through work without even the slightest hint of tipwear. Me like! It definitely gets the Nail Nerd stamp of approval! Just wish the bottle was bigger cause I have a feeling this will be used alot!

Nail Art: Birthday Manicure, Star Gradation

2009-12-26T19:20:00.008+01:00

Hi guys!
Hope you all had a great christmas! I'm still wearing my birthday manicure. There's been alot of glitter gradations on blogs lately, the ones that start by the cuticles. Think they're so pretty and got really inspired by those but decided to try something different. I did Konad stars instead of glitter, there are a few things I would have done different if I'd do it again, but I was still happy with how it turned out.

I used the "star cluster" pattern from the m3 plate, but did one star at a time to get bigger ones at the top and then smaller ones towards the tip.

Used Viva la Diva #74 as the base and China Glaze Sci-Fi for the stars. These Khrome polishes are great for Konad!

I just broke a nail, like 2 minutes ago, trying to cut a tag off a pair of jeans I bought today. Completely missed it and cut into my thumb nail instead. It's not completely off so I'm not sure if I should try and fix it with a wrap or just file them all down. Love the lenght of my nails at the moment, they're my perfect comfort lenght but hate uneven nails and not a big fan of wraps. I'll have to think about it :(

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-24T20:00:00.002+01:00

No nails today as I messed up my christmas manicure, the konad gods just wasn't with me! :( But I still wanted to post and wish you all a merry christmas! Tomorrow is my birthday so I'm probably not around to post anything then. Hopefully my birthday mani turn out better and I'll have pictures of it later this week!

I'll be back in a couple of days!
Merry Christmas and I hope you all have a great holiday and get lots of great gifts!

NOTD: P2 Dangerous

2009-12-22T21:56:00.007+01:00

Just a quick NOTD post. Had to try one of the new polishes, had a hard time deciding which one but finally settled on P2 Dangerous, a nice dark dusty teal.
It was super shiny and pretty this morning but after a day at work it's far from as shiny. But it didn't chip and there's no tipwear so it definitely wears well!

It's more teal in reality, the bottle color is more accurate. Snapped this picture after work so imagine it being much more shiny :P

This polish was really pigmented, could have gotten away with only one coat. But it was kind of thick and didn't apply that smoothly. Since it's my first time using a P2 polish I don't know if its only my bottle or if it's the formula, will add some thinner before I use it next time though. Had to do 2 coats to smooth it all out. I liked the brush, it's a little wider than a regular brush, but not shaped as the OPI brushes. Still a nice brush though, easy to work with. Overall I'm happy and surprised by the quality of this drugstore polish. Seems to be long wearability too, since I can hardly tell I've been at work other than the shine is pretty much gone but that could be fixed with some topcoat and it'd look like new!

WAAAH Awesome Overload!

2009-12-21T21:51:00.009+01:00

Today I got a swap package from Kirsten from Een Minder Mutsig Nagelblog! My first ever swap and it was great! It started as a one bottle swap and totally got out of control with 10+ bottles going each way :P
Of course the mailman came like 5 minutes before I had to leave for work, so I haven't had time to play around with them yet. But here's pictures!

Nfu-Oh #52 and #55

P2 Glory, Dangerous and Rich

Essence All Access, Groovy and Most Wanted

Essence Spicy, Spotlight and Iced Chai Latte

Last but not least: Goodies!
Cuticle Oil, Lipgloss, Essence Stampy Kit and Dutch Babbelaars
which are hard butter candies, super yummy!

These are my first Nfu-Oh, P2 and Essence polishes so I'm super excited! They all look great! Thank you so much Kirsten! If you're curious to see what I sent her, click here! I'm definitely looking forward to hopefully doing more swaps in the future, had alot of fun!

NOTD: OPI Suzi Skis In The Pyrenees Suede

2009-12-21T12:40:00.006+01:00

For you who are waiting for it, the Tip and Toe Care post that I normally do on mondays will be a little delayed as I'm not done writing it yet and about to head to work. But no fear, I'll post it as soon as possible!
Until then rest your eyes on this beauty, OPI Suzi Skis in the Pyreness Suede. Whew, longest name ever! I'm just gonna call her Suzi Suede. This is a gorgeous charcoal shade with silver flecks/shimmer. It has a matte suede finish which is really pretty but since I'm wearing it to work I added topcoat to hopefully make it more durable and chip resistant, the top coat also darkened the color a little and added some dimension to it. Beautiful!

This was the first time I used a suede finish color and application was alot easier than I had expected, thought it would dry faster than I could apply it and it'd be streaky and messy with bald spots. But it wasn't! Probably thanks to the OPI wide brush, can almost coat the whole nail with one stroke. It was really opaque and if I had been more careful I might have been able to get away with only one coat, I did get a couple bald spots though after running the brush over some nails one too many times so I did 2 coats to even it all out. Know these suede polishes don't wear as well as normal polishes so I'm excited to see how it holds up at work today. I need to wear it on it's own too at some point to see the difference between topcoat and no topcoat.
I only bought 2 of the suede colors but now I think I need to get the rest too, they're just too pretty with the silver flecks in them! Definitely makes them different and interesting.

Update: After a day at work I only had some minor chips, not all that bad. Would say with topcoat it wears almost as well as any regular polish.

NOTD: Eyeko Vintage Polish

2009-12-20T17:29:00.005+01:00

I got some Eyeko Polishes the other day, they have change the design of their bottles to the better, yay! My old Eyeko's keep drying out cause the cap wont close tightly and it's uncomfortable to hold while painting cause it's so small. I got Vintage Polish, Lilac Polish, Purple Polish and Cosmic Polish.

Today I'm wearing Vintage Polish, which is supposed to be a jade green color if you believe what it says on the bottle. However I think it has too much blue in it to be a jade. It's still a pretty color though, soft and very nice for spring

This isn't really color accurate, it's a tiny bit more green. Look at the bottle picture above.

Eyeko did the same "mistake" as Essie with Mint Candy Apple, added a little too much blue for the color to be perfect in my opinion. Vintage is how I expected Turntable by L.A. Girl to look but it's more like if Turntable and MCA would have a baby it'd be Vintage Polish. They all ended up on one of my green wheels, even though they're too blue to really be green!

Enough about the color, on to the formula. It was a bit sheer, maybe even jelly'ish. It took 3 thick coats to get it opaque but the application went smoothly. They have definitely improved their formula, bottles and brushes. Looking forward to trying the rest of them!

NOTD: OPI Merry Midnight

2009-12-18T20:33:00.006+01:00

Happy Friday!
Today I'm wearing Merry Midnight by OPI. I've had a love/hate relationship to this polish, first when I saw swatches of it i thought it was great and I NEEDED it! So I bought it, it arrived and it looked great in the bottle with pretty flakies and glitter. Painted it on a plastic nail tip to see what it looked like and my first reaction was 'meh, what was the hype about?'. This was well over a month ago, probably closer to two and it been untouched since. Until now, and I'm glad I picked this bottle up, it looks great once on the nails! The flakies pop more than it did on the tip, not as much as I would have liked, but In most lights you can see them as hot coals under water. I was dissapointed the green flakies you see in the bottle wont show on the nails, but it's no biggie. Merry Midnight is a gorgeous deep purple polish with glitter AND flakies! *squee*

They wont show much in the picture but there are blue glitters in there with the flakies somewhere!

See the green flakies towards the sides of the bottle? Maybe it's just an illusion in the bottle? Wish they showed up like that on the nail though.

As expected it was pretty sheer, otherwise the flakies wouldn't show up through the base color. It took 3 thick coats to get it opaque, which isn't all that bad. It was easy to apply, I just love the OPI pro wide brush, a tad bit runny though and some got stuck in my cuticles and like most dark colors refused to come off when I tried to clean it up.

I've been looking at my hands all day at work today, its soooo pretty and festive! Hope they will make more flakies in different colors. If you don't own this you need to buy it! NOW!

TNNOTW: China Glaze Calypso Blue

2009-12-17T22:33:00.003+01:00

As usual on thursdays it's ninja nails! Today she's showing us China Glaze Calypso Blue, a pretty dark blue creme. Sorry about the quality of the pictures, I didn't bring my lightbox with me so we made a makeshift one with a kitchen lamp and a single sheet of white paper. The pictures turned out decent considering!

This is pretty color accurate, it is a dark dark blue but not so dark it looks black in any lighting.

This color was very pigmented, used 2 coats for the pictures. It was a little bit runny which made application tricky which is sad cause blue polishes are always hard to clean up. The color seem to want to get stuck in your skin and give you smurf fingers. It is a perfect dark blue color, really dark but not black as some dark cremes tend to look, especially in low light. This wont be mistaken for black in any light setting though. Awesome!

NOTD: Essie Mink Muffs

2009-12-16T21:19:00.005+01:00

I totally have a crush on Jaques, as in You Don't Know Jaques by O.P.I. The.Prettiest.Taupe.Ever. I do not own it though.. yet! What to do? Use the next best thing of course, Mink Muffs by Essie! It's more brown than YDKJ but still a pretty good substitute in my opinion. I absolutely love it!

This was a tough cookie to photograph, it's slightly more grey in real life but I just couldn't get the camera to capture it.

Think this bottle picture might be a little more color accurate.

I don't know what to call this color, it's not really brown and it's not really taupe, it's somewhere in between. Brown'ish taupe? Taupe'ish brown? It's gorgeous anyway, can't believe it's been sitting in my Helmer untried for so long! I got the whole collection right as it came out and just now grabbed this bottle for the first time. What was I thinking?! It applied really well, but was a little bit sheer, it took 3 to 4 coats to get it opaque. I'm sure I could have gotten away with only 3 coats but I'm a perfectionist and had to do 4.

That's all for today!
Have a nice day and thanks for reading!

Headboard and NOTD: Nubar Conserve

2009-12-15T12:16:00.006+01:00

Hi guys!
The headboard is DONE! YAY!
It's a pretty basic padded headboard in black faux leather, was going with fabric first but there's just gonna get a bunch of dust stuck in it, and I realised wouldn't be able to take the cover off to wash as it's attached with staples on the backside of the wooden frame. The reason I decided to build my own was cause they are insanely expensive to buy! Atleast over here they are, no matter where I looked they were far over my budget. Making it myself cut the cost down to 1/8th of the store prices. Totally worth the extra time, it was fun too!
This is how it turned out:

Going for the hotel look in my bedroom, lol

When the headboard was done I could paint my nails!
I went with Nubar Conserve, which is a really pretty green shimmer with a tiny hint of blue. I was a little dissapointed though as it looks more blue toned and kind of teal'ish in the bottle, but it's still a gorgeous shade of green!

See how it looks more blue in the bottle than on the nail? It's even more apparent in real life.

This was 2 coats, and I had no application problems what so ever. I really like Nubar polishes, they have a good formula and goes on smoothly. Great brush size which makes them easy to control. The only thing I don't like is the bottlecaps, they're not that comfortable to hold, had hoped they would have a rubber coating like Orly does, and they are slightly too light. I think the brush would be even easier to control if the cap had a little more weight.

Thats all for now! Thanks for reading!

Would you want to get 5 new nail polishes for christmas?

2009-12-15T11:50:00.003+01:00

I know I would!
Head over to Happyberrynaiad and enter her awesome Christmas Giveaway where 3 winners will walk away with up to 5 polishes each! How awesome is that?!

What are you waiting for? Click >>> HERE! <<<

or HERE if you prefer that, just do it NOW! :P

Haul Pic Spam

2009-12-14T17:54:00.006+01:00

Exactly what the title says, just some picture spam of things that recently arrived in my mail box!

From Cherry Culture:

Milani Fairy Tale and Whimsical

L.A. Girl Turntable, Electric Guitar and Paparazzi

From ebay:
100 pots with various nailart items in 10 different colors.

WOO! Gonna have a lot of fun with this!

Tip and Toe Care: Part 2 Nail Growth

2009-12-14T15:41:00.007+01:00

It's monday and it's time for part two of my nail care series!

Nail Growth is a topic that is discussed quite often, especially when it comes to how fast the nails grow. There are many factors that affect the nail growth. I will try and cover it all in this post.

Nail Growth

As you might remember from part 1, the nail plate is created by the matrix and the size, shape and health of the matrix will reflect on your nail plate. The matrix produces keratin cells which it keeps pushing forward creating the nail plate, making the nail "grow". As they grow out the keratin cells lose their inner material and become flat, hard and transparent. The oldest cells are the most compact making the nailplate harder the closer to the free edge it gets.

Many factors determine nail growth and each finger nail will grow at a different rate. It's most common that the middle finger grows the fastest and the thumb slowest, as a rule, the longer the finger the faster the plate will grow. People who use their hands a lot often experience a faster growth rate and the nails of the dominant hand normally grows faster than the non-preffered hand. As the matrix shape and size vary from person to person so will the growth rate. Heredity, health, diet, weather and age are also factors that affect the rate. The nail tends to grow faster when we're young and gradually slows down. Growth is accelerated during the summer and slows down during winter. Males have a faster growth rate than females, sorry ladies. The normal growth rate is about 0.5mm to 1.2 mm per week and around 3mm per month. Factors that will slow the growth rate could be poor circulation, malnutrition, serious infections and certain medications. There are a number of other health issues that also will affect the growth rate.
Some people believe that eating certain food or using special creams or oils will increase the growth rate but there are little evidence that eating any particular food will make the nail plate grow faster. Creams and oils are sometimes sold as growth accelerators but these claims are false. No cosmetic product may claim that it can alter or change any natural body function, only medical drugs can make such claims. Although the matrix do require certain nutrients for proper cell production and the surrounding skin, the nail folds, needs to be moisturised to fully protect the matrix and avoid infections.

The Building Blocks
As mentioned earlier the nail plate is made up of keratin cells. Keratin is a type of protein composed of amino acids. The proteins are kind of like links of a chain and they tie together as cross-links that gives the nail plate strenght. Natural oils and moisure that the body produce form the cement to hold the nail plate cells together giving flexibility to the nailplate.

Many equate nail strenght with hardness, but nails are only strong if they have a combination of strenght, hardness and flexibility. Look at it like glass, it's a hard material but since it lacks flexibility it can easily be shattered.
Hardness measures how easily the nailplate is dented or scratched, flexibility determines how much the plate will bend and strenght shows how likely the plate is to break under force. Thoughness is a combination of these three properties.

Many factors will affect the levels of flexibility and strenght. Water content will affect the flexibility of the nail, the water content of the nail plate varies between 10% to 30%. Water absorbed into the nail causes the cells to shift and sometimes to change shape. Repeated or prolonged exposure to water dehydrates your nail plate and can result in dry, split, brittle or peeling nails. Nail polish and oils will prevent both loss of water and excessive water absorbtion and encourages flexibility.
Household solvents will also have a drying effect on the nailplate, but in most cases it is only temporarly. Though during prolonged contact it's a good idea to wear protective gloves

How to Improve the Health of Your Nail Plate

Eat healthy food and a varied diet. Get all your proteins, vitamins and minerals!

Use nailpolish (yay!) and cuticle creams and oils, more information about this in a upcoming manicure post.

Regulary buff your nails if you don't wear nail polish, details on the proper buffing technique will be in a coming article (will link to that here when it's written and posted)

Keep your nail folds moisturised and healthy

Don't use your nails as tools! (Thanks Lucy!)

If you're a smoker you might want to consider quitting. Smoking affects your blood circulation and therefore the health of the matrix.

Wear protective gloves when doing dishes, cleaning etc.

Conclusion

You can improve the health of your nails and the nail growth rate, but never more than what your body naturally would produce.

The nails grow 0.5 to 1.5mm per week.

The middle finger nail grow fastest and the thumb the slowest.

There's no such thing as a "growth accelerator", it's all fake.

Nailpolish is actually good for your nailplate as it protects it!

Nail toughness is a combination of strenght, hardness and flexibility.

Now you know pretty much everything there is to know about nail growth.

Stay tuned for the next part when it's time to go through some actual nail care! Woo!

Links to previous articles in the Tip and Toe Care series:
Part 1 The Nail Anatomy

Sources:
My own knowledge
Lucy!
Marti Preuss - http://www.hooked-on-nails.com
Minnie Matsumoto - http://www.create-magical-nails.com
Various other website where no author or sources were mentioned,
therefore I do not know who to credit.
If you recognize any of the material posted here as yours don't hesitate to contact me.

More Giveaways!

2009-12-12T19:50:00.007+01:00

I don't have any nails for you today. I've been working on building a headboard for my bed, didn't make much sense doing a mani that would be ruined in a matter of hours but the headboard is hopefully finished tomorrow and I'll get to paint my nails again, yay!

I also found time today to pick up some items for a giveaway I'll be having sometime in the near future! But until then, check these awesome giveaways out!

Tuli from Tuli's Nails Polish & Stuff is having a glittery New Years Giveaway! She's giving away China Glaze glitter nail polishes, stickers, nail art items. A whole lot of stuff! Click the picture below to read the rules and enter

Did you miss out on the Zoya Green Friday Offer? Here's another chance! JP from Nails of the Day is giving away the same 6 green Zoya polishes! As usual, click the picture below to get to the contest!

Last but not least Jacie from You've Got Nail together with Nailtrixx.net is giving away a Nailtrixx stamping kit. Image plate, polish, scrape, stamper, evertyhing you need to get started with stamping nail art! She didn't have a picture of the kit so click >>HERE<< to get to the contest!

Good luck everyone!

NOTD: Recycle Bonus

2009-12-11T22:38:00.003+01:00

Since it's friday I decided to party my nails up and added a coat of INM Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat in Silver. I own both the Gold and Silver versions and I just love them. They will glam ANY nailpolish up. They're Out the Door topcoats which means they'll dry in seconds. Just slap it on your current mani and you're good to go!

Ooh Aah! Holo glitter!

Blurry to show the glitter!

Extreme closeup! This picture was a lucky mistake. Wanted a blurry picture to show the glitter but it ended up WAY too blurry. But I thought the perfectly round glitter circles were awesome. Looks like they've been added in photoshop or something!

The standard bottle pic!

That was all!
Have a great friday!

NOTD: China Glaze Recycle

2009-12-11T22:27:00.004+01:00

Happy friday!
Today I'm wearing China Glaze Recycle. It's a medium grey creme that I just love! SO HOT!

Sorry about the nails being out of focus. Had the wrong camera settings and didn't notice 'til it was too late. It is color accurate though, on the nails. Slightly darker than bottle color. Gorgeous!

It took 2-3 coats to get it opaque, varied depending on the nail. Think I probably did thinner coats on some nails. It was slightly runny which I don't like, was harder to work with than my other China Glaze's but the end result made it all worth it!

TNNOTW: Zoya Envy

2009-12-10T16:30:00.003+01:00

She's baaaaaaack! My very own ninja and today she's wearing a gorgeous green! Zoya Envy!

This is a really beautiful dark green creme, it has a slight shimmer in it, you can tell right where the ligh hits the nail. The shimmer isn't visible 90% of the time though so I still call this a creme.

Application was great, just like the other Zoya polishes I have tried. It took 2 coats to get it opaque. It looks more or less green in different lights but never thought it looked really black like some dark cremes do. Gorgeous color!

NOTD: Zoya Kalista

2009-12-09T23:03:00.004+01:00

Today I'm wearing one of my new Zoya polishes. This beauty is called Kalista. It's a gorgeous shimmery brown color, really fall'ish. I think it's flattering on my fair skin. It reminds me of Orly Golden Maharaja but I think Kalista might be a little bit warmer and more red toned.

I love the look of the Zoya bottles, they look clean and classy somehow. Really appealing to me!

I had zero application issues, the forumla was great and I only took 2 coats to get it opqaue. Can't wait to try the other colors I got!

Thats all I had for you today!
Thanks for reading :)

Giveaways!

2009-12-09T22:30:00.004+01:00

2 more giveaways you guys should check out!

First it's Diana from Painted Lady Fingers. She's celebrating 300 followers and is giving away 12 nailpolishes (yes, 12!!) from Diamond Cosmetics, a top coat, a nail file and a cosmetics bag. Isn't that awesome?!

Click the picture below to read the rules and enter!

The 2nd giveaway is from EkiLove. She makes the cutest items and is giving away one of her adorable pouches filled with goodies! And a gift certificate to the 2nd price winner! Check it out!

Click the picture below to read the rules and enter!

NOTD: China Glaze Carnival Lights

2009-12-08T16:42:00.006+01:00

I got a handful of the "new" China Glaze glitters but haven't worn any of them til now, I picked Carnival Lights cause it's been ages since I've worn pink. It's absolutely stunning, like having a party on my nails! Too bad the glittery goodness wont show in pictures :(

I wasn't able to capture it's true color. I'd say its somewhere in between these 2 pictures. Darker than the first, but less peachy and more pink than the 2nd.

The bottle pic is more color accurate!

It took 3 coats to get it opaque, it was easy to work with. The formula was alot better than some other glitters who just feel thick and chunky. With one coat of Poshé it was almost completely smooth, could have added another but I was lazy :)

HELLOOOO GORGEOUS!

2009-12-07T21:45:00.005+01:00

Look at this pretty that I found in the mailbox today!

China Glaze - Dorothy Who?

It's stunning in the bottle, this is what I hoped Drinking my Blues Away would be. Though I love that color too, just the way it is!

Can't wait to wear this! I just had blue nails though so think I'm going to pick something else, but I cant decide what...

I just downloaded that "The Hat" program, gonna add all my untrieds and let it randomly pick what color I should wear. I'm the most indecisive person ever... or maybe I just own too many polishes? Nah, I'm going with indecisive!

Tip and Toe Care: Part 1 The Nail Anatomy

2009-12-07T18:19:00.012+01:00

According to an article in Nailpro Magazine, the desire to have long beautiful nails first began during China's Ming dynasty (1368-1644), when aristocratic women grew their nails up to 10 inches long as a sign that they performed no manual labor. To protect their nails, they often sheathed them in gold or silver. Chinese men also grew long nails as a sign of their masculinity and to protect themselves from evil.

What can you do to protect and improve the health of your nails?

I wanted to make a little guide on how to get strong, healthy and beautiful nails without going to get professional manicures. I noticed pretty early on that the guide wont be so little, there's just so much I want to fit. I decided it's best to take it apart into smaller parts and post them all seperatly, like a little nail care series. So, here goes!

We'll start with the basics, the nail itself. It's important to have an understanding about the nail structure, it will answer alot of questions as to why you should do things a certain way and what that will accomplish.

Finger Nail Anatomy

The nail is more than just the nail plate. I will walk you thru all the parts of the nail.

The Matrix (not the movie)

This is where it all starts, it is the only living part of the nail and contains nerves and blood vessles. The matrix is in fact the root of the nail. This area is hidden and protected by the Proximinal Nail Fold. The matrix produces keratin cells that make up the nail plate. As more and more cells are produced the older ones are pushed outwards and flattened, all this pushing and flattening results in the cells losing their original white plumpish appearance. They eventually become transparent and become part of the nail plate.

Apart from producing the keratin cells that make up the nail plate, the matrix also determines the shape and thickness of the nail. The overall length of the matrix will determine the thickness of the nail; so the longer the matrix the thicker the nail. A short matrix produces fewer cells, as a result a thinner nail. Matrix shapes and sizes vary per person, a flat matrix will produce a flat nail and a curved matrix will produce of course a curved nail.

The matrix is the most important feature of the nail unit. Damage to the matrix can cause permanent damage to the appearance of the nail.

The Nail Folds
As mentioned previously the Proximal nail fold protect the Matrix. The Lateral nail fold is an extension of the proximal nail fold and protects each side of the nail plate. The skin does not just end where the nail plate starts it in fact folds at the edges and continues beneath. This continuing skin acts as a protective barrier, it protects and seals the matrix against bacteria and dirt.

The Eponychium
Normally referred to as the cuticle, but it isn't. It's the visible part of the proximal nail fold that appears to end at the base of the nail. The eponychium attaches closely to the nail plate and moves with it as the nail plate grows. This extra growth of eponychium is generally freed and pushed back during a manicure. The eponychium’s function is to act as a barrier seal to stop bacteria, infection from getting to the matrix.

The Ptygerium/True Cuticle
We are constantly shedding dead skin cells throughout our daily life, the nail folds are no exception. The eponychium will shed a thin, colorless layer of skin that rides on the nail plate and appears to grow from under the proximal nail fold. This needs to be removed regularly in order to prevent a build up.

The Lunula
The lunula is the opaque pale white 'half moon' at the base of the nail. The lunula is the front end of the matrix. The whitish color comes from keratin cells that have not yet been completely flattened and still have some of their content. Not everyone has visible lunula’s, it is normally more prominent on the thumbs. The shape of the lunula determines the shape of the distal edge.

The Distal Edge
The distal egde is more commonly reffered to as the free edge. It's the end of the nail plate, the part that is shaped during manicures and pedicures.

The Nail Plate
This is the visible portion of the nail that sits on top of the nail bed. It is made of keratin protein formed by amino acids. These proteins are a strong, flexible material made from many layers of dead, flattened cells. Hair and skin are also keratin protein; however, they are much softer and more flexible.

The Nail Bed
The nail bed is made of two types of tissue: dermis and epidermis. The dermis is the lower portion which is attached to the bone, while the epidermis lies just underneath the nail plate. The epidermis moves forward with the nail plate and is attached to the dermis by tiny 'rails and grooves' that allow the nail plate to move, much like a train rides on its tracks. As we age, the nail plate becomes thinner and we see evidence of the 'rail and groove' as vertical ridges in the nail plate.

The Hyponichium
This is the portion of skin at the end of the finger underneath the free edge, where the nail plate separates from the skin.

Conclusion
The matrix is the only live part of your nail and damage to that might cause permantent damage to your nailplate.
The matrix is different from person to person and can't be manipulated, but you can care for it and get the best possible nails your body can produce.
The nailplate is made out of dead cells and the only way to affect the health of it is thru the matrix.
The matrix and the surrounding skin are the most important parts to keep healthy.
The "half moons" are a a part of the matrix showing thru your nailplate, so be careful!

Whew! That was all! The most boring but also most important part is done!

Stay tuned for next time when I'll walk you thru Nail Growth.
How fast does a nail grow?
Can you make it grow faster or stronger?
You will get the answers to that shortly!

Sources:
My own knowledge
Marti Preuss - http://www.hooked-on-nails.com
Various other website where no author or sources were mentioned,
therefore I do not know who to credit.
If you recognize any of the material posted here as yours don't hesitate to contact me.

Nail Art: Snowy Snowy Night

2009-12-06T12:59:00.006+01:00

Today I'm going to a family dinner at my grandparents. My birthday is coming up and unfortunately they wont be in town for that so they wanted to invite everyone for dinner to pre-celebrate me a little. I wanted to pretty'fie my nails and decided to do some nail art on the gorgeous blue from yesterday.

I love doing split designs with konad, it adds some more dimension and you can add other bling like rhinestones and bullions!

L to R: China Glaze Devotion, L.A. Girl Rock Star Punk, Poshé Top Coat

Materials I used: Rhinestones, Konad m59 , Silver Bullions and a dotting tool

For this I started with taping the parts of my nail I wanted to keep plain blue, added some Konad snow flakes then filled in the empty areas with dots using a dotting tool. Took the tape off, added bullions and rhinestones. Top coat and it's done! Easy!

NOTD: L.A. Girl Rock Star Punk

2009-12-05T14:56:00.004+01:00

Today I'm wearing a really gorgeous blue, Punk from L.A. Girls Rock Star collection. It has blue and purple micro glitters and a slight purple duochrome that shows more in the bottle than on the nail. It was a hard color to capture, so I'll just have to post many pictures!

The most color accurate picture but it doesnt show all the pretty sparkles :(

Here we go, sparkles!

Only managed to capture the duochrome in low light. See the purple coming in from the left?

Close up of the bottle, thats how the duochrome show on the nail in some lights. Gorgeous!

This is definitely one of my favourite blues, wish the duochrome was more visible tho. It took 3 thin'ish coats to get it opaque. The formula is kind of runny so normal/thick coats was out of the question, I'd have polish pooling all around my cuticles. It lasted thru 2 days at work with only a little bit of tipwear and thats very good in my book.

Thanks for reading!

NOTD: Glitter Gal 3D Black

2009-12-04T19:33:00.008+01:00

Hi everyone!

Todays NOTD is a polish all the way from Australia! Glitter Gal 3D Nail Polish in Black more precisely. Glitter Gal makes the most gorgeous holo's! I ordered 3 and when I got them I immediatly knew I needed more! This black is gorgeous, in low light it looks like it has slight silver glitters in it. Kind of reminds me of Misa Wishing on a Star.

But when the light hits it magic happens! Behold!

You MUST click this picture to see what I'm talking about!

Close up of holo goodness!

Blurry to show the real sparkle.

Don't let the bottle size fool you! It's 13ml (verus 15ml in the Poshé)

I used 2 coats and it was perfectly opaque. It's a full size brush inside that tiny little bottle and its amazingly easy to work with. Only negative I can think of is that they're on the pricier side, if you're used to the normal e-tailer prices, and that it dries semi-matte, but I always use topcoat so it doesn't really matter to me!
You can find Glitter Gal polishes here: http://www.glittergal.com.au/

I also got the Dark Green and the Electric Blue. Beating myself up for not getting the Red one and the Purple and the Dark Brown and and... I NEED more!

TNNOTW: China Glaze Cords

2009-12-03T11:56:00.004+01:00

What does TNNOTW stand for you might ask? It's The Ninjas Nails of the Week, a new segement for this blog that premiers today! WOO! Beer and cake for everyone!
It is exactly what it sounds like, my very own nail ninja will sneak in with pictures of her nails once a week! To give you guys a break from watching my nails all the time :P

Without further ado I bring you, no SHE brings you China Glaze Cords

China Glaze Cords is a warm grey from the Retro Diva collection that came out this fall. It looks almost light brown or taupe in some lights, can especially see it in this picture. Really interesting and gorgeous with a slight shimmer.

Colder lighting brings out the more grey tones

Looks gorgeous in the bottle!

This was 3 coats but it would have been enough with 2. Application was easy, just love the China Glaze brushes!

That's what I had for you this week
*sneaks off again*

Nail Art: Leaf Nails

2009-12-02T14:32:00.005+01:00

Hi guys!
Got an archive manicure for you today! Some of you might have already seen this, it was my entry for Jamie from Nail Art Tuesdays nail art contest back in september. I won the peoples vote part of the contest and I'd like to say a very late thank you to all of you who voted for me :)

Materials L to R: China Glaze L8R G8R, Nameless 2-way nail art glitters in Gold, Orange, Red with gold glitter and Black. Topped it all off with a thick coat of my beloved Poshé

I love making glitter gradations, you'll definitely see more of those here!

Thanks for reading!

Nail Art: Christmasy!

2009-12-01T14:40:00.007+01:00

Hi everyone!
I decided to do some nailart on yesterdays NOTD, and what is better on red nails than gold for a Christmas feel?
For this I used China Glaze passion with Konad m73, a thin striper brush and a dotting tool.
I really suck at using the striper brush, it's like it's too stiff and dont want to follow the line I want.
Not sure if I need a new brush or just practice :)

I love using the Romantique polishes with konad, they're really opaque and give crisp lines. Excuse the tipwear, been wearing Short and Sassy for a bit now.

China Glaze Short & Sassy and China Glaze Passion. And a very wrinkled background, any ideas on how to iron/straighten polyester? It's like it has a thin plastic coating on it and I'm afraid it'll melt :(

Special Guest Paw: Siri!

Thanks for reading!

Yet Another Giveaway!

2009-12-01T13:56:00.004+01:00

There are lots of giveaways going on at the moment, and here's another one!
Chocaddict from Mon coin à moua is giving away a sh*tload of stuff to 2 lucky people!

Look at all this!
Interested? Click the picture to read the rules and enter.
Good luck!

NOTD: China Glaze Short and Sassy

2009-11-30T19:26:00.005+01:00

Happy Monday!
Wow at all the new followers! Hi guys! Hope you'll enjoy my blog =)
Today I was going to show you this beauty, Zoya Trixie

But the pictures of my mani turned out blurry and just horrible, so you get a bottle pic and the color I'm currently wearing instead!
Short and Sassy by China Glaze

Short and Sassy is a gorgeous lit from within red, a little bit darker and more brown toned than what my picture shows. This was 2 coats and it applied like a dream, easier than finding Paris Hilton upskirt pictures on the internet!
This is a part of the Retro Diva collection, and I love almost every color in it! You'll see more from that collection soon.

Thanks for reading!

NOTD: Nubar Greener

2009-11-26T13:42:00.000+01:00

Todays NOTD is one of the new polishes of course! I bring you Nubar Greener:

It's a really gorgeous green, more shimmery and warmer in real life. Too bad the sun wasn't out so I could capture all the pretty shimmer. You'll just have to imagine it being there!
Application was a breeze, great formula and coverage, this is 2 coats. Greener is the first Nubar I ever used and I'm definitely buying more!

Thanks for reading and happy thanksgiving to everyone who celebrates that!

Haul!

2009-11-26T13:28:00.007+01:00

Hi guys!
Look what the mailman brought me yesterday!

Zoya and Nubar nail polishes!
Me and my friend Marie did a joint order from sparkling*nails on ebay to get the shipping costs down a little.

Here's my 6 polishes. L to R: Nubar Greener, Nubar Conserve, Zoya Yasmeen, Zoya Ki, Zoya Kalista and Zoya Trixie

This is what Marie got. L to R: Zoya Envy, Zoya Irene, Zoya Kalista, Zoya Yasmeen, Nubar Greener and Nubar Forest

These are my first Nubar and Zoya polishes so I'm really excited =)

NOTD: L.A. Girl Rock Star Groupie

2009-11-26T13:16:00.004+01:00

This is actually the nails of yesterday, but I didnt get around to post it.
I used one of my favourite purples, Groupie from L.A Girl Rock Star collection. Its a dark purple with amazing blue and purple shimmer/mini glitter. It looks a bit duochrome in the bottle but it doesn't really show on the nail. I wouldnt call it a real duochrome. It's still ridiculously pretty though!
I added some dots using a dotting tool and China Glaze Passion to make it more fun.

This picture is more color accurate than the bottle picture, maybe a little bit too blue. Its a pretty cool toned purple.

This is much lighter than it is in real life, but it shows the duochrome, isnt it gorgeous?

Thank for reading!

Nail Art: Ghetto Fabulous!

2009-11-24T17:55:00.007+01:00

Here's some nail art from my archives. I made this for a contest but at the last minuted I decided to enter with another design.
It's very Ghetto Fab, nothing I would wear out but I had alot of fun making it and would like to show it to you guys.
The pictures are pretty bad, and so is my clean up job it looks like :P
Indoors with flash.

For this fun design I started with two coats of China Glaze GR8, a gold holo. Stamped on the leopard print pattern from Konad M57 using ColorClub Black. Then I took Orly Golden Maharaja and painted on the different "tips", also used China Glaze Poetic on the pinky. Finished the design by placing gold bullions and amber rhinestones along the line diving the colors.

Thanks for reading!

Another Awesome Giveaway!

2009-11-24T16:39:00.003+01:00

This time its Christy from The Kronicles of a Konad-er who's celebrating 100 followers with an awesome giveaway! Tho she's up to almost 300 now! Wow! Congratulations!

Check all these goodies out! Polishes, glitter, lashes! Lots of stuff!
Ohhh! Aah!
You know you want it! Click the picture to get to the contest!

NOTD: Classic French

2009-11-24T14:19:00.008+01:00

Hi everyone!

The past few days I've sported a classic french. This was my favourite look a few years ago but have barely worn it since so I thought it'd be a nice change from all the colorful nails.
For this I used 2 coats of Essie Blanc (white creme) for the tips and one coat of Essie Mademoiselle (sheer pastel pink).
I freehanded the tips and cleaned up with a manicure brush where it was needed. Don't really like those tipguides you sometimes get in french manucure sets, think they're not curved enough for my small nails and the "smile-line" turns out almost straight. I've seen some girls who get fantastic results with them tho, wish I would too. Bet it'd be a time saver!

Ignore the dry cuticles, saw it after I had moved the pictures to the computer.

It was so unusual to see my nails almost nude so I had to add a konad flower!
Used M36 and M36-1 (M36 reversed) with China Glaze Devotion.

Materials I used L to R: Nail-Tek f.II, Seche Clear, Essie Blanc, Essie Mademoiselle, China Glaze Devotion, Posché Fast Drying Top Coat, Konad M36-1 and a manicure clean up brush, this one from Debra Lynn.

I used Seche Clear instead of Orly Bonder for this, hoping it would brighten my nails some.. it didn't =(
Anyone have any good tips on how to brighten your nails? Anyone tried Color Clubs Milky White basecoat?

Thanks for reading!

Awesome Giveaway!

2009-11-21T17:45:00.007+01:00

GildedAngel from Naive Nails hit 130 followers and to celebrate that she is having a Holiday Giveaway. How awesome is that? Check the prizes out!

One lucky person will get a brand new Essie nailpolish in the color Mint Candy Apple (an awesome mint green shade) and 2 Bath and Body Works Hand Lotions in Nectarine Mint and Winter Candy Apple! Sweet!
Click the picture above to read the rules and enter!

NOTD: Orly Pixie Dust

2009-11-21T17:12:00.012+01:00

Hi everyone!

Its time for another Nail Of The Day! Today I'm wearing Orly Pixie Dust, a really pretty grey with tiny silver glitter, like little flecks of silver. I think it has a hint of blue in there with the grey and that only makes it prettier. Today at work I sometimes saw some multicolored glitter flashes, we have pretty strong lights where I work, I got a picture of it and will post a close up!

Look at all the pretty silver flecks!

I have totally fallen for the grey trend. Cant understand how I could live without it before!

Sorry about the blurry pic, but it was the one where you could see the multi colored shimmer/glitter the best. There's something with blurry pics and glitters..

Anywho, I love this polish! The only bad thing is that it's a tiny bit sheer. I needed 3 coats to get it opaque, it will probably take 4 if you do thin ones. 3 coats is still okay in my book but I prefer 2.
I need to get Mirror mirror from the same collection! Actually I need the whole collection, own half of it so far.

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

NOTD: China Glaze DV8

2009-11-20T20:37:00.014+01:00

Hi everyone!
Now when I got the crappy virgin post out of the way it'll hopefully only get better from here!
Time for my first NOTD! Yay!
Today I'm wearing DV8 from China Glaze's OMG collection. It's a gorgeous teal with holographic shimmer.
The forumla is great and it was opaque in 2 thin coats. I've read some complaints that the polishes from the OMG collection chip easily, this is nothing I have experienced. I always use 2 coats of base (1 coat Nailtek f.II + 1 coat Orly Bonder) and top the mani off with a thick coat of Poshe, and I never had any chipping problems. Wears the same as any other polish.

Now, pictures! (All pictures are clickable)

Artificial light:

Natural light:

Not sure what the "fuzz" on my index finger is, probably just the light cause I sure didn't see any when I snapped the picture.

Closeup of the holo goodness (with flash):

This polish is truly awesome, I love the whole collection in fact. I mean, how can you resist a holo?

That's all I had for you today!
Until next time, have a good one!

Virgin post!

2009-11-19T13:27:00.003+01:00

Hi everyone!
This is my first ever blog post! Feels exciting!
I have no clue what so ever on what to write for this first post.. but here goes
My name is Anna, from Sweden and I'm completely obsessed with nails. A real nail nerd!
The past year or so I've spent hours every day reading nailblogs (wow that sounds really lame lol) and I finally decided to make my own =)
I'm really bad at introductions but I'm sure you'll get to know me better along the way.
Hope you'll enjoy my blog!

Tip and Toe Care

2009-01-03T18:30:00.002+01:00

All the articles in my Tip and Toe Care Series
Everything you need to know about nails and more!

Part 1: The Nail Anatomy
Part 2: Nail Growth
Part 3: Natural Nail Care
Part 4: At Home Manicure

Will add to this list as I post more articles

Codes and Contests

2009-01-03T18:15:00.007+01:00

Current Codes and Contests

Note: All contests offered on my blog are open to followers only (via google friend connect). Codes are generally available to anyone, unless stated otherwise.

Contests:

200 Followers Contest - To Be Announced!

My first giveaway! - CLOSED!
I'm giving away a total of 7 bottles of Viva la Diva polishes!

Codes:

No codes at this time

Reader

2009-01-03T18:15:00.006+01:00

Readers

If you are a reader of my blog and have questions or wish to contact me for anything, please feel free to do so. I would love to hear from you and will answer any questions as fast as I can!

For general inquiries please e-mail:
info@thenailnerd.com

Problems with the website? Please e-mail:
support@thenailnerd.com

About

2009-01-03T18:12:00.000+01:00

Under Construction

Contact/PR

2009-01-03T18:08:00.003+01:00

Contact
I would love to hear from you!

Please select:

Companies/PR

Readers

Reviews/PR

2009-01-03T17:55:00.003+01:00

Companies

If you are a beauty product company or e-tailer of beauty products and is interested in having your products reviewed by me or sponsor contests on my blog, or if you have special codes or sales for my readers, or want to discuss advertising please e-mail me. I'd love to hear from you!

PR questions:
pr@thenailnerd.com

Marketing questions:
marketing@thenailnerd.com

Guides

2009-01-03T17:52:00.000+01:00

Under construction