NOTW: Million Dollar Green

I thought this is a very spring like nail look. It definitely reminds me of sunrays hitting the green grass of a park. So perfect for this time of year. My nails have been pretty banged up lately. I cannot seem to let them grow out and they break like there is not tomorrow. I do have to say that my being busy led me to not have much proper time for nail care, so I hope that as of right now I can take care of them again so will become longer and healthier again. Anywho: without further ado I present to you this weeks nail look.

Doesn’t this just make you happy straight away! I’m so glad the sun came out and I felt inspired. Products used:

- Etos Nail Strengthener in very strong as base coat

- OPI Green-which Village

- Catrice Million Styles Top Coat in Million Dollar Baby

- INM Out the Door Fast Drying Top Coat

Here are some more pictures and a close up!

 

What are you wearing on your nails today?

NOTW: Sparkly Nude

Neutral nails. I wrote about my favorite nude nail polishes a little over a week ago and today I’m bringing you a neutral nail look with a bit more oomph. It’s not an entirely original idea. I sort of stole it from Dutch beautyblogger VeraCamilla. You can see her version by clicking here. What she did was take a sparkly topcoat and instead of putting it over a bright or dark color, she paired it with a nude color underneath it. I thought that was ingenious. This is my version.

The finished look! Me likes. I like how it comes together and this multi glitter top coat which veers towards red in the bottle has so many sides to it that I can’t stop looking at my nails.

Products used:

• ETOS extra strong nail hardener (base coat)
• OPI Tickle My France-Y (main color)
• Essence Nail Art Special Effect Top Coat in Copper’ize Me! (sparkly top coat)
• INM Out the Door Super Fast Drying Top Coat (top coat)

The top coat by INM is new. My Seche Vite had become too goopy to use, so I decided to try another one. I bought the INM Out the Door Top Coat at the Miss Lipgloss webshop. So far, I’m liking it. Might do a review of it after a few tries.

What are you wearing on your nails right now?

Favorite nude nail polishes

Neutral colored nail polishes are important to keep as a staple in your collection. Brights and darks are fun, but you can never go wrong with a nude color. Whether it’s a shoe, shirt or other basics: having at least some neutral shades in your wardrobe and accessories will make your life so much easier. But finding the right neutral shade for you can be difficult. The past few weeks I have been going to job interviews and when doing those I don’t like showing up wearing a bunch of bright colors with polkadot patterns on my nails. I go for something neutral instead.

I picked colors from two different categories: grays and pinks. Depending on what you look you want to go for, you can go for neutral gray color with brown undertones or a pink color which is transparent or close to your skin tone. Both can work depending on what you want to achieve. I find that all of them give a clean look, but some of these barely show on your nails, whereas others are more noticeable and make a neutral nail with a twist. I picked 3 gray polishes and 3 pink ones including swatches. Enjoy and share your favorite in a comment below!

Round 1: grays

Ciaté Cookies & Cream, Catrice Clay-ton My Hero, Diamond Cosmetics Taupe Shimmer

Cookies and Cream screams sophisticated. It is the perfect gray neutral to go with my skin color. I also like using this as a base coat for nail creations as it is a perfect blank canvas color. Clay-ton My Hero is darker and more out there so this fits if you’re going for something edgy. Taupe shimmer is a gray with some purple mixed in and the slightest amount of shimmer. It’s a classy color that give you just a bit of color

Round 2: Pinks

Bourjois So Laque Rose Lounge, Essie Topless and Barefoot, OPI Over the Taupe

The Bourjois polish is the perfect polish for a french manicure. It totally gives you that ‘my nails but better’ look. I use this mostly when I am too lazy to really do my nails. It’s also the only polish I ever had to repurchase as I finished the bottle. It used to be my go to polish for more than a year. Topless & Barefoot is the perfect neutral pinky brown. Perfect for very neutral looking nails with a bit more oomph to it, as it is completely opaque in two layers. Over the Taupe is the darkest color. It’s more of a brown with a pinky/ purple hue to it. Again perfect if you want to go neutral with a bit more edge.

Swatches: 13 Essie Topless & Barefoot, 14 Ciaté Cookies and Cream, 15 Diamond Cosmetics Taupe Shimmer, 16 OPI Over the Taupe

Swatch: 20 Catrice Clay-ton My Hero

Swatch: 7. Bourjois Rose Lounge

Since the swatch on the nail wheel definitely does not show you what the polish looks like when you wear it. So that’s why I added this picture. Here you can see why I actually wear nail polish. If I don’t my nails would be 1000x worse. They break, rip, tear and chip like there is no tomorrow. And this is my good hand. You don’t want to see my right hand, which looks even more banged up than this one. That’s what years of nail biting will do for you.

What are your favorite neutral nail polishes?

My fave nail polishes for spring

Spring is in the air! That’s why I’ve been busting out my favorite spring nail polishes. I’ve been wearing blues, greens, oranges and the like. I thought I’d share the prettiness with you here.

From left to right: Bourjois Tangerine Fatale, Catrice Welcome to Rosywood, Essence Walk On Air, China Glaze Turned Up Turqoise, OPI Mermaid’s Tears

Swatch no. 1:

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise (no. 19)

China Glaze’s Turned Up Turquoise is the perfect neon turquoise color. It has the tiniest amount of shimmer in it and the brightness of the color makes it perfect for spring!

Swatch no 2:

Essence Walk on Air (no 2)

Essence Walk on Air is one of my most recent nail polish purchases and has quickly become a favorite. This rich creamy cobalt blue polish is brighter than sky blue, yet deeper than many ‘denim’ blue polishes.

Swatch no 3:

Catrice Welcome to Rosywood

Catrice Welcome to Rosywood is a dark dusty rose color that I think is a great contrast with the sea foam and minty greens that are in fashion right now. It is too dark for it to be a neutral, but it still gives off a classy vibe nonetheless.

Swatch no 4:

OPI Mermaid’s Tears (no. 9)

OPI Mermaid’s Tears is the best creamy sea foam green color. It was part of last year’s Pirates of the Caribbean collection and it took me some time to get it as it sold out quickly. This color is more on trend now than it was last year and it’s what I’m wearing on my nails currently. It instantly brings spring to my nails.

Swatch no 5:

Bourjois Tangerine Fatale (no. 8)

Bourjois Tangerine Fatale is a great color that is right in line with this year’s fashion trends. This bright creamy orange will liven up any outfit.

These are my favorite polishes. What are yours?

New Nail Polish – Essence & Catrice Million Styles

The other day I popped into my local drugstore. Even though I wasn’t looking for anything, I found some A+mazing nail polishes. Essence just recently revamped their collection, however the polishes that I know came out, I haven’t been able to find just yet. What I did find though, are two very pretty other colors. Budget buddy Catrice released their limited edition Million Styles Effect Top Coat line this week and I was hoping to catch it on time, before they were gone. I had already seen the promo pics and knew I wanted a few of these, as the line features some really impressive looking top coats. Let’s have a look at the colors and the swatches shall we?

Essence: Gold Fever & Walk on Air

Swatches: Gold Fever on the left, Walk on Air on the right (two coats)

Gold fever is a sparkly glitter polish with gold and red specks. It’s the red glitter that makes this polish special. It’s a bit on the sheer side, but I think three coats would make it opaque and if you layer this over red or gold nail polish you would need less coats as well. I have plenty of blue polishes, but no perfect, creamy, bright blue. That changed when I found this baby. My eye was immediately drawn to it and is the perfect shade for spring & summer. These nail polishes are only 1,29 euros a piece. Now let’s move on to the Catrice polishes.

Catrice Million Styles: ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Godfather of Pearl, Shake it Flake it!

These are two holographic nail polishes (purple and blue) and a transparent flaky one.

Catrice Million Styles: Million Dollar Baby, Have an Ice Day, Return of Space Cowboys

This is a platinum flaky and two multi-reflective glitter topcoats.

Swatches: Return of Space Cowboys, Million Dollar Baby, Have an Ice Day, Godfather of Pearl, ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Shake it Flake it!

Doesn’t look that impressive does it? Wait till you see these swatched on a dark base color. Like this:

Swatches: Return of Space Cowboys, Million Dollar Baby, Have an Ice Day, Godfather of Pearl, ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Shake it Flake it! (swatched over Bourjous Noir de Chine)

Can you say wow?! These swatches are one coat over a black base coat. I don’t find all of them that impressive, but the two flaky and holographic polishes are amazing. Return of Space Cowboys and Have an Ice Day are the least impressive to me, as the multi-reflective glitter effect is hard too see. These might work better over lighter base coats though. Perhaps with a dark grey or a greyish blue? Here are some close ups:

Swatches: Shake it Flake it!, ¿Holo Qué Tal?, Godfather of Pearl, Have an Ice Day
(swatched over Bourjous Noir de Chine)

Swatches: Have an Ice Day, Million Dollar Baby, Return of Space Cowboys (over Bourjois Noir de Chine)

I don’t know about you, but I’m impressed and at only 2,50 euros a pop they aren’t expensive either. Right now, Kruidvat has a discount on Catrice nail polish as well: you get 2 for 4 euros. So hurry, because I have a feeling that these might sell out quickly.

What do you think of these nail polishes?

NOTW: New Catrice polishes

The other day German budget make up brand Catrice revamped their collection with some new products. My favorite Catrice product must be their nail polishes. So when I found out about the new colors they were releasing I decided to have a look and see whether anything would be worth picking up. Unfortunately there are quite a few repromote/ rereleased polishes that I already have. That is why only three of the polishes caught my attention and I’ve swatched two of them for you.

The first one I would like to show you is this great shimmery dark teal color: Be Pool. Technically this isn’t even in their new collection as it’s not permanent. This color is a limited edition that comes with Catrice’s current limited Nymphelia collection. This is a great color in my opinion. It is just the right mixture of green and blue and I love how it is this dark shade. I haven’t seen many shades like this.

This color has been added to the permanent collection AND it is brand new too. It is called Welcome to Rosywood and it is a a dark creamy rose color void of shimmer. It has a hint of brown to it and thus makes a great dark neutral color with my skin tone.

Another thing Catrice did is change the brush to apply the nail polish with. It is mostly wider so you can cover more of your nail in one go. Since my nails aren’t big to begin with, it’s not the most ideal brush for me, but I managed to put it on without too many problems after all. I do have to be careful when putting it on though.

I really like both colors but I think the teal color is my favorite. I have one other polish that I will most likely show later this week.

On a personal note: London is fun! I will make sure there’s a post on my first day tomorrow. How have you been?

Nail Polish Collection *Update*

I thought it was time to give you all an update on my nail polish collection. Because even though I decided not to buy any more polishes a while ago, I just can’t help myself with all those pretty colors that are being released all the time. I do have to say that I have become much more picky when it comes to which polishes I like and which ones I don’t like, but there is always room for more. Now some of these polishes were already featured in shoplogs before, but some of them weren’t and I definitely didn’t show you swatches of all of them.

OPI Silver Shatter Topcoat, OPI Royal Flush Blush, OPI Mermaid’s Tears, OPI Designer… De Better, OPI Warm & Fozzie

OPI Meet me on the Star Ferry, OPI Mauving to Manitoba, OPI Chicago Champagne Toast, OPI Cozu-Melted in the Sun

Gosh Forest Floor, Catrice Purpelized, Catrice Iron Mermaiden, Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever, Catrice Just Berried, Catrice Rusty but Sexy

Catrice Up in the Air, Catrice Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, Catrice Apropos Apricot, Catrice Let’s Mauve On, Catrice Lavenderlicious

Bourjois So Laque Tangerine Fatal, Rimmel I<3 Lasting Finish Black Cherries, Rimmel I<3 Lasting Finish Cranberry Zest, Essence Kings of Mints, Essence Be Optimistic, NYC In A New York Color Minute Canal Street,  NYC In A New York Color Minute Chelsea

China Glaze Holly-Day, China Glaze Strawberry Fields, Essie In Stitches, Essie Nice is Nice, Essie French Affair, Essie Coat Azure, Essie Topless & Barefoot, Orly Pink Lemonade

W7 Fuchsia glitter, W7 Blue glitter, W7 Green/ Yellow glitter, W7 Turquoise glitter, W7 Purple/ Pink/ Red/ Blue glitter, W7 Rose glitter, Ciaté Strictly Legal

Swatches of all these polishes:

19. NYC In A New York Color Minute Chelsea, 20. NYC In A New York Color Minute Canal Street

1. OPI Royal Flush Blush, 2. OPI Designer… De Better, 3. Rimmel I<3 Lasting Finish Cranberry Zest, 4. Rimmel I<3 Lasting Finish Black Cherries, 5. Ciaté Strictly Legal, 6. Gosh Forest Floor, 7. China Glaze Holly-Day, 8. China Glaze Strawberry Fields, 9. OPI Mermaid’s Tears, 10. OPI Warm & Fozzie, 11. W7 Turquoise glitter, 12. W7 Green/ Yellow glitter, 13. W7 Blue glitter, 14. W7 Purple/ Pink/ Red/ Blue glitter, 15. W7 Fuchsia glitter, 16. W7 Rose glitter

3. Catrice Lavenderlicious, 4. Catrice Up in the Air, 5. Essence Kings of Mints, 6. Catrice Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy, 7.Catrice Apropos Apricot, 8. Bourjois So Laque Tangerine Fatal, 9. Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever, 10. Catrice Just Berried, 11. Essie In Stitches, 12. Essie French Affair, 13. Essie Nice is Nice, 14. Essie Coat Azure, 15. Orly Pink Lemonade, 16. Catrice Let’s Mauve On, 17. Catrice Iron Mermaiden, 18. Catrice Purpelized

15. Catrice Rusty but Sexy, 16. Essence Be Optimistic, 17. OPI Cozu-Melted in the Sun, 18. OPI Chicago Champagne Toast, 19. OPI Mauving to Manitoba, 20. OPI Meet me on the Star Ferry

12. OPI Silver Shatter Topcoat, 13. Essie Topless & Barefoot

If you would like to see the rest of my collection you can go to the following posts:

Nail Polish Collection Part 1: OPI, Ciaté, top & base coats

Nail Polish Collection Part 2: China Glaze, Sephora, Hérôme, Eyeko

Nail Polish Collection Part 3: Bourjois, Catrice, Maybelline & more

Nail Polish Collection Part 4: Diamond Cosmetics, E.L.F. & Random Polishes

Nail Polish Collection Part 5 – Swatches

Mini update: nail polish collection (Nail Wheel 11)

As you can see I have added some polishes, but nothing major and most of them you’ve seen before, but I just thought I’d be consistent and show all the polishes including swatches.

Some of my favorite colors that I have added in the past year or so are OPI’s Mermaid’s Tears, Essie Coat Azure, Gosh Forest Floor and Ciaté Strictly Legal.

What has been your favorite nail polish color?

Review: Sephora Express Nail Polish Remover

One product many beautyblogs have been raving about is the express nail polish remover by Sephora. What it is, is a little pot with a sponge inside that should make cleaning up polish from your finger nails a breeze. After reading some reviews about this product online I thought I’d give it a shot and see how I like it. I actually love the product on the one hand, but on the other, I don’t. Here’s why.

Sephora Express Nail Polish Remover

As you can see the express remover comes in a little pot. So far so good and this looks like it could be just your average conventional nail polish remover. Here’s what you see when you unscrew the cap:

Sponge inside the pot

Inside this little jar is a sponge soaked in nail polish remover. What you do is, you simply stick your finger in the hole, you hold it or twist it a few times and tadah: your nail polish is gone. It takes off anything, even tough glitter polishes without leaving a trace. As any nail polish user will know: darker, bolder colors and glitters are a pain to take off as you either get the color or glitter all over your hands. Not with this thing and so I was as happy as a kid at Christmas when I found out it actually does what it’s supposed to do.

Here’s the downside though: the nail polish remover that this thing originally came with weakened my nails to the extend that they all started to break like no tomorrow. At first I noticed some weird sort of chipping. It was as if the top layer of my nails was starting to wear off, which had me kind of worried. Here I was after more than a year of putting in true efforts to get my nails healthy after years of nail biting. Finally they were becoming stronger and I used this for a month and snap! That was the end of long nails for me. My nails still haven’t recovered, only a few of them are now growing out long and strong.

So for me, the idea of the product works, it’s just the remover inside that I find horrible. You can imagine my joy when I found the following video (in Dutch) on how to clean it out and replace the remover with your own (also as a refill so you only have to buy the pot once):

This is NOT my video. Source

After watching this, I tried switching out mine and now it works a charm! I just use this really cheap drugstore brand remover which does the job so much better without damaging my nails. The effect of the jar hasn’t changed: I still don’t get nail polish all over my fingers when taking of polish and glitters all stay put in the jar as well. The only thing I did is use very chunky glitters so the sponge got damaged a bit, but the fluff that comes out at times I can easily wipe away.

Final verdict: without the original nail polish remover I say it’s a must have for anyone digging nail polish!

Have you tried this nail polish remover before? Which brand of nail polish remover do you use?

Some new nail polish: walking in a GLITTER wonderland

I’m always looking for new nail polish to try out and especially when it’s cheap I’m always curious to see what it does. I bought these polishes in a 2 for €5 euro deal at my local budget store. Glitter nail polishes are difficult to get right: they usually take a gazillion layers before they cover all of your nail and so it is hard to achieve the look you see in the bottle. Not with these lovelies though! Let’s have a look shall we?

I took this pictures with my phone as it photographs nicely when using flash, at least much nicer than with my trusty point and shoot. As you can tell these all look super glittery.You can see the colors better on the picture below:

There’s a glittery green with multicolored (gold/ yellow & blue) on the left. Followed by fuchsia, blue, dusty rose and purple with pink, red and blue sparkles. All the way on the right is a bright turquoise color which is easily my favorite. Let’s have a look at some swatches shall we:

Turquoise, Green with multicolored glitter, Blue,

Purple with multicolored glitter, fuchsia and dusty rose.

Look how gorgeous?! And this is only 2 coats of each polish. For a glitter nail polish that is some amazing coverage. With most other glitter polishes you only get this result after 3 – 4 sometimes even 5 coats. Dare I say I’m impressed? Yup I am. Only down side is that the polish is on the thick side and quite goopy, but I’m guessing that’s why you get them this opaque.

These retail at your local Op = Op voordeelwinkel (or likeminded stores). The brand is W7 and they are 2.75 each or 2 for 5 euros.

New Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish Nail Polish

A while ago I read on many beauty blogs that Rimmel would be releasing some new polishes in funky colors. I finally found them in my local drug store and brought home two of the polishes. This is my review of these polishes and a quick nail of the day/ week.

In the picture above you see the two beauties I brought home. On the left is cranberry zest and on the right we have black cherries. Cranberry zest is more of a bright raspberry pink color than a cranberry, but that is just a side note. What makes this color unique is the fact that it’s a scented nail polish. Yes people: once it dries you smell something sweet, sort of like those chewy fruity candies (fruitella) with strawberry/ raspberry flavor. Black cherries is a very dark purple with a very subtle shimmer to it. Perfect for fall.

And this is what it looks like on my nails. As you can see black cherries covers very opaquely, while cranberry zest is a bit more sheer. I used to coats for both. I didn’t like the texture of black cherries: it was very thick and didn’t go on very smoothly. Cranberry zest has a thinner formula that went on smoothly and didn’t cause any streaking. I also like this color best on my nails: black cherries is so dark that you don’t really see the shimmer due to my light skin tone. When I held it up in sunlight this afternoon, you could actually see it, but I think that also has to do with my top coat.

To show you that it actually does have shimmer, I also took some pictures with my flash on. Especially in the picture above you can see the very subtle effect. There is definitely more to this color than just a deep purple, but on my nails you can only see this when exposed to bright lights.

Needless to say, my favorite of the two is the Cranberry zest one. It goes on smoothly and show up nicely. Black cherries has a thicker formula and against my pale skin the color doesn’t come out as nicely. It was worth the buy though: these retail for only 4.99 a pop and there is a great range of colors to choose from. There are more scented ones (they are called Fruities and it’s on the bottle) and many other colors to choose from including a glittery top coat called disco ball and some great bright colors that will brighten up any nail polish look.

Q: Have you tried the new Rimmel polishes yet?