Catch some pastel stars

Ελληνικά/ Greek

It had been quite some time since I had done nail art of any sort, but the other day I met up with some friends, had a totally girlie day of pampering and playing with beauty products. By the time I got back I felt really inspired to do something playful and here it is, a stamping design that owes a lot to Sanrio’s Little Twin Stars.

My nails are shorter than usual at the moment which meant I could use a design from the Bundle Monster BM20 plate. The pastel yellow base is Korres’ 34 – Pastel Lemon and for stamping I used various mixes of: 

China Glaze – Secret Peri-wink-le

China Glaze – For Audrey

China Glaze – Flyin’High

Etude House - GR605, PK011 & BL505 

Orly – Cashmere Cardigan

Essence – 117 Happy End

Speaking of stars, tomorrow and the day after (11&12/08) the  Perseids Meteor Shower will be at its peak. Do you plan on staying up and watching the falling stars? Here’s a link to read more about it if you like.

XxX
Elysse

 

 

Lazy Days of Summer Challenge: Favourite Fruit

My favourite fruit is a type of grape that grows in Ancient Olympia, where my parents come from and where I spent every summer of my childhood (and yes, technically I am an Olympian,  though not so much of a godess). They are black seedless grapes and usually you can fbuy them sundried as currants, but I always preferred them fresh as they have a gorgeously sweet taste and their smell is intoxicatingly summery. I also love their texture. They look like they have this pale lavender dusting that if you touch it you see the deep purple of their skin. They are an aesthetic and gustatorial pleasure! Here is my attempt at it!

Lazy Days of Summer Challenge Day 6: Pool Party

In Greek/Ελληνικά

Yeap, we're on to day 6! Pool party! My inspiration for this is the pretty iridescent tiles you see in pools some times. The base colour is Mavala 167 Cyclades blue, one of my favourite summer blues, the tiles are China Glaze - Rodeo Fanatic and Oil of Olay  - Lagoon. I went around a few of them with white acriilyc paint and used Seche Vite on top. 

Drk-A, Westside Warrior and Crop Circles

Greek/Ελληνικά

I've had China Glaze - Westside Warrior for the longest of times and hadn't worn it for some reason so I decided it was about time. It's actually a very nice polish, maybe a little too yellow-leaning for me to love it (I have Foubert's place for that), but the texture is nice and it applies smoothly in two coats.

I also decided to go one step beyond and do the 'dreaded' accent nail for which I used  Bourjois 39 Jaune Trendy and Westside Warrior as a stamping polish using a design from my beloved Drk-A palette. WW is actually fantastic for stamping as it is very pigmented. I really liked the end result, it looks like a field with crop circles!

Artificial light

A bit of sunshine: Bourjois 39 Jaune Trendy

Ανάρτηση στα ελληνικά

I am so tired of this November weather. I really needed something sunny and playful and since I can't make a quick escape to somewhere warmer and sunnier, I settled for a sunny colour on my nails with a bit of stamping to make it more interesting.

The base colour is Bourjois 39 Jaune Trendy, a lovely warm mustardy yellow that is rather goopy and I think I should add a few drops of thinner before I use it next time.

Then I put nail guides on to limit the design on the top third of the nail only and stamped it with Konad White stamping polish using Bundle Monster plate BM21. I finished it of with dots of greens and blues. From thumb to pinky they are: OPI - Jade is the New Black, China Glaze - For Audrey, China Glaze - Flyin'High, W7- Stellar, China Glaze - Aqua Baby.

Natural light (overcast)

Natural light (overcast)

Nails Inc - Duke of Wellington Place a.k.a.I created a swamp (monster)

I went a bit abstract this time. I've been too stressed to sit down and think of a design, I just wanted to make something. It looks a bit like a swamp at dusk, but it's fine! I started with a dark blue-ish grey (nails inc - Duke of Wellington Place), then dotted it with a golden olive (China Glaze - Peace on Earth) and then added details with a blue/teal/lavender multichrome polish (Leighton Denny - Your Planet or Mine). It's a shame the sun wasn't out and I couldn't show the other colour shifts in Your Planet or Mine. It really brought the whole thing together and made it interesting. I'm glad I thought of adding it because I was one step away from calling this mani a failed experiment and removing it.

Natural light (cloudy gloomy weather)

Artificial light

I'm also thinking of making a lightbox. I'm tired of this glare in my pictures! It's annoying.

Comparison: Ciaté Strictly Legal and China Glaze Side Saddle

I have reviewed Ciaté's Strictly Legal in the past, but had failed to notice how similar it is to China Glaze's Side Saddle. This is why I need to make these comparisons, because I am always drawn to similar colours and textures and end up having too many dupes or near dupes which is the case with these. As always with comparisons I try to take as many pictures as possible.

Both are very pigmented and opaque in 2 coats and have exactly the same type of shimmer that shines mainly gold, but you can see reflections of pink and green as well. It's been very popular these years and it seems to be a type of shimmer you can find in a lot of nail polishes and cream eye shadows as well. 

However, the base colour is slightly different. Side Saddle has a deep purple base whilst Strictly Legal is a beautiful burgundy. Both are equally dark with respect to lightness making them hard to distinguish on the nail. The one thing that is different on the nail is the way the shimmer looks. It's a lot more golden and apparent on Strictly Legal, SL looks like a polish with shimmer while in Side Saddle the shimmer is not as apparent giving it that 'lit from within' look. 

All in all, they are very similar and close to being called dupes. They are not twins, they are sisters. 

Bottle swatches (artificial light)

(artificial light)

(artificial light)

Side Saddle, Strictly Legal and Ciaté Wait Until Dark (artificial light)

I also thought it would be useful to compare them with another two colours, Nubar - Prevail (with a topcoat) as it is, too, a purple with hints of gold and Ciaté Wait Until Dark since it is another popular Ciaté  purple, but as you can see it is not a true purple but a grey base with a lot of purple shimmer.

Bottles (natural light, shade)

Natural light (shade)

Natural light (gloomy british daylight)

Natural light (gloomy british daylight)

 These last two are blurry to showcase how the shimmer looks different in the two polishes

Natural light (gloomy british daylight)

Natural light (gloomy british daylight)

China Glaze VIII: Aubergine Dream

Greek/Ελληνικά

I don't know why I hadn't posted this earlier, I took the pictures ages ago. China Glaze VIII. is an older polish that came out on a special anniversary series China Glaze did some time ago. It is beautiful, it goes on smooth as a butter, doesn't chip for ages and the colour is a gorgeous true aubergine (eggplant for those across the pond). See for yourselves. Here's a couple of delicious Greek aubergines 

And her is the polish (2 coats, no topcoat)

Frosty High

It's been frosty yet sunny these days and the bare tree branches look so nice with frost on them. If only the pavements weren't so slippery and dangerous! I hate having to walk around when there's sleet. I'm not used to it at all and as a result I walk around like an old duck, looking at everyone else who, being more northern than I am, walk normally. How do they do it? Is it a superhuman skill? Ugh...

Btw have you noticed the Google Doodle today? It's for Charles Dickens'200th birthday! Yay! I hope people turn to reading more of his books this year. I was reading earlier in a British newspaper that kids these days lack the attention span for reading his books and if that isn't a sad thing, I don't know what is. 

Anyway, I shouldn's stray off on other topics too much or at least that is the purpose of this blog. Back to the mani! It's a blue skies&branches&snow theme! I used China Glaze - Flyin'High as a base, Le Chat Cm 04 Brown Nail Art Polish for the branches, Etude House - WH702 for the snow and Seche Vite Top Coat.

Christmas Mani

I am not particularly festive, mostly cause this year I have to be away from my family during the holidays and won't celebrate much. I decided to do a Christmas themed mani though, just to make use of the themed designs on my nail plates. One thing I have to say is that this many lasted a long long time-more than I had intended to keep it. The pictures I took were on the fourth day of the mani and there's only a bit of tipwear, no cracks. That's Seche Vite top coat for you.

The breakdown:
China Glaze - Jolly Holly
Stargazer - 237 (gold)
Creative - House of Rebels

Comparison: Dirty Greens

Since I have a few colours that seem to belong roughly in the same dirty turquoisy/greeny group I thought people might find a comparison useful. The polishes I compared are:

• O.P.I - Mermaid's Tears
• China Glaze  - For Audrey
• Etude House - V.V.I.P.Green
• Misa - Dirty, Sexy, Money

Bottle pictures

Fluorescent light

Natural Light

Kim Hyun Joong's Shirt

My dear friend, who for all intents and purposes shall be called Patrick Starfish, was bombarding me with images of Korean guys yesterday. Many of my friends have that as a hobby it seems. Aside for the fact that they are all gorgeous, they also wear gorgeous clothes. Everything can provide me with inspiration and in this case it was Kim Hyun Joong's shirt. This one is for you Patrick Starfish!

The detail:
1 coat of Nailtek base
2 coats of China Glaze - Aqua baby
1 coat of INM Out the Door topcoat
Konad plate m60
Le Chat CM Nail Art Polish  - 4 Brown

1 coat of INM Out the Door topcoat

I didn't really do a great job in this and I managed to ruin the design a bit when I was doing the clean up. This top coat is starting to bug me as well because whatever I do, it drags the design. Oh well! Disce ut semper victurus!

November blues

I couldn't decide which winter colour to wear when I was looking at my pretty bottles and I was drawn by something that doesn't scream 'winter' i.e.dark and warm. If you think about the beautiful Christmas decorations that are almost everywhere right now, it sort of is. Icy blue fairy lights look so magical! I don't like multicoloured lights, but clear and icy blue are so beautiful!

As I don't like colours with too much white or too light on my skin I chose Periwinkle blue; it is cool enough to be icy and not sky blue. Here it is then, China Glaze - Peri-wink-le stamped with a design from bundle monster plate BM07 using Nubar - Dark Castle (the near black) and Barry M - Navy (the dark blue).

Grecian Inspiration: Etude House WH202 & China Glaze - First Mate

Before I made this blog, I used to take pictures of my nails and make up to show to my friends whenever I did something out of the ordinary or when a friend wanted me to swatch and compare some things I have. Scheming through some old pictures I found these pictures taken right before I went to Greece for my holidays. I never wear white polish as I find it too stark, but with a blue stamp covering most of it I loved it! The inspiration for this combination was taken from the designs of the metallic bars in balconies in Greece. I find them so fascinating. Almost no two are the same. 

I miss the summer! 

I used Etude House as a base and China Glaze - First Mate for stamping.