Essence 31 Electriiic & so much glitter

Greek / Ελληνικά

We're nearing the end of the summer and the song I'm starting today's post with has that end-of-the-holidays feel for me. I am not a summer person, but this end-of-season melancholy is almost palpable.

It ‘s been quite some time since I did a mani that was more full on and I really feel I went to town with this one: stamping, glitter placement, making straight lines with striping tape. The base on most nails is Essence 31 Electriiic , a beautiful blue crelly polish, stamping and the pinky were done with Models Own - Chrome Rose Gold and the glitter polish I used is 105 from the Innisfree star collection and it has so many different kinds of glitter particles in: medium, tiny,square, hexagonal, rectangular, gold, rose gold and white. Picking particles from it to do the thumb and pinky designs was not easy. The stamping plate I used on my pointer finger is Bundle Monster 201.

XxX

Elysse

 

 

Mermaids and the joy of sheer stamping

Greek / Ελληνικά

Sometimes shopping your stash is a great idea cause you discover hidden gems which you hadn’t fully appreciated the first time round. This ancient Rimmel 819 –Green with Envy polish is one such case. I re-discovered it this spring and I’ve since worn it 5 or 6 times wondering why I hadn’t previously worn it more often. It’s a super shiny teal with a blue-green duochrome pearl in. My camera really can’t capture it’s shine and beauty, it looks almost chrome or molten metal.

I usually wear it on its own, but this time I decided to go up a scale in the mermaid-o-meter and do some scaly stamping. I used Models Own - Chrome Gold, a cool gold that wouldn’t contrast the teal, and stamped it first with A-England - Proserpine. The stamp had thicker lines than I wanted, but I still liked the idea of adding a bit more texture to the design so I stamped it using Green with Envy on same plate, which was sheer enough to make things more interesting without swamping it. 

I will go on pretending I am a mermaid now!

XxX

My Inner Monologue, Stargazer - 234, Sparitual - Body & BM201

Greek/Ελληνικά

Inner monologue

Thought no1: I really feel like doing something pink. How odd...

Thought no2: Why haven't I used my Stargazer Chromes as a base colour yet?

Thought no3: I really like this design, but the lines always come out too thick. Maybe if I tried stamping with a matte polish?

And here's the results! I did the swap in colours on the middle finger to show you how thick the lines on the design come out with a normal polish. I didn't use top coat over the matte stamping and the whole thing lasted flawlessly for the better part of the week. I think this is one of my favourite manis so far. I was looking at my nails so much when I had it on!

Stargazer - 234

Sparitual - Body

BM201 plate

Lazy Days of Summer Challenge Day 1: Beach Theme

In Greek/Ελληνικά

I decided to be a bit more social with my blog and what better way is there than to enter a challenge? I asked Karine [check her blog out if you haven't, it's great and she's such a lovely person!] a while ago about this and she introduced me to the 'Lazy Days of Summer Challenge'. Now this challenge couldn't be more different from what this summer has been so far and will probably continue to be: wet and busy.

Here is my entry for the beach theme. I had waves crushing on a sandy beach in mind when I did this. I used Olay - 685 Eternal Gold, a beige with gold that is just like a sandy beach under the sun, as a base. Then I used a combination of dark and light blue chrome polish (Stargazer 233 and 236) and Drikk Drk-B plate for stamping. I really like how it came out. 

Nubar Wildlife & Stargazer 234: Green and Pink in Las Vegas

Στα Ελληνικά

I haven't been using my duochrome/multichrome polishes much lately. They'd be wasted in such overcast weather as you really need natural light to appreciate their colour shifts. I was a bit tired of creme finish polishes though, which is why I decided to use a polish with a strong shift. Nubar - Wildlife is the polish I chose and it did not disappoint-quite the contrary. I decided to go all out and stamp it with Stargazer 234 (pink chrome) using a design from Konad plate m83.

This design somehow makes me think it belongs on the walls of a 70s hotel in Las Vegas where they would play Tom Jones-type songs. 

Take care!

xx

Edit: I had to add a video in the end. The post felt empty without it!

Etude House and a Bit of Baroque

My first attempt at French style stamping. I didn't quite succeed in stamping properly, but somehow I managed to stamp the gold over the green almost perfectly. Learning curve, learning curve.. 

Base Colour Etude House - GR605 V.V.I.P. (one coat)

Stamping Colour OPI - Jade is the New Black

                           Stargazer - 237

Stamping Plate Bundle Monster BM17

If chaos looks lovely...

...surely it can't be bad! After wearing Mavala - Platinum Marble for a couple of days I had had enough of the pearl shine; shimmer tires me quickly I'm afraid. I filed my nails and since the polish was still in a good shape I decided to give it another chance. Out come my two trustees, Manglaze  - Matte is Murder (matte black) and Fuggen Ugly (matte gorgeousness), and taraaa! Beautifully chaotic mani! I loved the feel of it, especially on the second day when it became smoother, but was still matte. It looked amazing! Excuse the dry hands. The weather is so cold at the minute, it's almost impossible to keep them hydrated no matter what I use. 

 (natural light)

  (natural light)

(artificial light)

Birthday Manicure

It's my birthday!! Yay!! I did something a bit more fun and reminiscent of the carnival!

I've got no idea why the nail on my middle finger looks broke, it's not! Anyway the base colour is Miss Sporty - 455 and I used Stargazer Chrome polishes 236,234 and 237 (more details on these here) with Konad plate m63. 

And a song I've been singing all day! Gosh! Don't you just want to hug Big Mama from the moment she appears on stage? She's adorable! No amount of stylists can buy you this much attitude!

And Bow wow to you, too!

Comparison: Stamping with Stargazer Chrome Polishes

I really like using Stargazer Chrome Polishes for stamping, evident by the fact that I got them all, and I wanted to do this comparison between them for a friend. I hope this explains the ugliness of the mani. I was trying so hard to find designs that would make both chrome colours apparent, yet not cover either of them too much that I didn't even notice how incompatible the designs are till after I did it! I guess I was too caught up in the details to notice the 'big picture'! Haha!

The base colour is Essie - School of Hard Rocks and the Chrome polishes are: 

232 - silver (the one I think is best and reach for most of the time)

233 - silvery blue chrome

234 - pinky chrome

235 - violet purple chrome

236 - deeper blue chrome

237 - gold (this is not that great on light and medium colours, but works best on dark as you can see here  and here).

You can find all of them here.

(all pictures were taken under artificial light)

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

The End of Autumn: Ciaté - Strictly Legal

Ciaté's Strictly Legal is as gorgeous as burgundy colours can get. I don't know why they describe it as a purple on the sight, it looks burgundy to me. The only time you can see hues of purple is when you aply the first layer, but then it changes to this dark beauty. It has tiny golden shimmer particles which you can clearly see in the bottle. On the nail they are much more discreet and sparse and look from slightly pinkish to golden.

Pairing it with gold for stamping was a no-brainer really and they look amazing together. I only wish I could take better pictures to show exactly how pretty they look. It looks like a  mediaeval embroidery piece to me and I always turn to the mediaeval style when it gets chilly!

I also love this Bundle Monster design for this sort of half nail stamping. You'll probably see it often!

A comparison between this and China Glaze's Side Saddle here.

Natural light (shade)

Articificial light

This is Halloween

Halloween is on Monday and it's fnally time to use the Halloween-themed designs on the Bundle Monster plates. I also decided to attempt a gradient nail using a sponge. I think it's ok for a first try!

The colour I used as a base was a jelly orange I made (or frankened as people tend to call these polishes) last year that I was craving for a jelly orange to match my favourite lip-gloss. It also saved me from buying O.P.I.'s Texas collection's jellies that came out a little bit later.

For sponging I used

1 layer of Oil of Olay - 680 Shimmering Sable (dark brown base with a bronze shimmer)

2 layers of Nubar  - Dark Castle (darkest grey with a metallic sheen) and 

1 layer of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat

This is a picture I took with only the brown polish sponged on. 

After everything was nice and dry I used StarGazer Chrome 232 (silver) for stamping.

A few days earlier I had attempted to do another similar mani over ManGlaze's Matte is Murder, but the StarGazer Chrome 237 (gold) wasn't bright enough over black. Oh well.. It's still fantastic over other colours!

Happy Halloween!