Continuing the journey through discovering nail polish companies available in Greece I came across Annie Paris. This is the first polish from this brand that I got and, again, I am amazed. This amazing slate blue was perfect in one coat and it stayed perfect the whole four days I wore it. It's so pigmented I might try stamping with it.
Anyway, here is what I used for the mani in detail:
base: Elixir - Calcium Milk Gel
base colour: Annie Paris - 486
stamping plate DRK-C
stamping colour Konad white
top coats Elixir - Diamond Top Coat Fast Dry & Seche Vite
I'll leave you with a beautiful song that has a suitable title for this mani. Colours and music should go together even if it's unusual to match your music to your mani ;)
I have been wearing so many shiny and sparkly things all through the holidays,
I needed a cream polish as a palette cleanser. Essence 51 Miss Captain, a
medium blue grey, was perfect for this. It’s part of their gel line, but it’s exactly
like their previous creams. It dries a little bit darker and leans a bit
greener on the nail.
I also did two types of polka dots with a
white polish to keep things interesting, the smaller ones were done with an Essence
stamping plate and the larger ones with the classic Konad m79.
who knows if the moon's
a balloon, coming out of a keen city
in the sky-filled with pretty people?
(and if you and i should
get into it, if they
should take me and take you into their balloon,
why then
we'd go up higher with all the pretty people
than houses and steeples and clouds:
go sailing
away and away into a keen
city where nobody's ever visited, where
always
it's
Spring) and
everyone's
in love and flowers pick themselves
I love this e.e. cummings poem so much. It
feels so light and fresh, you’d never guess it was written 90 years ago.
The first sign of spring round where I live
is the almond blossoms that suddenly appear at the end of January. They come so early that
sometimes I can’t tell straight away whether the branches are covered in flowers or
snow. This design was part stamped (Konad m66 plate) and part hand-painted. The
base coat I used is Nailtek Foundation III and the top coat is Seche Vite.
base colour: Korres – 82 Ciel
branches: Le Chat CM – 4 Brown
flowers: Konad White, Korres – 17 Candy Pink, Essie – Plumberry
iridescent accents: Misa – Radiant
A few months ago a dear friend of mine went to Korea. She’s one of those people that wherever she goes pleasant surprises happen and they are the stuff we talk and laugh about for years. I wonder what stories she’ll have to share when she comes back from her travels later this week. Along with her amusing stories she also brought back a ton of presents, some of which you will be seeing eventually. Not the chocolates, though. Those are already gone.
One of those presents was a colourful cosmetics bag. I love unusual combinations of colours, and this is definitely a winner combination. It’s one of those combinations that when you hear about it, it sounds like it wouldn’t work, but then you see it and it’s beautiful, vibrant, it makes your day just looking at it! I aim to become brave enough to combine colours that way.
Something that beautiful of course had to be translated to a mani and here is my attempt, along with the colours I used to achieve it. I chose the plum tree pattern from the Konad plate m66 as the fabric has a similar embossed floral pattern, though you can’t see it in the pictures. The colours I used were (thumb to pinky):
Gosh, it's been so long since I found time to write a post, and even now it's going to be very brief! I wanted to post this mani that i made for the LDoS challenge ages ago. It's for day 11, Summer days. Well, all through the summer I don't think we've had a whole day where it didn't rain, so there you go!
Base colour: Borghese - Castello Blue, a very difficult to work with colour, but I did manage to make some 3D clouds with it because it's so thick.
Darker Clouds: konad m79 plate, Mavala - 218 Minsk with a little Olay - 680 Warm Platinum on top.
I hope you get a clear view of the full moon today!
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 - Wildlifeis 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!
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.
How do I begin this post without getting distracted by Kang Dong Won and the Duelist's beautiful soundtrack for another hour? By sharing a song with you my dear reader!
'The Duelist' is a fictional period Korean film with stunning visuals, a beautiful, sad love story and two of my favourite Korean actors, Kang Dong Won and Ha Ji Won. If you like "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" and "House of the Flying Daggers", then definitely watch this; the budget may not be as enormous as it was for those two films, but it is truly wonderfully shot, the script is good and the actors great.
When I first started nail stamping last year, one of the patterns I wanted to recreate was from the protagonist's costume. Sad Eyes wore mostly black textured clothes and this idea of black on black simply stuck with me as I am fascinated by black. I tried many times to create something similar back then, but the results were not good enough.
He's so gorgeous!
Beautiful fabrics and a beautiful man. Ah! My heart!
Enough with the Kang Dong Won spam, back on topic. A few days ago Nathalie (jellynat) had this post up which reminded me of my quest for the black on black mani I wanted to do. Then this scandalously pretty picture of JaeJoong appeared yesterday from the upcoming 'Time Slip Dr.Jin' Korean drama who reminded me of 'Sad Eyes'.
He is a real person, not a CG character.
The final blow was delivered by my friend Orion who reminded me of all the above, so I did it. This time I picked a pattern that would allow for the different textures to be more apparent, as my previous choice (the multiple squares from the konad m63 plate) was too dense and it ended up looking muddled instead of textured. My only complaint this time is that I should have used a thicker black glossy polish to stamp. The one I usually stamp with was ruined when I decided to 'experiment' with it a few weeks ago. The search for the perfect black on black mani continues, though I think that first I'll have to do a red on black like JaeJoong's costume.
basecoat: SpaRitual - Body
Stamping polish: Bourjois - 39 Noir de Chine
stamping plate: Konad m64
PS- Should I have a 'gorgeous Korean men with swords' tag now? haha...
As I said before, Nubar - Toasted Marshmallow has become a favourite not so much because it's a great colour on its own, but because I have been looking for this colour for designs I want to do. Here is the first one in a style that is full of late 70s nostalgia, a time where this sort of yellow along with brown and warm red was very fashionable - or at least that is the impression we are left with. Of course I added a Carpenters song to match the mood!
The breakdown
Base colour: Nubar - Toasted Marshmallow (2 coats)
Stamping polish: Le Chat Cm - 04 Brown Nail Art Polish
Plate: Konad m65
No topcoat.
I decided not to use a topcoat with this but instead take advantage of the matte finish that this brown polish has and add some texture to the mani even if it meant it wouldn't be as long lasting.
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!
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).
I've mentioned my love of OPI - Stranger Tidesbefore. It's a funny colour, like a cute ghoul; the terms sound contradictory, but it suits it. Anyway, I wanted to do something cute with it and here it is! I'm so glad Bourjois - Beige Glamour worked exactly like I wanted it to with this colour! It was great for stamping!
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!
I was looking for a green polish that has the quality of oxidized bronze/copper. I have always found that green-blue mix of colours captivating and fascinating. In fact I want an enormous garden with baroque bronze statues that I can run around and be happy forever. These colours will add to the beauty of the garden!
Trying to find that quality in a nail polish is hard, but at least I managed to find the right green. Here it is next to a bronze necklace I bought from asos. This is two coats of Mavala 155 Bronze Green stamped with that beige/yellow/gold polish I mentioned here and a design from konad plate m15 and Seche Vite top coat.
Mavala polishes are of great quality, however I find that most people (including myself) are discouraged by the current price they are asked to pay in most shops for the quantity (£4.10 for 5ml). I was so lucky to find these in beautybay for just £3. I hope they don't change the price any time soon.
"Subtle" and "red" don't usually go together, but in this case I think they do. I have been doing a lot of subtle nail art lately and nude nails which is generally unusual for me, but I've been enjoying it. This particular combination feels so good on! It reminds me of a top I used to have with a similar colour combination and design. Sadly it was ruined by a nasty black sock that found its way to my laundry and turned everything an ugly shade of grey.
The m73 is one of my favourite plates. This floral design is pretty and not too in-your-face floral. It reminds me a lot of designs I used to do freehand. Here it is:
The breakdown
*1 coat of NailTek base coat
*2 coats of Essie - Jazz
*konad plate m73
*Stamping polish: Creative Nail Design - #431House of Rebels
*1 coat of Seche Vite Top coat
The gloom of winter is fast approaching and I wanted to wear a rust/terracotta kind of colour. H&M's Looks Great on You was perfect for what I wanted!
Two days later I got a bit tired of it and decided to use a stamp design that is the complete opposite of the current weather: flowers (Konad plate 51).
I rarely -if ever- do the same mani combination a second time. This one is different though. It's already the third time I've had it on since this summer.
OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection was one of my favourites. I don't know what it is that attracted me to those colours, but I really love the ones I got. Stranger Tides is a cream light sage green that leans a tad towards yellow. I never thought I'd like such a nail colour, but I do!
OPI's Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow on the other hand is a polish I never quite made friends with. When I had seen it in store the lighting made it look like a dark creamy olive green. I was so disappointed when I took it out of the bag to discover it was an almost-black jelly green colour that I haven't used it more than a couple of times in the two years I've had it. I think now that there are olive green polishes out there and I can have the colour I want, I'll wear it and see it again for what it is and not what it isn't.
As soon as I had Stranger Tides on the idea popped into my head for this combination using konad plate m63. HTAT is the exact colour of wakame seaweed! I was very pleased with the end result since it looks like seaweed in the sea when there's a bit of wind and there's a lot of sand in the water.
And a picture to show you why you should occasionally file the rubbery part of your stamper. After a while it starts to not pick up the designs so well, but with a little bit of filing it's good as new!
