Layla Magnetic Nail Polish

Hi everyone!

Today's blogpost is not a design, but just a nail polish I'm going to show you.
I had an exam a few days ago, and this was my manicure then - I didn't exactly have the time to create an intricate nail art design because I had to study, but I wanted something more than just a simple colour...

Here is where the magnetic nail polish comes in very handy!

 

I have three magnetic nail polishes - a pink and a blue one by Essence, and a gold brown one by Layla called 09 Golden Bronze.
I really dislike the Essence ones - the magnetic effect is not very strong - but the Layla polish is amazing! 

My mom bought this polish for me about a year ago, and I'm very glad she did!

This is a colour I would never have picked up myself, but it looks so gorgeous and the magnetic effect is very strong and visible, so I absolutely adore this polish.


Magnetic nail polishes are very simple, as you probably already know: you just paint it on your nails and while the polish is still wet, you hold a little magnet right above it to create the effect.

I painted my nails with two coats of Golden Bronze to get full coverage.I just love how the colours turns out when you hold the magnet above it - when you just apply the polish, it looks sort of goldish, like the light coloured stripes you can see on the picture above.But when you hold the magnet above your nails, you can see it changing - so cool! I love the depth that is added by the darker brown colour here.

Yes I'm spamming you with pictures because I just looooove the colours so much! Hope you like them as much as I do!

What do you think of magnetic nail polishes? I think they can look great when you don't have the time to do nail art but still want something special on your nails - provided you have a magnetic nail polish that does what it's supposed to, of course.

Thanks for reading! :)

Polish Haul!

Hi everyone!

About a week ago I treated myself to some new polishes, since I just had finished writing two papers for my exams :)

Here's my haul:

As you can see, I bought seven new polishes (yeah, one is hiding behind the Essie polish), some cuticle cream and a nail wheel with studs in it.

Here's everything in more detail:

Here are Mint Me Up by Catrice, Two Million Dollar Baby by Catrice, Sugar Crystals by Maybelinne New York Color Show, and Gris Cashmire by Arcancil.

I already used a lot of my new polishes in a design, which you can see here!

I also bought Muchi, Muchi by Essie and 847 by Deborah Milano. 

And yes, a fast drying top coat from Only You, some cuticle cream by Herôme, and a nail wheel with several studs in it - some gold ones, some black stars and rhinestones, all really cool!

I already used one of these studs here! (yeah, same design as for the polishes, I just wanted to use everything I bought at once!)

I am now officially addicted to cuticle cream, I just smear it on whenever I think about it haha.

Also: I made some changes to my blog! I know it's been a while since the Beginner Blogger's Bootcamp feedback session by Will Paint Nails For Food, but I have had a very busy month with exams and papers, so I only just now had the change to make some proper changes to the blog.

I want to thank everyone who gave feedback, because I got some really good suggestions!
I've added a few buttons that make it easier for people to follow me here and find me on other social media, and I've changed my banner as well :)

Hope you like it!

Blue Dots and Stripes!

Hi everyone!

I am suuuper happy with today's design - polka dots and stripes!
I adore polka dot designs, so I thought that the time was right to do one myself!

I used Essie's Lapiz of Luxury and FM1 by D'Orleac to create this design.



I started by painting the nails of my index finger, middle finger and pinky with three coats of Lapiz of Luxury and my thumb and ring finger with two coats of white.

I waited until everything had dried, and then I used a dotting tool to create the white dots.



After that, I did the stripes on my other two nails. I first used striping tape, but I had placed it quite badly so the stripes weren't very equal in size...
So I decided to just make them a bit thicker and more even by myself, without using striping tape.



I did this design on both my hands, because it was quite simple to do and I just loved how it looks! So cute :)

That's all! This was a pretty simple design, but it doesn't always have to be very complicated, right? Simple can look super cute, even if I say so myself :)

Thanks for reading!

Houndstooth!

Hi everyone!

Today I have a houndstooth design for you. Houndstooth is one of my favourite prints ever - possible even my favourite!
I'm not yet so skilled as to make perfect houndstooth print, I never manage to get the white to look houndstoothy as well, if you know what I mean.  But I think they look pretty decent, no? :)

For this design I used:
FM1 - D'Orleac
Black on Black - Sinful Colours
DS Pewter - Opi (Raw Granite)

I started by painting my two middle nails with two coats of white.
Then I used a small brush to create the houndstooth pattern with black polish.

I always start by painting all the squares onto my nails. When I'm satisfied with the squares, I make the little triangle shapes on all of them (on the picture below, those shapes are at the bottom/left side of the squares).

After that, I add the two straight lines (in the picture below those are at the top/right side of the squares).

Then I used Opi's textured polish DS Pewter on my other nails, and added a topcoat to make it shiny since it's normally a matte polish with sparkles in it
(I have some swatches of this polish here, but it's from when I first started with this blog so they aren't the best swatches ever. Or even the sharpest pictures ever. But I guess you have to start somewhere right haha)

I did this design on both of my hands, here's a picture to prove it:

I know only my right hand is in focus here, but you can see that I did the design on both hands so that's good enough :)

What do you think of houndstooth print? I always love it, I think it looks so classy but special at the same time - the only downside is that it's a bit difficult to make. But it was worth it in my opinion!

Thanks for reading!

Baby Pink and Glittery Grey Manicure

Hello everyone!

I went on a polish haul a few days ago and bought 7 new polishes! (pictures of the haul coming soon)

For today's manicure I used 4 of my new polishes:

Muchi, Muchi - Essie
Sugar Crystals - Maybelline New York Color Show
Gris Cashmire - Arcancil
Two Million Dollar Baby - Catrice

I started by painting three nails with the Essie polish. But I'm a bit disappointed in the formula: after four thin layers of polish, I still didn't have full coverage! My nail line was still visible, and I don't really like it when that's the case. 

All of the Essie polishes I've bought so far are very thin so I always need 3 coats, but then at least there's full coverage. So mhh, I was expecting more from this one. But I do love the colour, it's such a nice baby pink.

Then I painted over those three nails with Sugar Crystals, 2 coats. This polish is a very very sheer pink polish with tiny glittery things in it. So even after two coats of this one, my nail line was still visible... Oh well, I guess I'll have to learn to live with that :)

Then I painted my thumb and ring finger with two coats of Gris Cashmire. After that, I used the glitter top coat. I needed 3 coats to get this much glitter and I did have to place the glitter a bit, but look at that sparkle!

I was quite surprised when I saw the glitter on my nails, because in the bottle it had seemed like it was one size of gold glitter. But actually the polish consists of a small sized gold glitter and a bit larger sized silver glitter. I think Two Million Dollar Baby would look great in a glitter gradient :)

I also bought a small nail stud wheel, so I added two gold studs on my index finger.

Then, to finish this blogpost: I also bought some lovely big rings and jumped on the bandwagon of midi rings! I think they look great with my manicure :)

 Thanks for reading!

Vintage roses and gold

Hi everyone!

I did a manicure with a vintage feel to it, as you can see.
I'm very happy with today's design, I love it a lot! So a warning, there are a lot of pictures in this blogpost! :)

For this design, I combined the gorgeous designs by two other nail artists: this one by Paulina's Passions and this one by On Wednesdays, We Wear Polish. Pretty designs, right?

The colours I used are:
Miss Minty - Gosh
Goldfinger - Catrice
Soft Rose - Nivea
Rose Libertine - Rimmel London
FM1 - D'Orleac
Nr. 15 - Hema
Ate Berries in the Canaries - OPI

 I made this design using the techniques the other artists' describe in their blogpost.
For the vintage mint green-gold design, I first painted my nails with two layers of Miss Minty, and when that was dry I painted over one coat of Goldfinger.
I then immediately dabbed on it with a crinkled ball of saran wrap. Finish with shiny topcoat!

For the roses, I also just followed the tutorial by Paulina's Passions. 

I first painted my nails with Miss Minty, and then I put some light pink circles on it. Then I used some darker pink polishes to create the flower shape. 

I also added some dark green leaves. Finally, I also added some gold polish onto the flowers, to make them sparkle pretty and match the other nails even more. 

 

I'm absolutely super pleased with how lovely this manicure turned out. I think it looks very sweet, and it makes me smile every time I look at my nails :)

To end, here's another picture of the entire thing, with my thumb also in the shot since I love the roses I did on my thumb:

What do you think? :)
Thanks for reading!

Recreating an artwork - 'Heist' by Earph

Hi everyone!

Today I have a design for you that's a bit out of my comfort zone.

I knew I wanted to do something with triangles, but I wasn't exactly sure what. So I googled images to get some inspiration, and I came accross this picture (which I found here):

'Heist' by Earph (Matthew Williamson)

I really liked the white and red smoke around the triangle, so I decided to adapt this image a bit and recreate it onto my nails.

The colours I used: Black on Black - Sinful Colors;

Big Apple Red - OPI; Chinchilly - Essie; 

FM1 - D'Orleac; Matt Effect Top Coat - Gosh

I started by painting my nails with a coat of Black on Black and let it dry.
After this, I used a small plastic bag to create the smoky effect. I put on blobs of black, grey, white and red and immediately covered my nail with the plastic bag. I pressed on it (but don't shift it from its place) and took the bag of.

I touched up a few things (put some extra black on the side of my nails, mostly) and added a matte top coat. Then I simply painted the triangles with a thin brush and tadaam, that's it!

Now that I think about it, another technique that would probably also have worked for this is dry marble, but I didn't think of it at the time. But this "plastic bag" technique also works well to create the smoky effect, I think.

I'm quite liking this design. It's the first time I tried to recreate an artwork (well, except for some Mondriaan nails I did once) so it's something I normally don't do. It's not a perfect recreation of the artwork of course, but I like how it turned out. Maybe I'll try to recreate another artwork some time in the future!

What do you think? :)

Blingy Ruffian Manicure - New Year's Eve Nails

Hello everyone!

I'm a bit late with posting this, but I wanted to show you the manicure I wore on New Year's Eve.

I first had a very different manicure in mind than the one you're seeing here: I wanted to cover my nails completely in gold glitter - but not just throw random glitter over them, but really place the glitter very neatly onto my nails. I started with my thumbnail, and by the time I got to my index finger I was completely sick of it. I just had to stop to preserve what was left of my sanity. I was quite bummed because I love glitter manicures (for example: Polish All The Nails does them all the time and they look so amazing), but I just couldn't bring myself to spending what was going to be 4 hours on it...

Here's a very bad quality picture of how far I had come: 

At first I didn't have inspiration for a new manicure, but then it came to me: a very simple silver and black ruffian manicure. With rhinestones of course, because I had to be blingy on New Year's Eve! ;)

I used my new Hema polish and Black on Black by Sinful Colors. 

I first painted my nails with the silver colour - two coats. Then I put on the black and just made sure not to start painting my nails at the base, but I left a little space so the silver would be visible.

I felt my manicure needed some extra bling, so I added silver rhinestones on my ring finger.

That's it!

I hope you all had a great time at New Year, I know I did! (lots and lots of food!)