Shimmer Polish Nichole

*Disclaimer: this item was provided for review. All opinions expressed are my own and are not influenced by anything or anyone.

Hi everyone!

Today there's a little break from all the fun guest posts - here's a post of myself again! :D

I have a very patriotic polish for you today: Shimmer Polish Nichole! (or well, patriotic if you live in America at least - and I guess France and The Netherlands would work too!)

Let's Get Pink: Some Valentine's Day Designs

Hi everyone!

I finally decided to get to work on some Valentine's Day designs! I had a week of vacation after my exams and I spent it working on my thesis a bit, but also swatching A LOT!! It was so much fun and I'm really glad I was able to swatch so much and do some designs. I was also glad I was able to make a total garish collage :D

Today I'm showing you some Valentine's Day designs I came up with. They're simple but sweet, and above all they are pink ;)

Wild Zebra Hearts - Recreation of Nail Polish Society

Hello my polish loving friends!

In today's blog post I'll be showing you my recreation of an awesome design by Nail Polish Society - you can see hers here. 

Pastel Love

Hi lovelies!

Today I have a pastel design for you!
I bought some new polishes a few weeks ago and one of them was "C03 Evergreen 60s" by Catrice. 

This is a limited edition polish from the Crème Fresh collection.

I just love mint green so I couldn't resist this polish :) I would have bought more from the 60s inspired collection but this was the only colour left at the time - I might go back to see if the store has some of the other colours again.

The Evergreen polish wasn't the easiest to work with, however - it got thick very quickly, I had to be really careful to use thin coats because otherwise the polish would just drag and create lumps. 

The drying time was, unfortunately, quite bad: normally I can paint my second coat of polish on my left hand thumb when I have finished my first coat on both hands (starting with left hand thumb and ending with right hand pinky), but I really had to wait about 20-30 minutes here (I didn't time it, I'm sorry, so I'm not quite sure of the exact time). Maybe the coats I used were still too thick or something - very very thin coats are a must with this polish.

When I drew on the hearts for this design, that was really tricky - Evergreen would just thicken sooo quickly and lump together - you can see that a few hearts have some lumps here and there. The polish also has a streaky finish. Haha, so okay it's really not the easiest polish to work with, but I'm actually very glad with it because of the gorgeous pastel colour and the pearly like finish, but I have to get used to working with this polish.

The other colour I used for this design is Essie's Muchi, Muchi. 

I found inspiration for today's design in this Pond Manicure by Adventures in Acetone. I thought the idea of layering a sheer polish was so fun, so I tried it out myself, and I also made little hearts like Adventures in Acetone because they look so cute :)

I painted three coats of Evergreen on my thumb, index finger and little finger. The polish has such an amazing colour and finish - it's shiny, but also a bit pearly (if that makes sense, a pearly finish?). I used a top coat for extra shine.

On my middle finger and ring finger I started with one coat of Muchi, Muchi. Then I drew on 3 hearts on each nail with Evergreen. I did another coat of Muchi, Muchi on top of that, and again added a few hearts. Another coat of Muchi, Muchi, some more hearts, and then a final coat of the Essie polish to finish it. And top coat for extra shine of course.

As you can see, my nail line is still a bit visible on those two nails, but it doesn't really bother me in this design. And I love the pastel look of it all :)

That's it for today's design! Have you tried this layering technique yet? I think it looks super fun and it's really easy to do :)

Thanks for reading!

Valentine's Day Appropriate Leopard Print

Hi everyone!

I probably say this in every post here, but again, I'm super excited about today's design! :)

As you know, it's almost Valentine's Day! I don't celebrate it to be honest, but I did got a lot of inspiration out of it this year! I decided to create a design that was as Valentine-y as possible, with lots of pink and hearts! 

My weak spot is leopard print - it must be my favourite design ever, and it's a simple one to create as well :) I also love a good gradient, so mix those two together with Valentine's Day and you get this:

The colours I used for this design are:
FM1 - D'Orleac
Muchi, Muchi - Essie
Rose Libertine - Rimmel London
The Pinky And The Brain - Catrice
Black on Black - Sinful Colors

As you can see, I started out with a white and pink gradient that I created with a sponge. I used the first three colours from the list above for this:

Then I added leopard print with the Catrice pink. I made some spots in the shape of hearts (3 on each nail) and the rest are just random shaped spots. I used a dotting tool for this.

And finally I used a small brush to add the black lines around the spots and also some little black stripes inbetween the spots where I thought the design was too empty:

That's it! Quite simple but I love the way it came out.

I did find that Muchi Muchi was actually a bit too sheer to create the gradient with. It looks more gradient-y in real life, but the camera didn't want to capture the sheer pink. Next time I'll probably use another, a bit darker pink :)

I hope you like my design! Thanks for reading! :)