Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 8: Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!

Hello loves! How is your Sunday going so far? I'm excited to show you the second fun nail art of this weekend, which is also the last of the Girly Girl challenges. I can't believe that I'm already done with this challenge. Time has flown by so fast! It was a lot of fun and I loved stepping out of my comfort zone for a bit because some of the themes were not what I'm used to. If you want to see all the posts in this challenge you can click here. For today's post we had to demonstrate how fun-loving we are, so I did a tape mani with one of my favorite color combos, blue and orange. 

Both of these colors are bright and in your face, and I've also added some glitter, so this manicure is beyond fun. I started with a base of H&M Blue My Mind, which you can see on its own here. I then used some striping tape to create diagonal lines across the nail and painted Rimmel Tangerine Queen over them. Unfortunately this was pretty sheer and streaky, so the end result didn't look so good. 

So to make it better I added one coat of my favorite holo glitter, INM Northern Lights. This instantly makes everything look good. I love it! 

Thank you for reading! Make sure you check out what the other ladies in the challenge have come up with for today's theme! 

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 7: Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

Hello again lovely readers! It's time for another nail art from the Girly Girl challenge and this week's theme is a sweet one. But instead of doing something candy inspired like these nails I did last spring, I decided to do something more fall appropriate. So I picked up some pumpkin colored polish and got to work. Here's the result. 

I call these my pumpkin cupcake nails. Aren't they cute? I was looking for a pumpkin colored polish for a while now and I picked this one up from Flormar about a week ago. It's number 42 from their Supershine line and it's definitely a bright type of pumpkin color. I know that Flormar cremes are amazing and this one did not disappoint. It has a perfect formula and went on like butter. I did 2 coats and no top coat for the swatches below. 

Flormar Supershine 42 indoors, artificial light

One coat of this covers pretty well, but there was still a bit of visible nail line so I had to apply a second one. It dried fast and very very shiny. You can see how shiny it is in the following picture. 

Flormar Supershine 42 indoors, artificial direct light

I can't wait to layer some flakies and glitters over this because it's such a great fall creme. But this time I stamped some cute cupcakes over it. They come from plate CH16 and I stamped them with my go-to black, China Glaze Liquid Leather. I added a coat of INM Northern Lights top coat for some extra sweetness. 

Thank you for reading! Don't forget to check out what the other participants have come up with for today's theme! 

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 6: Who Inspires You?

Hello again loves! If it's Sunday, then it must be another day for the Girly Girl challenge. Today's theme is a little intense, but I decided to tone it down and make it fun. We were supposed to create a manicure inspired by our female role model, but since I really don't have one, I decided to choose a strong and confident woman from the fictional world instead. She definitely inspires me because she can survive any challenge and of course be pretty while she does it. I'm talking about Scarlett O'Hara from "Gone with the Wind". My inspiration was the dress she made out of her mom's curtains so Rhett wouldn't find out how poor she was. I really like how this manicure came out and I hope you do too. 

This was fairly easy to do and didn't take a lot of time. I started with a base color of Rapsodi 350, a dark forest green that I picked up from a local shop for under 1$. It has a decent formula but is pretty sheer, so 3 coats were needed to make it opaque. It applied smooth, although the brush is pretty wonky and there were a few bubbles on the nail. Here it is by itself, without a top coat. 

Rapsodi 350 indoors, artificial light

It's actually lighter in real life but for some reason these colors always photograph darker for me. You can see there was a bit of unevenness because of the brush. I'm sure some top coat would have solved that but I didn't apply any because I knew I was going to cover it with nail art. 

My inspiration for these nails was this picture here. I used a dotting tool and a custom made color to do the lighter green part. I actually mixed H&M Hunt Me Down and Rimmel Limealicious to make a dusty olive green, which I don't have in my collection. Then I applied it messily with a dotting tool to resemble the ruffles in her dress. I used a gold striper from Golden Rose (Nail Art 108) to freehand the belt and the little tassels. Finally, a coat of Seche Vite and that's it! 

I hope you like this and thanks for reading! Here are the other ladies participating in this challenge. 

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 5: Gotta Love Chick Flicks

Hello lovelies! Today's theme for the Girly Girl challenge is chick flicks! Now I must admit I watched quite a few of these in my life and my guiltiest pleasure is a little movie called The Devil Wears Prada. I know this is not a very deep and meaningful movie, but it sure is fun! And Meryl Streep did a great job in the role of Miranda Priestly. After all, she did get an Oscar nomination for it. So this is my manicure inspired by the movie. 

The ring finger is the famous shoe from the poster of the movie. The rest of the fingers were inspired by Miranda's outfit in this photo and her hair. 

I used Orly Au Champagne as a base color and freehanded the shoe using Rimmel Stand To Attention and a nail art brush. For the other fingers I masked triangles on the base of the nail with tape and painted China Glaze Liquid Leather. Finally I applied some Seche Vite and that's it! 

I really liked the edgy look of this manicure but I won't be using so much black anytime soon. Cleanup was painful and messy! This black is ok for stamping but it's just too pigmented to be used in large quantities. 

Don't forget to check out what the other ladies have come up with for this challenge! 

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 4: Inspired by the Runway

Hello my lovelies! Today I'm continuing with the Girly Girl challenge and the theme is "Inspired by the Runway". I have to say that I'm not very interested in fashion and I'm not into fashion trends. I usually wear what I like and how I like. But I do follow nail trends and something that has been really big on the runway lately are the half moon nails. So I decided to do some half moons with a twist for today's theme. 

These might seem like regular half moon nails at first, but the moons are actually duochrome! I used Essence Where Is The Party? from the Colour & Go line, which has a very strong duochrome effect. Let's take a look at this polish by itself. 

Essence Colour & Go 43 Where Is The Party? indoors, artificial light, no top coat

Where Is The Party? is one of those awesome duochromes that doesn't really need a lot of moving around to get the color to change. The different colors just show up naturally. You can see there's a purple color and a dark silver in the first picture. There's also a green color in there somewhere and I managed to capture it in the following picture.

Essence Colour & Go 43 Where Is The Party? indoors, artificial direct light, with top coat

Pretty spectacular, right? The formula is not too bad either. I did 2 coats for these photos and it turned out pretty opaque. It photographs more streaky than it is in real life. You can see in the first photo that the streaks are more evident without top coat, but the top coat partially take care of that. I had a few bubbles on my nails though after applying it, and I'm not sure where they came from. The durability of this polish is not that good. This manicure started chipping on the second day of wear. I'm pretty sure it's the Essence's fault since it was the base. 

Essence Colour & Go 43 Where Is The Party? indoors, artificial light, with top coat

I used some round stickers as guides to mask the moons and painted China Glaze Grape Pop on the rest of the nail. It was the first time I used these kind of stickers and I definitely need practice with them. The one on my middle finger was placed a bit too low, but I guess it's not that bad since that nail is also bigger than the other ones. 

I really enjoyed this manicure and I can't wait to try it again with different color combos. Here are the links to the other blogs participating in this challenge: 

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 3: Delicate and Elegant

Hello loves and happy Sunday! I have another Girly Girl challenge post today and the theme is Delicate and Elegant. I do love me some elegant nails but I thought this time I would do something different. I went for a peachy manicure and it's the first time I feature this color on my blog. Here's my result. 

First of all, I don't like peach on my skin tone. It usually looks weird and makes my hands look lobstery. But for some reason this one was a lot better. The polish I'm talking about is Essie A Crewed Interest from this year's spring collection. I've had this polish for a while but I was afraid it would look awful on me, so it stayed on my untrieds list. These types of colors also have a difficult formula and that made me even more reluctant to trying it. Here's a photo of it alone. 

Essie A Crewed Interest in the sun

A Crewed Interest is a soft peachy creme. It's lighter and more pastel than Barry M Peach Melba, which makes it a lot more wearable. In terms of formula, it stays true to similar colors. It's almost impossible to apply and level out. I did 4 (yes 4!) coats of this and it still remained streaky and patchy. Not even top coat could level it out. Luckily, the streaks aren't visible in the photos because of the light color. But I assure you they were there. The only good thing about it is that it dries fast. I think that's kinda mandatory since it needs like a thousand coats to look good. 

I stamped the lace pattern using plate QA13 and a random white stamping polish. I finished with a coat of Seche Vite. After wearing this for a day or so I had the idea of mattifying it so I added a coat of Color Club Matte-ified and here's the result. 

So what do you think? Glossy or matte? Don't forget to check out the other posts in the Girly Girl Challenge!

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 2: Gimme That Bling

Hello lovelies! Apart from my blogiversary, today is also the second day of our Girly Girl challenge. The theme is "Gimme That Bling" and our task was to put some sparkle on our nails. This called for glitter! Here's what I came up with. 

The base color for this mani is Essence A Lovely Secret, which I showed you yesterday by itself (post here). I decided to use some of the loose glitter I got from Ebay a while ago. The base color was chosen to match the purple loose glitter I wanted to use. And I did. I have no idea why this glitter photographed so blue but I assure you that in reality it's very very purple. I could not make it come out properly though and I had to give up eventually. 

in the sun

This looked much better in real life because the macro shots really make the glitter look chunky. It looks more even from a distance. I sponged the glitter on top instead of dipping my tips in it so I would get sort of a gradient effect. This technique is also a lot less messy. You just have to dip the sponge in some top coat and in the glitter, then sponge it on the nail. This way the glitter will go exactly where you want it and you won't get glittery from head to toe. For extra precision I used a sponge tip applicator. 

in the sun

The only downside of this manicure is the grittiness of the glitter. I used two heavy coats of Seche Vite and it still wasn't leveled out. I don't mind that too much but the tips can get really rough and you can accidentally scratch yourself. So make sure you wrap your tips with top coat if you do this.

Don't forget to check out the blogs of the other lovelies participating in this challenge! 

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 1: Think Pink

Hello lovelies and happy Sunday! I'm excited today because I'm starting a new nail art challenge. You all know that I'm not a girly girl and that I rarely wear pink. So this is a real challenge for me but I like to be challenged, so I'll do my best to deliver some girly manicures. We will be posting the manicures weekly for about 2 months. Here's the schedule and the themes for the Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge. 

As you can see in the picture, the theme for today was Think Pink. Now first of all, I don't really have many pinks in my collection. So it was very hard to pick a favorite pink. Finally I decided to use a polish that is very dear to me and that's because it's the first I ever posted about on this blog. My pictures were awful back then and I cringe every time I look at them, but I'm not ashamed. It shows how much I've grown and how much my manicure and my photo skills have evolved. So you can check my original post about S-he Stylezone 155 here. I really did my best to incorporate this in a nail art and here's what I came up with. 

The base color is Kallos 54, the only bubblegum pink I own. I actually discovered that this has some tiny silver shimmer in it, which is kinda ironical because I've had this polish since forever. I guess it shows how much I've worn it. After I applied 2 coats of this, I applied some Seche Vite to make it dry faster. I waited for about 30 minutes before sticking some tape in the form of a triangle at the base. I painted the S-he into the triangle and removed the tape before it dried. I finally finished with some pink striping tape and another coat of Seche Vite. 

in the sun

S-he 155 was also my first ever holo polish. The holo effect is very very subtle but you can still see it in the sun photos. 

I also like the shine of the striping tape in the sun. I'm really happy with how this manicure turned out, even though I had a lot of trouble with figuring out what to do. I guess thinking pink is very hard for me. 

Please stop by the other blogs to see what the ladies participating in this challenge have come up with: