Neon Labyrinth

Hello my lovelies! Another week, another rainy weekend. It seems that the only sunny days we get lately are in the middle of the week, but just as Saturday arrives we get clouds and rain. It's also annoying that I have to complain about the weather in each post. I promise that next time I'm gonna try to talk about something else. Anyway, today's post is meant to bring the sun on the blog, even though it's not visible outside. It's the first time this year that I use neons!

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise

Hello my lovelies! It's Thursday, which means the weekend is getting closer. Unfortunately I have to work for half of this weekend so I'm really looking forward to Sunday when I will finally be able to relax. Today's post is all about a summery polish that I got to wear in October. Frankly, I've always been curious about this polish but I thought I had something similar in my collection. I got to try it through the courtesy of my friend Kinga and found out how special it is.

China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise indoors, artificial direct light

Color Club Disco Dress

Hello my lovelies! It's been a very long week and I'm so glad that it's finally Friday. I'm trying to get rid of my backlog of manicures from the last months because I really need to show you the newer ones. A few days ago I randomly found these pictures that are about two months old and decided to show them to you even though I'm not completely satisfied with how they came out. I got this polish in my latest Head2toe Beauty haul that I now realize I forgot to show you. It's very bright, almost a neon, but because it's a darker color it doesn't fall exactly in the neon category.

Color Club Disco Dress indoors, artificial light

Neon Marbled Decals

Hello my lovelies! It's the weekend which means I finally have time to write some posts. This was another crazy week for me and an even crazier one will follow so I'm just glad to be able to get some rest and relaxation for a change. The manicure I'm showing you today is from before my vacation. I got inspired by a tutorial from the talented Cristina from Let them have Polish! to create some marbled decals. I will explain everything in detail but first let's take a look at the final result.

China Glaze Feel the Breeze

Hello my lovelies! It's Saturday and that means it's time for some rest & relaxation. It also means that I finally have time to do some blogging. Today I realized that I have a ton of manicures that I haven't shown you, so I really need to get my act together and write some posts. I'm starting with a very summery polish from the 2014 Off Shore collection from China Glaze. I have to admit that this is a color I don't normally wear, but I didn't have anything similar in my collection and I needed something different so it fell into my cart. I wore it with a holographic glitter accent nail just to make it more interesting and more me.

China Glaze Feel the Breeze with Glistening Snow, indoors, artificial light

China Glaze Petal to the Metal

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! It's a beautiful day outside and the sun is shining so I decided to show you a polish that is fun and summery. It comes from the City Flourish collection that came out this spring. I usually love spring collections, especially the China Glaze ones, but this year I've been discouraged by the bad reviews. I finally decided to get just one polish and test it out. I chose Petal to the Metal because it's a color that I didn't have in my collection. I wasn't disappointed at all.

China Glaze Petal to the Metal indoors, artificial light

Farmasi 125

Hello my lovelies! How is your week so far? I'm studying like crazy and it's only the second week since I started it so I've got over one month to go. I'm already tired and I'm running out of patience. I don't even have the patience to do nails and that's partially why today's manicure is less than perfect. This week's untried theme was "in season", so I had to choose something very summery. Naturally, I went with a neon polish. This polish is the only neon yellow that I own and it was sitting in my untrieds for quite a while. 

Farmasi 125 indoors, artificial light

Neon Suns

Hello my lovelies! It's Saturday and I have some nail art for you, as promised. These nails are from a couple of weeks ago, but I still have a lot of older stuff to post and I'm trying to catch up. I have no idea what I had in mind when I created these. All I know is that I wanted them very colorful and I think I totally reached my goal. 

Orly Fancy Fuchsia

Hello my lovelies and happy Sunday! The sun is shining and it's very hot outside, yet I'm stuck in the city. I just wish I would be on a beach somewhere. At least the manicure I'm showing you today is perfect for summer. It's a color I don't often wear, but when I do it's usually in the summer. 

Orly Fancy Fuchsia indoors, artificial light

China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes and Hello Kitty stamping

Hello my lovelies! Hope your week is going great! It suddenly got a lot colder here and I'm freezing. It's really weird that it's the middle of August and I'm wearing a fleece jacket as I type this. I'm leaving for vacation in two days and I'm going to London! So I'm pretty stressed out about packing and organizing everything. But don't worry, I've scheduled a few posts for when I'm away so you can check back every few days to see new stuff on the blog! Today's post is the last of the China Glaze Summer Neons I got. I'm not a fan of pink but everyone needs a neon pink in their collection so here's mine. 

China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes indoors, artificial light

Hang-Ten Toes is a hot pink neon with a purple-ish shimmer. I was kinda puzzled by this name and I kept looking at the bottle to see if I got it right. But then I remembered that the China Glaze names are mostly puns so I googled it to see if it made any sense. Turns out Hang Ten or Hanging Ten is actually a surfing maneuver. Am I the only one who didn't know what it meant? 

China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes in the sun

I'm not sure this polish is a proper neon, but it's very very bright. Compared to my Essie Tour De Finance, this is a lot brighter and it actually makes the Essie look muted. What can I say? I don't have a lot of bright pinks and fuchsias so these are the only comparisons I can do. The formula on this one is kind of on the thick side. It's pigmented but still pretty sheer so you will need 3 coats to make it fully opaque. It doesn't dry completely matte but still to a rubbery finish, so top coat is needed to make it shiny. 

China Glaze Hang-Ten Toes indoors, artificial direct light

This color needed something really fun and girly on top so I picked my favorite stamp from the Fab Ur Nails FUN 2 plate. Seriously, I don't even like Hello Kitty but I somehow can't get enough of this image. I stamped with China Glaze Liquid Leather and here's the result. 

What do you think? I'm not a very girly girl myself but sometimes I like something cute on my nails for a change. I'm really glad I have this polish in my collection because it's perfect for summer! I just realized that today is Wednesday so I guess this counts for Pink Wednesday as well! 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard

Hello my lovelies! It's August! Can't believe that July went by so fast! I've told you last month that July will be better than June and I see now that I posted 19 times. I think I did pretty well and I hope that August will be just as good. I'm working on my thesis these days so I'm pretty tired when I get home, but I still wanted to do this neon post today. After all, summer is not over and we need some bright colors in our lives! 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard indoors, artificial light

I love this bright, lime green polish! It was one of my picks from the Summer Neons collection because I love green and also because of this post on Let them have Polish! There's nothing better for a blogger than knowing they've inspired a lemming. There are some bloggers out there that make any polish look amazing and Cristina is one of them. Her swatches of the Summer Neons are literally glowing! 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard in the sun

The formula of this polish is a little tricky. It is by no means one of those sheer neons that need white underwear to be opaque, but it does need 3 coats. The first coat goes on smoother than the next ones, probably because it dries to a matte finish, which makes coats 2 and 3 go on a less smoother surface. In the end I didn't find it hard to manage. The streaks are less visible in reality compared to my pictures. Of course all pictures are with top coat. This dries rather slow, so a fast drying one like Seche Vite is recommended. 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard in direct artificial light

I wore this for one day and then decided to do some sponging over it. I love the contrast between black and neons and after doing this mani and liking it a lot, I recreated the look using China Glaze Liquid Leather and a sponge tip makeup applicator. Again, this is not a gradient but a sponging of a much darker color. The new Bundle Monster set has an image very similar to this one and it's good to know that it can be created by using a simple sponge. 

I'm a big fan of this look so I think this is not the last time you will see it on my blog. It can be created with so many color combinations! What do you think? 

Flormar 49

Hello loves! I bet most of you are excited because the weekend is here. For me it's just a regular day because I'm on vacation anyway. But to celebrate I have a crazy weekend or vacation color for you. I hope you've brought your sunglasses because this polish is bright bright bright!

Flormar Supershine 49 indoors, artificial light

I think this could be unofficially called a neon because it freaked my camera out, especially in the sun. The color is very hard to describe. It's a lime green that has sort of a warmer tone to it, like pistachio ice cream, only darker and brighter.

The sun pictures made it almost look yellow but I assure you it is not. I will include the picture to show you how it pops, but don't get fooled by the color. 

Flormar Supershine 49 in the sun (not color accurate)

The  formula on this one wasn't too bad. This was just before I started to write in my notebook about every polish I swatch, so I'll have to use my memory. It depends on the thickness of your coats but I decided to do 3 thin ones, just to avoid bubbling and chalkiness. The coverage is pretty good and you don't need a white base underneath, like with some neons. It also dries to a shine, but I did put Seche Vite over it to make it dry faster so pictures are with top coat. 

Flormar Supershine 49 in direct artificial light

I really love this polish. It makes my skin look tan even if it's so pale. But mostly I love how much it pops. It makes me think of vacation and the beach. It's definitely gonna be my next pedi color, and I doubt that it will ever leave my toes this summer. 

Monday Blues: China Glaze Splish Splash

Hello my beautiful readers! It's time for another Monday blue! I'm having new windows installed today so my house is a mess. I hope I can get this post up in time. Forgive me if I'm not that talkative today, but I have a lot of pictures to speak instead of me. 

This is China Glaze Splish Splash from this year's Summer Neons collection. I don't really know how a blue neon should look like but I can tell you that this is bright! It's sort of a water color so the name is very appropriate. Some of the other names in this collection are a little weird, but they definitely nailed this one. It has tons of gorgeous shimmer and it's just such a yummy color. 

My pictures are all in artificial light because in the sun photos it looked much lighter than in reality. Like most neons it dries to a matte finish that absolutely needs a shiny top coat. It was the first time I used Seche Vite and I didn't wrap my tips properly, so please excuse the shrinkage (it looks like tip wear but it really is not). 

The formula is pretty thick but still manageable. I did two coats and there was a decent amount of opacity. The problem however is the drying time. This dries very slow, so prepare to use your best fast drying top coat over it! 

I think this is my favorite summer polish so far! I still have to try Orly Skinny Dip though, so we'll see. Don't forget to check out the other Monday Blues posts, by these lovely ladies: 

Gosia from Life in Color!

Marta from ChitChat Nails

Stephanie from Sincerely Stephanie

Mandy from Chameleon Stampede
Marisa from Polish Obsession

Monday Blues: Flormar N002 and a stamping fail

Hello my lovelies! I don't know what it is about Mondays, but they never start good for me. I sure hope the rest of the day will be better. But not to worry! I have a beautiful blue to show you. Excuse the weird formatting of this post, but blogger is being a scumbag today. I will try to fix it later.

Flormar N002 indoors, artificial light

This polish comes from the Flormar Neon Colors collection. I'm not sure how a blue neon should look like, but this is a very bright color. The problem is the sheerness of it. I really thought I could make it opaque in a few coats so I kept piling them on but I wasn't very lucky. This is 4 coats and there was still some visible nail  line. I don't think I have ever done 4 coats of a polish in my life. Next time I will make sure to use some white polish underneath. 

Flormar N002 in the sun

The formula on this one is ok except for the sheerness. It applies well and dries pretty fast considering I did 4 coats. I know neons are supposed to dry a bit matte but this one dried very very glossy. All the pictures are without any top coat. 

I wanted to use this polish as a base for my second sky themed manicure for Sunday but it was a total fail. Besides the white not stamping very well, I had the idea of coloring the balloon and it totally ruined it. I stamped the clouds using plate m79 and a white random stamping polish. The balloon is from plate FUN 2 from Fab Ur Nails. I stamped it with a purple Opoola stamping polish and then filled it in with Rimmel Tangerine Queen. Despite it being a fail, I will still include a picture of it here.

Don't forget to see what the other ladies participating in the Monday Blues challenge have come up with today: 

Gosia from Life in Color!

Marta from ChitChat Nails

Stephanie from Sincerely Stephanie

Mandy from Chameleon Stampede
Marisa from Polish Obsession