You're Full of Hot Air

Quite a while back, reader Ada C. sent a nail art request of a Hot Air Balloon flying in a blue sky... and I found the perfect sky blue in OPI's What's With the Cattitude?, so I had to do it!!! :) I swatched it over on the review site 'The Daily Nail Reviews, check it out!



I used OPI What's With the Cattitude? as a base with Sally Hansen All the White Stuff sponged lightly to make fluffy clouds, as well as the base for the balloon. For the balloon colors, I used American Apparel Malibu Green for the top, the red and yellow are from a set of 6 scented polishes with the 'Nerds' logo on them (which smell yum), and the blue is Pure Ice French Kiss. For the basket, I used Nubar Milk Chocolate Creme, and to outline everything, I used American Apparel Hassid. Topped everything off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

I wonder if the Wizard of Oz is in it?

The Battle of the Balms

You probably all know by now that I love Lush's Lemony Flutter and just don't know when to stop, when it comes to my constant raving about it. It isn't the only good product for cuticles out there though, so I thought I'd share my opinions about some other Cuticle balms I've tried so far. I've used cremes and oils as well, but for today the focus is on balms.

	Sally Hansen - Cuticle Massage Cream The jar says this is a cream, but I'd like to disagree. From all four this one has the sturdiest substance, it's not soft at all. Also, it doesn't really melt when you apply this on your cuticles, so absorption isn't good at all with this one. If you put this on at night, it's definitely still there in the morning. The smell isn't that strong, it smells like Apricots, which is really nice. There's also a chance Sally Hansen tests on animals, since they never bothered to reply to my email where I expressed this concern. I give this product a 4 out of 10.
	Essence - SOS Nail & Cuticle Balm Now this is such a cute jar! When you first get this, the balm looks like a swirled candy cane, a sweet mix of pink and white. Essence SOS Nail & Cuticle balm contains shea butter and almond oil. This balm applies pretty smooth, and it does melt, absorption isn't perfect but it's not as bad as with the Sally Hansen balm. The smell of this one is strong! It smells like sweet almonds, I love it. I give this product a 7 out of 10.
	Lush - Lemony Flutter Ok, my beloved Lemony Flutter. Lemony Flutter contains lots of good stuff! Among the ingredients are many different oils like soya, flaxseed, avocado, castor and many more oils. The base of this balm is shea butter with fresh lemon infusion. This one goes on the smoothest of the bunch. It also leaves my cuticles the softest. Lemony Flutter is a bit greasy though, that's why I like to apply this product at night. The smell is very strong, I've heard some people can't stand it, but I love it. It smell like fresh lemons. I give this product a 9 out of 10.
	Burt's Bees - Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream I know the opinions differentiate on this, but I think this is the next best thing to Lemony Flutter. It contains beeswax and different oils like citrus and almond oil. The substance isn't as soft as LF, but I love that it goes on quite transparent, so it isn't that noticeable. Unlike all previously mentioned balms. The smell is lovely too, it's best described as the smell of Napoleon candy! I didn't find it to be as hydrating as Lemony Flutter and that's the only reason why it isn't my favorite. It was a neck to neck race though, so: I give this product a 8 out of 10.

So these were all my opinions, please share your favorites?

ManGlaze Giveaway: The Winner!

Hi guys! My giveaway ended last night, so the last few hours were spent going through entries, sorting them out in a spreadsheet. There were so many, I was so overwhelmed, thank you ALL so much for entering and the neverending support!
I used www.random.org to determine the winner and I'm pretty sure you're very curious to see who the winner is...

... I can tell you one thing, the winner won 2 awesome nail polishes by ManGlaze: Matte is Murder and Fuggen Fugly. Second, the winner is a she, and she lives in a country where a lot of my readers come from...

...Brazil! So who is it then?! With no further ado, I present to you the lucky winner:

Congratulations Karla Scoparo! I will be e-mailing you for your address shortly :-)

Burnin' Rubber

So, if you've been reading the blog recently, you know that my sister was here in Vegas last week, and that it was awesome. Well, she's doing a month-long cross-country motorcycle trip, so today's nails are in honor of her awesomenosity, she's pretty much the most badass chick you're likely to meet. It was super awesome having her here, and makes me miss home, where I actually got to spend time with her more often than once/twice a year. (sucky) Anyway, enough saptastic stuff, she knows I love her, and think she rocks. Today's nail design was painted to look like tire tread rubber that was burnt onto cement. (I even tried to paint the same tread as her tires!)



I used BB Couture Opposites Attract as a base, with American Apparel Hassid for the tire tread, with more BB Couture Opposites Attract sponged over part of it. Topped it off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat.

Also- today L'Oreal held a makeover event at the Venetian Walgreens here in Vegas, and Collier Strong was there!! For those of you who are like- 'Who is Collier Strong?!' I recommend that you climb out of your hole and either watch some TV, read some magazines, or check him out a little thing called the internet!! :-P He is the consulting makeup artist for L'Oreal Paris, the beauty consultant for Project Runway, as well as many other things! Anyway, I got to meet him, get some tips, and he was SO super nice!! I also got a touchup from the lovely Monique, and chatted with a very friendly guy from L'Oreal named Gary. Overall it was a cool experience getting to try some new products and some established products that I hadn't tried yet, as well as meeting some nice new people!! I got my picture with Colllier (but I look like a total bum lol):

Awesome-sauce!

lol sorry, ik ben gewoon helemaal weg van deze combinatie! Helaas ben ik vergeten om de Eyeko alleen op de foto te zetten maar de kleur spreekt voor zichzelf denk ik. Hoe kan je nou niet van taupe houden?!

lol sorry, I just love this combo! Unfortunately I forgot to take a pic of the Eyeko without the glitter but I think the colour speaks for itself. What's not to love about taupe?!

Dit is drie laagjes Eyeko Posh Polish met een laagje Essence Nail Art Twins Glitter Topper Louise en Nubar Diamont.

This is three coats of Eyeko Posh Polish with one coat of Essence Nail Art Twins Glitter Topper Louise and Nubar Diamont. 

Had ik al gezegd dat ik helemaal weg ben van deze combo? Als er niet een hoekje van mijn duimnagel geknapt was vanmiddag toen ik mijn tas op mijn fiets aan het binden was had ik deze wel een paar dagen gedragen. Ik heb mijn nagels wat korter moeten vijlen om bij de duim te passen maar dat is wel OK. Ik heb een druk weekend voor de boeg en kortere nagels zijn wat praktischer.

Did I mention I love this combo? If I hadn't snapped a corner of my thumb nail this afternoon while strapping my bag on my bike I would have kept this mani on for a couple of days. I had to file my nails a bit shorter to match the thumb but that's OK. I have a busy weekend ahead of me and shorter nails are more practical.

Eyeko Posh Polish is mij toegestuurd voor review door Eyeko.

Eyeko Posh Polish was sent to me for review by Eyeko.

Calla Lillies Manicure

Hello Dear Nail-Art Lovers.
Callas are my great weakness, this is probably first time i came up with something that i can present to you with callas. I like how the flowers came up, however the leaves looks like a cabbage to me. Well where is really a lot of room for improvement.

Eyeko - Coral Polish

Wow. That's what I thought after I put this polish on. Wow. I don't really own anything THIS bright, and I think this polished unleashed a secret longing for colors like these, haha. I'm not sure whether this is considered a true neon, but it sure is BRIGHT. I do have some coral-y colors, but I certainly don't own anything similar. I think I'll be wearing shades like this a lot this summer!

Besides the color, I'm in love with the packaging of Eyeko polishes, every color has it's own designed label, cute huh?
The only thing that bothered me a bit, was the application. It's definitely on the thick side. It took 3 layers to even everything out. But if you add some thinner, it's pretty much perfect! I wore this polish for about two days, and experienced some chipping on my thumbs.

Check out this cute packaging!

Eyeko polishes cost £3.50 (€4.- or $5.40) for 8.5ml. Eyeko products can be bought online at www.eyeko.com. Their shipping is extremely cheap: either free (if you're in the UK or Europe) or $5.40 for all international orders.

This polish was sent to me for review by Eyeko

Bundled Up With Butter

Howdy!!! So recently, I read about Bundle Monster on amazon, and of course, had to order the plate set, I mean come on - 21 plates for $17.99 with free shipping? Yup, I'm in. These plates are exactly like Konad plates, but with different designs. I've purchased all the Konad plates I really wanted in the last 6 months, so after I saw the new images on these- I had to get them- the images are awesome, and right up my alley, not a ton of girly stuff, great patterns, and other great images! Plus, for $17.99, I couldn't really beat it. Today, i decided to use one of the plates along with one of the new American Apparel colors, Butter, which I reviewed today on The Daily Nail Reviews. Hope you like it! I learned that Damone Roberts 1968 is not great for Konading, argh!! lol This is pretty subtle, but has a lovely spring feel to it.



I used American Apparel Butter as a base, then used OPI Damone Roberts 1968 applied with Bundle Monster plate BM06 Topped it off with 2 coats of Seche Vite top coat

Surprise Puppy Giveaway Winner!

Ik heb eindelijk alle inschrijvingen geteld! Het waren er heel veel, heel erg bedankt voor het meedoen allemaal! Ik vond de puppynamen waar jullie mee kwamen echt geweldig. Een paar vna mijn favorieten waren Wall-E en Wasabi. Als we niet besloten hadden om ouderwetse Nederlandse namen te gebruiken waren die zeker een optie geweest!

Helaas heb ik wel een aantal inschrijvingen moeten diskwalificeren omdat ze niet aan de regels voldeden en omdat dat niet leuk is voor ons allemaal ben ik van plan om de volgende keer de regels aan te passen.

Hoe dan ook... toen ik eindelijk alle inschrijvingen geteld had heb ik ze op mijn formuliertje ingevuld en www.random.org gebruikt om de winnaar te bepalen.

I finally counted all the entries! There were so many of them, thank you all for entering! I loved all the puppy names you guys came up with. A couple of my favourites were Wall-E and Wasabi. If we hadn't decided to go with old-fashioned Dutch names those would have definitely been an option!

I'm sorry to say I did have to disqualify some entries because they didn't follow the rules and because that's not fun for either of us I plan on changing the rules for my next giveaway. 

Anyway... when I finally counted all the entries and entered them on my form I used www.random.org to decide the winner.

De bijpassende inschrijving:

The matching entry:

"I, love to try this brand out. 
I'm a follower by Blogger and you are on my blog roll as well. 
If I got to name on of the puppies, I would call her Wendela, I feels suited to a soft and fluffy dog. 
I blogged about this here: 
http://polishpixelpig.blogspot.com/ "

Gefeliciteerd PolishPig! Ik heb een email gestuurd en hoop snel te horen welke Catrice nagellakken je graag wilt hebben. 


En omdat je niet over puppies kan posten zonder foto's...

Congrats PolishPig! I sent you an email and hope to hear from you which Catrice polishes you'd like to win.

And because you can't post about puppies without pics...

They grow so fast! They were on puppy porridge here but they are eating kibble with a bit of water now.

Proud mommy

Wamke, one of the two puppies my sister is keeping.

Bushes are there to be attacked, right? This is Wammes, the one we are keeping. He's a hand full!

Daily Nail: UNGPLUGGED.

Today's nail were inspired by something we ignore, and something there is never enough of when you need them. (cue powerstrips) OUTLETS, PLUGS, POWER SOURCES, whatever you call them, without them, I couldn't do this blog (mainly because my laptop is almost 6 years old, and the battery lasts approximately 10 minutes, or 3 minutes when it is cold out). I used one of the new American Apparel colors, California Trooper, which I also reviewed and swatched on a new branch of this site The Daily Nail Reviews.



I used American Apparel California Trooper as a base, with American Apparel Hassid for the plug holes, Sally Hansen Metro Creme for the shadow around the holes, and American Apparel Cotton for the highlight. Topped it off with Seche Vite top coat.

So there it is, no acoustic guitar, just nails. :-)

And because I get SO many people that ask if my nails are real, etc, here you go- naked nails.. very yellowed naked nails, I've tried everything, lemon juice soaks, denture cleaner, hydrogen peroxide, buffing, etc, nothing makes it go away!! :( If anyone has tips, lmk.