Essence - (S)Lime up!

Weird

I like them, weird colors. Unusual colors never seem to bore me, and they're sure something else amidst the usual pinks and reds. But there are times when weird just isn't flattering anymore. At least, that's how I feel about this lime creme by Essence called Lime Up! They sure love exclamation marks over at Cosnova.

It was to be expected I wouldn't be gung-ho on this color, since I couldn't embrace OPI's 'Who The Shrek Are You?' either. As you probably already know, these two colors are very much alike. They're not dupes though: Lime Up! is a bit on the lighter and less muted side than its more expensive semi twin. This color probably is a lot more flattering on those with darker skin than mine. I believe Lime Up! came out last fall and is now part of the core Colour & Go collection by Essence.

Application

The application was actually pretty good though, definitely not as bad as some other Essence polishes I've tried. I applied three coats and experienced no problems like bubbling or streakiness whatsoever. I've worn this color for four days without any signs of chipping or even tipwear. Quite impressive for a budget brand, I'd say! But four days of wearing this slimy color were more than enough, if you ask me.

Essence Colour & Go polishes cost 1.25 EUR or 0.99 USD for 5ml.

Well, I Declare!

Happy Fourth of July to my US readers!

I love doing holiday themed nails, so I knew that I was going to do a design for today. I wanted to do something different than the stars and stripes, so I did my interpretation of the Declaration of Independence! Did you know that

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

has been called 'one of the best-known sentences in the English language"?

I've always been a history nerd. Yes, I was that kid (the only one) in the biography section of the library checking out historical biographies, presidential biographies, etc. for fun rather than for homework. Though my favorite president to read about then (and now) was Abraham Lincoln, I still loved burying my nose in an ancient hardcover about Washington, Jefferson, pretty much name it. Fascinating stuff, really.

Anyway, to the nails. I sponged them to look like aged parchment, then painted certain recognizable words on each hand.

I used: American Apparel California Trooper as a base, then sponged China Glaze Classic Camel in spots, then sponged a mixture of China Glaze Classic Camel and American Apparel California Trooper over that, then sponged a little bit of CND Blackjack over that and on the tip edges.

And as a bonus, a picture of my guilty boyfriend. He attempted to make me watch Star Wars by turning it on the TV when I was getting ready, so when I came back out, I was half-watching it while I was putting on my shoes, that is, until I saw R2-D2 and realized what was on, and stopped watching it. To explain this, I am 30 years old and have never watched any of the Star Wars movies, and I intend to keep it that way. :)

Who me?!  Never. I had no idea that there was a Star Wars marathon on TV!

Have a happy and SAFE Fourth of July everyone!!  Keep all your fingers!

Mum's first french

Sorry for the lack of updates! This time of the year is one of the busiest moments for most early childhood teachers out there. Portfolios and parent teacher's meetings were haunting me for the past week! But I'm glad everything went well and parents are very satisfied with their children's learning under my care. (:

That aside, here's a long overdue picture of my mum's first french manicure experience. I was disappointed with the french that I did for her. Partly was cause it was done at 11 in the night with bad lighting (mum's thinking of changing the lighting in the living room) and the white that I used was extremely thick! Gonna spam it with Seche's restore.

The base colour that I used was OPI's Passion - a famous base colour for french. It's a very light pinkish colour, making your nails look very natural for french manicure application. I used OPI's Alpine Snow for the tips before drawing the flower outline with black acrylic paint. Lastly, I layered it with OPI's I Juggle Men before topping the center of the flower with a pink rhinestone.

Though the french was disappointing, I absolutely loved the flower. Looks extremely elegant and perfect for weddings in fact! Would love to do this design on someone's fingers. If you're interested, do contact me at valerie.gmh@gmail.com I may give a big discount for this design since it's something I really wanna try! (:

Chanel Mimosa

Les Fleurs d'été

Yesterday I finally managed to pick up Mimosa, Chanel's trophy polish for this summer. I haven't been watching the newest nail polish collections closely the last couple of months, however I did have my eye on this yellow show stopper.

Mimosa is part of Chanel's summer collection called 'Les Fleurs d'été' and is limited edition. Mimosa, named after the champagne drink, is a very bright, bold yellow that really does manage to remind me of sun, flowers and summer. There's no way around it, yellow is hot this season.

As we're used to by now, Mimosa has that secret shimmer you'll only notice in bright lighting or sunny weather. It doesn't really bother me, but it's something to keep in mind if you happen to be fond of this finish.

Application

Chanel polishes are truly hit or miss when it comes to application. Yellow polishes are infamous for this as it is, and Mimosa is no exception to this rule. After three sheer, streaky coats it finally looked somewhat even. I'm not sure what's causing these very different formulations; Paradoxal and the Khaki's applied like a dream, but Nouvelle Vague, Riva and Mimosa were a little disappointing. Especially considering their price!

I can't say much about the wear, since I haven't been wearing it long enough.

Chanel Mimosa costs 22 EUR or 25 USD and is available online at Chanel.com

Summer Chic mani

Hey guys! Today I wanted to show you yet another funky french, lol. The oh so sweet Kim from Color Club sent me a bunch of fun new nail art items to try, and this was one of them. Now, I love these little things, but really only like to use them on my accent finger when I do funky french manis. They are so cute, but too many, IMO, can be overkill. So I went for what I am calling, a Summer Chic mani :) The little orange slices are just adorable!!!

I also love the fact that these are so thin. I've used others that were on the thicker side, and were just too big and bulky.

I started with my go to base of Professional 10 #415 Pinky Promise. I get mine from CVS. Then after a coat of SV and about 10 minutes, and taped my nails off, and did black tips. I hen did one more coat of SV, and when it was dry, and added a tiny drop of nail glue on my ring finger, and set the orange slice over top.

Hiya / OPI DS Glamour

Hi!

Long time no see! I'm excited to make this post, it's been a while. I finally graduated and got my bachelor of Communication & Multimedia Design, so I can finally spend a little bit of my time on the more trivial things in life, like blogging about nail polish ;-).

I'd also like to thank everyone who has been so supportive, even during my break! Thanks so much for all the e-mails, comments and visits to this blog.

Unfortunately I haven't been swatching like I used to, so for today you'll have to put up with some old material. These pictures were taken during my vacation last year, which I actually spent with two nail polish bloggers. Great fun.

OPI DS Glamour

This is probably the last post on OPI products ever, since they're now owned by Coty, but I needed to share this particular polish. OPI DS Glamour is old, hard to find and probably way too expensive on Ebay nowadays. But hey, it's pretty. It's a blue holographic, not as holographic as some other OPI holo's from the same line, like DS Signature or DS Original, but still damn pretty.

Since summer just kicked in, I thought it was fitting to start off with something holo. What I like about these holo's are their application, it's super easy, and they hardly chip on me. Even without a top coat, which they don't even need because they're super shiny worn alone. Two coats and you're done. Too bad I can't buy new OPI anymore, right?

Out of the loop

I have to admit, I'm hardly aware of the latest nail polish collections, so I disabled my 'upcoming collections' widget for now. If they're are any super hot collections I *need* to know about, please let me know in the comments! My wallet and I will be super grateful.

My favorite drink during the summer

Happy Pink Wednesday!

*waves* Hi everyone!! I have been on a funky french kick lately :) I have also been trying to use polishes from my stash that don't normally get used. OPI Panda-monium Pink was the star for this mani.

I started with 2 coats

then, of course I ran out of sunlight time, by the time I got this completed :) Oh well. I then stamped my nails using the Bundle Monster plate BM 221 , and Konad's special white polish. I added a coat of SV, and when that was 98% dry, I taped my tips off, and used OPI Alpine Snow Matte.

Arty Nails

Hello my Sweet Nail-Art Lovers
Art and music inspired manicure, i realy love how it turned out.

Great polishes deserve a name....

... because naming a blog post MNY 549 just looks dumb. Why do nail polish brands do this? It doesn't even have to be a good name. Just name it anything!

Anyway, here is a polish I picked up a couple of months ago at a DM Drogerie (German drugstore chain) but this brand is also available in the Netherlands at Etos. It's a polish that immediately sparked my interest because I love a good taupe! MNY is a brand that sells affordable make-up in trendy colors for a pretty good price. The polishes cost €2,49.


It's a taupe but with purple undertones which is perfect for me because purple and taupe are my favorite colors. (Closely followed by green and blue) I have one Helmer drawer that is about 3/4 full of taupes and I have no dupes!


I needed four coats to get it fully opaque but I knew I would be making macro shots and macro is relentless. I think you can get away with three coats in everyday life.

I decided to do a comparison with some close colors:


Pinky: Essence LE You Rock Collection 02 Love, Peace and Purple. Four coats with topcoat.
Ring finger: Rimmel PRO 385 Hot List. Three coats with topcoat.
Middle finger: MNY 549 (See, it looks stupid with no name!) Four coats with topcoat.
index finger: OPI You Don't Know Jacques. Three coats with topcoat.

The Essence and Rimmel polishes are said to be dupes for Chanel Paradoxal. One difference between the two that I noticed irl but couldn't capture on camera is that the Rimmel one has more purple shimmer and a little, almost not noticeable, pearl shine to it which makes it look very glowy and shiny and brings out the purple shimmer more.

OPI YDKJ has more brown and grey and no purple whatsoever.


The base color on both Paradoxal dupes and MNY 549 is the same though so if you like the color but do not like shimmer polishes, this is the polish for you!

It wasn't until I was writing this blog post that I thought I should have also compared it to Models Own Purple Grey so I pulled the bottle out of my Helmer. They are nothing alike. Purple Grey is darker, a lot more purple and isn't as warm toned because it doesn't have brown or taupe in it. If I remember I'll show this to you another time.

So, that's it for today! I'm going to see if I can find some way to cool down because it's been absolutely tropical here. We're supposed to get rain and thunderstorms here tonight and I'm really looking forward to that. Maybe that will cool things down a bit.

Thanks for looking!

xoxo

Day O' Dogs

My little girl turned 9, and it scares me, lol. They really do grow up so fast, I've learned that it's not just a saying. Her birthday party was a dog theme and my nails went right along with it :) Here are the cupcake cones I made that we decorated like dalmations. How freaking cute right?!?!


















And here are the pups. My little girl is in the pink camo. Jack did some of the face painting, and you should have seen the girls faces when I told them he was helping, they were so scared, lol


















And now for the mani. I started with 2 coats of OPI Alpine Snow Matte, and then just used a black nail art pen for the spots. This was a huge hit with the girls, so the next morning.....guess what I was doing? Yep, dog manis for the girls :)