Catrice It's All I Can Blue with Essie Under Where?

Finally had some motivation to do some nail art :D

Index and ring fingers have white base with Couleur Inc Snow White (very appropriately named :p) and I used the watercolor technique with Catrice It's All I Can Blue and Essie Under Where?

Middle finger is Catrice It's All I Can Blue with roses painted on with acrylic paint. Pinky is Essie Under Where? with a pearl stuck on and dotting with white acrylic paint.

Click below for more pics

Essie Come Here & First Timer skittle with flower decal

I have Essie Come Here on my index and pinky and First Timer on my middle finger with saran wrap kind of design but using acetone instead. The flower stamps are from a KKCenterHK plate, which you can see more of here.  On my ring finger, I tried out another water nail decal from KKCenterHK, which is more of full nail design. See below for the full piece of decal.

The design is pretty big so if you have long nails, they should be more than sufficient. I actually used the shorter flower for my nail (the one next to the cut piece). Do note that they have a thin plastic cover on the decal, so after you slide the paper backing off and place the decal on the nail, you also have to slide off the plastic cover.

You can buy the decal from this link and use "barenailsnomore" for 10% off :)

Thanks for viewing!

Essie First Timer and Essence Ice Ice Baby with pearls

The first thing I wanna state is that the color of Essie First Timer is not accurate as the white lines and the green took on a yellowish tinge after I applied my Poshe top coat :(

I have 2 coats of Essie First Timer on all fingers except for my ring finger which has 3 coats of Essence Ice Ice Baby and a coat of More than Words from the Hugs & Kisses collection.

Pls click read more for more pics.

Barry M Lychee and flowers

Have always wanted to try out the multi-colored flowers since seeing it on others on Bloglovin (credit to Mr.Candiipants) and here it is :)

Base is 2 coats of Barry M Lychee, a nude that is luckily not a dupe of the rest of the nudes that I have. The consistency is a little thick, but also means 2 coats are sufficient. On a side note, it is not really aptly named as a jelly polish would be more appropriate for lychee :p

Click read more for plain swatch and names of the colors used.

Essie Come Here! and Etude House PBK803

Base is Essie Come Here!, a bright red shade with orange undertones, and for the ring finger, I drew some random white flowers with black dots. I was too lazy to do it for all fingers :p so I decided to tie in the black and white accent with Etude house PBK803, a black/white/pink hex+bar glitter.

Below is plain swatch of Essie Come Here! (2 coats). I don't normally wear reds but this is a great color for summer :)

Thanks for viewing!

Comparison of Essie Come Here! with OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?

When I saw Essie Come Here!, it reminded me a lot of OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where? from the Holland Collection, hence decided to put them side by side - from left: OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, Essie Come Here! and China Glaze Poinsettia.

Essie Come Here! is slightly lighter than OPI Red Lights Ahead...Where?, but I think for a non-nail-phile, they are not dupes but pretty similar. Have swatched China Glaze Poinsettia just to show the orange tinge the other 2 have.

Both the Essie and OPI were minis in the sets I purchased so I didn't have much of a choice, but I probably wouldn't buy the both on their own, as I'm not that into this shade and they are close enough for me. Do you find them similar too?

Thanks for viewing!

Comparison of lavender/ pink polishes

When I got Essie Under Where?, I thought I might have something similar but turns out that the polishes that I have are pretty distinct *phew* And I was too lazy to paint and remove for comparison, hence the scotch tape :p

From pinky, anticlockwise, is:
BYS Scented pastel purple
OPI Do You Lilac It?
Essie Under Where?
Essence Enchanted Fairy
Essence Ballerina's Charm (half thumb)
Orly You're blushing (half thumb)

Bottle shots, same sequence as above, from right.

Ballerina's Charm and You're blushing might look quite similar here but not really in real life. See this post for more pics.

Thanks for viewing!

Essie In the Cab-ana with Glitter Gal Silver 3D Holo half moon and flower nail foil accent

As I had a piece of the flower nail foil left from my previous mani, decided to try a bling/shiny accent nail with it since the outline of the flowers is holographic foil ;) Hence applied 2 coats of Glitter Gal 3D Silver Holo on ring finger and half-moons before applying the foil and Essie In the Cab-ana.

Essie In the Cab-ana is a bright aqua blue cream and applies very well, unlike Essie Under Where?. 1 coat was fairly opaque but I applied 2 coats to even the polish out. Below is a pic with less direct light.

If you wanna see how the foil is applied, go to my previous mani, and you can purchase this nail foil (NNAIL-E28) from this link and get 10% off purchases if you use the code "barenailsnomore".

Thanks for viewing!

Essie Under Where? with flower pattern nail foil

Here is Essie Under Where? from Resort Collection 2013 as base, and a flower pattern nail foil from KKCenterHk over it :)

Under Where? is a pink toned medium purple creme, which I found rather thick and streaky :( And the mini brush made application harder as well. If you look at the plain swatch pic after the jump, you will see the unevenness and bubbling.

But thankfully, I had planned to try out the flower pattern nail foil I received from KKCenterHk for a sweet floral look, and the foil helped to conceal the polish application issues ;) This is my first time applying nail foil and it was relatively easy, and I like this pattern a lot as it lets you show the base polish but spices things up with little effort. You can purchase this nail foil (NNAIL-E28) from this link and you can get 10% off purchases if you use the code "barenailsnomore" :)

Click read more for step by step details.

Full size vs minis - OPI, Essie, Orly

Since it's Mother's Day, thought it would be fun to show the mommy and kid polishes together :p 

Size-wise, Orly minis are largest at 5.4ml, Essie next at 5ml and OPI minis only have 3.75ml :(

What is more annoying is that names are not printed on the OPI minis and this means I have to try to recall which collection it was from and google it to search for the name so that I can put it down in my posts o(>< )o If Essie and Orly can do it, I really don't see why OPI can't put the name somewhere on the bottle itself.

Anyway, just realised that perhaps I should have taken pics of the different brushes. Would that be useful? Let me know if you would like to see it :) 

Thanks for viewing!

Minis haul OPI Bond Girls, Essie Resort 2013, KKCenterHk nail foil and star studs

Just a very quick sharing of my recent mini haul of minis :p

OPI Bond Girls minis (Jinx, Vesper, Pussy Galore, Solitare) and Essie Resort Collection 2013 minis (Come Here!, First Timer, In the Cab-ana, Under Where?). I also have gold star studs and flower nail foil with glue, courtesy of KKCenterHk. Can't wait to try out the nail foil! Hope to show you a mani with it over the weekend ;D

Update, click on below for manis:
Essie Under Where? and Flower nail foil
Essie In the Cab-ana with Glitter Gal Silver 3D Holo half moon + flower nail foil accent

Thanks for viewing!

Mosaic nail art with Bourjois Vert Chlorophylle

Had been a busy week, so much so that even though my previous mani was pretty chipped, I simply had no time to change it :( But anyway, at least I managed to do this one during weekend.

Base is a shamrock green - Bourjois Vert Chlorophylle, the yellow is Bourjois Jaune Trendy and blue is Essence Date in the Moonlight. I applied Essie As Gold As It Gets on the green as well. The white lines are using acrylic paint. I always wanted to try out a mosaic design but gosh, I wanted to give up after the first nail (ring finger), haha.... But I persevered and really liked the result (^_^), even though the lines are not crisp.

Click read more for plain swatches of Vert Chlorophylle.

BYS Magenta stamped with Sally Hansen Pink Satin & China Glaze Passion

This is BYS Magenta (one of the color changing series), topped with Essie As Gold As It Gets (which is sadly not apparent here), stamped with Sally Hansen Pink Satin + BM206 and China Glaze Passion + BM313 and mattified with Rimmel.

I tried this polish out as I figured my nails were long enough to possibly see some gradient as the tips would be cooler in temperature. Please click read more if you want to see more pics of Magenta and my review.

OPI The Spy who Loved Me with BM316 and fishtail braid

Colours used:
Base - OPI The Spy who Loved Me
Stamping polish - Essie Penny Talk
Plate - BM316
Fishtail braid - OPI The Spy who Loved Me, OPI Goldeneye and Revlon Mad about Mango lined with Essie Penny Talk

I got the OPI Skyfall collection minis and was excited to try them out. The Spy who Loved Me was a pretty red with gold shimmers and this was 2 coats. The only negative was that it stained badly on me! Did not come across other people mentioning this, but somehow it was one of the most staining polishes I have come across, and I did put a base coat :(

For the fishtail braid, Goldeneye was a beautiful gold glass flake polish but quite sheer and I had to apply 2-3 layers for it to show up, so thank goodness I was only doing the ring finger or I might have taken ages....haha... It was fun though and I think I might sit down to do a full set of fishtail braids one of these days (with opaque polishes this time :p)

Thanks for looking!

Orly Flicker stamped with Essie Penny Talk + BM214

Colours used:
Base - Orly Flicker
Stamping polish - Essie Penny Talk
Plate - BM214

Flicker has a the glow from within look which is not shown here unfortunately, but it is a pretty burnt orange which reminds me of autumn, hence I decided to add the leaves stamp. Penny Talk works well as a stamping polish, so I guess it's true that most, if not all, metallics do well, which is a good thing as I can save on Konad polishes :p

Glitter Gal Silver 3D Holo as top layer with stamping

I saw that Glitter Gal has some great linear holos and decided to get one which could be layered over other colours. Also got a set of Bundle Monster plates since I managed to stamp relatively okay previously. If you would like to see just the holo over the base, pls click read more :)

Essie Go Overboard with roses

First try with the classic roses image....