CLOSED Holiday *GIVEAWAY*

Hello ladies!



Are you ready for another giveaway? I sure am! Let´s celebrate the holiday season.


Here are the prizes.


number 1: Barry M Dusky Mauve (the Paradoxal dupe), Vivid Purple, Indigo, Navy

number 2: Models Own Green Tea, Sterling Silver, Champagne, 25 Carat Gold

And if my blog will go over 250 followers within the next 2 weeks, I'll add an extra prize


Eyeko Posh, Eyeko Indigo and Illamasqua Snap

How to enter this giveaway:


1. Being a follower through GFC = 1 entry


2. Blog about this giveaway = 2 entries


3. Place this in the sidebar of your blog = 1 entry


4. Put this blog on your blogroll = 1 entry


Bonus!


If you can guess my top 3 favorite nailpolishes you get 3 extra entries! (1 for each good answer)



Please leave the answers, your name and email adress and links in the comment box below.

THIS GIVEAWAY IS OPEN INTERNATIONALLY AND UNTIL THE 14TH OF DECEMBER AT MIDNIGHT (dutch midnight that is)
I will try to announce the winners within 24 hours after this giveaway is closed.


Winners will be chosen by random.org


Good luck to all of you!

Nubar Iced Licorice

Hello ladies!

Today I have my NOTD from over a week ago. I got this one in a swap with Cat with whom I did a swap before. Thanks Cat for the many pretty polishes again!!
I´ve been doubting about this color for such a long time, yes, no, yes, no. But now that I´ve got it, I know exactly why I was doubting. There are quite a lot of swatches of this beauty, but it doesn´t photograph well, so the color you see on most swatches are not the color it actually is. The best way I can describe it for you is a little bit darker version of Zoya Zara with more golden shimmer. It really is gorgeous! And also work appropriate I think.
Only one problem, I forgot to take pictures in daylight, how stupid is that?! So like all the other swatches I´ve seen, my pictures also don´t do it justice. But hey, you´re here to see pictures, so of course I´ll post some artificial light pics.

This is Nubar Iced Licorice, 3 coats and topcoat.

Maybe I should have been patient and leave this on until the next morning to take some daylight pictures. But I received 2 Barielles and wanted to try them out so bad. My very first Barielles, yay! So Iced Licorice had to go. Eventhough I love it! And before I forget, as always, application was goooood! I hardly needed any clean up at all. Pics are actually pre-clean up.

Thanks for stopping by and don´t forget to come back here tomorrow for my very first Barielle NOTD :-)

Favorite blog

Goodmorning ladies!


A new week and I wanted to start this week with something else for a change. Today I want to tell you more about my favorite blog. This lady has the most perfect nails and the most perfect skills in polishing as well as photographing her creations. I really think she´s the best out there!! I´ve been reading a lot of blogs in the past year, but there´s no blog that has better nails or pictures than this one in my opinion.


So please visit and follow AmyGrace at
http://the-polished-perfectionist.blogspot.com/
you won´t regret it.


You´ll probably all know that I normally really don´t do promotion work, but for this one I made an exception. It was my own idea though, AmyGrace didn't ask me to do this, she was actually quite surprised when I asked her if she would have a problem with me doing this. I just thinks she deserves a lot more followers than she has right now.
Do you have a favorite blog? Which one is it? Would love to see your personal top3 in the comment box.
My 10 favorites are in the sidebar/blogroll on the right side of this page. They are definitely all worth following!!
I read a lot more every day though (really like every single one) and I find new very nice blogs every day too.

Thanks for reading!

Sally Hansen Arabian Night

Hi ladies!

Today I´ve got a polish I recently got in a swap with Virginia. And it´s awesome! Thanks Virginia. This is a shade I could honestly call blurple. It really isn´t blue and it really isn´t purple either. But there is a gold shimmer in it too. Wow! I really like this shade, although from a distance the gold is not that visible unfortunately.

This is 2 coats of Sally Hansen Arabian Night in artificial light.

Yes, this is beautiful! Although the wear is not that good. When I got out of bed the next day, I already had some tipwear. To me that´s not a disaster, since most polishes don´t last longer than 24 hours and then I really want to change again. But for you ladies out there that only change once or twice a week, this might not be the best color. This is my first Sally Hansen Salon polish, and I thought it would be better than the other Sally Hansens, but it´s not.

I really wish we had more access to all these great brands here in the Netherlands. And for the same prices. Recently I found a store that sells a few of the Sally Hansen insta-dry polishes. And when I say a few, I mean 5 shades. But the prices are ridiculous, 10 euro, that´s like 14 dollars, insane! Well, as long as I have you ladies who I can swap with, I´ll be fine.

Enjoy your sunday!

Christmas is early this year

Goodmorning ladies!

Weekend!! Ok, I have to work today, but still. Do you have anything nice planned for this weekend?

Ok, so, it is still a little early to do anything christmas-y, but hey, you have to experiment first so you´ll know exactly what you are going to wear on christmas. My experiment actually failed, haha, so this is the first time I´m going to show you my other hand, since I messed up two fingers of my "regular" hand and I didn´t feel like re-doing it.

First is my basecolor on its own. Wow, what a pretty shade of green!!
This is China Glaze Jolly Holly, one coat and in artificial light to show the right color (my regular picture hand :P)

After this I put tape on part of the nails and painted the other half with China Glaze Party Hearty. This is a real christmas shade! It has glitter in different sizes and shapes in green, red and silver. It doesn´t get much more christmas-y then that.
I used the tape trick before and totally failed, but this time it did work just perfect! Only I wanted more... stupid me. So I used a toothpick to draw a small silver line. What was I thinking? I know I don´t have a steady hand so it was doomed to fail. And of course it did. So after 2 nails I decided that it wasn´t going to happen and didn´t do the rest of my nails with the silver line. This is the reason why I took pictures of my other hand.

Here it is:

I know, my fingers and cuticles are very dry. My skin really hates autumn and winter. There´s not much I can do about it, sorry.

I do like the result though. This might be my christmas mani, not sure yet.
Do you already have a mani planned for christmas? Or maybe something special for Sinterklaas? And what was your mani for Thanksgiving?

Thanks for watching!

Collistar Viola Glitter

Goodmorning!

How are you all doing? Preparing for the weekend already?
What did you think of the guest post by Manon yesterday? Did you all like it? I definitely did! Manon has agreed to do more guest posts in the future. How great is that?!

Today I want to show you one of my favorite purples. A few months ago I did a comparison with it and it turned out to be a dupe for Milani Totally Cool. So for the ladies who can't get the gorgeous Viola Glitter by Collistar, just get the Milani. The Milani is a little less opaque though and needs 3 coats, while the Collistar is good to go in just 2 coats.

Viola Glitter is a nice blue-toned purple with pink glitter in it. Application is just perfect! The brush is great and the polish is smooth.

You love this as much as I do? Every purple addict should have this!! Or the Milani dupe of course.

Take care,
Miranda

Guestpost by Manon

Hello everyone!

Welcome to this guestpost. My name is Manon, but some of you may know me as Loqi (which is also my follower name here). A little while ago Miranda got me some very nice gifts, and as a favor back to her she asked me to do a guestpost on her blog, isn’t that fun? So today I have a nailart tutorial for you, using napkins. There are a few tutorials for this on the vast internet already, but one more won’t hurt right?
Let’s get started!


For this tutorial you will need:
Napkins with pretty patterns. Try getting ones with small decorations, as bigger ones will lose their effect once they are on the nail.

Scissors


A file

Basecoat

Topcoat


Nailpolish in a corresponding color to the napkin you will use
Rhinestones (optional)

To start off, we will prepare the napkins. You may have noticed before that most napkins are built up of multiple layers: a few thin, blank ones and one decorated one. We only need the top decorated one, so carefully remove the back layers.

When you have done this, it is time to select the pattern you want to have on your nails. You’ll see that the napkin I am using has a lot of colorful patterns to choose from! While most of these can be done with konad or any other stamping technique, the multicolored ones are a bit more difficult to do that way. And it’s always a good thing to have more options right? So select the pattern you want to use and cut thin strips of it. You will see in this picture that I have cut two lager pieces, these are for my thumbnails, as they are bigger than the pattern in the strips.

After this, cut the strips into smaller pieces and then cut each piece to fit your nailbeds.

Now it is time to prepare your nails. As always, first use a basecoat to protect your nails and make your manicure last longer. I always use OPI’s ridgefiller, just to get that extra smooth finish. After your basecoat has dried, paint your nails a color similar to the base color of the napkin pattern you are using. You are doing this to help the napkin blend in to your nails if you haven’t cut the pieces big enough or for when the napkin will go a bit see-through when it’s applied. I used a pale pink called ‘Heartbeat’ by a German brand called ‘P2’. They make very nice quality polish for a very small price.

Now before the polish has had time to dry completely, apply the napkin pieces. Press them gently onto the polish and try too smooth out as much of the wrinkles as possible. I have to admit that this wasn’t the best application I have done so far, but the polish had dried a bit too much because I had to take a picture before doing the napkins :D If you find that the polish has dried too much for the napkin to stick to your nail, just apply a coat of topcoat to stick the napkin to.


You will probably see that the pieces you cut are too long for your nails, if so, just tear the excess off, but be careful because wet napkin is very fragile and tears easily.

After you have fit all the pieces to your nails and made sure they are all the right length, apply a layer of topcoat and wait for it to dry. (While I was applying the topcoat, something strange happened to the napkin, which I haven’t experienced before: it changed color completely. The napkin went from a soft pink to a flaming bright neon! While I don’t mind neon on my nails now and again, it did make the napkin lose some of the pretty details, but for the sake of this tutorial I finished the manicure anyway.)


After the topcoat has dried, gently file the edges of your nails so that any hard pieces of napkin are smoothed out. Now apply a second coat of topcoat to seal everything (don’t forget to wrap your tips!). I added blue rhinestones to the finished manicure, you know, just because :D


And here is the finished (and very bright!) napkin nailart.

I hope you have enjoyed this little guestpost. I know I had a lot of fun writing it! Take care and maybe until another time!


-xxx-

CND Ice Blue Shimmer over OPI Funky Dunkey

Hi!

Just a shortie today.
I was going through my spreadsheet and found out I still hadn´t used CND Ice Blue Shimmer. How could that be? So of course it had to be used right away. Still no idea what to combine it with, the only thing I knew was that it had to be a creme. Since I don´t have a lot of cremes (maybe 12 or so) the choice wasn´t that hard. I decided to go for OPI Funky Dunkey. Love that color!

Here are the pictures

I like the result, hope you like it too!

Tomorrow I've got something very special for you, so make sure you don't miss it.

OPI Reflecting Pool

Hi ladies!!

The first time I saw the new Zoya polishes from the fire&ice collection I really liked Crystal. I was planning to get that, but somehow it reminded me of another polish. It took me some time to remember which one. But then I remembered OPI Reflecting Pool which I hadn´t used for a long time. Recently some comparisons showed up at a few blogs and that´s when I realized they are completely the same. My wallet was smiling!

Reflecting Pool is a light blue with gold glitter. Gorgeous! And for the accent nail I used Orly Luxe, a gold foil. Yes, I like foils! I know I did something like this a few days ago, but it is just fun and shiny!

3 coats of Reflecting Pool and 2 coats of Luxe.

The last picture I placed here just because I wanted to show you how sparkly it is.

I have to say that I´m still not a huge fan of the pro wide brush OPI has. With this brush I always have a lot more clean up to do than whenever I use a polish with a smaller brush. I don´t really have steady hands, so it gets messy easily and especially with wider brushes.

Are you a fan of the pro wide brush? And how about this color?

Thanks for stopping by!

Nubar Purple Beach and Chelsea Kaleidoscope

Goodmoring!!

A new week and I´ve got some nice things to show. First of all I´ll start this week with a comparison. Every once in a while I´ll go through my stash to see if I don´t have dupes or colors that are to similar to keep. When I used Chelsea Kaleidoscope a while back it really reminded me of Nubar Purple Beach. And although I didn´t think they would be that close, I thought it was worth doing a comparison.

Here are the pictures:

Well, I was wrong. I have to admit that I´m not even sure which one is the Nubar and which one is the Chelsea. They are not dupes, but they are very very very close! I think middle and pinkie is Nubar Purple Beach and index and ring is Chelsea Kaleidoscope. Both 3 coats. You might not even see the difference in the picture, but the purple in Kaleidoscope is just a little more blue than the purple in Purple Beach.

So I´ve decided one has to go. I mean, I don´t need backups, since I don´t ever see myself finishing a whole bottle of nail polish anyway. Now I have to decide which one has to go, I think it´s going to be the Chelsea, although both apply very well!

Yes, it really is hard to keep my stash below 200... Especially when I secretely have around 40 in my swap drawer, but they really do have to go!! I might put them up for sale on eBay or marketplace all at once. If any of my dear readers is interested, just let me know.

Have a nice day!

Pastel Skittles

Hello!

Last week I did my first skittle manicure. In spring we saw a lot of these manicures in pastel colors, but since the sun was shining I was in the mood for something happy, colorful and just like spring, so I made pastel skittles in autumn, haha.

Here´s the picture

Thumb: Models Own Peach Sherbet (3 coats)
Index: Models Own Lemon Meringue (3 coats)
Middle: OPI Hey! Get in Lime! (3 coats)
Ring: Orly Snowcone (2 coats)
Pinkie: Nubar Lavender (1 coat)

I actually bought the Peach Sherbet only to do a skittle mani, there´s no way I could ever wear a color like this on its own, and still in the skittle I don´t really like, haha. Actually, I don´t think I´m a pastel girl at all! Although I do like the colors, but they are just not me or something.

Well, it did turn out lovely! Very sweet! But probably more a combination that I will use on my daughter. But it was definitely nice to have some spring in autumn.

Bye ladies!

Nfu Oh 68 and some konad

Goodmorning ladies!

It´s saturday and I don´t have to work!! That feels great! So for today I have a great polish for you (aren´t they all? :P) It´s one of my Nfu Oh´s. This brand is mostly famous for their great flakie and holo polishes, but they do have some other very stunning shades as well. The one I´m showing you today is number 68, a purple foil. Wow! I don´t have anything like this in my stash and I don´t think I´ve seen many swatches of purple foils either.

Since it´s a nice foil I decided to do an accent finger with another foil: Orly Shine. I did a purple konad over this and I really like the result! The purple I used for stampin was China Glaze Harmony from the Romantique collection. This complete collection is great for stamping! That´s all I do with those, haha, since I think they are a little boring to wear on their own.

So here are the pictures. Nfu Oh 68 is 2 coats, but some people could probably get away with just 1. Shine isn´t as opaque as you might think, it needed 3 coats.

In real life it´s actually a little less blue and a little more purple, but it´s always difficult to catch a purple on camera. If you are a foil lover, this is really a must have! And also number 69, which is the blue version of 68.

Enjoy your weekend!!

China Glaze Channelesque with Essence Louise

Hello

Last week I did a mani that I´ve seen on someone else like half a year ago. I don´t remember who it was, sorry. I was wearing China Glaze Channelesque to work, but when I got home I needed some bling on a very windy and rainy day. So that´s when I thought of the great mani I saw six months ago. I pulled out Essence Louise (one of the twin polishes) and layered it over Channelesque. Louise has purple and dark pink glitter in different sizes and shapes. It looks great over the taupe with purple tones of Channelesque!
I think Louise looks like a purple and pink version of China Glaze Party Hearty (which I will be showing you soon)

So, what do you think? Cool isn´t it?!

That´s it for today ladies. Thanks for stopping by!

The many faces of Sally Hansen Emerald Amethyst

Hi ladies!

Today I´ve got one of the Sally Hansen nail prisms for you, Emerald Amethyst. I recently got this in a swap. Great!!

This is one coat over an old mani (I was lazy), but if you are going to use it on its own you´ll need 3 coats. Not much to say, besides I like it very much, so just let the pictures speak for themself. And because I´m doing that, I made lots of pics, haha. Here we go.

 

Please excuse the horrible cuticles.

You see all the pretty colors? Purple, green, ice-blue, lilac. Yes, it´s kind of amazing, although it does remind me quite a lot of Nubar Purple Beach and one of my Chelsea duochromes.

Thanks for watching!

Orly Meet Me Under The Mistletoe

Hello!!

Today I´ve got a holiday polish for you from Orly. When I first saw swatches I thought I didn´t need this one since it looked quite close to China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. But then I saw a comparsion of the two and since I´m totally into darker green shades recently I decided I definitely needed this too. And absolutely no regrets!

This is Orly Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, 2 coats with topcoat. First is artificial light, second is artificial light plus flash.

It´s a dark green jelly with gold and silver glitter. I love it! It´s a bit like the darker sister of Zoya Ivanka.

Do you like green nail polish? Or only the brighter greens? Or do you maybe think that green nail polish looks like fungus on the nails? This was sort of my opinion on green nail polish in the beginning.

Hope to see you back here tomorrow!

OPI My Private Jet the non holo version and plus holo

Goodmorning to you all!

Today I´ve got a NOTD for you from a week ago. I know that most people don´t like OPI My Private Jet if it´s not the holo version, but I do! It´s a very nice dark brown shade with a very little bit of holo glitter. You hardly see it, but it is pretty!

Application was very smooth and it only needed 2 coats.

Here are the pictures in artificial light since the day I was wearing this I hardly saw any daylight at all.

I also wanted to know if I could create something like the original holo MPJ so I layered OPI ds Shimmer on top. From the swatches I´ve seen I know it´s not the same, but for me it´s good enough.

I do like both creations. Although I do understand that some ladies are disappointed if they expected the original version and got the non holo version.

Have a great day!

My favorite webshops

Hi ladies!


A new week and I thought I should write about something else for a change. Well, of course it is still nail polish related. How about I'll tell you a bit more about the shops I order from every once in a while? So just some information that might come in handy.


First up is http://www.transdesign.com/
They sell quite a lot of brands, most of them are unavailable here in the Netherlands or just at outrageous prices. For instance a bottle of OPI... they cost 14 euro here, which is around 20 dollars. For that amount I can buy 3,5 bottles at Transdesign. Besides OPI they also sell China Glaze, Orly, Misa, Color Club, Amour and some others.
Shipping fee is $20 (they recently raised it from 18 to 20) up to 9 bottles for international shipping. Sometimes you can choose the option for $20 and sometimes you can't and in that case you just put "apply flat rate box please" in the comment box.
Shipping is quite fast. I've received all my orders within 8 days.


Second one is http://www.nailpolishfashion.nl/
The owner of this webshop is Carla, a very nice lady who knows how important it is to have a good customer service. She also sells a lot of stuff that you can't buy in the Netherlands like China Glaze, Nubar, Color Club and Zoya. Of course her prices are a little higher than the prices at TD but she has to import the stuff first as well. Besides these brands, she also sells a few very great quick dry topcoats like Poshe, Seche Vite and David.
I usually buy from her if I have a smaller order. Shipping fee is 2 euro up to 3 polishes within the Netherlands. 6,75 for larger orders and special discounts if you spend over 25 or 50 euro. She also ships international but only within the EU, that's 13 euro.


Third one is http://www.viis.ee/
This is where I buy most of my Nfu Oh. They are just so much cheaper than all the other ones that sell Nfu Oh. Just have a look at their website to find out. The company is in Estonia. The only downside is that they don't always keep their stock up to date. Sometimes it takes weeks before they refill. But if you can be patient that won't be a problem.
Shipping fee within Europe is 9,20 euro. The list of where they ship to is incomplete at their website, but I think they ship to just about anywhere in the world. To the Netherlands it takes 5 to 12 days usually.


Next one is http://www.head2toebeauty.com/
I must admit that I've only ordered here once. But I was very satisfied.
They sell Essie, China Glaze, CND, Orly and a few more. Prices are good! Shipping not too high, I paid something like 16 dollars I believe for 6 polishes and 3 files. The only downside is that you can not look up the shipping fee, you'll see it when paypal opens.

Fifth is http://www.nailetc.com/
This is where I order Zoya. They are on eBay as well. Also other brands available like OPI, Orly, Essie and China Glaze. On the website you can find a list of shipping fees, but for instance 6 bottles to the Netherlands cost 15 dollars. I think that´s reasonable.

The last one is http://www.boozyshop.nl/
This is a dutch webshop as well, like nailpolishfashion. Their customer service is also great. Besides brands like Color Club, Diamond Cosmetics, Milani, LA Girl, Misa, China Glaze and even some Ozotic they also sell quite a lot of make-up and nailart like Konad and others.
Unfortunately for you ladies that don´t live in the Netherlands or Belgium, they don´t ship outside these 2 countries. Shipping fee is 6,75.

One thing the first 5 webshops have in common is that they ship international and they accept Paypal, which is my favorite way of paying. It´s safe and quick. I don´t like paying with my credit card, because I don´t want to fill out my credit card number on just any website. Every once in a while I do make an acception, but I definitely prefer Paypal.
Besides the websites stated above I also sometimes order at other websites or eBay if I can´t find what I´m looking for on any of the above.

Have a great week ladies!

Accessorize day 8: Purple Dream

Goodmorning ladies!

Enjoying your weekend so far? Yesterday was a very long day. But I enjoyed it. My daughter did well! She ended in 2th place, wow! Unfortunately this time it wasn´t individually, but with a team of 3 girls and the team was 5th, so no medal, but a good start of the season. I´m so proud of her!!

Today is the last day of the Accessorize week. Oh man, what a bunch of great polishes! The one I have for you is no exception. Beautiful! I don't have anything like it in my stash, so no comparison today. If I had to describe it I would say it´s a combination of LA Girl Groupie and LA Girl Punk. It's awesome!

This might even be my favorite of the Accessorizes together with Aztec.

2 coats in the picture.

You see the duochrome? And the blue and pink glitter? This really is great!

So, that's all. The Accessorize week has ended here. I would love to know your opinion on which one you like the most.

From tomorrow I will be showing you other stuff again. I still have some great holiday polishes that I haven't swatched yet. And also some stuff that came in from a swap I recently did with another MUA lady. So make sure you keep coming back to my blog. I can't even begin to tell you how much I appreciate all of the ladies for following me. Thanks girls!!