Cherry Blossom Love

A couple of weeks ago we were celebrating my Mom's birthday. I decided to make a sweet cake for my even sweeter Mom, in cherry blossom style! Isn't it adorable? I'm so proud of it. :)

Why am I showing you this yummy cake? Well, apparently my cakes inspire me to do nail art :O (remember the ladybug?). So I painted cherry blossom on my ring finger nails and it was so much fun to do!

The pastel pink I used as a base for all nails, except the ring finger nail, is Mod About You from OPI. The base colour for my ring finger is Flower to Flower, also from OPI. I painted the branches with You Don't Know Jacques (OPI, again) and for the blossom I also used Mod About You. With Millennium from China Glaze I made some silver dots in the flowers. And after a good long wait (seriously, you don't want smudged flowers!) I applied a thick layer of topcoat.

The cake tasted a lot better. ;) Thank you so much for watching!

Catherine Arley #675

Another pink Catherine Arley today: #675, a warm pink. This polish has the same prismatic particles as #666 which I showed you yesterday. The prismatic effect of #675 looks less impressive to me on the nail though than the effect of #666, probably because of the more sheer base of the first one. Although this is a nice pink, it didn't wowed me, it's too warm for me I guess. 

I made a little comparison with OPI DS Signature (Mommy again). Signature is slightly cooler and the prismatic effect is definitely waaay cooler. For the observant viewers among you: you could already see them next to each other on the 1st picture. :)

The application of all the Catherine Arley's I tried so far is very nice, this one being no exception! #675 is quite sheer, even with three coats there's still some nail line visible.

Thanks for watching!

Catherine Arley #666

lamplight

Here we have #666 from Catherine Arley, a slightly dark cool pink with prismatic particles that are way more visible than the ones in #805 which I showed you earlier. I LOVE it, I'm almost speechless... the gorgeousness, aah :L 

I thought this could be some kind of love child of two OPI Designer Series polishes: Original (let's call it the Daddy for now) and Signature (which will be the Mommy, being the pink one, lol). So I made a quick comparison and well.. in a way it's true, #666 being a less holographic child then, with a bigger resemblance to Mom :). It's fun to compare polishes don't you think?

The application of #666 was great. This is one of the more pigmented Catherine Arley's I ordered, this is two coats without topcoat.

Thanks for watching!

Catrice - Just Married

I don't know why I picked up Just Married from Catrice. I guess I thought it looked nice in the bottle. It don't like it as much on the nail. Well, actually, the colour is ok, very work appropriate. Or very newly wed appropriate? :i It has a lovely shimmer in it, which I like. But overall it looks a bit boring. I wantz sparklies, holo, duochrome..!! *sigh* The application was good, this is two coats plus topcoat. My nail line is still visible, one extra coat could cover that, but I don't mind. :D

Thanks for watching!

CND - Amethyst Sparkle

I thought it would be fun to use a CND Effects polish. My first time using one! I applied one layer of Amethyst Sparkle on top of Yasmeen from Zoya. Not that I thought Yasmeen wasn't nice on its own by the way :O

Amethyst Sparkle adds a lot of purple and pink sparkles to the manicure, gorgeous! It's a great way of bringing your manicure alive again and giving it a little extra oomph. I like it!

Thanks for watching!!

Orly - Lunar Eclipse & China Glaze - Grape Pop

When I got my bottle of Lunar Eclipse from the Orly Cosmic FX collection I was so happy with the duochrome I saw in it. In the bottle you can see a really vibrant indigo with blue and pink particles and a purple flash. I read on other nail blogs that the purple didn't show up on the nail that well.. That's often (if not always) the case with duochromes; in the bottle they're so colourful and gorgeous, but when you put it on your nails it's always a little bit disappointing. I can't believe I did it again! ..buying a duochrome polish because it looks sooo nice in the bottle.. xo

Anyway, I was warned about the disappearing purple. So I thought layering Lunar Eclipse on top of a purple could help the purple of LE to come out better. First I applied China Glaze - Grape Pop, then I added two layers of Lunar Eclipse on top of that. The result is stunning!  Most cameras have trouble capturing purple, so has mine. It took me some effort (and a couple of hundred photo's ;)) to get the purple on the pics. In real life it's even more visible! 

Thanks for watching!

Zoya - Sarah

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Today I painted my nails with Zoya - Sarah. It's one of the polishes from the Winter 2010 Fire and Ice collection (although the collection is renamed as 'Flame' on Zoya's website, don't know what that's about.. :brow , but let's talk about the polish!).

Sarah is a pinkish red packed with foily glitter, very sparkly and hot! In the bottle you can see coppery glitter (second bottle from the left), but the copper didn't show up that heavily on the nail (lucky me... as I'm not a big fan of coppery colours). I wonder how Zoya - Valerie will end up on the nail, that one has even more copper glitter in it, hmm.. we'll see!

from left to right: Valerie, Sarah, Yasmeen & Shawn

The application was nice; Sarah is very pigmented, I needed two coats for full coverage.

Thanks for watching! :h

Pink Ribbon - Polish Your Pinkie Pink

As you all may know October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Etos (a Dutch drugstore) asked women to polish their little finger nail with a pink polish during this month to raise awareness for this type of cancer. They also brought out some special Pink Ribbon polishes; a part of the proceed goes to the Pink Ribbon foundation. I haven't bought them, beacuse I feel more comfortable donating money directly to the foundation (and I didn't like the polishes that much..).

Anyway, I polished my pinkie pink with Barry M - Shocking Pink. The polish I used on the rest of my nails is Zoya - Kelly. And as you can see I added a ribbon to my ringfinger, which I drew by hand with a little nail art brush and a couple of pink polishes (don't know which ones exactly, as long as it's pink :) ). 

Thanks for watching!

OPI - Flower To Flower

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Look at it! Hot pink! And in real life even brighter than this. I was a little bit shocked when I polished my nails with OPI - Flower To Flower from the Summer Flutter Collection. I thought it would be less bright; I think it's a little bit too Barbie for me, lol. The silver shimmer is really gorgeous though! Maybe I can add a little Konad to make the result less bright.

About the application... I don't know what's the matter with me, but the last couple of days all polishes I chose applied badly. This one was thick, dried very quickly resulting in a very uneven layer (as you can see on my index finger). I needed three coats and added one coat of topcoat to make it as smooth as possible.

Thanks for watching!