Haul

Last week I bought seven gorgeous polishes. And the best thing? They only cost 10 SEK each. AND they are all 15ml bottles. How crazy is that? You really get what you pay for haha. Anyway, they are all from a brand called Glam of Sweden, and my purchase consists of two glitter polishes, one micogltter polish, one extremely thin jelly aimed for french manicures, and three cremes, which is showed further down.

Since the glitter polishes were all so gorgeous and the sun was shining (finally!), I decided to take my photos outside to really show them in their best condítion. Since I also use a macro lens to my camera, I figured I would try and take some macro shots of the bottles - something I haven't done before. And man was I impressed what my camera could achieve, haha. Just look at these pics below, how gorgeous and focused?

So to the cremes. These didn't catch my interest because of the colours, but because of the bottles. They are shaped like little skulls, and I just had to buy them, you just don't pass when finding such cool bottles. And the colours were actually really pretty, even though they aren't exactly unique. Swatches will be up soon!

I hadn't planned to blog about the polish that I am currently wearing, but I took the opportunity when the sun actually was out and I was home (two things that very seldom coincides) to snap some pics. So here we have 46 from Kubiss. Super pretty!

Orange

Damn my nails have gotten long. This is actually the last time you will see my nails this long for some time now, since I filed them down a couple of days ago. Like filed them a lot. They are so short now! So yeah this post should probably have been posted like a week ago, but you can't always keep up y'know. ;)

Anyway, here is a simple dotticure using white and a gorgeous orange polish from & other stories. Have I ever told you that orange is my favourite colour? Well it is but there are actually a lot of shades of orange that I don't like, and I have found it really hard to find the perfect orange polish, and this is as close that I have gotten. It is actually a bit lighter than what is showed on the nails, as you can see in the bottle below. Oh, and it is called Lake Orange.

Galaxies

I have come to the realization that I tend to do certain nail art designs once a year. Last time I did galaxy nails was on my birthday last year, which is in April. But now the time has come again! I love love love them and it such an easy technique, you just can't fail with galaxies, 'cause there are no rules, and every nail is unique, just like the universe, hehe.

These took me about one and half an hour from start to finish, for all ten nails, and I think that is great for a result that is so awesome and looks pretty advanced. I only used three things; nail polishes (no acrylic paint this time), make up sponges and tooth pics for the "stars". Very simple!

Nail polishes used:
Nordic Cap of Sweden NP12
Depend 250
Isadora 630 Sweet Violet
China Glaze For Audrey
China Glaze Dorothy Who?
China Glaze Eyes Like Sapphires
China Glaze Fairy Dust
China Glaze White On White
Seche Vite Top Coat

And let's finish with a close-up just because I can, and here you can really see the blues and purple mixed together. :')

5 Shades of Grey

No one can have managed to avoid hearing about the weeks big subject of debate - 50 Shades of Grey. What I have heard about the movie is that it glorifies domestic abuse, but I can't really express any opinoin since I haven't personally read the book(s) nor seen the movie. But let's move on to what this blog really is about - nail polish, yay! OPI recently released a collection inspired by the movie, you can find swatches over at my favourite swatcher The Polish Aholic, great as always. I don't own any of those pretty new polishes, but what I do have is some grey polishes of different shades, which I have picked out here.

So this time I have used five grey/silver polishes of different shades (hence the name of this post, I thought I was really clever there) which I have combined in a ombre manicure with a kind of braided accent nail, using striping tape. This made me realize two things; firstly, I love grey polishes and I think they really suit me, and secondly, they are damn hard to photograph, haha. What are your opinion on grey nail polishes? (and the book/movie, if somebody has read/seen it?)

Nail polishes: (darkest - lightest)
China Glaze Stone Cold
Caviar Nails from Swedish magazine Veckorevyn
Nordic Cap of Sweden NP26
Collection 2000 Star Dust
Depend 250

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day dear blog readers! This is a day I've never really 'celebrated', so to say, but it is a great opportunity to do pink, red and heart-themed nails, hehe. I picked out some pretty creme and glitter polishes in the right colour spectrum, and ended up with what you can see here. I also used a loose glitter in the shape of a heart that I found in my nail art decoration drawer. Unfortunately the red colour started to bleed a bit when I added the top coat, and for some strange reason it isn't especially visible on the first photo here above, haha. Lucky for me!

Nail polishes:
A creme white polish in a OPI Blushingham Palace-bottle, but since that really is a pink/purple polish, I don't know what polish this really is
OPI Die Another Day
Lumene Stand Out
Fate of Flower Nail Polish 42
La Femme Beauty Cosmos
La Femme Beauty Shim T/coat

Water marble

Hi there! I was in a really good mood the other day so I figured out I would try something I haven't done in I don't know how long - water marble. I think I have only ventured to use this technique three times in my life, and anybody who has ever tried out water marbling know why! It is seriously frightening. It looks super easy when you are watching those cool tutorials on Youtube, but trust me, it's an illusion. It is sooo hard; to be able to choose the right polishes that actually works for water marbling, to do a nice pattern and then not mess it up on the nail.

Despite all the things that could have gone wrong here, I am very proud to present these nails, I am so happy with them! I remembered using this very colour combination before, and they worked really well together, so I decided to give it a go again. Both polishes are from OPI and the light pink is Panda-monium Pink and the purple is A Grape Fit!.

Since I used exactly the same polishes, I thought it would be fun to do a comparison to the mani I did back then. After some searching I found the pictures, and oh my god. The lightning (everything is heavily over exposed), the different nail shapes and the hand pose is just so weird. This was also before my discovery of clean-up brushes + nail polish remover, so the cuticles were horrible, even though I guess they were ok with this manicure. I have put a then - now compaison picture below, the left on dates back to November 2012 while the right is done last week, January 2015. While practising and just doing your thing, it is hard to notice the improvement over a longer amount of time, and that is why I love to look back and compare, to really get it in black and white, how much I actually have improved over the last few years. :')

Isadora Blue Jeans

A lot of blues these past few weeks, huh? But that is how I roll. I like most things in periods, and then I get tired of them. The colours I wear, the food I eat, the music I listen too, you get it. Today I want to show this super pretty dark blue from Isadora, with the fitting name Blue Jeans. It has been a couple of days since I wore this and got an idea for nail art right now, as I am writing this post haha. Oh well, I guess I'll have to bring out this polish again soon!

Edit: I just realized that I've barely posted any blue manicures lately lol. But I have definitely worn them :)

In the pictures I wear two coats and a layer of Seche Vite top coat, but it is really opaque so I could probably have gotten away with just one coat. The formula was really nice and easy to work with, even though I am not a big fan of Isadora's wide brushes.

AQUA

Hi there! I don't know if there's something wrong wtih me but I am always cold nowadays, even though we have a very warm winter compared to what we usually have here in northern Sweden. This weekend it has been crazy windy and the snow is constantly falling, and hopefully we get to keep a quantity of it until Spring. Anyway, due to the wheather I figured I would cheer myself up with nails that reminds me of summertime, or at least warmer wheather.

If it isn't clear enough this is supposed to imitate the way pool water looks in the sun, I cropped in a picture below as a comparison. I first saw this kind of manicure over at Chalkboard Nails back in September, which was inspired by Amore & Vita's tutorial, so I headed over to find out more. It all turned out to be a simple saran wrap manicure, that with the right colour choices actually looks a lot like pool water. I started out with a light blue that leans a little toward mint, Color Club Blue-ming which is a super nice polish just on its own too! As the second polish I used a darker blue polish from NPW Nail Art, that actually is a polish and pen combined into one, made for easy nail art.

I personally think I succeeded with the look and really love these shades together. After a day or so, I thought that I would spice up the mani a little, so I quickly painted thin, black borders around the nails using acrylic paint and a striping brush. This was the second time I tried out that technique (I still haven't posted the manicure I did back in October, shame on me!) and it is a little tricky to get even but I am improving. :)