Giveaway Reminder & Questions

My Follower Appreciation Giveaway is ending very soon! I can't believe it's been a month already. However, I'm very excited to finally get to choose a winner and get the prizes shipped out.


There's still time if you haven't entered or simply want more chances to win (each time you post about my giveaway on Facebook or Twitter is one extra entry) go do so now!! If you don't enter you can't win after all.


Good luck to all those who have or will enter!!


As for my next giveaway, I have a few ideas. I'm trying to come up with things that can be shipped internationally this time. With this in mind, how do you gals feel about artificial nails? What about if they are designed and painted by me? What about preferred lengths? Short, medium, long? What about things that aren't nail related but simply beauty related? With this idea, I've heard that some countries don't allow the shipment of cosmetics. I would have to do a bit of research to find out which countries.


I'm open to suggestions for prizes. If you have something you'd like to see in a giveaway you can post ideas in the comments or use the 'Contact Me' section of this blog to find my email.

Gina Tricot beauty nails: 66 Viva glam. A gold french

Hello everyone!














This  is a gold french made with Gina Tricot beauty nails (also called "Bella nail polish" on www.ginatricot.com): 66 Viva Glam. I free handed one coat of Viva glam, and used GOSH base- and top coat. It is not completely opaque, but I like it like this. It is my second attempt on making a french manicure.

At first, it did not feel like me, but I got used to it, and even though I felt that it was extremely shiny, people hardly notice it. So am still wearing it. And I got one compliment.

Mostly, Viva glam looks gold, but sometimes it looks like a mix of gold and silver. But it was difficult to show it on the pictures.

The bottle looks like silver in sunshine:



Viva glam is sheer, and looks different over white and black, as you see on these nail wheels.
Nr. 16: one coat over black. Nr. 6: two coats over white. No base/ top coat

In the evening, low light, inside

In daylight, inside

Below, I used it over black, in a remake of the design "3 triangles", originally made by Sophie from My awesome beauty. You can see my other nailphotos of my version of  her design, which was my entry to her nail art competition, on my blog post with the same name: "3 triangles"




Next time, I think I will wear Viva glam over black. This is the first Gina Tricot polish I have tried on, but I also bought a purple (48 Diva) and a pastel purple (47 Lilac me), because they had a good offer on 3 bottles.

Gina Tricot nail polish is not tested on animals.


Lani

Deborah Lippmann: Candy Shop

Hello everybody!


Here are some nailphotos of Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop. (And after that, some experimenting with Candy Shop, (so this is a looooong post))









When I bought Candy Shop, I had been waiting for it for a long time. And when it finally was available, the only way to get it was to buy the "Get this party started" set. So I nearly didn't buy it. And my friend said; "Just buy it!", and talked about how important it is to have a hobby, and that many people use a lot of money on other things. I justified it with the fact that Deborah Lippmann is cruelty free. And that I stop myself from buying a lot of beautiful nail polishes, because they are tested on animals. And I didn't have any multicoloured glitter. But afterwards, when I sat in a car, holding the set AND "Across The Universe", I could not believe what I had done. Again, my friend talked me into it. :-) But nail polish gives me a lot of joy! So he is right. :-)



The three bottles in the set are all multicoloured glitters; "Happy Birthday" in a clear base, "Forget You" with black base, and "Candy Shop" in bubblegum pink base. (I used Happy Birthday for nail art in my first blog post: Glitter-illusion-dots , my entry to Chalkboard Nails nail art contest.)



Now, it is possible to buy just the bottle. And I have seen pictures of dupes. I do not know if you see the difference when you compare with my nailphotos. On the pictures taken in sun with blue sky background, you can see that DL's Candy Shop consists of large and small hexagonal multicolored glitter in a "bubble gum pink" (as the color is described on the box) base. (These 2 photos does not show the  pink base so well.)



I must admit that I was a bit disappointed the first time I tried it on. I had expected it to be more like a glitter sandwich. So I put it on my toes (and it looked good for a month). But this week, I put it on my hands again, and have started loving it.

Experimenting:
I had planned to try to put sheer polishes over it after some days, but liked it so much that I kept it as it was, until I got a bit of tip ware. When I tested which polishes would work on top of Candy Shop to make it look more like a "glitter sandwich", I also put a third layer on the nails that I did not cover with other polishes.

Initially, I chose to use 2 coats, because I did not want too much glitter, (and it was opaque because of the colored base). But in my opinion it looked better with three, as you can see on the middle fingers below.

Right hand:








Above, from left to right: (one coat of each) Orly: Rock Candy, Ozotic: 504, DL: Candy Shop, China Glaze: 108 Degrees, +GOSH base/top coat



Left hand: 








I put one coat of the polishes below + topcoat, on top of 2 coats of Candy Shop+ topcoat.



From left to right: OPI: Lucky Lucky Lavender, DL: Candy Shop, OPI: Heart Throb, H&M: Pink Mist






I do not think I will wear Candy Shop with any of these polishes over it. It looked best on its own. But if I had owned jellys (and I do not want to waste my flakies), I would probably be able to make some nice "glitter sandwiches", as I have seen on some blogs the last months.

So what I have learned is that I need jellys/ sorbets, lots of jellys. I want to use them both for glitters and flakies. At least a teal to go with Nfu- Oh 54, and a purple. Or maybe one medium dark purple, and one purple to go with Nfu- Oh 50. Du you have any suggestions?

Taking it off:
As you can see, when you try to remove nail polish with glitter, the glitter ends up at the bottom. Isn't it strange that it even happens when glitter is used as top coat?



By the way, I use the foil- method, then wash with soap and water, and then try to remove stray glitter (from the skin) with nail polish remover on a cotton pad, and rinse with water again, and check if there is glitter by the cuticles.


As mentioned, Deborah Lippmann nail polish is not tested on animals. :-)

You can see Deborah Lippmann's collection here. I am very curious of her new polishes. You can see them on her page. Especially Ray of Light, Sweet Dreams, Sugar Daddy, and Private Dancer. I am not telling where you can buy Candy Shop, because that is different for every country in the world. But if it seems to be impossible to get where you live, you could try eBay, or look for dupes.

Actually, Michaela from "Nail Polish Anon" has just made a post about a dupe! Here are her thoughts about and photos of the dupe.


Lani

Old bottles of polish: Helena Rubinstein 13 Red Magma

Hello everyone!

I am very sad to say that Helena Rubinstein is on the list of companies that do test on animals. I am very concerned about animals well being, and have stopped to buy Helena Rubinstein.

So this is not meant as advertisement. I just wanted to show you an old and beautiful nail polish.


Here is another old bottle of nail polish. I used to think that this was red glitter, but now I know better... It is actually flakies. Red, and packed with flakies. Being such a bold color, I only used to use it for Christmas.









Red Magma and Cobalt are gifts from the same friend.




(Preview of my gold (Viva glam) french)






When I opened it again, after I found the bag with my old polishes last fall, it looked OK. So I put it on some days before Christmas. But it took hours to dry... And I had to go to deliver a gift! I managed to get there, but with a lot of help. Lol! I even needed help to get a jacket and shoes on, and to put what I needed in my purse... But it finally dried! But when Santa (my nail polish- loving friend) gave me OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air, I took it off.








Do not worry, I am not going to only show old nail polish on this blog. :-)

I love to play with layering, and have some nailart ideas that I hopefully will be able to show you. And as you might have seen (on recent bottle- photos), I have been wearing Candy Shop and Viva Glam this week. So the next two posts will show nailphotos of younger polishes.


Lani

Old bottles of polish: Christian Dior 489 Cobalt

Hello everyone!


I am very sad to say that Dior is on the list of companies that do test on animals. I am very concerned about animals well being, and have stopped to buy Dior.

So this is not meant as advertisement. I just wanted to show you an old and beautiful nail polish.


I do not know if anyone are interested in seeing the old part of my nail polish collection. Most of those bottles are probably not available any more... A few of the caps are kind of glued on, and can not be opened. But others are still OK to wear. Some of them just needed a lot of shaking, before the color looked nice again. And some were so empty and lumpy that I just tried them on a nail wheel. Anyway, I want to show you a few of my old polishes. I will start with my favorite blue:




Christian Dior 489 Cobalt




This polish was a gift from a good friend. I found the plastic bag with my old bottles about half a year ago. And this bottle looked ruined. But after a lot of shaking, it got back its beautiful color. This one could probably need some thinner, but I did not have that at the moment, and wanted to try it on right way.






























Lani