Flormar Satin Mattes - And Stamping!!

I'm usually not impulsive in nail polish hauling and blogging. Rather, I tend to enjoy all the planning, googling for swatches, making spreadheets... you know the game...

But just last weekend, something snapped. I went into a Flormar store, found a full display of their new Satin Matte polishes, bought four, came home, painted them all on my nails, tried stamping with them, took pics and now I'm writing this post - and publishing it on one go!!! Awesome, and soooo weird!!

Anyhow, onto the polish... These four satin mattes are really good in opacity - these are all two coats, and persons with less free edge might get away with one coat.

 They also dry really fast - I mean fast as in "they'll dry on the brush if you're not quick enough".

 They look satin-y without top coat, and still great with the top coat on.

The yellow might honestly be the best yellow polish I've ever seen. And I've tried out a few...

The colours pictured here are GS11 (Canary), GS13 (Orchid), GS15 (Cobalt) and GS05 (Chili). I love how they finally gave names to the polishes!! Thank you, Flormar, for listening my endless rants...

And, that is definitely not all. They are also ok for stamping. Especially the purple and orange gave great results – but I did manage to stamp even with the yellow.

The stamping patterns are all from DRK-A plate.

I left at the store many original colours, like a murky olive shimmer, and many consumer-friendly colours like a blingy pink. I might have to go back and haul them, too...

---By the way, here's also my right hand I stamped at random, didn't do a proper cleanup and bumped somewhere. Sorry about that! I just thought I'd like to show you all the colour combos I made...

Magnetic Comparison and a Maritime Manicure

Just a reminder, that you still have the chance to enter my 100 followers giveaway, If you haven't already done so.

And then some nail photo spam to cool down your summer and/or brighten up your day, wherever you are.

I recently realized I own "a few" untried magnetic polishes in blue/teal. I decided to get rid of any guilt feelings the untried polishes can give by trying them all on at once.  And, OK, I thought that this comparison might be helpful to some of you, too...

In these pics I wear:
Kiko Magnetic 705 in pinky and pointer
Yes Love 8 in ring finger and thumb
Flormar Magnetic twist MG03 in middle finger

 In addition, I used a Flormar magnet (the curved one - my favourite!!) and a coat of SecheVite.

Personally, I liked the Kiko polish the most. The colour is really vivid, and the magnetic effect came out great - note I was using another brand magnet. Yes Love had a great colour and coverage, but the magnetic effect didn't turn out very good. I think I'll have to let both the Flormar and Yes Love go...In addition, I used a flormar magnet (the curved one - my favourite!!) and a coat of SecheVite.

I wouldn't act myself if I didn't give this comparison a chance to evolve into a manicure - I'm just not a swatcher girl.. (I'm so grateful, that so many are!!)

 I stamped on the different magnetic polishes some sea horses from m27 with Konad white, and dabbed on some Color Club Snowflake. My thumb shows a coat of Snowflake over two coats of Yes Love Magnetic polish without the magnetic effect.

Overall, I'm quite happy with the undewater feeling these nails have! And I just have to share a quote:

I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade
He'd let us in, knows where we've been
In his octopus' garden in the shade

I'd ask my friends to come and see
An octopus' garden with me
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade.

We would be warm below the storm
In our little hideaway beneath the waves
Resting our head on the sea bed
In an octopus' garden near a cave

We would sing and dance around
Because we know we can't be found
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden in the shade

We would shout and swim about
The coral that lies beneath the waves
Oh what joy for every girl and boy
Knowing they're happy and they're safe

We would be so happy you and me
No one there to tell us what to do
I'd like to be under the sea
In an octopus' garden with you.

 Try to get that out of your heads.. 

C - Colorblind

This third post in the ABC-series is dedicated to Dandy Nails, and Sandy's great creation Colorblind.

I began with two coats of Nicole by OPI Celebration in Red - a great festive colour.

Speaking of coats with these kinds of glitters is a bit evasive, so let's say I added a generous dabbing of Dandy Nails Colorblind.

 I loved the result so much, that I wanted it to last for days...

 ...so of course I had to try it sandwiched with one thin coat of Flormar U14.

And then I had to try matifying it...

And then I had to try a black/clear water marble on the ring finger...

And then, having at least 7 coats of polish on my nails, I had to reach for the remover. End of story.

PS: I've added a new board to my Pinterest. I hope you'll enjoy my pins!!

Sweet Hook for Marbling

Today I've got a sweet lilac water marble for you.

Water marbling was really frustrating at first, but now I've learned to love it. Of course the result can be awesome, but I particularly love the process itself: taking my time on a peaceful sunday afternoon, testing different polishes, crowding the dining room table with all my nail stuff, doing one nail at a time and making everyone marvel it...

I liked this a lot, although some of the nails came out a little wonky. (Don't look at my left middle finger..) I feel the most difficult phase in marbling is the dip, and it's easier to do with the right hand, so it's usually the right hand which comes out better. That's what happened here, too.

The base is two coats of China Glaze Sweet Hook - one of the three polishes I decided to get from the spring collection. You've propably seen a million swatches of that, so none of them here.

I did the marble with SH, Flormar U15 and Essence Show your feet Purple Magic. As I've written before, the Flormars are great for marbling. The only problem with them is that they sometimes bleed to some other colours. So some testing is required before the real marbling can begin - as always.

As the final touch I decided to give the ring fingers one coat of Lacquistry Lilacquistry. I love the name almost as much as I love the polish! I want to try that on every colour!! I've got in my mind an awesome purple-teal combo, for instance..

 And here are the polishes I used for the marble.

China Glaze Sweet Hook
Flormar U15
Essence Show your feet Purple Magic

And as the sweet end, I'd like to promote the Just Add Polish's sweet giveaway, where US participants could win the either the Zoya Beach or Surf collection. And there's an option for us internationals, too - any two NfuOh's for example!! Go and participate!

The Last Snowflakes

Today's mani has the last snowflakes of the season:

 I came across a Flormar shoppe inside a shopping centre in Madrid, and succumbed to a slight haul.. ahem.

For this mani - to get to try these as soon as I could, I decided to combine Flormar U34, which is burgundy glass flecks in a coffee- brown base - slight duochorme to red/gold and Flormar U33, which has blue/multichrome glass flecks in black base.

 (The names on these somehow sound like war submarines..) The duochrome is stronger in the 33, you get an array of colours from cobalt blue through green to purple.

To blend the colours together more, I sponged each tip with the other colour. The result was pretty awesome, especially with the blue sponged on the burgundy!

My husband suggested snowflakes on these. I know this is propably not the most original way to snowflakify your nails, but I was lazy and stamped on some from m59 with Gosh Silver. I also painted on some smaller snowflakes with a size 0 nail art brush, and added some dots, too.

The mani was still missing some glitter, so I grabbed China Glaze Snowglobe. I first tried to paint it directly on the nail, but it was too dense and the result had more likeness to snow storm than peacefully floating snowflakes. So for the rest of my nails I just dabbed on some Snowglobe here and there with a dotting tool.

It's a simple design, but I'm quite happy with it, mainly because of the base colours. This is also the last "winter" mani this winter season, so enjoy it while it lasts. And then, let's move forward to spring brights and pastels! Say bye for now to these polishes!

Yellow & Pink Water Marble

I'm back from my hiatus, and I was really surprised to see my blog had attracted some new followers while I was away. Thank you for the "old ones" for sticking with me, and a warm welcome to you new ones!!! You mean a lot to me! I don't know which amazes me the most: that there are people who don't even know me, thus don't need to be afraid of hurting my feelings and still want to read my blog, or that there are people who know me and want to share my nail enthusiasm even if they don't do nails themselves.

Today I want to show you a water marble I did a while ago with  Flormar U23 and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, Orange Marmalade and Señorita Bonita.

This is only the second water marble I've ever done, and I owe so much to all the tutorials and "tips and tricks" pages you other nail bloggers have made. Without you I would have thrown these precious little bottles straight out of the window so many times.

The pattern I used here is the classic slightly diagonal lines. I also did accent nails on the thumbs, by taping them diagonally before dipping. This came out as one of my favourite nails.

 The Flormar polishes I own - from the Miracle Colors series -  can be quite sheer, but they work well in water marbling. Keep that in mind if you don't know what to do with yours or would like to save some of your more expensive polishes for other purposes. While making this marble, for example, I noticed that CG 108 Degrees & Flormar U23 and CG Senorita Bonita & Flormar U15 are very near each other, if not exact dupes.

I knew I wanted a yellow on this mani, and I took out all my yellow swatchsicles to choose the right colour.

Try to explain a non-polish-addict that "seriously, these are totally diferent colours..." I truly identified myself with this awesome video about the life of a polishmaniac.. And well, Orly Spark and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky ARE quite near each other... But otherwise they really are different.

I wore this mani for a few days, and got an excuse to wear it a day more by adding OPI Rainbow Connection on the ring fingers. What a happy couple!