My Way at Times Square

As you know, I'm a sucker for anything New York City - related. That city is magical - if you've been there you know what I mean... So I couldn't resist when I saw the new Wild & Mild Diamond series in the store, all polishes labelled by New York districts / sigths / streets. There wasn't a "Madison Square Park", though, which was a disappointment... I had to get a few, and there's nothing to regret. Their quality, opacity and overall performance is simply great!

I chose the blue one to go first, with some golden toppings. The base here is two coats of Wild & Mild Diamond Times Square. The golden/iridescent glitter comes from Orly Sashay My Way.

Richard Wiseman, who is my second favourite professor in the world (if you can guess my favourite, I'd say you know me quite well..) concludes in his book "Rip it Up", that you can cheat yourself to be happy - at least for a moment and long enough to get some of the useful health effects of happiness. The experiments and theories behind this are abundant, but the core is: act as if you were happy - like smile, laugh or (ahem) paint your nails bright - and your brain thinks you are. Well, I certainly fooled my brain with this mani.

For those of you who dislike long and pointy nails, don't fret - this is the last you see them before I go for a chop. And for those of you who really enjoyed these, don't fret - in a few weeks these'll be long and pointy again!

Green Monarch

This is one of my better manis, and I couldn't stop snapping photos.. Imagine me trying to pick out six from tens of pics, and still thinking they don't do justice to my ten little babies...

The base here is Kiko 396, three coats.

 It was a really amazing duochrome on the nail (just take a look at the bottle!), but I seemed to catch mostly the green tones with my camera. Well, believe me, there is a lot of blue and gold, too.

 On the base I added random sponging with Essence Holografics Blue Ray - which is not holographic, as you know, but a pretty duochrome-ish polish after all.

 I decided at last to give the Monarch butterly mani a try - inspired mainly by the butterfly image on a new Bundle Monster plate.

 I painted the lines with konad Black and dotted the dots with Konad white. These special polishes aren't the best for line drawing, but I didn't have anything else at hand. Don't try this at home, if you don't have to!

Oh, and the stamped butterflies come from BM307.

 I wore this manicure a whole week -a crazy busy week, that is. I was in the organization of a festival, and had absolutely NO time to do my nails. I came home at night, collepsed into my bed, and woke up next morning to the sound of my telephones ringing. Exhausting and intensive but incredibly fun and definitely worth it. And, even better, my nails lasted with me the whole week - except the bit of a tipwear you see in these pics. That's how I like my manicures!

Red Ombre

Sometimes you feel your life is totally out of your hands. All the big things go to ass's arse, and the more you try to do about it, the more mess you make.

 Then it's the perfect time to take out your swatchsicles (or stamp collection, or whatever makes you tick). You organize it once again, marvel your collection, play around with it and get to organize everything again. And bit by bit you forget all your bad stuff -at least for a moment- and start to think everyhting is organizable if you take it in small enough portions.

 This is one of my best ever ombre manicures, created on one of those days full of swatchsicle therapy. I love the effect, how the polishes were almost the same colour unless you followed the whole colour change from pinky to thumb or the other way round. I'm sure I left a few people wondering, if they saw what they thought...

 The polishes from pinky to thumb are:
Essie Orange, It's Obvious
Essence Colour&go Wake Up!
China Glaze Pure Torture
OPI Off With Her Red
Essence Circus Circus Applause Applause red creme

To approach the fine world of "nail art" I added some somple white dots with Mavala white. I felt like Minnie Mouse! :)

I liked being dotty, but it was a shame the dots hid most of the ombre effect. In this case, I couldn't have it all.

I Wear Anything I Want On My Nails

The title of this post is, obviously, a bad pun from the Lacquistry polish name "I Wear my Jewelry on my Nails". But seriously, I do wear anything I want on my nails. At work, at funerals, visiting relatives, washing the dishes, lifting weights, working at our house construction site...
And I like it!!!

Of course, other peoples' opinions and feelings matter, but I'm the one who decides what is appropriate. I feel so lucky right now, when I know there are so many talented, fun and beauty-loving ladies out there in the world, who aren't allowed decide for themselves, for their dress or love or nails. I can't even say, if I'm more pissed off or sad...

Ok, end of rant, onto the polish.
The polish on my three fingers here is Color Club Pardon My French topped with a coat of Lacquistry I Wear my Jewelry on my Nails.

Then I created a fugly glitter sandwich on ring fingers with Essence Fruity Peach Beauty
and Essence Nail Art Twins Blair (By the way, who is the twin of this one? I've never seen it in the stores..? The only Blair that comes to my mind right now is Tony Blair, the British ex prime minister...)

It's an odd polish, this one. When you look at it in the bottle, you're sure there is some black/charcoal glitter mixed in. Or at least the base is kinda smoky.. But no, it's "just" different sizes of silver glitter and a bunch of tiny holo glitters in a clear base. Odd! But beautiful!

Make a Millionaire Panic

 Have I mentioned I neeeeeded some colour on my life? Some other than the white paint I've been seeing the last few weeks... Neons, glitter, anything goes, as long as it's not white exterior paint!

 For this mani I picked up the brightest neon I could reach: China Glaze Purple Panic, and dabbed the gorgeous China Glaze Marry a Millionaire on the tips. On my ring finger I couldn't resist the shiny glitter bars and painted two coats all over.

Photographing this was a nightmare. No, we DON'T have neon purple flowers growing in our front yard. I just had to play around with the white balance of my camera to get a photo with even near decent colours.

On the next day I pushed my luck and added Kiko orange crackle - Rock-top 601 - on the ring fingers. That wasn't too great an idea...

I loved the effect of the crackle and glitter together. I'll have to try that combo again - maybe with some colours that go well together for a change.. :)