Phew, hello!

It's been a busy week! After going back to work on Monday after a 2 week break, Moyou London suddenly was all like 'we have 20k followers, let's have a contest to celebrate!' on their Instagram. And of course, I couldn't say no to this, even if it was pretty short notice.

Work's been busy, so I kept most manis for this contest pretty simple and sometimes only succeeded to capture them in a quick shot on my iPhone. Thus I'm just going to put them all together in this post instead of making individual posts for each of them.

As mentioned in the title, you probably already guessed the theme for this challenge was Rainbow. There was a colour for each day of the week and you had to use Moyou London stamping plates to create them. Great reason to use my plates a little more and try some new ones for the first time!

Hello Beautiful Nail Addicts,

Another month has ended, which means it's time for another MDR! If you haven't read my first post in this category, let me fill you in quickly. It's basically a retrospective of what has joined my collection during the past month. A monthly haul recap, you could say.

This month has been crazy, although it may not seem like I bought a lot as I'm not including my London haul (I have shown you thos in a seperate post, just follow this link :)

I tried to control myself this time and just focus on the limited editions, I will try to do so for the rest of the year too so I can work through my London haul and also use some untrieds and old polishes.

Hello Lovelies,

I'm not even sure where I was going with this mani, it's another one of those I created last weekend. Yes, I was on such a roll, I painted a bunch of random nail arts and everytime I thought I was going to stick to one, another idea came to me! I love being inspired, but sometimes it can get a little intense...

Hi Lovelies,

Today I want to talk about another of my addictions and those are blind boxes (and blind bags too, of course). I love collecting them and some other vinyl toys, sometimes they even inspire me.

Hello Lovelies,

Hi girls and girly boys!

You might have guessed, it's another look I created with my old Essence stash. This time I went for a super girly look with lots of pink, bows and bling!

Hi Lovelies,

I've been on a roll and created another mani with my old Essence stash! Who knew it would be so much fun to limit yourself to a handful of colours? It kinda forces you to make the best of what you have and be extra creative in mixing and matching the colours and techniques.

Hi,

Today I have swatches of the third out of five polishes I purchased from Cadillacquer! This time it's just a plain swatch with no nail art. I had planned to do some metallic stamping over it, but I messed up on the first nail and then just gave up...

Good evening my lovelies,

Today I have another mani I created using my old Essence polishes, still trying to get those bottles empty so I can make space for new ones! And again I discovered that past-me had a very... Unique taste in colour, but see for yourselves.

Good Day,

Recently I've had a few people (ok, two people) ask me if my polishes wouldn't dry up someday and I just laughed it off any told them no, as long as the cap was on properly. While this is true, it made me think about how long I was actually planning on having/hoarding my polishes. Was I just going to use them once and then stash them away? No!

I came up with a bit of a personal challenge. Remember when Essence just started making polishes a few years back? They came in these tiny cute bottles, those started the whole story for me... I have 19 of those in my collection, some of them are a little goopy or almost empty, thus I've decided to try and use those up. I'm trying to focus on them and grab them whenever possible during the next weeks and here's my first mani featuring two of them.

Hello Lovelies,

Today I have another Cadillacquer to show you! It's the second one of the five I ordered, this one's called 9 Crimes.

Is it Fall yet?

Hello, the Fall collections are slowly but surely making an appearance! Here's today's small preview of Catrice's new limited edition collection Feathered Fall.

Hello,

So I finally, finally, FINALLY managed to put this together! I wanted this to be a little more than just a haul post, thus I tried to add as much info about where to find stuff and get around London. A bit like a guide to London for nail polish addicts, if you know what I mean. I'm not native to London, but I think if I, a mere tourist, could find these places, chances are you'll find them just fine as well.

First is the most obvious you will want to visit and that's the drugstore. London, and I'm guessing the rest of the UK, has two big drugstore chains which are Boots and Superdrug. You'll find them anywhere, really. In Victoria Station alone there are two Boots and a Superdrug! And you'll love them. They have most of the big brands there and I found offers on pretty much all of them: 3 for 2, buy 2 for a special price or get a free product, buy one and get the second 50% off... So I'll just walk you through the brands and offers I found there.

Pika-Pikachu,

2014 feels like I'm reliving my childhood! After skipping all the gens, I finally got on the bandwagon and played Pokemon X and then there's Sailor Moon Crystal. Rumour has it there'll be a Digimon Adventures remake next year. It's a good time to be an in-the-closet anime geek. (Well, not so much in the closet, heh). 

Anyway, I've been wanting to do this ever since I picked up some yellow polish. My first yellow polish came from a set I got in H&M, but that one really sucked...

Grüezi!

Ah, the wonders of Instagram! I miss having a virtual hangout where I can talk to fellow addicts like-minded people with the same hobby. I have yet to discover a forum for nail art and nail enthusiasts, but I like Instagram for this better anyway. As it is in this kind of communities, people bring up suggestions and recommendations and make you buy stuff. The same thing happened one fine day on Instagram when I gave a shout out for Indie suggestions. I was soon made familiar with Cadillacquer. And you know how the story goes, I ended up purchasing some new polishes...

Hi y'all!

Took a break from stamping to give some love to another one of my favourite techniques: Tape manis! They are so easy and fun to do. I kept it simple this time, I really just wanted to wear my beautiful holo polish from Squishy Face Polish, it's called Plumeria and it's the most beautiful holo I've ever owned! It's true that Indies shake it better.

Good evening lovelies,

It's the middle of the month again, which means it's topper time! I thought this would get easier as I go, but it's just getting harder and harder to pick what top coat I want to share with you guys... For this week I considered 3 toppers, but finally went with this one.

Hello Hipsters!

I met my dad for lunch in the city on Saturday and he kinda got dragged into a quick polish hunt. I can't help but do my "lacquer lane" or "polish run" (haven't decided what to call this...) when I'm in the city. I have another bigger route I do when I get off work early on Friday, it involves two other cities, but that's another story.

While I didn't find anything new, I managed to reach home before the super market closes, so I dropped in quickly to grab some food and ta-daa, I found this:

Good day loves,

I must say, one thing I miss about London is how everyone calls you 'darling', 'love' or whatever. While I usually hate this, it just suits the whole attitude over there. Oh, I miss London... So this newsletter was very bittersweet for me. Catrice's latest limited edition collection Check & Tweed which is inspired by the whole Brit Chic.

Hi peeps!

I'm back from my trip to London, I had such a blast and I'll be sharing my haul soon. I need to get things sorted out first, lets say I went a little crazy over there. Anyway, after sleeping almost the whole day, I am back and live. Good thing I prepared this post before I left, because after having this mani on for 5 day, I'm pretty sick of it...

Why yes, I am still very much on my stamping adventure trip. I'm slowly starting to get the hang of things (at least in my head) and so I decided to up my game a little and try stamping over textured polish.

[Press Sample]

Greetings,

If you're reading this, my last scheduled post has pushed through and I'll be on my way back home.
Here's my third and final Bornprettystore review for this month, it's about one of their many nail art wheels.

Hello Sunshines,

For the longest time I've wanted to do a white to neon orange gradient on my nails, it was my ultimate Summer nail art idea. Finally I remembered to do it and I was so happy with the outcome! And of course, I am still on my stamping frenzy and had to stamp it. What better motive than neon pink flamingos to match the neon orange gradient?

Hello fellow addicts,

Today I have something different, it's my first time creating a tutorial, I hope it all makes some sense.

Advance stamping, reverse stamping, DIY nail decals or wraps... Whatever you may call it, it all boils down to more or less the same thing (correct me if I'm wrong). It's nothing new and there's probably heaps of tutorials on the internet already, but I still wanted to show you how I do this. Personally, I like watching/reading a few different tutorials about the same technique, since one person might do something differently and you can pick the best from everyone's knowledge to get the best results possible! Maybe you could still learn something new from my tutorial, who knows?

First, assemble your tools. For this you will need:

[Press Sample]

'ello nail artistes!

(say it in a French accent, you know you want to!)

I've probably mentioned this a couple times before, but lately I've really been into nail stamping (again), so I was thrilled when I saw that BPS had some stamping plates available for review! I picked stamping plate no.QA86. This plate's theme are hearts and snowflakes and it retails at $2.99. I think the snow flakes are pretty random in combination with the different hearts, however I like how it's such a long design so it would work for all kinds of nail shapes and lengths. The hearts are super cute, you get one full nail print and many different single heart designs.

Greetings fellow polish hunters,

I almost spaced out on this collection.. I did get the news but somehow I didn't notice that the collection had polishes in it too. Shame on me. Shame. On. Me! What makes it worse it that all the polishes in this series are absolutely gorgeous, each one's a stunner!!

[Press Sample]

Hi there,

It's time for this month's round of Bornprettystore reviews. This time I have three samples to show you. But, is it just me or...

Hi there,

It's review time! And today I bring you the Winstonia Nail Art Foil Wrap Strip Decal Stickers.. Now that's a mouth full. This was one of those 'I feel awkward just buying one item, what other items could I throw in my cart that won't wreck my bank account?'-moments. I then stumbled across these nail wraps that were on sale... 

Good day beautifully polished people,

I'm sure we're all familiar with this scenario where we buy a really pretty polish, bring it home and then... Simply forget about it. I am most guilty about this when it comes to Kiko nail polishes! There is no Kiko in Switzerland (right, I lied, there's one in the area of Zurich, but A. it's too far away for me to go there frequently and B. it's overpriced!) so whenever I come across a Kiko abroad it's like a super market after the Apocalypse, BUY ALL THE POLISH!!

Now I've kinda made it my goal to slowly use all the Kiko polishes... Today I have no.834 Golden Tiffany, which I bought in Milano almost a year ago. It was during my first business trip, when my colleague got me hooked to Kiko and ever since then has to endure me spending hours some time hauling a basket full of polishes.

Hello Lovelies,

I have yet another swatch for you, but this one is a special one! It's my very first Indie Polish!! Yaaay. Erhem. So anyways, today I'm showing you swatches of Truly. Madly. Deeply. by Squishy Face Polish. I've always wanted to try some Indie Polish, but never knew where to start, I knew nothing about the whole community and it wasn't like there was just one hyped and raved about brand! Also there's so many of them and everyone makes such gorgeous polishes... Well, long story short, I just browsed Instagram and started randomly stalking following a few Indie Makers and Squishy Face Polish was one of them. I was tip-toeing around my first order for the longest time, then finally I saw her 4th of July sale and decided to just bite the bullet. Not a single regret was had!

Hi Lovelyfaces,

On Saturday I went on an impromptu polish hunt in the city, I wasn't planning on finding anything new, instead I just wanted to pick up a few more Essence polishes that were going to be discontinued soon. While I did get all my Essence polishes, I also found Catrice's new Limited Edition Metallure! I got so excited, at one point I was holding all the 5 polishes in my hands, but then decided not to get all of them and be more selective about my buying. I ended up picking out 2 and then another one after I had walked down the make-up aisle, now I have 3 swatches to share with you!

Good Evening!

So I'm a day late for this, but I had to take a small mani break after the OMD2 challenge and also I was visiting my dad. August first was our national day here in Switzerland, so I felt it was appropriate to have some related nail art to strut on that day! Since I had already done a Swiss themed nail art for the National Pride theme a couple days ago, I decided to create a more simple design.

Hi girls (and boys)!

Today I have even more news from Essence, whee! Since this time the Trend Edition isn't base solely around nail polish and nail art, I have decided to just pack all the polish related new into one post, beginning with the Hello Autumn Trend Edition. As usual, I'm only going to blog about the nail polishes and nail art items, as I don't plan to turn this into a make-up and beauty blog!

Hello Beautiful Nail Addicts,

Inspired by the Monthly Favourites a lot of Bloggers and Youtubers do at the end of each month, I've decided to start my own end-of-month theme, but with a twist. I can't say I have new favourites every month, so it would be a little hard for me to introduce them to you. However, I do buy a lot of polish every month, so why not show you that instead? It also helps me to keep track of my shopping addiction collection.

I decided to call mine the Monthly Damage Report, MDR for short. Damage refers to the one caused to my wallet, obviously. Here I will show you what I have amassed during the past month and also mention where I found it (if I remember, which I mostly do), also let me know if you would like a review of anything you see here. If I've already done a review, I will link it in the item descriptions below.

This doesn't just include nail polishes, but anything related too! Tools, nail care, nail art stuff... You name it. So lets end this long boring introduction and get to the interesing part, now shall we?

Oh, please note the mid-season sales are happening here right now, I'm not usually this bad. Or at least I'd like to think so...