Leopard nail art - swatches and tutorial

These cool leopard nails are fun and easy to do!
They are also my humble contribution to this Nail Art Sunday :)

In artifical light

Close up in artifical light

Full hand in artificial light

My cute inspiration - snow leopards! :D

This is what I used to create this manicure :)

I used the following polishes:
Illamasqua Load - a creamy white
Orly Prince Charming - a mushroomy cream
Depend #39 - a glossy black

How to do these leopard nails:
1) Apply base colour.
2) Stamp the leopard pattern with Konad plate m57.
3) Fill in the "holes" in the leopard pattern using a dotting tool.
4) Seal the manicure with a top coat. Done! :)

What do you think?

Fab, mad or just bad? ;)

Color Club Winter Affair Collection Holiday 2012

The Winter/Holiday collections keep coming one by one now! ;)

This is a teaser for Color Clubs Winter/Holiday Collection 2012 called:

Winter Affair

A short description of the colours:
Color Club Berry and Bright is a pink toned red with silver shimmer and red glitter.
Color Club Glitter Wonderland is a warm purple packed with blue and red microglitter.
Color Club Ho-Ho-Holly is an evergreen foil packed with gold shimmer.
Color Club Gift of Sparkle is a warm purple with holo glitter.
Color Club Winter Affair is a deep wine coloured flecked shimmer.
Color Club Snow-Flakes is a red to orange to green flakie.

And as their ad says:

A lot nice! ;)

Will you get some of these?

Or will you spend all of your wages on Color Clubs Halo Hues? ;)

PS. A small confession: I have ordered all of them... ;)

Visitor number 10 000!!! :D

Visitor number 10 000 was...

Kaj Kavaj!! :D

He e-mailed me a screen shot yesterday and 

I'm so thrilled to have reached the 10 000 limit! :D

Maybe it's not a lot for some, but for me it was a milestone! :D

Kaj Kavaj, I'll send you a little surprise give away ;)

Many thanks for your participation! <3 

                                   
                             Stay tuned for a possible 20 000 give away! ;)

Illamasqua Load - swatches and review

This is a lovely creamy white with a very witty name (which apparently is inspired by the real thing) ;)

In artificial light

Close up in artificial light

Here you can compare the creamy tone to the snow white background

In daylight

Full hand picture in artificial light

GOOD TO KNOW:

Type of polish: Cream.

Colour: A creamy white which reminds me of the colour of custard (it doesn't remind me of ANYTHING else - I promise!) ;)

Collection: Illamasqua's Throb Collection 2011.
 
Opacity: Ok. This is three coats. I probably could have applied just two because the third coat made no greater difference. ;)

Drying time: Normal.

Formula: Ok. It's neither thin nor thick AND it stays exactly where you want it to BUT you have to apply it with light strokes to avoid streakiness.

Brush: Great! Very easy to work with! I also love the fact that you can remove the big cap and work with a more comfortable smaller cap which is underneath the big one. :D

Shine: Shiny on its own but I have one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures. This will also even out any streakiness if you've got some. ;)

Accurate colour, photo vs IRL: What you see is what you get! ;)

Grade: 4+/5 :D

I don't know why I don't wear this polish more often?! It's a great colour on its own AND it's a great base for nail art (I'll show later what I did with these in terms of nail art ;))!
Maybe it's the streakiness that holds me back because in spite of that it's a wonderful polish! (AND it's so much fun to see people's faces when they ask what it's called and you tell them.... ;))

Color Club Halo Hues Collection release date is October 4th!!

Color Club has now announced that the release date
for their Halo Hues Collection is:

Thursday October 4th!!

They will probably be available on their website: 
https://www.shopcolorclub.comshop.com

Will you get these very hyped holos? 

I sure will try and get some (maybe not all) of them! :)

Seche's New One Coat Polishes!

Have you seen that Seche are about to launch a collection of 

no less than 33 One Coat Polishes?? :D

 

I love the formula of Seche Vite Top Coat and if these have the same formula 

I will be impressed! :)

I really like one coaters! (If they now really ARE one coaters...) 

They make life so much easier ;)

I'm not that impressed by the colours though,

they don't seem neither unique nor iconic to me...

...but maybe they are better live...?

You can see a review of six of them at The PolishAholic :) 

Seche One Coat Polishes will be available in the beginning of October

for $8.50 per bottle. 

What do you think? Will you try any of Seche's one coaters?

Orly Androgynie - swatches and review

This is another polish that has been lurking in my stash untried for too long. Really rude of me since it was a gift from a great friend... Sorry Goldie... ;) But better late than never! ;) Let's hurry and take a look at it now! :)

I never do bottle pictures but I had to show you how much better it looks in the bottle!

In halogen light

Close up in halogen light

In arficial light

In daylight

Full hand in daylight

 GOOD TO KNOW:

Type of polish: A glitter jelly.

Colour: A dark grey jelly packed with gold micro glitter (so much that it looks more like an brown-ish antique gold polish) with large multicoloured hexagon shaped glitter. I can see turquoise, blue, yellow, orange and green large glitters. :D

Collection: Orly's Holiday Soireé Collection 2011.
 
Opacity: Good! This is two coats. After the first coat it looked awful but after the second coat all that was forgotten! ;)

Drying time: Normal.

Formula: Ok. A bit tricky to apply glitterwise. You have to shake the bottle like crazy to make the large glitter surface and after that you have to help putting them where you want them and how many you want. The second coat also almost completely covered the glitters in the first coat! :/ So don't bother working with the large glitters in the first coat...

Brush: Good! Easy to work with! :D

Shine: Shiny on its own but it leaves your nails with a rather rough surface so I have one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures and another one wouldn't be wrong to make them even smoother ;)

Accurate colour, photo vs IRL: These pictures are quite accurate. Best picture is the one in halogen light. Tha base colour shifts from brown to dark grey to black depending on the light.

Grade: 3+/5 :)

This is a fun combination of large and small glitters in a dark base but it was hard to get the glitters right and honestly it didn't make my heart beat any faster. Sorry again Goldie... ;)
I still gave it a plus because it has a fun glitter touch to an otherwise just normal Autumn polish.

Have you ladies tried this one? Did you like it?

Paint them Pink - Help raise breast cancer awareness!

As you might know, October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and the colour pink is the signature colour for this campaign.

To me it's important to help supporting the fight against breast cancer and to raise breast cancer awareness!

"Paint them Pink" is a small campaign using my blog to show only pink nail polishes during week 42, October 15th until October 21st, in order to raise breast cancer awareness and to help support the research in breast cancer.

I'm asking all you other laquerheads out there to send me photos of swatches of pink nail polishes, and if you do, a donation will be made based on the rules below:

• A donation of $1 will be made to the National Breast Cancer Foundation for every qualifying swatch of a pink nail polish.
• Send your swatches to me by e-mail to: missjezzlan@gmail.com and include the name and brand of the polish (or polishes) you have swatched and, if you want to, a short review of the polish. (If you have a blog you can include a link to it if you want to.)
• During this week (Oct 15th - Oct 21st) I will publish as many of your swatches as I can here on Litte Miss Nailpolish - hopfully ALL of them!

Seeing the screen “pink out” would be quite a show of support!

The earned amount will be donated to the National Breast Cancer Foundation during the final week of October and I will write a post about it in this blog.

You can start e-mailing me your swatches on Monday October 8th, and the last chance to send your swatches is Sunday October 21st. Please make a note in your calender NOW! :)

Please don't use old swatches. Take a few minutes and and paint your nails pink while sending a thought to all the women in the world who are fighting breast cancer now.

 

I hope you consider participating and also helping me to share this post.

Please leave a comment if you plan to participate in this campaign
- and please do! All you have to do is to paint your nails pink! :)

Please consider to paint your nails with a pink polish which helps to support the research in breast cancer. :) OPI, China Glaze, Essie, Orly and Mavala have special breast cancer awareness collections and polishes which a part of each sale goes to support the research in breast cancer.

Thank you,
Little Miss Nailpolish.

(Due to limited fonds the maximum donated amount will be $150)

Snake nail art - swatches

It's Nail Art Sunday today! :D 

These cool snake nails are my contribution! ;)

In daylight

In daylight

In artificial light

Full hand in daylight

The base polish is BB Coutre Glampyre and then I've stamped with Orly Luxe
and Bundle Monster plate BM-215. Seche Vite on top :) 

What do you think? Hot or not? ;)

I think Luxe brought out the gold shimmer even more from Glampyre
and that the two polishes go well together.

Barry M Indigo - swatches and review

I borrowed this amazing polish from a friend and had it for ages without trying it... :/ Then I gave it back and now I have it again and this time I tried it! ;)
Ok, enough rambling, let's look at it instead! ;)

In artificial light #1

In artificial light #2

In daylight

In the shadow

Full hand i artificial light

GOOD TO KNOW:

Type of polish: Cream.

Colour: A very dark blue polish leaning strongly to purple (= a blurple!). Depending on the light it can look black, blue or purple - or like a mix of all of them! ;)

Opacity: Very good! This is two coats. :)

Drying time: Normal. Perhaps a tiny bit quicker actually... ;)

Formula: Excellent! It applies like a dream and it stays exactly where it should! :D

Brush: Good! Easy to work with! :D

Shine: Very VERY shiny on its own, but I have one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures.

Accurate colour, photo vs IRL: It's a bit too blue in these pictures... The most realistic picture is "artificial light #2". It's more purple IRL but it's not totally purple either... it's blurple! ;) You must see it live to fully appreciate it!!

Grade: 5/5 :D

This is a gorgeous blurple polish with excellent qualities and to a VERY reasonable price too! :D (£2.99)
It was very hyped some time ago and I never understood why... but now I do! :D

Comparison China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Nubar Red Ruby Glitz

A lot of holiday collections are starting to be released now and that's why I wanted to compare two very similar polishes which are kind of x-massy ;)
I recently got my hands on China Glaze's Ruby Pumps (thanks Sabinapina!!!) and I wanted to thoroughly compare it to Nubar's Red Ruby Glitz because they are sooo alike - at first glance... ;) Let's take a look shall we?

In daylight

In artificial light

China Glaze to the left, Nubar to the right

These two polishes are alike but they are not perfect dupes!

China Glaze's Ruby Pumps is red micro glitter in a red tinted base whereas Nubar's Red Ruby Glitz is red micro glitter AND a small amount of micro silver glitter in a darker almost jelly-ish base.

This leads to that Ruby Pumps looks like a red glitter polish whereas Red Ruby Glitz looks like a red glitter polish which ALSO glows from within.
Ok, the difference is minimal but they are not perfect dupes as many people say :)

You don't need both in your collection and if you ask me I would recommend Nubar's Red Ruby Glitz because of that extra feature of a wonderful glow from within :)

Grades: 
China Glaze Ruby Pumps: 4/5
Nubar Red Ruby Glitz:  5/5

BB Couture Glampyre - swatches and review

This is a fantastic polish from wonderful BB Couture! This polish was created by working with the band Saints of Ruin, and BB Couture brings the essence of their music in one colour. The pictures don't do it justice but let's take a look anyhow ;)

In artificial light

It is so packed with shimmer it almost changes colour :D

In sunlight

It's almost like an aura from the sunny spot :D

In daylight

It goes from light antique gold to almost black brown

Full hand in sunlight

The other polishes in the same collection

GOOD TO KNOW:

Type of polish: Shimmer.

Colour: A dark brown polish so packed with antiqe gold shimmer that it looks more like an brown-ish antique gold polish :)

Collection: Saints of Ruin Collection (see picture above).

Dupe: Pieces' Golden Chokolate (no spelling mistake it's chokolate with a K ;)) is said to be an almost perfect dupe - but it's also said to have a much thinner formula. :/

Opacity: Very good! This is two coats. If you apply one thick coat I think you can get away with one coat actually! :D

Drying time: Normal.

Formula: Excellent! It applies like melted butter on the nails and it stays exactly where it should! :D

Brush: Good! Easy to work with! :D

Shine: Very shiny on its own, but I have one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures.

Accurate colour, photo vs IRL: The shimmer comes out much more IRL so it's even more beautiful then! You must see it live to fully appreciate it!!

Grade: 5/5 :D

I think this polish has a unique colour and an almost perfect formula!
It's a perfect vampy Autumn colour!

Have you tried this polish or any one else from BB Couture?

I like all BB Couture polishes I have tries so far! I like the 4-in-1 formula a lot to. It's base, top coat, nail strenghener and colour in the same bottle! Me like! :)

China Glaze Watermelon Rind - swatches and review

Today I'll show you an "old" polish that has been laying untried in my drawer for ages and once I got it on my nails I wondered why I hadn´t tried it before?! Does anyone else recognize this behavior...? ;) Now, let's take a look at it!

In sunlight

Full hand in sunlight

In daylight

In shadow

In artificial light

Full hand in daylight

GOOD TO KNOW:

Type of polish: A glass flecked polish (a sort of mix of glitter and foil).

Colour: A rich emerald green with green micro glitter and shimmer in a green jelly-ish base.

Collection: China Glaze Summer Days, Summer 2009. 

Dupe: Color Club's Metamorphosis is similar, but not a perfect dupe.

Opacity: Good! This is three coats. When I applied the first layer I thought I'd need fourty layers, but it shaped up after the second layer and after the third it was opaque!

Drying time: Quite fast actually! A bit faster than normal. ;)

Formula: Good! It applies really good and stays where it should which suprised me since the formula is rather thin.

Brush: Ok. A bit thin and soft and but ok.

Shine: Shiny on its own, but I have one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures.

Accurate colour, photo vs IRL: It's a bit more green IRL and not so much teal as these pictures show.

Grade: 4/5 :)

This is a much nicer polish once you have applied it than in the bottle!
So don't dismiss it when you see the bottle, give it a chance! Especially if you're in to green polishes! ;)

The owls are nail art stickers, aren't they cute? THANKS Sabinapina! <3
Or what do you say Sparkle and Shine Nails...? ;)