Dotted flowericure; flowered dotticure...

Hey hey hey! :)

Today's was a pretty sucky morning in my polish-filled world. It's the third day of my Yes Love hunt, and quite an unsuccessful one, might I add. You see, I went crazy over Illamasqua Scarce and its gorgeous little siblings, but their price and a month and a half of waiting put me off on my quest to complete the collection. Until Yes Love (cheapo chinese brand, I believe) brought a suspiciously similar line to life, that is.

I've seen it pop over a gazillion Spanish blogs on which it is deemed to be an affordable and easy to find collection. I don't know about the first, but I can only f*cking disagree about the second, ladies. It is nowhere to be found in the Barcelona area. I lost three hours looking for it today, and I think I am done with it. I will find it, eventually..!

The nails: that too is brought to y'all after a fail. I attempted some deep V sick nails and obtained some deep V sh*t that I took off immediately. That's what followed:

I will skip the info about the base color because you know it just too well by now, it's become my nail's best friend ;) After that, I used five neons to do the dotted flowers: (from thumb to pinky) China Glaze Sun- Kissed, Tokalon nº2, Kiko nº 336 Electric Blue, Nfu-Oh FS12 and Maybelline Orange Fix. The black is China Glaze Liquid Leather.

That was fun to wear but not my style much, I doubt I would ever wear this again... What about you? Oh, and my questions here are never ambush questions: you can always say no. And I point out "here" because my BF would surely disagree otherwise...

And same thing goes for: what do you think of my new blog title?

Take care,

M.

Mish Mash Challenge - Tape.

Howdy Ladies and (hopefully) Gents!

I am late for this entry; what an irony... I was hardly late on the ABChallenge, but now that I'm on holidays it's another story. I was posting on time in my head though, and the 16 ladies before me were ahead of their game, until I realized it was a little too optimistic, and that Wednesday was actually... yesterday. Bravo!

Tape. I love tape. I love it because it's easy to use and it gives straight and perfect lines. Me loves lines. So, of course, by association the love story was all set and done beforehand in my head.

Quoting a series I've been watching recently, "this is my design":

The metallic blue is OPI Swimsuit... Nailed it!, sent to me by the lovely Jenni, the neon green is from Tokalon and the neon pink is Nfu-Oh FS12. As a base for my two accent nails I used Kiko Nude. What else?

Those nails were lucky enough to get to see World War Z; geee I haven't been that excited to see a movie since... since a movie from the Twilight saga. Please don't hold it against me? Liked (though not loved) the movie. It was lacking zombie-nails shots.  

Take care,

M.

Neon arrows

Hey there!

I hope everyone here is extra fine :) I am finishing my first week off work and it feels SO good so far..! Collioure was a cozy-love trip; exactly what I needed to plug off from my job. My corporative Blackberry was down so I didn't even care about it... 56 mails awaited me when crossing the border with Spain. Whatever, they can still wait a couple of weeks, 'cuz ain't nobody got time for that!

Today's mani has been on my to do list for quite a while now; Geee, I am enjoying these sick stiletto nailz of mine... Neon arrows!

I used my trusted and loved Kiko Nude as a base and then hand-painted the arrows with a neon green and a bright blue that I don't have handy so... I am afraid no details are available today about them. If you're interested just let me know and I will shed some light on it ;)

The arrows were dead-easy to do, and more so because I wanted a "handmade look" rather than perfectly shaped and symmetrical lines, so I was vaaaaaary pleased with those :) Eye-catching for sure...

On holidays, shit happens too: on my last day in Collioure I broke my pinky nail... badly. Basically, it was rip open in the middle, where the nail was still above my flesh: ouch! I managed to make it last for another day (unbelievable luck here, thanks Karma!) and then just... added three thin layers of super glue (Loctite) and savagely solved the problem.What? I saw a chick use nail glue on YouTube so I thought that might work just as good, and it does! :D We'll see how much longer will this nail survive... Wanna bet?

Take care,

M.

ABC Challenge: Letter O - Orange & Neon summery manicure!

Hello there!

Have you noticed how summer is slowly settling in? Barcelona is blooming right now, and that led me to sport my first extra girly summer manicure ^^

Today letter O stands for Orange. But heck, I felt like adding a touch of neon pink in there... And rhinestone stars... and even a pair of flip flops on my thumbs! Those two were ripped off when putting my stockings though :p they litterally never saw the light of day.

Warning: the neon pink looks über faded in my pictures. It's honestly a pink able to rip off your retina just by looking at it. Crazy shit I am in love with...

That orange color is two coats of Leticia Well 516, the neon pink is two coats of Nfu Oh FS12 over two coats of white. The stars are quick eBay buys, great value for money. I am reconsidering calling it EvilBay, with my 93 purchases already... Jeeze!

Lastly, let me specially thank Mr. and Ms. Bamboo for making this manicure possible, as they gave me the orange polish and the nail decorations :) Both are great additions to my collection! 

Cheers!

M.

Holiday manicure. First attempt at vintage freehanded roses.

Hey there!

Happy easter ^^ I hope you enjoyed your time. I did a whole lot of nothing and it felt darn good. The Boyfriend and I spent four days near the beach, far from Barcelona where not even work can reach you... Jeeze, I can't believe it's over!

I thought I'd be productive and fill in my archives with pretty pictures of intricated nail art, but you're looking at the one manicure I've done during these holidays. Whatever, I am proud of it. It was my first time freehanding vintage roses. Heck, it was my first time freehanding anything on my nails! 

Voilà:

For this manicure I've used Kiko Celebration LE in Blush as a base, and then added some fun as follows:

- the pink dots and the darker pink on the roses is Kiko Celebration LE in Pearly Pink Iguana [I doubt that morph of iguana actually exists, but that name makes it sound just like the ultimate lizard!]

- my middle finger and the dots on my pinky have been done using Cina Glaze Sun-Kissed

- the darker part of the leaves are done with Sfera Mariana

- the lighter pink and green were obtained by mixing the color with Kiko Blush

Whatcha say?

Now that gave me a good kick to keep on going with freehanding stuff, and I wonder what should I attempt next. Mind you, before you give me any suggestion... I get frustrated quite easily. Hence, replicating Magritte's Golconde or Las Meninas by Velazquez is out of the question. For now. I am sure we'll find a lot of interesting things to disfigure in between *evil laugh*

Take care,

M.

Tetris nails + need a couple of tips...

Hao!

Warning: this will be a long post, so brace yourselves. 

Or skip it.

How is your week going so far? Mine has been *un infierno* ["Hell" sounds way harsher in Spanish, that's why]. I have been wishing it was over since Monday morning, and that makes an awfully long week..!

On to my Tetris nails! I loooove this game. It's actually the one and only game I have ever downloaded on my phone, and that shows some love. Some time ago [my work makes me feel like I live in a loop, so I don't even remember how long ago that happened - One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez) anyone?] I felt like wearing something eye catching and fun on my nails. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. the next morning (on a Saturday) so I also needed it to be easy to do, and that's what I came up with.

Recipe: 2 coats of China Glaze Snow + 2 coats of BeYu nº 475 + 2 coats of INM Out the Door + some strategically place studs + one thick coat of INM. In short, a shitload of polish. Long live the fast drying top coat, I say!

If you've been reading me for a while you may (or may not) know that I am co-author of a Criminal Code with Case Laws that's been published in mid-february; it has taken me a lot of time to do my part of the work, which is 10% of 1500 pages entirely written by me. In the next two weeks we'll be having promotional events, in Barcelona and Madrid. We've had a great feedback already, more than I could have ever imagined, coming from huge personalities in the Spanish Criminal Law scene. Now, I need your expertise in the polish field to enlighten me. 

I've had three major breakages this week on both of my hands, so I have nubbinized my beloved claws to a point that makes me feel completely unprotected. Ridiculous as it is, crying is of no use, so let's move on. I have been thinking on what manicure to wear to the Barcelona event next Friday, and my first pick is half moons in red, just as I showed you in THIS post but (way) shorter. Second option is a classic french manicure. Third and last is a V french manicure, like so. Any imput will be highly appreciated :)

I also changed the blog's background. The previous one was supposed to have a paper texture that gave it a pixelled effect IMHO, that I hated. The colors were nice, but as Jin pointed out it wasn't easy to read the entries with them on the back. And I was already starting to get bored of them. So I have taken my time, but I think I have improved the thing. Yay or nay?

I just nead a gorgeous blog title now. Any tips?

M.

Breast Cancer Awareness month - Pink manicure nº 3

Hey there,

If you've been sticking with me for a while you'll know I've been wanting to do a chained manicure for a couple of eternities now. Back then, I purchased a necklace off eBay, just to tear it apart because it was way cheaper than buying jewellery chain from a craft store. I have more chain than I will ever use, which is good. It feels safer to know I won't run out, ya know. Just in case.

So, I finally got to try chained nails for the first time, and I am so happy with the result I went a little over-excited in the weekend, looking at my nails all the time. It felt like a gothic bubblegum manicure... 

I started with two coats of ChG Snow, added two coats of Nfu-Oh nº FS12 and then added the chain. Easy peasy!

Nfu-Oh nº FS12 is actually a neon, and that's exactly why my camera boycotted it. And so did Photoshop. The closer color I've been able to obtain was this one: 

But for once, the pictures are doing a crappy job with the talking, so let me say this: it was like a barbie pink, extra hot and vibrant, you would expect it to glow in the dark. Even in the shade, it was so in-your-face that I think if you open the dictionnary at "Neon" you'll find a picture of this polish. The quintessence of neon.

So, I loved this edgy look, but couldn't get quite used to the bumpiness of the chains on my nails. Anyhow, I'd totally wear this again for a special occasion when I'll want my nails to really stand out. Like, always.

What do you think?

M.

We need to talk.

Ladies,

How are you all doing? I have to admit I am a bit disoriented for I had my day off yesterday and I my brain has assumed it's Monday today. I will be more than happy tomorrow, the weekend will be there much sooner than expected. Who said a two-day week? Sign me up. NOW.

I am not currently sporting the mani I am showing you today; I have to say I enjoyed it very much and would have loved to wear it a little longer. But the situation is like so: I have reached a point in absurdity where I am so desperate to take advantage of the free time I have that I rush for trying new polish-related things and end up taking fun manis off far too soon. Oh well. I never know when my free time is to vanish again, so I play around as much as I can. That helps feed my blog, so I guess it's not that bad. It just feels like coitus interruptus at times.

You are looking at two coats of Sinful Colors Let's Talk over a coat of white, which I stamped with Gosh Silver and Konad. Now you can already tell that color is quite in-your-face, but my camera was very reluctant to capture the color accurately... So I called The Boyfriend for help and we photoshopped a little one of the pictures, so that this post is not really misleading. Here's a closer glimpse of the color:

I'm off showing the Criminal Code some love [that sentence might be totally senseless for you, if so just pretend you never red it], take care of yourselves.

M.