Saturday, October 25, 2014

Watercolor Birds

Hola chicas! Hoy les traigo un nailart estampado que hice con dos de mis placas nuevas: la Moyou London Mother Nature 02 y la Konad Square 01 (que mi hermana me envío desde Santiago). Para empezar apliqué dos capas de un esmalte rosado pálido y luego estampé con un diseño de la placa Konad con esmalte Konad Blanco. Añadí color a este estampado con los OPI Sheer Tints y para finalizar, estampé distintos pajaritos con la placa Mother Nature. Me encanta como ha quedado, es muy primaveral en mi opinión. Espero les haya gustado a ustedes también, gracias por leer! :)
Hi girls! Today I have a stamped nailart to share with you, using some of my newly arrived plates. I was inspired by some manis I found while browsing Pinterest that used stamping under layers of jelly polishes to create a sort of watercolor effect and when from there.
I started with two coats of a very soft pink polish (from a local brand, not the OPI pictured) and left that to dry. Then I stamped using the Konad Square #1 plate using Konad Special White and added some splashes of color with the OPI Sheer Tints mini set. This gave me a base with a subtle effect to finally add my stamped birds from the Moyou London Mother Nature 02 plata, stamped with Konad Special Black.
Overall I'm really happy with how looks. I am super happy the birds on the plate are tiny so they can fit my nubs. Double stamping is such a fun technique, though it can be a bit time-consuming (waiting for all the layers to dry and everything).

Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Hare Bisbee 2.0

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo una mani que hice con uno de los esmaltes Hare que recibí el otro día. Este es Hare Bisbee 2.0, es un jelly turquesa que está imbuido de un surtido de glitters verde-dorado de distintas formas y tamaños. Es muy fácil de aplicar y es opaco en 3 capas finas. Los esmaltes Hares los pueden encontrar en tiendas especializadas en indies, como Llarowe o directamente en su tienda de Etsy. Espero les haya gustado y gracias por leer!
Hi girls! Today I have the first of the Hares I received a while ago to share. As I've mentioned a couple times, Hare was one of the first brands of indie nail polish I tried and to this day, I look forward to Nikole's new releases and restocks on Etsy to keep my collection growing :) Anyway, onto the polish!
Bisbee 2.0 is a reinterpretation of one of the first polishes Nikole originally released when Hare started. It's a turquoise jelly base filled with green golden glitter in different shapes and sizes. It was easy to apply and opaque for me in 3 thin coats. Glitter pay off was also great, I didn't had to fish for larger glitter, though I did applied them with the dabbing method.
I really like the assortment of glitter in this polish. We have medium square and hex glitter golden green complemented with smaller glitter and a golden shimmer. The original Bisbee only had large hexagonal glitter.
Overall, I'm really happy with this polish. It looks amazing and applies easily. Personally, I think I prefer this revisited version because the glitters blend more easily in the base and is more complex.

Do you ever regret not getting a polish? I certainly thought I'd forever regret not getting the Original Bisbee, but I'm super happy with this new version. Thanks for reading!

Monday, October 20, 2014

Breast Cancer Awareness Mani

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo un nailart que hice por el Día de la Prevención del Cáncer de Mamas, el que se conmemoró el pasado 19 de Octubre, y por la Corrida por la Vida a la que asistí ese día. Como inspiración tome una de mis mas recientes compritas, el Hare Flight of the Flamingos, que usé en mi meñique. En mi dedo medio y anular hice un jelly sandwich con un rosa pastel y un glitter dorado sobre el cual estampé usando la placa BM-321 y un esmalte Mundo de Uñas (Mexican Pink, que misteriosamente cambió de color cuando le puse topcoat jaja). En mi índice (y pulgar, que no se ve en la foto) hice una "pond mani" que es básicamente un jelly sandwich repetitivo, usando You Drive me Coconuts de China Glaze y Papier Maché de Finger Paints (inspirado de este post de Adventures in Acetone). En fin espero les haya gustado, al final les dejo también una foto de la corrida, estrenando mi nuevo look. Gracias por leer!

Hello girls! Today I have a Breast Cancer Awareness to share with you, that I did recently for the BCA Running event that I attended on Sunday Oct. 19th. Let's go to the mani, then.
My new Hare was the inspiration for the mani, which I used for an accent on my pinkie. On my middle and ring finger I did a jelly sandwich with a sheer pastel pink and a gold glitter then stamped using BM 321 and Mundo de Uñas Mexican Pink (which interesting enough turned into a neon pink when I topcoated with Gelous). Finally on my ring finger I did a pond dotticure inspired by this one from Adventures in Acetone, using China Glaze You Drive me Coconuts and Finger Paints Papier Maché.
Overall, I'm really happy how this turned out. At first I was a bit bummed I didn't have a matching stamping polish, but then my MdU suddenly changed color with Gelous and it was a perfect match. Happy accident :) I haven't noticed this change of color with my usual topcoat (Essence Better than Gel Top Sealer).

The Running for Life event was my fourth 5k event. I'm still struggling to run the whole way, but getting better everyday. This was the first event I managed to convince a friend to attend with me, so yay for running buddies! Also new haircut, you like?
Anyway I hope you enjoyed today's post. Thanks for reading and see you in my next post!

Friday, October 17, 2014

My first Colors by Llarowe

Hola niñas hoy les traigo un esmalte de una marca indie nueva para mi y que tuve la gran suerte de ganar en un sorteo de la página de Facebook de la tienda. Es el tono Toga Toga Toga de Colors by Llarowe, un morado medio con un espectacular efecto holográfico. Es muy fácil de aplicar y opaco en dos capas, aunque aquí muestro tres. Ahora que se viene el verano y los días soleados usaré los holográficos más seguido :) Espero les haya gustado, gracias por leer!
Hi girls! Today I bring you my first Colors by Llarowe shade, which I was super lucky to win at one of the giveaways they had on their Facebook page a while ago. I hadn't worn this shade earlier because I was waiting for better weather, and now that spring is well upon us, we have more sunny days to enjoy wonderful holographic polishes.

Also, you'll notice I shortened my nails. I am going though a rough time, now being unemployed and recently single and the stress had really started to show on my nails, so I decided to start over. Anyway, onto the mani.

This is Colors by Llarowe Toga Toga Toga which was part of the August version of "A box, Indied". It's a beautiful medium purple, maaaybe slightly leaning to the cool side of the spectrum, with a strong holographic effect.
Here I'm showing three coats of Toga x3 with one layer of topcoat between the 2nd and 3rd layer (which is usually known as a "topcoat sandwich" and supposedly helps improve wear time for holo and other chiptastic polishes). It was very easy to apply and it is completely opaque in 2 coats.
Overall, I really liked wearing this polish. The holographic effect is very strong and it was fun to look at it while out running lol.

Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, October 14, 2014

Nail Mail: Moyou London

Hola chicas! Hoy les traigo otro post de Nail Mail, esta vez son mis nuevas placas Moyou London, que es una empresa británica que hace las placas mas bellas que he visto (con esta, ya son 11 en mi colección!). Este pedido se demoró unas 3 semanas en llegar y pedí 3 placas: Fashionista 05, Kaleidoscope 02 y Mother Nature 02 (a esta le venía echando el ojo hace rato jiji). Espero poder compartir con ustedes manis estampadas con estas placas muy pronto.
Hi girls! Today I have another nail mail post, this timemy new Moyou London stamping plates. Moyou London is a british company that designs the most amazing and beautiful plates and have quickly become one of my favorite brands (with currently 11 plates in my collection).

For this order I chose some of their newer plates and an older one I had been eyeing for a while. The new ones are Fashionista 05, Kaleidoscope 02 and the oldie that I had my eye set on was Mother Nature 02.
As you can see I favor the standard sized plates, I have really tiny nails so I only get the XL version when there is no small design alternative, but still make it work well. You can tell I went to play with my plates as soon as I got them, except for poor Mother Nature.

I look forward to sharing with you some stamped nailart manis done with these plates. Thanks for reading!

Saturday, October 11, 2014

Hare Rad Cloud

Hola niñas! Hoy les traigo uno de mis Hares más viejitos, un bello glitter rosa llamado Rad Cloud, que fue parte de la colección 2012 (ahora descontinuado). Rad Cloud es un jelly rosa imbuido de un colorido surtido de glitters: hay glitter cuadrado y hexagonal en distintos tamaños de colores morado, verde, naranja y magenta. Me encanta mucho la combinación de colores, me recuerda al frosting de los cupcakes. En esta mani lo he combinado con OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI. Espero les guste, gracias por leer :)
Today I have one of my older Hares to share with you. Rad Cloud was part of the Cumulus Excellence duo for Spring/Summer 2012, and it was one of the first indies I ever tried. On today's mani I paired it with OPI Dutch Ya Just Love OPI for an accent mani.
Rad Cloud is a pink milky jelly base filled with an assortment of glitters in different shapez, sizes and colors. It's kinda sheer on its own so for this mani I used 3 thin coats. There is a reasonable amount of glitter so I didn't need to fish for any and distributed evenly. I only laid my bottle upside down for a few minutes before I did my mani, because this bottle had been in storage for a while.

So let's see. We have purple and green square glitters, medium magenta hex glitters, orange and purple mini hexagonal glitters and a tiny bit of magenta micro glitter to complement it all.
I really love this polish, the pastel base and the bright glitters go so well together, they almost look like they're glowing, or cupcake frosting yumm. I have no idea why I hadn't shared this before on the blog but oh well, better late than never!

Do you have a favorite indie nail polish brand? Hare would be mine, would love to hear about yours. Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Nail Mail: Hare Polish

Holas chicas! Hoy les muestro el último pedido que me llegó por el correo, son un par de Hares que pedí en el último restock que la tienda oficial tuvo. Hare es una marca indie de esmaltes creada por Nikole y la pueden encontrar en su tienda de Etsy y en Llarowe. Hare es una de las primeras marcas indies que me atreví a probar y hasta el día de hoy, me encanta; las combinacions de color y glitters son muy creativas y complejas. Los que me llegaron hoy son Bisbee 2.0 (turquesa con glitter verde/dorado) y Flight of the Flamingos (base beige con glitters rosados flúor y dorado).

Hi guys! Today I bring you my latest nail mail, a couple of Hare polishes I grabbed for the latest restock of their official Etsy shop. My package took around 4 weeks to get to me from the US and, as always, it was well worth the wait.

The polishes came in a bubble wrap envelope and individually wrapped in bubble plastic, which was covered with with white paper and sealed with a rabbit sticker. Isn't it adorable? <3 p="">
On the inside there was a printed invoice, stamped with a different bunny image and a handwritten thank you note. I always love when sellers do this, it's such a nice and personal touch :)

I ordered two polishes from recent releases: Bisbee 2.0 and Flight of the flamingos.

Bisbee is one of the first Hares I ever wanted but it was discontinued by the time I could order it, so I was really excited when Nikole released this new version. Bisbee 2.0 is a rienterpretation of the original shade and it's a turquoise jelly base filled with golden-green glitter in different shapes and sized and also has golden shimmer through it.

Flight of the Flamingos is a light grey jelly base filled with neon pink glitter in different shapes and sized and complemented with small gold glitters and shimmer.

I'm looking forward to change my mani and share you a review of these shades, they look stunning in the bottle and I can't wait to have them on my nails :)

Thanks for reading!