Colour Block Nail Art

I recently took part in an "Invisible Friend" gift exchange, which would be like a Secret Santa only not at Christmas. Carolina, the lovely lady who was given my name, sent me, among other things, a Naughty Nautical trio of Essie polishes which luckily I didn't already own. How great is that?!

I was so excited to try my new summery shades, I decided to use them all at the same time!

This mani is 100% Essie: I started with Nourish Me, followed by two coats of Blanc and one of Good to Go.

Then I placed some striping tape to create the patterns and used Naughty Nautical, Full Steam Ahead and Sunday Funday in random places.

I removed the tape with tweezers and finished off with another coat of Good To Go.

It's not a difficult mani but it requires a lot of patience as the base colour needs to be completely dry and striping tape can be fiddly.

I am pleased with the overall look. What do you think?

Marimekko Nail Art

In a bid to stop buying more polishes and start using what I already have, I recently got Nail Candy by California-based sisters Donne & Ginny Geer. I really like their book, it has given me lots of ideas on top of the designs described by them, and I attempted their Marimekko mani for the first time today.

I used Essie Blanc, Color Club Endless Summer and OPI Bullish on OPI, plus a Nubar black striper. The design required a lot of precision so I had to start over on a couple of nails. I love the monochrome stripes and touches of colour on this mani.

I managed to do it while my girls were being extremely well behaved and was quite pleased with the results until I noticed some bubbling on the photos.

Marimekko is a Finnish design company, and when I think of Finland I think of the lovely Moomins cops a friend of mine brought us from her home country. I've never been to visit her in Finland, I hope I can one day.

9 de Julio Original Nail Art

I was going to say "I'm back!", but if you follow me on Instagram you know that I never actually left...

I did, however, make a few small changes to the blog. I hope you like them!

On a day like today but 197 years ago, Argentina, the country I'm from, became independent from Spain. The design on today's mani is a combination of what is commonly known in Argentina as "Guarda Pampa", a geometric design used by the Mapuche tribe; and a gradient in blue and white, with a yellow sun in the centre, to represent the national flag.

The Guarda Pampa is something very traditional in clothing, accesories and utensils and often seen in souvenirs. I chose the Chakana, a staggered cross which originally comes from the Incas. Black is used for nobility.

I used OPI Did You 'Ear About Van Gogh? and a black nail art pen. I imagined the design would be much harder to do, but I copied it from a picture I found online and just drew it on my nails, freehand. I repeated it twice on my right hand but the results are a little less sharp.

For the flag I did a double gradient using Essie Blanc and China Glaze For Audrey. Then I painted a circle of Kiko 279 onto a piece of sponge and placed it in the centre of the white stripe. I finished everything off with top coat, of course.

Last but not least, I'll tell you a little bit about the item I am holding. It's called "Mate", pronounced MAH-te (the last "e" sounds like the one in "test"), and it's a traditional South American infused drink. You can read more about it here.

Layla Hologram Effect - 08 Flash Black

Blogging is becoming increasingly difficult with a 3-year-old and a 3-month-old, but I could not have this stunning nail varnish on without sharing it with all my readers. Beware, this post is picture heavy!

Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue... I am mesmerised by the rainbows on my nails. I think I've fallen in love with this charcoal grey holo!

I tried it on with OPI Ridge Filler as a base coat first. Oh, what a horrible mess that was! So I had another go yesterday with OPI RF (as it is a very unforgiving polish) and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri as a base, then applied three coats of Layla HE Flash Black very lightly, allowing each to dry for a couple of minutes, and no top coat. The afternoon sun brought it to life in a big way, see for yourselves below:

Gorgeousness such as this comes at a price: adding a top coat turns it into a pretty underwhelming scattered holo at best. So if you want to make a statement on a sunny day, you need to paint your nails on the same day - I have noticed tip wear after less than 24 hours, which is a huge shame indeed!

Nail Art: Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!

Today I would like to show you a quick freehand mani I did. I wanted a pastel palette so I chose some favourites of mine: a-england Iseult, a-england Guinevere and Illlamasqua Milf.

The design is pretty random, I wasn't sure it was very age appropriate but my husband liked it so I've had it on for a couple of days. I also got some compliments from my friends! 

Are you sporting anything special today?