Nails: "Zebra's ready to Party"

So today its just going to be a really short post (as short as possible); I intended to fill it with loads of pics, but...a technical difficulty happened and there's a slight change of plans.

So, ok here's the thing

Like about two weeks ago I bought a handful of new polishes. These were both brands I don't have yet but I still bought them because 1. I was curious and 2. I needed to pamper myself for a while. And Last Saturday...well...you guessed it right, bought 4 more. (No, I'm not an addict)

Divided the first purchase in three different nail looks but lost the pictures of the previous two somehow when I changed my phone. (Bummer, I know...). So I decided to do quick series of these newbies. Each time one nail look and my personal review of the brand. Shall we?

First look "Zebra'S ready to Party" , achieved with Funky Yellow from Kleancolor(the new polish) and a simple black polish.

For being a neon hue I think the lacquer is quite opaque. With two tin coats I had it covered.
To my opinion the consistency could have been more shiny. I HAD to use topcoat to give it more live.
But overall I'm super content with the results; it's bright, cute, easy application and dries pretty fast. Am ready to try the other Kleancolor polishes I bought.
(Print simply achieved with a cheap nail stamp I bought last year) :P

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Nails: "Snow, man!!"

Christmas is just around the corner. The season of joy, peace, sharing, loving...and SNOW (in certain continents).

Here on Curacao it never snows...and it probably never will, unless nature goes really 'kaboozles'. So I decided to do a snowy Christmas nail art...just for fun. And I called it "Snow, man!" just to portrait the irony of having "snow" in a particularly warm weather Island in the Caribbean.

I first started with two coats of 'Sassy Sparkle' from LA Colors (Color Craze) on both my ring fingers and 'Ciao Bella' from Sinful Colors on all remaining fingers. Let them dry thoroughly as this is going to be the background color for the nail art and if it's not dry you'll end up with messy nails.

Once it's dry I added two circles on my index fingers using a dotting tool. A larger circle as the snowman's belly and a smaller one for the head. In between the circles I left a small open space for mr. snowman's shawl.
On the remaining fingers I added a snowflake (Conad stamp nr m59) and three dots with the dotting tool.

When mr. snowman's body was dry I drew a red shawl using a fine brush in 'Hot Red' from Jordana and added a green accent with 'Dark Green' from Nabi. With the same brush a painted what would be the nose of mr. snowman using 'Perfect Sunset' from LA Colors (Color Craze).
Then with the dotting tool and 'Black' from Jordana, I added eyes and a set of buttons for the snowman...

Ready!

   

Wait until it's dry...add your favorite topcoat and you're ready to rock these totally COOL nails for Christmas.

 


You can try this with an elf instead, with mr. or mrs Claus, a Christmas tree or Gingerbread man... The whole idea is to have fun!

Here's wishing you the most colorful, creative and dazzling Holiday season ever...

X's and O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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In Your AdVintage

Today we have what I concider to be a retro/ vintage look. Hence the name 'In Your AdVintage'

At first I was going to do a simple swatch of the 'Nail'd it!'from Sally Hansen...

 

I love the soft lavender color of this polish (thou it looks pink-ish in the picture). Have to say it's pretty opaque as well, on the picture above I'm only wearing one coat. And I kept it at that.

Dries up very quickly so I could continue with my other things in no time flat.

...then the next day I decided to turn it up a bit. In Miami I bought a couple of Konad stamps. This is from the m65. I stamped the pattern on with 'Hypnotizing' from Jordana and added 'Gold Sparkle'from L.A. Colors to my ring finger.

Changed the whole look of things In Your AdVintage...:)

 

I'm up for simple nail arts these days...pretty perfect for busy ladies like myself.
Hope you liked it.

X's n' O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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'Though Princess'

Miraculously I'm keeping up with the posts...

and even if I say it myself...I think I need an award for this...the keeping up...

Today we have 'Though Princess'...love the name and both the polishes I tried this time

Used the magnetic gray named '' and the Sun-changing gray glitters called ''. That's what brought me to the name exactly...
When I'm inside it's all gray...and it looks tough. The gray gives the impression of steel...metal and such. Especially with the magnetic effect...
But as soon as I go in the sun the glittery nails turn deep pink....just lovely. As though the princess behind all the heavy metal is peeking outside...

And to top the girly edge, I added some white flowery stamps on the sun-changing nails...
Et Voila...
I love these...really...

Can't wait to try out all the other ones.

X's n' O's

Dazzled


Sy

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Crazy Miami Nail Hauling...

Well my beloveds...I'm back on the island since last night. Too quick...too quick!!
I'm still super exhausted but oh-so-satisfied...

Bought tons of clothes, lots of shoes, beautiful bags, bijou, some make-up, books, gifts and oh...nail polishes and nail accessories..(DUH)...lol

Hmmmm yup...a total of 25 new polishes arrived with me save and sound last night...

In due time when I try each one you'll get specific information about them all...this is just a post to give you a preview of the nail polish hauling I've done in Miami.

Sinful Colors

Up until now I haven't been able to find Sinful Colors on Curacao. In Miami I've seen a BUNCH of colors I was dying to buy...but...a lady can't just go back home with a luggage full of nail polishes right? So I only chose 3.. (hard decision..very very hard)!!

This is 'Dream On', 'Bali Mist' and 'Ciao Bella'...totally loving them all!!

Sally Hansen
Sally is no unknown brand, right?
These where found at a bargain price thou...a dollar for both. Nopes, not separately...0,50 dollars for each.  I guess you'd understand that I just had to have them...I mean... why not?

Glittery shades in 'Diamond Dust' and 'Star Sapphire'...just cute!

.
The Vitasurge is to try and add some strength to the nails since my nails have been splitting quite a lot lately and I don't appreciate that, really.
Vitamins are never overdone. The Vitasurge says to be a fast absorbing gel formula for weak nails that split and peel. It doesn't hurt to try it!!!

Besides the regular stuff above, I also found these Magnetics I wanted to try since I first saw them advertised in Cosmo...
So I bought them in three shades; 'Red-y Response', 'Kinetic Copper' and 'Graphite Gravity'

Color Mates

Yet another bargain. A dollar each...

I've never heard about this brand, but it wouldn't hurt to try new stuff at such low price. The name sounds cheap to me as a matter of fact...but the colors were just cute!

Here, 'Look at me', 'Paparazzi' and 'Stormy Weather'.

L.A. Colors
My stash is loaded with L.A. Colors polishes...I know!! But who can resist a fairy dust-ish glitter at a dollar? So yeah babes,...got it...beautiful glitters in 'Sassy Sparkle'.

Nabi
Talking about bargains... I found these when I stormed into a boutique at the Sawgrass mills in Ft Lauderdale to try on a cute dress I saw.
Never heard of the name before. But they were cheap..AND I found the light blue shade I've been looking for. So what was stopping me to just...you know...bring themhome?
These are 'Pastel Blue', 'Dark Green' and 'Metallic Champagne'.
I know, the Champagne looks a lot like the Bali from Sinful Colors. But in reality, the one is darker than the other.

Hard Candy
From a Hard Candy I only bought this top coat. I have been searching for it for a while already. It gives any color a matte finish...saves me the hazzle of buying lots of matte polishes...

Claire's
I almost...almost lost myself in Claire's. hahaha Well, not literally...but they just have soooo many cute things.
I simply tried to buy some of the most remarkable stuff I know I won't (easily) find here.
Like this multi-colored polish named 'Sand Art'. I know you can't quite see it on the picture, but it has neon orange, pink, yellow and purple..all in one bottle.
The bottle specifically says not to shake...hmmmm interesting! And oh..it's supposed to be strawberry scented when dry... Simply irresistible!!

Then I saw the Sun Changing shades. Supposed to turn another shade when you go outside... Curiosity made me buy these.
I only got two 'Here Comes The Sun' and 'Solar Eclipse'. As soon as I try them on I'll let you know if it really does what it says...

Lastly, the glow in the dark. Three normal polishes and two glittery.

And as you can see here...yup...they really do glow in the dark.

I also bought a nails stamping tool kit from Salon Express and 4 additional image plates from Konad.

And from Kiss I bought a box of Lacy Nail Dress Stickers and a some Nail Artist Flat Stickers...

And THAT's all the nail hauling I've done in Miami...
I think I've stayed on the average, don't you think?  hahaha... Well as soon as I start trying on these fabulous colors, you'll be the first to know. As for now, I need to catch up with my sleep...since I haven't been doing much of that this past week.

See you lovebugs soon.

X's n' O's

Dazzled,

Sy.

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The Matryoshka

As promised, my nails are done!
This one took me quite some hours and effort. And even some moments of wiping the nails completely clean and starting back from scratch.
After much struggling and fighting I ended up with the following look in the middle of the night...

It does need improvement; a lot of improvement. But considering the effort and precision it takes to achieve even this little much, I'm cool with the outcome for now. Not sattisfied... just cool.

It's called 'The Matryoshka' and it was inspired by a gift magnet I received in 2009 from a very dear friend of mine. A very simple gift which, to me, has a story behind it. I really value it more than I could tell.
Simply looking around in my room for inspiration my eyes fell on the magnet on the white-board and with a smile I thought "hmmm, why not?"

So here you go...'The (yet amateur) Matryoshka'.

Colors used to achieve this design: Red Hot (Jordana) as the base color on all the nails. The dots on the middle fingers were done with Creamy Fucshia (Jordana), Mellow Yellow (Jordana) and Good Luck Charm (Jordana).
First I tried to paint the face directly on the fingers...but it was too much of a manouvre. So I decided to paint them on tape, let them dry and stick them to the nails and secure them with a topcoat.
I think I didn't let them dry that well thou, since the topcoat smudged the design a bit.
Colors used for the face were Sea Shells (L.A. Colors) for the face, Brown (Jordana) for the hair, Creamy Fucshia (Jordana) for the cheeks, Red Hot (Jordana) on the lips, a little Good Luck Charm (Jordana) in the eyes and originally the nose and the rest of the eye were painted with a Black (Kiss) nail art pen. Thou that faded almost completely...

Again the whole designing was done with tootpicks and the ballpoint by the way. In two weeks I'm goint to be in Miami and I'll check on some stamping sets and dotting tools. As for now, I can roll with my creativity and some simple everyday stuff to achieve the wanted designs...

Well, this was it. Any changes, any new nails, any updates...you'll be one of the firsts to know.

As for now, I'm off.

X's n' O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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Muddy Miss Leopard

I wanted to try some leopard print this time. And I wanted to test-drive the 'Beavis and Mudhead' (Catrice)..
Perfect!!!! I'll combine them...

Last night I made the first attempt which resulted into a major fail. Didn't like the color combination, detested the way the design turned out and was plain disgusting! Really, see for yourselves...

Couldn't force myself to look at that for more than 24 hours....yuck.
So as I reached home tonight I took them off and retried the whole process... Only, I used a different design and decided upon a different color combo. And THIS is what a heart-rob looks like...(even if I have to say that myself) I love it!

The base color is of course the 'Beavis and Mudhead' (Catrice). On the accent nails I used 'Pink Lilac' (Jordana) as the base color since it's soft and girly especially in combination with the brown. For the prints I used the 'Beavis and Mudhead' and accentuated with 'Little Brown Dress' (Essie). Again I used The ballpoint and toothpick to create the design. And I think it looks just lovely...don't you think?

On another note, I got a gig as the official make-up artist of the 'Bikers Life magazine'. (GASP) M-HM, Yeah boy... :D
I know the designer of the magazine personally, and she approached me this week to see if I was interested...
Well I DID get cramps, goosebumps and an accelerated heartbeat when the question was asked....but not enough to make mw not try the challenge out.
If it's something for me or not? Time will tell...
As for now, I'm in!!
So they are holding the Bikers Queen Contest soon and today the contestants had their professional photo shoot at three different locations on the island. And I was there helping with the make-up and stuff...HOW EXCITING IS THAT?
Didn't get to make-up ALL the 10 girls...some were wearing their own stuff and some...well some were a bit hard headed. The team I worked with is extremely fun, down to earth and... loud. And in spite of a very warm weather and having to travel around with a big bag of make-up I had an amazing time!

Doing make-up for yourself is of course always easier than doing the same thing for someone else. You already know the contour of your own face, you know your stronger side, your flaws and you know exactly what you want and how you want that. Having to make up someone else, and especially someone you've never before seen in your life, is an art... Finding yourself in front of a clear clean canvas with the task to create your best piece.

I did my best...if I get my hands on the pics of the girls, I'll make sure I'll show you!

As for now, this is it. I'm exhausted...it sure has been a long day...

See you soon darling.

X's n O's

Dazzled,

Sy

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'Dear Mermaid

I walked around a couple of days without having painted mý nails....and I felt NAKED!

Last night I decided to try on another look with my new polishes. This one's called 'Dear Mermaid' and it looks like this...

I'm seriously in love with my nails at the moment...seriously.
Here, I decided to include a picture of everything I used to achieve this look (minus the base and topcoat).

Base color is the Acid DC from Catrice. And on the accent nails I decided to use Cosmic from Jordana instead of the Glorious Aquarius from Essence. Difference is, the Cosmic has green glitters, which complimented the Acid DC in this case to my opinion.
The nail polish remover and the cotton swab where used for cleaning up possible mistakes around the nails of course hihi.
The stamps were made with Birds Flying High from Catrice Coolibri (Limited Edition), the BIC pen (yes just a regular ballpoint) and the wooden stick you see here. I actually filled the insides of the bigger circles with the Kiss Nail Artist pen, but it somehow faded before getting topcoated. Nevertheless...I'm happy...

...and totally dazzled!

See you in my next post darlings!

X's n' O's

Sy

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