Black to the Roots

Another shade of the series floral GRUNGE is entitled "The Rough", what you feel after the polish dried completely. It becomes the matte finish with a little rough surface due the tiny silver glitter particles. The colour is very dark grey, almost black, maybe that's why the colour is listed as "Black To The Roots".

I could imagine this polish as component for "galaxy" manis or alone of course.

Once more close-up view.

Inspired by Nature

Day 23 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Inspired by Nature

Oh my... Seeing what amazing manis the other people created let me think I didn't got inspired at all.

But it's spring and everything greens so why not to let some plants sprout on my nails?

I used plant patterns from Gals Princess set GA37 and GA35 over the fake OPI gargantuan green grape. As stamping polish I used Voyeuristic Green by alessandro which is opaque and has metallic shimmer.

Inspired by Fabric

Day 22 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Inspired by Fabric

As I saw this beautiful kimono-like blouse by ZARA I thought I want something like this on my nails!

As base colour I took butter london big smoke, which looks like the ground colour of the blouse. The next step was stamping with light blue KONAD stamping polish and Gals plate GA37.

Then I brought some pink accents with essence free hugs and Konad blue stamping polish and soome glitters as well.

I am not really happy with this design, but if you look on from afar it's still okay.

Merge or Melt

Day 21 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Merge or Melt

It had been explained that everything is suited for "merge and melt" if it's like gradient or other techniques with colour mixing. I like gradients :). First I did a simple gradient with essence 106 free hugs, IsaDora 629 icy purple and Yves Roches 42 Violet electrique. 

And then I added glitter polishes also like gradient (glitters above are light pink and glitter at the nail edge are purple).

Velvet Diamonds

Just after discovering the sand and structure series by ANNY I saw another new series by misslyn - Velvet Diamonds. As the name suggests the eight new polishes are sparkling and build structured surface after drying. The price is moderate with 5,95€ for a 10ml bottle.

I had the opportunity to test every colour on my nails. And here we are:

• 59 sparkling orange
• 70 spark of hope
• 24 elegance
• 12 universe
• 78 dazzling water

And here the rest:

• 36 champagne
• 47 bright love
• 85 royal blue

And here once again to see the structured surface:

I found the tone 78 dazzling water to be very similar to 690 after dinner by ANNY, if not ompletely the same. It's not particularly strange, because the manufacturer of both brands is ICB innovative cosmetic brands GmbH, which makes also Artdeco, Make Up Factory, BeYu ... I guess the whole range of German polishes. Okay, essence and catrice belong to another company, or is cosnova not the German company? Also the royal blue was pretty similar to ANNY 's blue hypnosis.

So here these twins again:

Is here anything different on two polishes? I don't really see it.

Desert Glam

ANNY goes textured! The new limited edition of minis is called "Desert Glam" and is promising 3D effects. The tagline "Las Vegas Show Stars" is a bit confusing: are we in a desert now or in Las Vegas? :)

The series consists of eight shades:

615 - Pink Oasis 625 - Las Vegas Showgirl 630 - Shooting Star 645 - Big Performance

655 - She's Amazing 680 - Rock Your Nails 690 - After Dinner Show 994 - Blue Hypnosis

The first four look matte in the flacon, and the rest seems to be glitter. But after testing them on my nails I saw that all of them are textured. The matte ones have got filler like sand grain which are to see after the polish dries. The glitter ones are typical sand polishes sparkly and rough after drying. I wore  "After Dinner Show" already.

The grainy surface of matte polishes can be seen here:

I found it interesting as texture, but doesn't it look a bit sloppy as if your polish almost dried up and got clumped? However the glitter shades are beautiful in my opinion. And the red-orange "She's Amazing" is sold out (at least in the Douglas store where I tested some of the series).

Texture

Day 20 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Texture

Unfortunately I already did some texture polish for the "favorite polish" and I am going to write about new polishes launched in april, which are textured again, so I didn't want to repeat myself and looked into downs of my nail art boxes. I found there Japanese 3D nail sticker I've got from a friend of mine who was often enough to Japan before 3/11. The stickers are really voluminous and stand out and above your nail plates.

First I painted my nails with white polish by essence floral GRUNGE Lily Bloom (but basically it could be just any other white polish). Then I sponged different pink and purple colours over the base. I added a whitish spot on each nail to the places where branches were supposed to be. I painted the branches with grey and brown acrylic paints and let them dry. And then I added the stickers and golden glitter. Here I didn't use top coat yet.

So, and this is a final product cleaned up and covered with top coat.

Here the stickers are seen a bit better, and how they rise over my nails. :)

And that much polishes were used for sponging and decorating:

Does this design remind you of sakura and so on? One description for these stickers says there are plum flowers. Anyway it is the very time to get spring feeling with blossoming trees.

Favorite Polish

Day 19 of the Laid Back 31 Day Challenge - Favourite polish.

Help! It is the hardest challenge ever - I like every polish I've got! :) And I buy generally only the lovely ones. :) So I took a newest favourite polish - ANNY 690 "after dinner show". This is a minty glitter-glitter consisting of small and a bit bigger glitter particles. I guess the name of the polish should be something like "after eight", but since it's patented name for some sweets ANNY thought another name out.

I don't know why ANNY don't announce the small specials which are always in small flacons (6 ml) just like this one. Also you wouldn't find them on the shopping page of Douglas. I discovered them in a Douglas store and fell in love with this polish.

Although it covers the nails with one coat, two are more intense. The surface is rough, in any case not smooth. but I think it's normal for 100% glitter polishes.

I let the surface without top coat, because of the way it reflects light in different angles.

Here you can see different particles: