Barielle Date Night

Hi all,

Today I have one of the Barielles for you that I bought in the sale recently: Date Night.

Barielle Date Night, two coats in direct daylight. Date Night is a gorgeous deep green shimmer that doesn't look black in low lighting (yay!). It's gorgeous and it's really pigmented as well. I used two coats to even my sloppy polishing, but if you work neatly you can call this a onecoater!

As you can see, it's just the slightest bit brush strokey so you want to be careful while applying the polish.

The formula is smooth as butter and practically applied itself :)

In low lights, it looks darker and 'mossier' (is that a word?) so I immediately thought of Slytherin - well hey, I'm a Harry Potter fan! I decided to do an accent nail to wear with this mani.


Barielle Date Night stamped with China Glaze Millennium and imageplate M28 in indirect daylight. The color shifts to a darker shade of green, me likez!

I'm a bit lost for words, I really don't know what to say.. I'm tried and I don't know why. Thank goodness the clock goes back one hour tonight, so that's an extra hour of sleep! Yay! (I'm writing this on Saturday night hehe)

Hope you have a great Halloween!

China Glaze LOL

Hi all,

A quickie today with a polish that I wore a little while ago, when there was still sun and not as much clouds and rain as we have now.


China Glaze LOL, two coats with China Glaze FFWD topcoat in sunlight. LOL is a gorgeous puple holographic polish that gives you the smooth rainbow effect. I have been searching for this one for an affordable price and then just walked right into it when I was at the Beauty Salon Dimension Fair!


Application is a bit tough without my basecoat, but for these pictures (it was also my NOTD) I used my favorite basecoat for this. I used Nfu Oh Aqua Base to make application easier, and it sure did. When I try to apply this baby without that basecoat, it gets patchy and really difficult for me to get an even layer of polish on my nails, not to mention that you would be able to see every flaw ow my nails. Application was great after applying Nfu Oh Aqua Base.


A little closeup of the polish in direct light. Ain't that pretty? I'm really pleased with LOL. Even when it's not in direct light, it's a very pretty purple which makes me happy. Some holo's will look a bit dull when they don't have direct light hitting it, but this one doesn't. I like it!

Hmm.. I notice a trend here. Every time I say that this will be a quickie, I type waaaaay more than I was planning to do, making my post longer than an average post. Ah, well..

Hope you have a great weekend!

Frankenstein Watermarble

Hi all!

I didn't really realize that it's almost Halloween, and I still had a ton of things planned! I hope I can squeeze in some more before Halloween :) Today I have a watermarble for you! It's a 'Frankenstein' Watermarble; green and purple.


For this marble, I used OPI Funky Dunkey and Orly Gumdrop. The light, pastel green and the purple go really well together! I really like it. It does remind me a bit of some Frankenstein images; there are a ton of them out there with a green and purple thing going on.


There's not much more that I want to say about this - except that I really really like it!

Marbles still manage to surprise me, so I'm planning on doing a marble afternoon soon haha.

Are you planning on doing something Halloween-y with your nails? If so, what are you going to do?

CND Teal Sparkle Meets Orly Enchanted Forest

Hi all!

Two weeks ago, I showed you CND Urban Oasis and Teal Sparkle (damn, is it two weeks ago already?). I started trying Teal Sparkle over several different polishes, and today I want to share one of my favorites with you :)


CND Teal Sparkle over two coats of Orly Enchanted Forest. This was so pretty that I kept it on for four days (I wanted to try more layering thingies).


Teal Sparkle is a gorgeous effect that works really well with Enchanted Forest - a very pretty forest green. I really love the effect - the flecks in Teal Sparkle reflect mostly green in various shades, but also blue and gold.


Bonus closeup pic! I couldn't stop staring at my nails. I put my nails under my desk lamp all the time to see the effect and admire the prettyness..

I think you will see a ton more of these layering combinations in the future, hehe. If you have layering suggestions for CND effects, please tell me!

New Catrice Polishes and a Comparison

Hi all!

I wanted to show you the new polishes from Catrice that they generously gave to me for consideration. I got Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans! and Absolutely Chinchilly! I swatched them both on nailwheels as well as a comparison between Absolutely Chinchilly! and Essie Chinchilly. I still owe you the real on the nails swatches, don't worry, they're coming!


Left Catrice Absolutely Chinchilly! and Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans! on the right. Absolutely Chinchilly! is a khaki creme and both the color and the name really remind me of Essie Chinchilly, the comparison between these two is below :) Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans! is a gorgeous slighly dusty blue with tiny light blue glitter flecks in it. The color is darker in low light, making it appear like a dark blue creme.

So.. Here's the comparison I promised!


Essie Chinchilly on the left, Catrice Absolutely Chinchilly! on the right, both are two coats. I have to tell you beforehand that my picture makes the difference appear to be more obvious, but it's hardly noticeable irl! Chinchilly is the tiniest amount of a shade lighter, but I can only see that when I'm looking at the wheel right under my nose, so to say. When I take more distance, let's say 15 - 20 cm, the difference is not visible at all.

I prefer the application of Catrice, since the brush is wider and makes it easier to apply the polish. Also, Catrice is thicker in formula, while Essie's formula is on the thin side.

Catrice made an affordable dupe for Essie Chinchilly! While Essie retails for € 13,49 a bottle, Catrice only costs a fraction of the price - € 2,49 a bottle.


The products in this post were given to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information, please read my disclaimer.

Jack O'Lantern Nail Ideas

Hi all,

A little over the top manicure today! I wanted to do some Jack O'Lantern designs on my nails, and decided to a different one for every nail. It looks way overdone like this, so I would recommend doing the Jack O'Lantern as an accent on one or maybe two nails :)


I used China Glaze Breakin' as a base, and Wet n Wild Black Creme for the faces and the candle on my pinkie. I did the flame with an ittybitty of Breakin'. My hand wasn't as steady as I wanted it to be while I drew on the faces, but you get the idea, right? :P

I'm still thinking about what to do with my nails for Halloween.. We don't have Halloween here in The Netherlands, but I like the theme so I want to do something with it :)

Catrice Preview

Hi all,

On Friday, Catrice held a preview event for bloggers to check out their new products and I was luck enough to be there! I have an impression for you in this post. It's kinda pic heavy, so hold on to your seats ;)





Summary of their new products :) Michèle did a post on the entire collection, so be sure to check her post out!


Their new lip appeal lipglosses, available in 10 different colors. Price: € 3,79


Their new Colour Show lipglosses, available in 10 different colors. Price: € 3,79


Their new mono eyeshadows, available in no less than 32 colors. I tried a couple of them and they're really pigmentated! The price for these is € 2,79

There are also smokey eyes kits with awesome pigmentation, an eyebrow kit, duo eye shadows, compact powders, new brushes with really soft hairs, new mascaras, pencil sharpeners and six different coloured eye pencils.


Catrice also provided us with yummy cupcakes and sandwiches! Nom nom!


The new nail polishes, without flash. From left to right: Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans!, Run Forest Run!, Absolutely Chinchilly and the new matte topcoat.


The new nail polishes, with flash. From left to right: Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans!, Run Forest Run!, Absolutely Chinchilly and the new matte topcoat. The polishes will sell for € 2,49 and the matte topcoat will cost € 1,99.

Catrice was generous to give me some products for consideration, so you will be seeing swatches of Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans! and Absolutely Chinchilly really soon. I will also do my best to see if I can swatch some of the new eyeshadows for you :)

I want to thank Catrice for making this event possible, and I want to thank Michèle for taking me ;) It was great to see and test the new products. I really had a nice day and it was awesome to meet other bloggers!

Stampabilities # 008: Ciaté Pt 1

Hi all,

Another round of stampabilities! I think you already know the details, so here's this weeks edition: Ciaté.


Another win this week! I'm honestly impressed with the stamping abilities this week (and the last couple of weeks too). I feel like I hit the jackpot! All of them show up really good - not much to say here. Let's take a look at how they look on the nails!


Nothing changed about the visibility of these when they're stamped on the nails. They're just as noticable as they are stamped on plain white paper, which is awesome. I never thought of the Ciaté Festival Fevers as stamping polishes, but it makes sense because they are all really pigmented.


And just a little experiment; I thought I might do it like this in the future: a combined shot. Would this work, or would you like to see the seperate pics (as well)? Hmm, I will think about that haha.


If you have suggestions for the upcoming editions of Stampabilities, please let me know! You can leave a comment on this post, but you can also send me an email.

Ulta Tainted Love

Ulta Tainted Love, three coats, in indirect sunlight. Tainted Love is a gorgeous (!!!) green with tons of glitter chunks in it, both green and gold. I tried to pick pictures in which it showed up, and I think it does a little bit on the pinkienail. This polish is so awesome. I couldn't stop staring when I wore it.

This immediately brings me to the following question: Is there a full size bottle? Or a dupe? If so, let me know!!


Application was good. It takes a bit to handle the brush since the handle is so short, but the brush itself is nice and a bit wide so the polish is easy to apply.

Dryingtime was good as well, so I don't really have any complaints.. Besides that I don't have enough with the tiny bottle that came in the Glam Goth set!! It looks pretty in the but I was worried that the effect would disappear on the nail - but no such thing so I'm a happy camper! Hehe!

I believe the set was limited edition so I'm not sure if you can find it anymore.. Please let me know if it is!

Dress Like A Chick For Halloween!

Hi all,

I let my sister pick what to post today and since she thought chicks were cute.. Chicks it is. It feels very easter-y to me but it looks so damn cute and I couldn't help myself! I assume you can dress up like a chick for Halloween, so chicks on the nails must be fine as well :P


Chick nails! Ain't that cute? *giggles*. I used Hard Candy Splendid as a base and H&M Love At First Sight for the eggshells and the eyes. I used Wet n Wild Black Creme for the eyes and finished the chicks by giving them beaks with China Glaze Breakin'. They turned out pretty nice!


They would do great as easter nails as well, so I think you'll be seeing a variation on this creation somewhere near Easter next year too :)

What are you gonna dress up like for Halloween?


A product in this post was sent to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information, please read my disclaimer.

China Glaze Zombie Zest

Hi all,

It's almost Halloween and I just remembered that I haven't shown you the China Glaze Awakening polishes for Halloween 2010 yet! I will try to show them all before Halloween, so here's the first one: Zombie Zest!

China Glaze Zombie Zest, four coats in daylight. Zombie Zest is a yukky, murky green filled with tons of green and gold glass flecks. I wouldn't necessarily call this a glitter. I needed four coats for opacity, so Zombie Zest is a bit of a sheer Zombie.


Macroshot of this awesome murky greenish baby. I really like these kind of colors atm. I don't know what it is, but these you-love-them-or-you-hate-them ugly colors appeal to me.


Application.. Zombie Zest is on the sheer side, so you need more coats to get full coverage (if you don't want vnl, like me). The polish formula was alright, at some points it was a bit on the thick side, but still runny. Drying time was good despite the amount of coats.

If you want Zombie Zest, don't hold out too long because the Awakening Collection for Halloween 2010 is limited edition. If it's sold out, there are a couple of dupes: SpaRitual Optical Illusion and Orly It's Not Rocket Science. I will post a comparison on the last one soon so you can see how similar they are :)

Zoya Dovima

Hi all,

How are you doing today? I hope you are doing good. Today I have one of the Zoya Matte Velvets for you.

Zoya Dovima, two coats in indirect sunlight. Domiva is a matte black, packed with shimmer. The matte isn't matte-matte, but has a semi-satin finish. The shimmer in the polish shows mostly silver, but in some lights it also shows you a variety of colors. I topped it off with some topcoat to see how she looked, and I wasn't disappointed.


Zoya Dovima with topcoat to make it shiny. I left this picture bigger, so you can see the shimmer better. I could see blue, red, green, yellow, purple and pink shimmer besides the silver shimmer that's visible most of the time. In the next picture you see a closeup of how the polish looks most of the time.


Application was pretty darn good! Mattes tend to be lumpy and when you go over the same spot twice, you might drag some of the polish off that was already there. I didn't have that issue with this pretty baby though! I wouldn't recommend going over the polish over and over, but it doesn't seem to have the same issues as regular mattes.

The dryingtime was good as well. I would have loved for this to be a pure matte, but to be honest, I don't even mind the subtle satin-ish effect at all. I think it looks pretty..

Recent NOTD: OPI Espresso Your Style

Hi all,

Today I have another recent NOTD for you. I'm grabbing more and more of my favorites when I'm doing my nails, so it's not really a surprise for you when I tell you that I pulled this baby out to wear again, is it? My original review can be found here, my opinion on the formula and the color is still the same ;)


OPI Espresso Your Style!, three coats in daylight. Still one of the prettiest browns I own, will be pulling this out some more this fall!


The polish is darker on the nail than it is in the bottle, which I like :) Pretty eh?


I promise that I have some new (unshown) material for you tomorrow :)

Ruby Pumps and Smitten With Mittens Compared

Hi all,

A week or so ago, someone told me that OPI Smitten With Mittens looked like China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I thought it was way off, but when I pulled out both of my bottles, they seemed more similar than I thought. Time for a comparison to see how similar they really are.


Ruby Pumps is on my pinkie and middle finger, Smitten With Mittens is on my ring and index finger. Both were two coats.

As you can see, Smitten With Mittens is a darker, deeper red than Ruby Pumps. The base of Ruby Pumps is lighter and less pigmented than the base of Smitten With Mittens. The glitter in the two of them is different too, even though that doesn't show up in my picture. The glitter in Ruby Pumps is red, while the glitter in Smitten With Mittens is red and gold. It's a slight difference, but hey, it's there.

There two are not dupes, but have the same feel to them. I prefer Smitten With Mittens because the application was better, but if you're not crazy about red and you own one of these, you probably won't need the other.


If you want to read the post in which I wrote about these polishes,
just click on the name - Smitten With Mittens & Ruby Pumps

And The Winner Is...

Hi all,

On October 13th the voting for the Harry Potter nailart contest closed and the results are in! Without further ado, the winner of the contest!


Jessica! Congratulations on winning the HP contest! I will contact you asap :) Here is her winning entry:




Thanks everyone for your entries and casting your vote. It means a lot to me!

I had to exclude a pretty big amount of votes due to the fact that people weren't following Nailswatches at all or not publicly - I can't check if you are a follower. It was a bit disappointing that there were numerous people not reading the rules, but thankfully there were also a lot of people who did.

Stampabilities # 007: China Glaze Up And Away

Hi all!

Double 0 7 today! Hehe I always like the number when I see it :) Todays edition of Stampabilities features the China Glaze Up and Away pastel polishes. Let's take a look!


China Glaze Up and Aways. They all show up pretty good, the only thing is that they're pastels so the colors aren't that noticable, but they all show up and I think they will all work over slightly different (darker) colors as well.


On the nail: Lemon Fizz and Peachy Keen show up the best, but that's also because they're a bit darker/more noticable than the other colors.

I would say that these work for stamping as well, so that's another win this week!


If you have suggestions for the upcoming editions of Stampabilities, please let me know! You can leave a comment on this post, but you can also send me an email.

Orly Royal Navy

Hi all!

How are you doing today? I spent almost my entire evening yesterday with watching X Factor UK haha. Any of you watching as well? Who's your favorite? I've had a thing for Matt ever since his first audition, but yesterday he didn't have his hat on and he was wearing a suit and I actually thought he was pretty hot hehe! Ahem, what was I talking about? Oh, right, nail polish *giggles*.

Orly Royal Navy, three coats in daylight. Royal navy is a gorgeous bright blue jelly with aqua colored glass flecks that are scattered here and there in the polish. I put on three coats and still had obvious visible nail line, which is a bit of a down side for me. Maybe I should have tried a fourth coat, but I left it at this.


In this picture you can clearly see what I mean by scattered glass flecks. They are not evenly defided within the polish, making them pop up randomly on the nail. The contrast is pretty nice!


Application was pretty good, I always have some problems with jellies somehow, maybe it's just my lack of skills hehe. Dryingtime was good.

The color is a little *bright* for me, so that's something to get used to. This is a polish that I actually picked up because everyone was raving about it and I thought I'd give it a shot. It's definitely pretty, only not my kinda color (yet). I'll have to wear it some more to let the shade grow on me! What do you think of Royal Navy? Worth the hype?

Silver and Black Houndstooth

Hi all,

A couple of days ago (it might already have been last week - time flies!) I did a pretty nice Konad - if I may say so myself - and I wanted to share! I like the contrast in this one, it really makes it pop.


Color Club What A Drag stamped with Wet n Wild Black Creme and imageplate M63. It pops! And it's so easy to do. I'm gonna keep the color combination in mind; I really like it. And can you believe I had not used this design before? This is the first time! Jeez, gotta grab my plates a little more, cuz it's cool.. *stops rambling*

You can read my original post about What A Drag here.

I wish you all a wonderful weekend!

Orly Rockin' Rocket

Hi all!

The holiday collections are popping up everywhere around us, and today I have one from the Orly 'Tis The Season Collection for holiday 2010 for you.


Orly Rockin' Rocket, two coats in daylight. Rockin' Rocket has a sienna or maroon base, which is a very red based brown, packed with pale copper and copper shimmer. I absolutely adore this color. It looks so warm and comfy, yet sparkly and interesting and far from boring.


Application was great. Orly's rubber cap is great to work with and the formula on this baby was awesome, smooth like butter. It almost did the work itself..


Drying time was great as well. I'm really really pleased with the only polish from 'Tis The Season that I have but I still hope that I can snatch Meet Me Under The Mistletoe, that one looks stunning as well. Well done, Orly!

Which polish(es) from the Orly holiday collection strikes your fancy?

Barielle Pin Up

Hi all,

How are you all doing on this fine thursday? I hope you are doing well :) Today I have a pretty red Barielle for you; Pin Up from the All Lacquered Up Collection for Fall 2009.

Barielle Pin Up, three coats in daylight. Pin Up is a pretty red with a hint of tomato; I wouldn't call this a pure tomato red though. It has golden and orangey red shimmer in it to give it an interesting finish.

As I've probably said before, I'm digging reds lately and this one is no exception. It looks really pretty, without being the trashy kind of red.


Application on this one was very good. The polish went on smoothly and was of pretty good structure, giving me no problems to apply it. Dryingtime was good as well.

The more Barielles I try, the more I dig them. I think the first two were a bit on the thick side (formulawise) because the polish had leaked a bit in transport, since all the Barielles I've tried ever since had a good formula. So if you like red and this one looks good to you, I'd suggest you give it a try :)

Barielle can be purchased at www.barielle.com and costs $8 a bottle.


The product in this post was sent to me by the manufacturer or their PR company for consideration. For more information, please read my disclaimer.