Day 5: 12 Days of Christmas Nails

Day 5! Today I wore OPI Underneath the Mistletoe. This was the only polish I picked from this year's OPI Christmas collection. I'm a sucker for red polish, especially at Christmas time.

Underneath the Mistletoe is a darker blood red with silver and red glitter. I used three coats. It was catching my eye all day. 

See you tomorrow!

Day 20: Nail Polish Advent Calendar

This was a quick little manicure today. It's a skittles of China Glaze Mrs. Clause and Mistletoe Kisses. These came out in a Holiday collection in 2010. This is the best photo I had again. Low light makes things blurry. :(

Macro of Mrs. Claus

Macro of Mistletoe Kisses

Day 19: Nail Polish Advent Calendar

Hello again! Today I have for you a really neat glitter polish! It's from Ulta and it's called Fashionably Late. It's a black base with red glitter and red hex glitter.

Very pretty I think! I used three coats.

Day 16: Nail Polish Advent Calendar

Hello! Today box number 16 has provided China Glaze Love Marilyn. A pretty red glitter with and silver hex glitter. I used e.l.f. Cherry Bomb as a base color and then two coats of Love Marilyn. Poor lighting again today. :(

Here is the macro! Not bad!

Until tomorrow.

Day 14: Nail Polish Advent Calendar

Hello Hello!

Today was another mini polish from the Holiday OPI Ulta set. This is Last Minute Shopper. A really bold red shimmer that leans pink. In the bottle it looked not special. On the nails not too bad! It really glowed.

 

 Here is the macro.

Day 1 - Nail Polish Advent Calendar

My very first day! I went to open the box and found these...

Two lovely polishes. What should I do with these too? I used China Glaze Ruby Pumps as my main color and e.l.f. Blushing Beauty for an accent nail!

I used three coats of Ruby Pumps and two of Blushing Beauty. Both had lovely formulas and brushes. :)

The first day of December also proved to be a great day to pick out our Christmas Tree! Especially since the temperature was 60 F outside. Last year the trees were all frozen! I usually choose a traditional Frasier Fir but this year I fell in love with the Scotch Pines. A little small too, but so cute! I'll share photos of it decorated when I get to it! So far it only has lights.

Valentine's Day Mani

I actually put this on last night and so far so good it's sticking to my nails. I used the Cult Nails Base/Top Coat which had been giving me problems in the past with peeling but lately it's been working great!

So Cult Nails released a new collection this month called Let's Get Nekkid! Unfortunately, this is not the time for me to be buying new nail polish. Huge sad face. :( I especially have my eye on Toxic Seaweed which has flakes in it. So while I was whining about not being able to buy Toxic Seaweed I realized I do still have another flake from Cult Nails.

It's Iconic, a really pretty deep berry with golden shimmer and red flakes. A classic from their inaugural collection back in February 2011.

I should of warned that my nails are pretty short at the moment. I usually have really bad peeling problems in winter. So I have been needing to keep them cut back short. The only blessing I have is long nail beds!

In this photo there is a bit of a surprise color appearance in the bottle! The red flakes shift to a lime green too.

Here is a time when my nails were much longer. I wore this in March of last year. Took it while waiting at an intersection near my apartment in Zurich. I was on my way to the Geneva Car Show. Which btw is overrated and crowded.

And here I am at Lake Geneva...

Fourth of July Manicure

Happy Fourth of July to the American ladies home and abroad! This is my third 4th of July I've spent in Switzerland. I also officially moved to Zurich last year on the 4th. I've never really got to celebrate much year. The first year we grilled out the day before and I wore my flag t-shirt, the 2nd year we were at the Zurifest and watched a bizarre dragon boat firework show, this year I spent the evening alone but ate every usual thing I could. Chicken breast, corn on the cob, blueberry muffins, and coca cola. When I'm done writing this I'm breaking out the watermelon!

Here are the different polishes I used for my manicure.

Color Club - Art of Seduction, MNY 661, Milani - Ruby Jewels, Nivea - White, N.Y.C. White Lights Glitter

First, I used two coats of MNY 661 as the base color. Then I used two coats of N.Y.C White Lights Glitter. I did the glitter gradient with Color Club Art of Seduction. Lots of different coats of glitter for that. I think I had to paint it on at least five times for the gradient.

The flag on my thumb had a base coat of Milani - Ruby Jewels. I used a paint brush to create the rectangle with MNY 661, Sally Hansen nail art pen for the dots, and the Nivea White to make the stripes. Obviously it's not totally accurate, but it's a lot harder than it looks!

I love this shot of the manicure!

You can really see the between coat of N.Y.C. White Lights Glitter in these photos. Which is a lovely color btw. I'm going to need to use it again soon.

 

 Here is the right hand. It's got dented a bit on two nails since the glitter didn't dry to well.

What's your favorite way to celebrate the 4th? Or to celebrate your nation's important holiday? Swiss National Day is August 1st but it's pretty tame compared to American fourth of July.

One Year of Living in Switzerland

Hello ladies! Yesterday was my one year anniversary of moving to Switzerland. Decided to celebrate by painting some Swiss flags on my nails. I'm very surprised by how fast the year went by. I've been having a nice time in Zurich. It's a very fun city and very unique. But I'm starting to get antsy and I'm ready to move back to the USA in the fall.

I used two coats of China Glaze Ruby Deer (From 2010 Holiday Collection). It's a really pigment red jelly/creme finish. So pigmented that please ignore how terrible I painted around the cuticles. I tried cleaning it up with acetone but the red was just spreading out and staining everywhere and that looks terrible too.
The crosses I made with a white Sally Hansen nail art pen. I didn't do too bad with my left hand as you can see. But the right hand was a hot mess compared to this. This is the first time I've done free handed nail art.

And because I share even the crappy nail art job. Here is the result on my right hand. :(

Thanks for taking a look. Hope you liked my first attempt at nail art. Good thing the Swiss flag is easy to manage. Don't expect any American Flags for my 4th of July mani. haha. Have  a nice weekend.

Cult Nails - Quench with Special Guest Kiko 232

I'm back today with another Cult Nails polish. This time it's Quench a lovely blood red jelly. My favorite color is red so I'm very partial to red nail polish. Quench is so squishy and applied very nicely. This is probably my top red at the moment. I had a problem when I flooded the cuticle on my index finger. Totally my fault but almost impossible to clean up this type of red without staining everything. So sorry it's a bit stained around my cuticles. :(

I've acquired a lot of nail polish recently. I've been wanting to start trying layering over the different colors with Kiko 232. So that's exactly what I did by putting one coat over Quench. Kiko 232 is a white iridescent flaked glitter. Very lovely sparkle finish, but I'm not sure if I like it over red. I think it will look better over pastel colors.

Kiko nail polishes can only be found in Kiko Cosmetics stores in Italy, Spain, France, and Germany. They retail for 3.90 Euros. I wish they had a store in Switzerland.  Milan is about 3 hours away from Zurich and I really think a store like Kiko would thrive, but I guess they have their reasons.


As I said yesterday... Cult Nails polishes retail for $10 and shipping is reasonable. I messed around on the checkout to see shipping prices and for the US 1 polish to ship is $3 and 2-4 polishes were $5. For Europe shipping for 1 polish is $6 and 2-4 polishes are $8. The shipping prices make me happy since companies often overcharge you for shipping.

Maria has expressed that Cult Nails will have a few promos every once in awhile so if you would like to keep up to date with that you should sign up for Cult Nails email updates on the website's front page or keep up with Cult Nails' twitter.

Zoya - Gloria

I'm traveling back to Zurich Thursday afternoon. I had a nice month in the US, but I'm excited to be back home in Zurich. Hopefully, I'll get around to writing a post on Friday after I take a nap. :)

Zoya Gloria is from the Flame Collection. The Flame Collection was a set of 6 shades released by Zoya for Winter 2010. Gloria is a rosy red with bits of small gold micro glitter.

 

Gloria applied nicely in three coats. I really love the color. It's so unique and the gold micro glitter really looks amazing against the rosy red base color.

This is the first color from the Flame Collection I've worn so far. I have four other colors left. Anyone else  grab any colors from the Flame Collection?

Barielle - Elle's Spell

There are so many things wrong with the manicure I did using Barielle Elle's Spell. First off, my skin/cuticles are terribly dry. Second, I had a really hard time applying this and didn't really like it at first. Third the tip wear is terrible and this is only 12 hours after applying. Alight, now that was the bad, let's move on to the information and the good stuff about this polish.

Elle's Spell was released Winter of 2010 as part of Barielle's Holiday Hustle Collection. I was really excited for this polish when it was first released. It's a jelly red with orange-gold flakes. Red is my favorite color and with the combination of the flakes I thought the color was gorgeous.

It's pretty. But as I was applying all four coats I was really unsure if I loved it. The polish dragged and you can see that there are still bald patches at four coats. I'm glad I was patient to put four coats on because if I, didn't I would of taken it off within a hour. At three coats I thought it was the ugliest color ever, but with the fourth it switch to pretty. I'm doing to need to give Elle's Spell another try some other time. Maybe I was just having a rough time with my nails that day.

Hot or not?

Manhattan - Diamond Edition 45N & 610W

These polishes were released by Manhattan for Winter 2010 in a collection called Diamond Edition. The first one I'll show is 45N a red with a tinge of pink and tiny silver specks of glitter. I used two coats for this.

610W is a plum purple with fine silver glitter. I used two coats for this one too.

With Flash