[REVIEW] Garra rufa fish spa and paraffin hand bath treatments

Last month was my birthday, and one of my presents was a fish spa treatment and a paraffin hand bath. I never experienced it before, so I was very excited about it.

My bestie and I first tried to find a place nearby that offers said treatment, and once we did, we immediately made an appointment. We were lucky to get an appointment on the same day. And because of the excitement I forgot to take my camera with me, so I made a few photos with my mobile. So please excuse the low quality.

[REVIEW] Born Pretty Store Born Pretty 16-25 stamping plates set

In my previous post I wrote about the mail I received that included the two sets of stamping plates from Born Pretty Store. Today I'll be showing you the second set, which includes the plates BP-16 to BP-25.

And just like the previous post, the photos will be of the designs stamped on a piece of paper.

[REVIEW] Born Pretty Store Born Pretty 11-15 stamping plates set

Today was mail day it seems. Which I love when there's no official mail but only the fun kind. I was excited to get my new Born Pretty plates. They launched their second line of stamping plates, divided into two sets (of 5 and 10 plates, both of which I bought) and today I'll show you the first set, which are the plates BP11 to BP15.

I won't be posting photos of the plates themselves, but I stamped the images on a piece of paper, which gives a better idea about the images.

Yeah, not a good image. I know.

Halloween skittle nails

Happy Halloween, everyone!

I't's been a while since I posted anything, mainly because life happened and I was feeling a bit uninspired. But today I finally have something to share.

While I don't celebrate Halloween myself, I love all the decorations I see around, and the costumes people come up with. And I absolutely adore the nail art creations I see around. People are so talented!

So here is my take on Halloween nails. I hope you like it!

Glitters. A lot of glitters.

I'm back! A little explanation of why I haven't been posting for so long. I had exams, and I needed to fully concentrate on them. So my blog and everything nice had to be put on hold for a while. And after the exams I got busy with life, and my cuticles were in a horrible shape because I ran out of Lemony Flutter! But now I'm here, my cuticles are healthy again because I have a new pot of Lemony Flutter and I'm using it on a daily basis. Still don't have the results to my exams, but there's nothing I can do about that other than waiting.

Now, onto the nail art. One day I was bored and decided to play around with the pot of glitters that I bought. Let me tell you one thing: glitters are MESSY! But also fun, if you don't mind having your whole apartment be glittery for weeks.

[Review] Essence My Skin facial products for combination skin

About a month ago I received a surprise package from Essence. A while back I had entered a draw for testing the new My Skin products, and I had completely forgotten about it when the mail man came over to deliver me the package. You can imagine my surprise and excitement when I read "Cosnova" on the side of the box, because let's face it, I'm not one to be that lucky to be randomly picked in a draw.

I was supposed to submit my opinion about these products through a special questionnaire, but life happened and I missed the deadline. And so I decided to make a blog post about my experience with the products I received.

World Cup Nail Art - The Netherlands

Hi everyone, sorry I have been absent for a while. My modem broke and the only way of keeping in touch with the outside world for me was my mobile phone, and I needed to keep my limited data in check until I got my new modem from the internet provider. I am now back online with a new shiny modem! And I have a few posts prepared for you for the upcoming weeks.

Almost everyone around the world is following the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brasil. Nail artists have been showing their creations since the beginning of this world-wide event. Some creating designs to celebrate the World Cup as a whole, and others in support of their national teams.

I, as well, have decided to show my support of our national team: The Netherlands.

[video] Sunflower Water Decals from Born Pretty Store

I've never made a tutorial video in my whole life before, but I'm always fascinated by those I watch on youtube. And when I decided to use my sunflower water decals I bought from the Born Pretty Store, I decided to make a video tutorial of it.

A blast from the past

I decided to share some nail art that I had done on several occasions in the past, before I had started this blog. There's not much to say about them, I don't even remember which brand of polishes I used on each design. The inspiration to those designs come from several sources, but mainly Pinterest. I hope you'll enjoy.

Mani swap: The Joker

So a few days ago my friend and I decided to do a mani swap, and after a random color selection, the theme we chose was The Joker (from DC comics). The main point was to use purple and green, and have The Joker as the theme (is it just me or did that just rhyme?) And here is what each of us came up with.

Left: Semichan. Right: me

Nail Art inspired by fashion

I grew up with fashion (my mother, and both grandmothers are seamstresses) and for as I long as I can remember, I always get inspiration from either clothing designs or fabrics. A while ago I saw a photo on Facebook and I decided to put the dress on my nails.

The Neverending Pile Challenge - Discontinued - #TGPNPC

Taking part in nail polish or nail art challenges is something I would love to do more often, but because life happens, I don't have the time to do them all. And so, I only do them when I get the chance (and when I know I can deliver the mani -more or less- on time). On the facebook group the GLITTAH pirates, I came across this week's challenge which is called "discontinued". And I thought, I still have the time, and I have a couple of discontinued polishes, so why the hell not? It's not like the neighbors are letting me study today, so here it goes.

Review: Nail stickers from Born Pretty Store

A while ago I won a Tumblr giveaway hosted by Born Pretty Store, and the prize was 20 nail stickers. I was so excited about it, because I have never won a giveaway before! I was even happier when I received my prize (a bit disappointed that it was only 12 nail stickers instead of the promised 20, but oh well). I immediately got confused about which one to use first! I wanted to use all of them at once! Alas, I don't have that many hands. For a nail art enthusiast, that's a disadvantage :)

Anyway, here's a photo of the stickers that I received.

Facebook Giveaway! [CLOSED]

I have been thinking about organizing a small giveaway for my Facebook followers after I hit the 1000 likes. And finally, I managed to do it!

Stamping decal nail art

Making decals using nail art stamping is becoming more and more popular these days. And I'm enjoying that very much. Today I have a simple nail art to share, which includes stamping and coloring the design before putting it on my nails.

70's inspired water marble nail art

The other day I wanted to do some water marbling, and while I was trying to decide on the colors, for some unknown reason I was thinking "70's". Simply 70's and nothing else. And that was when the color pattern came to my mind, and this water marble was born.

King's Day (Koningsdag) nail art

Up until last year, people in the Netherlands used to celebrate Queen's Day on April 30th every year. But last year we got a king, and starting this year we will be celebrating King's day instead, and it will be on 26th of April.

It's a huge celebration for the Netherlands, and the whole country dresses up in orange. There's parties, and concerts everywhere. And people set up street markets to sell old items from their household. If you go to the markets in time, you may score some awesome stuff at a very cheap price!

And of course, as a nail art enthusiast, you just can't not have a tiny celebration on your own nails. Here's what I did..

Easter skittlette

Happy Easter, everyone! I entered a giveaway contest on Facebook, and the theme was "Easter Nails". I didn't win (come on, I only win at life :D) but I do want to share my nail art here.

Review - Etos nail polish remover in a pot

Polish removers in a pot are a favorite of a lot of nail art enthusiasts. Myself included. Having to remove a thick layer of nail polish using the usual cotton pad and polish remover can get frustrating when you just rub the cotton over your nails and it just doesn't want to come off! But since I discovered the polish removers in a pot, I have been hooked. I used to have a different brand that started coloring my fingers and I had to clean my hands with acetone after just to get the color off. So it was time to get a new one, and because I knew I wasn't going to get me the same brand again, I was looking elsewhere, and that was when I discovered the nail polish remover from Etos* that I will be showing you today.

Review - Born Pretty Store watches

A couple of weeks ago I received my order from Born Pretty Store. This time it wasn't a nail art related order, but two watches. My friend and I have been needing watches for a while now, and it's just not appropriate or even convenient to take out your phone quite often to check the time. And after not being able to find anything that we liked at stores for over a year (yep, it takes us both that long to find something we really like when it's about a specific kind of item), we thought looking through Born Pretty Store is a good idea to find something affordable and good looking. We ended up buying these two:

I really liked both watches, and so I decided to write a short review about them.

Gradient nail art with stamping

So the other day I ordered a couple of image plates from Dashica, and I have been playing around with them ever since. The image plates are from their line called Infinity Nails. They come with different designs, and I chose two that I liked most for a first time order (I liked the whole collection, but I had to be cautious about my budget at the time.)

So let me show you what I did with the plates I have.

I started with making a gradient using make-up sponges that I bought from the Born Pretty store. Usually when I'm doing gradients I use nail polish, and after I'm done I cut the sponge so I would have a polish-free surface to work with the next time I want to do a gradient. This time I had a different idea. I used acrylic paint! It works much nicer than nail polish, and after I'm done I simply washed the sponge without having to cut it. This way I could use the same sponge for a long time instead of basically throwing a piece of it away after every use.

Swatches and review - Miss Sporty special effect polishes

A while ago when I was shopping in the city center, I randomly decided to go to Etos, one of the drugstores we have in the Netherlands. To my surprise, the Miss Sporty polishes were on sale, so I decided to check them out, and ended up buying three bottles that caught my attention. And today I'll be reviewing them.

A budget-proof way of fixing a chipped nail

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a chip on my nail, on my non-dominant hand, aka the hand that goes into my photos! It was so close to the edge of my nail bed. Had it broken, it would've been very painful and bloody. In the beginning I didn't do anything because I had nothing at hand to save it, and there was no way I was going to cut my nails that short. When my nails are short, I start biting them. I barely keep myself from doing it now thanks to the length and nail art.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand. A chipped nail. Any nail art lover's worst nightmare. To some people it's just a broken nail, but for us it's also a broken heart, broken spirit, and lots of tears. When I was younger, I used to see how my aunt used to cry whenever she broke one of her nails. And all I thought (I was a 6 y/o kid) was "wow.. all that crying for a nail?" it just baffled me. And nowadays I completely understand what my aunt used to feel.

So, without more back-stories, here's what I did to fix my nail using a very budget-proof method.

Review - Essence Magnetic Top Coat

Magnetic nail polishes were very popular when they first came out. A completely new hype of using a special nail polish and magnet together to get interesting designs on your nails. Essence had magnetic polishes for a few years now, they also had magnets, and the latest magnetic gadget was the magnetic pen, which I think came out last year.

But there's so much you can do with a specific set of magnetic colors. What about the other nail polishes that you have? That one favorite shade that you own and try to use in every nail art design possible, because it's just awesome? One of the new products Essence came up with lately is the magnetic top coat. And I couldn't be more happier about it. When the drugstore in my city finally had this top coat on the Essence shelf, I bought it without giving it a second thought. I wanted to test it, and I wanted to use it on my own set of polishes.

Chevron nails tutorial (pictorial) -picture heavy-

Today I have a photo tutorial for you. Or as more commonly known: a pictorial.

I love chevron nail designs, and I find myself quite often browsing through google images and pinterest looking through the different designs that people come up with using the simple zig-zag lines. At the end of last year I bought me craft scissors to make decals myself, but because I discovered it doesn't cut through plastic, I put it aside and tried to find pre-made chevron stickers. No success with that. There’s only one seller on ebay who sells it at an affordable price, but they don’t ship to the Netherlands. So I just gave up.

The other day I was testing a new stamping plate (a review of that will come soon), and I did the testing by painting small rectangles on a piece of paper covered with scotch tape. The next day I pick up one of the polish rectangles, and I think of testing the craft scissors on it, and it worked! So today I made my chevron decals and I must say I am so happy about it that I decided to make it into a tutorial. 

Melting jeans colored nail art

I haven't posted for a while simply because I have a cracked nail and I'm trying to fix it before it breaks. I will make a separate post about that once I get it patched properly.

As for this post, last week I bought the jeans sugar polish from Essence and wanted to try it out in combination with my other jeans colored polish from Catrice.

I must apologize for the quality of the photos. My tripod broke when I wanted to take photos, and so I took photos without it, thus resulting in some pixelation because I don't use flash and it was a cloudy day.

Metallic taping nail art

A couple of days ago I did the Nail Polish Challenge group's theme "metallic taping", and while I thought there was going to be a lot of silver, I ended up with pink, and kept it simple. And today I decided to share here as well.

St. Patrick's Day nail art

Happy St. Paddy's day to everyone who celebrates it! While I don't celebrate it because it's not my culture, but I have friends who do. So I decided to do a nail art dedicated to this occasion.

Stamping nail art using Born Pretty Store stamping plate #M83

In a previous post I mentioned that I have received the Born Pretty Store stamping plate numbered M83. My favorite pattern of it was the wallpaper looking one, and a couple of days ago I decided to use it in a full two-hands nail art (I had an appointment yesterday, so I kind of had to have matching nails on both hands lol)

Review - Flormar Light Summer nail polish

On the 10th of March I finally managed to do something for the Nail Polish Challenge group that I'm a member of. The day's theme was "What was your last polish purchased?", and so I dug out the latest polishes that I bought. To my surprise (and a bit of pride at my self-control, as well) the last I had bought a new polish was in January when I went to Amsterdam to watch the NT Live production of Coriolanus (which was amazing, by the way).

So while in Amsterdam, I wanted to go to Flormar, a cosmetics company that opened a branch in the city center not long ago. I've read about it from a few Dutch beauty bloggers, and I wanted to see it for myself. After keeping myself from drooling over their nail polish collection, I decided to pick up two colors -that I didn't already own- to test.

Review - Etude House Baking Powder BB Deep Cleansing Foam

While this blog is exclusively nail art oriented, I couldn't pass the chance to share an amazing discovery for me. The Etude House Baking Powder BB Deep Cleansing Foam. Yes, you read that right, baking powder.

I got a sample pack from my bestie after she came back from a visit to Seoul, South Korea. At first I was confused about the baking powder part, but I was hooked after the first time of using it.

American Football themed nail art - Enschede Broncos

My cousin plays American Football at one of the local clubs around here, called Enschede Broncos. Today they are having a home game against another local team. In a way to show my support, I decided to make football themed nail art, using something from the team logo. In this case, it was the horse.

Born Pretty Store stamping plate #M83

Today I have a new Born Pretty Store stamping plate to show. I loved the designs when I saw them on the website, and I loved them even more after stamping them on my nails!

Born Pretty Store stamping plate #M83

Nail art inspired by fashion - Céline Spring 2014 Runway Show

This time my inspiration came from the Céline Spring 2014 Runway Show at the Paris Fashion Week. A lovely blue background with red brush strokes. Or at least, I think it's brush strokes. It looked so beautiful that I decided to try it out.

Striping nail art using non dominant hand

What do you do when you’re the kind of person who wants to try a certain nail polish and already have your non dominant hand already painted? Yep. Paint your dominant hand.

If you’re skilled at painting your nails on both hands flawlessly, I congratulate you. I often fail at achieving a similar look on both hands. My non-dominant hand is so shaky that I barely get anything done with it. And when I do, it’s a miracle!

Just like today’s nail art, which I have done using my non-dominant hand. It’s a miracle!

without top coat

Nail art inspired by fashion - Tommy Hilfiger's Spring 2014 collection

I love browsing through photos of fashion inspired nail art. So, yesterday after I was done studying for the day, I went on an inspiration hunt. And ended up with a nice and simple dress from Tommy Hilfiger's Spring 2014 collection.

Born Pretty Store stamping plate #QA61

One day I was just browsing at the Born Pretty Store, and I came across the stamping image plate that instantly captured my attention. That usually never happens. I have to go through reviews and swatches before I decide to buy something, but this one was an eye-catcher. And I just had to have it. So much for just browsing, right?

The plate, just as any other stamping plate, comes with a blue plastic cover which you need to remove before you start stamping.

image plate with protective foil on

Essence Superheroes LE - 06 The Awesome

Nothing like a nice glitter polish to make any nail polish lover's day seem brighter. When I first saw this polish in the preview posts of several bloggers, I decided that I need to have that in my collection. I had no idea how it would look on my nails, but the preview press sample pictures looked promising.

The Superheroes trend edition from Essence is long gone, and replaced by others quite a few times by now. But every now and then I see a post about one of the polishes from the collection (which I had a hard time finding, by the way. It was always sold out! In several cities!)

Here's the one I have tried on today: 06 The Awesome

A new blog is born

Hello world!

Not that the world would be reading any of this at the moment, but a first post is obligatory, right?

My name is Lena, and I'm happy to share my journey in the magnificent world of nail art with anyone who would stumble upon my blog.

I will be posting mainly about nail art that I have done in the past, and also new ones to come; and sometimes reviews or swatches of nail polishes I own. And while the internet is full of wonderful nail art, swatches, and reviews made by bloggers and/or professional nail technicians, I'm hoping to be able to contribute to it all with my own perspective of things.

As a certain someone from a certain blue box once said: allons-y!