NOTD: Catrice Mona Lisa is staring back + Essence Hey, Nude!

I hope you’re not too sick of my reviews I’ve been posting lately… the truth is, deadlines make things happen, if I don’t have a deadline, months can go by without me finding the time to post anything. And it’s not that I don’t want to, it’s the fact that it does take that much time. I used to have it as a student, I can imagine myself being a student again (not in the exam era though) and spending hours a day doing manicures, make up and blogging, gosh that would be really nice =) However I graduated and made my everyday full of obligations, I could lay on the couch every day after work but apparently I don’t really want to (ohhh, but the thought sounds soooo promising! =P). My manicures take the toll as well – I change them once a week and lose sleep (literally) because of it. Today’s manicure is no exception – I had no time to do the whole nail routine, so I just twisted up the one I had been wearing for 6 days…

So today I am showing you a polish that I bought myself, I finally found this one on the shelf of Mueller – ever since it was released, it kept being sold out in every store I went to… now it’s mine, Essence Sparkle Sand Effect in Hey, Nude! =) I’ve read it in reviews that it is sheer, so I thought this would be perfect to layer over my last manicure I showed you in my previous post – Catrice Mona Lisa is staring back. I left the accented nails with nail stickers untouched and here’s the result:

 
 
 
I wore this for 3 more days before taking it off. I was amazed at how well it stayed on my nails for the whole time! I had 1 layer of base polish Essie Nourish me, another layer of Essie Fill the gap (I don’t know exactly why I keep using the latter, I thought it was a ridge filler, it is and it isn’t, still figuring it out – but it bubbles like crazy, thankfully on the “inside” of the surface), then it was 3 layers of Catrice Mona Lisa is staring back, a layer of top coat Essie Good to go, and then another layer of Essence Hey, Nude! – 7 layers!!

I like this manicure a lot =) What do you think? =)

2D nail stickers review – ocena nalepk za nohte

Danes imam za vas pripravljeno oceno nalepk za nohte, ki sem jih dobila v oceno s spletne drogerije Moja Drogerija.

Today I have prepared for you a review of nail stickers I was sent from Slovenian internet store Moja Drogerija.

 
Nalepke za nohte rada dodam k nežni manikuri, po mojem mnenju lepo pašejo zraven =) Tokrat sem uporabila Catrice lak Mona Lisa is staring back, ki ga (žal) ne proizvajajo več. Gre za kožni lak, ki je precej prosojen, zato sem morala nanesti tri plasti, da sem dosegla dobro prekrivnost. Nalepko sem odlepila s podlage s pomočjo dobre pincete, da je nisem poškodovala, in jo previdno namestila na prstanec.

When it comes to nail stickers I love having a subtle manicure, I think they go along gorgeously =) For this mani I chose Catrice’s polish Mona Lisa is staring back, which has (sadly) been discontinued. It’s a nude polish that is not too opaque, I had to paint it in three layers to reach the desired opacity. I used a pair of good tweezers to gently remove the sticker from the packaging and carefully applied it to my ring finger.

 
 
Čeprav so nalepke označene kot 2D, so na nohtih rahlo 3D pred uporabo nadlaka. Z nadlakom sem nato nalepki na obeh rokah zavarovala pred predčasno odstranitvijo. Za popoln 2D efekt bi potrebovala še kakšno plast, vendar me grbinica, kjer je kamenček, ni motila. Je pa zanimivo, da je po nanosu nadlaka nalepka izgledala, kot da se je pogreznila v barvni lak.

Even though the stickers are called 2D, they were a little bit 3D until I used a top coat to protect them from getting off prematurely. I would probably have to use another coat to reach the true 2D effect, but the bump where the small rhinestone is didn’t bother me at all. What was interesting to me was that after the use of top coat the sticker looked as if it sunk into the colored polish.
 
 
Osebno imam rada takšne nalepke, ki so zelo diskretne, ampak krasen dodatek k nežni manikuri. Nosila sem ju 9 dni brez problema. Pri odstranjevanju sama uporaba odstranjevalca laka ni bila dovolj; ko se je plast nadlaka raztopila, sem ju morala odlepiti z nohta na enak način, kot sem ju nanesla. Zame so te nalepke čista desetka – krasne, ugodne, enostavne za uporabo in vzdržljive. Najdete jih tule.

I really like this kind of discrete stickers, they go along with a nude manicure perfectly. I wore them for 9 days without a problem. The use of polish remover alone did not suffice to remove them; when the top coat layer dissolved I had to peel them off in the same way I applied them. For me this stickers are a perfect ten – they look amazing, they are cheap, easy to use and durable. Slovenian readers can find them here.

NOTD – Catrice Coolibri C05 Virgin Forest + stickers + S-he stylezone 235 tape mani

Hy! Today I have something new to show, I’ve never done a tape manicure before and I decided to give it a try. Two days ago I painted my nails with a green Catrice Coolibri polish “C05 Virgin Forest”, I mattified my ring finger nails with Essence Soft touch top coat and then put some cheap nail stickers on that I bought in KIK (I used one pink and one brown flower). Here are the stickers, I used the ones on the left:

And here are my nails (the photos were taken indoors):

 

I didn’t like the way the edge of the sticker was showing. I had a dilemma, should I put another layer of top coat on (and which one, glossy or matte?) to hide the edges or just leave it as it is… I tried putting another layer of Soft touch on my right hand ring finger…

…but as it made such a little difference, I left my left hand the way it was. Later on I smoothed the edges of a sticker a bit and it is better, it doesn’t show as much as on the photos above – you’ll see later on.

The tips of my nails wore off very soon but as I didn’t want to take the green off just yet, I tried to hide that with a violet S-he stylezone polish number 235 and a tape manicure two days later :) For the top coat I used Essence Better than gel nails top sealer, it is my go to top polish at the moment.

Here’s how it all looks like in the end, one photo taken indoors and one in the sun:

 

I love the crisp lines the tape helps you get, I’m sure I’ll make some more tape manis in the future! How do you like it?