NOTD: Essence Unexpected galaxy & Cotton candy mummy tape mani

Hy to all! :)

Today’s manicure is all about the new Essence Colour and change polish number 04 Unexpected galaxy. I’ve seen swatches with added top coat, but I wanted to do something different. I wanted glitter on it too! :)

I chose to use clear top coat on some fingers and Essence Circus Circus 04 Cotton candy pink glitter on others. I followed the Nailside’s tutorial on mummy tape mani (click), and here are the photos!

The Cotton candy glittery polish on violet base color turned out purplish with pink glitter which I like. :)

I actually started doing my right hand first. After trying and ruining two nails with an ordinary tape (the base color stuck to it a bit when I took the tape off) I used a different tape, the one you get in pharmacies as a bandage, and it worked beautifully. Here is my right hand (and on the second photo you can see the peeled off polish on my last two fingers – I left it the way it was because it is not that noticeable in real life and I really didn’t want to do it all over again):

I don’t know if you can see, I played with colors on the left and the right hand (left has mainly clear top coat, only the ring finger has pink, and the right hand has the opposite):

Just some more photos with flash :) :

 

Overall I really like the color of this Galaxy polish and I really like the contrast between the shades it gives with top coat, plus it is a one coater. What I don’t like is that it is quite thick in my opinion, and it dries for quite some time. I know that this mani is not perfect, but I am pleased with it, I wanted to play with polishes and I did. ^ ^ That’s what mattered to me the most today, to just enjoy in polishes. :)

Do you own any of these new “colour and change” polishes? Have you tried anything similar?

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?