Meet my little nephew (and niece)

On September 14th around 6am, my sister gave birth to the cutest little boy! His name is Ruben and he's so handsome.
And not only am I his aunt, but I'm also proud to be his godmother!

So I had to do a little manicure.
Here it is:

Lastly, a picture of him and his big sister Lauren, who will be 3 on the 30th.

Aaawwww... So adorable!
Have to go visit them again soon.


Sorry, I haven't been posting lately, just haven't gotten around to it. Sorry Magali lol.
Just took a bunch of pictures so there's gonna be another post soon, I promise!


Have a nice weekend!


x
Tanja

Haul: Nail polish shopped in Cardiff

Just got back from a trip to Cardiff a couple of days ago. While I was there I picked up a couple nail polishes. After recieving my Models Own polishes, I definitely wanted to try more of them, so I went to Boots to have a look. Unfortunately they didn't have all the colours in stock so only picked up 2 colours. Magenta Pearl and Purple Mystique. I love these colours! They were a bit more sheer than the cremes so I applied 3 coats to get them nice and even.

Models Own - Magenta Pearl

Magenta Pearl (3 coats, no topcoat, flash)

Models Own - Purple Mystique

Purple Mystique (3 coats, with topcoat, flash)

With that purchase I recieved a £5 off voucher for the N°7 and Ruby & Millie line. So before going home, I made quick stop at Boots. I wanted a nail polish that didn't look like anything I already had and Night Silver from N°7 caught my eye. It's a very dark silver, gunmetal kind of colour. Looks darker in person than on the photos (due to flash).

N°7 - Night Silver

Night Silver (2 coats, no topcoat, flash)

Lastly, I went looking for Mushroom from Barry M. After I heard Lollipop26 (check out her youtube channel here and blog here) talk about it, I decided I had to have it lol. She compaired it to Essie's Mink Muffs and Chanel's Particulière in this blog post.

Again, this colour looks alot lighter in the pictures because of the flash. Also took a picture with artificial lighting.

Barry M - Mushroom

Mushroom (2 coats, no topcoat, flash)

Artificial light

When I saw it in person, I thought it would look alot like a polish from Catrice I already had. But when I compared them, they looked less similar then I thought they would. I also compaired it to Models Own's Nude Beige. Nude Beige is alot lighter and From Dusk To Dawn from Catrice is more of a taupe.

From left to right:

Catrice - From Dusk To Dawn, Barry M - Mushroom, Models Own - Nude Beige

(2 coats, no topcoat, artificial light)

That's it for today. I'll be posting my make up haul soon!



Have a nice weekend!


x
Tanja

Haul: Models Own Sale

A while ago I posted about the 50% off sale Models Own was having for their Facebook fans. I obviously couldn't pass on that offer and placed an order a couple hours after the sale went live. I know from reading the comments on their facebook wall that a lot of people had problems with their orders. Mine went through after trying a couple times so I'm not complaining. I also noticed that they replied to comments and questions very quickly, especially considering how busy it was. So I think their customus service is excellent!

My Models Own goodies arrived last friday, a week after I placed my order (I live in Belgium). Everything arrived in one piece so I'm a very happy customer :)

I always find it difficult to get a good idea of what the colour of a certain product looks like in person from the pictures you see online. So before I ordered I searched for nail polish swatches. I chose colours that I didn't already have and hadn't seen in drugstores here in Belgium. Also added a white and a black cause the ones I have need like a million coats to get them opaque.

So here are the things I got:

Polishes from left to right (5 cremes and 5 glitters):
- Snow White
- Peach Sherbet 
- Nude Beige 
- Purple Grey
- Black Magic 
- Mixed Up
- Disco Mix
- Purple Haze
- Magenta Divine
- Silver Spangle

- Black + Purple Sparkle Powder Eyeshadow
- Natural Curl Lash

Close up picture of the eye shadow:

Blurred to show purple sparkle

Close up of the lashes:

They are called Natural Lash and when I saw the picture on the website they did look the most natural of the ones they had, thats why I got them. But they are very very long, which is actually a good thing cause I have a couple pair of false lashes that look similar but they aren't this long. They'll look great with dramatic eye makeup.



I swatched the nail polishes and tried to get the colours as accurate as possible. All swatches are 3 coats, but only Snow White and Peach Sherbert (looks more yellow on the pictures, more peach in person) really needed 3. Really happy with the glitter polishes too. Bought them to put on top of other polishes and the glitter looks really nice with one coat.
Polishes in same order as above:

Blurred so you can see the glitter better. So sparkly!

Natural light

I can't wait to try each one on my nails and use the glitters over different polishes. I'll be posting more swatches of each polish on my nails and different combinations with the glitter polishes.

I'm going to Wales for a couple days on thursday and I'll definitely check out Models Own's other products and I look forward to seeing their full range of polishes in person and possibly pick up a couple more of them.

Definitely check out there website here and thanks again to Models Own for this amazing sale!



x
Tanja

Nailart: Pokemon, gotta catch em all!

Sometimes when I'm bored and don't know what I'll put on my nails next I just ask a friend, boy or girl, doesn't matter. So that's what I did the other day. I asked Chris (who insisted on mentioning his name lol) and he said Pokemon. First I was like meh, I'm not really a Pokemon fan... But I figured it would be fun so I went ahead and painted some Pokemon on my nails. And these are pretty much the only ones I know lol (cause my little brother used to watch it quite often).

So here they are:

I used a bunch of different colours but mostly Catrice polishes. The background is a polish I made with MAC's Blue Brown pigment. I originally wanted to have a white background, but I had just painted my nails and the only white nail polish I have needs like 4 or 5 coats to get it opaque so I couldnt be bothered to do that first.

I actually had fun doing these. And I thought Pikachu was gonna be the easiest, but actually turned out to be my least favorite. Anyone got any request or ideas for what I should paint on them next?

Hope you enjoyed!


x
Tanja

Experiment: Orly Bonder + INM topcoat: final results

I came home from my exam today and the first thing I did was take off this mess lol

As you can see, the polish had started chipping and peeling. And when I see the polish coming off on the sides, I have to peel it off. I just cant help myself.The polish on my right thumb nail came off in one bit, but that was actually because the patch I had underneath was coming off. 
I have to say though, the polish actually looked like the updated pictures untill yesterday morning. , so morning of day 7. Now, I'd normally never wear a certain polish for 8 days like I did for this experiment, so I'm really happy with the results. It looked fine for a good 6 days. And if I had applied another coat of the topcoat every other day, it might have even lasted longer. And perhaps a higher quality polish would have done better too. the Catrice polishes are pretty cheap but I do like them and think the quality is great for the price.

Conclusion: I personally really like how the Orly Bonder and the INM topcoat worked together. They weren't expensive and I'll definitely repurchase when I run out of them.

Over time I might try other top and base coats just to see if theres anything I like better. I used to have the Seche Vite which I really liked, but since I didn't paint my nails as much then as I do now, It became all thick and goopy before I got the chance to finish the bottle. And at that time, I had actually never heard of nail polish thinners lol, so I threw it away. Might try it again after I'm done with the INM topcoat.


If you haven't tried any of these polishes before and you find them for a decent price, I'd say definitely give them a chance. I hope this experiment was somewhat useful lol.

So have you had better results with other top and base coats? What are you favorites?



Thanks for stopping by!

Giveaways!!

Alot of the blogs I follow seem to be having giveaways lately. And who wouldn't want to recieve a package full of great prizes?


So check out these awesome blogs!!

Nailstah

Open internationally till September 7, 11:59pm PST

Enamel Girl

Open internationally till September 9th, 8pm US Central Time.

Hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do!
 
 
 
x
Tanja

Experiment: Orly + INM: update

It's been 4 days since I painted my nails and started this little experiment. So here's a little update.
I took these pics a couple minutes ago.

As you can see, the polish has worn off a bit on the tips, which you can only really see from up close. Other than that it looks fine. I'm really happy with the results so far, cause usually my nail polish starts peeling or chipping after 2 or 3 days. So I guess the Orly Bonder is doing its job!

That's it for now. I'll be busy studying this weekend so I might not be able to post anything, but I'll defintely be back on tuesday evening with the final results of this experiment.

So have you ever tried one or both of these products? Did you like them? What's your favorite base coat and top coat?


Have a nice weekend!



x
Tanja