When I don't feel like doing my own nails...

...I just continue on some nail art tips! ;) Some things I want to try out on tips before I paint it on my own nails. Just to practice or just to see if the idea I have looks nice or not.

And this kind of flowers I wanted to create a long time. So I've been fiddling around with these flowers today and ended up with these two I really like!

Chances are that you'll see a nail art on my own nails with these kind of flowers very soon! ;)

 
 

#35 White hearts nail art: Valentine's Day Nail art #1

First of all, you might notice my nails are longer and all the same lenght. After a long time of thinking about doing gel/acrylic nails on my own nails I finally decided to apply tips on my nails. And maybe I will add gel/acrylic on top of it :) 

But for now, I made a nail art for valentines day. 

For this nail art I used the following polishes

If you feel inspired by this look and recreate it, I would love to see what you did! If you have instagram, just use the hashtag #dutchnailss and I will see your design! :D

I made a tutorial for this manicure. If you want to see exactly how I did this you can click right here and you'll go to my youtube channel.

Basic zebra nail art

Somedays I don't feel like doing any nail art on my nails, but I almost always end up doing some doodles or something like that. Just like today, I was removing my previous nail art and after that I applied a hardening base coat. Like I always do even when I don't plan on painting my nails. 

But for some reason, I decided to paint my nails all white. I find that just plain white nails look beautiful, fresh and clean. But I thought they missed something. So I grabbed my black acrylic paint and started drawing zebra stripes on the white base. 

And now I do have something on my nails, even when I didn't planned that at all! ;) And I really like the original zebra stripes, they look like I used nail stickers or something like that not like i've painted them on my nails myself ;)

Sadly it wasn't a really nice day today. Grey and a sky full of clouds. So I'm not very happy with the pictures, but I have no other choice.. ;) 

Have fun painting and creating, 

xoxo

Dutchnailss

#34 Diamonds are a girls best friend

I saw a nail art with a diamond a few weeks ago. And ever since that moment I wanted to create my own nail art with a diamond shape in it.

Not long after I saw the picture I was organizing my polishes: I bought a new small cabinet for my polishes that didn't fit on my 'special' polish shelf. And found a perfect combo of polishes. A gold glitter, a gold-ish magnetic polish and a green polish. I immediately thought of the diamond nail art. These colors would be perfect for this nail art! So when I had the time I tried it out. This was the first time I made a diamond like this. I'm not a 100% happy about the result but they still look cool ;)

 

The polishes I used for this nail art are listed below:

 

And I could not finish this blogpost without sharing the person who inspired me to do this nail art: The amazing talented Wannaknowasecret on IG. She makes amazing nail art and has beautiful nails! If you didn't knew her already, make sure you go check her out! ;)

If you are curious on how I made this nail art. Do not fear! I made a tutorial for this nail art! 
Just click this link and you will go directly to the tutorial! 

Have fun painting and creating,

xoxo

Dutchnailss

Swatches: Catrice Limited Edition - 'Celtica'

I did it again, I was shopping with my mom and walked past the shelf with the Catrice products. And the I saw that Catrice has a new limited edition collection: 'Celtica'

Four beautiful soft colors. Three of the four have a little sparke in the polish. With makes the colors very nice and beautiful.

I had to buy them (of course!) and in the right corner of the shelving I saw some little boxes. I wasn't sure if this was something for make-up or for nail art. So I picked it up and opened the little box. In it was a small container with 3d flakes. They looked amazing! I shoved the container back in the box and bought that too ;)

Back home I immediately wanted to swatch these b-e-a-u-ties! But I coudn't! So today, when I was back home from work I immediately started painting my nails and making pictures of them. So here they are!

A purple color, named 'Paralilac'. With some really small silver glitter flakes. Sadly those glitters don't show on the pictures I took of this polish. I really like this color, even though purple nailpolish always make my hands look even more pale and cold. This color doesn't do that so much. And the color is just classy and neat.

The second color, named 'Love, Peach&Harmony'. A salmon colored polish. Again with some glitter flakes in the polish. But gold glitters this time. I find this a beautiful polish for spring. Or for a cloudy day that needs some happiness ;)

A light purple/lilac color, named 'LOVEnder' With silver glitters. I also think this color makes my hands look pale. But either way, this is a beautiful soft color. I like it!  

 

Last color, named 'Pinkadoxa'. And I must say. I never thougt I would wear a bright pink polish on my nails. I'm not a big fan of the color pink, never been. But this color.. wow.. just.. AMAZING. I'm converted! I'm definitely going to wear more pink colors on my nails! :D 

I couldn't finish this post without showing you the beautiful nail flakes that are also of this limited collection. The Celtic nail flakes:

 

Look at those flakes! A pearl shine and all different shapes and sizes. I couldn't resist any longer and tried them out on my nails.

Just look at this! the pictures don't do the flakes justice, but trust me. They look stunning! I'm so happy I saw them at the last moment and decided to buy them! 

Have fun painting and creating,

xoxo

Dutchnailss  

#33 Tribal nail art

I know I did a tribal/aztec nail art not so long ago. But that was to practice and this is 'the real deal' ;) I liked the gold tribal a lot, I was really surprised to make it like that the first try. but I wanted to make another with different colors, not just one. 

The colors I used for this look were all of the Catrice Cucubana limited edition collection. Light pastel colors. 

In the tutorial I finished the look with a gel look top coat. 

 

And after I finished taking pictures of the shiny look, I changed the look with a matte top coat. 

 

For this look I used the following products:

If you feel inspired by this look and recreate it, I would love to see what you did! If you have instagram, just use the hashtag #dutchnailss and I will see your design! :D

I made a tutorial for this manicure. If you want to see exactly how I did this you can click right here and you'll go to my youtube channel.

Have fun painting and creating,

xoxo

Dutchnailss

First BestieTwinNails!

My first ever BestieTwinNails!

We made a Holographic gradient-tape-glitter nail art! Creatinails and I made some awesome nails! I'm not lying when I say I'm in love with the accent finger, those little glitters really make this look!

Products I use

Painting your nails isn't just applying nail polish and topcoating it. Especially when you want to do some nail art! And your hands and nails need care too! Nail polish remover with acetone can dry out your hands and nails so it's important you take care of your hands as well!
 

So I thought I'd share the products I use. This will be a two part blogpost. This first part will be about care products etc. and part two will be about the tools I use.

Basecoat

I have two base coats I use the most, both nail hardeners. Because my nails are extremely thin and break extremely fast (I'm not exaggerating!) My nails are so thin that I can easily bend the free edge! :\

The one I use right now is Sally handsens nail Nutrition. I use it before I apply nailpolish. I was always a bit sceptical about nail hardeners, I never believed it worked. But this one really does! I already can feel my nails are stronger!

The 'Essence studio nails ultra strong nail hardener' is also a nice nail hardener. I switch a lot between the two. It's not I like the one better than the other, it's more like which is closer when I want to paint my nails ;)

Top coat

Again. I use two different top coats. Both with a gel look effect. I use the Essence 'gel-look topcoat' the most. The Catrice 'Gel like top coat' doesn't give the shine the essence one does. 

Removers

I own two different kind of nail polish removers (again two different ones!) The first one(left), I use to remove my nail art off my nails. The second one(right) I use to remove excess nailpolish on my skin with a little paintbrush. 

Cuticle cream

I bought this cuticle cream a few weeks ago. And I think many of you know this one: Lush
'Lemony Flutter'. A delicious smelling cream. It's a really good cream if you have dry hands/cuticles like I do. 

It's a rich and nourishing cream which absorbs quickly and leaves a heavenly smell!

I apply a little bit on my cuticle and rub it in. After that I use my hand cream(look below)

Hand cream

Essence 'gel nails at home' is a recommended hand cream if you can't sit still waiting for the cream to absorb.
I can't sit still and do nothing, I can't wait on something while I can't use my hands. So when I bought and tried this handcream, I was super happy! This handcream isn't greasy, absorbs fast and leaves your hands soft!

This Essence hand cream and the Lush Lemony Flutter make a perfect combination!     

These are the products I always use before and after I make nail art! If you think you have a better base coat or something else, let me know! I'm willing to try different products! :D

Have fun painting and creating

xoxo

Dutchnailss 

Blog goals for 2014!

I'm a regular user of Instagram. When I don't post any pictures myself I browse through pictures of other people. Just like I did this evening. The first picture I saw was a list with goals for her blog in 2014.

I got inspired to make my own list of goals I wanted to accomplish this year on my blog. Capitalpolish, the person I saw this original post, had six goals. When I saw her list I was like 'How hard can it be, just think of some goals, and try to reach those goals' Well... thinking of goals was already hard for me! But i've got four goals. 

Goal #1 Find a way to make better pictures
I photograph my nails with my Canon camera. I also have a cheap lightbox to make pictures of the polishes and tools I use. But when I want to make photos of my hand/nails, the lightbox is just to clumsy and I can't get a relaxed and beautiful hand pose.
So when I make photos of my hand/nails, I place my camera on my windowsill and use autofocus. But with this method I find the handpose is nice, but the light is just not right. 
I also want to buy a better lens for the camera, to make more macro shots. 

Goal #2 Start swatching/reviewing Indies
I've always admired people who make their own nail polishes and while I don't own any indie polishes, I think it's time to change that ;) 
If you make Indie polishes and you want me to swatch them, just contact me.

Goal #3 Swatch and show my stash
The first polishes I swatched were the 'Superheroes' polishes of Essence. And I must say, before I swatched these, I never thought I would like swatching polishes this much. I saw a lot of swatches pass on my Instagram feed. But I never saw the point of those. Don't know why. But I find it's a lot of fun to swatch polishes, because they almost always look a bit different on your nails than in the bottle. 

And finally Goal #4 Minimal of two post per week on my blog
The idea for this goal is that no matter what, I will post at least on tutorial and one other blogpost on here every week. Oh lord. I think this one is going to be the toughest of all. But on the other hand, I am going to swatch a lot more ;) So we will see! 

Have fun painting and creating

xoxo

Dutchnailss

Swatches: Essence Superheroes collection

The Essence Superheroes polishes originally consist of six different polishes: a thermo, a sand effect, a oil effect, a liquid gold and galaxy flakes. I only bought four of the six. I didn't like the galaxy flakes that much and the sand effect was already sold out I think because I didn't saw that one in the store.

In the store the 'Oil slick effect' and the 'Holo effect' were the ones that cought my eye. They both look goregous! But the 'liquid gold' has also a beautiful shine! And the 'Thermo effect' is the first thermo I own, I'm not really happy with the colors because purple makes my hands look very white and cold. And I never really liked the color pink. But the effect this polish gives is very nice. 

Two coats of Super, man! 

Three thin coats of 'Wonder wow! Man!'

Two thin coats of 'Power girl'

Three coats of 'Fantastic girl' Puple when cold.

Three coats of 'Fantastic girl' Pink when hot.