Water marbling

Written by Elisabeth on February 21, 2010 – 18:23 -

After an incredibly long blogger-hiatus I thought I needed a manicure with both some ooomph and pizzazz to re-enter with. It was either that or abandon this blog project all together.

This is my very first take on water marbling. I was inspired by CucumPear’s awesome water marbling in greenand after having watched about seven videos off youtube about the bothersome art of water marbling I decided to follow CucumPear’s example and start off with painting my nails in the base colour and then marble on top of that.

I thought this was way easier than I had imagined it to be, and cleanup was ok - I just used a cotton bud soaked in polish remover that I held in a pair of tweezers and a q-tip for the details.

For a first try I must say that I am immensly pleased with the result!


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No China Glaze today…

Written by Elisabeth on July 24, 2009 – 10:08 -

…or Seche Vite.

It has come to my attention that the American International Industries (AII)no longer wants their products to be shipped from e-tailers outside the US. And since Norway is firmly placed outside the US these news are unwelcome to say the least.

I have tried to use my google-skills to find out why they have stopped all e-sales but I either my skills are not good enough or they have not given a reason - it’s not like they have to if they don’t want to. The only reason that have come up as plausible through speculation is that they want to charge European prices through retailers. Which sucks as most of these brands are not readily available in Norway and the place that does sell China Glaze in Oslo (Kicks) do not have a full catalogue nor do they get new collections fast. And to boot the price pr bottle is more than $20! And not a bottle of Seche Vite in sight anywhere in Norway!

To me this equals somewhat of a catastrophe. Some might think this is overreacting, but bear with me - nail polish is after all a major hobby of mine, and it’s not an interest that gets funnier or more exciting by having to hunt down common brands and then pay through the nose for them on evilbay. Money spent that could have gone directly into the pockets of AII, so to me this makes no business-sense what so ever.

Boo boo on AII!


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NOTD - Orly Mint Mojito

Written by Elisabeth on July 19, 2009 – 19:23 -

Well, this is actually yesterdays NOTD. I was inspired by the sudden burst of summer (In  Norway we are always a bit shocked and overjoyed whenever we have actual summery weather during the summer months. It’s hard to live in the North…)

Recently I saw some pictures of MAC’s Peppermint Patti and my lemming for that particular colour came back in full strength. I had bought Orly’s Mint Mojito because it’s rumoured to look pretty much the same, but after comparing my nails to online pictures I think Mint Mojito is way greener. A pretty colour, but greener.

To make it even more summery and festive I put on some hearts and shimmer from a polish I bought on vacation in Japan. I think it looks great, but now that I have removed the polish I can see that my nails are severely discoloured where the hearts were. My nails look like I’ve been a heavy smoker for 40 years or something. I don’t even smoke!

Mint Mojito had great wear on me, I removed it today because I was bored of it not because it had chipped or anything, and I’v had in on since Wednesday. I have noticed thought that all my polishes seem to get better wear after I started using OPI’s Nail Envy under my regular base coat.


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NOTD - OMG! I’m Indi-a mood for love

Written by Elisabeth on July 15, 2009 – 20:19 -

OPI’s Indi-a mood for love is supposedly a dead on dupe for the pink in MAC’s limited edition Hello Kitty collection. Arguably, Indi-a mood for love does not have Hello Kitty on it, but it has a great formula and if you really really want Kitty on the bottle you can always slap a kawaii sticker on there!

For the konadicure part of this I used China Glaze OMG! I think it was a nice effect even if it was a bit more subtle than I had imagined it to be inside my head. But people have complimented this manicure so I guess it shows off enough.

I’m also beginning to be happy with the shape of my nails. I think they need a bit more work before I’ll be completely satisfied, but I’m on my way. I haven’t had long nails for a few years so it takes some getting used to.



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NOTD - Nubar - Forest

Written by Elisabeth on July 11, 2009 – 10:52 -

The green-loving international nail polish community went into some sort of frenzy when Nubar announced that they were launching a collection consisting of nothing but greens. I am amongst those who feel that green polish is the ultimate and was lucky enough to get my fingers on this collection earlier this week.

I started with Forest - a green creme. The photo on the left is tweaked a bit in photoshop and is an accurate picture of how this polish looks on me. I find it so incredibly stunning and if I had to keep only one of my numerous greens it would be this one. It has even killed off my lemming for the legendary NARS zulu polish that was discontinued years ago. Zulu is way more blackened than Forest so this is no dupe or anything, but I’m staring at my nails now and am feeling so happy that there is no more room for a green lemming. Not to say that it might resurface again at some point in time - but for now I’m perfectly sated.

The rest of the colours in this collection are totally stunning as well, and I recommend taking a look at them at Scrangie’s blog.


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NOTD - Nfu-oh 54 - Matte version

Written by Elisabeth on July 8, 2009 – 16:46 -

A couple of days ago I tested my flakie polish nfu-oh 53 on top of a black base. The nfu-flakies are so beautiful and change all the time depending on how the light hits. Yesterday I put on some Orly Matte Top, a top coat designed to give polishes a matte satiny effect.

I must say the effect was most satisfactory, and I actually preferred it to the original with a coat of Seche Vite. The matte finish made my nails look like exotic rocks with shiny bits deep inside. Also the blue base became much more apparent.

For this picture I put a droplet of water on my finger to show more or less accurately the matte vs the shiny effect.


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Getting whipped into shape

Written by Elisabeth on June 3, 2009 – 14:00 -

Due to a case of failing health I have metamorphosed into this weak, stiff, slightly overweight creature that I simply do not recognize. My mental image of myself is still slim, fit and ready for anything so it’s confusing the way I have to dress to hide a stomach and annoying that I’m so weak that hauling my groceries is a chore.

I know I should be happy with the progress I’ve had. In February I was not able to walk for 40 minutes straight and now I walk twice that most days and can even go to 60 minutes aerobics classes. But even if my progress is fantastic I’m not happy with it and want to take advantage of this new found health and energy levels to get into shape - stronger, better, faster and more productive.

So yesterday I had a meeting with at PT at my local gym. He’s well educated and has several years of experience behind him and claims that his speciality is weight loss through weight lifting - which is just what I was looking for! He ‘hmmd’ a bit at substandard arm muscles, but was positive since I have little visceral fatty tissue (I am just plagued with being plain flabby and out of shape. My words. Not his.).

And since there’s no time like the present I’m going back today to get a full fitness evaluation and to set a plan for the future. So far we agree that 3-4 times per week sounds like a good place to start to find a healthier and better me.

Why is there a picture of a bottle of nail polish in this post you ask? Well… as somemight know I have a slight (healthy) obsession with nail polish and butted into a conundrum last night when I was going to do my nails. You see, I wanted to do Mint Mojito, but hesitated because I was not really sure that I would like to wave my green nails around while trying to get down and serious with this PT of mine. It would maybe feel slightly unprofessional in a way. So I ended up with OPI You don’t know Jaques - pictured on the left here, and simply stolen from The Polish Addict. The colour is totally unfitting for bright, summery weather so now I just feel weird.

We all have problems I guess. Some bigger that others. And mine are obviously not that huge even if I just need to get my mind to that place where I will enjoy being that woman at the gym sporting extremely colourful nails.

And on an end note. I have a new motto. “When you try you allow yourself to fail in good conscience. So I wont try. I will simply do.” I figure this will come in handy when my PT tells me to do just three more reps.


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Homemade polish - Frankenpolish

Written by Elisabeth on June 2, 2009 – 14:12 -

As I have a self confessed love of all things colourful and shiny I am, ofcourse, madly in love with nail polish. I spend way too much time on the net surfing my favourite polish blogs, reading comments on MUA or just thinking about what to do with my nail next.

This is how I discovered the art of frankenpolish. This simply means that you mix your own polish - nothing so elaborate as cooking up nail polish from scratch (and that would indeed cause some interesting stories to tell the insurance company I’m sure…).

There’s some that says that you should not mix different polish brands, a warning I simply ignored with good results. And while I’m sure you’ll get your frankenpolish mixed more easily with mixing ballz I did just fine without it. I had my hearth set on a dusty green and mixed some gray, some green and some black in an empty bottle, shook like crazy and ended up with the lovely polish pictured in this post. It’s aptly named “Olive for my martini”. So far this is my only franken, but I’ll probably try it again some day soon! It was way fun!


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