Black&white challenge inspired mani

Heya darlings! How are you doing? I'm just about to work with colour and eggs, yes, we're late again, as every year. :) Still, it's a fun tradition we have at home. Hope you're having nice holidays, if you celebrate them!

You probably noticed (or not), that I'm trying at least once a month to do a mani I saw on blogs and loved it. To push my nail art trying a bit on the move. This time I was inspired by many manicures, all hidden in the Black and White Challenge some girls did. I was kindly invited to the challenge too, but had to say no, as my lack of time isn't getting any better. These girls really showed me black and white can work as a combination. In general I dislike it, it's one of my least favourite combinations with black. But this time, after seeing some really amazing work at Nail Crazy, My Little Vanities, Taya and Nail Buff, to name a few, I said, hey, let's try this.

I had a Hema Metallic in my untrieds, I've already shown you the blue and the green one, and this one was standing there for way too  long. As I did stripes with the other two, I did stripes with black one too. 

Hema Metallic black (it doesn't have a name, just a bunch of numbers) is more of a silverish foil, as it turns out, but I liked it still, I love foil finish. :) I did scotch tape stripes with H&M White and that was it. Two easy coats of each. Still ... black&white isn't really up my alley so I removed this the next day. I like the pattern, so I must try something similar with black&red ... or green. Or blue. Or orange ... yeah, you get it. :)

What do you think? Do you like themed challenges? 

Thank you for reading & have a lovely Sunday!

Hema 08

Evening darlings! How are you doing? It was a great day today, even with all of this raining. And even with Crackle Glaze being out of stock on transdesign mere minutes after notification that it's available! What the hell? I know people couldn't buy them all in 2 minutes! I hope they bring them back. With the same price, thankyouverymuch. 

Another question. Would you be interested in a week of Illamasqua? 6 days, actually. Why? Because Tevta has 5 of them, besides Rampage that we both have, and only one of them is on my WL and I'm really curious about the others, how do they look. Why not make it a theme on the blog then? :) 

I have the last Hema today in my pile of untrieds (that really got smaller already!) for you, this one not metallic, but with a number, eight. 

It came out too blue on my pictures, so I just adjusted the colours a bit, I took a wee bit of blue out, that's why my fingers look a tad bit more yellow than usual. But the colour is now accurate! This is a three coater, quite beautiful purple, but I have a feeling we've seen a million of these already. At least I felt like that while wearing it, not that I could remember any that looked similar per se. Do you have any suggestions? 

Application was wonderful, again, I put SV on top because it was really late and I didn't want sheet prints on my nails. 

What do you think? Tell me also about Illamasqua almost-week, if it sounds fun enough for you to do it. :)

Thank you for reading!

Hema Metallic Green with Starboard stripes

Hello people! How are you doing? As the weather is of land of Mordor where shadows lie I'm really lazy and am already missing the sun. Since Summers are usually way too hot for me, I find myself surprised by the fact I miss the sun so much during the blah days of winter. But anyway. I'm having the forbbiden second cup of coffee and I want to show yout another Hema Metallic, this one being bright green. I kept the stripes design, because I love them, and put darker green as a base, the beautiful Starboard of China Glaze.

Natural light, off direct sunlight. Still super sparkly!

A video, to show you how sparkly Hema is.

I really like the combination, I wore this one for three days, then Hema gets too big of a tip wear for me to handle. Still a gorgeous colour, even though it's a bitch to remove because of the silver specks. :) I love the combination with Starboard, I also got compliments on the design and that's always a good thing. ;) Scotch tape stripes are of course inspired by amazing Erika and her Chloe's Nails blog.

Hema's brush is the same as Lumene's, both being perfect, inspite their shortness, they're flat and really easy to work with. Metallic Green needed two coats, I think, but I'm not sure, sorry guys, this one is a few days old. I may have needed three coats, because my nails are getting long again. Two coats of China Glaze Starboard. 

I'm really loving these Hema Metallic babies. I wish I had more colours. These two are perfect, really. And for only around 2€, from what I can see on blogs that have Hema around the corner, this really is a total win! 

What do you think about Metallic Green? :)

Thank you for reading! Btw, I'll probably have the winner of my GA announced tomorrow!

Comparison: Hema Metallic Blue vs. China Glaze Dorothy Who?

Hello people! How are you today? I'm enjoying my lazy day after yesterday's hectic one and I finally got to editing another one that I promised to you. Before I get to the comparison I'd like to point out there are only two whole days before my giveaway closes. You can click on the right side on the picture to get to the entry. I'm also amazed by the GFC window. 410 lovely people consider my blog worth their time. I thank you and welcome you, I hope you'll stay for good. :) I also wrote my disclosure policy yesterday, with the growing numbers I thought it would be good to make some stuff clear, although I believe you already know them. :)

But now! In the Hema Metallic Blue entry Michelle asked if Hema is similar to China Glaze Dorothy Who?. Now, I don't own Dorothy Who? to my great pain and heartache, but I knew that if anyone has the beautiful blue glitter, it's Tevta. And yes, I realized I got shoeboxed with Dorothy Who? too. Yay! I already showed you yesterdays mani that I made after the comparison (I think it would be a brutal sin, removing DW right after putting it on) and I must say, it's one of the best lacquers out there. The "wow" factor is amazing! As for the comparison, I was really sceptical about it. From the bottles they look nothing alike. But actually they differ less on the nail than I thought they will. Sunlight pictures, natural daylight pictures, lightbox and a video. Let's go.

 The bottles close-up shows they are far from being the same. That changes a bit on the nail.

 Both up and below direct sunlight. As you can see, the difference in finish is the main difference, the base colours are very close, although the structure of lacquers is a factor here too.

 

Below blurry, to show difference in the structure of polishes more, upper a sharp one, showing also their beauty and similarities.

Video proves that Dorothy Who? is still a glitter polish, sparkling much more than Hema Metallic Blue, but it's also a proof of how sparkly Hema is! Sorry for the half horns position of hand, I only applied polish on two nails and I didn't want to show the rest being naked.

Hema is a two coater, I did three here, but Dorothy Who? needs four, being a jelly glitter so that's logical. The difference is obviously in the finish and structure of the polish. Both sparkly, but you can't get around the fact Hema is a beautiful foil with blue base and silver specks and Dorothy Who? a beautiful blue based glitter with mainly silver glitter, but also other colours. I must say I am surprised that they are only that much different as the pictures show. I thought they'd be like night and day. But the blue base is very close. If you're looking for something close to Dorothy Who? you may be satisfied with Metallic Blue. It's blue and silver and quite sparkly, also extremely easy to work with. But far from being a dupe for Dorothy Who?. Both shades are amazing, I can already see Dorothy Who? is one of those that break my heart with returning the shoebox to Tevta (the first one was probably RBL Recycle, oh the pain ...). I need this nail polish people!!! Anyway, I recommend having both of them at home. They're gorgeous! Oh, yes, they both need only one coat of TC to be completely smooth, so that's a bonus in my book too. 

Michelle, I hope you liked the comparison. :) 

What do you think guys, need them both or not? I most certainly do!! 

Thank you for reading & following!

Hema Metallic Blue with Sinful Glitter Stripes

Hey darlings! How are you doing? I've been MIA for a couple of days, in my defence I can say it's been hell. I won't even bother you with the details, I'm sure everybody has their own troubles to bear, but this week crap really piled on. Anyway! I have another mani to show you, this one I really loved. One day I was going through blogosphere and I saw this amazing blue on one of the blogs. I can't remember which one was it, but the girl named this BBB - best budget blue. And it really was awesome and I was thinking where the hell am I supposed to get it and then it hit me - I got this one as a present from my dear Tevta when she went to Amsterdam. Can we all say yaaay!?

Now, I know, guys, one of my structures for blog is failing because of me. I planned to have this so-called projects, where i can show you what you'll see in the next period of time on the blog and then continue to the next and so on. And right now I haven't even finished Project Lativa, let alone Tevta's Bday and I'm already one third through what it was supposed to be my next project - my untireds. Oh well. Thing is, I always wear what I feel like wearing, I'm sure you all understand and relate to that. Thus, I think this projects won't be as strict as I planned them to be. I still hope you're enjoying the blog! And the projects, they will be finished for sure. :) 

But now to this beauty. Again, I tried some art work from the wonderful world of scotch tape Erika from Chloe's Nails intruduced to me. And again it's an accent mani, although she did a full mani with it. Why? Because I simply cannot afford to spend so much time on my nails lately. :/ And because I think I need much more practice for a full one. :D Anyway, I hope you like it, here we go. 

 Step 1: Accent manicure, obviously, Hema and Kinetcis Sinful from Project Latvia. 

 Step 2: I layered Sinful with Midnight Blue Glitter, remember this combo? I looooove it, adore it really, guess what was my next full mani?

 Blurry outside picture, because there just wasn't enough light and my camera starts acting weird from the absence of light. Still, wanted to show you how bright and sparkly this is even with grey, dead weather. This is the weather that kills just about every other colour and makes holo go 'blah'.

Sadly Hema doesn't even have a decent number to name the polish, seriously, it's like a 6 digit number or something and I'm not sure it serves as the name of the polish, so I just named it Metallic Blue, as it is from the Metallic section of Hema polish and, well, it's blue. But not just blue! It has tons of silver sparkles too, making this polish super playful! I love it! The accent finger was two coats of Kinetics Sinful (although you could get away with one, this baby is überpigmented), two coats of O.P.I. Midnight Blue Glitter and then one thick of Hema on top. 

Other than that, Hema is really awesome polish. Two coater, application is a bliss, actually everything is the same as with Lumene bottle and brush. With the exception on Hema being 7 ml polish and Lumene 4.5 ml. And I was like wha? So I took a picture, I must say this was quite amusing discovery for me. 

Very elegant solution, Lumene! Hehehe! Which totally gave me an idea of posting another bottle entry!! I don't mind these differences, don't get me wrong, this is not a rant, but I do find them amusing. :) 

So anyway, where was I? Oh yes. Hema is really awesome. Wonderful application, it dried super fast, I put TC just because it dried kinda rough. Mind you, the removal of it is a bit tricky, because of all the silver flecks. Nothing major though, just don't use one pad for too many nails. 

I'll talk more about the other two in my next entry, ok? Just to let you know - Sinful is actually very very dark blue creme and Midnight Blue Glitter has tones of glitter in different colours, not just the big specks of blue.

I really liked how this one turned out. What do you think, fail or win? :)

Thank you for reading, have a nice Saturday evening!