No buy...yeah, right!

I was supposed to spend the summer on a "no buy", I thought it would be easy since I was going to my parents house and there are ALMOST no places where I could buy nail polishes around here...but I failed!

I figured this would be my last buy before restricting myself on buying polishes, until october...

Ozotic 532 and Hits Air Glow

A couple of weeks after, I went with a friend to a huge chinese store, as she wanted to buy some cheap stuff for her new house, and what I found there left me stunned...rows and rows filled with all kinds of nail polish that I could never get a hold of in my city! She was buying some for herself and I just couldn't leave empty handed, could I? So I bought 3 magnetic nail polishes for 1,50€ each and 3 glitters for 1€ each.

Love Me 203, 201, 401

Marylins 117, 119, 121

A couple of days later, Kiko releases a new LE collection...HOLOS!! So I asked Ana, from O Meu Maior Vicio to get me the gold/taupe one and the blue/green/whatever one. I sold the blue/green/whatever one as soon as I got it, because it was just like Up Colors Verde 360º (that I had on my nails the day I got the Kiko's package), but kept the other one and fell in love with it. Around the same time, I went with my boyfriend to another chinese store, here near my parent's house and bought a gold nail polish for stamping, and several nail art polishes for stamping too (all for 1€ each).

Kiko 399, Marylins 109

Marylins 23, 17, 14, 20, 18

I shared some of my buys with Cristina, from The Clockwise Nail Polish, and she asked me if I could get her the black glitter like mine, and so I did...And the chinese store had lots of new polishes and I don't even know how I didn't buy more! xD My boyfriend was with me and I kept repeating "Please get me out of here before I buy everyone of these!". He didn't pay much attention to my pleas and I ended up leaving with 4 new polishes for myself and 1 for Cristina... -.-' (again, 1€ each]

Yes Love L006 (already reviewed here), K032, K034, K011

And finally...I was searching for Revlon Royal Cloak for a while now, but whenever I found it online, shipping was always too expensive for my liking, so when I saw that Claudia, from Holographic Hussy, had 1 up for sale, I grabbed it, MINE! It just got here today...Oh, and on my last trip to the chinese store, I picked up another goodie from a portuguese brand...

Revlon Royal Cloak and Cliché Siamês

I think I might have a problem...but then again, it's not like I have too much nail polish, I only have 179 in my stash, that's not too much, right? RIGHT?? So why should I restrict myself from buying what I like and makes me happy? I don't get it...

Well, enough with the "no buy" thing, it clearly doesn't work for me... 

Kiko #360 Strawberry Pink

The other day I had a sudden urge to paint my nails pink. How weird is that? :P (For those who still don't know, I really dislike having any kind of pink on my nails) I was reluctant to do it, but some of the girls on a FB group pushed me into doing it. I didn't know which pink to choose from, so I gave them the choice:

(Not the most colour accurate photo)

Kiko #360, Flormar #444 or Gosh Bubblegum? Kiko won!

I wasn't sure I would like it on me or if it would last more than a day on my nails, before I'd get bored with it, but guess what?? I completely fell in love with it, and it's still on my nails after 4-5 days! Maybe I'm getting used to pink after all! =o

I usually love the consistency of Kiko polishes, but this one was a bit on the fluid side and it flooded a bit on the cuticule area, although it still had a very good pigmentation (I used 2 coats), and Kiko's brushes are one of my favourites out there.

The colour is a bit tricky to catch, but because it looks so different with different lightings. Sometimes it's a vivid pink, others it looks like a coral or even a salmon pink. I tried my best to show the right colour, but I'm not sure I did. Oh well, at least I wasn't the only one for what I saw on Google Images... xD

31 Days Challenge #18 - Half Moons

Now here's something I'd never done before and I'm not even sure I like this type of manicure, but I still wore it for a couple of days! It doesn't look perfect, I can see some flaws in it, but it still looked nice and I was happy with my colour choices.

This is Kiko #387 and Up Colors Verde 360º.

That's it for today, I'll leave you with a bonus photo of that night (not colour accurate)! :P

31 Days Challenge #11 - #16

I'm still alive!

Sorry for not posting since last friday, but it has been a crazy week since then! On saturday we had a party at night and I had to do my mom's make-up and nails, my make-up and nails and another friend's nails, no time left for posting...then on sunday I had to help that same friend, as she was in the process of moving. So, my nails have been bare since last sunday. I don't even remember the last time they were naked for so long! xD

As you can imagine, I had a lot to catch up to, and today was literally nails day!

This will be a looooong post, so get ready and don't say I didn't warn you.

#11 Polka Dots

For this I used China Glaze L8R G8R (that I got from Anna's blogsale) and Nubar Reclaim.

#12 Stripes

This was done with Gosh Forest Green, Gosh Early Green and some striping tape.

#13 Animal Print

Uh oh...leopard print again! But this time it was all hand made, no stamping involved. For this, I used Orly Nite Owl, Leticia Well #146 and Kiss Nail Art in black.

#14 Flowers

Flowers aren't really my thing, but I guess I did ok on these. I used Kiko 339 for the base colour, Gosh Bubble Gum and Risqué Pink Fluor for the flowers, and Gosh Forest Floor and Gosh Early Green for the leaves.

#15 Delicate Print

Boy, this one was tough...I didn't really know what to do and this was my 3rd try at this, as I wasn't happy with the other 2. Here I used Essence Modern Romance stamped with Essence Stampy Polish in silver and my DRK-B.

#16 Tribal Print

My favourite ones from today! I had never done any tribal nails, but these were so simple and fun to do and I love the final result.
I used a nude, once again (must be on a nude kind of day), this time it was Essence Hazelnut Cream Pie. The blue stripe is China Glaze For Audrey and the white was all done with Kiss Nail Art in white, obviously. :P

 

Ufff, finally over! It's really a bad idea to fall behind on these challenges, I know I wont be doing it again.  :P

31 Days Challenge #9 - Rainbow

This one was easy, I knew exactly what I wanted to do!

I started with 2 coats of Purple Professional #32, then, on my accent nail, I placed some striping tape and then painted each remaining space with the rainbow colours. For this I used Kiko 334 (2 stripes), Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Good to Grape, O.P.I Fly, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Limewire, Sally Hansen  Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Basic #291 and Andreia #40 (2 stripes).

Some stripes don't look perfect, but I'm happy with this, I think it looks cute! xD

31 Days Nail Challenge #2 - Orange

Peach is orange too, right? RIGHT?? You better agree with me because I had no other orange to show you, you wouldn't want to see the same one for the 3rd time now, would you? xD

This is Kiko 358, it has a nice soft shade of peach, but in some lights it can be really bright and more on the orange side (which is what you will see here). As always, Kiko has an excellent formula and this was perfect in 2 coats, then I stamped with Kiss Nail Art in White, using my DRK-B (I'm addicted to it now!).

Apparently, I stamp differently than everyone else, but I can't help it, I like my designs to face me, not other people!
I wasn't really happy with these, but when the cashier at a store told me she loved them and even asked me if these were my real nails, I started loving them too. xD

And now you'll have to excuse me, I still need to paint my nails yellow for tomorrow. At 1:15am...yep, I'm awesome. :P

Nail Care Challenge #3 - Top Coats

Oh, I'm so late with this one...but I had to pack to come to my parents house for the month of August and I was left with no time to blog.

This week's theme is top coats. Being honest, I don't have that many, and for a long time I didn't wear any, but my nail polish would never dry and lots of times I would paint my nails in the morning and wake up the next day with some awful bed sheet marks.

These are the only top coats I have:

Claire's Top Coat - My first top coat. It is plain awful! It never fully dries and I would wake up every day with marks and dents on my nails.

Mavadry by Mavala - My second top coat and the first of the fast drying kind. It's really really good! My nails would dry in less than a minute and all my problems with bed sheet marks were gone. I used 2 bottles of it and the only downside on it is that it gets really tick and hard to apply once it gets around half full, and it's price... :S It would cost me about 13€ a bottle, which is a bit too much for my wallet.

Seche Vite - The holy grail of top coats, my favourite top coat ever, the best thing ever invented! xD Ok, seriously, I love this! It dries sooo fast, as soon as I finish applying it on my right hand, the left one is already completely dry, it gives my nails a tick and shiny look and, as Mavadry, it doesn't drag my nail art when I apply it. I get it for $4.25 a bottle (if my memory serves me right) on transdesign.com. Good thing about it is that as soon as it starts to get goopy and tick, you can add a few drops of Seche Restore (sold seperately) and you're good to go.

Kiko 3 in 1 Mat - My matte top coat of the moment. It's perfect! Works wonders on making your nail polish completely matte and it can be even used as a base coat for matte or pastel colours (makes application a bit easier and less streaky). I used to have Gosh matte top coat (mine is nowhere to be found, I have no idea of how I lost it), but it didn't work this good, it would only leave my nails with a rubbery look.

Purple Super Dry - This is a new one for me...I was looking for an alternative to Seche, wanted something a bit easier to get and cheaper if possible. This cost me 3€, it is available close to me, and it is fast drying! Sounds promising, no? Well, it did to me...until I tried it...It's not that it's bad, it really isn't, but comparing it to Seche, it just didn't measure up. :S I like that tick and shiny look that Seche gives my nails and this one is lacking on that department. It's thin, not so shiny and I had some dragging while trying it over some stamping.

That is it for now, sorry that I'm so late on this, but I really didn't have any time to do it earlier.

Don't forget to check all the other girls' posts. 

Tuli @ Prettifyournails 

Dulce @ Miminhos que eugosto

Luisa @ E foi um dia que ela criou o seu blog 

Bárbara @ Betty Nails

Maggie @ Maggie Nails

Leticia @ omeubloggermiasol

Rachel @ Polished Criminails

Cristina @ Clockwise Nail Polish
Ana Catarina @ O meu maior vicio
Solange @ NailLacquer Addict
Marina @ Paraiso Pinky 
Marta @ Séfèrys
Lala @ Cenas da Lala
Rosa @ TheNailPolish&TheBlog
Juliana @  NailPolish Adiction
Ana @ Nailspt
Ana @ This is the last Polish I Buy, I Promise

Sofia @ O Cantinho da Sofz
Melanie @ Samples by Entayen
Pandora @ Caixinha de Pandora