Prettifying the world one nail at a time.

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Bubble up! For short & long nails

Hi people! 

Today we want to share with you an easy dotticure, that is flattering on both long and short nails. 
We used Catrice "Heavy Metallilac" for the base, and dotted with La Femme white polish and Essence "Let's get lost" (blue) and Etos Quick Dry nr. 09 (orange). The dots were placed using my trusty dotting tool. We used 2 very different hand models: One girl with medium/long length nails, as shown here:




And one girl with short nails:



As you can see, this simple mani works well on both! The asymmetric design optically lengthens the nails.

What do you think?

xoxoxo
Lieutenant & Captain



Rosy Refined

Hi dear followers!

I have for you another mani inspired by Nailside's art deco design, but then upside-down. I love this so much! I tried it with a vastly different colour this time, namely Catrice's "Welcome to Rosywood", a colour not too flashy, and perfect for the friend whose hands I borrowed for painting ;) 

Rosy Refined

I thought the outcome looked rather sophisticated. I was also pleasantly surprised as to how this design completely masks the fact that the nails are actually rather short! WIN-WIN ;)

Until next time!

xoxoxo
Captain





Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Fever Fingers

Hi!!

We  simply cannot get enough of Fantasy Fire, so we decided to try out a Valentine's mani with it. In case you feel all hot and steamy on Vday, we've got the perfect manicure to go with your mood ;) Lieutenant volunteered her fingers for this:


 Fever Fingers in daylight

 Fever Fingers in artificial light

We used Rimmel "Black Out" as a base, and sponged on some Bourjois "Rouge Poppy" at the tips, creating a gradient effect, and then topped everything off with once coat of Max Factor "Fantasy Fire". This makes her nails look like smoldering embers, don't you think? To make it more valentiney, we added some heart-shaped rhinestones to the ring finger nails. Then we added topcoat to add extra shine and seal in the rhinestones. 

What do you think?

xoxoxo
Lieutenant & Captain



Tuesday, January 29, 2013

A Golden Delight

Hi guys!

Got another pre-blog mani for you. I was wearing this on New Year's Eve. The design is based on Nailside's, but done from memory, so not the same! I had just bought the base colour that she uses as well, namely Essence "A Piece of Forever" from the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part 2 collection and stumbled upon her post. This lingered in my mind for a while and I decided to try it on my nails. Here is the result:


I used a black striper from Janet to draw on the lines.
It was a good way to start off the year stylishly ;)

xoxoxo
Captain







Monday, January 28, 2013

Fantasy Fire: Welcome to the Dark Side...

Hi fellow nail polish lovers!

The last nail polish blog post was a swatch of Max Factor's Fantasy Fire, and we mentioned being curious as to what it would look like over different colours. Yesterday we've captured another victim (one can never have too many nails to polish), so now we present to you: The Dark Side!

 Artificial light
 Daylight
We used Rimmel "Black Out" as the base, and one layer of Fantasy Fire. Then we sponged on some Rimmel "Diamond Dust" and Etos Glitter Nails at the nail beds, to create a glitter gradient. It is a true sparkle fest, and a dark delight at the same time :P

Tomorrow we will show you the Valentine's mani we did with Fantasy Fire :)

xoxoxo
Lieutenant & Captain






Just Girl It Up!

You never know how, but sometimes,

you know, just for some awkward reason,

of course you don't see it coming, 

which makes it that much more difficult. but

you'll find yourself in the weirdest situations where.....





you wear guy's clothes.
Yeah, I know it can be tough, but don't shame it, FRAME IT!!
Went for the recently in-fashion bat-winged sweater look, using the oversized plain guy-sweater + neutral coloured belt (please ignore the golden office shoes). It can present a comfy looking "hug-able" look, with the belt to accentuate that you actually have a waist ;) Make sure to roll up the sleeves as well, as they will provide contrast to the relatively thinner forearms which can enhance the "little girl in a comfy sweater" image.

And hey, we know what you're thinking, so we will add:
YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE A LITTLE GIRL TO PULL OFF THIS LOOK.
Just make sure its a loose fit :D

This outfit (or something similar) can be useful if you have anywhere from slightly filled to thin neckline, as the thick turtle neck will prettify your neckline (the wider the turtle neck, the better). Also the combination of the bat-wing sleeves and a belt at the center can really emphasize a waist, even if you normally wouldn't think of showing it ;) Also nice if you feel self concious about your thighs, as I can often be :P

Love how it all fits together ;) What would you say about the condiments to make it a whole outfit?

Well, of course it can be managed with dark shoes, OR if you have shouting coloured shoes like me, sandwich the outfit with a long necklace with a somewhat big/eye-catching pendant that is of matching colour of your shoes.
The "pendant" btw is the part that dangles at the bottom of your chain, the eye-candy of the whole necklace, if you know what I mean ;)

Oh, and for best results, keep your neckline enhanced by tying your hair up if its long :x

This stuff works right? Try it out, and be surprised :) 
Not to mention, it IS quite comfy...

Until next time ;)
xoxoxo Lieutenant & Captain

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Max Factor "Fantasy Fire"

 A number of weeks ago, I saw swatches of this beautiful polish of Max Factor, called "Fantasy Fire". It is a dupe of the discontinued Clarins 230, which goes for exorbitant prices on eBay these days. No way I could afford that! And I didn't even allow myself to buy the Max Factor one, since I had been spending too much on np already. So when a good friend of mine decided to give me a nail polish of choice, a thanks for a really fun girls' night out, I immediately knew which one! Thanks Gellybean! <3


So without further ado I give you:




We all need some fantasy fire in such snowy times!
And I swatched it just now. It helps, right now the rain is washing away the snow ;) 
After one coat on my thumb, I realised that it is meant to be layered, and I decided to layer it over Catrice "Heavy Metallilac":



This is 2 coats of Fantasy Fire over 1 coat of Heavy Metallilac, shown in daylight. 
The polish gives the purple a nice reddish glow and a blueish shadow. Really really pretty! Too bad there is no direct sunlight today, I wonder what that would do to this np, probably something spectacular! In the shadow, the warm red glow is even more prominent. B-E-A-UTIFUL! Difficult to capture, but you can get a slight idea by looking at this picture taken in artificial light:


Look at the sparkles!!!
However, it seems like this combi was a rather safe choice. I'm really curious what this would look like over dark blue, black and red! I will certainly try that out SOON ;)
First, me and my Lieutenant need to figure out what nail art to do with this lovely base colour. I'm thinking a skittle of some kind...
Any suggestions?

UPDATE:
Added some glitter gradient on the nail beds with Etos Glitter Nails, and Rimmel "Diamond Dust".


Just love how the extra glitter compliments the sparkle of Fantasy Fire!

xoxoxo 
Captain Lothwen



Saturday, January 26, 2013

Captain Sparrow's Party Boat

Sometimes, the main reason for buying a polish, is its name. And even though the lead role in this mani is a gorgeous colour, the name is even better. It's Catrice "Captain Sparrow's Boat". My Lieutenant and I found it during a shopping spree for 50ct discount polishes at a local drugstore. I think I was squeeing in the store, people must've thought I was losing it (and for a short moment, I probably was!)

One of my friends from highschool and I are super duper Pirates' fans, and I must admit that we have reenacted some scenes from the first movie more than once. I therefore kept the polish for one of our girls' nights out. And yesterday was the day (yay!)

The result is here:


Captain Sparrow's Party Boat


I decided to tape some V-gaps. The pink is Bourjois "Fuchsia Bucolique" and the pewter metallic is Captain Sparrow's Boat. I added some rhinestones on her thumb and pinky.
We had a fun night out ;)

xoxoxo
Lieutenant & Captain

Friday, January 25, 2013

The Mani Crew

So Captain has been going crazy with the mani posts so far... I figure we could use a technical side to the whole whooptie-doo ;) Ladies and Gents, I give to you, the Nail Art Tools!




First off we have the "Ordinary Bobby Pin", known to appear in places throughout your everyday life when you need it the least, while cunningly absent any time your hair is in dire need of restraining. However, once you've captured and tamed this wild tweep, it will help you perform countless beginner designs, all by itself! It can be used as one of the most key members of your Mani Crew, a.k.a. The Dotting Tool.

You can also obtain a more professional looking one for better grip, comfort, and control, much like the once Captain has acquired. Also nice when you have different ball size ends, as shown in the picture, but not entirely necessary. Quite handy when handling tiny stones to embed with finishing touches of designs as well.


Next we have the "Pointy Brush", which was made from a short haired regular art brush, and trimmed as to make it as pointy as possible.


A handy nail polish to have, by the way, is the Stripers. As in, "stripes". Not "strippers" as in girls going nude (sorry guys). But these sexy polishes come with an ultra thin brush, which will assist you in making the meanest, thinnest lines you need. Recommended in basic colors especially, like black or white.

For the microscopic dots you want in your design, we call to our hero, the "Toothpick". Brought to you in it's warm woody texture. Go trees!


Another handy group is the pill strips, otherwise known as the "Meds Beds". Mix and match colors as necessary without wasting your preciously beautiful nail polish; it's just like a miniature art pallet!

You will always come across tough scrubs in the world of manis. Q-tips will save your day! Cheap, yet handy these little "Q-ties" are; just soak up a bit of nail polish remover into the cotton to get the tiny-but-visible-and-thus-bothersome polish residue from the edges of your nails. A sophisticated version can be found in some drug stores, under the name of "nail polish corrector pencil"....


And last but not least, the "Virgin Cutting Board". Nope, its never been or will be touch by any knives, but will stay immaculately scratch-less as it is who keeps the game on stable grounds. Use this as a working table, and you will not have to worry about messes, or even not having a desk to work on --- this IS the desk!

Well, hope you enjoyed some technical tips in this section. After all, it is a DIY-ish blog ;)
This was the Mani Crew, brought to you by Manis and Makeovers.
Thanks for visiting :) Over and out!

xoxoxo Lieutenant & Captain

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Queen of Green, is all I can Blue

Hi there!

Two good friends lent their hands. And this is what happened:






Green Fanta

Yes, green fanta is what it reminded her of! This lovely lady is a sucker for green, so we went all out with this dotticure. She was content with the result. All the bubbly green delight was able to wipe all exam stress off her mind :)
The colours we used were Catrice "ACid-DC" and "King of Greens" (the lightest and darkest respectively), Etos nr. 115 and NYC "High Line Green". 



 It's all I can Blue

A more quiet design, but no less lovely! This good friend got a blue cloud mani, as described here on Nailside (which is a truly lovely web page! Very inspiring... Go check it out!).
The colours are (from light to dark): Essence "Absolutely Blue", "I'm Bluetiful" and "The Boy Next Door".

Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions for our next manis!

xoxoxo
Lieutenant & Captain








Some Golden Oldies

We will now share some golden oldies :) If you have any questions regarding the design, please send an email or leave a comment and we will do our best to remember ;)

As you will see, many friends and family members happily volunteered their hands for our benefit, and we are endlessly grateful for that!

"Hoot hoot hoot, on my hand, not my foot!"
Based on the design of Let Them Have Polish. Saw it on facebook and had to immediately recreate it, so found one of our many sisters to be our victim. She loved it and created this pic for her instagram account and it got likes from strangers! The weirdest and most flattering phenomenon! Sort of made us think seriously about blogging...




Put a ribbon on it, with a flower on top 
One of our earliest designs (got it from YouTube a long, long time ago, but cannot find it anymore, so can't give credit). 
In fact, it is the first design The Captain ever tried on her Lieutenant (see upper pic), and the start of the tradition of a weekly mani :) 
The middle image is a friend who besides clear polish, never used to have anything on her nails! So we gave her some shock nail therapy and voilà! Took her about a day, but then she got used to it and loved it. Her coworkers approved as well (so happy!). Since then, she bought some polishes herself! And every now and then, Captain gets to try a new design :) Very happy with this willing mani-victim!
The lower pic also refers to a case of shock therapy ;) This friend had only worn nail polish once, on her 16th birthday, but was willing to let me go crazy! So I went for green ;) It looked awesome with her beautiful skin tone!!




Blooming Blossoms
One of our sisters was willing to sit through the first time Captain tried a Cherry Blossom nail design. Captain liked it and repeated it many times, hence the lower pic, another willing victim and Captain's friend since she was 3. 


Plaided nails
 Aha! Based on Cutepolish' design. This was fun! And a lot of work. The base is Essence "Jacob's Protection" from the Twilight Breaking Dawn Part II collection. The metallic stripes are Essence's striper "Metallic Grape". 

 Spot on!
Just a lot of dots :) Rimmel "Coralicious" and "Sky High" for the bases and Rimmel "Mystic Jade", Essence "Alpha Better Gamma" and a plain white.

 My Mosaic's got the blues
Couldn't decide which of these blues to try first, so it became a mosaic, like the name of the glitter polish from W7. The blue is from Miss Sporty, it was a gift from my second cousin, a nail polish lover herself. She shared with me her favourite colour and I'm so happy! The dark blue shimmer is Essence's "Jacob's Protection" again. Finished it off with a glitter striper.


Juicy Marble
 One of our sister's hands again :) She wanted nothing too much, just a touch. The coral is Essence "What do u think?" The marbling was done using Robin Moses' marbling without water technique. So what do u think?


Golden retro
Ah a very very old one! Based the design on the colours of the blouse and the watch that are shown with it. 

We hope you enjoyed this long post! 

xoxoxo
Lieutenant and Captain









Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Glam up that Jungle! [retouch your mani]

Unfortunately, "In the Jungle, the Swirly Jungle" from yesterday started chipping after some household chores.. Since the mani had taken a lot of time and effort, I was reluctant to take it off... So I decided to glam it up! I did a diagonal tape mani with Rimmel "Black Out" and then added some big glitters from Essence "Mr. and Mrs. Glitter".
I only used top coat on the black part, to maintain the nice matte finish of the marble, creating an extra special effect. I was very pleased with how it turned out, especially since I was just making it up as I went ;)

So without further ado, I give you "Glam up that Jungle!"




What do you think?

xoxoxo
Captain




Monday, January 21, 2013

Hippie Chic Bubbles

A friend of ours left for her home country this morning, which is half-way across the world. Fortunately we were able to give her hugs and say goodbye before she left. We were also able to give her a farewell mani! She thought it was 'hippie chic', like herself. So we give you: "Hippie Chic Bubbles"!


All you need for this are some polishes, and a dotting tool. If you don't have a dotting tool, you can also use a bobby pin for the larger dots and a toothpick for the tiny ones.

The colours I used were Bourjois "Lavande Esquisse" for the base, a purple nail polish from Pieces, NYC "MOMA", W7 "Shirley Temple" and Essence "Absolutely Blue". Just place the dots slightly random, but with more and bigger dots at the tips, creating a gradient effect. Really easy and really fun!

Sorry for the mess around her fingers; there was no more time to clean..
We wish you well, Hippie Chic friend!

Love xoxoxo,
Lieutenant and Captain



Winter Blanket

Hi y'all!

The past few days have been super cold, so all I wanted to do was cuddle up under a blanket. This gave me inspiration for a mani (original design by Cutepolish):


For this design I used Bourjois "Rouge Poppy" as the base, a white and black striper from Janet, a gold striper "Metallic Champagne" by Essence, and green polish from the HEMA and a striper brush (from Essence). It's not easy and it requires a steady hand and a lot of patience, but it was worth it, wasn't it, Lieutenant? Two of the hands shown are hers, the other ones are from a good friend, who also loves nail art :)

xoxoxo
Captain Lothwen





In the Jungle, the Swirly Jungle...

So here we both are, procrastinating on this snowy Monday, showing you Captain's second water marble ever, an all green one! 


Lieutenant came up with an appropriate name for this design, hence the title! I used Catrice "ACid/DC" and "After Eight" (the lightest and darkest green, respectively), NYC "High Line Green" and a bright dark green polish from HEMA. I topped it off with some matt topcoat from HEMA. You can get countless water marble tutorials on YouTube, to see how it's done. All you need is a plastic cup with water, a toothpick, some tape to prevent the polish from getting all over your finger, and nail polish! Preferably new, good liquid ones, they are the easiest to work with.

I first did this more than a year ago, with pink shades, which looked very candy-like:


So there you go! Hope you guys like it! Comments, suggestions and requests are highly welcome!

xoxoxo
Lieutenant and Captain






Pre-Valentine mani


Since eeeeveryone in mani world is doing Valentine's Day nails, we decided we should do that too, albeit a less conventional one. After all, it would be done on Lieutenant's nails, and she is used to having her nails POP.
So this is what we came up with:


I did a saran wrap mani using Bourjois "Lavande Esquisse" as a base and layering Rimmel "Sky High". Then I added some hearts to have some accent nails, with Essence "Little Miss Sunrise". 
I might add, what she did with the saran wrap was, crinkle it up and dab it on the freshly applied "Sky High" (the blueish one you see here) and let it dry a bit. Note the lovely print it leaves... reminds me of the Ising Model snapshots from the 90's, if you know what I mean.... Hahaha your mind is consumed by your upcoming exam, I see ;) But indeed, it really does resemble those Ising Models perfectly ^^


And there you have it! Not your run of the mill Valentine's Day mani, but still sweet and colourful. Goes with any color combo really, so go on and experiment!

Nightnight!
xoxoxo Lieutenant and Captain

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Pocahontas' Birthday

Here is the first mani color Captain has ever made! And it’s what got me motivated to start up this blog for real, so here goes.

I give you....



“Pocahontas Birthday”
(one pic taken indoors, and one out <3 )




The brown shimmer base color is "Pocahontas", a polish that Captain frankened when she was bored.

It’s a nice shimmery dark brown, with color shifting flakies and glitter that change shades depending on the light’s angle. It got this name because, well, we figure if Pocahontas were to have nailpolish, thats the color she would use.

It was made with a black base, which was getting kind of old and thus turning thick and wouldn’t paint nicely anymore :( But then we added some dashes of reddish polish, brown metallic glitter, gold glitter, transparent flakeys and other various glitters, until we got the shade we wanted ;)

For this mani, I topped the tips with Essence "Time for Romance", which I thought would look nice and add a more 3D feel to the look. So there you go, all of a sudden, it's "Pocahontas' Birthday"!

See?? You can make your own dream colors, or revive ones that were growing stale or dry, very easily. And we really wanted to share stuff like that with you guys ;) And this blog was just the right opportunity :)

Thanks for reading <3xoxoxo Captain & Lieutenant

First Mani - Snow Glam



We thought to start of with the current mani, since it is very weather appropriate for the moment. It's a winter wonderland in Holland at the moment.

Love the design Captain! An excellent design that can actually last pretty long for those that can keep the stones on, since your nails growing out at the bottom will not be so noticeable because of the light color you use for the baselines ;)

You wanna briefly walk us through the steps?

Sure ;) 
First; the things needed for this design are a base coat, a light white-ish colour, a blue one, glitter polish, a white striper, glequins/chunky glitter polish and rhinestones.

I used Rimmel "Stronger" base coat, Essence "Ice crystals on my window" for the base colour, and "I love bad boys" from Essence for the blue, which I sponged on in two coats, creating a gradient effect. Then I added Etos Glitter Nails 003 (which has a purple, but very sheer base) to mimic snow falling. I used a white striper from the Etos Nail Art collection to draw on the snow flakes. For some snow flakes I added rhine stones to the hearts, for others I picked out a big glitter piece from Essence "Mr. and Mrs. Glitter" and placed it in the middle with a small dotting tool. Then I added two layers of topcoat to secure the design, and that's it!

You know what would be chic? Wear a nice fluffy sweater (white-ish, or blue-ish, or any color will suffice) with sleeves that come quite long, and just have these nails peek out. And then you have an irresistible snuggly-cutie look ;)

Haha, yes ;) Soooo, it's easy, but only with steady hands, which I rarely have (odd hobby I picked out then, eh?), but I managed okish. Excuse the dry skin and cuticles, with this weather it's very hard for me to keep them moisturized.

xoxoxo Love,
Lieutenant Akira and Captain Lothwen