Adorned Nails: HEMA Nailpolish No. 10

You've heard of HEMA before. It's a Dutch departmental store chain that offers budget-friendly products. The quality isn't that bad either.

In the shade

I've had this green polish for weeks but it just got pushed further and further to the back of the line. Blame it on Catrice? This green polish with the grand name of No. 10 (sorry, no memorable name here) was very appropriately a summer release. The vivid green so perks me up every time I look at it! I have two coats on. The nail line is visible in some of these photos due to the strong sunshine.

I think it looks amazing in the sun.

I haven't done any nail art stamping for a while. I just realised that the last one was almost six months ago with the cherry blossoms on the KONAD M66 plate. I felt like doing some stamping on this green polish. I chose this stalk of thorny, edgy flower from the Chez Delaney B101 plate.

I thought this was a good opportunity to try some bi-colour stamping. I'd wanted to try this for a long time ever since I saw it in a KONAD video last year, when I was still pretty new with stamping.

Other than the green base polish, I used:

• Red polish - Alessandro Stiletto Nail Polish No. 21
• Black stamping polish - KONAD
• Burnt orange polish - Catrice Rusty But Sexy
• Chez Delaney Plate B101
• Dotting tool - Essence (a simple toothpick would also do)

I'm sure many of you already know how to do bi-colour stamping. For the benefit of those who don't, the following is all you need to know.

Apply the two polishes on the respective areas and then scrape off the polishes parallel to the polish strokes so that the two colours don't get mixed. Stamp as usual. Then use the dotting tool to apply dots to the centre of the flowers. Apply a top coat, if you wish.

This was how it turned out.

I hope you like it.

Adorned Nails: HEMA No. 18

In the shade

It's a numbered polish this time, from the Dutch departmental store HEMA. HEMA is known for its budget-friendly products and this one cost no more than a couple of euros.

Housed in a cute little bottle of 7ml, it is another one of those soothing colours. No. 18 is what I would describe as something between metallic taupe and metallic violet. It's sheer, so I did need to use four coats. You can still see the nail line on my pinky as it was with three. Other than that, application was a breeze.

To give you an all-round impression of this polish, here are photos of my nails taken in the sun:

No. 18 is nothing spectacular, but it's just something very easy on the eye. There's a certain charm in that.

Adorned Nails: HEMA Nailpolishes No. 05 and 06

I do wish they would come up with names for these polishes! Nail polishes with names are memorable. Nail polishes with numbers are not only confusing, but they give the impression of being unremarkable.

In direct sunlight

But of course, it wouldn’t be fair to judge a nail polish by its number! Look at these two glitter polishes I have here from HEMA, a Dutch departmental store: err.....No. 05 (red) and No. 06 (purple). Each of them looks good on its own (well, it is glitter!) but just for the fun of it, I combined the two.

In the shade

L-R: HEMA Nailpolishes No. 06 and No. 05, Essence Nail Art Tip Painter: Purple Boost

On the entire nail, I put on two coats of No. 06 (purple) but as you can see, with only two coats on, it’s just lilac. Then No. 05 (red) was polished on diagonally on the tip half of the nail. For this, I did three coats. Then, I used a purple Essence Nail Art Tip Painter to draw a line at the border between the two shades. I finished it off with a very glossy top coat from Arcancil.

That’s it! A simple two-toned look with a pair of unremarkably numbered glitter polishes!

These two glitter polishes are featured in the KOH and Co. Giveaway which ends today, Friday 26 November. To participate, do submit your entries by 11.59pm Central European Time!

Adorned Nails: HEMA Longlasting Nailpolish No. 83

I have a simple nail colour on this weekend, a lovely lilac that so calms me. You remember HEMA from my previous article about departmental stores in the Netherlands, don’t you? HEMA, a budget-friendly Dutch brand that also has nail polishes in its product offering.

This soothing crème polish comes in a large bottle of 11ml. The polish went on beautifully and what you see here is three coats, the third coat was just for good measure since polishing with it was incredibly easy.

And then, typical me just had to break the calmness because my itchy fingers wanted to try out the gradation sponge that I bought from Etude House months ago. I used KOH Purple Darkness and then, applied a matte top coat, also from HEMA.

Be gentle with me. This is my first ever, ever attempt at gradation. I intended to do just the tip, one-third of the nail. Dab, dab, dab and the more I dabbed, the more ‘faults’ I had to cover! Sheesh! So, here’s lovely lilac smeered two-thirds with polluting purple. This doesn't really look like gradation, does it? Call me weird but I thought the effect looks strangely like fleece.

Oh, and that's the thumb!


This lilac nail polish and the matte top coat from HEMA are up for grabs in the KOH and Co. Giveaway. They are in the Bright package which also includes KOH Neon Roze.