Adorned Nails: KOH Romantic Flair

KOH Romantic Flair is the second polish from the new KOH Vintage Jeans collection.

It's an odd-one-out in the lineup of the six Vintage Jeans polishes. It's.....in one word......dainty. It's such a sweet baby blue créme, very innocent-looking compared to the other grungy five. KOH has certainly given it an appropriate name.

Just like KOH Rock Chick, Romantic Flair applied beautifully. You're looking at two coats.

I wanted to give the blue some texture and so, I stamped this design from an Essence Nail Art Stampy Design plate (I've mentioned this before - it's pointless telling you which plate it is because Essence calls all their rectangular plates either '01 have fun' or '02 style it up').

I stamped three or four times on each nail, firstly because the design isn't big enough to fill the whole nail, and secondly, to give it a rougher surface. The first layer was with the mildly matte white Herôme Ottawa and the second layer, with the same blue of Romantic Flair.

To preserve the rough surface, I deliberately did not use a top coat on this.

This polish was provided by KOH Cosmetics.

Previous Vintage Jeans polish: KOH Rock Chick
Next Vintage Jeans polish: KOH Bohemian Chic

Adorned Nails: Catrice Iron Mermaiden

You won't be mistaken if you think you've seen this one here before. Remember Essence Where Is The Party?? As far as I can tell, Iron Mermaiden is a twin but with a much funkier name. Where Is The Party? sounds so teenybopper. Iron Mermaiden, definitely hardcore.

I will describe Iron Mermaiden much like how I had described Where Is The Party?. It's a metallic duochrome (or trichrome?) of dark green and purple/silvery lilac on the nails. In the bottle, you can catch flashes of aqua.

There is however a difference in application. The formula for Where Is The Party? is thicker and it works as a one-coater. Iron Mermaiden, on the other hand, has a thinner consistency and needs at least three coats for opacity. For both polishes, you will get the same results in the end. I'll let you do the math.

Where Is The Party? - €1.29 for 5ml

Iron Mermaiden - €2.49 for 10ml

I doubt you would have noticed but you're looking at one coat of Where Is The Party? on the little finger. All the other fingers have three coats of Iron Mermaiden on. It's hard to tell the difference.

Let's see how Iron Mermaiden looks with some stamping. I've used the gaudy purple of Catrice Forget-Me-Not and one of the Essence Nail Art Stamping Design Plates with the so-called full nail designs.

I have two things to say about the plate:

1. It's pointless telling you the name of the plate because Essence has a ridiculous way of naming them. Essence has issued about five or six rectangular plates to-date but each of them has either the name 01 have fun! or 02 style it up!. It appears to be a case of packaging material overstock, I think.

2. They are supposed to be full-nail designs but they can't fill a whole nail. Ironic. It doesn't work for the thumb and it won't work if you have long-ish nails. The designs are really made for little girls, not for senior citizens like moi.

I've chosen the circle design with retro vibes. Due to the small size of the design, I had to stamp twice on the thumbs. It wasn't easy connecting the two stamps. Then, I added a thick French tip with the same polish.

It's hardcore gone retro.


My previous features on:
Where Is The Party?
Catrice Forget-Me-Not

Adorned Nails: Nails Inc. London Nights

Here's another black one. A plain unadulterated black with high gloss from Nails Inc., known for their nail polishes named after mainly places in London.

I checked their website and I don't think London Nights is available through them anymore. The formula for London Nights is on the thick side, but that could be because it's an old bottle. Nevertheless, it applied fine. Two coats did the job.

I don't do much stamping these days, but this black was calling for one. Some time back, I bought these Essence Nail Art Stampy Design plates. I've pointed this out before and I will point it out again. Essence sure has a strange way of naming their plates. They seem to be stuck in some name warp: always the same few numbers and names even though they are totally different image plates! Check these plates out and their corresponding names:

There is at least one more other Essence plate out there with that very same name. Go figure! It's as though Essence has a perpetual overstock of these packaging labels.

I used the zebra print found on the plate on the right. These full-nail images look fun at first, but coming back to earth, I find them too small for my nails. If my nails were short, they would probably just about fit but they still won't fill my whole thumb nails. These images seem to be made for those with small nails, or perhaps for little girls (okay, true, little/young girls are Essence's primary target market anyway).

With that in mind, I chose to stamp the nail leaving the tip plain. Admittedly, my stamping here could have been better executed. Stamping purists might cringe looking at the unevenness! So, do forgive this greenhorn in full-nail stamping.

The final effect is like an inversed zebra with black french tips. Funny!

More information:
Nails Inc. website

Adorned Nails: SpaRitual Gold Digger

Warning: Strong, gaudy colours ahead, but I have good reason for it.

I love SpaRitual polishes and it's a pity that I don't feature them here often enough. I haven't got many of them. This one, Gold Digger, is the last one in my stash. Gold Digger is a beigy gold shimmer polish, but on the nails, it takes on more of a yellow tint (or perhaps that's just how it looks against my skintone).

It was opaque in two coats and as with all the other SpaRitual polishes I've tried, this one applied like a dream. That's why I love this brand!

All right, now for the gaudy part. I thought I'd do a festive-appropriate manicure for the Chinese Lunar New Year. The additional things used were:

Red polish - Alessandro Stiletto Nail Polish No. 21
Stamped design - Essence Nail Art Stampy Design Plate 01 Have Fun

Chinese New Year would not be complete without gold and red to symbolise prosperity. I've added the "fook" character to it. "Fook" is so rich in meaning that it's hard to define in just a couple of words. It encompasses god's blessings, good health, good luck, good fortune and so much more. Well, it basically refers to all things good and auspicious, and that is what I wish all of you who are ushering in the Year of the Rabbit.

Happy Chinese New Year!!

More information:
My SpaRitual nail polishes
SpaRitual website

Adorned Nails: ARTDECO Wonder Brush Red Violet

I couldn't resist getting this nail polish when I saw it in the store. It's not so much because of the colour, but because of the picture on the box.

Here's what ARTDECO says about this nail lacquer with double brush (excerpts):
The innovative double brush with two parallel arranged brushes provides a new polishing experience - the nail varnish can be applied evenly and without stripes. The rounded tips enable quick and easy application.

I don't know if this is something totally new (there are already polishes with extra wide brushes on the market), but a quick check of the polishes that I have shows that all the brushes are flat and angular. This one from ARTDECO is flat, a tad wider (2x brush) and has rounded corners. Quite unusual.

With one stroke, this brush covers about four-fifths of my nail (with the exception of the thumbs, of course). I like the rounded corners. It makes sense: our cuticles are round-shaped after all. So, I did find polishing easier with this brush. There was no streaking but I wouldn't attribute that to only the brush. The formula of the polish must also have something to do with it.

ARTDECO says this polish is toluene-free. I checked the list of ingredients and sadly, it has formaldehyde resin. Sigh, really, ARTDECO......in this day and age?!

Red Violet a.k.a. No. 318 is a super glossy maroon brown shade. I have here two coats on. I like it but I was itching to do something further, so I applied a matte top coat from HEMA. You can see the difference in the following two images.

Then, I stamped a flower design from Essence Nail Art Stampy Design Plate 03 Be Creative with a black KONAD polish.

It's nothing fancy, I know. It's just a mattified subdued colour with a simple stamp design.

I got this polish for €8.50 (6ml). ARTDECO is a German brand and, as far as I know, in The Netherlands, it's available at selected Douglas Parfumerie stores.

More information: ARTDECO website

Adorned Nails: Etos Effect Nails No. 18

Here's an electric blue polish for you. With its fine shimmers and its jelly finish, how can you not be drawn to it?


The colour in the bottle looks like the colour of Bristol Blue Glass.....or so I thought. It was close but on the nails, it looks more like Bristol Blue Glass held against strong sunlight. I have here three coats on. Two was OK, but I could still see faint traces of my nail tips. This polish was rather fragile. Drying time took ages and I had a couple of little accidental dents and fingerprint marks on the surface. So, a good top coat is advised.



I love tribal designs. This one's from the old Essence Nail Art Stampy Set 2 Have Fun. As mentioned before, I have only one full-nail stamping image which I used previously on Sparitual Epicurean. So, this time around, I stamped the tribal design multiple times to fill up each nail. A stamping frenzy.....umm, would that make it a stampede?



I used an old silver nail polish from Catrice called Silver Moon for the stamping. I think the silver complements this striking blue beautifully!



Check out the KOH and Co. Giveaway. This electric blue polish is part of Prize Package 2.

Adorned Nails: KOH Neon Roze

You probably think you’ve seen this before. You’re quite right. I did show you something very similar back in June: KOH Hot Pink.

Both Neon Roze and Hot Pink are crèmes. At a glance, you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Neon Roze (bottle on the left) is a tad lighter and brighter. Hot Pink (bottle on the right) has just that bit more red in the mix.

I bought each of these at different times this year, not realising that they are so similar. Yeah, I know, where was my brain?

Lost somewhere in Foggyville, I'm sure.

Well, I’m done kicking myself and so, here I am showing you KOH Neon Roze. Psst, I feel like Barbie with this colour on.

What you see here is with two coats (but I had to do three on my thumbs – my nail tips were more obvious there). The formula was on the thicker side. I had difficulty getting a nice, even, second coat on some nails. It required re-doing and re-doing and re-doing. Not fun. I don’t know if it might have had something to do with the dryness indoors.

The stamping image this time around is from the Essence Nail Art Stampy Design Plate: 01 Have Fun. It’s big and not subtle. Psst, for some reason, I suddenly feel like Hello Kitty! And, yes, I know that's a flower and not a bow.

The weather here has been insanely erratic but I managed to take some photos of BarHelKit basking in sunlight. Within three minutes, the sun disappeared again behind the clouds.

Stay tuned for more. I'm not done yet with my story about Neon Roze.

Adorned Nails: Etos Effect Nails No. 24

I wasn’t feeling well the other day and I couldn’t sleep. I tried reading a book but it couldn’t hold my attention. So, for the first time in many weeks, I whipped out a bottle of nail polish and proceeded to paint my nails. With this, I managed to concentrate. Yeah...that’s weird.

I eventually fell asleep after putting on three coats (and didn’t do any cuticle clean-up). I didn’t take pictures of my nails till more than twelve hours later and these were the results.

Etos is a Dutch drugstore chain. I wrote a bit about Etos a while back, if you’re curious. Etos has its house-brand of makeup products, including nail polishes, offered at affordable prices. This little bottle of probably 7ml (it’s not stated on the bottle) cost €2.49, if I recall correctly.

Effect Nails No. 24 held so much promise in the bottle. It was lilac, dense with fine shimmer particles and I thought it was a duochrome as I noted hues of grey too.

Well, it was a rather different story on the nails. It looks pink. Granted, it does have an overload of fine shimmer particles, so much so that the finish looks gritty. Thankfully, it doesn’t feel gritty to the touch. But aaaiii, where’s the duochrome?!

The following photos were taken on the third day after I suddenly had the urge to do some stamping. I’ve used a simple obscure flowery design from the Essence Nail Art Stampy Design Plate 02: Style It Up! and KONAD’s black stamping polish. No top coat was used.

I like the stark contrast of black on li...I mean pink shimmer. At a glance, they look like black velvet flowers pasted on a bed of pink grainy metal.

Hmm, nope, I still can’t see the duochrome.