Guilty Pleasure - As Seen On TV Theme Week

It's the second last day of the TV theme week and today the theme is Guilty Pleasure. I had two choices for this one and at first I thought I would use Pretty Little Liars as my inspiration for this manicure, since it would have been very suitable for this theme and truly a guilty pleasure. But somehow I couldn't figure out what kind of manicure I would like to do inspired by it, so I went with my second chance and chose to do this manicure based on Revenge. 

Now, Revenge might not really be as clear guilty pleasure tv show as Pretty Little Liars would have been, but I think it's still quite suitable for this theme. It's quite entertaining mix of modern soap opera, drama and action, and it even has some moments where you could take it at least somewhat seriously. Then again some of the plot twists are just silly and quite often there are those classic soap opera moments where someone you think is dead returns or the relationships and affairs seem to go around quite a bit, so therefor it truly fits this theme. It might be quite well made (at least most of the time), but I'd say that it's still quite a guilty pleasure if you think about it. But then again, there's nothing wrong with that and we all need some guilty pleasures in our lifes, right?!

I wanted to keep this manicure quite simple since pretty much all the other manis that I've made for this week have been quite complicated and included quite some work or at least some freehand nail art. So this time I decided to go with just a simple gradient and nothing else. The colors for this gradient were quite clear, they are of course from that Revenge title with the red sky and the almost black sea. If I've been praising some other titles this week, Revenge's title isn't really anything special and it's not very well made either, but I still wanted to use it as an inspiration for this manicure since I think the colors really suit the series and are quite obvious too.

For this mani I first painted my nails with one coat of A England Perceval. Then I did the gradient with Perceval and Orly Iron Butterfly and finished the mani with one coat of top coat.

I'm totally in love with Perceval and I can't believe I haven't used it before for anything else than little nail art. It's a stunning red and so awesome as it coveres pretty much with just one coat. I love that shade and the finish which gaves it a look like it's shining from within.

Products used

Base coat: Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Polishes: A England Perceval, Orly Iron Butterfly

Top coat: Glisten&Glow HK Girl

Do you guys watch Revenge? Or some other guilty pleasure TV series?

Drama - As Seen On TV Theme Week

We are being watched. 

The government has a secret system - a machine - that spies on you every hour of every day. 

I designed a machine to detect acts of terror, but it sees everything. 

Violent crimes involving ordinary people. 

The government considers these people irrelevant. 

We don’t. 

Hunted by the authorities, we work in secret. 

You'll never find us. 

But victim or perpetrator, if your number’s up, we’ll find you. 

Today it's time for some Drama on our TV theme week! I already told you that I like to watch those procedual dramas and I happened to choose one of those for this drama theme too. Though this series is a bit different variation from that traditional procedual crime drama. If you've ever watched this you already know which series I'm talking about since you can't really watch it without hearing those lines that I started this post with.

That is of course Finch's narration from the title of Person of Interest, my choice for this drama theme. Person of Interest is definitely one of my favorite series currently on TV and I hope some of you are also familiar with this show as it is a really good one! I especially loved the first two seasons and it's still good one though I'm not sure if I'm completely in love with everything happening in seasons three and four. But like I said, if you haven't seen this, I highly recommend it and you should start from the first season.

Ever since Benjamin Linus and Lost, Michael Emerson has been one of my favorite actors on TV and he was probably the main reason I started watching POI in the first place. He hasn't disappointed at all in this show either and I think his character Finch and Jim Caviezel as Reese are a brilliant pair together. In fact I think the whole cast has been quite awesome, I've even began to like Root's character eventhough I really didn't like her in the beginning.

This time I didn't want to make my nails too straight from the series, I just wanted something that would still remind of it. So I chose to do a saran wrap manicure with black, red and grey and on top of that I painted few symbols that are a part of the show in the tittle sequences and in the show itself. I first painted my nails with one coat of Essie Licorice. 

After it was dry I dabbed some A England Perceval to here and there quite randomly and then used saran warp pieces to lift some of the polish off. After that I painted my nails with Essie Maximillian Strasse Her and again used some saran wrap to get some of the polish off. Somehow I accidentaly managed to smudge the grey a bit with my top coat, but luckily that kinda suited this manicure and my theme. Then I just painted the target squares and triangles using tiny nail art brush and Perceval as well as OPI Angel With a Leadfoot and I Just Can't Cope-acabana.

Products used

Base coat: Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Polishes: Essie Licorice, A England Perceval, Essie Maximillian Strasse Her, OPI Angel With a Leadfoot, OPI I Just Can't Cobe-acabana

Top coat: Mereneid Top It All and INM Out The Door

Decorations: tiny nail art brush

Have you ever watched Person of Interest?

New Favorite - As Seen On TV Theme Week

Today the theme for our TV theme week is New Favorite and I believe we are doing manicures about the same series with Mirka. Well, this show is such a good one so I'm not really surprised that it's the new favorite for both of us.

Of course I'm talking about True Detective. It did originally air already last year, but we are a bit late always here in Finland, so the first season is just now on our TV and we have actually still two episodes left to see from the first season. So if you have seen it already, don't spoil anything! ;)

I'm pretty sure everyone is already familiar with this series as it has been so highly praised, but if you haven't seen this yet, I highly recommend it. The show is really great one, but I'm also always quite a fan of good opening titles and True Detective's title is one of the best ones I have seen. The music and the images go so well together and it's really one of those titles that you want to watch every time eventhough it is quite long one. So as a big fan of the title, I really wanted to use it as an inspiration for my True Detective nails.

By the way, I had to google a bit while I was doing these nails and I happened to find this interesting article about the title. It was quite fascinating and it really helped me with my manicure too, so I thought I'd share it with you if you guys are interested.

I used quite a few of polishes for this manicure as well as some acrylic paint, though in the end this was still quite quick one to do. It was also my first time trying to do that water color type of thing (on my middle finger nail) where you first do some blobs of polish on your nail and then use some acetone to spread and thin the polish. It was really interesting and I like how it turned out, so I'll definitely need to try to use that in some other manicure too!

 

Products used

Base coat: Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Polishes: Essie Licorice, Color Club Silver Lake, Essie Maximillan Strasse Her, Zoya Autumn, Essie Naughty Nautical, Zoya Natty, A England Perceval, Zoya Ling, Orly Iron Butterfly, Essie Vested Interest (apparently I forgot to include that one to this picture)

Top coat: Mereneid Top It All

Decorations: black and white acrylic paint, nail vinyls

Have you guys watched True Detective?

Comedy - As Seen On TV Theme Week

As Seen On TV theme week continues and today it's time for some comedy nails. This was one of the themes I was especially waiting for since I've been wanting to do this manicure for quite a while and I had a clear idea of it in my head.

If you've ever watched this show I'm sure it's pretty clear which series I used as an inspiration, it's of course the hilarious 2 Broke Girls. In addition to The Big Bang Theory (nails of it done here already) 2 Broke Girls is definitely one of my favorite comedy TV series, I love the humor in it! This manicure that I did inspired by the show isn't probably very unique as I'm sure pretty much all the manicures about the show will have these same elemets, but then again, it's certainly recognizable.

For my index and pinky nails I took the inspiration (obviously) from the hidious waitress uniforms. I didn't want to interpret them too literally, so I just used similar colors and design, but didn't make them look like dresses or anything like that. I used OPI Race Red as my base color (2 coats) and OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana as the yellow. I would have really like to used something more ugly mustard yellow, but I don't really own any polishes of that shade. I also used nail vinyls from Vinyl It Up to do the design.

For my index and ring finger nails I did - of course - some cupcakes because Max's Homemade Cupcakes. I wanted to use different colors for these cupcakes and make them resemble a bit the two leading ladies of the series. So deep and dark colors for Max and soft pastels for Caroline. I used Zoya Margo and Perrie for the purple one and Essie Romper Room and Mint Candy Apple for the pastel one. The base is two coats of Sally Hansen Nail Rehab and the white is OPI Angel With a Leadfoot. I used dotting tool to make those sprinkles and the frosting and finally I added also couple rhinestones to complete the design.

I have to say that I really liked how this manicure turned out and I was quite happy with it! If my mani yesterday wasn't exactly how I pictured it would be, this time I managed to do these nails just as envisioned them in my head. It's not the most original interpretation of the show I'm sure, but it suited the theme and I finally also got to try to do some cupcake nail art since I had never done that before!

Products used

Base coat: Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Polishes: OPI Race Red, OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana, Zoya Margo, Zoya Perrie, Essie Mint Candy Apple, Essie Romper Room, OPI Angel With a Leadfoot

Top coat: Glisten&Glow HK Girl

Decorations: rhinestones, nail vinyls, dotting tool

Do you guys watch 2 Broke Girls? What are your favorite comedy shows?

Old Favorite - As Seen On TV Theme Week

It's the second day of the As Seen On TV theme week and already I have at least somewhat fail manicure to share with you guys... Oh well, ideally I would have liked to redo this one as it didn't turn out how I imagined it would, but I didn't have time for that, so I'll just have to go with this one.

Today our theme was Old Favorite and there were quite a few old favorites to choose from, but I decided to go with Bones. I'm quite into these types of series, I think they are good entertainment even if they aren't really any masterpieces. Bones is one of my all time favorites in this crime procedual drama genre, but I like quite a few others like Criminal Minds, all the C.S.I series, Law and Order (especially Special Victims Unit), Murdoch Mysteries and of course all the classic ones like Matlock and so on. 

I think I've seen pretty much every episode of Bones and I love the series especially because of great characters. So it was quite obvious choice for this theme and this time I wanted to do it a bit differently and use my manicure to appreciate some of the great characters, or should I say one especially. 

SPOILER ALERT: If you are watching Bones but haven't seen any of the season 10 episodes, you shouldn't probably read the rest of this post. I just wanted to give you heads up since I don't want to spoil anything from anyone. You can of course just look at the pictures. ;)

So yeah, this is my Bones manicure. Doens't look like Bones you say? Ok, I might need to explain this a bit. Like I said, I wanted to do this mani about the characters and I especially wanted to pay tribute to the character of Lance Sweets. Sweets faced quite tragic ending in the season 10 premiere and as he was probably one of my favorite characters, I really wanted to use him as inspiration for this manicure. Sweets meant that I of course had to have some candies on my nails and since I don't own any stamping plates with any candy images, I had to do some freehanded sweets. They didn't really turn out too great but hopefully you can still see what they are supposed to be. I didn't want to cover my nails with just some sweets, so I thought it would be great idea to include Daisy to the manicure too since they were clearly meant together and as we learnt in the same episode, Sweets and Daisy are having a baby. So obviously I then tried to paint some daisies on my nails too and they didn't really turn out too great either... Yup, as I said, the whole mani didn't really turn out like I had imagined.

But atleast I got to do my Sweets manicure as I had planned. By the way, I have to say that while no one can ever truly replace Sweets, the new character Aubrey is fantastic and he brings the same type of humour to the mix than Sweets did. I love him already and I think he is one the best replacements ever.

I used Powder Perfect Faded Jeans (3 coats) as my base color for this manicure. The sweets and the daisies I painted with acrylic paints.

How about you, do you watch Bones or some other similar crime series?

As Seen On TV - Theme Week!

This is exciting as now starts the first ever theme week here in my blog! While doing the #ablecaw14 challenge both me and Mirka really liked the As Seen On TV theme and we both had quite a few ideas that we wanted to do about that theme. So when Mirka started talking about doing a theme week with the same theme, I immediately wanted to join in too, so we decided to do this theme week together. 

This is going to be very simple: we will both post one manicure per day starting today and ending on Sunday. As the theme is As Seen On TV, all the manicures will have something to do with, surprise surprise, TV and we have actually chosen some more specific genres and such that we will do each day. All the other manicures will be about specific TV series except today as this is the kick off day and we thought it would be great idea to do something more generic but still of course TV releated for this first day.

I had the idea of this no signal themed manicure in my head since the As Seen On TV challenge manicure as it was something I thought about doing then but decided to go with that Big Bang Theory manicure then instead. So it was clear that I really wanted to try to do this for our theme week.

If it's not totally clear, I took my inspiration from those sceens that you get (or at least used to get) if your TV doesn't have any signal. So for my thumb, index and ring finger nails I tried to do something that looks like static on TV, though I'm not sure sure if I succeeded completely but paired with those color blocks I think you can still get the idea. 

I did those static screen nails with dotting tool and using Essie Licorice and Maximillan Strasse Her and OPI Angel With a Leadfoot. The color bar nails I did with paintin my nails first with a coat of white (AWaL) and then I taped my nails several times using nail vinyls and doing one or two bars at the time. So they did take quite a while to do and some patience too since I always had to wait for the previous one to dry before doing the other color. I could have painted these with freehand too, but I wanted the edges to be as sharp as possible.

Products used

Base coat: Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Polishes: Essie Licorice, Essie Maximillan Strasse Her, OPI Angel With a Leadfoot, Essie Hip-Anema, Color Club Blue-Ming, OPI I Just Can't Cope-acabana, Essie Bouncer, It's Me, ulta3 Tahitian Lime, Color Club Wicker Park
Top coat: Glisten&Glow HK Girl

So there will be a post every day during this theme week and I'm going to post them always at 6 PM (EET). Mirka at Nerdic Nails is doing the same, so remeber to check out also her daily posts!

Foil Nail Art With China Glaze Nice Caboose! and Zoya Margo

Yay, I have something other than blue and silver for you guys today, this time I decided to go with purple for a change. Also it has been forever since I've done anything with nail foils, so I decided to do a quick and simple nail art using some foil and two beautiful purple polishes.

I used China Glaze Nice Caboose! for my thumb, index and pinky nails (two coats) and Zoya Margo for my middle and ring finger nails (2 coats also). Margo looks clearly lighter in the bottle than Nice Caboose! but on nail  they weren't really that different and if you don't look too closely, you can't really tell the difference. Nice Caboose! has that beautiful magenta shimmer which is quite visible in the bottle, but it wasn't that noticable on nail or in the pictures, though you can see that there's something more going on there than with a regular creme. Both polishes had quite awesome formula, they applied really easily and both needed just two coats for full coverage.

When my base colors were completely dry, I applied some clear polish quite carelessly to here and there on my middle and ring fingers and then I stuck the foil into it. I repeated that couple of times to get more foil on my nails and also to get that shattered look. The foil I used had this gradient color from magenta to blue and lighter blue in itself already, but of course you can get the same look with using two or three different colored foils instead. I think I've bought mine from Born Pretty Store some years back. To complete the look I also added some nail studs on my other nails.

I really liked this look, it's simple but it's really pretty too! I also liked wearing purple for a change as I've had quite blue/turquoise/green phase going on and I had almost forgotten how good purple polishes can look too. I should really use those nail foils more often too, they are such an easy way to do some nail art.

Products used

Base coat: Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Polishes: China Glaze Nice Caboose!, Zoya Margo

Top coat: Glisten&Glow HK Girl

Decorations: foil, studs

Cirque Mirror Mirror, NYFW and 8 Crazy Nights Skittlette

Oh Cirque Mirror Mirror! How I waited to get mine! I actually ordered it quite a while ago from Cirque and they shipped it as quick as usual (which is really quick!) but there was some weird delay apparently because of the Finnish postal service (tracking showed that my order was sitting in Helsinki almost a month eventhough it had arrived from the US within less than a week) and so like I said, I had to wait quite a while to get mine and I was little worried that it was lost or something. 

But the story had happy ending and I finally got mine and I have actually wore it already three times since! Yup, first time I just had to try it alone, then after that I did a quick gradient with it and Cirque Epoch. I did take pictures of that mani too, but they didn't turn out so great. Anyhow, I also just got my Harlow & Co. order with Cirque NYFW in it and I really wanted to combine it with Mirror Mirror into a manicure. So I wore Mirror Mirror third time and this time I managed to even get some pictures worth sharing with you! 

In addition to Mirror Mirror and NYFW I also had Cirque 8 Crazy Nights in my untrieds, so I decided to combine it to this manicure too. I used Essie Urban Jungle under it and then did just one coat with 8 Crazy Nights. For my index, pinky and thumb nails I used two coats of NYFW and picked couple glitters on each nail from 8 Crazy Nights. For my ring finger I first used two coats of Mirror Mirror, then I applied smART nail art stencil over it and painted parts of the nail with NYFW and then removed the stencil.

The blue shade of NYFW is jus stunning, I'm so in love with it! It's gorgeous deep shade and as the formula is something between jelly and creme, it has beautiful shine and depth. The formula was pretty great as it coveres pretty well with just two coats, but it was little bit on the thick side.

8 Crazy Nights is also a stunner! I think it's quite unique one and I love the fact that it has both matte and shiny glitters in it as well as some holographic ones. And it's mainly blue and turquoise, so of course I love it.

I don't think I need to say too much about Mirror Mirror, I'm sure you all have already read quite a few of praises about it. As lame as it sounds it is truly one of those polishes that you have to see yourself to truly appreciate it as the beauty of it doesn't really translate into pictures. I tried to take some swatches of it, but my camera just got too spooked about all that mirrorlike shine and it didn't really know where to focus eventhough I tried. I included on picture of it alone here, but like I said, this is really something you have to see yourself.

I have two coats here with base and top coat and there might be still some tiny bald spots in between those silver flakes, but that didn't really matter in real life since you can't really see those because of all that shine. I think Mirror Mirror looked really good by itself too and if I ever need something quick but showy, Mirror Mirror is the one I'll choose. It is fairly easy to apply, though it has quite different formula compared to regular polish as it is packed with those silver flakes. Removing this is another story, so I have always worn this over IsaDora Peel Off Base to ease the removal quite a bit.

Like I said, all these three are gorgeous polishes and I highly recommend them all, at least if you like blue and silver! Mirror Mirror and 8 Crazy Nights are limited edition polishes and they are currently out of stock at least on Cirque's own store, so if you want them and see them somewhere, you should definitely get them before it's too late. They are surely worth it!

By the way, I think this was my third manicure with blue and silver within a short period of time... I seem to be stuck with this color combo, but it suits so well these cold and wintry days.

How about you, are you already sporting all those spring colors?

Snowflake Nail Art

I know Christmas is long gone already but somehow I never posted this snowflake nail art manicure that I did for the Sokos event before Christmas. First I thought I wouldn't even post it, but I had already edited the pictures and all, so you just have to bear with me this one last Christmassy manicure. 

And here you can see the reason why I didn't really want to post this: I managed to smudge the design with the top coat. But I really loved the red and gold gradient look here, so let's focus on that instead! I used the same polishes here that we used in the Sokos event too, so the red one is Lumene Apple Basket and the gold one is We Care Icon Golden Comet. I painted the snowflake with We Care Icon True White and I used Mavala Minute Quick-Finish, so be aware, it can smudge your design.

I really love how the gradient looks with the red and the gold, they make so pretty reddish shimmer together! Also the red color of that Lumene is really stunning! It is very pigmented, basically one-coater, but then again it also get quite stuck on cuticles and such if you aren't careful with it.

I also posted a quick tutorial for snowflake nail art, you can check it out here if you haven't seen it already. If you combine it to some other colors, like blue, you can get more wintry look instead of this Christmassy look. 

Maybe this manicure can work as an inspiration for you next Christmas, eh...

Sally Hansen Nail Rehab

Lumene Apple Basket

We Care Icon Golden Comet

We Care Icon True White

Mavala Minute Quick-Finish

Polishers Inc. - Safe and Sound

It's time for another Polishers Inc. manicure, yay! This time the theme is Safe and Sound and the idea was to do a mani that you do when you have to get it just right and don't want to take any chances. I went with my true comfort-zone manicure: gradient with water decals. This is really the one thing I always do if I need to make my mani just right and I can usually make this work at least 99% of the time.

Lately I've been quite into Picture Polish lacquers, so I decided to use two of those pretties for my manicure. I first did a coat with Siren Song, beautiful mint with silver shimmer. Then I did the gradient using Siren Song and Enchanting, which I just received this week and I'm loving it! It's a gorgeous shade of emerald green with some tiny shimmer in it. It's so pretty!

This time I didn't want to use water decals on all my nails, so I just did couple accent nails and added those white water decals on my ring finger nails and on my thumbs. This is a quite simple manicure, but gradient and water decals truly work every time!

It's definitely not surprising manicure coming from me, but it sure is safe and sound.

KBShimmer Basic Training

Picture Polish Siren Song

Picture Polish Enchanting

Glisten&Glow HK Girl Top Coat

Don't forget to check out also all the other Polishers Inc. ladies' Safe and Sound manicures.

An InLinkz Link-up

Voting / Äänestys - The Finnish(Able) Nail Art Challenge AW2014

I know, I know. I said that I was done with the #ablecaw14 posts, but I still need just a little bit of your time and interest. Mirka's post reminded me that I originally wanted to do a little survey about the challenge, but I totally forgot that. Thanks to Mirka I decided that it's not still too late, so here's the survey. It only has few questions and it does't really take more than couple minutes of your time, so I really hope that you all take part in it! It doesn't matter if you didn't participate in the challenge your self, I just want your opinion about it.

We are planning for new spring version about this challenge, so I really want to hear your thoughts and preferences of the autumn winter version in order to make the sping one even better!

If you need a reminder about the challenge, you should check out my recap of the whole thing here or all my posts about it under the #ablecaw14 label. I also linked all my manicures to the survey, so you can use those links and take a closer look if you need to.

The survey is embedded in the end of this post, but you can also click here if the embedded version isn't working for some reason.

Kyselyn kysymykset on myös suomeksi, joten kaikki vastaamaan!

Thank you all in advance, your opinion means a lot to me and I really want to hear what you think! 

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey , the world's leading questionnaire tool.

Picture Polish Holiday Waves

Today I have some quick nail art to share with you guys! I just recently got my Picture Polish Holiday and I really wanted to wear it as soon as possible and I also wanted to see how it looks alone as well as over some darker polish. So I decided to combine these all into some nail art.

Picture Polish Holiday is a special edition holo/flakies top coat and all the bottles are numbered. I didn't really get a special number in any way, but it doesn't matter too much since the polish is such a beauty anyhow.

I didn't want to use black so I went with Essie After School Boy Blaze which is a very dark blue creme. It looks almost black in the pictures and in real life too, but I like the fact that it feels a bit softer than a true black polish does. I used one coat of After School Boy Blazer on my thumb, index and pinky nails. Then I taped the nails with nail vinyls from Vinyl It Up! and painted one coat of Holiday on top and removed the vinyls. For my middle and ringer finger nails I used only one coat of Lumene CC Nail Concealer and two coats of Picture Holiday since I wanted to see how it looks alone.

I really liked my thumb, index and pinky nails, Holiday looks so good over a dark polish!

After a while of having Holiday alone on my middle nails I though I should still add some Essie on those nails too, so I decided to use the same wavy vinyls and painted one coat with the Essie and removed the vinyls. Then I added some Holiday over some of the sections and left the others without it. After doing this I wasn't really sure what I thought about this manicure. There's something a little bit weird about it and eventhough I really love PP Holiday and especially those darker nails, the middle ones look a bit strange... I guess I should have done something else on them or just left them how they were.

I did remember to take a picture before I added the Essie on my middle nails, so I of course wanted to show you that one too:

Yup, I think this looks better as the manicure doesn't look so busy. 

But tell me, what do you think? 

Mavala Nude Colors - Dotticure and Swatches

Provided for review*

It's very cold and wintry here in Finland, but still have the first spring collection to share with you guys today. Matte seems to be a big trend this year and Mavala is right on the money with their new spring collection Nude Colors. The collection has six nudeish colors in it and they all have a soft matte finish. 

I wanted to do something different this time and not just show you the swatches, so I decided to start this post with a simple nail art I did using four lacquers from this collection. I'll show you my quick swatches of all these polishes too, but first let's take a look at that nail art.

I used the only truly shimmery one from this collection, Tea Rose, as my base color. I did two coats with it. I wanted to mix and match shiny and matte, so I added a coat of top coat over Tea Rose to make it shiny. Then I did the dots using two different sizes of dotting tools and three polishes from this collection: Trench Beige, Lavender and Pink Boudoir.

I also wanted to see how this manicure would look all matte, so after a while I added a coat of matte top coat on top.

I think I preferred the shiny and matte version over this fully matte one, since I think it looked really cool with the shiny base and matte dots. However, this matte version looks really cool too as the dots look somehow soft and squishy.

But let's take a closer look to the whole Nude Colors collection and those swatches!

Like I said, there's six polishes in this collection and all these have a soft matte finish or 'soft matte effect' as Mavala describes it. Two of these have shimmer in them though only in Tea Rose the shimmer is visible on nail too.

Lavender has, just as the name suggests, beautiful lavender hue. I used three coats here as this was the sheerest one of these all. I also managed to smudge the coats underneath while I applied the third coat, but this was totally my fault as I should have waited a bit longer for the other coats to dry. That's really how you should apply these to avoid any bald spots and things like that. Use generous coats and wait for them to dry before applying more. The less brushstrokes you use the better.

Pashmina is a warm sandy orange matte, quite interesting color! I used two coats.

Trench Beige is greyish beige matte. I think this would work nicely as a base for some nail art, alone this isn't really my type of color. I used two coats.

Tea Rose is a pinkish nude matte with plenty of tiny shimmer in it. This one seems the most special to me from all these six because of the beautiful shimmer in it. With the shimmer and the soft matte finish this has a gorgeous frosted look. I used two coats.

Pink Boudoir is a vintage rose matte and this is another one that has shimmer in it. However, the shimmer in this one is not that visible on nail. This gives a beautiful sophisticated look on your nails, but it's really a bit borderline of looking somewhat dated and little bit granny-like, at least on me. I used two coats.

Ballerina is a sandy nude with a hint of purple in it. This is another really gorgeous shade and I think this would look good on many people. I used two coats.

I really like the idea of this collection and it's great that eventhough this is a nude collection, the polishes have clearly some color in them. There are some hues, like Trench Beige and Pink Boudoir, that don't really look that good on me but I'm sure they would look great on somebody else. Tea Rose, Ballerina and Lavender were my clear favorites out of these six and whenever I need to do an office appropriate manicure, any of these three are going to be great choices.

I actually took a picture of Tea Rose on all my nails since I wore it as a base for my nail art, so I might as well show it to you also:

 Once again, this was two coats with a base coat and no top coat. 

And finally I also wanted to see how these would look shiny, so I also added one coat of clear top coat over them:

I think they all look really nice this way too!

I would also suggest that if you want to wear these as a full matte manicure you should think about adding a coat of matte top coat over them. They do have a beautiful matte finish alone, but if you want your manicure to last longer, it's always a good idea to use a top coat.

But now it's your turn, so tell me, which one of these is your favorite? And how about my dotticure, did you prefer the fully matte version or the one with shiny base and matte dots? 

 

Disclosure: I have gotten all these Mavala Nude Colors collection polishes for review. For more information view my disclosure policy.