piCture pOlish - Kryptonite by More Nail Polish

Back in 2012 there was this piCture pOlish Collaboration Collection, oh how I longed for the polish called Kryptonite. It has been on my lemming list for as long as I knew of its existence.

I was thrilled when I saw that a girl was selling ALL her polishes, and sadden as she no longer found joy in nail polish as a hobby. So I decided to give some of her polishes as loving home. A place where they would be hugged once in a while. Shown to all my friends. Loved and cared for.

That is how, piCture pOlish came to my home.
When the mail man knocked on my door Saturday morning, I did a little dance of joy when I found this polish in the parcel. 

piCture pOlish -  Kryptonite by More Nail Polish

The picture was taken in natural lighting to really show of the gorgeousness of this amazing nail polish. I considered doing some nail art over it, but I could not do it. Searching for this polish on Google shows me that others felt the same way. This needs to shown off in all it's glory.


If you were to do some nail art over this polish, what would you have done?

Get ready for Autumn / Fall with me

It is that time of the year again. The weather is getting colder, and you start longing for tea or a cup of hot cocoa, cosy sweaters, and scarves.

You might find yourself reaching for more orange and brown shades in your manicures and clothes.
Maybe you prefer more vampy shades on your nails now that it is getting darker around us.
Make plans for movie night with the girls, or board games night with the kids.

What ever you have planned for this autumn I wish you the very best. May your nails never chip, your cuticles be soft and the weather not too cold.

Coordinate your manicure with your favourite take-away coffee cup.

The preparations 

As I live in Northern Ireland now, and no longer in Norway, it means that the preparations for autumn are a bit different that I have been used to.  I still have to pull out all my scarves, and I practically live in my parkas, and wear woolen socks at home all the time.

I always make sure I got plenty of moisturizers around the home, office and in my bag. I use argan oil whenever I can and got a bottle in my bag and one at my desk at home. I have decanted some Lush - Lemony Flutter in a sampler sized jar that I use with the argan oil. First I apply Lemony Flutter and after that has soaked in, I apply the oil.

Lush - Lemony Flutter - Cuticle Butter

As it is not always practical to use oils in the office, since I more or less use the keyboard all day, I have a jar of Burt's Bees - Hand Salve Baume Pour Les Mains. I apply this maybe 1-4 times a day depending on the humidity, if any of my coworkers are running a fan, or windows being left open.
The struggle is real. I will sit here with woolen socks up over my knees and someone will sit across me with a fan on them in a T-shirt.

I find that if it is raining, I dry out a lot more, and the only thing that can save my hands from cracking up is Body Shop - Hemp Hand Protector or if it has already started to crack up Body Shop - Hemp Intensive Hand Protector.


Autumn / Fall manicures

I know some of my readers are published and unpublished authors, and hobby writers. Last year I did a manicure that I named " A Writers Manicure". This is for all of you attending NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this year. November is fast approaching. My dear friend Mishka has found a book that can help you write a first draft in 30 days effectively. 

NaNoWriMo manicure - A writers choice

I have been diving in my Archive and pulled out some forgotten designs that will take you in to Autumn. From a Movie Night manicure, traditional autumnal colors like burnt orange, mustard and green, to brighter choices with swirls and free hand flowers (Prado Red Sunflowers).

Autumnal manicures by Secretary's Nail Art

If stamping is not your choice, I also gathered some that only requires a dotting tool, like this fruit basket manicure, two polishes and a sponge for this green chrome with golden tips or just a glitter topper. Maybe these will get your ideas spinning. 

Autumnal manicures by Secretary's Nail Art

Sometimes we don't have the time for nail art at all, and opt for single colour instead. For those of you, I gathered my favorites for Autumn in this collage. Dark greens, vampy shades, or simple black with glitter.

Autumnal nail polish shades by Secretary's Nail Art

Let me know in the comments below what your favorites are!
If you want to know which polish was used for any of these pictures, just ask and I will answer as soon as I can. Make sure you click the "notify me" box to the right when adding your comment, so that you will see my answer.

The Peanutized Secretary version

A England - Dragon

One of my favorite brands of polish in the indie world is A England. So as we are getting closer to the end of September here, I wanted to make sure that atleast one of them was featured during this month of indie-polish-focus. 

This is one of my newer A England purchases, and I have seen a couple more that I want from the brand, that will be my Christmas present to myself.

The polish I wanted to show you today is A England - Dragon.
At the time of writing this post, A England - Dragon is currently out of stock. 

This mossy green nail polish is absolutely amazing.  So rich in colour, it could be applied in just one coat. I choose to use two just to be on the safe side.  

They also work for stamping. So you know.

A England - Dragon

A England  does not ship outside of UK, but you can still get your hands on these polishes, as there are several distributors that can help you out.

I have been wearing this polish for a week now, and it's a bit sad to take it off and use something else. I am sure you will love the next polish I got to show you. Maybe even just as much as this one.
That is, if you are a green-lover like myself.

Girly Bits - PAA Scandinavia Custom - Scandilous

Last year, the Facebook group for Scandinavian Nail Polish Lovers also called PAA Scandinavia, decided to get a nail polish that would be ours. One that we could join around and love, together.
Several month of discussions and asking different makers, the choice landed on Girly Bits, and she made us Scandilous.

If you are from one of the Scandinavian countries and not a member, follow the link and join us. 

They might be the best group of enablers I know.

Girly Bits - PAA Scandinavia Custom - Scandilous is a very lovely shade of blue, and it has some small hex glitters in it. I think it looks perfect with my pale skin.

Girly Bits - PAA Scandinavia Custom - Scandilous

I noticed the reflection of this polish on my desk while working, with tiny shiny lights dancing over my desk as I was typing. I wanted to amp it up and added some glitters.

Ages ago, I bought a stack of loose glitters to use for nail art, today is the first time I use it. Like any good hoarder, I have kept it in my stash all this time, for this moment.

Nail Art Stack Pots from New Look (2013) - blue hex glitter

I added a couple of them using a fanbrush while the topcoat was tacky. After I was happy with the result, I added another layer of topcoat. I am amazed over how well this polish and glitter help up. It survived a couple of rounds doing dishes and handling laundry.

Now when I type in the office there are tiny reflections all over my desk. Quite lovely distraction.

Reflection of Girly Bits - PAA Scandinavia Custom - Scandilous with added glitter

#itrustindiepolish

Holographic whiteout

I recently got a pop-up lightbox, but haven't set up my lightbox stuff yet, as I am still waiting to get the light sorted. Still daylight enough around these parts to get some decent shots.
So I decided on giving a holo polish a go.

I had gotten my hands on a Nfu-Oh polish. Nfu-Oh-065 actually.
Sky blue holo.

I found it to be streaky, and not at all too my liking. I think I have been spoiled with great A England holographic polishes. Too bad they don't got a sky blue, but they do have a  cerulean blue (sorta the same, right?) so I might need to get that. 

Despite the application hiccups and the 4 coats (still showing bald spots darn it)...

I think it looks good. 

I even did some stamping over it, but as I used white, it was completely washed out by the holo-ness. 

I used the Bundlemonster - Polynesia - BM - XL109, a bird and palm image.
If you want to see my review of the plate, check out this post. 

I have been wanting to get my hands on Nfu-Oh polishes for awhile, as I LOVE the bottles, but the experience was not all that awesome.

Nfu-Oh - 065

I suppose this is not really an indie polish, so you will have to excuse me there. There will be plenty of indie polishes on it's way.

Uber Chic Beauty - Collection 3

As some of you may have seen it already, I did a haul from Über Chic Beauty and got some of their plates as well as the Über Mat. I have already done a review on the Zombie Love plate. 

I bought Collection 3 because of the positive message that is on plate 3-01 and 3-03.

It reminds us that you should never face your fears alone, and that you are Beautiful.

I actually have "Be-you-tiful" as a pictures on my wall here in my nail cave. So important to remind yourself of that.

My Über Chic Haul

This is the Secretary.

Make sure that you subscribe to my channel for more stamping plate reviews. 

I hope you all enjoy the video I put together, I had a lot of fun making it. 

Stamping test of Über Chic Beauty - Stamping Plate - Collection 3

The plates can be bought at Über Chic Beauty, and cost $24.99 for all three.

Until next time, remember that YOU are beautiful.

Links to:

Manicures using these plates

HPB Presents: Autumn

 HPB is running a blogger-link-up, and the theme is Autumn/Fall.
I know I recently posted about not being ready for summer to be over just yet, but as I just got my Über Chic Beauty - Stamping mat, I thought this would be a great opportunity to test it out.
Make some leaves on it, and fill in. That sort of thing.

Where I live it doesn't look autumn-like at all. The trees are still green, there are still flowers around. I think that's why they call it the Emerald Isle. Haha. So my manicure might look at little too green that what would normally be considered to be a autumn look.

I started out with a coat of clear polish to my Über Chic Beauty - Stamping mat, then I used the leaves from Bundlemonster - Polynesia - BM-XL109. You can read my post about the plate by folloing this link. I I used Barry M - Gelly - Cardamom for that, and filled the leaves in using Barry M - Matte - Mocha. (looking at the ready manicure, this was not a good combination)

I promised you more indie polishes so this time I painted all my nails with Pretty Serious - VT100 that I recently bought.
Looking at it on my nails I think I got a KIKO polish that is a dead on dupe. More on that in another post.

I then took Moyou London - Nature Collection - 07 and stamped some branches on the other nails, using Barry M - Matte - Mocha.

HPB Presents: Autumn. Using Pretty Serious - VT100.

Check out what the other girls did for the HPB theme!

An InLinkz Link-up

Germany Haul

I had a great holiday in Germany this summer, and I wanted to share with you all the nail polishes that I got. Before I left for Germany I scouted out some places to go shopping for nail polish while I was there. Google did not provide me with the greatest results, so I decided to write this post about my shopping trip for others who are also looking for where to buy nail polishes in Germany.

My first stop in Munich, the capital of Bavaria Germany was Sonnestrasse where I found a Euro Shop. This is sort of the same as Dollar Store, 100 Yen Stores or the Poundland/Poundworlds.
Beside the lovely multicoloured yarn I found for my mother, I also found a glitter polish from a brand called Sabrina, and some fimo animals.

Following Sonnestrasse, I got to Karlsplatz, here I found Karstadt which proved to be a HUGE disappointment, as I wasted almost an hour looking through the place, but no nail polish. This might have been due to the remodeling of the place, but I saw no evidence of nail polish, except for the usual suspects like Chanel, and YSL which you can get cheaper at most airports.

Later I decided to give Willy - Brandt - Platz a try.  Here you can find a KIKO store as well as several  Parfumerie in the second floor. If you have time to grab a bite, I would recommend checking out Ristorante Pizzeria Calabrone. The owner was super nice, and the food delicious. 

The KIKO store had a huge sale, so there was practically no polish left on the shelf, but I did managed to snap up these four.  It is, in no particular order; Kiko - 492, Kiko, 534, Kiko - 497 and Kiko - 531. (links lead to posts using the polishes)

KIKO Haul

 I found one of the Harry Potter themed Catrice polishes, so I picked that one with me. It was the Catrice - 46 - Berry potter & Plumbledore. I also found Catrice - 680 - Khaki Perry, Catrice - 59 - First Class Up-Grape, Catrice - 03 - Have An Ice Day which is the Million Styles at the right in the picture, and Catrice - 60 - Out Of The Dark.

Catrice Haul

For the rest of my trip around Bavaria Germany I did not find much in terms of nail polish, but I had a great holiday and got to see some amazing places. The best part I think was rowing a little boat in the Alpe See for an hour.

You can see me use Catrice - First Class Up-Grape over at my YouTube Channel, doing a tutorial for Wired Nails

Bundlemonster - Polynesia - BM-XL109

If you are anything like me, you might not be quite ready to give up summer, just yet.
The weather has been great here in Northern Ireland, and I was feeling like doing a review of the Bundlemonster - Polynesia - BM-XL109.

The plate is gorgeous, and is like an image buffet, very fittingly the plate is named Flower Buffet.

You can get the Bundlemonster - Polynesia - BM-XL109  plate over here, at the time of posting this, Bundlemonster is Out Of Stock for this plate.

Make sure that you subscribe to my channel for more stamping plate reviews.
I hope you all enjoy the video I put together, I had a lot of fun making it.

There will be a manicure using this plate, up on the blog this week.

Über Chic - Limited Edition - Zombie Love

Hello everyone. I went on a huge online shopping spree not long ago, and the parcels are now arriving one by one. 

One of the things that I purchases was the Über Chic - Limited Edition - Zombie Love stamping plate. Hallowing is coming up next, and I wanted to be ready this year for some Ghoulish Demands. 

This year I might actually participate in a Zombie Event. They were hiring "improve theater people", and I sent my application couple of weeks ago. Since I do so much roleplaying, I thought this would be an excellent opportunity for me to show of my skills, as well as trying Zombie life out.
I am usually not the Zombie in these kind of events, but a Zombie Hunter.

...But all of you didn't come over here to look at my Zombie Hunter outfits. Why would you, when I got an awesome stamping plate to show you. Without further ado:

Make sure that you subscribe to my channel for more stamping plate reviews. 

I hope you all enjoy the video I put together, I had a lot of fun making it. Below you can find a still image of the entire plate. I was playing around with my scanner and found a great way to get good pictures of stamping plates. 

 Über Chic - Limited Edition - Zombie Love 

The plate can be found at Über Chic Beauty's web page and cost $14.99.

Technicolor Entertainment

I was going to a musical, and wanted a special manicure for the occasion. The musical was Rent by Jonathan Larson, preformed by the local theater group here in Northern Ireland, marking the end of summer.

Lately I have been buying a lot of indie nail polishes, and I wanted to use one of them.
I promised you girls to follow up on #itrustindiepolish and mainly fature indie polishes on my blog this month, so I am very excited to kick it off with this manicure.

After thinking long and hard, I ended up with Nail Pattern Boldness - Le Big Party.
I even went full on glitterati (!).

Recently I was browsing Poundland, and I came across a set of nail charms "accidentally" ended up in my shopping cart... I am sure we have all been there. Nail stuff; in the shopping cart it goes.
The brand is called Allure, and I think most my nail charms are from that company, they usually have really cute Christmas themed ones, as well as cute bejeweled bows, that I have worn on a couple of occasions.

Nail Pattern Boldness - Le Big Party

It took 3 coats and a bit of dabbing to get it to cover perfectly. I am very pleased with the final look, and it did award me some compliments at the musical. Job well done.