Happy Holo-days

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing else to disclose.


I had so much fun with yesterdays sparkly look, so I wanted to keep things sparkly.

With 2 snowflakes stamping looks, and 2 snowflakes water decal looks done, I think we all need a little break from those, or maybe that is just me.


A while back I bought some polishes from Soap Dodger and some of them turned out to be a bit different from the swatching pictures I had seen. So I contacted the maker; Kat and we sorted things out. Kat is an amazing lady and you can tell that she is working hard on her business, and loves what she is doing. This is by far the best customer service I have ever experienced.

When I first tried it on and noticed that it was more like a holo topper I wanted to see if it was possible to build it up to full opacity.
I was expecting it to go all goopy and weird, but actually it dried alright.  Wore this look for 2 days before I decided to switch it around a little.

So on my nails you can see 10 coats (!), yeah, I am not kidding around here. This is serious business. I was about to give up around coat number 7, but those last three really did the trick.

Ard As Nails - Gold Holo 

Since I never got my hands on Out The Door - Northern Lights (Gold), I think this is an excellent substitute. No settling holographics either, so no shaking needed to get great results on your nails.
I love it.


Since this is Secretary's Nail Art, I also did a Nail Art look using this polish.
I paired it up with 'Ard As Nails - Blogger Girl. Gold and purple makes a perfect Holiday manicure.

To show what 'Ard As Nails - Gold Holo would look like topped over another polish, I did one coat over Blogger Girl, then I stamped using Uber Chic 3-03 over the 10 coats of holo, and stamped over it with 'Ard As Nails Blogger Girl for the accent. 

Ard As Nails - Blogger girl with Ard As Nails - Gold Holo as accent, stamped using Uber Chic 3-03.

For more Christmas themed nails check out my other designs here.


A nail polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing else to disclose.

Pancreatic Cancer Awareness

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing else to disclose.

I dedicate this post to every person that is a survivor, going through this battle of Pancreatic Cancer.
If you want to see my first post about Pancreatic Cancer, you can see that post here.

Pancreatic cancer begins when abnormal cells in the pancreas grow out of control and form a tumor. The symptoms associated with pancreatic cancer are often vague, similar to symptoms caused by other conditions and may not be present in early stages of the disease. To learn more about pancreatic cancer symptoms, types of pancreatic cancer, diagnosis, treatments and more click on the link.

All my blog-income for November month was donated to Pancreatic Cancer Research Fund.
Every little help. In total we raised £6.25.

'Ard As Nails - Little Legs

I am over the moon happy with how 'Ard As Nails - Little Legs looks on my nails. I usually have a dislike to all things pink, but this polish is not one of them. The holographic in this is what I would call "of medium strength", and looks amazing. I wore this polish for 5 days, and not a single chip (!). It survived house-cleaning, laundry, and a wet night out on the pub.

Paint me impressed.

Ard As Nails is an Indie (Handmade) Nail Varnish range created by the makers of Soap-Dodger. Their nail polishes are all 5 free, cruelty free and Vegan friendly.

'Ard As Nails - Little Legs is a part of the Here Come The Boys Collection, and a 4.5ml bottle sells for 3.50 £ and 15ml bottle for 6.50 £.
As you can see I got the mini bottle on the picture above, 2 coats.

But who am I to not put nail art on this, after all I am Secretary's Nail Art, right?

I wanted to raise awareness for Pancreatic Cancer this month, so I paired this gorgeous polish with some stamps from Uber Chic Beauty collection 3-01 using Barry M - Berry Cosmo.

A Purple Ribbon for Pancreatic Cancer

Pancreatic Cancer Awareness using Uber Chic stamping plate, 'Ard As Nails - Little Legs, and Barry M - Berry Cosmo

If you want to find out more about 'Ard As Nails, you can head over to Ard As Nails Facebook Page, or their shop; Soap Dodger .

A nail polish in this post was gifted to me, nothing else to disclose.

An InLinkz Link-up

Watermarble in Green

I loved playing around with the water marble, so when I sat there putting it on my nails, I wanted to keep practicing and make another manicure using the decal method for water marble. I am trying to use different techniques when dragging my needle over the design. I have seen some alternating on dragging up and down, so I tried doing that here. My design bled out a little creating an interesting look. I am much more pleased with this try, as it is more solid, with no large empty spaces like the previous one.

I was sticking to green for this design too, but I swapped out some of the colours.

The Green Watermarble - Just out of the glass, and patted dry

ESSIE - Mojito Madness
ESSIE - Navigate Her
Barry M - Lime Green

I had a little mistake on some of the tips, when adjusting the decals, and cutting them, and when I grabbed a polish to paint over, to make it blend in seamlessly... I grabbed the wrong polish. so the errors was corrected using ESSIE - School of Hard Rocks. Oops. Did not mean to do that.

Green Watermarble

Green Watermarble

I still think it all turned out well. To make it less obvious I grabbed ESSIE - School of Hard Rocks, and a dotting tool, and "went to town", by adding some dots here and there. I think it worked well.
You know, sometimes the coolest manicures starts with a mistake of some kind.

I wasn't quite happy with just the dots and the water marble, and was advised by some lovely ladies on Polish-aholics Anonymous Facebook group, to add Out The Door - Northern Light. So, I did just that, This is actually the second time I use the topcoat(!!) I have had it for a long long time, just never ended up using it. I think I overloaded it a little bit on the middle finger, but it all turned out very nice. I think I am falling in love with water marbling this way.

Northern Lights over a green watermarble

Northern Lights over a green watermarble

This is not the last time you will see watermarbeling on this blog. I got some cool ones coming up, so I hope you are all not too tired of my marble adventure.

Holo-tastic

It was long after I landed in Spain that I felt the forces drag me to the nearest nail polish shop. I found this quirky shop in Alonso Martinez, Madrid, it was full of old polishes. Some Catrice, Dance Legend, China Glaze .. etc. There was no order to the chaos. Needless to say, I loved it!

I didn't want to go completely:
BUY ALL THE POLISH!
...straight after landing, so I limited myself to one polish. Believe me ladies it was hard. Yes, I might have been on a low-buy for 2 years, but it doesn't mean it's easy. Ever.
Well, to be honest, sometimes it's really easy, but not today.

I found this gorgeous Catrice holo. It's somewhere between pink and brown. I got a pink holo, but nothing like this, so it was cleared on my check list for "do I really need this polish?"

Catrice - iROSEdescent

Catrice - iROSEdescent

This polish has one of those wider brushes that we know from brands like ESSIE, some of you hate it, and some of you love it. As you can see on this picture its not a C-brush, but more like a V-brush (if there is such a term). I really liked this brush, and found it easy to use.

It covered completely in two strokes.

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Indirect sunlight

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Direct sunlight

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Indoor artificial light

Catrice - iROSEdescent in Half-shade indirect sunlight

I did some nail art as you might be able to see there, I was struggeling to get a good picture of the nail art, cause all the (holo-ness) awesomeness was blinding it out. Below you can see the best picture I managed to snap. It's coffee-beans on all nails. On the thumb I used W7 - Buff, and on the rest of the nails I used W7 - Royal. All stamped using the Cheeky - Jumbo plate - Home Sweet Home.
I think this is actually the first time I use this plate, and that's kinda sad, but it's just .. that I have so many awesome stamping plates.

I brought them all with me on my move to Spain, so hopefully I get to use them a lot more in the next couple of months, since I didn't bring my acrylics, and my selection of nail polish is limited to those I brought with me and the ones I buy while I am here.

If you got any suggestions on where to shop for polishes in Madrid, Spain, please leave me a message in the commentfield below. I am only here for 2 months, and would like to see all the polish-places while I am here.

Make Up Store - Siw

For my birthday, one of my friends gave me this incredible nail polish.
A light blue holographic polish.

What I really like about the polishes from Make Up Store, is that they all got girls names. This one is called Siw. I wore it for my second party, paired with an R2D2 dress, and jeans.
I felt great. I even had a pair of lightsabers, they where toy ones that could be used to blow soap bubbles with, but fun non the less.

Funny picture taken over the clouds, in the window.
Happy Flight Ms. Secretary, Happy Flight