40 Great Nail Art Ideas: Aqua or Turquoise

Aqua or turquoise is this week's color scheme, and my personal pattern prompt for this challenge mani is Patchwork.





My base color is Colors by Llarowe Alternate Universe, a turquoise foil polish with an intense golden shimmer. The stamping plates I used are Bundle Monster BM-16 and BM-21, from their very first stamping set. The patterns usually are too small for my nails, but since I didn't want to cover the full nail anyway, they worked just fine for this mani. The Born Pretty Store Clear Jelly Stamper I showed you last week was a big help with placing the stampings. The white polish is Essie Blanc, the blue is Exurbe Two Minutes To Midnight. I separated the "patches" with Catrice Nautica (Cruise Couture Limited Edtition) and a striping brush. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top finished this mani.

Colors By Llarowe are available at Llarowe and at Harlow & Co.

An InLinkz Link-up

Blue Topaz Snowflakes

At the moment, winter seems to be already over here in Switzerland after just a few days. I'm not ready to let go yet, so the snowflakes are on my nails, when they don't want to show up in the sky...





My base color is KBShimmer Blue Topaz, of their new birthstone collection. Blue Topaz is a foil polish with light blue and silber foil paticles and small silver holographic glitters that are more visible in my pictures than they are irl. I used three coats for opacity.

The stamping plate I used is Uberchic Beauty Christmas 01, and I stamped with Exurbe Two Minutes To Midnight. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top finished this mani.

KBShimmer polishes are sold on their website (US only) and at Harlow & Co.

Midnight Trek

Today I have the mani with the second exurbe cosmetics polish to show you.


 


My base color is exurbe Two Minutes To Midnight, I already showed it a couple of weeks ago. For the stamping I used China Glaze Take A Trek (shown here) and Bundle Monster plate BM-208. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top secured the stamping.

You can get exurbe cosmetics polishes here (Affiliate link).

Daring Girl

Remember my post about exurbe cosmetics? You didn't really think I'd just swatch these polishes without "doing anything with them", did you? ;-)

I already showed you the base color, exurbe China Girl, in the original exurbe cosmetics post (link above). For this mani, I added a stamping using China Glaze Deviantly Daring (a duochrome foil shifting from blue to green, mostly showing its turquoise side) and Pueen plate 37. One coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top provided an extra glossy finish.

You can get exurbe cosmetics polishes here (Affiliate link).

Exurbe Cosmetics Nail Polishes

Today's post features a quite new swiss nail polish brand: exurbe cosmetics. I've been asked to test two of their polishes, thank you so much for this opportunity!

exurbe cosmetics produces 5-free polishes that are not tested on animals. The polishes are sold online (members only) and in some selected stores. Their collection contains 50 different polishes at the moment, but I'm sure there's more to come.


The polishes come in a square bottle with a removable cap, much like Chanel bottles. The design is pretty clean but I like it, square bottles are easier to stash ;-)


The first polish I recieved is China Girl, a bright pastel creme in a color that lies somewhere between mint and pistachio. It's not blue enough to be a true mint, but also not yellow enough to be called pistachio. The formula was surprisingly good for a pastel polish. Most pastels are somewhat thick and sheer at the same time and, honestly, a pain to apply. China Girl is a little sheer with the first coat, but completely opaque after the second. It has a medium viscosity, neither too thin nor too thick, and it's easy to apply. The pictures show two coats topped with one coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top.

The second polish is Two Minutes To Midnight, a navy creme with slight teal and grey undertones. Two Minutes To Midnight is highly pigmented, the pictures show only one coat (plus one coat of KBShimmer Clearly On Top), so it's a true one-coater. The formula is a little on the thin side, but still quite easy to apply. It's recommendable to take your time with application, as clean up gets a little messy due to the really high pigmentation (as you can see on my index finger).

Since I'm usually wearing my polishes only one day, I can't really say anything about longevity, but I can confirm that neither of these two polishes had any signs of tipwear or chipping after 24 hours. I was really impressed by the easiness of appliaction and the quality in general.


So, who's the peer group of exurbe cosmetics, or in other words: who should buy these polishes?

Anyone who's living in Switzerland or Liechtenstein (no international shipping yet), likes high quality polishes with exclusiveness and doesn't mind the typical swiss price tag (one bottle costs Fr. 21.-, that's about the same range as swiss prices for Essie, OPI, China Glaze, Butter London etc.).


If you're interested in exurbe cosmetics, you can use this link to order them (that's an affiliate link, if you order through it, I get a provision). There are no shipping costs, no matter how many polishes you order.



These polishes were offered for reviewing purposes. Again, thank you very much, exurbe cosmetics!