Brilliant Braziliant

Let me introduce Essie Braziliant. It’s a summer polish from this year, but I think it can also safely be worn in fall – the leaves turn orange as well! I thought it’d have more of a pink shimmer to it, but when I wore it, Braziliant looks mainly orange. It isn’t a crème polish though, so there is some subtle shimmer in there, but you’ll have to look closely. Shown here are 2 coats. 

Here I took Braziliant out for a spin!

Wearing Braziliant was difficult for me, as my wardrobe consists mainly of blue, grey, black and white clothes. Luckily I recently acquired a tomato red 50′s skirt, which I decided would go good with the nail polish. What do you girls think?

flakies alert!

This is a flakies topcoat from MNY Maybelline New York. Yeah, you heard me right, a flakies polish! From a drugstore brand! And a nice one too On my index and middle finger you can see MNY145 on its own (2 coats on my index, 3 on my middle finger). On my ringfinger you can see 1 coat of MNY145 over 1 coat of Orly Liquid Vinyl, my go-to black polish. And on my Pinkie you can see 1 coat of MNY145 over Orly Purple Pleather. My review of Purple Pleather can be found here. I really, really like MNY145. Oh, and it is easy to remove. Who has ever said that about flakies?!

Gehen wir gleich in Medias Res: MNY Maybelline New York 145 ist ein flakies Überlack. Ja, ein flakies Lack, den man beim DM kaufen kann! Auf meinem Zeige- und Mittelfinger seht ihr MNY145 alleine (2, respektive 3 Schichten), auf dem Mittelfinger 1 Schicht MNY 145 über Orly Liquid Vinyl und auf dem kleinen Finger 1 Schicht MNY145 über 1 Schicht Purple Pleather. Meinen Post zu Purple Pleather findet iht hier. MNY145 ist ein super Lack um eine bisschen ältere Maniküre wiederzubeleben. Und er ist einfach zu entfernen - wer hat das schon jemals von einem flakies Lack behauptet?!

Aaaand I have another MNY polish for you: MNY446. It’s a taupe base colour with green and pink microglitter. Feel free to click on the pics to enlarge! (2 coats)

Und noch ein MNY Lack: no 446 hat eine taupe-farbene Basis und ist über und über gespickt mit grünem und pinkem fuzzikleinen Glitzer. Klickt einfach auf die Bilder, wenn ihr es genau sehen wollt! (2 Schichten)

Pink Wednesday: basic

Nubar Valentine Pink is another pink I received in a swap. It is a vivid pink, strongly pigmented, and a crème polish. There’s not too much to say about it, as it is a pink crème without any special shimmers/glitters/… I’m wearing 2 coats.

 

It shimmers nicely, not like a “dull” creme, but I wouldn’t go as far as saying it has some kind of flash, as in, a blue flash, or a silver one, because it is barely visible if the sun doesn’t shine. I must conclude though, that I liked this colour. Not unique, but nicer than standard.

Grey + Fireworks = Sparkly Smog

Kleancolor Concrete Grey is grey. And a crème. And, you won’t believe this, a ONE COATER. I usually like my greys with a twist, like Zoyas Mirror Collection, from which I own Tao and Nimue. I really liked them being dusty greys with a hint of colour. Or Zoya Kelly, which is a great dark grey. Funnily enough, I didn’t own a grey like Concrete Grey. it is an ideal colour for layering and trying out. Unfortunately, Kleancolor polishes smell strong, as they’re not Big 3 Free. Anyhow, on to the polish!

 As a layering experiment, I layered Kleancolor Firework over it. Firework is a clear polish packed with dense golden glitter particles. To the golden glitter particles, green and red glitters have been added, but more sparsely. Layered over dark green, this will make a great Christmas manicure. Over grey, it looks more like a firework in a densely populated city with smog problems. Nevertheless, I was very impressed by most of the Kleancolor glitters (more to follow!), and this one is in no way inferior to the other glitters. And the best part I’m telling you last: Kleancolors are very inexpensive!

great new stuff coming up!

sooo, dear readers, I have a couple of exciting new things to show you! I’m busy swatching my OPI collection, so there’ll be those coming up, and also those great new polishes I got from my polish buddy Sam from Brazil! Look how cute she wrapped every single nail polish!

That’s all of them. There are flakies, duochromes, holos, neons, cremes, glitters, oh, too much to name them all! Are you as excited as I am?Will you be more excited that some of those will be used for Giveaways? My random-311-facebook-followers Giveaway will consist of 3 different sets of polishes though; looke at the first collection of frankens already wrapped and ready to be used once I hit 311!

Anyhow, while frankening, swatching, posting and having a life outside the internet, I also finished my swatchicles. Swatchicles are swatching nails on a stick – it’s the easiest way to store swatches! Funnily enough, Austrian Children apparently don’t play with the same kind of skinny sticks (they are usually used for building houses, containers, pen holders,…), so my friend Marcy sent me the American version of skinny sticks, because the Austrian ones don’t fit the nails! Long story short, here are my swatchicles!

I’ll use those for comparison reasons in the future, and I hope they were worth the work!

Let me know, which Brazilian nail polish do you want to see first? Or should I show you the frankens I made?

nude tea party

I have a confession to make: I like OPI Just Tea-sing. It is a nude, shimmery polish that would probably need 10 coats to be opaque, but I like it. Don’t think I’m silly or that I fell on my head – after all those colourful polishes that I show you (and love to wear), I needed something “boring” to reset my polish frenzy. And somehow Just Tea-sing grew on me. If you don’t like to see a bit of VNL, you might want to skip the pictures! 

This is a pic in artificial light - but it really doesn’t do the shimmer any justice!

I used 3 coats of Just Tea-sing for the pictures. I wore the polish a couple of times already, but then I used only 2 coats, because I didn’t need to make pictures. The polish gives the nail a look as if there was a layer of milkglass over it. If you like nude polishes, this is great. I still can’t wear those slightly pink or beige jelly nudes – there needs to be a bit of shimmer to justify no outrageously bright colour on my nails!

In the shade. The colour is more opaque in reality.

 

What’s your take on nude polishes?

Purple heart touched my… nails!

Duochrome – that word alone is enough for shrieks of excitement among polish lovers. There are many duochromes or even multichromes out there, last famously seen in Chanel’s Peridot (which I looooove!). This particular one, GOSH Purple Heart, is also very high ranking in my list of duochromes. It isn’t as subtle as OPI Not like the movies or Catrice Iron Mermaid, which is something I like a lot about this polish. Now, I think it is called Purple Heart because it isn’t – like most purple/green duochromes – purple with a hint of green, but green with a hint of purple. But have a look yourself! 

artificial light – Purple Heart looks like a dirty darker purple.

I applied 2 coats. The polish dries without streaks, and above that rather quick. I had no problems with application; I don’t like it that the cap is so large and round though, because that makes the brush-handling part of the application a little uncomfortable. This minor detail can be forgotten by the fact, that this polish is in GOSH’s regular assortment!

Purple heart in the shade – I obviously couldn’t limit myself when it comes to pictures. I love the olive green – purple combination. What do you think about it?

Gasoline is purple these days

On vacation, I bought a lot of GOSH nail polishes for my swap buddies in the States. GOSH is a Danish brand, and frankly, I haven’t heard of GOSH before I was asked to bring some home with me. Well, it’s a pity that I didn’t know them earlier! This particular beauty, GOSH Gasoline, is a blue-toned purple with the most awesome glitter I’ve seen in a long time. Application was great, this is 2 coats, and the sparkle is just… out of this world. Hearing that from someone who was afraid of purples should make you run and get it. 

artificial light

For my fellow Austrian polishaholics, there is good news: GOSH will be available at BIPA (an Austrian drugstore) soon – you can already take a look online, because in their online shop some of the products are already available!

shade

 

Do you own any GOSH polishes? Are you also head over heels for this purple?!

Hmmm…..

Another Nubar polish, and another pink! This one is called Sheer Bliss. It definitely is sheer, but in how far it is supposed to be blissful, I can’t answer. I mean, it is pink (good), it has shimmer (good), the shimmer is blue, not silver/gold/standard (good), it is sheer (bad), so sheer that it needs 4 coats to achieve the coverage as shown on the pics (very, very bad) and it is a “nude” pink (horrible). Hence, no bliss for me – I’m sure that there are many people who will love it, but we can only be acquaintances. Sheer Bliss will never be the one for me.

 

What do you say about sheer bliss? HOT or NOT?

Alice got slushied

Sephora by OPI Slushied is one of the 6 mini polishes that came out as part of the Glee Collection. I loved every single one to bits, especially Go With The Flow-Er and Celibacy Club. Slushied is one of the last ones I tried, especially because I don’t have so many things to wear with this bright, happy blue! Colourwise it comes close to one of those super unhealthy drinks that come in huge cups; it is also pretty much the same colour as a bright summer sky. While I know that it isn’t a colour I’ll wear on a regular basis, I enjoyed wearing it for the day. To spice the whole manicure up a bit, I decided to wear OPI Absolutely Alice as an accent nail. Don’t stone me, but I still couldn’t decide if I love Absolutely Alice or not. It is very very glittery.

SOPI Slushied: 3 coats (because I applied the first coat so badly, I needed 3 – if I had done the whole manicure again, I’d only have needed 2 coats though)

AbsolutelyAlice: 2 coats, and 2 coats of SV. Couldn’t have done it without SV. Much too much glitter to be smooth!

 artificial light

What do you say about Absolutely Alice? Do you like Slushied? Did you get any Glee Collection polishes?