How I wore it: OPI Skull & Glossbones stamped

Today I have another How I wore it post for you. It is a longer, picture heavy post, because it took me sometime to get my manicure where I wanted it to be – also it’s the product of a couple of days, as I kept adding layers!

I started off with two coats of OPI Skull & Glossbones, which is a chalky light gray creme. (My picture here is a tad too warm)Then – meaning, a day after – I added a layer of SOPI A color that can’t be tamed. I wore A color that can’t be tamed on its own, but it is rather sheer, so I prefer t layered. It’s one of those colors that I like to layer over my current manicure if I get bored of it.The next day, I felt something more flashy was needed, so I went ahead and layered one coat of Hits Hefesto over it. Hefesto is a sheer holographic topcoat, which means that you can layer it over anything, adding holographic effect but changing the underlying basecolor only minimally.

And on day 4 I decided to stamp over all those coats of nail polish.

I’m wearing that with a cardigan from review and a dress from tezenis, which i got on sale I love sale-shopping! Don’t you?

So, what do you think? Do you also have some tricks up your sleeve to make a manicure last longer? Or do you just remove the nail polish if you get bored?

How I wore it: Models Own Tickled Pink

I don’t know how to describe this polish. It is paradise. I love the pink. I love the metallic/foily look of it. I loved the application (2 coats), the longevity (forever unless removed), the shine, the shade of pink…. I’d like to send a smooch to my friend M. for getting me this one!

Unbelievable, that I wasn’t sure if I would like this one. Meh, actually, believable. It looks much less awesome in the bottle.

Before I forget: This is Models Own Tickled Pink. Write it down. Or just buy it immediately. You haven’t worn pink before you wear this, trust me.

above: daylight, below: artificial light, no flash (ick, much too red!)below: flash

And, how did I wear it? With a pullover from WE that has stripes in a matching pink. I wore this exact same combination about 6 times this winter… that’s how much I like it!

And, because I can, I stamped over it after a day, using an image from the Konad m73 plate. I’ve been using this image a lot lately, it is so pretty and girly and still subtle enough to be worn to work.

How do you wear hot pink like Tickled Pink?

Your weekly dose of Holo: Glitter Gal Bruised Ego

Glitter Gal Bruised Ego – a medium purple holographic polish for this week’s Saturday. Ok, bruised = purple, but why ego? Maybe I think too much about nail polish names…

2 coats of Bruised Ego give you one fine holographic manicure. I feel towards Purple as I feel towards chamber music. I accept its existance, but I’d rather not go anywhere near it. Nevertheless, the holographic effect is to me as if I had a Mojito in my hand (whenever I’d be in a chamber music situation). Enough about me, onto the pictures!

above: all in direct sunlight. ah, the beauty!
and below: a picture in daylight, but no direct sun – still quite amazing, isn’t it?

So, what do you think? Do we need more Glitter Gals?

essence LE Soul Sista

When the essence LE Soul Sista was announced, literally the whole beauty blog-o-sphere went nuts over the Kabuki brush that was part of the LE. I obviously couldn’t resist a supposedly perfect 4 Euro brush, so I caved and bought it too. Let me just say that is definitely is worth going nuts over it – I’ve been using it every day so far and I sent my other brush to a retirement home for old brushes.

Considering everyone wanted the Kabuki, the nail polishes were pretty much forgotten about. You know me, I can’t walk past a full display of nail polishes, so I had to grab them all.

Essence Chilled Orange is yet another egg yolk yellow jelly. It appeared that cosnova (the essence mother company” overproduced egg yolk yellow jelly polishes, and now we can find them in almost every “LE”. I was really hoping for this to be more opaque, and more orange. 3 coats. 

Essence James’s Favourite Brown.  I learned in school that it is supposed to be James’, but whatever. Wouldn’t be the first time for essence to not check their names before they print them on. The colour however is gorgeous. Surprisingly so, because I really don’t like brown. It is vibrant, has intense shimmer and the brush strokes are negligible. 2 coats.

Essence Lounge Chair Affair. It did not want to be photographed by me! The colour is an intense coral, with a lot of golden flecks in it. It is one of those colours from essence people love, but it is therefore not the most outstanding or unique. I had a bit of a struggle applying it because it is very thick, but if you’re not in a hurry, it should work just fine (if you let the polish dry inbetween coats!). I used 3 coats and regretted the last one.

Essence Totally Retro Nude. Well, this was also left over from the Seasons of the Extremes LE! Yellow-toned beige, absolutely not unique by now (duped by its own company!), 3 coats. It did not want to level out.

Essence Mojito Green – now this is what I want to see! Gorgeous vibrant teal with a golden flecked shimmer. 2 coats, no application issues whatsoever (well, a bit of a leveling problem,  but much less than with Totally Retro Nude!) and I just really love the colour.

The two interesting ones of this bunch were James’s Favourite Brown and Mojito Green. Did you get any polishes or were you also just hunting for the Kabuki brush?

How I wore it: The Ruffian in grey and neon yellow

The Ruffian. For quite some time I didn’t know how to do it. What technique to use. How to be precise. Luckily, Laurie told me what to do exactly, and I mastered my first Ruffian! I lovelovelove the combination of grey and neon yellow.

Obviously, I’m going to show you way too many pictures, because I was so proud of myself. I used Illamasqua Rare as a base, and two coats of China Glaze Pelikan Gray over Rare.

above: daylight. Below: flash

And this is how I wore it: proudly. No, sorry for my dumb joke, I wore it with a dress from COS, which I bought at their store in Amsterdam last winter! I love it very dearly, and have since ordered successfully from their online store. The earrings are from Barbara Reisch, which is one of my favourite jewellery designers!

Have you ordered from /heard of COS before? What do you think about Ruffian manicures? And don’t you also just love the combination of neon colours with grey??

Pink Wednesday: Joe Fresh Magenta

Fun story: I told my friend K. that if she visits Canada, she must go to a Joe Fresh store, because I received those lovely polishes from Rebecca. So she went there and apparently loved the store so much, that she even brought me a t-shirt to say thank you. How cute is that!

The polish, yes. I’m like an old lady sometimes, brabbling along, forgetting why you came here (no offense to elderly people!). This is a nail polish by Joe Fresh called Magenta. Pretty much on the spot naming, if you ask me, as it is pink and the shade can indeed be called Magenta. It is very squishy looking and almost jelly like, very vivid and I think it looks pretty cute even on nubbins!

I used 2 coats, and you can see the nail line a bit, but it isn’t too noticeable.

above: daylight.below: artificial light, no flashbelow: flash

I decided to layer color club candy cane over it. Candy Cane is a pink glitter; actually it is differenct shades of pink. I think I can spot some silver and holographic glitter in there as well, but it might be an optical illusion. One coat.above: daylight.below: artificial light, no flashbelow: flash

 

What do you think? Too much glitter for the short nails, or is there never enough glitter for you?

A second look on: OPI Eiffel for this color

 

This is a repost! Let’s see what I thought about this polish in April 2011.

“Another catchy name brought to us by OPI! While you may find them stupid sometimes, this one actually made me laugh. Although I have to admit, I’m not very sure in how far this very, very dark violet relates to La Tour Eiffel. Last time I checked, the Eiffel Tower was still metallic grey… on the other hand, I fell for this Color, right? No. I didn’t.

The Polish is not, what is appears to be: unique. Even in sunlight I had troubles finding the violet in there. It looks more like black with a little bit of brown and even less purple (if you have enough imagination…). All in all: boring! Bottom Line: Eiffel for this Color NOT. It’s wearable, but not mind-blowing.”

First of all, my old pictures were horrific. So let’s start with my re-swatches:

above: daylight. below: artifical light

See that awesome shimmer? I must say, I like this polish much better now that I took a second look at it. Still I don’t like it sooo much, as it is just too dark for me. Final verdict: pretty, but not a keeper!

 

The Green Flash

It’s a shame I didn’t review Zoya Adina on my blog before. I have had this polish right from the beginnig of my nail polish craze, and I have not worn it enough.

I’m so fond of the green flash in polishes, I don’t even mind that Adina’s base colour is purple!

Somehow the greyish purple with the green flash reminds me of spilt oil on the street. I used to love looking at oil when I was a kid! Weird, huh?

Anyways, Adina is rather sheer but builds well. On the pictures you see 3 coats. I used SV as a topcoat which dries Zoyas quicker than their in-house topcoat, but it also shrinks the polishes.

Above: daylight. Below you can see a picture of Adina with flash:and one pic in artificial light:

What do you think? Do you also love the green flash? I feel like The Green Flash is a superhero in my nail polish bottles!

Sometimes, I am postively surprised

I have a polish today that I’d like to show you because of the quality of it. The colour is nice and vibrant and perfect for summer, but not all that unique.

The quality of the polish however surprised me. I ordered Models Own Pro Hot Salmon in a set from asos.com. It came with a cute pastel yellow and a bright pink. Hot salmon is a coral-red if you ask me. I applied one coat of this and it looked like that:I have never before experienced such good coverage and even application with just one coat, especially if the colour was a bright coral/red. The colour lasted for several days without chips, and I finally removed it because I wanted to wear something else, not because it looked any less good.

I was also surprised that all my three Models Own polishes smell faintly like Vanilla when dry. I hate the heavy vanilla smell, but this is just a faint smell, so it is nicer than regular polish smell. I think.

Above you see Models Own Pro Hot Salmon in daylight, below I used flash:

Artsy fartsy picture I took after day (I think) 5. I have a bit of shrinkage because of my old gloopy SV.

Have you tried Models Own Pro yet? Does it happen to you too, that you try something, don’t expect much but then the thing you tried positivly surprises you?

Your weekly dose of Holo: Hits Artemis

Artemis, the Greek goddess of hunt, wild animals, virginity and child birth, in a nail polish? What better choice could be made than to attribute her a silvery holographic polish! So you see before you three thin coats of Artemis (the polish) – a bit streaky, but almost ethereal.

above: a bit of sunlight, below: indirect lightbelow: artificial light

Let me know what you think of Artemis!