How I wore it: Cult Nails Spontaneous

Today I have not only a nail polish to show you, but also a lipstick that I got sent to try. Yeah, that happens from time to time, that I am more than just a pretty hand! Ok, that was a bad joke, I admit it. I will try to be less interested in looks and work on my wit instead. Ok, now I really should stop joking otherwise all you’ll leave me will be sny comments (which I’d understand!).

Cult Nails Spontaneous is a purple nail polish. Yes, I know that you know that I don’t like purple very much, but also, sometimes it just fits an outfit too well to remain unworn.

Spontaneous is a greyish purple, filled with tiny pink glitters. Unless you zoom in very much or stare at your fingers closely, you’ll not be able to spot the pink glitters. What they do however, is add liveliness to this polish, which you can see from further away too.

I wore two coats of Spontaneous, and it applied perfectly fine. Because it is not your average purple, I felt very comfortable wearing it to work too. I paired it with a blue pantsuit (pants from Benetton, jacket from Mango) and a very pale pink shirt from Kookai. The shoes are from Cate Gray (Humanic, last year) I think.

What made the look whole, I think, was the right lipstick. I picked Shiseido lip lacquer in Disco*, which I think is an awesome pink. Totally what I like to wear! Also, I like the idea of lip lacquers although I never really felt like buying one from YSL, they just didn’t make my heart jump. The texture of the Shiseido lip lacquer was light, but it covered completely in one go, and it stayed on in this intensity until after my second coffee. After lunch only a slight tint was visible, but considering I’m in a talking and coffee drinking profession, that is surprisingly long. A winner in my books!


 Products marked * were provided to me for review. It remains undiscovered why people write honest opinion, unbiased, personal. You can be assured that I have no other opinion than my own. 

How I wore it: China Glaze Let’s groove

I thought I had already shown you my last post from this winter, but I was wrong. There is one more snow-ridden post to go!

Despite being not super-fond of purple, there are some I like. Let’s groove from China Glaze is one of those purples I like. It applies super easily, and it is so shiny but deep at the same time, who could resist?

To add some fun to this rather dark manicure, I decided to wear bright lipstick. This is actually a combination of a very thin layer of OCC Pageant (the only OCC lip tar I own – so far!) and NARS Satin Pencil in Lodhi. The eyeliner is from Inglot (the dark purple liquid one).

My pullover is from Nice Connection (super nice and warm!), the blouse is from WE and the pants are from Benetton. Shoes from asos. See, I feel comfortable wearing the same things over and over again, if only I change my nail polish!

Looking at these pictures I realize that my hair has grown a lot since winter. Time to go and get it cut short again!

How I wore it: Dior Bronze Libertine

Today I have a special polish for you: Dior Bronze Libertine.

It is pretty old, and when someone offered it on a fleamarket, I was all, like, awesome, this belongs to me.  Anyhow, now I have it, and even though some of you might think that it looks brown, and in that case I shouldn’t like it, I can tell you that is olive green!!, and I love it.

It was my go-to winter polish, next to fiery red/orange like China Glaze Bend over Backwards. Because it is rather old, it turned a bit goopy, nothing nail polish remover couldn’t fix. Hah! You actually read my text? Nail polish remover is death to nail polish, by name and idea already. Never, I repeat, never use nail polish remover. There’s a thing called nail polish thinner, which thins nail polish. See, they make it easy for us anyways, so don’t hate those lovely product naming people, they give their best (like you’d put a cat in a microwave).

I was wearing this with my lovely wollen WE-pullover, I really wore it a lot this winter! The pants are part of a pants-jacket-skirt assembly, you know, one of these grown-up things to have. They are wool too, awesomely soft, and from St. Emile. My mum got that for me when I started my job, so I’d look the part!

The blouse is from Esprit and the boots are from Asos. Basically I’m showing you all the items I wore regularly this winter, if you substitute this blouse for any blouse.  I didn’t realize someone was passing by when I took these pics. I hope this person and the dog don’t mind.

How I wore it: Jessica Sterling Queen / Nadia

This is the one of the last posts I have “left over” from this winter – considering that it is super cold here at the moment, it fits.

Right when I saw Vampy Varnish’s swatches of the spring/summer collection “It’s a girl thing” from Jessica, I knew I had to have some. I think the double names are quite a fun idea. The polish I’m showing you today is named after Jessica‘s friend Nadia. For everyone else, this polish is called Sterling Queen.

Nadia/Sterling Queen is a grey shimmer polish. It is right inbetween three colors – grey, silver, blue. I have nothing like it in my collection and fell for it right away. The application was good, no issues to report. I used two coats for full coverage. The polish dries almost streak-less.  All in all the polish may not look like much on the press release or in the bottle, but I have a thing for polishes like this one (and generally I like gray and in-between colors!). It is the one I liked the most from this collection.

I wore this whole thing with a minty shirt from GAP, a blue pullover from GAP and blue pants from Benetton. The necklace is from Pieces I think, and the shoes are from Asos. Man, am I happy it stopped snowing, now that I look at these pics again!! Thanks to the lovely PR-lady from Jessica, who sent me this polish to try.

How I wore it: Illamasqua Hemlock

Just a heads up: Not only are my Giveaways still in the running, but there is another one over at Macs in the City. Giveaway Heaven, huh?

There are a couple of polishes that I really, really want, for example Illamasqua Boo and Illamasqua Hiss. Illamasqua Hemlock was one of them, until M. sent it to me. I’m so happy that it is even better in reality than in my imagination!

This is, I think, 2 coats of Hemlock by itself.

The color is absolutely unique, it’s a very subtle elegant beige/nude polish, but what makes it so exceptional is the intense (lime) green shimmer. I don’t know how Illamasqua did it, but Hemlock reflects both subtle elegance and toxic edgyness to me. Pretty cool, to sum it up.

I decided to pair Hemlock with my favorite dress of all times, a simple black Uniqlo dress (thank you again J.!), tights with dots from H&M (ripped to shreds after one day, will never buy them again!) and a creme white blazer-ish jacket from Zara.

The jacket is alright, I never understood peoples’ obsession with Zara stuff. I never found something there that was of good quality, and most of their stuff is cut in a way that doesn’t correspond with my body shape. Nevertheless, in some weak moment I decided I need a jacket like this, and as it was on sale, not much was lost. I haven’t worn it much, I must admit. What do you think? Any ideas on how to wear it?

Last, but not least, this is a gradient I made with Hemlock as a base, and a corresponding green polish (totally forgot which one).

How I wore it: Finger Paints Iconic Orange (for Queensday 2013!)

 

The Dutch celebrate Queensday, or Koninginnedag, every year. If you have never heard about it, you should read up here. It is a fascinating event, which makes no sense to a foreigner who lives in a county without monarchs. Especially, when considering the fact that the Dutch don’t even celebrate the birthday of Queen (now princess) Beatrix, but her mother. And as of this year, the whole thing is going to be called Kingsday (…sounds horrible!), and celebrated 3 days earlier, because the Dutch crowned Beatrixe’s sun to be their king, and he of course wants to celebrate his birthday, and not his grandmother’s.

Anyhow. I enjoy Koninginnedag. Everyone wears orange. Like this one for example:

Finger Paints Iconic Orange. It is so orange, it glows and ruins all your pictures and your retina.

See what I mean? 

An ideal orange for Queensday, where taste is limited and beer is flowing. For good bargains you have to be up early – the whole city of Amsterdam turns into one big fleamarket. Anything you have stored in your attic can be sold. People keep on flowing into the city, bargain hunters leave it again, fully packed. If you want to get the most out of Queensday, you should just let the masses direct where you go and follow the flow.

I was up early, after celebrating Queen’s Night the night before – I did my fair share of bargain hunting, and then we dove into the masses to see what the day had in stock for us.

See all the orange around us? This was around 10:30 a.m.. Can you imagine how packed and orange it was after noon, when all the Queen’s Night celebrators arose from their beds and joined the party? Anyhow, I’m wearing a necklace from Cora Kemperman, blouse from J.Crew and jeans from WE.

   Well, are you now interested to celebrate Queensday?

How I wore it: W.I.C. by Herome Pune

Check out my Giveaway!

I love my trips to Amsterdam for many reasons. One particular one - not the main one, but definitely a plus – is the easy availability of WIC by Herome polishes. I’m drawn to slim high bottle shapes, I assume. Let’s leave it to Freud to interpret that. Anyhow, WIC by Herome launched an India Collection a while back, and I absolutely had to get Pune, where my friend M. lives (yes, yet another M in my life).

Pune (or Poona) is  a city close to Mumbai. You can reach it in approx 4 hours by car from Mumbai, depending on traffic of course. The drive to Pune takes you over a couple of hills, which are full of lush green trees. If you drive by night however, you’ll be racing through slow heavy lorries that toil long and hard to make it to the mountain tops.

The color of Pune, the nail polish, is very versatile. It reminds me of one of the OPI James Bond collection polishes as well as of one of the winter IsaDora polishes, silk road I think? Anyhow, I love the mix of blue, pink and gold particles – that’s what it comes down to – because the polish looks different at every angle. 

I decided to wear this polish with a blue outfit, so I picked my light blue work blouse (Montego, Peek & Cloppenburg), and a light sweater from WE that has sort of a waterfall collar . 

I matched that with purplish-blue pants from GAP, which have a medium blue stripe on the side. The shoes are from Humanic I think. Edit: Cate Gray or Grey. The thingy in front came off and they aren’t nearly as comfortable as I thought they would be when I tried them on, so I don’t think I’ll be buying those (aka from that brand) again.

As these lip lacquers or glossy stains or whatever they are called are so super hip at the moment, I decided to try some too. I received 6 testers from Shiseido, so I could make up my mind about the colors and consistency. Here I am wearing Shiseido Rouge Parfait in the color Tourmaline. I am certain that many people will wear and love this color, but I absolutely hate it on me. I will talk more about the product when I’m showing you a color I like, otherwise I can get so bitchy

PS: Enjoy this picture of me when I don’t feel like posing anymore.  

How I wore it: butter LONDON Fiddlesticks

Have you entered my GIVEAWAY yet? It is open to all end everyone, check for details here. (Plus you can win Chanel Diwali…. just sayin!)

If you’d ask me why I decided I liked butter LONDON polishes so much, I probably wouldn’t be able to tell. I do like the colors and the quality, but for the price (at least in Austria!) you’d easily find something in an equal quality range. Nevertheless, I have taken to these polishes – they somehow seem to last longer on me than others, and they apply nicely. Also, they have a small brush, which I like, and the shape of the glass bottle appeals to me. So after this long introduction of my thoughts on butter LONDON, here is Fiddlesticks!

Fiddlesticks is a pink (almost magenta) jelly with immense amounts of pink glitter. It doesn’t have a too glittery look, so you can wear it without any hesitations.

I used two coats and one coat of topcoat, that was  sufficient. As my fingernails are “far” away from my shoes and tights, I figured I could easily pair Fiddlesticks with a darker red color.

The dress is  one that I drew and had made in India. Even though I loved the idea of the dress, it is not fitting me too well anymore. It fit better with more kilos on, now it’s a bit loose. I hide that with wearing an oversized jacket (from Oysho).

The supercool extremely (for me) high shoes are from Ravel (which I buy through asos) and the tights are from H&M. I’m wearing a KIKO lipstick but I forgot which one. Love the shoes, now that I think of it. I should really wear those more often.

How I wore it: Pretty Serious BSOD

Whenever T. and I meet, we exchange polishes. This is a fun thing to do – we each get to wear new nail polishes without having to buy them, so it is great to find out if we like something or not. This time she borrowed me Pretty Serious BSOD, which is quite sparkly and blue!

I used two coats of BSOD alone, which is sufficient to cover completely.  I loved how sparkly it was, and that the blue was so vibrant! I tried one of the red polishes from Pretty Serious already, and I didn’t like it as much.

As Pretty Serious is an indie brand that entered the market recently (compared to OPI and China Glaze and such), I didn’t expect the packaging and bottled to be so professional! I must say I was quite positively surprised. The caps are rubberized and the glass bottles dont have the label stuck-on, but it is printed. The name of the polish is clearly written in the bottom of the bottle.

I wore this polish on a Sunday, because I don’t wear bright blue glitter to work. That left me with more work-inappropriate dressing choices, so I went ahead and wore my old adidas jacket again. I bought this so long ago that it could be hip already again.

The jeans are from a brand called 8mm. The brand name refers to the needle spacing (the distance from one needle puncture to the next). The shoes are my beloved chelsea boots from asos. If I keep on wearing them that often, they won’t last until next winter.

I’m also trying new poses. What do you think of this one? I call it “the musicle star before singing the last, heart-breaking solo before the last, heart-breaking duet”.

How I wore it: Jessica Lime Cooler and Cique XX

So, for Easter, my mum bought me a hat. I always wanted a hat, but I didn’t know what style to pick, or which color. So my mum said, let’s go, we can walk to the next village (we don’t celebrate easter in Vienna), and we can buy you a hat. So we went.

We walked through the still wintry landscape, but it was sunny and soon we needed a lime cooler. Luckily, Jessica was around and she had some ready.

We loved the happy fresh green of lime cooler, so we had two. Coats weren’t necessary anymore, it was getting nice and warm.

Between the two villages, we saw a Cirque. It had all kinds of animals, but they spoke English only, so we just blew them two kisses XX and went along our way.

In no time we reached the hat maker. My mum said, try this one!, and if fit. So now I am the proud owner of a handmade blue fedora, and I look pretty Don Draper.

See what I mean? 

 

Nails: Jessica Lime Cooler & Cirque XX
Make-up: none.
Jeans: WE, T-shirt: GAP, Cardigan: Montego, shoes: asos, scarf: Esprit, hat: Hutmacherei Leithner, Bad Aussee