Your weekly dose of holo: China Glaze Spin me round

 

Another China Glaze from the Kaleidoskope Collection – Spin me round. 

 I’m not very fond of this color, it’s a beige/brown nude-tone that I don’t like very much. I used two coats.

The malice frenzy

 

Today I quickly want to show you two Chanel polishes I bought within the last half year and don’t regret buying. I never really had Chanel polishes on my radar (even Chanel Jade seemed not that interesting to me) but with the introduction of Mimosa, I decided to follow Chanel polish releases. So slowly, my Chanel collection is growing!

Chanel Malice was released this winter. At least in Austria it was sold out in a heartbeat. 

It is a beautiful ruby red, including the shimmer that makes it look so deep. It’s a very sexy color, I can absolutely understand it was sold out so quickly. I used two coats.

Chanel Frenzy was released in summer or early fall I think – it slipped my mind. Frenzy is not really a color that lives up to its name if you ask me.
I didn’t know if I should buy it at first, but I saw it on a friend, and it looked so easy and simple on her, I figured I would try it too. I’m very happy with this purchase, especially because it is less pink than OPI My very first Knockwurst, so I can easily switch between the two. I used two coats.

Anything on your Chanel wish list?

Knockwurst Babes

(excuse the absolutely weird title, but my other option was Knockwurst Toyland, and that sounded so dirty.)

The other day I was wearing OPI My very first Knockwurst, which looks a bit like meat spread, if you ask me. I like to wear it every once in a while, because it is really simple and clean-looking. Somehow I thought I showed you this already, but I haven’t… I did wear this surprisingly often since I got it. 2 coats.

When I came home from work that day, my ILNP order arrived. I bought Babes in Toyland (and some other stuff, but that’s for later!), which I immediately had to put on my tips! You can buy ILNP here and follow on facebook. Babes in Toyland is a multi-glitter topcoat, that I absolutely loved. It consists of gold, pink, green, teal and purple glitters in different sizes and shapes. I used one coat.

For work, I decided that the sparkle was a bit too much, so I decided to make a jelly sandwich out of it. I picked OPI You callin’ me a lyre?, which is a super sheer jelly in a neutral pink (not that the color matters when it’s so sheer!). It is perfect for sandwiches! 

I used two coats over Babes in Toyland, and I love the outcome! Don’t you?

Catrice Big City Life LE

Catrice came out with a second edition of the oh-so-famous Big City Life LE, which was released last year around the same time.

This time, Catrice picked 3 cities: Paris, San Francisco and Shanghai. I didn’t buy any of the  make-up palettes, as I’m not one of the palette collectors – small bathroom!

Paris – does this remind you of something? Well, it reminds me of every other sheer pink. I can’t even really advise you to buy this if you still need a color like this, as this required three fat coats, and it isn’t even all that shimmery. The shimmer in the bottle would have made up for the boring color, but it didn’t transfer onto the nail. I’m giving this one a pass!

San Francisco. Now we’re talking! Gorgeous petrol with shimmer that adds depth and transfers onto the nail. Nothing much to add, except for: Grab your bottle while you can! This was one coat (!!).

Shanghai - a streaky gold, but this one is cooler toned than the one from the essence Twilight2 LE (see yesterdays post for that!). I like it, but this particular shade of gold is everything but unique. 2 coats.

Did you buy anything?

Beige and Blue

Just a quick stamping manicure for today. As a base color I chose Urban Decay Fame. As I have to wear work appropriate colors most of these days, I figured this would be a good choice. I did indeed like Fame, but then I’m also a bit sad to have such normal nails. Some days I just love bright colors, but due to my work, I have to stay normal elegant.

Anyhow, Fame is a beige polish, I think it’s a cousin twice removed from the nude family, with a bit of shimmer. It looks as if it would be very streaky, but it dries to a smooth surface with almost no streaks visible. The only thing that bothered me a bit was that the bottle is so tiny, you can really see how much polish one uses for a full manicure.

After work, I decided to stamp over it. I used a bright blue Konad stamping color, which I bought at a fleamarket, and I have no idea what it is called. It works perfectly for stamping! I used image ____ from the MASH plate NO____. Impatient me added topcoat too quickly, so I have a bit of smearing, but as I wore this only for the evening, it didn’t matter too much.

Let me know what you think!

Your weekly dose of holo: KIKO Silk Taupe

Welcome back to your weekly dose of holo! This week I have KIKO Silk Taupe a.k.a. KIKO #399 for you. KIKO released 4 holographic polishes as part of ther Lavish Oriental Collection. I couldn’t resist and had to get all for of them, and it wasn’t a mistake at all!

Silk Taupe is a sand colored polish, without the holographic effect I’d call it a nude color. There’s nothing exciting about this polish color, I mean, you have to have one polish that’s nude, just in case – but that’s it.

The exciting thing about this polish is, that it has the *drummroll* holographic effect *clapping hands*. Somehow, and I don’t know how this happened, many nail polish companies have decided to go nuts over holographic polishes and release collections with holographic collections. Sidenote: whenever essence calls something holographic, it most definitely isn’t. Revisit past collections for proof!

Anyhow, PUPA makes holos, Cirque makes them, Enchanted Polish provides more and more colors, so does Glitter Gal, FNUG just released the uber-holo, Layla, Jade, Hits, and many more battle for the top seat on the Mount Olymp of holographic nail polishes. Not to forget the – by now – ‘oldies’ such as Nfu-Oh, the OPI Designer Series and GOSH.

And then, to top it all, China Glaze released a press info that they’re going to release yet another holographic collection. Their OMG collection might have started their hype, right after the nail polish world was smitten with Chanels “Holographic”.

Well, the advantage of the KIKO holographic polishes are: 2 coats for full coverage, very quick dry time and one can use a topcoat! I have not seen any dulling of the holo effect when I applied a topcoat. For me, that is good news, because I’m so impatient! 

And, if you were wondering, I bought them in Paris (no KIKO shop in Austria yet!), and they were EUR 4,90,- each!

Your weekly dose of Holo: Hits Hermes

Hits Hermes is a beige/nude holographic polish – not to subtle to be boring, but also not too much.  I used two coats for full coverage and I really liked this color on me. Ihatenudes on me (mostly), but this somehow works.

Hermes, just in case you wondered, is the divine messager. Maybe this polish wants to tell me that I should give nude polishes a second chance?

above: sunlight, below artificial light. below: shade

essence REBELS TE

The essence REBELS Trend Edition includes 4 latex nail polishes (aka suedes/mattes) and a black glitter topcoat, and I’m not too late with showing you those, because they are now available at DM!

The theme of the TE is ‘Rebels’ and somehow the people from cosnova associate rebels with punk and rock. So don’t be surprised about the names of these polishes!

Mauve like a rock star is a warm taupe/light brown, which covers in two coats. It dries to a somewhat matte looking texture. The color itself is surely something a lot of people will like, as it is elegant and work appropriate, but it is too warm for my skin tone. Mauve like a rock star with Punk Royal, the black glitter topcoat – it is somewhat of a mixture of the recent ‘smoke’ topcoats from Catrice (Million Styles LE) and the essence Re-mix your style LE and black hex glitter. It doesn’t apply very evenly, so you have to dab on some glitter and hope for the best. I had the problem that some glitters got stuck to each other, so that didn’t look too good. Nevertheless, black glitter! Yay!

Peach Punk is, as the name would suggest, a peachy orange. It’s vivid and nice and     gets in line with all the other oranges out there this summer, except for it drying to a matte texture. 2 coats.

Punk Royal over Peach Punk.

My favorite is, and I’m sure that comes as a big surprise, the green one. It is called Rebelizer, is a very vivid lime green and dries semi-matte. 2 coats.

Punk Royal over Rebelizer.

Rebel Delight is another nude tone, although this time the color tends more towards beige, and is therefore more suitable for my skin tone. Still it isn’t the most exciting color, especially after Catrice gave us the FeMale TE. 2 coats.

Punk Royal over Rebel Delight.

What do you think about the Rebel polishes? Do you like matte/suede/latex polishes? What do you think about the black glitter?

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?

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?