Ninja Polish Alexandrite, Eye Candy and Zultanite

 

Hope you all enjoy your (long) weekend! Today I have some Ninja Polish polishes to show you which I have been trying out over various colors other than black.

First up is Alexandrite. Its a fine glittery duochrome nail polish that can be worn alone if you’re willing to waste this beauty on layers, or it can be worn over other colors. The duochrome effect is very strong and evident on this one. It sparkles turquoise to purple, sometimes a bit pink, gold and blue too. I used one coat over MAC Peppermint Patti.

I tried Alexandrite over various other colors, but I like it the best over mint. I also thought it looked cool over a vivid medium blue, such as essence shopping @ portobello road.

With Eye Candy, I had some difficulties finding a good base color. It is a very colorful tiny glitter mix consisting of blue, purple, green, gold/orange, and most probably other colors, but that’s primarily what I see. Unexpectedly, I liked this best over purple (p2 cool plum)….

… and blue (p2 wintry blue). 

 

 I’m a big fan of polishes with a gold-greenish color, so Zultanite looked the most fun to me from the beginning on. It has this unusual color shift from copper to olive but an intense golden glow (it is never, ever, brown.) I love colors like this! I decided to layer it over a similar base color – obviously the color shift is stronger if layered over black, but I think everything looks so alike if layered over black! – but it looks the most “natural” over Revlon Spanish Moss.

 

Did you find any other layering combinations you could share? I’m always interested!

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: 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.  

I’m 2! Giveaway-time!

So, if you’ve been following me on facebook you already know that my blog turned 2!!

I will therefore offer you a couple of giveaways of stuff I love and want to share with you. This particular one holds one of my favorite nail polishes of all time, Chanel Diwali. At first I thought I would not get my hands on this, but then it turned out that two found their way to me. One was gifted to me by M. and the other I received as a “Sorry we won’t put you on our PR-List”-gift from Chanel. I assume you can understand that I don’t want to give away the gift, but then I most probably would get into troubles with the Chanel-people. So I’ll just leave it open where I got it from.

The other stuff in this Giveaway was sent to me from the Douglas PR. I thought as it is summer you’d love the marine-themed eyeshadow “poseidon’s pacific” and matching lipgloss “aquatic touch”.

Rules!

Entering this Giveaway is really simple. You’ll just have to post a picture of your (current/most/foreverandever) favorite nailpolish on instagram and add this sentence:

“This is #myfavoritenailpolish for the @goodlacknail #giveaway!”

 You can only enter the Giveaway once otherwise you’ll be disqualified. You can also follow me on instagram, that’s always fun

Terms and Conditions

The deadline to enter the Giveaway is April 29th. This Giveaway is open internationally. I cannot be held liable for your parcel. The winner will be announced on instagram and must email me his/her adress within 48 hours or I will choose another winner. To enter the Givaway you must have reached the age of majority in your country or provide consent from your parents.  Void where prohibited by law.

*Some of this was sent to me from PR agencies. Special thanks to Douglas.

Sunday Spam: Catrice new blues and greens

For this sunday, I have some of the new(er) Catrice polishes to show you. I saw some on other blogs, but some of the colors look rather different on me. I wonder if that is because of my skintone, or if there’s a difference in some of the colors, but I doubt the latter. It’s not my lightbox settings, I swatched other polishes, and they match! Well, onto the polish, before you loose interest.

Overall information: I used two coats for each of the polishes. The new Catrice bottles have “Catrice” written on top of the bottle, in 3D lettering, so you can easily scratch yourself. Also, the bottle cap has pretty rough edges, so there’s even more chance of scratches. The new brush is, to be diplomatic, unfortunate, as well as the formula. Either the polish was too thick or it decided to take a vacation under my cuticles. All in all I wasn’t impressed.

Catrice Denim Moore is a periwinkle blue with intense silver shimmer – in the bottle. The shimmer doesn’t translate intensly on the nail, but only slightly.

Catrice Mint Me Up was the weirdest color change for me. In the bottle it looks softer and more minty, but on me it dries quite a bit darker. Check out Oooh Shinies swatches for Mint me Up. This was my favorite by color, especially because of the awesome golden shimmer.

 

Catrice Petrolpolitan is a very dark teal with blue microglitter. I’m not too fond of the color itself, also this was the only one that really needed 3 coats for opacity.

Catrice Goldbusters over Petrolpolitan – Goldbusters is a sheer polish filled with golden glitter specks. It’s pretty, if you want to “pimp” your polish – the silver pendant would be Orly Twilight.

Catrice Purple Reign – now that’s a real purple, not one of those aubergine or plums that call themselves purple. It’s packed with blue glitter, which makes the polish dry not completely smooth. You all know how I stand towards purple, so this one wasn’t for me.

Catrice Squeeze me is a bit difficult to describe. I’d say it’s a very dark iron-blue color, with quite some shimmer in it, that I didn’t think would be visible that nicely on the nail.

Last a little bit of an “extra”: I found this polish from a recent Catrice LE called “Neo-Geisha”. It is called Planet Tokyo and it is a frog-creme nail polish. The cap, formula and brush are “old”, so the application was a bit better. I don’t really like this kind of green, but for the green lovers out there, this might be of interest!

How I wore it: China Glaze Bend over backwards (and a gradient)

Do you know how J calls these How I Wore It posts? HIWI. Like Kiwi, if you’re a German speaker, or HIFI, if you’re an English speaker. Both versions sound absolutely ridiculous to my ears, so don’t be surprised if I will use this abbreviation soon.

Dear M sent me Bend over Backwards, one of the polishes from the China Glaze Cirque de Soleil collection. I had no desire to own this color, so I put it in my “to swatch – to go” box. I must admit, I was wrong to put it there. I thought this brick-red would clash with my skin tone, as it would be too orange.

I was wrong about the color, it is more of a auburn/red, with intense shimmer. It is also very flattering on my, I think, and so vivid, it made me happy to wear it. Especially as the day I wore it, it was raining, but it was ice cold and windy too, a very unfortunate combination!

Keep in mind what I just said about the weather and please disregard my stupid facial expression. It was really cold! I so desperately wanted to wear my new Banana Republic woolen pants in this awesome light grey shade, that I just decided to ignore the fact that it rained.

To match the pants I picked a red cardigan from H&M (one of the first items I bought in red, ever), a scarf I bought in China and a plain grey longsleeve from WE underneath. The ankle boots are from some outlet, they have maybe 5 cm heels, and work good with all my long trousers.

I was so smitten by Bend over Backwards, I decided to wear it another day, but differently. I tried a gradient, usingChG Bend over Backwards (as a base and closest to the cuticle), essie braziliant, Zoya Rica and China Glaze 2030.

I think the gradient turned out pretty cool. I was very proud of myself! In effect, it looked a bit as if I was wearing a tequila sunrise on my nails.

And because I felt so fancy wearing this gradient, here you have two super fancy artsy schmancy pictures of it in action. 

essence Sun Kissed TE

 Perfectly timed for the easterly snow-fall in Vienna, essence released a new Trend Edition called sun kissed. I absolutely love this Trend Edition, because it is the most funny TE ever.

essence my sunny side is a very warm gold metallic/shimmer nail polish. I associate the sunny side of something with a smile, or a soft sunny hue, or plainly something that makes one happy. This polish is the opposite of all of that. It doesn’t make me happy (it’s much too thin and runs everywhere), it’s not a soft sunny hue, it’s like the light at sundown in a 50-year-old Polaroid picture.

essence Wild Summer is an orange creme polish with a tint of yellow. Is it wild? hmm. It’s orange. If you consider orange wild, then yes. Is it summer (aka summer of 2013)? no. Orange was not only the Pantone color but also the summer color of 2012. I don’t really want to spell it out, but this might be another great ___ of essence when it comes to naming their polishes (the word we’re looking for here starts with an “f” and ends with “ail”!). About the formula: not the best, a bit too sheer, a bit streaky too.

essence soak up the sun – a very dark aubergine creme polish, with a strong brown hint – is a really pretty polish. I think the color would be great for many occasions, but the name? Soak up the sun? If you have this color (and you didn’t start out with a dark skin color, obviously), you have soaked up the sun too much! By far! So consider this: if this is your go-to nude, you might want to see a specialist (and by specialist I mean both an oncologist and a psychiatrist). 

essence sunset paradise is a darker blue creme. The color itself is nice, very calm and all, but sunset paradise? Trust me, if the sky has this color, you have missed the sunset. This is just your plain, old, regular nightfall.

 

Well, tell me, did you find the names of this collection as absurd as I found them?

How I wore it: butter LONDON Scuppered

Sometimes I look through my pictures and think, oh my, how long has it taken me to post this…! This post is one of them. Currently, it started snowing again, so I enjoy looking through these pictures of a snow-free environment.

Don’t get me wrong, I love wintersports and snowy hills and all of that, but this winter has been on and off snow like a hot guy who can’t make up his mind if he wants to settle down, to use one horrible cliché.

Anyhow, today I have butter LONDON Scuppered for you. butter LONDON describes this as opaque, copper shimmer with pink, gold, and green glitter. Online dictionaries tell me Scuppered means ruined, overwhelmed, killed. Okay.

I used two coats of Scuppered here. I have a thing for butter LONDON polishes, and I love the look, even though from far away it looks mostly brown. Close-up it looks like either some fancy frog or snake skin, or some weird exotic sickness, or, in afterthought, it looks like a toad, with those green pustules. That’s mostly what you get if you mix pink, gold and green glitter, especially if the green glitter is just a bit larger than the gold and pink.

I wore this  with my favorite black pants from WE, a blouse from WE (I’m full of surprises!) and an oversized t-shirt from Oysho. I thought they’d cut a bit smaller, but this is M and it is far to big for me. I’m okay with the way I styled it, but unless I find other ways to wear it too, I will have to consider fleamarketing it. Oh, the booties are from Oysho too.

Face-wise, you’re seeing the usual. Mostly Inglot. The below picture is funny because I just realized that my coat was lying on the floor instead of on my bag, but I look almost s if a cute kitten or puppie was coming my way.

Well, that was it from butter LONDON Scuppered today, I think maybe next time I wear it, I’ll pick an outfit that compliments the snake/frog/toad feeling of it more. Any suggestions?
 

essence Oz – The Great and Powerful TE

essence is trying its best to be the OPI for the small purse lately. They announced a collaboration with Justin Bieber (…), they released a Snow White TE and now they put out a Wizard of Oz TE. I wonder what will be next?

Let me start off by saying that all these polishes are crackles. We know that crackles aren’t necessarily a new thing, but as they say, good news travels fast, and logically, bad news travels slowly, so no wonder that a year after the crackles were cool, essence releases a whole collection.

good witch is a super new absolutely innovative gold crackle. I layered it over flormar M12. It crackles nicely, and to be honest, gold crackles are the ones I liked the most. So this one gets a pass!

delicate but determined is a navy shimmer crackle. The color in this picture is true to its real color, even though my fingers aren’t. I layered it over flormar M04. I wish this wasn’t a crackle polish, the color itself is beautiful.

winds of change is mainly a song, if you ask me. Taaaaaaake me to the magic of the moment…etc, etc. Great song to sing along falsely and overly loud. The polish though is the opposite: red crackle. Never understood the benefit of red crackle. It looks horrible over pretty much any color. I layered it over flormar M03.

master of illusion can’t fool me. The illusion of it being a nice turquoise/aqua creme shatters just like the polish itself. I layered it over flormar M09.

winged wonder is a peach/coral creme crackle. It crackles the least good of the bunch. I layered it over flormar M10.

 

Do you still like crackles? Or would you just get them because they are a Wizard of Oz TE?

Sunday Spam More Glitter!

 

 

Wishing you a fine Sunday from behind my computer. Hope you all have time to relax before the week starts again!

Today I’m showing you some glitter combinations I wore, tried out and swatched.

First up is Jessica Hot Hot Hot (over butter LONDON Trout Pout). I wanted Hot Hot Hot to be a covering glitter, but what you see below is already two coats. It is pretty and all, but I was hoping for something different.

essie a cut above (over Catrice Have a good day) is hands down my favorite pink glitter. What I like about it is the variety of sizes, but the unity in color. And the glitter payoff is wonderful – this is one coat.

H&M has been stepping up their game when it comes to nail polish. I’m wearing Purple Sprinkles (over Chanel Frenzy), which is a mix of purple glitters and holographic bar glitter. It isn’t a very dense glitter, but it works for a “pimp my office manicure” emergency. Plus, if you like purple, you’ll most probably like it anyhow.

Well, unfortunately, after I put on Purple Sprinkles, I somehow got caught somewhere and ripped a piece of skin from my cuticle. It was very painful, and I didn’t dare to change my manicure, so I just added a coat of nails inc soho street. Sorry about the picture, but I so absolutely adored soho street over Chanel Frenzy, I couldn’t pass on showing you this. And in case you were wondering, this is one coat!

Another H&M polish, Confetti Time, which I liked. It’s a mix of pink, blue and gold glitters, in different sizes (over Chanel Malice). Cute, and I can see this to be worn in many combinations.

This is a tricky combination: The base color is nails inc disco lane (total light box fail, trying to photograph the holographic glitter in there!) and I lazily painted on a silver/holographic glitter from SpaRitual called Illumination and butter LONDON Lovely Jubbly (the pink). Not my best combination.

I have a thing for multicolored glitters too, so I adored OPI Rainbow Connection (Nicka K NY138, hands down one of the best greens I own!). Nothing wrong with a little easter manicure, is there?

And the last one for today is China Glaze Marry A Millionaire on the tips (over OPI DS temptation). I totally love this glitter, and I’m so not over bar glitter yet, especially the smaller kind.