essence – new show your feet polishes

Hi there! You know what the best is about today? Tomorrow. Fridays. Full of hope and expectation what the weekend may bring. (lots of sleep in my case…!)

Anyhow, essence released new “toe nail polish”. I have zero idea what the difference to “finger nail polish” may be, but what shall I say, it is a marketing trick. So I decided to exercise some civil restistance and show them on my fingers, not toes.

The gladiator (they are all named after certain shoe types, cute I think) is a lime green creme, very vivid and a color I really like. I used two coats, the application was ok.

The peeptoe is a very vivid almost neon coral. 2 coats again, application ok.

The pump is a chalky barbie pink. The application was a bit streaky but ok to handle. 2 coats.

The stiletto is a shimmery medium purple, it has a blue shine which is more apparent in the bottle than on the nail. I don’t like this color at all. Application was ok, 2 coats.

The wedge looks like a very vivid medium blue creme, but there is just a hint of shimmer in there, so it looks more glossy. I don’t wear blues like this on my nails, but I like the color itself. 2 coats, it was a bit difficult to control while applying it.

All in all this collection has really nice colors, but nothing breathtaking. I assure you my nails felt fine after wearing this polish, so it’s safe to say it isn’t toe nail polish only!

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: China Glaze Love’s a beach

Get ready for some eye-searing uber-neonity! Today I am showing you one of the polishes I absolutely adore, but can’t look at too long: China Glaze Love’s a Beach.

What you see here (do look away every couple of seconds, for your retina’s sake), is a super pink neon shimmer polish.

It applies well, is neon, is pink, has shimmer. What more do I want? A matching lipstick. Oh, wait, I have one: Bobby Brown Neon Pink.

I also have sunglasses, just so you know.  And a matching ring with neon pink and neon yellow glass stones (from Pieces or something like it). Check out how that pink pops in the shadow! Amazing!

And of course, I have pink Converse, and this slightly big pink cashmere pullover (from Nice Connection, well, whatever, I didn’t choose their brand name). 

The pants are, as most of mine seem to be, from WE. So, either  I make a lot of advertising for WE, or I keep on wearing the same pants. You can pick

And last, but definitely not least, here’s a piece of very useful information for those of you that like stamping! The essence polishes of their color changing line are amazing for stamping. Thank you M. for telling me, I tried them all: they all stamp amazingly. And they do slightly change their color if you add topcoat! (all of the 4 available polishes stamped over Love’s a Beach, no topcoat added).

Sunday Spam: OPI pink & red

Well, I hope you’re enjoying your sunday! Meanwhile I am working on emptying my swatch folders, so I’m showing you a couple of pink and red OPI/NOPI/SOPI polishes today.

OPI I’m all ears, from the Minnie Mouse Collection (LOVE Minnie and Mickey!) over Jessica Strawberry Fields. I had no patience to apply multiple coats of this beautiful but sheer raspberry red glassfleck. Beautiful, but not unique, I think.

NOPI Great Minds Pink Alike, a coral Creme with glassfleck-y shimmer. Love the idea, and that it covers perfectly in 2 coats, but the coral looks stripper-y on me.

OPI Aphrodite’s pink Nightie is really old (in polish years). It is part of the Greek Isles (?) collection from 2004. It is frosty and pink, and no-one likes colors like this anymore, but I love it. I am weird sometimes and it has been on more than one occasion, that people told me that my taste was interesting. 2 coats.

OPI Charged up Cherry is extremely difficult to capture. My lightbox, skintone and the fact that this is almost neon, do not do it any good. It looks washed out in my pictures – somehow unsatisfying. I will try to show you in an How I wore it post soon. 2 coats.

OPI If you moust, you moust – I love this flawless pink, and the application is great. Perfect bubblegum pink – the only downside is that it doesn’t really suit me. I was really sad when I realized that! I kept it anyway. 2 coats.

OPI Pompeii Purple is one of those pinks I wear over and over. It dries just the slightest bit streaky, and needs three coats, but it glows! It has this blue shimmer over a very vibrant pink, but it’s not too much and doesn’t look too girly. One of my favorite summer pinks!

OPI Schnapps out of it. I don’t know if you  have heard this before, but I hate hate hate medium brown nailpolish (and clothes). This one has a somewhat orange-pink tint, but it’s definitely mostly brown. The silver shimmer can’t safe it for me. Good thing is that the application is easy and it needs 2 coats. Nevertheless, in my eyes, horrible color. Also, it is pretty useless to tell someone to snap out of something when drinking schnapps. I tried and failed.

OPI The color of Minnie. This is a wonderful, wonderful strawberry red, with intense silver shimmer, application is a dream, and it just looks amazing. Eternal love. 2 coats.

spotted!

Due to my need to look respectable, knowledgeable and presentable at work, I go head over heels absurdly crazy on the weekend when I can wear whatever on my nails, because I will only get the weird looks from my friends. Hence, the only logical conclusion is to wear all the neon colors I can think of at once, right?

I started off with two coats of wet’n'wild white creme and then randomly brushed on different colors. I can tell you, it looked very artistic and grown up. I’m now going to name all the polishes I used, so enjoy…Cult Nails Deal with it, China Glaze In the limelight, China Glaze Pool Party, NOPI Lemon-Lime Twist, Milani Hi-Tech, essie funky limelight, Color Club Jingle Jangle, Claires Sandart, and Illamasqua Stance.

Yeah, and then I used OPI Spotted over this. This was fun, but due to the fact that I used so many layers of polish, it didn’t dry very well and later that day I bumped into something and I took this off the day after. But still, every once in a while, I enjoy wearing crazy stuff!

catrice NEONaturals LE

Today I’m showing you a collection from Catrice called NEONaturals. I have absolutely no idea what the thought was behind this collection; it seems random in time of the year and choice of color. Nevertheless, here it is.

be naturally crazy is a sheer white with a hint of blue micro glitter. It really is only a hint of blue in there; it doesn’t transfer on the nail that well. This is 3 coats! (hideous, if you ask me.)

makes me smile is a metallic polish between silver and gold. It covered very well, almost in one coat, and it is very shiny. No brushstroke issue here either – I liked this best. 2 coats.

bright brighter brightest is a creme pink. It’s pretty much the same pink essence and Catrice bring out every other LE, which is an action that would contradict it’s name, as it is the opposite of bright. But hey, we can’t have everything. 2 coats.

for bright guys is a creme egg yolk colored polish. I love yellow, but these warm yellows better stay far away from me! It dries to a somewhat satin finish, and I needed three coats to get this to look acceptable. I assume it’s because eggs are for eating, not to be worn on nails.  3 coats.

Have a good day is a grey creme polish – it has some shimmer in the bottle, but that also stays there. I used two coats, it is a very decent grey, if you don’t have one yet, and this is easily accessible to you, it’s worth the money (but not more than that). I prefer KIKO greys, but you can’t buy KIKO everywhere! 2 coats.

little miss sunshine is a sheer patchy yellow with yellow flakes in there that add some sparkle. It had, as is the tradition with yellows, the worst application. Also, it looks very different in different light. It’s a fun polish, but I’m spoiled by yellows with better formulas, so it’s not really a winner in my books. 3 coats.


mr. brightsight is a coral creme polish, it had the most visible satin finish. I am not fond of corals in combination with my skin tone, but this is a great nail polish for toes in the summer. 2 coats.

it’s partner, mrs. brightsight, is the most neon of the bunch. It is a color somewhere between pink and red, and it is very vivid. Somehow it was a bit more sheer than the other creme polishes, and I ended up using 2 and a half coats. It had the best application though.

on the bright side of life is a vivid aubergine purple. It looks a bit lighter in the bottle than it is on the nail. It is a great color for autumn and winter, I think. 2 coats.

neon scratches

 

Recently (well, it’s a relative term) I found this fun and super easy manicure on NeverlandNailBlog, and I decided that even I would be able to recreate it. So I went ahead – let’s go about this step by step.

First I wanted to wear this blinging, eye-searing neon orange from Sinful Colors, which has the misleading name Summer Peach. Sounds much more innocent than it is!

The neon-ity of it really surfaces in twilight. I tried my best to make pictures in the dusk, but it’s difficult. So I hope you still like them – lightbox pictures just don’t do this polishes justice.  The polish itself dries semi-matte, which is a finish I enjoy in combination with neon polishes. Could you imagine a neon polish with a glossy finish? I think it’d be odd.

For overkill and to make sure your optician’s pension fund will grown, another picture of this orange. Don’t look straight into the orange, I’d suggest.

Over the orange I put one coat of Sinful Colors Dream On and then, while it was still wet-ish, one coat of Sinful Colors Fusion Neon. 

Then I took a paper clip, bent it so that I could use the wire to scratch through my nail polish and went ahead. You can find a wonderfully perfect tutorial on NeverlandNailBlog, (link above) but I’m a consumer when it comes to tutorials, so I’ll just describe a bit how this worked, end.

First I was afraid (I was petrified) that I’d scratch my nails. Then I realised that if I’d pay attention, there was little chance that I’d actually ruin something, so I held the little wire crooked and just made some lines in the polish. I think that this type of nail art would be especially fitting for Halloween.

The next time I’m trying that, I’ll put a darker color over the neon – I love how it glows from underneath – or use a glow in the dark polish underneath. What do you think? Yay or nay?

Pink Wednesday – How I ate it: Peggy Sage 295 Neon Pink

Well, this isn’t a regular post, nor is it a How  I wore it post. It’s a bit of a sarcastic How I ate it post. In Austria, most Beauty Bloggers also seem to have a great liking towards food – I like food too, but I have never understood fully how Cupcakes go hand in hand with lipsticks and mascaras. In any case I felt like diving deep into this swimming pool of clichés, and that’s how these pictures came to life. Don’t expect a step by step recipe though, I stand by my decision to buy macarons (and cupcakes!).

I found Peggy Sage polishes pretty much around the corner of our flat in Paris. I have only read about Peggy Sage on French blogs, but I had never tried them out. When I found a dark burgundy flakie polish, a silver holographic one and a neon pink one, I was convinced that I needed to try out the brand.

Obviously, I had to wear the pink neon one first. It is very sheer an jelly-like, so I ended up applying 3-4 coats. I think it was 4, but I can’t remember anymore. I’m sure that Neon Pink would work perfectly over white too, but I find it annoying that I have to apply white first, so I deal with the many coats.

It is really really difficult to get a neon pink to photograph well. It looks much too red in my pics. If you look at the picture above, the bottle shows the color quite well. E was fairly convinced that I would glow in the dark with this polish and my friend S was speechless for a second when she saw just how neon my nails were – I wore this manicure to Disneyland (follow me on instagram to know stuff like that: @goodlacknail), which I deemed appropriate.

In any case, back to the macarons: E and I tried a couple of different shops when we stumbled upon a super stylish shop called Weiss (62, rue de Seine, 75006 Paris), and we couldn’t resist buying some macarons. They didn’t only look dainty, they smelled great and the assortment was amazing. The chocolates and pralines looked tempting too, but we settled on a box of 9 macarons (~12€). We tried raspberry, mint chocolate, creme caramel, chocolate and many more.

My personal favourite is caramel au beurre salé. By far. If you want any tips on how to eat macarons the best, here they come: fresh,not too many and with a friend. Trust me, this is a sugar trip you’ll need a friend for.

Of accent nails and bad layers.

What does one do if one can’t decide between two polishes? One wears both! At least that’s what I decided I’d do when I couldn’t decide between OPI Did it on ‘em and NOPI Ladies in the Limelight, and so I put Ladies in the Limelight on my ring finger as an accent nail.
About accent nails. I have seen people have two accent nails now, the pointer and the middle finger. I don’t know what you think about that, but I think it’s ugly. Also, it’s weird – the pointer and the middle finger are used for both vulgar gestures as well as the peace sign, which can is the same as the scouts greeting and to show your affinity towards Star Trek. The ring finger on the other hand isn’t used for any gestures at all, it’s only there to show off a big chunky wedding ring or a big chunky ring or any other ring or nothing at all. Somehow somewhere in this explanation of the designated usage of fingers lies the answer to why I don’t like the new accent nail trend, but I can’t quite put my finger on it. Pun intended.

Anyhow. OPI Did it on ‘em and NOPI Ladies in the Limelight; I used 2 coats of each.

I was bored with it. I admit it. Unfortunately, I don’t think I made quite the best layering choice here:

 Actually I know for certain that I didn’t make the right layering choice. As pretty as lynnderella Connect the Dots and Nail-venturous Floam are, together they don’t make a pretty pair. Two awesomes don’t make one breathtaking,thatI’ve learned.

How I wore it: Neon Gradient

This is the closest I’ll come to a tutorial I think. I’m not very good at explaining how I do my nails, and whenever I try nail art, I just give it a go and if it works, good, if not, I’ll a)start over b)give up and just wear one colour.

So when I saw thetutorial for gradients on the Nailasaurus, you know, the one everyone knows about,  I decided I have to try. I have more or less mastered the art of sponging, which works for gradients too, but it works best with glitters.

Anyhow, I received some awesome neons and I couldn’t wait to wear them all, so I decided to actually wear them all at once. So this manicure consists of only a few neons, really, namely (from thumb to pinkie):

Sinful Colors – Irish Green
Illamasqua – Rare
China Glaze – Flip Flop Fantasy
China Glaze – Pool Party
Sinful Colors – Dream On
SpaRitual – Knowledge is Power.

I use an old CD cover to put on the polish for the gradient. It looks like this:

Pre-cleanup, this is what you’ll get:

More clean up…

I hope you got the joke! Anyhow, clean-up was annoying. I put a coat of white polish underneath the neon, to make sure it’d not take 389547423671 coats to reach opacity, and therefore cleanup was meh. It was like choosing between the devil and the deep blue sea – VNL or messy clean-up….

I wore it for two days, so you’ll get two pictures of how I wore this eye-searing neon gradient. The medium blue dress is from H&M and the darkblue one is from Mango.

And this is neon me waving goodbye for today!