Sunday Spam: Jessica

Today I want to show you some Jessica polishes that I like and wore lately.

Amira / Smitten Kitten * (part of the collection where Jessica named polishes after her friends) is not just a standard pink, no! It has a subtle silver shimmer that peeks through at times that makes this polish special. As a pink lover, I was convinced immediately! 2 coats.

Ava / New Kid in Town * (same collection as above) is a very white-leaning lilac. It’s a very vivid but at the same time subtle color. I don’t wear colors like this often, but I think I will wear this in summer, as it looks so happy! 2 coats.

Desire was, if I’m not mistaken, part of a collection with three polishes that looked like Chanel April, May and June (see comparisons here). It’s a bit of a duller red, which I personally don’t wear. If you like this kind of color, the advantage of Desire is that it is not bright red, very wearable and applies very nicely. 2 coats.

Flirtation looks very similar to Chanel May. It is very difficult for me to find a baby/barbie pink that fits me, and unfortunately this wasn’t it. Definitely a great alternative if you missed the Chanels and wanted one, or if you’re looking for your perfect baby pink creme and want to give this one a try. Application was a breeze, 2 coats.

Love Story is similar to Chanel June…. I very much dislike this color, and even more because June is my birth month, and I wanted a prettier color. Sorry about my self-centered rambling. Love Story applied perfectly and it is very shiny and all, I just didn’t like this type of orange. 2 coats.


Prune Whip * is a great pink creme that dries so glossy, it looks like a jelly. There’s not so much more to add except that if you’re looking for a pink like this, Prune Whip is a good option. 2 coats.

Strawberry Shake It* is a very pale baby pink with a high percentage of white. It is cool-toned so it works with my skin. The application was a bit chalky and the polish dragged, so unless you’re super into this color, I’d suggest to sit this one out. 3 coats.

Do you have a favorite Jessica nail polish? Let me know!

All polishes marked * were sent to me for (obviously, honest, reflecting-my-opinion) review. Thanks to the Jessica PR-Team!

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?

Catrice Candy Shock LE

 Good morning, nail polish fanatics! Today I will still your hunger for colors with the Catrice Candy Shock LE. I didn’t find the pearls anywhere (you know, big thing, pearls on your nails, texture, fun 3D nail art, etc, etc, ugly.), so I can only show you the polishes.

Bring me Peach is a somewhat sheer orange at first. It’s a darker egg yolk color, but then pastel and somewhat color-drained. It’s, as you can guess, not my favorite. It took three coats for opacity, and dried satin-y. No idea if that was the intention.

Play it blue is a pastel light blue. It also dries with a satin finish and needed three coats. It’s cute, and somewhat happy and spring-y, but you can take any other light blue and add a matte topcoat.

Vanilla Love looks like vanilla pudding. I hate pudding of any flavour, but I do like soft yellows. This was patchy and difficult to apply, but that was obvious. I only have 2 yellow cremes that apply good… 3 coats.

I scream Ice Cream is such an old joke a pastel lilac, which has awesome shimmer in the bottle, but that doesn’t transfer on the nail. You can see it in the sun, if you look really closely, and really want to see it. Bummer. 3 coats.

All in all, I think pastel colors aren’t necessarily Catrice’s great strength. I like the blue, but for the rest I am not so amazed by the colors.

essence Floral Grunge TE

essence releases TE after TE again, it seems to be a spring-thing. Today I’m showing you the Floral Grunge TE.

It seems more and more that essence focuses on a target group of girls aged 7 to 13. I am not at all interested in the TE’s they put out if I’d only judge by theme. I mean, what’s floral grunge? Dead flowers? The ghost of a rabbit in a flower bed? Grunge music to which hippies dance? A happy emo? The cyber goth movement? I can’t answer any of this, but I am certain that puberty-ridden girls will find something as undefined as this interesting. For a fact I know that I would have, and I am ashamed to admit it. Luckily, growing up is inevitable.

essence Be flowerful. 2 coats. A shiny coral-orange pastel polish. 3 coats. I assume this is part of the “floral”?

essence Black to the roots. Ah, the word joke. So funny. Black (…) polish with silver glitter in there that dries gritty and matte. It has a sticker saying that this is supposed to be textured, but it really isn’t. It looks more like a lab accident (aka the whole jar of silver glitter fell into the matte black nail polish! Oh no! What shall we do! How about we call it texture. No one will notice.). 2 coats.

essence Grunge me Tender (no comment on this name. I mean, really.) is a pale mint shade with some shimmer-adding particles. It dries rather anticlimactic to something between shiny and matte, but definitely not to a suede. It is also amazingly patchy, you can see that even at 3 coats.

essence Lily Bloom, a white polish with a little bit of shine that doesn’t transfer on the nail all too well. Less patchy than the mint, but still not amazing. 3 coats (and no idea what “the pearl” means – a sticker on top of the bottle – this doesn’t look pearly to me).

essence Madly Purpled – now finally, this is a success. Medium dusty purple, dries matte, with shimmer, so it doesn’t look flat. Easy to apply, dries quick, 2 coats. If you pick one from this TE, pick this one.

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?

a little bit of lynn

Well, I love glitter. And as a glitter lover, for me, there was no way around lynnderella polishes.  Luckily, these days there are many cheaper, easier accessible and different glitter manufacturers that supply me with my needed dose of glitter.  Nevertheless, I managed to get my hands on some lynnderella polishes that I find quite fun, and I would like to show you two of them today.

lynderella Cauldron Drippings is available through her ebay shop in a new version. I have an old version – never understood new versions of something that that is perfectly fine, but I guess (funny) money does make the world go round. I used one coat over Catrice Planet Tokyo. Cauldron Drippings is a glitter mix in the usual lynnderella style: various glitters in various forms. The main color here is orange. I like the accidential look this one has.

lynderella Funny Money is another rather random glitter mix, main colors here are green and black. I used one coat over essence get artsy. I absolutely hate what lynnderella had to say about this polish; usually when reading her descriptions I figure it’s up to her to think this and think that. But reading about funny money gave me the feeling that this was written by a really angry person, who is putting every word on a weighing scale to sound composed and smarter than those who she is angry with. I wasn’t sure about getting the nail polish therefore, but then an opportunity arose and I figured, I’d go for it. In the end, it’s not my problem, and she didn’t see any of my money anyhow, as I didn’t buy funny money from her directly.

 Are there any lynnderellas you really like?

Sunday Spam: China Glaze

Welcome to another edition of Sunday Spam!
Today I spam you with China Glaze polishes that I wore lately, where as lately covers the time span of half a year. Time is subjective, sometimes.

China Glaze C-C-Courage. It’s to purple for me, but I love the golden glitter in it. So.. royal. 2 coats.

China Glaze Liquid Crystal. I love glitter like this, so I absolutely adore this polish. Plus it has this cute periwinkle look, even though it has all the multicolored glitter in it. I don’t care too much about the slight duochrome shift in it, but look at all the glitter!! 2 coats.

China Glaze Mega Bite – this is a polish from the Tronica collection, and it is on the edge between gold and yellow. L.O.V.E. this color. It has this magical glow about it, just marvelous. 2 coats.

China Glaze Rated Holographic – this is a coarse holographic polish in a red/brown color. I didn’t like the color on me too much, and I hate it when the holographic effect takes over. I like it much more in indirect light. Two coats.

China Glaze Ray-diant is another polish from the Prismatics collection, just like Liquid Crystal. This is more leaning towards a green/teal base color, and I love it just as much as Liquid Crystal. Maybe even a bit more. 2 coats.

China Glaze Riveting – one of two orange polishes I like, the other one, essie braziliant, is on my ring finger. Oh, the golden glow in this makes me want to put it on again right away. The China Glaze people really outdid themselves when they created this polish. 2 coats.
One of the colors everybody had a different opinion about lately was China Glaze Trendsetter. Some called it baby poop, others puke, but hell I love this color. It also looks surprisingly flattering with my skin tone, and much greener than other swatches I’ve seen. Plus, the shimmer within Trendsetter is to pretty to be baby poop. And if you still think that it looks horrible, consider this the best polish for young mothers. Two coats.
China Glaze It’s my turn – not really it’s turn for me. The color of this leans too much towards a wet camel, and it just made me look old. Two coats. 

See anything you like?

essence Vintage District TE

A bit later than usual, the essence Vintage District TE. To my defense, I got a very distracting parcel full of nail polish from my uber-swap-amie, M. I swatched all of the polishes on nail wheels yesterday – just so you know, I needed 6 almost full nail wheels.  Also, I got my first Urban Decay eye pencil, and it is awesome. I’ll most probably show it to you soon.

Before I start, let me say that I was not very interested in this trend edition, so first I thought I’d let it be, but then J. called and asked me if I want any of these polishes, because she found a full display, and I couldn’t pass up on that occasion. So here it comes!

essence Vintage Peach is most probably one of the ugliest polishes that passed my hands. It covers fully in two coats and applies just fine, but what kind of color is that supposed to be? Sweet potatoe peel puke? The only question I had circling in my mind when I swatched this, was, WHY?

I made a little comparison on the sticks for you (Please let me know if you find this helpful!):
Del Sol Trick or Treat – essence A piece of forever – Catrice Paris – essence Vintage Peach – essence peaches – essence happy – Revlon Fig Jam

Well, it doesn’t get much better with essence Antique Pink. I have long sworn off colors like this, because, well, it’s obvious. I don’t think this color will become a retro-kind-of-cool, this will never be cool. 3 coats, formula was a bit of a pain for me.

  Now, finally I can breathe again! essence Get arty made it all good again. Color wise it is somewhere between a very murky camouflage green and grey, but the shimmer it is infused with makes it outstanding. It made me think of some Rescue Beauty Lounge polish, but I can’t pinpoint it. Formula was super, 2 coats, and the shimmer is just so beautiful!

And for those of you who love colors such as nails inc Baker Street, you will love this:essence shopping @portobello road. Vibrant blue with a squishy jelly look, even though it covers entirely after two coats. It is easy to apply and didn’t stain my nails, which I feared it would. Also it is amazingly shiny without topcoat! A winner in my books.

Again, a stick-comparison, from left to right:  
H&M No Mambo Jumbo - Cult Nails Let me Fly -p2 funky - SOPI Who let the dorks out? – Catrice San Francisco – Maybelline Shocking Seas – essence life is a free ride – SOPI Skinny Jeans -  OPI Teal the Cows come home - essence shopping @ Portobello Road – Catrice Birds Flying High – YSL La Lacque 137 – Illamasqua Muse – essence bonnie – Catrice No Snow Petrol

What do you think about this TE? Half hot, half not, right?

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?