How I wore it: Orly Emberstone

Sooooo there is this Orly polish called Emberstone, that I keep on pulling out of y collection, look at it, admire it and then I put it back and pick another color to wear. After doing that a couple of times, I decided to finally wear it (again), and see if I still liked it or if it would be a guest at the beauty flea market.

Emeberstone is pink, orange or red, depending on the light you see it in. It is very vibrant and sparkly enough for me to adore it, but not glittery so I’d feel as if I was going out as a disco ball.

I decided to wear a lipstick equally happy to Emberstone, and my choice fell on KIKO 392. It is a red lipstick from their creamy lipstick line. I prefer matte lipsticks as they last longer, but this one is great to have in my bag all the time so I can add some color if I feel like it.

The scarf was a gift from dear H who is my first swap friend! She finds me pretty cool stuff and helps satisfy my need for scarfs. It is one of those look scarfs, and it is striped in light pink and a silvery white.

For the rest of the outfit, I picked shoes from Chatelles Paris, where I finally ended my search for the perfect red slippers. I have been wearing them a lot since I bought them, and now I’m just waiting for my birthday to add those Klein blue ones to my shoe closet!

The jeans are from WE (I’m sure this comes as a surprise…), the cardigan is from H&M. The t-shirt is from Kookai. In effect, if you want to know, I kept Emberstone. I have been wearing it twice since, and I don’t think I have a red that works better with my shoes than Emberstone

How I Wore It: Orly Sea Gurl

The neon scarf is back! This time it accompanies Orly Sea Gurl.

I didn’t know if I should keep Orly Sea Gurl, as I have a thing for greys and silvers (and gold, pink and red, but let’s keep the obvious aside), and I have way too many. So what to do if I can’t decide? Wear it. 2 coats here.

I decided to pair this shimmering brushed aluminum color with an easy outfit, not too much color, so I picked a grey cowlneck sweater from WE. This pullover is actually nothing I’d pick; I don’t like the collar too much. I bought it because on our flight to India, we got stranded for a day in Amsterdam, without luggage, and we were dressed for an arrival in warm Mumbai, not for a regular November day in Amsterdam. So we had to find something warm (and cheap, because the money was saved for our holiday, not for being stuck in Amsterdam!) we could wear, in very little time, and this is what came out of this “shopping experience”.

The pants are from Mango I think. They are just plain black. The chelsea boots are from asos, my favorite buy this winter. I think I wore them every second day.

The neon striped scarf is from Esprit. I liked the airy and soft material so much, I bought a blue striped one too.  The earrings are self-made. I’m wearing a super dark aubergine lip pencil by __________ that I bought in Mumbai, I love the shade and it has amazing staying power. Let me just say how happy I am that the gloomy winter days will be over soon! I’m in need for some Vitamin D! 

And because you made it until here, let me reward you with one of the pictures I usually delete.

The blue metallic triarchy

The other day I received a big swap package, actually, I received two. They were from my swap fairies M. and M., and one of them contained China Glaze Blue Bells Ring, which I waved off as “another blue metallic”. So I figured, why not compare it to the “other” blue metallic polishes I have, to see which one I should keep.

Enter: Color Club Cold Metal and Orly Sweet Peacock. Cold Metal looked much darker and less metallic in the bottle, while Sweet Peacock looked a bit more turquoise than Blue Bells Ring. But, as it often is the case with metallics, the bottle impressions can fool you.

From left to right, two coats: Color Club Cold Metal (pinkie, ring finger), China Glaze Blue Bells Ring (middle finger) and Orly Sweet Peacock (pointer).

I used two coats for all of them to be able to give you a uniform look. Blue Bells Ring really doesn’t need two coats, one is sufficient. Overall I don’t think those three polishes are dupes. The smoothest looking one is Blue Bells Ring, Cold Metal is much darker, and Sweet Peacock looks somewhat more grainy; it is also slightly more turquoise than the other two.

In the end Blue Bells Ring won in terms of formula and also I like the color the best.   

If there are any polishes you want me to compare, just let me know!

Worst polishes of 2012

While everybody else is out there praising their 2012  favourites, I decided to give you a random list of “worsts”! The main reason for this is that there are too many polishes I liked in 2012, and the other reason is that I enjoy being mean sometimes – and this will give me the perfect opportunity. You can disagree with me and let me know which polishes you didn’t like this year!

As a general info: Worst of 2012 refers to polishes I wore in 2012, not necessarily ones that were brought out in 2012. Let’s get started!

Pretty much everything from the Catrice Hidden World LE. brown, salmon and frosty white – no thank you!

 OPI Play the Peonies. Okay, so I liked Chanel Attraction, but this is also more pink. Frosty, white-ish pink. Brrr.

Revlon Mint Gelato. Sheer dusty turquoise, unbearable smell (and I love mint!): overall performance could not convince (that was very diplomatic).

I like the idea of  NYX Precious Gems, but the execution lacks… skills? experience? love? ideas? Well, you pick.

Models Own Dusty Mauve - they name already gives this one away. Not much I can say or do that will make it cry harder.

It pains me to say it, but Orly Artificial Sweetener only looks good in the bottle. I gave it chance after chance, but it just looks yuck on me. Even though it is pink!

essence Rebel Topcoat in Punk Royal  (and Catrice No smoke without fire): jelly black doesn’t work. AT ALL. Even if it has glitter in it. Ooooh I think these two might win the ugliest of ugly award.  Looks like black snot or slime over my nails! *shudders*

OPI Gouda Gouda Two Shoes. This is not a decent or elegant version of brown, this is ugly. Same goes for Nubar Charmeuse -  just because Nubar makes it a bit more difficult to call this plain brown, it is freakishly boring (and ugly). And, a bit more mauve but still too brown for me: OPI Mauving to Manitoba.

Glitter Gal Flawless Pink is everything but flawless. At least it’s holographic, but it’s definitely not flawless (and, to be honest, it’s not much pink either).

MAC Style Clan - poop brown with orange glitter – it can’t get much worse. Oh, wait! Short nails make it look extra bad. I don’t even want to start telling you what I think this looks like.

Jessica Glitterati - great idea, but such a failure. I pretty much hated how it looked like on the nail. The only thing left to say is, WHY?!

GOSH Ocean. Eeeeuh. It’s too much of everything. Too many brush strokes, too much color, too much, just too much.

Barielle Out-grey-geous. Can’t even deal with this after I stamped over it. It’s completely boring and unfitting, and then, why the many “-” in the name?

I thought I’d never have complaints about yellow polish, but Nicole by OPI Yellow it’s me changed my mind. I tried it alone, over white, over yellow – the orange/red glow in it just ruins it for me, apart from it being so sheer. In the same area is essence peach beauty (fruity TE) – I mean come on, patchy, sheer orange? Hell no! There’s no excuse for sheer yellow nail polish. Polish makers of the world, unite, and fight against this nuisance!

The extra awards for horrible application go to Face of Australia Verdigris (bubbles in metallic, streaky military green) and Sinful Colors Cinderella (patchy shimmery light blue, impossible to make opaque without it looking as if it ran down your tips).

I wish you all a great New Year’s Eve and a good start into the new year. Hope your hangovers won’t be too bad, and that you all have someone to kiss at midnight.

Pink Wednesday: Subtle Stamping

Today I have just a simple manicure for you. I felt like a pure, simple manicure inbetween strong colors, so I opted for Orly Kiss the Bride, which is a very whitened pastel pink creme. I used three coats, as I had some issues with it – it didn’t want to level out properly.

On my ringfinger I applied two coats of ManGlaze Mayo, which is a white matte polish with awesome shimmer. The shimmer is most visible if one applies topcoat, but I wanted to wear it matte. It’s a bit chalky, but worth it!

I decided that this was perfect for some stamping, so I used the sally hansen quick dry nail art many more words to describe this simple nail polish pen in metallic pink and an image from the DRK-A plate. On the ringfinger I used the silver pen. Photographing this was somewhat extremely difficult, as the stamping image reflected the light too much. I have since changed my camera settings on my path to the perfect light settings – I might have to recreate this manicure, because I love how soft and sweet it looks, and then I’ll try making better pics.

Piano Nails

Sometimes, but just sometimes, I feel the need to try something weird.

I had these stamping plates for sometime now, the MASH plates, and on one of them is this piano-print. So the other day, I wanted to wear Orly Au Champagne (the white), and it refused to behave, so I had dents in the nails of my ringfinger and my pointer.

I wasn’t ready to paint them in Au Champagne again, so I blindly grabbed into my “to swatch” box, and out came OPI Nein! Nein! Nein! Ok, fine!.  I will talk about the name of this polish in a later post. I actually cringed when I just wrote that.

And because the color combinaton fitted, I picked up my MASH plate #44, and stamped this piano design over it, alternating in black and white (I used wet’n'wild black and white creme for the stamping design).

I think the design would work much better if I had a straight nail shape and not an oval/rounded one, but it was fun for a day. What do you think?

Not Rock Solid

Rock Solid – the 13th album by The Commodores (which was everything but), a floor company, an IT company, a Youth for Christ Organisation, defence in general, a nail polish by Orly… Rock-solid can be used in a lot of contexts, it seems. In regard to nail polish, rock-solid can be positive, as it could mean the polish doesn’t show tipwear or doesn’t peel off. It could also mean extreme difficulties in the removal process… but before I drift off, Rock Solid didn’t ensure a rock-solid relationship from me to Orly.

It started as every relationship starts: I was eyeing Rock Solid through pink heart shaped glasses, ignoring it’s flaws. Eventually I came back down to earth with a jolt – Rock Solid chips on me so badly that I can only write the word “solid” sarcastically. The polish itself is a grainy charcoal grey, interspersed with fine holographic glitter. Color-wise, this would be something I’d love to wear, but since it chipped so bad, I didn’t want to keep it. It has since found a new loving owner.

It’s pretty though, don’t you think?

Pink Wednesday: Artificial Sweetener all glittered up

Orly is a brand I’m somewhat torn about. Some of their nail polishes are to die for, others are, well, plain.

Artificial Sweetener by Orly is one of the plain ones. It’s a somewhat stale creme pink, rather warm color.; I used two coats. I wanted to like it, because it looked very pretty in the bottle, but it doesn’t totally work for me. Until I realized that it doesn’t work for me, I needed to wear it twice. Actually, I have to wear all the polishes at least once until I can decide if I like the color on me or not – how do you try polishes out? If you have any suggestions to speed up the process, let me know!

To take the boring out of Artificial Sweetener (a somewhat very fitting name, if you ask me – it looks sweet and artificial, doesn’t iot?) I decided to paint my ringfinger nail in one of my frankens. It’s a shimmery white polish with a pink hue, filled with holographic, pink and white glitters. It covers in two coats (which you see here).

Pixie Dust and Ice Glitter, flyin’ high

Today I have a manicure from the vault! Before I started my new job, I was a bit more free to wear funky nail polish such as glitters, greens, blues, etc. So I picked up China Glaze Flyin’ High, which I had for a too long time now and hadn’t worn yet. Shame on me, but I have too many different bottles of nail polish, but I’m trying hard to wear them all.

Anyhow, Flyin’ High was one of those colors I had to have, and it definitely was worth getting it. My pictures show the polishs blue side, but it looks more aqua in reality. It has a slight green tone to it. I used two coats, no topcoat.

I then decided that some sparkle never hurts, so I grabbed Orly Pixie Dust, and appied one layer over Flyin’ High. Pixie Dust is a clear polish packed with tiny silver glitter/shimmer flakes. On my ringfinger, I applied a layer of NYX Ice Glitter, which is a clear polish packed with small and larger hex glitters that sparkle differently depending on the light. I wore this combination proudly for quite a long time!

OPI Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous vs. OPI How’s it Snowin’? vs. Orly Stone Cold

 

 

Today I want to show you  how I cannot say goodbye to some of my nail polishes. I have a lot of those stone grey polishes, and I love them a lot, but I don’t wear them a lot, especially not in the summer. So I thought to myself that I could get rid of one or the other grey.

I started of by comparing OPI Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous (one of my first OPIs! Yeah, I know!) to OPI How’s it Snowin’? Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is on my pointer and middle finger, How’s it Snowin’? is on my pinkie and ring finger. I used two coats of each.

The two polishes certainly don’t look alike, as How’s it Snowin’? is much more rough, as it has glitters in a grey base, while Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is a charcoal grey metallic.

So what I decided on is that I would keep them both. Next I tried to compare OPI Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous to Orly Sea Gurl. I realized that Orly Sea Gurl is a grey leaning towards brown as in Lucerne-tainly look Marvelous is a charcoal grey. Also, Sea Gurl looks smoother. Hence, I had to keep Sea Gurl as well, because obviously, they are totally different.

 

Are you think I’m crazy or do you see what I mean?