George, the fortune cookie, the kimono and some snow

Today I have some random Catrice and essence polishes to show you.

George Blueney is a Catrice polish that came out when they renewed their stock this summer. It’s a very deep blue that is tending towards black. Intense shimmer and easy application make for one good new addition to the Catrice line. 2 coats.

essence Fortune Cookie is from the Cherry Blossom Girl LE. It’s an egg yolk yellow without any noticeable shimmer or the like. I used two coats, the application was ok, but the color didn’t really stand out to me once I had it on my nails. Meh.

essence My Little Kimono is also from the Cherry Blossom Girl LE. It’s a grey taupe color, very weird mixture of brown and grey and purple. It has a bit of silver shimmer in it, which isn’t visible per se, but adds depth to the polish itself. I used two coats, and I like the color, but not specifically much. 2 coats.

Catrice No Snow Petrol is a turquoise, almost teal polish with intense blue shimmer. It looks a bit better in the bottle than on the nail I think, but it is still gorgeous. 2 coats.

Did you get any of these polishes?

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?

Flormar Spam!

Good morning everyone! Are you ready for a bit of a Flormar Swatch Spam?

My favlurite from all the regular flormar polishes is by far “418″. Yes, they all have numbers, no names! 418 is Chanel Paradoxal’s cousin, they are really very close. I somehow like those unusual colours, and I adore the pink shimmer in this taupe base colour. Very pretty! 2 coats.

Then there is flormar “099″, which is a glassflecky metallic-looking medium blue. It is very shiny and super easy to apply. Also 2 coats (and no staining with 1 coat of basecoat!).

Flormar Miracle Shine U33. Now this is where the fun begins! 2 coats of this duochrome glassfleck perfection – heaven! The duochrome effect is really apparent in U33 and the colour shifts from teal to purple. What’s not to love!

Flormar miracle shine U28 over flormar 418 – U28 is a sheer glassfleck duochrome purple which shifts from lavender to pink. I layered one coat over 418, because I couldn’t really get it to be opaque on its own. U28 is great to “revive” an old manicure!

So, which flormar colours are your favourites?

essence Season of the Extremes LE – duo sticks

For those of you who have been lurking around your local drugstore like I, this is nothing new; but for those of you, who were looking for swatches before buying them – here you go!

Sorry about the 3-finger-swatches, but my pinkie had a date with the knife and it didn’t end well… But 3 fingers are enough to show a decent representation of the colours!

Technicalities first: The base colour in each “bright” duo stick is a jelly/sorbet, and all of them dry semi-matte, which is something to get used to. I used 3 coats of each jelly but the blue one (2 coats), and one coat of the topcoat. The “nudes” are cremes (two coats) but for one (read on to know which one!). I also included a small picture of my swatch-sticks where you can see the basecolour, the topcoat alone, and the combination of the two (from front to back).

I made all the pictures in my new lightbox, and the colours are surprisingly accurate! How would have thought… Well, before I bore you to death and rob you of the chance to check out those amazing colours, I better shut up. Just remember, you can click the pictures to see them up close!

There are 3 nude and 3 bright colour combinations (season of the extremes –> get it?). Let’s start with the nudes! Here’s “TEAM NUDE”, a orange/brown mannequin hands kind of colour. The pearly topcoat makes this a bit better, but for me this is an absolute no-go. I have seen it on other girls who can rock this shade, but not me.

MY BEST NUDE FRIENDS AND ME. I don’t get the reference. Can anyone help? This is a brown/taupe shade of nude, with some supersubtle shimmer. The topcoat is a pearly pinkish white. It’s nice but not my favourite combination, or, something I’d reach for regularly.

This, on the other hand, is awesome: JUST THE NUDE OF US. The base colour is close to OPIs Skull and Glossbones, or Did you ‘ear about Van Gogh. I’d call it white clay. The topcoat that comes with it reminds me of the CND topcoats; the density of the sparkle is awesome. Oh, and did I mention that this is blue sparkle?  Love.

Well, that was the nudes – on to the brightes!

First up a candy pink with a slightly orange sparkly topcoat: BRIGHTSMATES. To be fair, they got me with the pink here – the orange I could leave out, but the pink is genius. As in, all the OPI jellies weren’t.

Second: WE ARE ALL BRIGHT. While I want to dispute that sentence with every last fiber in me (do you say it like that in English?!), especially as I was just riding the Metro, and I can promise you that we are not all bright. Anyhow. The green in this is the least jelly-ish, but still somewhat semi-opaque, which is why I don’t dare to call it a green. The colour on my picture below (the left one) is spot on colour accurate. Yes, this is how green it is. I was a little sceptical as to the combination with the purple topcoat. but I actually like the combination!

And lastly, my absolute favourite of the collection: IT’S TWO BRIGHT which reminds me of “Despicable me”, you know, the movie with the little girl running around screaming “It’s so fluffy”?  The polish. That’s why you’re here. Sorry. Well, this is a medium blue,  a jelly, yes, lighter than the famous NOPI jelly, very bright, and pretty awesome. The topcoat that comes with it is yellow, but the yellow doesn’t show up on the nail; instead you see something like golden and pink flakes/sparks (the pink is more apparent I’d say). Pretty awesome, right? I absolutely love it!

So, what do you think? Hey! Don’t run away! They won’t be sold outthatfast, right?!

PS: Do me a favour and check out Annas blog. She wants to hold her first Giveaway soon, and her blog is so sweet, you basically must follow her

essence TE crystalliced

Friday! Yay! I have to study at the moment, so there’s no real weekend ahead, but somehow Friday always makes me happy.  So to share that happiness, I would like to show you the current essence collection, crystalliced!

It consists of 5 soft, pastel shades; some have shimmers, some are straight cremes (although they might display some shimmer in the bottle…!), but all colours are soft and above all, wintery and snowy.

I used 3 coats for each colour, and I was already used to good application of essence polishes, but these are not within those high ranks. They were ok to apply, but don’t expect a walk on a cloud with polish angels singing. Maybe it’s because they are pastel colours…. PS: don’t forget that you can click all the pictures to see the colours better!

First up: It’s a snow woman’s world. Oh, I forgot to mention that the good people of essence have exceeded themselves this time in regards to coming up with the stupidest names of all times. They can only be topped by the names of the Legends of the Sky collection (coming up soon!). Well, It’s a snow woman’s world is a grey polish with a hint of dusty purple/blue in it. The shimmer in the bottle doesn’t transfer onto the nail unfortunately.

Then we have Frosted Champaign. Odd colour. It’s basically a shimmery white, until you look closely and you see a lot of tiny copper specks in it. Maybe the creators of this were thinking of bubbles in champaign?

Ice crystals in my window. Rather sheer off-white tending towards pink with golden shimmer. Nothing spectacular…

Ice Eyes Baby. The worst name from this collection if you ask me. It’s also the nicest colour in my opinion – Dusty baby blue with great golden shimmer that even transfers to the nail. Cute and soft and cuddly! I want a sweater just like that!

Ice Age Reloaded is also a nice colour. I think it can best be described as soft taupe with yellowgold shimmer. I think it’s the winter pendandt to Chanel Paradoxal – instead of dark taupe with purple shimmer this is soft taupe with golden shimmer. Needs a matching wollen sweater knitted by your grandma too.

 

So, what do you think about crystalliced? Any of those colours convinced you? Or are you generally amazed by soft pastel colours?

Catrice Big City Life Limited Edition

Better late than never, right?

Today I have swatches from the 4 new polishes from Catrice. The November Limited Edition is called Big City Life and consists of a blue (New York), a yellow (London), a taupe (Sydney) and a mauve/brownish red (Berlin). To be honest, I have no idea what the colours have to do with the cities, as I would have thought about different colours for each city. Especially Sydney doesn’t fit the least bit

First up is Berlin. I’m not sure what kind of colour it is, but I’d have put it into a colour family of brown/red/brick-coloured. I needed 3 thin coats for it to cover.

The second polish I have for you is Sydney. It’s a cool toned taupe, Very classy. 2 coats.

New York, the third polish is a grey teal, tending towards blue. I really like this polish. It doesn’t scream “blue! teal!”, and is elegant and easy to wear. 2 coats.

The fourth and last polish, London, is my favourite. I love yellows, and this one is especially pretty. It is also the only shimmer among a group of creme polishes – and I always love the odd one out! It’s a little tricky to apply – as it is yellow – but 3 thin coats did the trick.

Did you get any Big City Life polishes? Is there one that cought your eye?

essence – new colours, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2 of my essence spam party! I hope you enjoy seeing those swatches and I hope they help you in making up your mind what to get and what not to get.

I made one picture in artificial light and one picture in daylight, so you can see how different the polishes can look. Feel free to click the pics to enlarge them and see all the details!

First up is make it golden. It’s a polish packed with differently sized round golden glitter. The base is clear, but there is so much glitter in there, it doesn’t look as if it was clear. On the picture, you can see me wearing it on it’s own, 3 coats. It is very, very sparkly. I like it better on it’s own than layered, but I have to admit it looks a little bumpy and uneven. Let’s not talk about removal, and enjoy the glitter a little longer?

Viva la green – a vibrant turquoise creme.  Good coverage, opaque in 2 coats, very classy. If you don’t own a shade like this yet, I’d recommend this one!

think pink. I’m not quite sure what to tell you about this polish, because it isn’t pink, rather a very orange toned coral, or a tomato red. 3 coats for opacity, and in dire need of a better name!

time for romance, is, like make it golden, one of the keepers of the new polishes. It is firweorks of various sizes of round pink glitters in a somewhat mauve/brownish jelly base.

Next up is rich & pretty. it’s a warm silver polish with a golden flash – that explains why it tends to look more golden in artificial light. 2 coats, and a very safe colopur for the holiday season!

dark, blackened blue with shimmer to add a little depth. That’s midnight charm. Your safe choice of dark blue for this fall and winter. 3 coats.

princess prunella is a taupe polish mixed with a bit of plum. It leaves visible brush strokes on your nail,  but not as bad as metallic polishes sometimes do. When I saw it in the bottle, the base colour reminded me of Chanel Paradoxal, so I made a tiny comparison (ringfinder and pinkie: Paradoxal, Index and Middlefinger: princess prunella); they aren’t even close to being dupes though.

Which essence are you adding to your wishlist? Or do you already have some of those?