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!

Sunday Spam: new essence, green & blue

Finally I managed to put together another Sunday Spam for you!

In the last month, I swatched some essence colors from their new and renewed color & go line. Today I have 8 of the blues and greens for you!

essence I love bad boys is a medium blue shimmer. 2 coats, formula was fine.

essence I’m bluetiful – one of the colors I hoped would be the most fun, as it is a periwinkle creme with tiny silver shard glitters. It was a pain to apply, much to thick, and if you don’t wait for one coat to be completely dry, there will be dragging. 2 coats.

essence I’m the boss – same idea as I’m bluetiful here, but a much darker base color. The glitter shards look more golden in this polish, but I’m not sure if it is the dark dusty purple that makes them appear that way. Same formula issues as above. 2 coats.

essence L.O.L. is a lime green creme. I love lime green cremes, so that’s that. This one makes my skin look horrible, but I like the color. 2 coats – surprisingly, this one applied nicely.

essence that’s what I mint – let me not get started on the names again, just know that the new Catrice names are so much better. This polish is not really mint colored, it is more of a turquoise. 2 coats, formula was fine. essence did manage to improve the formula with cremes, if you ask me.

essence upper green side – gorgeous color. Reminds me of a less intense version of Illamasqua Nomad – formula was good, 2 coats.

The worst to photograph was essence Walk on the Wild Side. Dark greens and my skin tone do not like each other. I liked the green specks in there, but otherwise the color did nothing for me. It was a bit sheer and totally weird to apply: when it dried, it seemed to shrink, so I got tip wear from applying it. 3 coats.


essence we rock the green – this was also in my top picks, it is just so vibrant! It’s a medium grass green with intense gold shimmer and what looks like teensy green glitter specks within. 2 coats, formula was good!

How I wore it: Sephora by OPI Ocean Love Potion and Cover Band Sticks’n'Stones

Ah, holidays… the best days there are. Especially when I get to spend them in India (without an upset stomach, that is.)!

This vacation I decided to bring Sephora by OPI Ocean Love Potion with me, and of course, Cover Band Sticks’n'Stones. I took Sticks’n'Stones to Paris with me, and I realized that it is better than cement on your nails – it makes manicures last for days! That’s why it is now my travel polish. It may go whereever I go! (Let’s not forget the obvious fact that I like this polish and find it to match almost everything)

Anyhow. This time around, we decided to visit Hampi. Hampi is a small village, in earlier times it was the capital of a whole kingdom, housing 100x more inhabitants than today. The temple area is huge, with temples spread out all over the hills, which are plastered with round granite rocks.

We stayed in Hampi for two nights, so we’d have enough time to visit all the sights. In effect, one day of sightseeing is sufficient, if you stay on one side of the river. If you want to visit the temples on the other side of the river, you might want to add a day to your stay.

About the polish: Sephora by OPI Ocean Love Potion is a darker turquoise creme, which looks just a little bit dusty. I applied two coats, it went on smoothly, and I didn’t have any application issues.

Unfortunately, in the course of Hampi being declared a UNESCO world heritage site, the Indian Authorities decided to tear down the bazar in front of the temple - while that may be a good idea (provided all the laws were followed and the people were given compensation, both of which I have reason to doubt), it would have been a great idea to clean up the area. Instead, they just installed a provisional fence around the rubble (as if anyone would care that there is a fence!), and left if be for almost two years now. One’s gotta love good organisation.

The temples are beautiful nevertheless. I love the form of those mughal archways, and the scenery is amazing. The whole area is a hilly valley, with temples and a broad riverbed. The second day we were there, we went to see the Hanuman (Monkeygod) temple, which is all the way on top of a hill overlooking the valley. 

The temple and view were wonderful, but let me tell you, climing the stairs up to the temple at noon is a horrible idea. I had literally turned into a water fountain when I reached the top. It was yucky. Also, there are too many monkeys on this hill! They steal the shop vendor’s bananas and run after the tourists. I don’t want to get rabies, so I’m crazy scared of the monkeys and scream while running away if they come to close.

When I went to the temple, I had put on sticks’n'stones over Ocean Love Potion. Isn’t the view amazing? We climbed up all that way, and we were completely finished when we were on top; imagine having to climb this up all the way every other day!

Oh and in case you were wondering, of course we couldn’t find anything without our guide book

ANNY Ocean Blue vs. China Glaze Shower together

 

Just a quick comparison post for you today – ANNY Ocean Blue versus my long time lemming China Glaze Shower together.

ANNY is a brand much easier accessible to us Austrian nail polish lovers. They have received quite some attention with their beautiful deep red polish The answer is love. I decided that this looked very close to China Glaze Shower together, one of my favorite medium ocean blues. Shower together has a bit of a teal-ish look depending on how the light hits, and the formula is just great.

Can you tell which one is which? The picture above is made in sunlight, the picture below shows the tealish side of Shower together a bit better – it was made inside, under a regular lamp light. Shower together is on my pinky and ring finger. 

In the flash light you can tell them apart if you know what to look for, but the ANNY polish is holding up very well. In terms of formula, I preferred the China Glaze, but it was only marginally better to apply than the ANNY polish. I think we might have two polishes so close, that we could call them dupes!

How I wore it: KIKO 384 Gentian Blue

Today I want to share with you one of my favourite How I wore It posts.

This particular one features KIKO 384 (Gentian Blue), which is a blue creme leaning teal. I used two coats (no more raving about KIKOs in general, I know this tires you out!).

The special part about this post is where the pictures were taken. Can you guess? It’s a castle outside of Paris, known for its famously rich inhabitants and its splendor?

Yes, that’s right, the castle of Versailles. It was built through the centuries, starting in 1623, when it was just a small house designed to host the king of France when he went hunting (I guess what is small for the king of France would still make a nice house for regular people, but we’ll leave it at that).

The gardens behind the castle are huge. I mean seriously huge. I think I’ve only seen larger gardens in Russia, but then the Russian Czars weren’t known for their modesty.

Unluckily for us, the day we went to see the castle of Versailles, it was so incredibly hot, that it wasn’t nice to take a stroll in the gardens or walk through the castle in amazement.  Nevertheless, the castle and especially the hall of mirrors was impressive.

Luckily for me, there were many tourists making pictures in front of the gates, which are gleaming gold. I didn’t feel stupid posing for the first time! (see, that guy behind me is also posing for a picture! We are photo-bombing each other accidentially.)

I wore a light sumer dress from the Dutch shop Lien&Giel. I love their stuff, always so colorful and happy! I’ve been eying their colorful boots as well, but as they are a bit pricey, they are still on my wishlist for the future.

The shoes are fom a store in Paris called Ruby’s shoes, and I bought similar ones in black too. They were super affordable and amazingly comfortable!

This is my hand dancing on the marble floor in the castle. E’s idea!

Catrice Big City Life LE

Catrice came out with a second edition of the oh-so-famous Big City Life LE, which was released last year around the same time.

This time, Catrice picked 3 cities: Paris, San Francisco and Shanghai. I didn’t buy any of the  make-up palettes, as I’m not one of the palette collectors – small bathroom!

Paris – does this remind you of something? Well, it reminds me of every other sheer pink. I can’t even really advise you to buy this if you still need a color like this, as this required three fat coats, and it isn’t even all that shimmery. The shimmer in the bottle would have made up for the boring color, but it didn’t transfer onto the nail. I’m giving this one a pass!

San Francisco. Now we’re talking! Gorgeous petrol with shimmer that adds depth and transfers onto the nail. Nothing much to add, except for: Grab your bottle while you can! This was one coat (!!).

Shanghai - a streaky gold, but this one is cooler toned than the one from the essence Twilight2 LE (see yesterdays post for that!). I like it, but this particular shade of gold is everything but unique. 2 coats.

Did you buy anything?

How I wore it: Revlon Mint Gelato with glitter

Are you already totally in fall mood or are you enjoying the last sunny days before the leaves start turning red and yellow?

I definitely was in a summer mood a couple of days ago, so I decided to take out Revlon Mint Gelato and give it a spin.

Mint Gelato is a light teal jelly polish. I used two rather thick coats, but you can see that it looks patchy and it doesn’t fully cover. In turn, it looks super squishy. Unfortunately, this polish is scented, and it has a super artificial mint chocolate smell. I could have dealt with the application, but the smell was unbearable for me.

 

I decided to paint Sally Hansen Showgirl chic over the tips of my manicure. Showgirl chic is a very dense silver and blue glitter polish, that can be worn alone or over a base color.

Then I painted one coat of Milani Teal over the whole nail. Teal is a glitterpolish that has blue, teal and green glitters in a clear base. I used one coat over the Revlon and Sally Hansen manicure, and I liked this combination  a lot. It’s almost a gradient look, and it was easy to do and quick!

 

I paired this look with a teal jersey necklace from Cora Kemperman and matching earrings from H&M. I also wore jeans in boyfriend cut (Pepe Jeans) and a regular white t-shirt from Etam.

Cuckoo Frog

OPI Cuckoo for this Color – I think it fits, because somehow couldn’t get enough of it, I have been wearing it a lot lately. This time however I decided to layer some glitter on top! Because glitter makes life much more sparkly, literally!

2 coats of OPI Cuckoo for this color. I personally think the OPI Swiss Collection was underrated, but this is a good thing, because you can easily find it on ebay or in shops. Click my “Where to buy”Tab if you want the info for Vienna. Anyhow, Cuckoo for this color is a gorgeous deep teal, leaning more towards green than towards blue. The shimmer in it adds depth and gives it this mesmerizing glow. Can you tell that I like the polish?

Obviously I couldn’t just pick one picture…. Anyhow. I thought that green glitter on a dark teal polish might be fun, so I got out my dear frog friend, OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air. I used only one coat over Cuckoo for this color, as the glitter is rather dense.

I must say that even though it didn’t look just like I wanted it too, I find this a surprising pretty combination. Do you agree?

Shower together with the glorious Aquarius

 

 

Today I want to show you a China Glaze that I have been lusting after for a longer time: Shower Together. As you must know, I’m a pink lover, but somehow this smooth teal creme stole my heart. I used two coats and I have absolutely no complaints as to the formula because it was spot on great. Easy to apply, self-levelling and it had a quick dry time. 

 

I decided to layer one of the newer essence topcoats over it because it looked as if it was made for it. It is called Glorious Aquarius, and it is  a mix of differently sized turquoise round and hex glitters, and some sparse bronze/gold glitters. I used one coat and I just love the look of it. I don’t usually love the essence glitter toppers, but I was very impressed by Glorious Aquarius. 

 

What do you think of this combination?

SOPI Skinny Jeans vs. SOPI Tempted by Teal

 

Today I have another comparison post for you. I thought that SOPI Skinny Jeans looked very much like SOPI Tempted by Teal, so I figured I’d only needed to keep one. I’m only writing SOPI, but the brand is Sephora by OPI.

I use two coats for each, and I had a teensy bit of VNL with SOPI Skinny Jeans, but only if I looked closely. Skinny Jeans is a bit lighter and a bit more blue than Tempted by Teal, and also the shimmer in Skinny Jeans is greenish which makes the whole polish look a bit cooler. Tempted by Teal shows all these super tiny glitter particles in the bottle, and these give the polish a touch of a metallic finish.

Below: Tempted by Teal and (below) Skinny Jeans in daylight

Below: Tempted by Teal and (below) Skinny Jeans in artificial light

Below: Tempted by Teal and (below) Skinny Jeans with flash

Which one do you like better? I prefer Tempted by Teal, and have since relocated Skinny Jeans