Love&Beauty, isn’t that all we need

ha.ha. Well, it appears that it is free for everyone to decide what they call their label as well as it is free for me to comment

Today I’m showing you four nailpolishes by said love & beauty, which is the Make-up brand sold and owned by forever21. The polishes stink horribly, but what would you expect for the price.

Let’s start with my favorite, the elegantly named Coral Gold. Gues what, it is a coral with a strong gold shimmer. Very pretty and the application was surprisingly easy. 2 coats.

Light Blue is a metallic looking blue. It isn’t very well pigmented, so I used three coats. Not my favorite, it’s to silvery for me.

Yellow is a sheer yellow with what looks like glassflecks throughout. I lavered it over the equally sheer Revlon Crystal Glow, but no avail. Three coats of stinky dragging nail polish later I gave up.

Vanilla is a sheer white with golden shimmer. It looks much better on my pictures than in reality. It is annoying to apply, because it is very liquid, and it doesn’t cover even though I used three coats. Meh.

All in all I wasn’t very amazed by these polishes. Have you tried them?

 

 

 

 

How I wore it: El Corazon Eggs of Wild Birds and Easter Eggs polishes

So what happens when one makes pictures for a certain event and then the pictures aren’t used? One shows them to you guys. You’ll appreciate my crazy metallic blue lips and awkward poses, I’m sure.

Today I’m showing you some El Corazon polishes, which I received from their PR. I’m super excited about those Eggs of Wild Birds polishes and Easter Eggs polishes that they have, so this is going to be a biased review: I already knew I’d love the look!

El Corazon 423/102* (turquoise), El Corazon 423/101* (yellow) – those are both from the Easter eggs collection. El Corazon 423/96* (white) and  El Corazon 423/91* (taupe) are from the Eggs of wild birds collection. The pink is Cult Nails Devious Nature.

El Corazon is a russian brand. It’s pretty much as cool as Dance Legend, plus they also have holos, and glitter, and the whole shabang. The Eggs of wild birds and Easter eggs polishes apply like a dream, dry quickly and glossy, and are generally pretty cool. Plus I really love the look, so I was sold even before I tried them.

For my absolutely everyday makeup, I decided to paint my nails in a beautiful blue paste I made with a pigment from Inglot (really simple: it’s the electric blue pigment, readily available at Inglot stores) and Sealing Gel from Illamasqua. Let me tell you, it was a b**** to remove.

People who passed me by were all smiling. I wonder why. I’d totally wear this look everyday if it wouldn’t make me afraid of my own image in the mirror or give me a beautiful floater-aura. I’m wearing btw: pants from WE, t-shirt H&M, shoes Cate Grey, sunglasses Marc Jacobs.

I wish it was this sunny again! I know I will complain about the heat once it’s there, but now I’m busy complaining about the constant rain.

*El Corazon ships worldwide, so if you want to order you can send them an E-Mail to ELCorazonzakaz@gmail.com. Their nail polishes can be found on their website. Thanks to their PR team for the awesome polishes!

Sunday Spam: So many green indie polishes!

For this fine Sunday, I have some indie polishes to show to you. I sorted them completely arbitrary by color, so today all I show you is green.

Hare Polish Supernova Springs (2 coats over Cult Nails Feelin’ Froggy) is part of my every once in a while indie swap with T. where we exchange a handful of polishes so the other can try them and see if it’s worth the cash. This one, even though pretty and fine application-wise, didn’t do anything to me. I think it is just too dark.

Different Dimension Irish you well (1 coat over p2 crazy about green), is a white jelly polish filled with green and gold glitters. Layering white jelly polishes over colors can turn out horrible, believe me, I tried. This one however looks nice over green. I had good experiences with most of my different dimension polishes, and I have ordered from Missi’s Shop more than once.

Different Dimension Sparkles like Edward * (1 coat over L’oreal New Money) is a sheer milky polish with intense pink shimmer and multicolor glitter. You can find my original review here.

Different Dimension work hard play harder* (2 coats over Zoya Meg) is a very unique green (and I didn’t have to layer it over anything, it covers perfectly fine in 2 coats) that is part moss and part fir tree green, with some blue shimmer mixed in it. Cool color!

ILNP  (I love Nail Polish) Up to snow good (1 coat over IsaDora 759 Atlantis)  is a glitter topper consisting of white and turquoise glitters in so many shapes and sizes, I can’t even start to tell you all about them. The application is good, and recently Barbra changed the formula of the base, so I hope the new ones won’t be as stinky!

Lush Lacquer just chill in’ (1 coat; first picture over color club perfet mol-ten, second picture over SpaRitual energy) was the worst disappointment for me. I bought this and another Lush Lacquer to try them out (they sell 2 minis of your choice for a reasonable price, perfect to try them out), and I really didn’t like it. I saw it on some blogs before I bought it and it looked so pretty and amazing and what have you, but in reality the color combination is, to say the least, difficult, and it is really sheer and when it is dry you still have to add two coats of topcoat to make it look nice and smooth. Not my cup of tea.

Lynnderella she lived in a swamp ( 1 coat over Finger Paints Silkscreen Green) – most toxic combination I’ve ever worn. Wow. Green glitter over neon green is quite something. I have a handful of Lynnderellas, and I love the glitter combinations, but all of the bar glitters curl and they are the worst pain to remove. If anyone dupes them in a better formula, I’m all yours (but please keep the bottle shape, it’s my favorite bottle!). PS: See the difference? Left is she lived in a swamp – old version, and right is the new version. Totally different…. not.

sonoma nail art Mustard fields (1 coat over essence i’m the moss) – I didn’t think I was going to like this as much as I do, because it seemed to me that there was too much yellow glitter in the mix. Once I put it on I realized that that was not the case – the polish is very well balanced, color-wise. You can find green, yellow and black glitters in there (bars, squares, circles, and even flower shaped ones!) and the bar glitters don’t curl! Yay! Slowly sonoma nail art is developing into my glitter love no 1, taking lynnderella’s place, but I’m still undecided about Cirque… hm. Very difficult decisions.

Whimsical ideas by pam Peas on Earth (1 coat over Catrice The army glow) is the first nail polish by whimsical ideas by pam that I tried. I love this weird green with red and blue and gold glitter, It looks kind of ugly in the bottle but I really loved it on my nails. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for other whimsical polishes that I like, as this one applied like a dream and, I’m sorry to admit that I’m so easily convinced, but it has a bow tie around the bottle neck.

What’s your favorite indie polish? I want to try out more, but I’m always a bit cautious because some that I bought were such a waste of money.

ABSOLUTE nails Summer Collection

Heeeelllo everyone. I’m having a very good day, I hope so do you!

Today I want to show you the summer collection from ABSOLUTE nails, which is Douglas’ very own nail polish line. Most of their polishes are spot-on dupes for famous Chanel polishes, so to say Chanel-on-a-budget. ABSOLUTE nails nail polishes retail for ~5EUR.

First up is Blue Starfish, which is an amazing medium blue. I don’t own nails inc baker street, but this made me think of it immediately. The polish is uber-pigmented, and it applies so easily, I never thought you’d get that much service from a drugstore nail polish brand. 2 coats.

Fame and Fortune is somewhere between turquoise and sea foam green. It is also very bright and applies easily. I was amazed how glossy all these polishes dry even without a topcoat. Two thumbs up!

White beach is by far my favorite from this bunch. I’m always looking for a white that doesn’t apply chalky or patchy, and I think I have finally found it. White Beach is opaque in 2 coats, dries quickly and super glossy and I had absolutely no application problems. Instant Love!

All three polishes were sent to me for review. Thanks to the douglas PR Team!

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.

p2 Snow Kissed LE

Do you know this saying that everything bad has a good side too? For me, this happened some time ago, when I had to sit through a tireing seminar, and I discovered the newly released p2 Limited Edition nail polishes. The LE is called Snow Kissed and all the polishes come in those jewel-shaped nail polish bottles. You can find them childish or ugly, or you can find them cute, like me.

p2 frozen lavender is a shimmery soft lilac polish. I have to say, and that’s the case with all the polishes from this LE (and generally with p2), that I was uber-impressed by their formula. I had no streaking, running, dragging or whatsoever issue. This particular color may not be very innovative, but it’s formula is spot-on, it dries shiny and it is just shimmery enough to not look flat. I used two coats of polish for all the pictures.

p2 frosted mint – the polish holds what the name suggests, a frosty pale blue (okay, maybe not mint!). The blue is very very pale in this polish, and the brush strokes dry to almost-invisibility. I must say, I liked this one a lot.

p2 wintry blue is by far my favorite. It reminds me of the famous nails inc baker street and its twin from KIKO. You can easily get away with one coat of wintry blue, as it is extremely pigmented. Just know that this is a picture without topcoat, and it is so amazingly glossy!

p2 cool plum is one of those lighter eggplant shades that seem to enjoy great popularity during the cold months. I’m not so smitten by the color, but the formula was excellent, just like the formula of wintry blue.

Did you pick up any of those?

How I wore it: OPI My boyfriend scales walls and Big Ruby Nail Tattoo

Well, this week it was all sunny and warm and it smelled like spring, so obviously next week it will be cold and snowy again. In mental preparation, I have a snowy How I wore it post for you today.

I received OPI My boyfriend scales walls in a swap from M., and I had anticipated the arrival of this polish a lot. What I thought it would be: a basically self applying, self-leveling, awesome looking, all around great white-ish nail polish. Well. It is really pretty, but I think most of its beauty stems from it being the perfectbase for nail art (at which I am not very skilled).
So what does one do when one wants to do what one can’t? One outsources. In this particular case, I just ordered some Big Ruby tattoos, something I wanted to try out for longer already. I have no liking towards cute little animals or zippers on my nails, so I opted for the only version of those tattoos that would do: zig-zag and stripes.

I picked a white and blue zig-zag pattern that looked great with the off-white, slightly greyish base of My boyfriend scales walls. I got my set of big Ruby nail tatoos at Le Doux Nuage,  a very nice online shop that ships to Austria. Just fyi: it says on the instructions of the nail tattoos that one should apply two coats of top coat. I didn’t, and it came off rather quickly, so next time I will.

And, as I’m all into matching colors, I decided to match my outfit to the design. I picked a scarf from Esprit, a shirt from WE, cardigan from Montego (at Peek & Cloppenburg) and pants that my friend B. bought for me. I bought the boots ages ago and have no idea where I got them from.

 Make-up wise I tried to try something new. I used the usual Inglot concealer, eyebrow powder, foundation, but I tried my new MAC creme blusher in Restores Dazzle! from the Cook Shop LE. I had problems with it in the beginning, but with help from fellow beauties, I figured I’d just need to use the right brush. The mascara is my regular Chanel mascara. The lipstick is a matte liptsitck from NARS, called Valparaiso. It looks awesome if you ask me.

Now I want to know – would you like me to post my regular beauty products, or are you just fine with me telling you I used “the usual”?

How I wore it: KBShimmer Oh Splat!

Sometimes T and I exchange nail polishes we always wanted to try or don’t know yet if we want to buy. It’s a very fun way to try something you’re unsure of, and it is rather economical too! She borrowed me Oh Splat! from KBShimmer. It was the first time I wore a white based glitter, and I was really excited.

To be honest, I didn’t like this one very much. I know a lot of people were head over heels for this one, but I don’t like the glitter combination in the white base. I also never liked random color splashes on a white canvas, so I could have foreseen it. 

I used three thin coats of Oh Splat! and it applied just fine, no issues to report. It’s not a creme, so don’t expect it to apply like one, that’s all I can say. From the new KBShimmer collection, there are two or three I like. I think the glitter/base combinations are much nicer.

I decided to pair it with an absolutely riddiculous weekend outfit of mine. I have developed a thing for lime green neon stripes on my clothing, but I might have taken it to far with this outfit.

The boots are from Asos, the dress is KOOKAI, the scarf from Esprit, the earrings were a present from E and don’t ask me about the tights. I have no idea where I got them.

I really like the dress/pullover thing, but I haven’t discovered the best way to wear it yet.  If you have any ideas, let me know! I’m open to suggestions!

Galinda, run with it!

Oh, the joy of work life. I get to wear all those polishes I liked by the thought of it, but never really wore, because they seemed to ‘boring’ at the time. One of my favorites of these ‘boring’ polishes is Sephora by OPI Run with it. The color is difficult to describe – it is neither beige nor nude nor grey, it’s a mixture of all three colors, mixed with a slight golden shimmer. I actually received quite some compliments on this! 2 coats.

I didn’t want to take it off after two days (that’s a long wear time for me!), so I added Cirque Galinda over it, but only halfway over the nail, to create a gradient look. Galinda is the perfect snow glitter. It consists of white and iridescent glitters and flakes in different shapes and sizes. This is one of the most subtle yet most versatile glitters I’ve seen.

Doesn’t this look like a princess-in-the-snow glitter to you?

 

Sunday Spam: random stamping

Are you guys enjoying your Sunday? I hope you have some time to relax and enjoy yourselves.

I posted previews of most of these manicures on my Instagram. You can follow me there, I’m – surprise, surprise – goodlacknail. I love interacting on Instagram!

Today I’m showing you random stamping manicures I wore lately. Here I started off with two coats of China Glaze Traffic Jam. I wanted to try the stamping quality of China Glaze Mistletoe Me. Mistletoe Me was sent to me by my dear swap friend M., but it broke, and I was sad. Somehow, B. got her hands on it, and gifted it to me – how thoughtful is that?! I absolutely love dark foils that are so full of color. It also works very well for stamping, but due to the fact that the colors are so very close, it’s a subtle tone in tone stamping. As usual, I completely forgot which plate I used. The pattern looks like triangles, I guess that’s a rather common stamping pattern?

Here I tried gold over light yellow. The base color is Illamasqua Load, and I stamped an image from a Bundle Monster plate, no 312. I liked that it looked a bit like porcelain, but I wasn’t too fond of this. Somehow it reminded me of faded royal wallpaper.

Well, this was a great idea I think, but something didn’t work in the execution process. The base color is Manhatten Green Chai, which is a mint green polish interspersed with micro glitters in white, red and darker green. I figured that red stamping would look cool over it (you know, red glitters in this polish – red stamping over it, matchy-matchy, etc). Nails Inc Villiers Street theoretically works for stamping (such a gorgeous gleaming red!), but I guess I didn’t have a steady-hand day? Or I shouldn’t have picked this rose image from the DRK-A plate? I don’t know. 

Mostly I stamp if I want to spice up a manicure I already wore for a day and got tired of. This was also the case when I wore OPI French Quarter for your thoughts, so I decided to try the stamping quality of GOSH Silver. Result: it works, but it’s not my favorite. It somehow looks as if it doesn’t fully transfer the image onto the nail – that’s because GOSH Silver is not a real metallic, but more of a foily metallic polish, meaning it has particles in there, that don’t transfer 100%.  I think I used an image from the DRK-A plate, but I can’t say for sure.

I saw this on so many blogs, but I still can’t figure out if I like it or not: The houndstooth pattern. Here I tried it in white (wet’n'wild) over OPI Nein!Nein!Nein!OK fine!, the image is from the DRK-A plate. 

Last, and least, a bit of a fail. This is Zoya Luna, stamped with Topshop Mercury Miasma. Luna is not a good stamping base, as it is a light grey packed with silver glitter, and that just doesn’t look very good with the stamping design on top.