Pink Wednesday: glitter sandwich!

Hello lovelies! Happy Pink Wednesday!

I've been busy packing and preparing stuff today, because I'm leaving for London tomorrow, which I'm really excited about. I adore London and I'm really looking forward to spending time with the lovely Christina and meeting Adina from aengland. :) Unfortunately this also means I'll not be around for a while, as I come back on the fourth and leave again for Canada on the sixth. Super excited, but no time for blogging. Boo. I've scheduled a few posts, so the blog won't be completely quiet, but I won't be active again until the 18th. Just a heads-up. :)

This Wednesday's mani is another glitter sandwich. For this I started out with one coat of Essence Roy's Red and layered a coat each of China Glaze Bad Kitty and China Glaze Golden Enchantment over it. Then I added two coats of OPI Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em. In person this was much more hot pink than it looks in these pics.

Looking back I think I should have only done one coat of THPTHE, but meh. It's still nice. *shrugs*

Sorry about the shadow on my pinky in that last pic. :(

So, that's it from me for now. See y'all after my vacation! :)

NOTD: Misslyn Atlantis

Hello lovelies!

Today I'll be showing you a Misslyn polish, which is a brand I hadn't tried before.

Atlantis is a blue-purple (blurple?!) shimmer base with fine blue and silver glitter thrown in, giving it an appearance somewhere between a shimmer and a foil. When you start applying it you notice very quickly that the silver 'glitter' is actually made up of teeny tiny flakies. <3 I don't know if you can see them, but there are some larger flakies on my index, middle and ring finger. They're sparse, but still visible enough to make this a unique and gorgeous polish.

Application was easy; I needed two coats for full opacity. They don't show up on the pictures, but in person you can see very faint brushstrokes. They're not too noticeable, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

I'm not too big on purple polish, to be honest, but this one is unique enough to excite me. <3 What do you guys think?

Essie Big Bag Theory

Hello lovelies!

It's gonna be another short post from me today, because I have to get up at 5am tomorrow and should at least pretend to sleep for a few hours. D:

Today's polish is Essie Big Bag Theory. I'm wearing two coats + topcoat in the pictures. Application was a breeze. Whatever you may say, Essie have the best reds and pinks, formula wise.

I love reds like this. It's got a lot of pink in it, but to me it's still more of a corally red than anything else. But whatever it is, it's a lovely colour. <3

That's it from me. I hope you're all going to have a great weekend. I might not be around, but I hope to get some more posts up before I leave for vacation next week.

On a completely different note, who else wishes they were at Glasto right now?

Holographic Pink Wednesday!

Hello lovelies.

Firstly, let me apologize for disappearing for a few days, but my allergies have been getting the better of me. Hopefully the new meds will take care of it. :) Also, this Pink Wednesday post is somewhat late, but I'm sure it's still Wednesday for at least a few hours somewhere in the world.

Today's polish is Nubar Prize which is a gorgeous berry pink holo. I really tried to capture the holo-ness, but it just wouldn't show up on camera. Take my word for it, this is crazy holo. I used three coats and a coat of Seche Vite which didn't dull the holo effect at all. I'm wondering if topcoat actually dulls the holo or if this is just something people keep reading and started to believe?

Anyhow. On to the pretty!

Even blurred, my camera doesn't really capture the holo. :( Still, it's a really beautiful polish. <3

That's it from me for today! I hope you're all doing well!

Edit: I just saw that I reached 51 followers in my absence and I just want to thank you guys for reading my blog. I'm still pleasantly surprised anyone's interested. :)

OPI Last Friday Night

Hello lovelies! Happy Saturday!

Today's polish is OPI Last Friday Night. I picked this up back when the Katy Perry collection was finally released in Austria, painted my mom's nails with it once, but never wore it myself. I always loved the polish, but something kept me from wearing it. What a pity, because this is one gorgeous polish!

Isn't that stunning? It reminds me of mermaids and light reflected on water. <3 I used four-ish coats of Last Friday night, because my nails are super stained and sheer polish is not an option. Application was easy, though the polish was a bit on the thick side.

That's it from me. Short and sweet for a change. I hope you all had a wonderful day!

Anny Let's Dance

Hello lovelies!

Today's polish is one I fell head over heels with. Anny seriously know how to do their dirty, greyed out cremes. <3 Let me say straight away, the picture does not do it justice.

(Sorry about the crappy cleanup, I was hurrying to take pics before the sun was gone.)

Let's Dance PUT ON YOUR RED SHOES AND DANCE THE BLUES is a sort of burnt terracotta orange. It's muted and to me there seems to be quite a bit of grey in it. It also has a distinct coral undertone. Pretty unique colour, if you ask me. It's darker and less bright than it looks here. I've been really loving colours like this lately, I think they look great with pale complexions. I used two coats here, application was flawless.

I am in love with this polish. I didn't expect to love it quite so much, but I've already put it on for a second time and I only got it on Tuesday (something that doesn't happen...err....ever). Gorgeous colour, amazing application and, as if I needed any more reasons to love this, it makes me sing Bowie at the top of my lungs. :D

What's not to love?! (Except for my horrible singing voice, obviously.)

Pink Wednesday: more glitter layering!

Hello lovelies!

All my Pink Wednesday manis seem to be some variation of glitter over pink polish. Meh. I just suck at nail art and I don't own very many pinks, so I usually resort to spicing them up with glitters so I can pull them out again to use in another combo should I run out of new pinks. Not very exciting, but there you go.

Anyhow. I ended up really liking this mani, so I hope you'll enjoy it too despite its lack of originality. <3

Doesn't the blurriness make it look even more awesome?

I cannot stop looking at my nails. I'm absolutely fascinated and amazed by what happened. I was all OH LET'S SLAP SOME GLITTER ON THIS and then this happened. I am in love. <3

For this mani I used one coat of China Glaze Snow Globe (UH-MAY-ZING) over two coats of MAC Steamy (I admit it, I snorted at the name). I really wasn't expecting anything remotely mind-blowing, but boy did this mani turn out pretty. :) The pictures really aren't doing it justice. It looks like my nails are jewel encrusted. And on fire. And possibly tripping on LSD.

Ahem. Yes, I am currently having a love affair with my nails. :D

What are you guys wearing on your nails today?

NOTD: Flormar 394

Hello lovelies! I hope you all had a good weekend. <3

I'm very excited about today's polish, because this is the first holo I've ever worn. It's not a very strong, or even unique one, but I love it and I can't stop staring at my nails. :)

Flormar 394 is a light metallic brown leaning bronze. The holo effect is scattered, as opposed to the linear holos we're all craving, but I think it's quite stunning. It's such an elegant shade (I just had to stop myself from calling it posh just because I like things to be posh), but still undeniably different. I needed three coats for full opacity.

Here, have a mini picspam of holo goodness.

There's no sunlight to speak of today, so the pic I took outside is a bit of a disappointment (third picture), but the others show the holo nicely I think. I really like this polish and I'm glad I picked it up when I found it by chance. :)

What are you wearing on your tips this Monday?

NOTD: orange glitter sandwich!

Hello beauties!

Today's post was heavily inspired by the manis I've seen the lovely Kirsten do lately. I've been loving all the gorgeous glitter sandwiches she's been posting and decided to try and make my own. I'm quite pleased with the result and cannot wait to try other combinations! (This also reminded me just why I am lemming basically every Nfu Oh polish ever made.)

For this I used an awesome orange jelly by Anny called Sunrise. It's fairly sheer, though, and not quite the orange I wanted, so I started out with two coats of Paris Memories 217 (which is a medium/dark orange creme with shimmer) as my base colour. Then I applied two coats of Sunrise, a generous coat of China Glaze Techno (which I love love love) and topped it off with another coat of Sunrise and Sally Hansen Insta Dry.

What do you lovelies think? Did I do a good job for a first glitter sandwich? Any colour combos you can recommend or would like to see me do? :)

NOTD: She Stylezone 195 Ruby Boots!

Hello lovelies!

I apologize for my irregular posting once again. I've had bad migraines for a few days in a row now and that's really messed up my sleeping habits even more. I'm basically awake at night and asleep during the day right now. Makes taking decent photos hard. Ugh. Sorry, I really didn't want to bring that here.

Moving on. Today's polish is another polish in the vein of China Glaze Ruby Pumps or Essie Ruby Slippers, both of which I am lemming.

This is She Stylezone 195, which I have dubbed Ruby Boots because I love boots and in my head I hear Bono shouting RUBY BOOTS! RUBY BOOTS, YEAH! to the music of Get On Your Boots. I'm a freak, I know. :D

I couldn't really get the camera to focus for the second picture (this was the best/least blurry shot I got, trust me), but I hope it shows the colour more accurately. As you can see, Ruby Boots (I refuse to call it anything else.....that is, until I finally try my hand at frankening and create the most awesome red glitter there ever was. Then that will be called Ruby Boots.) Now, where was I? Ah, yes. As you can see, Ruby Boots is a ton of tiny, tiny red glitter in a sheer red base. The second picture is pretty close to the actual colour, but to me it's still a little darker in person.

I used three coats for those pictures (I might have only used two if I weren't photographing it). The formula was thick and goopy. Remember those glitter glue tubes for kids? Those were less gluey and sticky than this polish. I added about 6 drops of polish thinner all in all and it was still really thick. It wasn't unmanageable, though. And it did even out nicely in the end.

The formula was a bit tricky, but with a bit of thinner and some topcoat it ended up looking nice and even and super sparkly. I love the way it looks on my nails. <3 For the price you'll hear no complaints from me. :)

That's it from me for today! Do you guys have any Ruby [insert shoe of your choice here] polishes?

By the by, I have a Tumblr now. There isn't much on there at the moment and it definitely won't just be nail related stuff, but if you like pretty photographs, random quotes and seeing some stuff I really love you should definitely check it out. :) If you have one, I'd love to follow you so leave me a link in the comments, please? :)

Pink Wednesday: Essence Roy's Red + Color Club Starry Temptress Topcoat

Hello lovelies!

I apologize for the lack of posting, but I've been feeling a bit low lately. I had a bad migraine today, so the Pink Wednesday post is late. Apologies. <3

For this I used two coats of Essence Roy's Red and two coats of Color Club's Starry Temptress topcoat on my ring fingers. Simple, but I like it. :)

[inside and under artificial light. my skin looks seriously weird in this one.]

[outside and in the last bit of fading light. This is much more colour accurate but still not quite it.]

[blurry pic to show the sparkles. Didn't turn out as planned, but I still like it lol.]

Roy's Red simply would not photograph colour accurately. Imagine it as a slightly lighter and somewhat brighter version of Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever. Which probably doesn't help you much either, because that one didn't photograph properly either. -__-

Anyway. That's it from me for today. Short and sweet for a change!

Did you wear pink today?

Swatches & Review: Nubar Indigo Illusion

Hello beauties!

I'm very, very tired today and the heat is really messing with my body so I'll let the pictures do most of the talking today.

This was my first time using Nubar and I am super impressed. I am craving Peacock Feathers, but this one's pretty freaking awesome too. <3

This is two coats of Indigo Illusion, plus topcoat. I hope I managed to capture most of the faces of this polish. The blue was shy, but you can sorta see it in the last pic. I hope. At any rate, this is one of the most gorgeous duo/multichromes I own. Totally love it. <3

Like I said, very tired. So that's it from me for today!

NOTD: She Stylezone 300 + Essence Edward

Happy Saturday, lovelies!

Today I'll be showing you a case of "this polish was a mess so I put some glitter on top" :D

I started out with She Stylezone 300 (ugh. I hate when polishes only have numbers and no names...even if this one makes me want to yell THIS. IS. SPARTA! Um, yes. ANYWAY.) which is an egg yolk yellow creme. It does have that Essie-esque squishy texture, though. Unfortunately this was a complete and utter mess on my nails. The brush was floppy but the bristles would not freaking budge, so it was really hard to create a nice line along my cuticles. After three coats I gave up; there were bald patches all over the place and the polish was already super thick. I like this colour A LOT, but it's not super unique so I don't really see myself putting up with the crappy application again.

When it became apparent that this mani was not turning out so well I figured I'd add some glitter and see if it would save my nails. I chose Essence Edward, which I've been wanting to try for a while now. Edward is teeny tiny silver holo glitter, slightly larger turquoise glitter and large square turquoise glitter in a clear base. It looks really green with the yellow, but in the bottle it's definitely more turquoise/aqua. I love this glitter. <3 It is a little tricky to place the square pieces of glitter, but not too bad.

Surprisingly I ended up liking this mani. I'm still wearing it and not sick of it yet. I love when I turn horrible manis into something pretty by accident. :)

Do you ever end up turning a fail mani into something you like by accident?

Swatches & Review: China Glaze Atlantis

Happy Friday lovelies!

I need to apologize right away: the weather hasn't been too great here and there's little to no sunlight, so my pictures aren't as great as they might be. I promise I did my best to make the polish photograph accurately. Still, sorry about this. :(

Today's polish is China Glaze Atlantis, which is one of those polishes I used to hear mentioned on so many blogs but never actually saw swatched. I'd just see people say things like "This reminds me of CG Atlantis!" or "This is sort of like CG Atlantis except...", stuff like that. I know Atlantis isn't really that relevant anymore as it was released a while ago, but it is a super pretty polish and maybe there's more people like me out there who haven't seen swatches of it. :)

Atlantis is a TON of small, round holographic glitter in an aqua jelly base. I effing adore this polish. This is two easy coats and I love the way it looks on my nails. Because of all that glittery goodness it does dry gritty, even with a coat of Seche Vite (which you see in the pics) you can still clearly feel the texture of the glitter. I actually liked that sensation so I just left it as it was, but another coat of SV would probably eliminate any bumpiness/grittiness.

Like I said, two easy coats and this was opaque (or at least opaque enough for me). Application is nice and easy, though at the first coat there's a lot of dragging going on and I was left with a ton of bald spots. Thankfully on the second coat everything evened out perfectly. :)

I know this is going to be a PITA to remove, but I am in love. <3

What do you guys think? Do you have CG Atlantis? Do you like to wear it on its own or use it for layering?

Swatches & Review: Zoya Kimmy

Hello lovelies! I hope you're all having a good week so far. <3

Today I'll be showing you one of Zoya's Sunshine Collection polishes: Kimmy. I've been curious about Zoya for quite some time now, but only recently found an etailer that sells them. Let's call this my first time using Zoya, because I would really like to draw the curtain of charity over the atrocity that was my first experience with Zoya (totally my fault, not that of the polish).

Kimmy is a gorgeous vibrant red with golden glitter. No matter the lighting, your nails always look sunlit. So beautiful. <3

This is two easy coats; application was smooth and effortless. The only thing I "dislike" is the drying time. Since quick dry topcoat isn't an option with Zoya I used Nubar's Freeze Dry quick dry drops (is that what they're called?!) which makes the polish dry much faster than it would on its own, but for an impatient spazz like me that's still a LONG time. Ah well, for such a unique and beautiful polish I'm willing to put up with that. :)

Do you guys have any tips on how to use Zoya polishes?

EDIT: Ack! Where did the cat hair on my ring finger come from?! *looks at sleeping kitty accusingly*

Pink Wednesday: glitter layering!

Happy Wednesday, lovelies!

The weather hasn't been cooperating lately. Last week when I was in Vienna it was hot and sunny every single day and the day I got back home it started raining. Is the universe trying to tell me something? :D

Anyhow. Here's my Pink Wednesday mani for this week. I actually really liked how it turned out except that it was like two inches thick and would not effing dry. Thankfully all the glitter concealed the dents perfectly. :) Also, I apologize about the tipwear.

This is three coats of Anny Upper East Side Chick (don't hold me to that...), a coat of Paris Memories 254 and a coat of China Glaze Bad Kitty. I have been loving Paris Memories lately; they have some seriously awesome glitters.

That's it for my Pink Wednesday mani. I hope you liked it and let me know what you're wearing on your nails today in the comments!