14 Days Of Achtung Baby: Even Better Than The Real Thing

Happy Monday, lovelies! Today is day two of my Achtung Baby project...

Even Better Than The Real Thing

"my heart is where it's always been, my head is somewhere in between"

Even Better Than The Real Thing is the second song on Achtung Baby and, if you ask me, beats Mysterious Ways in terms of sexiness any day. Or maybe not. It's cheaper, and dirtier than Mysterious Ways, which is exactly why I love it.

My main inspiration for this mani was the fact that the title is something of a pun on the 90's Coca Cola ad proclaiming it "the real thing" (as opposed to Pepsi and the like). I was thinking dirty billboards, grimy, faded neon signs, telling us to buy things we don't really need and can't afford.

Products I used:
Barry M crackle polish in black
p2 drama
Barry M Tangerine
Rimmel Ultra Violet
Rimmel Green Grass
Barry M Cobalt Blue
Eyeko Punk Polish
Dior Rock Coat
+artist brushes and regular topcoat

14 Days Of Achtung Baby: Zoo Station

Ahem. So I disappeared from blogging for a while there, for various reasons really. I haven't been very motivated lately (it's been a tough few weeks), so I figured I should come up with something to make me want to blog again. Instead of getting into the details of my life and why it kept me from blogging, let's just jump straight into my little project, alright? :)

As you've probably noticed by now, I'm a huge U2 fan. Now, two weeks from today, 20 years ago, they released their album Achtung Baby. It's arguably one of their most influential, if not best, albums. It's the album that made me fall in love with them, and the one that shaped the U2 that inspired me.

I wanted to celebrate the 20th anniversary of my favourite album of all time, and I love nail polish... You see where this is going, don't you?

Over the course of the next two weeks I will (attempt) to post nail art inspired by the album, following the tracklisting - one manicure for each song, plus two bonus manis. I'm terrible at nail art and I've been meaning to improve my skills for ages, I'm hoping combining two of my obsessions might help. Even if you're not a U2 fan and have never listened to the album (though I can only recommend checking it out - early 90's music at its finest!) I would love to hear your thoughts on this! :)

Without further ado, here's the first mani!

Zoo Station

"time is a train, makes the future the past"

Zoo Station, the first song on Achtung Baby, the one that starts and makes you wonder if maybe your CD got scratched or something, the one that jerks you out of whatever headspace you're in. Zoo Station is also the name of a tube station in Berlin. What this song makes me think of is trains, train stations, how fast paced our lives are and how much of them we spend in transit.

I have one particularly vivid memory of being on the London Underground in that stretch of time where you're not sure whether it's still New Year's Eve or already New Year's Day. The billboards were dirty and way too bright for my somewhat fuzzy brain. There was glitter floating through the air. My dad struck up the most random conversation with a drunk guy sitting on the floor. Someone had puked on the tiles. Trains filled with people where whizzing past.

I'm not sure if I really managed to convey what this song evokes in me with my mani, but I did my best. The stars were inspired by the live performance of the song on the ZooTV tour.

Products I used:
MAC Spirit Of Truth
p2 hug me
p2 drama
Sally Hansen Crackle Vintage Violet
Essense Dance Topcoat
Dior Rock Coat
+ artist brushes and regular topcoat

A England Lady of the Lake

Hello lovelies!

I apologize for my lack of posting, but hopefully this little gem makes up for it. :)

When I was in England at the beginning of July I was fortunate enough to meet Adina, the heart and soul behind A England, a fairly new nail polish brand. Adina is an absolute sweetheart, as is her gorgeous kitten Tristam, and her polishes are some of the best I've ever tried. To top it all off, her polishes are inspired by the Arthurian legend. Needless to say, I've fallen in love.

Lady of the Lake is a stunning purple holo. The holo effect is subtle and elegant and simply perfect for its namesake. Not only is the polish beautiful, but the formula is wonderful as well. I loved the brush, too. I did two easy coats for this. (I did use topcoat in these pictures, but if you're patient enough to let the polish dry on its own, you won't need it. It's crazy shiny.)

Isn't she a stunner? <3

I have a few other A England polishes to show you and I can tell you, they're just as beautiful as the Lady. :)

Have a lovely day, everyone!

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?

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!

Swatches & Review: Essence Bloom-A-Loom

Hello lovelies!

Today I'm showing you the fifth polish of Essence's Blossoms etc. collection (which I swatched and reviewed here). I originally didn't buy this one, but I recently saw it on sale for 99 cents so I picked it up. I like to have the entire collection.

Bloom-A-Loom is a pink-toned lavender pastel, almost cyclamen. It's way less blue than it looks here. If you look closely you can see a bit of the hidden shimmer on the nails. I think it's a very pretty colour, but definitely my least favourite of the collection. I'm glad I did get it in the end, though. I like it more than I thought I would.

I used two coats for these pictures, but this was almost a one coater. Application was smooth and easy. As with all the other polishes from this collection, the brush was rather long and bendable, but not uncomfortably so. I also had a bit of a hard time figuring out the right amount of polish to put on the brush, but application was still nice.

Have a lovely day, pretties! <3 This is another scheduled post, so I won't be able to respond to comments.

Swatches & Review: OPI Pirates Of The Caribean: On Stranger Tides Collection

Good morning, lovelies!

Today I have for you the OPI Pirates Of The Caribean: On Stranger Tides collection. I know you're probably sick of seeing swatches of these already, but I was so, so excited for this collection and when my polishes arrived they did not disappoint.

I've loved PotC from the get-go and it's no secret that I effing adore pastels. Especially if they're of the murky, weird kind. <3 I bought the whole collection mostly for the sake of well, having it, since I wanted to get five of the six shades anyway. Which brings us to the fun part...

There's a total of six polishes in the collection (and the silver shatter, which I did not get); I used three thin coats for all of them, but you should be good to go with two medium coats. Pictures are 1. indoors (in the shade) and 2. outdoors (in direct sunlight).

Also, I apologize for my cuticles looking more ragged with every picture. They're being bitchy these days. :( (And why are my hands so red lately? Me no like.)

Sparrow Me The Drama (heh. I'm such a sucker for bad puns.) is a dusty pink creme. It's like someone put a splash of grey in a boring pastel pink and made it awesome. (That's pretty much how all of these look to me. Like your average pastels with a splash of grey. Love.) This was the one I didn't want to get judging from promo pics and swatches on other blogs. I got it because I wanted to have the complete collection and because the name made me giggle. I didn't expect to like this, but I do. I'm not crazy about it, but I like how it looks on me and that's it not your regular pink pastel. Also, application was amazingly smooth.

Planks A Lot is a dusty purple creme. The first picture makes this look way too blue; the actual colour is much closer to the second picture. I like this, but not as much as I thought I would. It kinda reminds me of Milka purple though. :D This was a little on the thin side, but application was still a breeze.

Mermaid's Tears is a milky, dusty jade creme. This is such a beautiful colour. It really makes me thinks of mermaids and the name is super sweet too. I'm absolutely in love. (What a surprise.) With this one there was a little bit of streakiness and dragging, but as you can see at three thin coats this leveled out nicely.

Stranger Tides, the namesake of the collection, is a greyed out avocado creme. Is it avocado? Maybe more pistachio. Honestly, I have no clue what to call this colour, but it's amazing. It reminds me of moss at the bottom of a rock pool and waves crashing against a cliffside and the rough sea. This is my favourite of the collection, hands down. Application was a breeze.

Skull & Glossbones is a... Again, no clue what to call this colour. It's a grey, off-white, putty sort of colour. The name fits, because it does look a lot like glossy bones. I'm absolutely in love with this one as well. Maybe not the most unique colour, but I think it's awesome. Application was surprisingly smooth and easy.

 Steady As She Rose is a very pale pink creme that, at least on me, has a distinct lavender undertone. I hadn't seen the trailer for the movie yet when I first saw the promo pics and the first swatches of this, so I didn't realize this was probably supposed to be a pun on the "steady as she goes" thing. What this made me think of - still makes me think of - is that scene in Greek mythology where Aphrodite rises from the sea. Honestly, I much prefer my interpretation. :) This was a tiny bit streaky, but leveled out nicely. This is the only polish I photographed with topcoat, because I wore this for my full mani.

In conclusion, I am much impressed by this collection. These all applied beautifully, which surprised me a lot considering they're pastels. If you're into these kinds of colours I'd definitely consider picking them up even if you dislike the movies.

I know a lot of people don't think this fits with the theme of pirates, but I think OPI did an awesome job forgoing the obvious choice of colours and choosing the more muted ones. I think this ties in nicely with the sea/mystical/mythical theme of the movie.

I do have one complaint... Why is none of the polishes named after Barbossa??????? *sad face* ;)

NOTD: Eyeko Lilac Polish + bonus glitter layering

Happy Friday, lovelies!

Today I have for you Eyeko Lilac Polish which I've had for a while but for some reason haven't worn before. It's a shame really, because it's a very pretty polish!

I'll apologize in advance; these pictures aren't that great, because the light was mostly gone when I took them. Sorry.

Lilac Polish is, as the name suggests, a pale purple creme. It is less blue-toned in person than the picture suggests, but to me it's still more lavender than lilac. At any rate, it's a lovely shade that is very flattering.

I used three coats, though I might have stopped at two. However, there was some minor dragging going on and I didn't want any surprise bald spots in my pictures. The brush on this is very long and somewhat floppy, but the bristles are stiff and don't fan out properly, making it hard to get a nice, clean line along the cuticles. This is also what caused the dragging. I would advise to keep your touch light and make sure you've got a good amount of polish on the brush to avoid any of that.

I didn't use any top or base coat for the pictures and can you see how shiny the polish is? It has that squishy, jelly-creme finish that some Essie polishes have. Love love love.

And just for fun I layered some glitter over it.

 For this I used one coat of a pale purple glitter by a brand called Paris Memories. I couldn't find any sort of number or name on the bottle or label. I've also never heard of or come across this brand before. At any rate, it's a clear lavender polish with hex and smaller holo-esque glitter suspended throughout. Here it flashes mostly blue, green, pink and silver, but at some angles it's completely purple.

Observe:

 

Do you see all the colours in the bottles. So sparkly. Mmmm.

And the obligatory blurry pic to show off the sparkles some more. <3

Hope you liked this! Have a great Friday night!

NOTD: Glitter Accent Nail

Hello lovelies!

Today's post should probably be titled FOTD (FAIL Of The Day). I saw the lovely Kirsten from Glitta Gloves do a glitter accent nail and I loved it so much I wanted to replicate the look. Except that I failed rather spectacularly.

I don't know whether the polishes, my unsteady hands, the lack of sleep or my headache are to blame. Possibly all.

For this I did all my nails with China Glaze Light As Air, which needed three coats and was pretty thick and draggy but at the same time runny and hard to control. Drying time was abysmal on this. Looking at my nails now, over six hours after application, they're a bumpy, dentable mess. Do any of you have that same problem with Light As Air?

Anyway, I applied a coat of Sally Hansen Insta Dry and then used Essence Troy (a purple, blue and silver glitter) on my ring finger. I wanted some more colour in there so I applied a thin coat of Models Own Emerald City (emerald green glitter) which was too dense for my liking. So I applied another coat of Troy. Then I added topcoat to make it smooth.

I don't know. I think what makes me dislike this mani is that a) I loved Kirsten's mani sooo much and am super disappointed in myself that I couldn't make it work. And b) Light As Air was just such a frustrating mess. :/

Ugh. I really want to get rid of this mani, but I'm so tired and not in the mood to remove it. Blargh.

What do you guys think? Terrible fail or just not as good as I'd wanted it to be?

Swatches & Review: Anny Must Have - Chanel Paradoxal dupe?

Happy Thursday, lovelies!

I'm pretty excited about today's post. I've been lusting after Chanel Paradoxal since it's been released and often I was about to buy it and decided against it at the last moment. I adore the colour, but I just refuse to pay that much money for a polish that I know is low quality. I picked up several polishes in the vein of Paradoxal, but none of them looked like dupes/decent alternatives. Until my mom stumbled across this little beauty (I think she was as excited as I was).

This is two coats of Anny Must Have, no base or top coat. Do you see how glossy and squishy it looks?! Mmmm.

Must Have is a taupe-y creme with purple microshimmer. The shimmer is more prominent in person. As I said, I don't own Paradoxal, but this looks like a decent dupe to me. Application was smooth and easy and I love how shiny this is even without top coat. It has an almost jelly-esque finish (think Essie). I'm totally in love with it.

For 10€ I think it's a win. Great formula, beautiful colour and at a decent price. Me like.

What do you guys think? Does this look like a good dupe for Paradoxal? Have you found any cheap dupes that you really like?