14 Days Of Achtung Baby: Until The End Of The World

Happy Wednesday, lovelies! Sorry, it's not a pink one this time around. This will hopefully go up while I'm at work (with a bloody boring manicure at that, boo!).

Until The End Of The World

"in my dream I was drowning my sorrows, but my sorrows they learned to swim"

Until The End Of The World, the first (U2) song I was ever truly obsessed with. There's absolutely no way to put into words the things this song makes me feel. It always makes me think of the T.S. Eliot line "this is the way the world ends".

My main inspiration for this mani came from the lines "we ate the food, we drank the wine / everybody having a good time / except you / you were talking about the end of the world" and "I took the money / I spiked your drink / you miss too much these days if you stop to think".

Let me tell you, so much went wrong here. Polish was too sheer or too dark or didn't dry or dried too quickly. And despite all of that, I think this is my favourite mani so far. It's a little ambiguous, I suppose, but so is the song and I think just spelling it out would be boring. Anyway, what do you guys think? :)

Products I used:
China Glaze Liquid Leather
Models Own Grace Green
MAC Immortal Gold
a england Merlin
Catrice Marilyn & Me
Essence Make It Golden
OPI Midnight In Moscow
Essie Sand Tropez
Illamasqua Kink
Dior Rock Coat (this has been my best friend for these manis!)
Essence Matt Top Coat
+ artist brushes, Nubar quick dry drops and regular top coat

14 Days Of Achtung Baby: One

Hello lovelies! How are you all doing? I hope the weather isn't getting you down! Personally, I love the cold, but all I want to do is eat and sleep these days... I'm really a squirrel haha! Anyway. On to day three of Achtung Baby nail art...

One

"we're one, but we're not the same"

One... The song that was the "pivot point of Achtung Baby" as the band recently called it in the documentary From The Sky Down. I've heard people say that it doesn't fit with the rest of the album, that it's in a completely different vein than all the other songs, but it really isn't. At a time when U2 was very close to calling it a day, disconnected and unable to find any common ground, they wrote a song about unity. Now that? That is irony at its finest.

It's not my favourite song on the album, not by a long shot, but here's the thing: we all feel alone sometimes. We're not the same, and we aren't always capable of understanding what others go through. But we are one, and we do get to carry each other.

I could go on about how I totally mucked up the entire nail art here, but really? I kinda dig it. It's imperfect and a little messed up and I think it suits the song perfectly. It's about being one, not being whole.

Products I used:
Illamasqua Load
China Glaze Liquid Leather
China Glaze City Siren
+eyeliner brush (don't ask) and topcoat

Hope your week has been good so far! :)

Swatches & Review: Catrice I Wear My Sunglasses At Night

Hello pretties!

Today I'm showing you another polish by Catrice; I Wear My Sunglasses At Night. I wore this last Monday to the One Republic concert in Vienna, because it sort of reminded me of the cover of their album Waking Up. This polish looks UH-MAY-ZING in the bottle. The name makes me grin. It reminds me of one of my favourite bands. I was loving this long before I ever put it on.

And then I made the mistake of actually putting it on.

Application was perfect. Smooth and easy and opaque in two coats. But when it started to dry it got kind of dull; I didn't think much of it since I always use topcoat anyway. But this ate my freaking topcoat. Usually Seche Vite leaves me with super shiny, smooth nails, but this just soaked it all up and stayed dull and semi-gritty. There was funky shrinkage and tip pulling going on all over the place. Maybe this is just a weird reaction to Seche Vite, but I manage to dent my manis even when I use quick dry top coat, because I'm so impatient. Waiting for the polish to dry on its own? Yeeeeeaaaaaahno.

It's a bummer really, because this polish has so much potential. It's a black creme packed with silver, green and purple microglitter that flashes red and gold at some angles. Unfortunately it's not nearly as sparkly on the nails. The black creme base is too opaque to let the glitter really shine through. (Do enlarge the pictures to see the awesome sparkle in the bottle. It's gorgeous. Well, it would be gorgeous.)


Sorry, but this is one of the most disappointing polishes I've ever used.

Did you ever buy a polish that looked amazing in the bottle, but looked like crap when applied?