Happy Birthday, Achtung Baby!

Hello lovelies! You're all hopefully having a lovely Saturday while I'm at work! ;) Today's mani is the last in my Achtung Baby series, because today this baby turns 20! Happy Birthday to my favourite album! (I'm totally taking it as a sign that our birthdays are so close to each other :P)

This is the mani that started it all. I wanted to do something special for an Achtung Baby anniversary event in Vienna and figured I could try to do nail art inspired by the artwork of the album. This was by far the most complicated mani of my little project (and not only because all I had to work with were a dotting tool and the brush of a white striper polish that I kept dipping into different polishes and wiping down...).

I'm warning you, there's a bit of a picspam ahead. I really loved how this mani came out; I wish I could have worn it longer!

Not much to say about this one, I guess. As you can see I simply chose one little picture for each nail as my inspiration and tried to fit it on. I picked the ones that seemed to me to be best suited for nail art, since I'd have had a hard time drawing Bono's face with nail polish. :)

And that concludes my 14 days of celebrating Achtung Baby! I do hope you enjoyed it and maybe even gave some of the songs a listen. :)

Products I used:
Essie Little Brown Dress
OPI Stranger Tides
Essence Buddy Bear
MAC Obey Me
Models Own Concrete Mixer
Catrice Snow Motion
China Glaze Seaspray
China Glaze For Audrey
OPI Greenwich Village
China Glaze Liquid Leather
p2 hug me
Barry M crackle polish in black
China Glaze Mom's Chiffon
China Glaze City Siren
MAC Rain Of Flowers
Catrice Bye, Bye Birdie
+ white striper polish, silver glitter striper polish, topcoat and a lot of time (and also probably some other polishes I forgot to write down)

14 Days Of Achtung Baby: Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World

Happy Monday, lovelies! Another late post today...

Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World

"sunrise like a nosebleed"

Tryin' To Throw Your Arms Around The World, quite possibly my favourite song on Achtung Baby, simply because it's so horribly underrated. Stuck between Mysterious Ways, which is a well-loved tune by most fans, and the last three songs, which are something of a holy trinity, I guess this song just gets overlooked. A shame, because it's bloody brilliant.

"6 o'clock in the morning, you're the last to hear the warning, you've been trying to throw your arms around the world." Haven't we all had nights that ended at six in the morning, going home as the first people go to work, all fuzzy brain and lights blurring in front of our eyes. To me this song is an ode to every spectacular hangover, every night spent looking for something you can't find at the bottom of a glass, every watery sunrise that makes you wince.

Products I used:
China Glaze Liquid Leather
MAC Obey Me
Models Own Concrete Mixer
Illamasqua Hectic
Essie Chinchilly
p2 gigantic
American Apparel Neon Red
Essence Forget Me Not
Dior Rock Coat

14 Days Of Achtung Baby: So Cruel

Hello lovelies! Happy Friday! :)

So Cruel

"I'm only hanging on to watch you go down"

So Cruel, one of the most twisted and complex songs in U2's repertoire. I think this is the first truly dark song on the album. It's wrong in all the right ways, poetic and messed up and a painfully honest portrayal of a twisted love. One of my very favourite songs and I definitely recommend listening to it.

My main inspiration here came from the lines "her skin pale like god's only dove", "heaven, heaven, fingers in the mire", "oh love, like a screaming flower, love dying every hour" and "the night is bleeding like a cut". I was running out of time when I did this mani and I'd originally planned it a bit differently, but considering I only had about fifteen minutes for this I think it turned out okay.

Products I used:
Top Shop Sketch
China Glaze Westside Warrior
p2 lust
Catrice London Weather Forecast
China Glaze Liquid Leather
China Glaze City Siren
Essie Case Study
Top Shop Listen To Me
+ artist brushes, white striper polish and top coat

14 Days Of Achtung Baby: Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

Hello lovelies! Apologies for how late I'm posting this. I hope you guys aren't tired of this series yet...

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses

"you're an accident waiting to happen"

Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, the song that means nothing and everything whenever I listen to it. I honestly don't know what this song signifies for me. It's beautiful, though, and I can only recommend giving it a listen to hear for yourself.

This one gave me the most trouble so far inspiration-wise. In the end I decided to take my inspiration from the lines "you're a piece of glass left there on the beach", "the hunter will sin for your ivory skin" and "who's gonna drown in your blue sea?". I quite like the end result: simple, but meaningful. :)

Products I used:
BB Couture for Men Hades
Essie Sand Tropez
China Glaze Sea Spray
China Glaze Golden Enchantment
Essence Time For Romance
Essence Matt Topcoat
+ artist brushes and white striper polish

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

Work Mani: Essie Sand Tropez

Hello lovelies! Happy Monday!

This will post when I'm at work, which is quite fitting...

I work for a company that is very strict about personal appearance: amongst other things, we're not allowed to wear colourful makeup or nail polish. This has been quite tough for me, because I'm usually all for bold colour statements, but needs must. I took it as an opportunity to break out all my nude and subtle polish.

Since Monday is the beginning of yet another work week for most of us, I'll be posting my work manis on Mondays. Not sure how frequently, as I don't have an unlimited supply of work appropriate polish, but we'll see. I always have a hard time finding work appropriate polish as I can never really find proper swatches online - no wonder, it's mostly boring polish. I hope this helps some of you who, like me, can't wear fun polish to work. :)

Essie Sand Tropez is a very light, grey-toned beige creme. This is two coats plus topcoat. It's a very opaque polish, but as with most colours as light as this, the formula isn't perfect. It's quite thick and runny at the same time - a tricky combination. Application is alright, not perfect but not terrible.

What do you guys think? A polish you'd wear to work? What's your favourite work appropriate polish? I need suggestions! :)

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?

Swatches & Review: Essie Tart Deco

Hello lovelies!

Today's post is Essie Tart Deco which is a polish from their Art Nouveau (was it called that?!) collection from a while ago.

Tart Deco is a pastel orange-y peach creme, but it's a bright pastel. Does that make sense? It's pretty in-your-face, but still definitely a pastel.

I used three coats for the pictures and it definitely needed them. This was runny, streaky on the first coat and there was quite a bit of dragging going on after that. However, I really dig the colour so I'm willing to put up with the mediocre application.

Have a lovely day! <3

Pink Wednesday: Essie Infatuation

Hello lovelies!

If you follow me on Twitter you've probably seen me complain about blogger not showing me the blogs I'm following in my reading list. This is the third day in a row that it's not working. Ugh. Anyone else having trouble with that?

Anyway. Today is another Pink Wednesday post and today's polish is Essie Infatuation.

Infatuation is a medium pink creme that makes me think of raspberry ice cream (and, strangely, of peaches O_o). This was one of the first Essie polishes I bought and I love it. It's such a nice spring/summer shade and not your ordinary pink. It's quite lovely.

Application was smooth and easy, but there was some minor cuticle dragging going on so I ended up using three coats. It dried quickly and super shiny, but I did use a coat of Seche Vite just in case. The only thing that I don't like is that this doesn't seem to have the squishy, jelly-like texture and finish that I love so much about Essie. Or maybe it's just not as prominent. No idea; it's still a pretty polish.

How about you ladies; are you rocking your pink today? :)

Friday Favourites: Essie Up's

Hello lovelies!

As you can see in the title of this post, I'll be posting one of my favourite products every Friday. These will include current flings and long-time lovers alike. :)

Today I have for you one of my favourite red polishes: Essie Up's.

This is three coats of Up's and a coat of Seche Vite on top (on the third-ish day of wear, hence the scratches and semi-dull surface....I'm not really making the best case for this polish here, am I?). Excuse the not-so-great pic; took this really quickly on my way out. (Also, yes, my skin is actually that pale.)

As you can see, Up's is a rich, blue-toned red jelly. I'm not much of a red person, to be honest, and the reds I do like are usually shimmers or glitters, but every once in a while I'll crave a rich red polish. This is one of the very few reds I have and the only one I wear regularly. (Jellies own my soul, even when they're a pain to apply.)

I love to wear this with Illamasqua lipstick in Box. Makes for a pretty awesome retro, diva/pin-up-esque makeup!

Happy Friday, everyone!

Comparison: Essie Sew Psyched vs Models Own Grace Green - Swatches & Review!

Hello lovelies!

Today I bring you a comparison of two polishes I recently picked up. They looked very similar to me in the bottles when I was re-organizing my nailpolish stash the other day, but upon swatching them side by side I've realized how different they are.

(Pics were taken inside and under artificial light, since the sun didn't want to come out and play.)

From index to pinkie this is: Essie Sew Psyched, Models Own Grace Green, Essie Sew Psyched, Models Own Grace Green. Two coats, no base or top coat.

(Please excuse the quality of those pics. Still trying to get the hang of it all!) (And ignore that smudge of polish on my ring finger.)

As you can see, the Essie polish is much darker and also has a subtle shimmer to it. Grace Green (which, yes, I bought a little for the name. I have this thing for product names that include the word 'grace'.) is much more muted and greyed out.

Both are gorgeous, gorgeous polishes and applied like butter. I would say that the Models Own one applied just a little bit more smoothly, though -- it's almost opaque in one coat! The formula on both of these was great and I had no difficulties with application. I've only worn each of these once, but drying time was decent and I didn't experience any major chipping, shrinking or peeling.

In conclusion: both are great polishes and if you're into these kinds of colours, I would totally recommend picking them up!

Hope everybody had a lovely weekend! ♥