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

Nubar Night Sparkle

Hello lovelies!

I hope you're all enjoying your Sundays! Personally, I hate Sundays even more than Mondays. I'm always too busy being grumpy about having to work the next day to enjoy them. lol

Anyhow. Today's polish is one of the few Nubar polishes I own and so far my favourite.

Night Sparkle is a midnight blue jelly base with a ton of fine silver glitter in it. Isn't it stunning? The name is so fitting, in my opinion. It really reminds me of a star-strewn night sky, cosmos, supernovas...how could I not love this?!

I needed three coats for full opacity, which isn't too surprising for a jelly, even if it's a dark one. (Remember to wrap your tips with both polish and topcoat to avoid shrinkage!) I thought the formula was on the thin side, bordering on runny, but still manageable. Also, drying time seemed to be quite short.

One thing to watch out for: smurf nails! I did use a basecoat, but my nails were still quite stained. By now (two polish applications later) the blue is gone, though. :)

But here's the really awesome thing about this polish: it wears insanely well. I'm such a chaotic, clumsy idiot that polish usually chips in the first 24 hours on me, but this one didn't have any chips when I removed it after two days. Can you say awesome?

On a different note, I'm currently experimenting with nail shapes. Right now I'm sporting round nubbins (as seen above). I'm liking my nubbins these days, but maybe that's because I don't really have a choice. Work basically kills my nails every time. :( But it's been fun to see how different colours look on short nails! What do you guys think? Do the nubbins suit me or should I go back to long nails asap?

China Glaze Ick-A-Body

Hello lovelies!

I hope you all made it through the week unscathed and are now enjoying your weekends! :)

I know it's only September, but since Halloween isn't really a big deal here anyway I figured I might as well show this awesome polish now! I picked this up super cheap while I was in Canada and boy, am I glad I did! I knew there was a reason I wanted this polish so much...

China Glaze Ick-A-Body is a ton of orange glitter in a murky, dark green jelly base. Since there's so much glitter in this it does dry gritty and somewhat dull; what you see here is two coats, plus one coat of Seche Vite. It's not perfectly smooth, but not so gritty that it would bother me.

I thought both formula and application were very nice. Not to mention that it's an absolute stunner!

What do you guys think? Do you own this one? Too early to break out the Halloween polishes?

NOPI That Go-Glitter

Hello lovelies! Happy Friday! :)

Today's polish is another one I picked up while I was in Canada. This was my first ever experience with Nicole by OPI and I sincerely hope it's uphill from here.

That Go-Glitter is blue and silver holographic glitter suspended in a clear base. What you are looking at here are six coats. It is crazy sheer and, if I'm completely honest, that sixth coat didn't even do much. As you can see in the pictures, the glitter isn't completely evenly distributed. Not pretty. It was probably meant for layering, but if you look at the bottle it looks like glitter in a blue base, hence my putting it on alone.

Needless to say, this took for-effing-ever to dry. I was super excited about this polish, but I'm not loving it at all. :(

Maybe I'll try layering it over something. I feel like I should give it a second chance. Doesn't it just look super pretty in the bottle?

Does this ever happen to you: buying a polish expecting one thing and then you apply it and it's completely different? Any suggestions how to make this one work?

Swatches & Review: Orly It's Not Rocket Science

(Still on vacation, back on the 18th.)

There's an amusing (I hope?) story about this polish. I first heard about it in a video on youtube (it might have been one by MissChievous, but I'm not positive on that) and I thought it was called It's Not Rock, It's Science. I was delighted by that "discovery" because it reminded me of U2's guitarist, The Edge ("The scientist of the band", anyone?). I spent the next few days going HEE HEE HEEEEEEEE :DDD (I'm fairly sure this is also when the U2 nail polish idea was born.) Then I looked for it online and realized it wasn't called that at all. I'm STILL disappointed. :((((

Anyway, on to the pretty. I'll let the pictures do the talking.

*drools* This is one of my favourite green polishes. I love all the polishes from this collection, but unfortunately I only own this one. I can't quite bring myself to pay the ridiculous prices on ebay. Meh. MOVING ON.

Totally in love with this polish. <3

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?

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!

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: 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?

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!

NOTD: Paris Memories 250 over OPI Stranger Tides

Happy Monday, lovelies!

I have been trying (and failing) to catch up with all your blogs. Being away for a week means a lot of beautiful nails to dig through! :D Anyway, today's post is a short one as I'm still completely wiped and feeling lazy. I hope you enjoy it nonetheless. <3

(I apologize for my cuticles. And my weirdly coloured hands. I'm not sure what's going on there.)

Two coats of Stranger Tides, one coat of 250 (which was a bit of a pain to apply because of the glitter strips) and a coat of Seche Vite.

Can I just say that I'm in love with this mani? Paris Memories 250 is one of the most gorgeous glitters I own. <3

Hope you're all well and having a good day (if that's possible on a Monday)!

Swatches & Review: Catrice Welcome To The Jungle

Happy Friday, lovelies!

Today's post is my last scheduled post. I hope I'll be able to put something up tomorrow, but I'll have a post for you by Sunday at the latest. :)

This is the second polish I bought from the recent Catrice Papagena collection and definitely my favourite.

Welcome To The Jungle is a gorgeous mossy olive green with lots of teeny tiny green, gold and copper microglitter suspended throughout. I highly recommend enlarging those pictures so you can see the beautiful sparkles in there. Remember when I reviewed Amazonian Gold and said it wasn't really a frost and not really a foil? This one's the same in that it's not really a frost, but it's not really a pearl either. I love it, whatever it is. This one is definitely unique to my collection; I own absolutely nothing like this.

I used two coats for these pictures and oh my god, application was a dream. Seriously, one of the most pleasant polishes to apply ever. <3 I want to buy ten backups for the awesome application alone.

I'm totally loving this polish. Amazing application, stunning colour and super cheap. What more can a polish addict ask for?

Have a lovely Friday, pretties! Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow!

Pink Wednesday: Catrice Miss Piggy Reloaded

Happy Wednesday, lovelies! I hope your week has been good thus far. <3

This week's Pink Wednesday is yet another Catrice polish. I recently bought this one and that's probably the only reason I used it instead of one of the older pinks from my stash.

Miss Piggy Reloaded is a cotton candy pink pastel that I like surprisingly much on me. There's some pretty sparkle in there and small flakies! Mmmm, flakies. <3 I know they're not very visible in these pictures or even in the bottle, but on the nail they show up pretty well. Maybe if you enlarge the first picture you might be able to see them.

I did need three thick coats to get this nice and even, but the formula was still decent. I like how squishy this looks. Yum.

I really like this one. It's not a polish I'd reach for very often, but the flakies make it awesome. :D

Are you rocking your pink today?

Swatches & Review: MNY 761

Hello lovelies!

This is the week's first scheduled post that I won't be able to overlook. As you know, I am in Vienna right now and probably won't have time to be online very much. I hope this posts correctly.

Today's polish is MNY 761. MNY is a brand owned by Maybelline, I think. It bothers me that their polishes only have numbers and no names, but there's some proper gems to be found!

761 is emerald green microglitter suspended in an olive green jelly base. The overall effect is more emerald than I'd hoped, but the olive does show. I do think this is a pretty unique polish.

I found the polish to be a little on the thin side, but it was easy to manage and I reached full opacity in two coats. The only downside is that there was some major dragging going on. But as the polish so thin you can sort of push it back down and have it even itself out, if that makes sense.

Overall, I'm really pleased with this polish. What do you guys think?