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?

Swatches & Review: MAC Scorcher

(Another reminder that I'm still on vacation until the 18th.)

I feel kinda bad about posting this polish, because it was a limited edition one. Then again, it's also one I love very much and you see HTFs posted all over the place, so why not? :P

Scorcher is a crazy bright coral, it's almost bordering on neon. And it totally freaked out my camera. It's much brighter than it looks here. I used three coats for full opacity, but might have gotten away with two. The formula was good, but I've not been loving the MAC brushes lately. I don't know why, but they give me some trouble.

Other than that, it's a great polish. It's probably not unique, but I don't own anything quite like it.

On a different note, I'm currently probably fangirling over seeing U2 for the second day in a row. :D Hope you're all doing great!

Swatches & Review: Barry M Mint Green

(Just a reminder, I am still on vacation until the 18th.)

Today's polish is Barry M Mint Green, which I bought earlier this year when I was in England. I don't know why I haven't posted about it before, because I really love it!

Mint Green is, as the name suggests, a mint green creme. What sets this apart from all the other mint greens out there is that it's not a proper pastel. It doesn't have nearly as much white in it as, say, Essie Mint Candy Apple, so it doesn't look chalky at all and there's no streaking either.

I needed three coats for it to level out (there was a bit of cuticle dragging going on, but that could be prevented if you're not impatient like me and let your coats dry more). Application was easy and I love how squishy this looks.

This is definitely my favourite mint green polish out there. What's yours?

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: 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? :)

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: 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?

NOTD: PotC/Mermaid sponging mani

Hello lovelies!

I'm pretty wiped, so it's just a quick post from me tonight.

I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean tonight and got all excited every time Geoffrey Rush was on the screen so naturally I wanted to do a pretty mani for it. I wasn't too  sure what to do, but I've wanted to wear OPI Mermaid's Tears and I also wanted to try sponging. This is what happened.

I wanted to go for a sort of mermaid/sea theme. This was my first attempt at sponging and I think it turned out pretty decent. Not perfect, that's for sure! But I'm fairly pleased with it. Although if I were to do with again I'd probably do it slightly different. Pratice makes perfect, eh? :)

What I used for this:

[Left to right: OPI Mermaid's Tears, p2 jetset, Essence Choose Me!, China Glaze Atlantis.]

• 3 coats of Mermaid's Tears
• jetset sponged over about a third-half of the nail
• Choose Me! sponged over about two thirds of the nail
• Atlantis dabbed onto the tips with the brush

Like I said, first attempt at sponging so it's definitely not perfect. This did teach me a lot about which polishes work in what way for sponging and I think I'll be giving this another shot very soon.

That's it from me for tonight. Going to head to bed soon. Good night, pretties! What do you think about this mani?

Swatches & Review: BB Couture Vampy Varnish

Hello lovelies!

Today I have for you my first ever BB Couture polish, which I am super excited about. BB Couture (along with Zoya, Color Club, Butter London, China Glaze (yes, you read that right) and a whole bunch of others) is one of those brands I would never have heard of if I hadn't started reading nail blogs. Unfortunately, it is also one of those brands that doesn't ship internationally and that wasn't available through any of my usual etailers, either.

Luckily for us international polish fanatics, the lovely Kim from overallbeauty.com does ship worldwide. Before I even get to the polish, I just want to say that my experience with Overall Beauty was such a pleasant one. When I placed my order something went wrong and I was charged the wrong amount for shipping, so Kim emailed me and asked me if I was willing to place my order again, which I would have done anyway, but then she offered me a free polish of my choice as compensation. How awesome is that?! Kim has just been such a sweetheart and I love that there are still online etailers that actually care about their customers. :)

My package arrived a couple of days ago and I was so excited as I tore into it. Vampy Varnish was the first polish I put on and OH MY GOD, GUYS I think - dare I say it - this might have turned into my favourite green polish of all time (and to think I wouldn't have originally gotten this!).

Cannot. Stop. Posting. Pictures. So. Pretty. *spazzes*

Ahem. Vampy Varnish is a dark, dark forest green jelly (is it a jelly? The glitter kinda takes away the squishy texture, so I'm not entirely sure.) with loads of super sparkly glitter thrown in. I'm not sure if it's only gold glitter that flashes green because of the polish or if there's actual green glitter in there. Either way, all that sparkly goodness is just delicious.

This reminds me of sunlight falling through the treetops in a forest in summer. However, when I said this to my dad he was all NO WAY. This is what my dad has to say about this colour (translated by yours truly): "This is a Jaguar painted in British Racing Green standing in the shade under a tree with little patches of sunlight falling on the surface." I'm not sure what to make of this, but I think it means he likes it.

I used three thin coats for full opacity and, as all that gorgeous glitter makes it dry semi-gritty and dull, I slapped on a generous coat of Seche Vite to make it all smooth and shiny. Application was a breeze. I love the BB Couture brush. It's slightly thicker/broader than the Essie brushes, but nowhere near OPI-thick. They're perfect. And the fan out so well, so it's super easy to get a nice line along the cuticles! The only thing I would say is that it's best to wait for a minute between coats, otherwise you'll end up with some abysmal cuticle dragging. Just something to be aware of.

As I say, I think this might be my favourite green polish of all time. It's definitely in the top three. What I love most about this is that it is a vampy shade, but it's not. At least not in the traditional sense. You know, vampy makes me think blackened plum, burgundy, deep red, that kind of thing. This is different and awesome and I love how, in the shade, this looks almost black but not quite. You can always tell that it's not quite black. And then when the sunlight hits it.... Mmmmm sparkly and beautiful and I actually tripped down the stairs the first time I saw it outside.

Wow. I do believe this is my most rambly post to date. What can I say, I hear this is what love does to you. :D

Do you have Vampy Varnish as well? What's your favourite green polish?

Comparison: Illamasqua Radium vs Pieces Kryptonite

Good morning!

Today I've got a comparison for you. I only compared these two because as I was swatching Radium I was trying to think of other polishes in that colour and Kryptonite was the only one in my stash that came even remotely close. You'll see why you can't actually compare these in a second. (Also, Pieces is a brand available at a local clothing store. I know it's also available in Germany, but beyond that I have no idea where you can get it.)

From index to pinkie this is: Illamasqua Radium, Pieces Kryptonite, Illamasqua Radium, Pieces Kryptonite. (Do ignore the dent on my index finger.)

As you can see, Kryptonite is more yellow-toned than Radium and, while Radium is a shimmery creme bordering on frost, Kryptonite is a jelly. At first I was thrilled that it's a jelly, because I adore jellies. I'm willing to slap on that extra coat just for the squishy finish. However, this one takes a lot of coats to become opaque. I can't remember how many I used for this exactly (my notes are somewhat vague and irritated) but I think it was about 5, perhaps more. Honestly, the first three coats looked more yellow than green, not to mention gross and like I'd painted my nails with yellow highlighter. The consistency of the polish was also very...strange? I don't know; I've never used a polish with that sort of consistency before - it's sort of jelly-like. Almost like it's not actually liquid, but rather creamy? Like I said, strange.

Strange consistency aside, application was smooth and easy. Still, 5+ coats vs 2 coats? Even for a jelly, even for a jelly in such an unusual colour, that's a lot.

I don't want to say I prefer Radium, but I do have to say that I'll wear it more often simply because it doesn't take as long to apply as Kryptonite. (You can also read my review of Radium here.)

Have a lovely Tuesday, everyone!