A England Tristam

Hello lovelies!

It's Thursday, which means the week is nearly over! I can't wait for it to end. It hasn't been fun sitting around at home being ill. Blah. But today the sun came out for a bit and I took it as a sign to put on something holo. I just knew I had to put on the stunning A England Tristam. It instantly made me feel better, as I knew it would. <3

Tristam is a stunning deep blue holo. As with the other A England holo, Lady of the Lake, the holographic effect is subtle and elegant, but definitely there. In the sun it's impossible to look away from - even my dad was fascinated ;) I love how this looks with pale skin (again with my skin looking weird and darker than it is in pictures...).

On top of being a beauty, the formula on Tristam is flawless. Let me say that again: the formula is flawless. (It's pretty much a one coater, but I did two out of habit.) I have absolutely nothing negative to say about this polish. In fact, I have absolutely nothing negative to say about A England in general. Except maybe for this: I think I'm spoiled for life. I'll always compare other polish to A England from now on. ;)

What do you guys think? Did you take advantage of the free shipping A England has yet? What's your go-to feel good polish?

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?

NOTD: Flormar 394

Hello lovelies! I hope you all had a good weekend. <3

I'm very excited about today's polish, because this is the first holo I've ever worn. It's not a very strong, or even unique one, but I love it and I can't stop staring at my nails. :)

Flormar 394 is a light metallic brown leaning bronze. The holo effect is scattered, as opposed to the linear holos we're all craving, but I think it's quite stunning. It's such an elegant shade (I just had to stop myself from calling it posh just because I like things to be posh), but still undeniably different. I needed three coats for full opacity.

Here, have a mini picspam of holo goodness.

There's no sunlight to speak of today, so the pic I took outside is a bit of a disappointment (third picture), but the others show the holo nicely I think. I really like this polish and I'm glad I picked it up when I found it by chance. :)

What are you wearing on your tips this Monday?

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?

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)!

NOTD: Polish explosion (literally) + service announcement

Hello lovelies!

I have been pretty stressed these past few days, because I needed to prepare a lot of stuff for next week when I'll be in Vienna taking a course in makeup art. I am super excited about this and cannot wait to go tomorrow! As you might have guessed this means I won't have very much online time (the course is from 9am-4pm) and posting will basically be impossible. Because of that I scheduled posts for every day from tomorrow (Sunday, May 22nd) to next Friday (May 27th). These will all (hopefully) go up at noon, my time. I will hopefully be able to keep up with all your blogs, but I just wanted to let you guys know I won't be around to comment much.

Now that that's out of the way, this was today's mani:

I told you it was a literal polish explosion. :P

What happened there was me doing a special mani for today's family event and then doing some last minute shopping, pickung up a bottle of polish, going to look around some more and suddenly *boom* the bottle just explodes right in my hand. No idea how that happened.

The one good thing that came from this is that from now on I'll always take pictures of my manis before going out. (Don't hold me to that, guys.)

That's it from me. I have a big week ahead of me. Good night, lovelies! Stay beautiful and I'll see you all on Saturday! <3

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?

Pink Wednesday: Catrice Raspberry Fields Forever

Hello lovelies!

I'm sorry I haven't been around to post or comment or reply to anything, but my messed up sleep habits are getting the better of me. I didn't really want to unleash my sleep-deprived mind on you guys (R = best letter ever. <3) so I just stayed away. Besides, today is the first day with some actual sunlight!

So, let me say right away, I had to cut my nails and now they're super short. I cut them for several reasons and it had to be done, but I am so deeply unhappy with them. I'm back to being thirteen and embarrassed about my tiny nails and weird thumbs. :(

Raspberry Fields Forever is a bright, hot pink creme. The colour totally freaked my camera out. It's not darker per se, just...deeper. If that makes sense. (Which it most likely doesn't. I need sleep.) Two coats plus topcoat, application was a breeze.

That's it from me, pretties. I'm going to get some shopping done and try to stay awake until at least this afternoon. Wish me luck getting around to actually sleeping at night!

MNOTD: China Glaze Fairy Dust over p2 Jetset

Happy Mother's Day, lovelies!

Today's post is, again, going to be something slightly different. It will still be about polish, but I won't be the one wearing it. As the title suggests, it's going to be my mom's nail of the day (lame, I know, I know).

This is one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust over three coats p2 jetset and a coat of Seche to make it smooth. Not much to say about this; jetset is a milky, medium jade creme with a finish that is reminiscent of the Essie one I love so much. Fairy Dust is a pretty, super tiny holo glitter. I love the combo and so does my mom!

Just to give you a fair warning, this is basically where the polish talk ends. The rest of this post is going to be me rambling about how much I love my mommy. Do feel free to skip.

You know, we don't really do anything for Mother's Day. None of us are big fans of the whole thing. But I do love my mom very much and I feel like I should dedicate a little something to her. Firstly, I want to thank her for letting me paint her nails with all sorts of crazy stuff and getting excited every single time nail mail arrives. And obviously for allowing me to put her nails on the blog and actually being awesome enough to take the pics herself when there was sunlight and I was sleeping. We've never really had a mother/daughter sort of relationship, not really anyway. She's my best friend and I don't know where I'd be without her. In a way, we're the opposites of each other. In another way, we're eerily alike. We're crazy and she wears my shoes more often than I wear hers and she's just the sweetest person ever. I love you, mom. <3

A happy Mother's Day to all the lacquered mommies out there and a lovely Sunday to everybody else!

NOTD: China Glaze For Audrey

Hello again! I know, I know. I posted like, ten seconds ago, but this one is actually about nail polish, I promise. ;)

I've been lusting after China Glaze For Audrey ever since I started reading nail polish blogs, but I never bought it. It was always either sold out or I forgot to add it to my cart or I had this "Do I really need this polish?!" moment. The answer to that last question is yes. Yes, I do.

For Audrey is a dusty, pastel aqua creme, specifically it's meant to be Tiffany's blue. It's slightly less blue toned than it looks here. I don't know if this is actually Tiffany's blue, but I don't really care. I absolutely adore the colour. I love the way this looks with my skintone, too. <3

Application was okay. Typical pastel creme, I'd say. It was a bit on the runny side but also a little streaky, so that wasn't so nice. I thought I'd end up with super streaky polish and was hoping Seche would save the day, but this actually evened itself out as it was drying. Very nice. I used three coats and a coat of Seche Vite for the pic. Might have only used two if my hands hadn't been so unsteady.

I'm super glad I got this polish. It's probably not that exciting, but I'm such a sucker for pastel cremes. I just love the smooth, glossy, plastic finish I get with them. Mmm.

Have a lovely Saturday, pretties!

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: Essence Mystic Mermaid over OPI Panda-monium Pink

Happy Sunday, lovelies!
Today's post is a random NOTD from a little over a week ago. It's not a mani I particularly liked on me, but I was too busy to do my nails so I wore and hated this for about three days.

For this I used four coats of OPI Panda-monium Pink (I love that name. Pandemonium = one of my fave English words.) and added a coat of Seche Vite. Then I managed to ruin a nail eating pizza, but I was too lazy to redo it so I just added a coat of Essence Mystic Mermaid. I have to say, Mystic Mermaid can be a bit of a lifesaver.

I really liked Panda-monium Pink on its own; one of the few pale pinks I can actually like. But with Mystic Mermaid on top... I don't know. I guess it looks pretty, but I just hated every second of it. I got so many compliments on this mani and was inwardly cringing at every one of them. I tried to like this, I really did, but I just hated with a passion. I mean, you guys know how much I love pastels and that I'm convinced glitter makes everything better. But this? No. Just no. It's not me, you know?

Anyhow. What do you guys think? Did you ever get lots of compliments on a mani that you really hated?

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?

NOTD: p2 crackling Silver Blast over Catrice Am I Blue Or Am I Green?

Good evening, lovelies!

Today you're getting a super quick post from me as I really need to get to bed. This is a mani from last week that I really liked.

This is three coats of Catrice Am I Blue Or Am I Green? which was a hot mess on my nails: thick, goopy, streaky, you name it! At three coats this looked a mile thick and wasn't quite even yet so I decided to break out some crackles to see if I could save the mani. I think with p2 Silver Blast on top this looks really lovely! More of a winter mani, perhaps, but I like it. I was actually sad to take this off.

I really like the p2 crackles. There's a gold crackle as well, which I've only applied to my mom's nails so far, but I'm more of a silver girl anyway. They do dry matte, so you'll need to slap on some topcoat if you want a glossy finish.

Not a particularly complex or exciting mani, but I do like this a lot. I love how crackle can turn almost any polish that is a bit of a fail into an awesome mani.

On a diffferent note, I am so bummed that the Zoya polish exchange is US only. I've been dying to get my hands on some Zoya for a long time, but I hate to purchase them on evilbay. :/ Blargh. I loved my mom's suggestion of "Just ask one of the bloggers that live in the US to help you out!" But, since I'm not going to leave anything untried, if any of you US peeps would be willing to help a girl halfway across the globe out, I would appreciate it so, so much. I'd obviously pay for shipping, customs, etc. Anybody willing to give a girl from Austria a hand? I promise you I'm not a criminal or a crazy person. (... Okay, that was a lie. I am crazy, but I like to think of it as quirky and cute. :P)

Anyway. That's it from me. Not sure if I'll manage to do the Friday Favourites tomorrow, but I'll try and get them up asap.

Nighty night, lacquered ladies! xx

NOTD: Catrice Sold Out Forever - Swatches & Review

Hello lovelies!

The weather hasn't really allowed me to take pictures lately, so here's one that I took a while ago and forgot to post: Catrice Sold Out Forever.

(Whyyyy do these types of colours never photograph properly?!) Sold Out Forever is a minty, spring-y kind of pastel green creme with shimmer. The shimmer doesn't really show up here, but it's very visible in person. The colour is hard to describe since it's somewhere between the many mint greens and the few spring greens in my collection. I don't have anything quite like this. Especially with the shimmer. So pretty!

This needed three coats for opacity and was on the thin side, but application was smooth and easy. All in all, a very nice polish!

I'll be driving to Germany tomorrow to haul some products (p2 polishes, here I come!!!) so you may expect some goodies to be up soon. Here's to hoping the sun comes out and lets me take some pictures! *crosses fingers*

NOTD: Essence Mystic Mermaid over Anny Wicked

Happy Monday, lovelies!

Today I have a very simple but very pretty mani for you: Essence Special Effect Topper in Mystic Mermaid over Anny Wicked. The pics were taken after a couple of days of wear, so do excuse the slight tipwear.

This is two coats of Wicked, a coat of Seche Vite, a coat of Mystic Mermaid and another coat of Seche Vite.

Wicked is a greyed out, muted, minty kind of aqua. To me it's a slightly bluer version of Models Own Grace Green, which, as you all probably know, I adore. I'll swatch Wicked separately for you soon.

Mystic Mermaid wouldn't photograph properly, but it's silver microglitter (is it microglitter? It's very tiny and dries fairly smooth at any rate.) and slightly larger light blue glitter suspended in a clear base. The glitter in this is very dense and applies smooth and even. In the sun this is crazy sparkly and the blue glitter flashes pink at certain angles. So pretty! Got lots of compliments for this.

Also, I am incredibly impressed with how long this stayed chip-free. Those pictures were taken on the third day of wear (one of which was spent cooking and scrubbing pans!) and even so there's barely any tipwear. Usually I get chips within a few hours. Really pleased with this!