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

Swatches & Review: Color Club Alter Ego

Hello lacquered lovelies!

Today's post is a little late for several reasons. I had a killer headache last night and couldn't sleep until well into the morning, then I screwed up my new mani and had to redo my nails and then I was cranky and decided to bake. The kitchen looked like a battlefield and I was covered in flour and molten chocolate. Now that everybody is unstickyfied (when I start making up words I know it's time to cut back on the sugar and the caffeine) again I finally have time to blog.

Another one of the Color Clubs I ordered recently; Alter Ego.

Alter Ego is a plum-based foil that flashes silver, copper and gold depending on how the light hits it. The plum base colour is really barely visible in the shade and under artificial light. I love the effect. <3

I used three coats for these pictures and a coat of Seche Vite. (Do excuse the tipwear, but I wore this for a couple of days in the hopes that I'd finally get some sunlight. Which I did, so yay!) The formula was nice, if a bit on the thin and sheer side. This kind of finish is definitely very forgiving of any polishing mistakes, which I totally love.

And, as if I needed any other reason to love this polish, it reminds me of U2's ZOOTV tour in the 90's. It looks like someone threw The Fly's, The Mirrorball Man's and Mr. MacPhisto's suits into a pot, melted them and this is what they ended up with. Would explain why it's called Alter Ego. Heh.

Here, have some awesomeness:

:D

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