Tuesday 30 November 2010

Comparison Catrice It Blue My Mind! vs. O.P.I. Yoga-ta Get This Blue!

Hey everyone! How are you? I'm glad you're enjoying my comparisons, I'm having great fun making them. :) I'm sorry for the lack of response in the comment section, I promise, I'll answer today or tomorrow. I always feel bad if I don't answer them soon, because I fear you'll think I don't appreciate them - I really do, I love your comments! This entry will be short, I'm in a hurry, but I wanted to show it to you. Colorfulbottle said she's interested in just how close those two get and so was I so I said ok, let's do it. Even though it's obvious from the bottles, they're not the same. So it's not seeking dupes, it's more like comparing two colours, to see how different they are. 





Things they have in common: they're blue and they are shimmery. And that means big fat NADA in nail-polish world. ;) In my book they are two completely different colours. I mean, colour 'blue' is ... I can think of gazillion different shades (and polishes, for that matter) that are blue, but completely different. Yes, they are both on the dark side, Catrice being brighter, and although it seems they have the same shade of shimmer, looking at the bottles you can see Yoga-ta Get This Blue's shimmer is almost teal, while It Blue My Mind! has a bright shimmer, I also see purple shimmer in there. 
They are both two coaters, both have flat brush that I love, and neither is staining, so yay! 

Both gorgeous, both a must have. :) Man, this is coming from someone, that disliked blue polish a few months ago. Can we all chuckle and shake our heads in disbelief together? Good!

Thank you for reading!

Monday 29 November 2010

Comparison: Orly Out Of This World vs. Zoya Julieanne

Hey everybody! How are you? Hope you had a nice start of the week. I nearly lost my toes it the cold. It's soooo cold!! I have a few minutes before I have to run to my dancing classes, so I'll show you another comparison with Orly's Cosmic FX polish. I've already showed you Out Of This World and I didn't even know it has an existing dupe out there - everyone was talking about Halley's Comet trio and Space Cadet vs. Mean & Green, it just slipped off my radar. So I was quite surprised to see the bottle of Julieanne in our Lativa box, looking identical to Out Of This World. I gave it a go and here is the result. 






Silly picture, I know, I wanted to hold both bottles and Orly is just too huge. :D But you can really see the base colour on the first two and duochrome effect on the last two fingures (from L to R).

It's very obvious they are 100% dupes. The only difference I noticed is, Zoya is more opaque after second coat but doesn't really mean anything because I still needed the third one, as with Orly. I like both  brushes, both were easy to apply. I think Zoya dries faster than Orly, I'm not really satisfied with Orly's drying time. Most of the time I'm using Seche Vite on top, but with comparisons I don't so I notice that kind of things too. 

All in all it's up to your preference of the brand or brush, if you will. And I think Orly's price has gone insanely high, maybe Julieanne is cheaper. But the same colours, yes. 

Which brand do you like more, Zoya or Orly?

Thanks for reading!

Sunday 28 November 2010

Comparison: SpaRitual Optical Illusion vs. Orly It's Not Rocket Science

Hey again. I'll post one of the comparisons today anyway. Before I do that, I want to tell you we're done with our poll polishes! I forgot to mention that in previous post. Teal Glitter and Regal remained, but both got 0 votes, Regal went to north Europe for higher purposes and I felt like wearing other Project Lativa polishes before Teal, so I guess you were right. ;) I'll wear it later on. Thank you for helping me out, now it's easier to figure out the rest of polish order. I'll probably do Bermuda Breakway and Sinful with Midnight Blue Glitter, since those two have been getting love from you, and I'm not sure, whether to start trying out the Kinetics I have or SpaRituals? What would you prefer? I have 5 SpaRituals left (not including Days Of Wine And Roses and Optical Illusion) and 3 Kinetics ... well, it's not too big of a number, I'll see what I'm feeling like wearing. :) But to the comparison!

It's Optical Illusion from SpaRitual's Kaleidoscope Collection from this years spring and It's Not Rocket Science from this years Orly's Cosmic FX Collection and they're known to be dupes of each other. So I was a bit surprised when I applied them on my nails and realized, they're are not really. Not 100%. 




 As you can see, OI is a few shades darker and it also doesn't have so much glitter as INRS.

 What it does have is intenser duochrome effect that the bottles are promising. 

 Another one with duochrome effect.


 A bad close-up, I know, still, it shows the darker side of SpaRitual and more obvious duochrome.

The sparkle check photo.

I don't know about you but in my book they are not dupes. Are very close and very similar, but not 100% dupes. SpaRitual Optical Illusion is darker, and the duochrome effect tends to show every once in a million, with It's Not Rocket Science it doesn't show at all. Not that it does often with Optical Illusion, I think it would be safest to say duochrome is not visible on the nails, unless you're really lucky and hit the perfect combination of angle, lighting and good will of the polish. 
Both were 4 coats, especially Optical Illusion gave me hard time with eveness of the polish. Orly was just sheer. Both dried kinda slow, Orly even smudged a bit on my pinky. The brush prize goes to Orly, but all in all I prefer the Optical Illusion look. Although it's not my colour at all. To mustard-yellowish-goldish like. 

What do you think? Are they dupes in your dictionary? 

Thanks for reading!

NOTD O.P.I. Yoga-ta Get This Blue!

Hey everybody! How are you doing? I'm turning into potato woman slowly, I'm drinking tea, eating ginger bread and watching snow falling through the window. It's beautiful outside, I'm telling you. We had a very heavy car accident yesterday in Slovenia, 34 cars collided, it looks ... horrible is not a word strong enough for it. I hope everybody will be ok and I'm sending all my positive thoughts to those families who lost a loved one in the accident. 
Wow, grim thoughts on a nail-polish blog, forgive me. I'm in the mood for showing you my NOTD. I have two comparisons waiting to be posted, but what the hell. I was so unsatisfied with my photos  of this OPI, I did a second row of photo shooting. It's not that simple to photograph this baby, yet it's a beautiful colour. Sadly the duochorome effect that seems to be there in the bottle doesn't show on the nails one bit, but don't mind that - the shade of this blue is just stunning. And I feel I must apologize for my cuticle state. The cold is getting to my nails too, although I'm giving them all the attention they need. I think they'll need a couple of days to adjust to the change of temperature - we had a very warm Autumn and now it's freezing all of the sudden, skin on my face is collapsing too, you should be thankful right now I don't do face make-up photos on the blog too. ;) 






Don't ask me why I like to put out so many pictures of one polish, I don't know. I like different angles and sometimes you need to see it from many angles and on different lighting to capture all the looks of a polish. But Yoga-ta Get This Blue isn't one of them, it's beautful in one way. :D Gorgeous dark blue, that never goes black (except in darkness, I suppose ;)), with gorgeous blue shimmer, it's a stunner, I tell you. I saw it on Mina's blog, fell in love with it and realized: heeey, I have this one in one of the boxes! So here it is, I absolutely adore it.
Wonderful colour, from O.P.I. 2008 Spring Collection called India, is a Big 3 Free, but already the perfect OPI formula I love. It's a co-collectioner (man, what have i invented now? Sorry, english language :*) with Rojal Rajah Ruby, so two stunners in one collection. I know most of reds from India Collection are insanely worshiped in our neck of the woods, but these two are the pure perfection O.P.I. can reach.
I'm thinking of doing comparison with Catrice It Blue My Mind, but I don't think they're close, what do you think?

Hope you're having a nice Sunday & thank you for reading!

Saturday 27 November 2010

O.P.I. Midnight Blue Glitter (+ layering)

Hey guys. How are you? I'm weird, just came home from shopping with my mom and it's so crowded in the stores one would think they're giving something away for free. I don't like crowded places (unless it's a concert). I hope you had a good Saturday! I'm still deciding if I'll go out this evening, and until I do I can show you another poll polish, it's O.P.I. Midnight Blue Glitter. From what I've found, it's a part of 2004 Tuxedo Collection in only four colours, all of them pretty boring, with the exception of Midnight Blue Glitter. You have Black Onyx, black creme, Alpine Snow, white creme, and Black Satin, black with gray silver, that looks horrible on the swatches. And now to the explanation of my swatches. 

On the swatches you'll have just Midnight Blue Glitter only on my ring finger. In 6 - yes,  SIX - coats. And I should totally pile on the seventh and perhaps even the eight coat to make it opaque. The moment I saw just how sheer this acutally is I thought: layer it, or go insane. So I decided I'll do some layering on different base, because, lets face it, I'm crazy enough already. 
I used Kinetics Sinful on my index finger, and this is just 1 coat, guys!! Awesome dark, really dark blue colour, extremely well pigmented, it surprised me loads, awesome polish. One coat of Midnight Blue Glitter on top.
On the middle finger we have two coats of SpaRitual Mood, and one coat of M. B. G. On ring finger 6 coats of M.B.G. On my little finger 4 coats of Orly Cut The Cake (I don't know what was I thinking with this one ...) and 2 coats of Midnight Blue Glitter. On my thumb we have China Glaze Bermuda Breakaway in 2 coats and one coat of M.B.G. I'm just writing this down because of different number of coats of polish, I put the names on some pictures too. You'll see I hardly managed to focus all the nails on one picture, so that's why more pictures, to focus the colour combination at least on one picture per nail.

 Heavy on the writing, I know, you can really see the beauty of Kinetics+OPI here.


 Without the thumb, so I could focus the camera on all four.

 This one is already on the blurry side, but I think it really shows that Mood + MBG is a decent 3 coats substitution for 6 coats of MBG alone. Actually better, since it's more opaque.

 Blurry one, to show you how sparkly this actually is. Gorgeous blue glitter!

 You'll need to enlarge this one for better to see the blue specks of glitter. It's insanely good.

 Here Kinetics really takes the prize, don't you think?

 Finally a good shot of Bermuda Breakaway + MBG. 

Saved the best for last, as usual. They are all well focused and when picture is enlarged, you can see the details of all the combinations.

I think I already made it obvious that Kinetics Sinful + O.P.I. Midnight Blue Glitter is a win combination IMO. With SpaRitual Mood and MBG you can really get close to Midnight Blue Glitter by itself. Alone, this polish needs at least 6 coats - I did 6 with my minimum of covering, you can see from the pictures, it would need at least one or two more to be 100% - and that is, in my opinion just waaaaay too much. 
Mood is silver and the base colour on MBG is obviously silver, so I think any kind silver polish will do - at leas this shade of it. I'm thinking it would look exactly the same over Brand New Skates by OPI. I must try that one too! 
Bermuda Breakaway makes a cute combination, I acutally liked it, although I don't like BB much. 
And I'm desperately trying to save Cut the Cake, but no matter what I do, it still remains this sheer, white ugly little thing that I can't wear at all. Besides, it needs 4 coats to be at least kinda opaque, and with two of MBG I got 6 coats on my nails. Again. 

Removing of this one was easy for one reason only - I had 6 coats of little silver glitter mixed with larger blue one on only one nail. I'd probably go insane if I had done entire manicure like that. And run out of  the nail-polish, probably. That would be 60 coats for just one manicure. Dude! 
Otherwise with layering the polish isn't troublesome. You have to be more careful if you don't want to get glitter all over your hands, but nothing major. 

I think this is just about it. How do you like it? What combination is your favourite? Or would you rather wear Midnight Blue Glitter by itself and maybe only 3-4 coats, making it on more sheer but easier to work with?

Thanks for reading!

Friday 26 November 2010

Nubar - Indigo Illusion

Hey dears! How are you? Oh man, it's snowing in Ljubljana like there's no tomorrow! It's been snowing really dense and without stopping for like 4 hours or so and it doesn't seem to cease. It looks bea-utiful, but it's not really pleasant to be outside, I nearly froze outside. But on to the nail polish! I have another poll polish for you, THE Nubar, Indigo Illusion. First pictures, then talk. This post will be a bit of a picture-overload, because Indigo Illusion changes under different angles.



 The upper two pictures show this polish as it looks most of the time.

 Oh, is that a bit of green I see??

 It is, it is!!

 This is the best part of Indigo Illusion. But here's the thing - I only saw the green colour coming out in lighbox, at a certain angle.

 Same position of nails, different angle of lighting, you can see it changes dramatically.


 If this is how the polish would look most of the time, I'd be one happy hobbit. Alas, no.

 Direct sunlight.

Natural light, in shade.

Loads of pictures, and yes, this is all one nail-polish. Pretty cool, eh? Here's the thing. I worshiped Indigo Illusion on swatches, I have it on my top *number* WL since the moment I saw it. So when I put it on the nails, I was really excited. It was my lemming for months! And then ... I think this thing happened, when you want something so badly, you kinda feel like something's missing when you finally get it. I don't like Indigo Illusion on my nails. Most of the time it has this bluish base colour with pink shimmer. Pink! I almost said yuck when looking at my nails. It doesn't fit my skin-tone one bit and although it does have it's moments in some lighting and angles, the best, brilliant green tone doesn't get through on normal lighting, I saw it only in lightbox. I acutally had it on two times. The first was because Tevta asked me if I could give her the nail-polish and do the swatches sooner, I did it by night, so I took lightbox shots. I told her how disappointed I am and she said I have to see it on sunlight, to be sure I don't like it. So on one sunny day I put it on again. And saw the green shade doesn't come out on sunlight. On sunlight, as you can see, it looks bluish-silverish with almost frosty finish. :( I don't know. If I can be melodramatic, this nail polish almost broke my heart. Not only it didn't meet my expectations, I don't like it at all. I mean, I think the play of colours is amazing. Just wrong colours, I guess. Maybe I'll have more luck with Stardust.

Otherwise a very well behaved nail polish, brush is a bliss, application not a problem. This is two coats on both manicures, I think, maybe I did three on one, just to be sure it was even, but I'm not sure I did. 


What do you think about Indigo Illusion? 

Thanks for reading!


PS: I know I'm behind my commeting the comments, I'll get on to that right away, lack of time, guys, sorry! 

Thursday 25 November 2010

China Glaze - Blk-bila-bong with comparison Jordana - Supernatural & O.P.I. - Unripened

Uh, long title. Hey darlings! How are you doing? Here in Ljubljana is cooooold! We're expecting snow tomorrow. While I love watching the snow from the inside and having snowball fights, I don't like the cold biting my butt and icy ground, not good for heels. ;) And OMG, thank you for following my blog, have I ever mentioned how grateful I am every time I see GFC numbers? It's a total surpise, guys, thanks again, you're spoiling me! And don't worry, I'll spoil you too. ;) 
But now I want to show you my NOTD and the comparison and tell the story behind it. Yesterday I saw how big the tip wear on DS glamour got and decided I'll change the mani. I know, what a heresy! I did another poll nail polish, Indigo Illusion and ... more about that with my next post, I removed it and didn't feel any nail polish. OMG! So I went to the shoeboxes and just randomly took bottles out and finally Blk-bila-bong spoke to me. But apperantly the universe was so mad at me for removing DS glamour, Blk-Bila-Bong chipped after mere hours! DS glamour doesn't get removed, it removes itself. Or something. ;) I was so mad, because I dislike tip-wear, but really hate chipped nail polish, I decided to do the comparison that I've planned when applying BBB. So here it is, a bit pic heavy post due to NOTD pictures and VS. pictures, but I hope you won't mind. 

 On direct sunlight.

Blurry, so the sparkles come out.

Inside shot. 

Blk-Bila-Bong is an oldie, from 2007 Surf Summer China Glaze Collection and is not Big 3 Free, which is noticable in the smell of the polish and the application. I didn't like the application much, the polish is too runny and it's a PITA to make it even. This would be a two coater by pigmentation, but you just can't do it evenly, so I  had to apply the third coat. 

I like how Blk-bila-bong still keeps the blue glitter visible even in bad lighting (like right now when I'm typing away this entry), and it looks totally cool on the sunlight. It's really a cool shade, I love it. What I don't like is that it chipped so freakshly soon and the tip wear is horrible. I'll probably remove it today if I'll have the time, or tomorrow, otherwise I'll go insane. 

But when I applied it, it reminded me so much of Jordana's Supernatural and of O.P.I.'s Unripened, I knew I'll have to do a comparison. After the chipped index finger, I did it only hours after the application, so there you have it, after the click. :) 

Wednesday 24 November 2010

O.P.I. DS glamour

Hello darlings! How are you on this sunny yet cold day? It's beautiful outside! I haven't slept in a week, but I don't care, that beautiful! You've been very hardworking, I see, I still haven't checked all the entries on my blogroll since the weekend, and yesterday, as it seems, 50 new ones piled on. :D Don't get me wrong, I love reading and looking at your swatches, so bring it on! Yesterday I passed the last exam from previous year, a real PITA because of boring contents, I'm so happy I passed (not with the bad note either!) and now have a clear year to focus on. And we went to the cinema, new Harry Potter is out and I'm a fantasy fan, like you already know and I was really excited about it. I'm not really impressed by the movies about Harry, but I heard this one is pretty good, and I'm glad to say it's true, I acutally liked it. Some parts I'd do a bit differently, but hey, we probably all would. All in all it seems like it's going to be a hell of an ending,and I'm glad, because I love the Harry Potter books. :)

Anyway, I went with DS glamour and drooled half of the time looking at my nails, it's so freaking gorgeous! I was a bit surprised to see a little more tip wear than usually today (on the second day), but I think that's due to my hastiness yesterday. I took a few shots today on the sun, because, as you know, DSs look awesome anytime, but on the sun they're just breath-taking. So here it is, DS glamour with Wanda and on the sunlight.






Isn't it just amazing? On the sun the holo effect is so intense it acutally kills the base colour, it's not that obvious as it is when the effect is softer, like with Wanda. It's trully one of the best out there. It's my first blue polish I tried, before I was strict anti-blue nail polish person, since I'm not too fond of blue colour (except in the nature), I don't wear it at all. But glamour was a pure perfection, I had to have it. Really awesome. 

My planned blog entries are piling up, so stay tuned, lots of stuff to show you! :)

Thanks for reading!

Monday 22 November 2010

O.P.I. DS tapestry

Hey everyone! Hope you had a nice beginning of the week, it was sunny sunny Monday here and I loved it. :) Our girls weekend was awesome, I had tons of fun and was actually sad yesterday when we got home. I've seen the ocean and I absolutely adore the sea, I laughed for a couple of years of a normal person and acutally weren't hangoverish at all. It was great! Although my nails and cuticles probably don't agree, I had to shorten my nails because they started to break and my cuticles are not in their best shape, so bear with me with these photographs. Next on our poll it's DS tapestry, one of my favourite O.P.I., which is an enigma, because it's orange. I'm not an orange polish person, but this one I adore. Luckily I was at home today so I managed to do some sunlight shots, because I'm telling you, tapestry is beautiful on every kind of lighting, but simply stunning on direct sunlight. Photos will be a mix of sunlight and lightbox (let's call it Wanda, what do you say?). 



 Upper three Wanda, you can see the gorgeous base colour and holo play.



Kaboom! Totally awesome on the sun, the last one is superblurry because it's the only way I can show you the awesome sparkleness of the polish.

I adore DS tapestry, adoooore it!! It's probably one of the rare shades of orange I can wear all the time, it's not too in your face and the holografic finish is to die for. And all the tiny sparkles!!! Freakishly love it, I can't stop looking at my nails. 
Like usual with DS's tapestry is a bliss to apply, two coater, extremly fast drying, I'm not even wearing Seche vite, that fast! So yeah, a really great polish.

What do you think about tapestry? And what's on your nails today? :)

Thanks for reading, have a great week!