SpaRitual - Epicurean

So, today I wanted to do a special "Barcelona is the winner" mani, but then I realized I suck at nail art and don't have time for full scotch tape mani. Oh well. Either way, Barca won yesterday, wiii! Since I can't do a nice nail art mani, I can at least show you my Barcelona scarf. 

I bought it on Camp Nou, when I visited Barcelona. :) It was an awesome trip, I always wanted to go there, I even saw the team practice. That was back in the days of Rijkaard and Ronaldihno, but I have to say, I'm loving the team nowadays so much more, the whole bunch, Pep, Leo, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi ... they have an awesome energy and their play is just beautiful. Oh, and before I forget: this is how my nails would look like if I could pull it off. It's a work from a new-to-me blogger called Uńas de Colores, and she does magic on her nails, I love it, but especially this Barca mani!! Gorgeous, I really admire what some of you can do on your nails!

Anyway! Here's another one from our Project Latvia box. Man, that was a long time ago. This is SpaRitual Epicurean, and it's my second favourite from Sparituals I've tried. Nothing can beat Mood.

This is one of the sexy colours for me. It's just sex in a bottle, it's incredibly hot, really rich burgundy red, with the famous glow withing effect, and lets not even mention how it looks on the sun, it just might kill me, so gorgeous. But it's amazing off the sun too, really a great colour. It felt like Nubar Torrid Red when I was wearing it, but Epicurean is more purple. 

Aside from the really gorgeous colour, the Sparitual brush still gives me headache. If you're a regular reader, you know my longer, wider nails don't go well with their brush, that can also be seen on my not so good application. I needed three coats, but I think this is a two coater for those with smaller nails. It dries semi-fast, it can trick you, so be careful, if you're not wearing TC with it. 

Because of colours like this I really hate that I don't go well with Sparitual brush. This colour is amazing, but I hate the brush so much, I would consider twice before buying it. Oh well. You can't have it all. At least the bottle looks really really nice. 

I just can't get sick of colours like that. Can you? Your thoughts on Sparitual brush?

Oh, before I forget. It's back-to-hardcore-studying time, so I'll probably be off for a couple of days/weeks, as before. You know I'm keen to break that rule, but just so I let you know. 

Thank you for reading & have a nice Sunday!

Orly - Lunar Eclipse

Heya guys. How are you doing? I wanted to show you my NOTD, but it's a bit tricky to get the right colour of it even after 50 pictures, so I ran out of time for editing them and I switched back to my already edited pictures. It's a weird day for me. I feel tired, the weather change has been way too fast (yesterday hot and sultry, today cold and rainy) and I've been so clumsy today I just may kill myself by accident. I almost cut off my entire index finger nail, spilled half of bottle of vinegar all over myself and the kitchen (should I mention that the pants were fresh from the closet because I spilled coffee on the previous ones?) and of course I messed up my beautiful mani and had to repair it, which hasn't happened to me in months and I was applying the perfect O.P.I. formula, so yeah ... no comment. I'm a danger to myself and the others today. I hope this clumsiness is transfered by the Karma to me from all the Barcelona footbal players and they won't do any mistakes on the field today thanks to my vinegar. ;) Or am I too self-centered? Hah. 

Anyway, to the nail polish, before I make the computer explode, what do you say?

 This one is extra large. 

I feel like blogger did something bad to the picture program. They just look blurry, and they are not when I'm editing them on my comp! So this is Lunar Eclipse from Orly Cosmic FX collection for Fall 2010. Man, do you remember the hype around them? I was just starting to blog about nail polish and Tevta brought me the entire collection to try out. I got tired of them somewhere on the way, because of the staining (I didn't wear base coat back then) and really tiresome removal. So I did a couple of them, but Lunar Eclipse stayed behind until a few ... days ago, I'd say. Perhaps a week or two, I lose my sense of time when I'm studying. I tried it on just because I was cleaning Tevta's polish and preparing them for the day she'll decide to take them back and I said what the hell, let's try this one, so I have the entire collection covered.

Stupid me. This polish is stunning. It's a close second of the collection for me, right after Space Cadet, or perhaps even in line with it. It's such a gorgeous colour, I cannot even tell you, just look at the pictures and imagine this gorgeous foil finish giving some more sparkles to the look and just ... droolable, really. I put two coats of BC on, just in case, because Cosmic FX caused some serious staining of my nails before. 

This was thee coats and no top coat (SV causes shrinkage on my with this type of polish), I watched a show and had enough time to completely dry it, is was also pretty fast for three coats. Application was flawless, I had no trouble at all, Orly rocks like that. 

The duochrome is more intense than with Out Of This World from this collection, but not as nearly as it is strong with Space Cadet (yikes, rookie swatches). Again, it looks tons better on "natural" light, off direct sunlight, but the blue on the sunlight is stunning too. So a win-win situation. I love polish like this. 

Removal is still a pain, but trust me, it is worth it. This baby is going on my "urgent WL" ASAP. A must have, IMO. As most of the colours in this collection, it has a dupe, it's O.P.I. DS Magic (Scrangie did a comparison, and I'm sure a couple of others too), but I dig the Orly brush and the bottle. I'm not sure which one is cheaper or easier to get though, DSs aren't really cheap either.

What were your thoughts about Cosmic FX? Did you get any of the colours, or dupes of them? Do you care about the duping of colours, does it get on your nerves or do you like the idea of various companies having the same colours, so you can choose your favourite?

Thank you for reading!

Lex Cosmetics with Inner Fire and Illamasqua explanation

Evening darlings! I'm writing this away in Chrome for the first time, because Mozilla went all freakish on my blogger account and I can't log in for some odd reason. I hope it goes away, although I just might shift to Chrome, it works a lot faster, even with other blogs. 

Short intermezzo: Woo-hoo, 600 of you here, welcome everyone! :)) 

In todays post I have a preposition for an awesome polish, that we could have, if only we vote for it. I'm sure you've hear about Lex Cosmetics and how they make your polish if you win the votes? Well, Kris from My Lucid Bubble has IMO the most stunning idea ever - and I've read all the competitors descriptions. She posted her blog post here, and here is a direct link to Lex Cosmetics. Her entry is called Inner Fire and I'm pretty sure you'll be hooked on the idea the second you see the pictures and the description of her polish. So yeah, I encourage you to vote here, it's always a fun deal, and I actually think awesome polish could be made!

The second thing I'd like to talk about today is a complete surprise email that I got from Illamasqua's manager Alex today. Remember how I complained about the service in my big Illamasqua haul post? Well, she read it and actually cared enough to take some of her time and say "hey, here's a grumpy customer, lets explain the deal to her". How awesome is that? Seriously, now, people, how many brands that care about their customers so much they'd write an email with explanation do you know? I was so surprised I'd more likely believe I've won the lottery when I started reading the email. It is a great feeling, to know that someone there actually read what I said and wanted to offer me an explanation and did that in a friendly manner, no official rudness or coldness. I didn't think it possible, but I think I love Illamasqua even more now. And here is the explanation, I think it's well deserved to be published, since it shows entire different view on the matter.

/.../ I came across your blog post on our sampling procedure and I thought I would take the time out to explain a little bit more on why this is. 

Basically, we are a young and independent beauty brand and privately owned - the only make-up brand in Selfridges that is privately owned! - and therefore our budget allowances are not as great as some of the bigger companies. 

Before I worked for Illamasqua [I have been here 2.5 years now] I too used to be frustrated by non - sampling brands. However, since joining the company I have realised why this has been the case thus far for Illamasqua. The company is only 2.5 years old and the budgets we had have been used to establish us in a very competitive industry. To create samples, there are several requisites of the supplier that would create these for us. Firstly, a minimum order quantity would be very significant [think tens of thousands], and we just don't have the physical outlets to be able to deploy them all within the best before dates. 

Secondly, we would only be able to do a few shades as the cost is very high and thus we would frustrate those who couldn't get the samples in their preferred shade. 

Good news, though! We have a new foundation launch coming up at the end of June [the first foundation we have launched outside of our core collection] called Skin Base and we have had samples made of every shade, so from June onwards your local counter and online will have these :-)

I of course thank you very much for your support of Illamasqua - it's people like you that love and rave about our products that inspire us to keep making them :-)

Best regards

Alex Cummins

Junior Brand Manager

***

I don't know about you, but I never really thought about it like that! So, Alex, again, thank you so much for pointing these things out for me, and to all of you, darlings, I can now for sure say, Illamasqua really cares. :)

Thank you for reading!

Towel Day!

Yep, it's May 25th, and that means towel day! For all of you who don't know who Douglas Adams and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy are, although I doubt there are many, here's the Wiki explanaton of Towel Day, so I shan't be long with explanation. I'm off to prepare myself for a night of beer (at least 4 large ones, to relax your muscles), peanuts and I have to choose my favourite towel before that, you know, just in case some Vogons decide to blow up this lil' old planet of ours. 

Of course I need to do this nail polish related! Imagine the situation: Ford just informed you the Earth was about to be destroyed, he's making you drink huge amounts of beer and grabbing peanuts as he explains the situation, and you think: holy cow, the Earth is going bye bye, is there nail polish on other planets?? And just in case there isn't any, you run home and go to 1 shelf/helmer/box and grab 5 bottles, that you just have to take. 1 object of stashing your polish, because you don't have time to go through them all, and you don't have as nearly enough time to try your untrieds, Vogons are already reading the memo to all the Earthlings! Now, which 5 would you take? :)

I didn't cheat, I went only to one place in the house (I keep polish in two) and choose one shelf of polish and this is what I chose: O.P.I. DS Glamour, China Glaze Watermelon Rind, Illamasqua Rampage, Nfu Oh 56 and Zoya Suvi.

Your turn! Don't forget your towels today, darlings, and remember: 

source: kristin-briana.blogspot.com

Depend red crackle (5004) + accent play with blue one

I hate the title, but I can't come up with a better one. I'm tired (which is also noticable by all the grammar mistakes and typos I've already discovered after publishing the post, I apologize if I didn't correct some, I just can't seem to see them :S), I had two exams today, but it went well, so yay me!! When I got home a package of polish awaited me aaaand the package was so perfect I can't even describe it! I'll tell more about it some other time, because I decided I'll do a themed Zoya post, but I know this for sure: I have *the* best swapping buddy ever! Thanks, Kris!! So a great day, I'd say. :) Right now I have some time and decided I'll show you another Depend crackle. It's the red one, and it's not the combination I suspect will be perfect for the red combination, but Essence Forget-me-not seemed like a good candidate too. 

See how the crackle dragged the Essence so the bold spots showed up? I applied the crackle after a day of wearing Essence, so I'm absolutely sure it was dry! It's weird though. Perhaps because I didn't have any TC in between? Well, anyway ... what do you think about the combination? I'm not entirely sure about it. I prefer it with blue one, that's on my ring finger. But it doesn't look too bad with the red one too. I must try my ultimate combination with this one! I hope it will be as awesome as I think it will be. :D

This was of course one coat of Depend red crackle and I've already talked about how much I love Depend crackles. They crack perfectly and apply great. I didn't use any top coat.

What's you favourite crackle combination?

Thank you for reading!

The Holy Trinity of Illamasqua

Hey guys. Remember me telling you I buy too much polish lately? Well, today I killed two major, *major*, no really gigantic lemmings of mine and I just have to share it with you, I'm so utterly excited about it. When I did an Illamasqua week (most of them being Tevta's) I mentioned the Holy Trinity of Illamasqua for me. Rampage, Phallic and Hectic. The ones I can get of Illamasqua and never buy another Illamasqua polish and be happy about it. A couple of days ago a friend of mine went to London. When asked if I wanted anything I resisted and said nothing, because I spent a disturbing amount of money on polish this month. But Tevta broke my no-buy pretence and I'm so happy she did. These are mine now:

Rampage of course being fairly used, I got it for my bday last year.

*faints*

This is insanely awesome!! I still have 7 Illamasquas on my WL but I feel like my hunt in their nail polish department is done. Now I switch to their lipstick/gloss and eyeshadows department, I think. 

Saying all that, being incredibly excited and happy about this purchase, I must say I'm a bit disappointed in Illamasqua's service in London. When I read about them on blogs that get their products into review you get to see this amazing packages that really suit Illamasquas style and price, for that matter. In the actual store you don't even get a tester. I'm sorry, are you telling me Illamasqua as a very expensive brand does not put testers into your bag after spending 70 pounds there only on nail polish? That would be one heck of a surprise. At least the bag is actual Illamasqua bag (that tore in a few days, but still), when T. was there last year she got the regular plastic one. 

Perhaps you think I'm picky and bitchy with the details. But I demand, as a customer, for this amount of money that they claim it's justified to spend in their store, the whole package! Yes, quality, yes, high end package, and yes, 100% service, bags and little gifts included. If we get that in Slovenia for our insane prices and stingy service and choice, don't tell me Illamasqua can't pull it off.

I'm thinking some of you are saying 'then don't buy there' - if it was any crappy brand, I would agree. But I love Illamasqua. I love the products and the 'alter ego' motto. Therefore this is a critism for a brand I love and would like to say these things as a constructive critisim, it's not a brand I'd ever want to just say 'f*ck off' to and forget about it. 

Not that my opinion matters much to them, but I needed to say this somewhere, and hey, it's my blog. :)

Bottom line still is: Illamasqua rocks my world, two lemmings down and tamed, baby!

What do you think about Illamasqua, are you on board with whole love for them? Did you shop in their shop or just ordered products online? What was your latest lemming killed?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Forget-me-not

Evening people! I feel like writing another one. I got some great news today about my first exam, and the really terrible headache that has been troubling me the entire day finally went away so I'm in a good mood but tired and typing seems like a rational thing to do when in this state of mind. :) 

Lately, when it comes to nail polish, I switched to fift gear. I think I should stop pretending I'm on a no-buy. I have a good excuse for every bottle I bought, but come on. Today I found the old version of Catrice Back To Black and bought one. My first back up bottle, lol. I think this one is acutally justified, as I use it for base colour, combination colour and it's perfect for scotch tape tries. So I use it a lot. Plus the new version is this greyish silver thing, not black at all, and since it's one of my favourite blacks ever ... you know. I had to. ;) 

But not just buying. I've been changing my mani every day now and my nails are starting to complain a bit. I should stop, before the polish remover does some damage on them, but even if i worship the colour I have on my nails, afternoon comes and I'm back in my nail polish corner, going through my untrieds box. Maybe I got infected with All Lacquered Up 365 of untrieds challenge (which is, btw, fabulous reading, really a fun challenge IMO), I'm wearing my untrieds only lately - that's why my ATM box isn't changing, not because I'm too lazy to change it, I actually have only First Timers on. :) Well, except a love in an Essie bottle I've already forgotten all about and that made me think about my next purchase in Essie department. So yeah, I have loads to show you! I've also killed two lemmings in this time, big ones too, yay for me! :)

Ok, how about I get to the Essence? I'm sure you've all seen it, it's from one of their latest LE called Blossoms Etc. and this one made me fall in love with Essence. Pictures.

 Natural, grey stormy weather.

Very very soft lightning.

Only three pictures not because I wouldn't like the mani or pictures, for some odd reason I didn't do any angles with this one, only these three different lightnings but the position of my hand is the same on all so it was pointless for me to show you two 99% the same ones.

I got convinced to buy this one from the great swatches I saw, otherwise the promo pictures didn't look at all promising to me and I just thought I'll skip the entire collection. Now I have blue and yellow at home and I'm thinking I really should buy the green one too when I had the chance... I was on the fence with it since it looked kinda minty, go figure, right? I *so* do not regret buying this one. Forget-me-not is a two coater even for my long nails! Two coats, I really cherish that in a polish, since I'm most of the time on three coats even with otherwise stated as two coaters. The brush is ... oh dude, the brush is perfect! If Essence changed all their lines and put this brush as the main one it would be totally awesome. It hugs the entire nail and the polish spreads on nail like it knows where exactly to land. No troubles with this one. It dries really fast, you don't need a TC with it. 

I didn't think much of Essence in the beginning of my nail polish obsession, but with the awesome new colours in the permanent collection and with a few great colours in the LEs lately, I'm defintiively correcting my impression about them. Especially since the brush in Color&Go line is also a total win. They have great prices, which on our market is an exception. The only thing that bothers me with Essence now is the urge to make most of their collections highly limited. I know it's a good marketing trick, but one gets tired of it. 

Ok, I hope you're still with me, it's a long one today, I feel chatty, I guess. Tell me, how are you lately with nails and nail polish? I feel a lot of cooling down around the blogsphere, are you still the same fanatic, or are you taking a lil' break? How many untrieds do you have? You can tell me, I won't tell. ;) And do share your thoughts about Essence. :)

Thank you for reading!

Brucci - Black Emerald

Heya guys! I've just had a very big exam today and I feel like I've been hit by a bus. Therefore I've already made a comparison and changed my mani and decided I'll type this entry away! I go back to the books tomorrow, today I'm taking a day off! 

I've read the blogger went all nuts a few days ago, and I noticed a couple of comments were deleted in my previous posts, and weren't restored - I've read them and I thank you for them now here, since I appearantly won't be able to answer them. 

Today I have for you a mani I did a while ago. It is the most anticipated Brucci from the swap box and boy it didn't disappoint. Black Emerald is *stunning*. Pictures were at first taken in really bad weather, rainy and such, but the next day the sun came out, so also sunlight pictures and "natural inside bright room light" picture with a tipwear. :)

 Natural everyday light, inside. 

 See the duochrome play, see it, see it?? 

It's also very sparkly on the sunlight.

This is three coats, as I needed to even it out. Come to think of it ... no wonder I had to, my nails are HUGE on these pictures. Man, I get so lazy with the filing ... one day I'll just cut them off completely, it's not like I have an hour to shorten them anyway. 

But to the polish - it's completely awesome, don't you think? When I took these pictures I kept thinking why Black Emerald, when in fact the duochrome colours are dark brown and emerald, but the next day I saw that in most light brown really looks black, and you get this *stunning* blackened emerald colour, that is simply do die for. I kept playing with my nails for the colours to shift, although I wouldn't mind them being green all the time, just look at that colour, so gorgeous!

I had no troubles with the polish or the brush. Brucci rocks! So does Kris from My Lucid Bubble for sending me this one!

What do you think? Is there anyone out there that acutally doesn't like duochrome? Don't be shy, lets hear it! :) Bloggers, ever look at your pictures of older manis and think "damn, what's wrong with my nail lenght on this one"? :)

Thank you for reading!

Breaking the rules

Heeey darlings! I miss you just so effing much I'm breaking my own rules and typing this away to say 'hi'. Welcome, new people, and thank you all for such lovely comments you've been sending me, I love reading them, they really make my day. I honestly didn't think I'd miss blogging so much. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have great fun blogging, reading other blogs, interacting with you lovely people, but that I'll miss it this much? I didn't think I would. 

I'm still very diligently taking pictures of my manis, of course buying polish (although I'm still officially on no-buy, hah) and just thinking about what I'll write on the blog once I'll have the time. I already have two themes, one is already promised Eveline Holografic Shine week, the other, thanks to my wonderful nail polish guru Tevta that bought me the polish on her trip to Italy, a Kiko week. Preview pics!

With Kikos I'm making some comparisons too and the white one seems like a very good substitute for competely sold out White Cap that I crave. :) Yay! 

Oh, just to let you know - new Essence and Catrice polishes will be down to a minimum here at DSSNP. Why? Not because I wouldn't want them, because some colours just effing ROCK, but because I'm, like mentioned before, supposedly on a no-buy deal with myself ... no-buy deal kinda looks like the new Kikos I got, 4 packages I'm currently expecting, around 5 polishes bought on my way home in the last two weeks and one third of my stash still untried. So not really a no-buy deal, wouldn't you say? Well, unless you're like me in a very strong denial and don't count swapping as buying nail polish. Because I buy it for someone else, right? Right? Right?? AND every nail polish junkie knows that you just *have* to buy LE polish, if you like the colour. Because it's LE, it won't be there anymore few months later! *sigh* There is no end for me. I'm getting the dragon laying on its heap of polish mental picture here again ..:)

Seriously though, the only thing that bugs me (because I love swapping and buying nail polish, so I don't really have a bad conscience here, I just pretend to have it) is my heap of untrieds. That I'd really like to go through by the end of study period. Right now I'm changing colours almost every day, it's such a nice break from studying, polish remover fumes mixed with B3F fumes, aaah ... 

So as you can see, I'm alive, studying as much as I can and totally not forgetting about nail polish or you! And here is a manicure for Nail crazy, because she made me smile on a very bad day with her comment saying she's missing my nails. :) Picture holds a certain milestone for me too - I wore yellow for the first time. And I effing loved it. Yellow is on!

Essence Yellow Fellow with p2 Black Explosion crackle. Is it just me or something is wrong with blogger pics? It looks sharp on my computer, but here it's somewhat blurry ...

 Untill next time, keep your fingers crossed for me, big exams next week!

*muah*

China Glaze - Sea Spray with accent scotch tape and CND effect

Wow, very unooriginal title. Yay me. It's still a bit early for me, I guess. You know, I study by night, sleep until not very decent hours ... guys, you can probably tell, my time for blogging is getting more limited than I thought. If I all of the sudden don't write anymore, don't think I've stopped blogging, I just got so busy with my exams, I cut the blog completely, as it does take time. I'm thinking Ivana*, our pink lady, did the right thing about it, taking a break for studies, I feel I should do the same. And maybe I'll just have to. I love blogging, but I have to pass my exams too. :S Anyway! Just to let you know. :)

Today I have the already famous and seen a gazillion times China Glaze - Sea Spray. I feel like Ahoy! has stolen his moment of fame, but still it's a gorgeous colour. My Anchors Away order got very streched due to the always sold out Crackle Glaze, but at least I'm showing them now, when all the hype is over. ;)

The first step, and how very wrong I was to hope any of the Anchors Away will be dupes for my beloveth Depend 170. :)

Later on I put CND Effect Sapphire Sparkle on, one coat.

I'm doing all this in old Blogger, so if there are any unexpected changes, it's due to that. I'm really starting to hate blogger, you know. Picasa is so effing weird, it's supposed to make another album when the older is full, but mine has like 40 pictures in it and it still won't post pictures, and of course nobody in blogger department is doing a damn thing about it, as far as I can see from all the other bloggers, trying to solve it and being pissed off about it. Google really sucks with this ignorance of problems. It's taking even more time from me for blogging when I can least afford it. Stupid program.

Anyway, as you can see, I played with Sea Spray a bit. The tip wear is getting bigger by the picture, since I did wear it alone for a day or two. Then I put the accent finger on, scotch tape try, with Depend 170 and Catrice London's Weather Forecast and then I put CND Sapphire Sparke effect on, although I think it looks better over darker shades.

Two coats of Sea Spray, it doesn't need TC, as it dries really fast, one coat of everything else. I loved this mani, although I think London's Weather Forecast and Depend have too little contrast, you see the difference only if you really look at it. I'm still on the hunt for a dupe of Depend 170 as it's an illegally small bottle of this gorgeous discontinued polish, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! I went through Tevta's helmer with no luck. The closest one was MAC Blue India and that doesn't help me one effing bit, being even more HTF and expensive as hell. :) Besides, Blue India is a tad bit more blue. I have another one in mind, but I'll wait until I get it and compare it.

Ok, now let's hope blogger at least publishes this correctly. Hope you guys liked the mani!

Thank you for reading!