My two ultimate crackle combinations

Crackled-out, are ya? Yeah ... actually I still do a crackle mani if I think it will look good. Then again, when the crackle effect was the most popular this year I didn't really dive in as I thought I will. So perhaps that's why I still use it. 

When I first heard of crackle effect these two combinations were the first to hit me. My favourite colour combination in clothes department too is black and red. That's the combination. So let's see this one first. 

Elf asked me in one of my older posts when will I show any Polish nail polish. Well, since I always like when you give me an idea what to post I dug up my Polish polish swatches, and I have a lot to show you. Also lots of raving to do. These polishes are amazing. 

Virtual by Joko Lady in Red, from collection Vinyl Mania was a perfect red for the base of my red-black crackle mani. From the moment I put on the first coat I knew this will be my favourite red creme in my stash. So bright, so sexy, so bold! That's a red I can wear!! 

It's also so glossy I had troubles picking pictures that don't have half of our garden on my nails. 

The black crackle I use is p2 Black Explosion:

Lady in Red is a beautiful one coater, I did two just because. The pigmentation is amazing. Amazing, seriously amazing brush too, the application is a complete perfection, seriously, why don't I read about worshiping the brand more often? It deserves a lot of love! The colour is amazing, I wanted to have this kind of red since I can remember, sexy, awesome, bright. Love it! I put then one coat of p2 on and I didn't get bored of my mani for whole 8 days - that was also why I did this mani, in thought of my fantasy vacation, I needed it themed and cool enough for a week without any nail polish change. :) Sabbatha, thank you for this one, it's perfect go-to red!

The second combination is a crazier one. Green and purple. I needed a vicious green and China Glaze Tree Hugger seemed perfect for the job (old post on it). I redid the swatches too, so a couple of them here. 

Man, I loved this combination. I needed three coats on Tree Hugger and wasn't too happy about it, but hey, i *adore* this green. One coat of Depend 5005 over it and my poisonous combo was done. I loved it, wore if for a couple of days straight too. I have to do similar one with red crackle. This one was also inspired by Acetone and Old Lacquer, she did a similar one with two amazing polishes. But then again, her combinations are divine.

What's your perfect crackle combination? :)

Thank you for reading!

When Shawn met Ivanka

Another day, another polish. This combination was a complete success, I adored it! I had troubles picking from the wonderful greens Zoya made and then I remembered the sheernes of Ivanka and thought, hey, let's work with that. This is what these two witches conjured up.

FYI, I think it's quite obvious I do not consider calling someone a witch as an insult but rather as a compliment. If you find it insulting, then you're such a muggle. 

Zoya Shawn is from gorgeous Zoya Wonderful Collection for Fall 2010 (the other part was Wicked), with Kelly as her sidekick for me. Shawn is a total winner though. Well, I'm a green freak. 

Ivanka is from the again gorgeous Zoya Sparkle Collection for Summer 2010, the collection that also gave us Charla, but needless to say I think Ivanka is the winner of this collection. I mean, it's probably one of my favourite Zoyas ever. 

The sheernes of Ivanka helps with the murkiness of Shawn, it shows so nicely through the sparkle, making this utterly gorgeous combination. It's also ridiculously easy to make, since both polishes have fantastic formula. Two coats of Shawn, one of Ivanka, no TC needed, you're done! And it's gorgeous, don't you think? 

Thank you for reading!

Misa - Quirky Smile

Heya people! Ever get this feeling, when you get a polish and you love it so much that you simply have to talk about the gorgeousness of it? And all you get from your mother is the roll-eye with 'here she goes again' expression, from your BF a short comment a la "it should be darker" and none of your nail-polish junkie friends are available? Well, honeys, that's why I started the blog and Misa's Quirky Smile is one of those polishes! 

I got it in my latest swap package with Mrs. Awesomness and I can't wait to show it to you. As you probably noticed I'm showing you mostly my older manis, I'm trying to go chronologically, but every once in a while a new one will jump at you. And Quirky Smile is the one I cannot wait to show you! Funny though, I haven't even known it existed until ... I dunno a couple of months ago? I saw it at Alizarine Claws and fell in love with it, put it on my WL and basically forgot about it. My study time, new collections ... you know, too much awesome polish, too little memory. When I got it I just stared at the bottle for a minute. So. Gorgeous. But on the nails ... that's love, I think. Quirky Smile is easily one of my favourite discoveries of this year. Pictures!

Quirky Smile is a part of Misa What I Like About You Collection for Fall 2010. A collection that didn't really made on my WL. Perhaps a couple of colours are buyable to me. But what surprised me is how completely it skipped my radar. I mean, Quirky Smile not on my WL until this spring? Maybe also because, ladies (and gents), this is one of those that pictures just don't do them justice. See how it looks on the photos? Well, imagine it 235 times better on the nails. Especially off direct sunlight. Also, the purple flash is somewhat visible on the nails, if you know how to turn them. But what I adore the most on Quirky Smile is the richness of the teal shimmery colour. It's so rich and heavy, like having melted jewels on your nails. Such an epic win.

The formula. Ah, the Misa formula. How much I missed it. This is the second Misa I own, and I want moar!! I mentioned before, I like my formulas on the runny side, and this one is a bit runny, but still completely managable, actually it makes polishing fun! Completely opaque in two coats, and I rarely get that! There is not a fault on this baby. It's perfect. Not to mention Misa still remains one of my favourites (if not my favourite) when it comes to bottle shape. I love the squareness of it with long cap. 

All in all Quirky Smile reminds me of Toxic Seduction, also by Misa, on my top 5 of all greens I know or own. It's like her teal sister, but the awesomness they bring feels the same. I cannot tell you how much I love this polish. 

Any teal lovers out there? How about Misa lovers? Both? Neither?

Thank you for reading! 

Over 100000 views and Question of the week

Evening! Wow! I just crossed 100.000 views on this little neck of the internet of mine. Thanks guys! I highly appreciate your time you spend here! 

GIFSoup

But what I'm doing right now is trying to start the Question of the week thing I told you about already. I have 15 minutes left of Monday, so why not do it as a Monday thing? I'd like to put this on the sidebar so anyone that drops by can click and chat about the theme. The question is also so we can chat about it, not only answer it. It would be anything and everything, not only nail polish oriented (although it might be the main topic still, since, you know, this is me we're talking about). I hoped I'd update my comment window by now but alas I didn't find the time. So let us try and we'll see how it turns out. What do you think? 

The question of this week is: Do you actually care about one coaters being one coaters or do you still do two out of habit?

The question hit me as I applied a couple practically one coaters lately, but I always did another coat, even though the manicure would be completely fine with only one. I do this because I have this theory that with only one coat of colour polish my nails would be too weak, they would bend too easily. Another part of the theory is that I convinced myself all colours look their best with at least 2 coats. So I'm a total two-or-more-coater. 

How about you? :) And please share your thoughts on the Question of the week thing! 

Thank you all for reading, following and viewing my blog! *muah*

Orange Finger Paints

Hey guys! How are you doing? Lately I'm loving the blogging, can you tell? The list of everything I want to show you was getting insanely long (just combine my nervous habit of changing mani really often during studying to calm my nerves and basically no posting because of the studying), I miss blogging like hell and have absolutely no motivation for studying, although I should be, I have my final exam in the beginning of October and frankly, I'm completely worn out to the point I don't even care about the exam much. It's not really necessary for me to pass it, but it wouldn't hurt to either! 

But tell me, how are you doing? It's been long since we chatted! I actually have an idea of a weekly question or theme instead of my long chatting posts I used to do, simply because I don't have time for them anymore. I noticed the idea on some blogs already, so I pondered if I should make it at all, or did I miss the train with it - I don't wish to come out as a copycat even though it's been weeks since I thought of it. But I love the idea, so maybe I'll start it.  :)

Today I have for you orange Finger Paints. Two, to be exact. First one Outta Sight Orange, second Cordur-Orange. 

You can probably recognize at this point which polish isn't photographed at home, if not, this is the reason why I didn't take any lightbox photos of this one, I normally do when there is so much reflection on my nails. 

This is Outta Sight Orange, from Finger Paints Peace, Love & Color Summer 2011 Collection. The collection has gotten somewhat mixed reactions, even more on the bad side. So far I'm liking it. Outta Sight Orange just might be my favourite. It's bright orange, with a duochrome flash, that I couldn't capture with my camera, but is on the nail, if you know how to look for it. It needs three coats for me, with a slight VNL, but I can live with that. My nails were fairly long at this point, so I suspect short nails would need only two. It dries fast too and has a nice formula!

Now to his Fall brother.

The last one is taken off direct sunlight, too show the other side of it, slight dustiness I'd call it. 

Cordur-Orange is from Finger Paints awesome 2011 Fall collection Fashionista. This is one of my favourite collection for this Fall, and Cordur-Orange the one I wanted the most. Kris was so awesome she found me a bottle and so I got it in one of our last swap packages. Although I adore the colour I dislike the extreme thickness of the formula. I prefer my polishes to be a bit on the runny side, but I don't mind thick formula to some point. Cordur-Orange gets over that point. I had troubles with the application, probably also because of the lenght of my nails. I'll probably thin it the next time I use it. I can assume this is a one coater for short nails, being so pigmented and thick, I used two. It dries extremely glossy, and the colour is gorgeous. I love the colour, really, but the hard application lessened the excitement of an awesome colour for me. Which doesn't happend often. So I defintively need to thin it! 

I love them both, really, I'm big on orange polish this year. Although the hype is slowly handling over the obsession to a teal phase. I suspect it's going to be a strong one.

Any thoughts on oranges? Love them or do you think it's too bright? 

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Chuck and Blair

Hey guys! How about I show you something from the big pile of Essence photos? Have you seen the new fall colours of their line? Boy oh boy! I love them. Plus the brush is fantastic. Until I started with my nail polish addiction I never thought much of Essence polish but now I see just how wrong I was. They're cool, seriously cool. Even though I hate their LE policy. Sure, make everything a part of limited edition so it sells ridiculously fast and people go crazy over it. Thankfully I'm out of that phase. The moment I got out of it and didn't care too much about if I get the LEs or not, I started finding full counters of them, hehe. Still, I wish they'd put the products to their regular line too, some are real gems. 

Another thing that surprised me about Essence is how bitchy they can be to bloggers. I mean, they asked Nihrida to remove the pictures of coming LEs off her blog. Seriously, now, Essence? Nihrida's swatches of your products are so good I actually bought a couple of polishes and eyeshadows just because I saw how awesome they really are on her site (the two of today's post included). Maybe you should be thankful, not bitchy, eh? The attitude totally surprised me. 

But anyway! I won't show nothing new, because ... frankly, most of them are still in my untrieds. *blush* This Twin set is relatively old, but not discontinued and you've all seen it before, I'm sure. Chuck is this amazing blue colour, seriously awesome, his pair is Blair. I had no idea who they are supposed to be, then I read on another blog that they're a pair from a series, I think the title is Gossip Girl? Something with gossip. I don't know. When it comes to series I'm more of a geek, less of a chick. I'd make pairs like Arwen and Aragorn, Starbuck and Anders, Penny and Leonard ...  ;) Still, the colour pair is cool!

I'm not too happy with the photos, but Chuck tends to get too bright in lightbox (see the second photo) so I have to work with what light I had on my porch. My different nail lenght shows I wore Chuck alone once and later on bought Blair and paired them, to see where Essence was going with the combination.

Chuck is amazing. Basically a one coater, I had to do two on my biggest nails. Dries really fast and glossy, brush is awesome. Just ... perfect polish, for 1,89€. Awesome! I adore the colour too. 

Blair is an awesome layering polish, very nice. I think it would look better over black and red though. Still, a cool combination! I had problems with the removal of Blair, even with foil technique. Just a warning, soak the nails a bit longer than usually. 

What do you think of the pair? What would you call your pair and what colours would they be? 

Thank you for reading! 

Long Time No See: O.P.I. Who The Shrek Are You with lime green comparison

Oh, the title is so long. I hate when that happens. Who The Shrek Are You? is probably one of my favourite OPIs ever. I love the green. My BF hates it, but I love it, hehe. I saw the colour on a blog and immediately thought to myself "it's about damn time I wear it again!". Hence the Long Time No See label. As my stash is gettting bigger and bigger I'm starting to forget about the seriously cool and loved colours in it. Sad.

Since it's my kind of green I do have a couple that get close to it too, so I did a quick comparison for ya.

• Index and pinky: O.P.I. Who The Shrek Are You?
• Middle finger: Brucci Stephanie's Go Lime
• Ring finger: Sinful Colors Innocent

As you all know, Who The Shrek Are You? is a part of O.P.I. Shrek Forever After Collection for Spring 2010, but I told you that once more anyway. What you probably don't know is, I'm a big Shrek fan. And that's because of Shrek himself. "Ogres are like onion." I love his grumpy yet loving attitude, you know. And, although it's almost a cliché now not to love clichés, I love the unusual heros in the stories. I hate blond princes who save the so-passive-it's-already-insulting ladies. Well, bond guys were never my type anyway. ;) 

Ok, now that I've gone completely OT on you, how about a few info on polish? Shrek is a three coater for me, I cannot get rid of bold spots otherwise. It's insanely glossy and dries fast.

His cousins are not dupes, as you can see. Stephanie's Go Lime (what's with that name??) is much more yellow, and Innocent something in between. I love SGL better, since it's more different form WTSAY? (as you know I don't like having dupes) and also the forumula is much better than of Sinful Colors. While SGL needs three coats and Innocent only two, Innocent has the worst brush of them all. 

I advise you two coats of base coat for this type of green, if you don't like your nails stained. Otherwise you'll have seriously yellow nails. I checked. -.-

What do you think about this kind of green? Too fugly for you? Did you get any colours from Shrek Forever After collection?

Thank you for reading!

O.P.I. Russian Navy Suede

I was going through the crazy pile of unposted swatches and was thinking to myself 'how come I've already shown you all my OPIs?', since I simply didn't remember having any prepared for posting. And then I opened my OPI folder and saw I have a bunch of them! Let's start with this Suede beauty. Russian Navy. I really like it. 

You all know the Suedes of O.P.I., I'm sure. It's from their Suede Collection for Fall 2009, where they turned their old shades into suede finish. Quite unsuccessfully, IMHO, since none really resemble the glossy originals, but Suedes are still lovely! I'd love to have a couple more, like You Don't Know Jacques! and Lincoln Park After Dark.

The application of Russian Navy Suede is a bit tricky. You have to be fast and careful with it. Nothing major though. I think the final effect is worth it. I actually prefer it Suede, I don't like it as much with a TC over it. Go figure. Naturally, suedes chip faster, just as mattes do. I don't really care about that, since in average I change my mani every other day or even every day, depends on my mood and they do last that long.

What do you think of Suedes, are you a fan? Do you have any? Or do you prefer the mattes?

Thank you for reading!

Alessandro - Queen Berry Go Magic! Twist Spring 2011

I wanted to post this for months. But since I knew it's going to be a long one, with rant included, I didn't even start writing it until I knew I'll have the time to write it down.

It's been months since Alessandro put out another magnetic polish LE. Surprisingly, there wasn't much noise about it on blogsphere, if Parokeets wouldn't post it, I wouldn't have no idea about it. I'm pretty sure you've seen the promo pictures on their blog too. I waited like a maniac for them. I refused to buy the awesome blue magnetic polish in their LE for NY because of the price and I regret it to this day. It's such a gorgeous blue, come on! And on promo pictures for spring the orange one called for me and I was certain i'll buy at least that one. 

When they've finally hit the stores, I was on my way to vacation with my BF. I was sure that after one week I won't get them anymore, especially since they were sold only in like two stores in Ljubljana. Tevta called me from the store, telling me the colours are quite disappointing. Blank. Chalky. That the brown one was actually the best and the orange is actually this hospital beige colour. So I wasn't upset about the whole deal anymore. 

When we got back, my BF kindly drove me to the store, I wanted to check them out myself. Of course Tevta was right. My most expected one, the orange one, was the colour of our neighbour's peachy-pastel house that I hate. The silvery-grey looked like chalk. I was so disappointed. So I decided I'd take the purple one. One slot was completly empty, but next to it was a purplish polish and since the colour and the name "Queen Berry" suggested it was the purple one (at that point I didn't connect the promo colour with what I saw anymore, since it was appearantly pointless), I took it, but checked with the shop assistant too, asking her if the colour was the purple of the LE or the brown. She didn't reply straight, only tried it on a piece of scotch tape and said, that yes, it did have a purple hue to it. I loved the colour, so I took two, for my swap buddy too. 

When I got hope and googled the polish, expecting at least German blogs to be filled with swatches, I only found the old LE and after a while I saw the bottle of the purple one in the LE, so I actually bought the brown one. I got the feeling that they sold the purple one of the LE and, wanting to sell the brown one too, stuck the "purple" name on it. I might be wrong, but I felt cheated. I didn't think about it much, since it's a gorgeous colour, but I don't like the feeling of it, even if it did turn out ok. 

Oh, do you see how I only use the expressions like "the orange one", "the purple one"? It seems like Alessandro didn't give out any names at all, and all in all it feels like the entire collection went past us because of the poor advertising. Almost like they knew they screw up 2 out of 4 colours and didn't want to make a big deal about it.  

So, anyway. After the disappointment from promo pictures and weird feeling from the store, I give you Queen Berry Go Magic! Twist with my observation and advices added below. 

I guess I can bitch about everything that happened until the point of applying the polish, but after that I was a happy hobbit. The colour is divine and the pattern rocks. Here are my observations, like I wrote them down right after doing the mani.

• The instructions say you should put your magnetic polish on white base. I did that, just for fun, I have the white base on middle and ring finger, index & pinky without it. The base sucks because you have to apply the magnetic polish more carefully in order to avoid the white line in the beginning of the nails, also uneven spots are much more visible. The extra carefulness factor doesn't help one bit, since you already have to be very quick with the polish and have to make sure you have the right amount of polish on your brush, otherwise it screws up the pattern. 
• I shook the bottle a few times during applying, no bubbles, i blame the bubbles on white base - I strongly suggest you shake the bottle often, the pattern is much nicer then. 
• The brush is awesome, just remember to keep enough polish on it, otherwise the pattern won't be so intense or even non existant. You can always redo it though, i have two coats on some fingers, on one even three. I agree at this point with ALU, she suggests you do one coat of polish without the pattern and pattern on the second coat. It's much more intense. Look at my ring finger, having three coats on it! 
• Always try every nail separately for the magnet, otherwise you can touch it with fresh polish or you have it too far and it won't do the pattern. It's hard to centralize it for me, as you can see, too. If you ever saw the Alessandro magnet, you know the magnet is on a fork, and you can move it up and down the fork. That's what I'm talking about. I need the magnet higher for my middle finger than for my pinky. 
• There is a learning curve, at least for me it was. My right hand was an utter disgrace, luckily i went with it first, since it's not my swatching hand. 
• A LOT of clean up, i don't remember I ever had so much clean up before. 
• Don't be ashamed to curse like a sailor, I sure did. 
• The pattern is totally worth it. It takes a bit longer, but since it's my first time of trying this type of polish with this type of magnet, I expected it to take longer, with redoal of some nails, since i touched the magnet etc. If you like the magnetic polishes I suggest investing in one Alessandro so you have the strong and lovely magnet to work with, then you can buy cheaper polishes too and still have a nice pattern on your nails. Since Essence magnet is total crap. 
• The colour I love. It's not berry really, ti's brown leaning to purple, but it's very rich and i love it. The orange-actually-rosy-beige one was the disappointment of this collection for me.
• The price (13 eur) is a bit high. But I see it as an investment in good magnet. I like magnetic polish, so I suspect I'll buy more of them.

All in all I have no complaints about the polish I got and I do not regret buying it. It's everything else that bothered me. Still, I love magnetic polish, and I trully hope this will be the trend for 2012, so we'll get more! There are still many bottles left in Nama, for my Slovene readers, if you decide to grab one. The beige and the grey are practicaly all there (I wonder why ...) but I saw the brown one too.

What do you think about magnetic polish? Do you like it? Did you get any? Oh, do you think this will be the trend of next year? I think and hope so!

Thank you for reading!

Nail System: 97 and 211

Heya people! Hope everything is well at your neck of the woods. I got the most amazing package today, full of nail polish goodies, ah, love it so so much! So it's a good day! But I planned to show you something older today. You've already seen the bottles of these two beauties, now I'm showing them on nails. I got them from my BF, he bought them on his trip to Lithuania. Nail System is a new to me brand, we don't have it in Slovenia. But they do have an official site, also in english and from the site you can see they are known in other states too. This is what they say about the Nail System line (they have more of them!):

Coloured lacquer NAIL SYSTEM with strengthening effect

Enriched with vitamins, quickly drying lacquer for all types of nails has distinctive features - special intensity of colours, hygienic nail care – preventing breaking and cracking, giving long-lasting glow. 300 classical and most stylish variants of colours. Palette is regularly supplemented with latest popular colours. Contains no substances harmful to health.

And a shot of their bottles:

 

source: http://www.nails.lt/get.php?i.3160

300 colours! Nice! I got two, and they're gorgeous! First 97.

Two coats, so so sexy. It's right up there with Torrid Red and other dark sexy reds. Isn't it divine? Extremely well behaved polish too, it didn't cause me any problems at all. And it dries really fast. I didn't use any TC. 

The other is 211.As you can see, some time passed between them, also some milimeters got cut. *sigh* But this one is probably my favourite of all four my love got me. 

Again two coats, effortless application, seriously awesome polish! And look at the shimmer! It almost looks like glass flecks that you know I adore. It's such a yummy colour, I absolutely love it. 

Pictures of both were made on my vacaton or study time up north, that's why I had to work with what lightning I had. Maybe I'll redo them both in lightbox, I feel these pictures don't do them justice.

What do you think about them both? Do you know the brand, perhaps have it in your country?

Thank you for reading!

Eyeko Lilac Polish with SH pink crackle Fuschia Shock

Hey everybody! How are you doing? I hope your week started better than mine. The weekend and the Monday were hell for me. I already calmed down quite a bit, but tell you the truth, it's been years since I broke down so completely, and all of this "just because" of schoolwork. There is still hope, though, and I'm taking it! I don't know about you guys, but my schoolwork is really important to me, that's why I always take everything so dramaticaly.

Today I wanted to show you two manis, but I don't think I'll find the time for both. I picked the one that is less "me". It's a soft purple polish with pink crackle. Yes, on Did Someone Say Nail Polish and on my nails. Things happen. ;) What is more, I absolutely loved the final result. 

First, Eyeko Lilac Polish. This one is really soft, really really gentle colour. That's the feature I love about it. I tend to get bored of this kind of colour rather fast so I don't choose it often. But Lilac is fluffy and cozy and I like that. It's quite lovely, just as the label says.

I had the hardest time picking a colour when I wore this baby. I got two major swap packages and a few lemmings killed that week and I was choosing a polish for like half an hour (and no, didn't feel like wearing my old mani anymore). At that point I reached over the 15 bottles standing infront of me and grabbed the Eyeko.

I realized this would be a great base for some nail art. I got out the stamping kit ... and failed miserably. No, seriously. When I fail miserably, I seriously fail miserably. So I redid the nails I stamped and decided I'll go with good ol' scotch tape art. Mhmm ... yeah. Back then I was still in between fast drying TCs and I waited for 10 minutes max before putting a scotch tape on my relatively freshly painted nails. Fail? Indeed it was! I pulled up the polish and had to remove it completely off my ring finger. Of course I messed up a couple more with polish remover and cotton pad. In the end I used up a little under half the bottle of Lilac Polish. I'm not effing kidding. It was disasterous. So, what do you do when everything else fails? That's right. You layer the thing! And I did. I chose the Sally Hansen Fuschia Shock crackle that was sitting on my table and this is what came out.

Again, I loved the way it cracked better on my right hand. That always happens, I have no idea why. Anyway. I love the combination! It goes from gentle and cozy to girl-ishy funky. It's also something completely different for my nails and sometimes it just feels refreshing to look at my nails and say "oh, look, that's something out of the ordinary and still cool". I think I actually wore this for two or three days, which is like a millenia for me. 

Eyeko Lilac Polish needed two coats on my shorter nails. The brush isn't my favourite, it's a bit wonky, but polish dries fast and glossy. Sally Hansen F.S. behaved nicely, better than her blue brother. I wasn't sure how I'll like the pink crackle, but I really do. Just as the white crackle isn't me and I love it, the pink one isn't me and I love it. 

That's it. Hope I didn't bore you too much. What do you think of them both? Did you get the Lilac polish from Eyeko sale? Sick of crackles much? 

Thank you for reading!