Essence - In Style

Hello! I have a few minutes to show you next Essence colour while I have my standard cup of coffee after lunch. In Style is quite close to Catrice After Eight, only that the latter is a tad bit more green, so I regretted a bit not getting After Eight instead of In Style. Still, it's a lovely teal colour. My lightbox pictures show it a lot more brush-stroky than it really was, that's why I put a natural, gloomy light picture in the post too. 

Three coats, I couldn't even it up with two, but still, a great formula, great brush and lovely shade. I liked it a lot.

In Style or After Eight or both? :)

Thank you for reading!

Guest post: 7 Interesting Ways Fabric can be used instead of Furniture

Hello everybody! I have another guest post for you! I like guest posts because they bring variety on this blog and i think today's theme is so interesting and inovative! The author of the article is Martina Simon, thank you for making it for my blog!

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7 Interesting Ways Fabric can be used instead of Furniture

We love to find new and interesting ways to decorate our homes. From floor coverings to wall hangings, we enjoy choosing and using fabrics to enhance our space and complement our room’s decor. Choosing the right furniture to go in a room that’s not too big and fits the space perfectly is important.

Fabric is available in a wide choice of colours and patterns with something that will suit everyone. The perfect way to finish off a room is to find the right pattern and colour fabric and use it for a piece of furniture.

Here are some great ideas from Volga Linen on how to use fabrics instead of furniture.

Floor coverings

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Ever since the days that people have covered their earthen floor with fresh green rushes, we have used some kind of floor coverings. Although laminate might now be considered yesterday’s news, all kinds of rugs are still in use made from hand-tufted wool rugs to soft alpaca fur. Available in a huge range of patterns and colours, everyone can find something to match their colour scheme.

Seating

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The latest styles of sofas have included a mix of patterned and plain fabric in a choice of colours. More casual seating such as beanbags and chair-shaped beanbags offer extra choice of seating arrangements. Rattan furniture offers practicality with smart looks.

Décor

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Fabric can be used on canvases as pictures to join your colour scheme together and it can be used on items such as photo frames. The use of scatter cushions, bolster cushions and pillows can also help to bring colour to a neutral room.

Storage

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Storage pockets can be bought or made in colour scheme-matched fabric to use as wall storage, door storage or sofa arm storage.

Hiding Storage

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Curtains are not only useful to cover windows, but they can be used instead of doors to cover storage units. They can be matched to the decor of the room and offer a simple way to conceal your belongings.

Redesign Old Furniture

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Use fabric to redesign your old furniture and give it a new lease of life. You can use throws to give an old sofa a facelift, the seats of old wooden chairs can be re-covered and a scratched table can be polished and decorated with a cloth runner. You can also re-cover an old headboard with fabric to match a newly decorated room. Using quilting squares to make your own bedspread to cover your bed offers a personal touch to your bedroom.

Show off Your Craft Skills

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Use your craft hobbies to create beautiful objects for your home. You could embroider a sampler or a tapestry, make rag rugs for your floors, make some decoupage pictures or use some of your own art. You choose the colours and the fabrics to match your room decor and the space will be uniquely yours.

Thank you for reading!

Essence I'm The Boss!

Another day another Essence! :) My whole body hurts today, yesterday I had my very first dancing class for this 'school year' and it was awesome! Even the muscle ache right now feels good, because that means I did something yesterday! I came home late though and started working on a project and went to bed around 4 a.m. Seriously, I'm becoming an owl or something. Creature of the night. ;)

Today's shade is one of the new colours of Essence with their new and very adorable bottles. I love them. And I think the new line has some very decent colours too! What surprised me very much and very badly was a disgrace of a brush I'm The Boss! had. What. The. Hell. Essence?! You had a perfect brush, why change it?! I'm not reading much rants around blogsphere about the brush so I can only hope this was only a bad bottle choice. The brush on this baby was completely uncontrollable. I've never had so much clean up with Essence before. This better be a bad bottle choice on my end, Essence, I want your brush back!

Two to three coats, the third one was done on some nails to correct the application, otherwise the polish is well pigmented. Gorgeous shade too. I have some others on my WL, especially Grey-t to be here. It looks amazing on swatches!

Which ones did you get from the new line?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - True Love

Tired of Essence already? :) I think the colours are quite great, so I hope not! Today I have for you the second one from Vampire's Love collection. I've bought three, the blue one is still in my untrieds, if you don't count the comparison I did. *blush* But it shan't be there long, I cut my untrieds down to around 15! Anyway. True Love was a maybe for me, but in the end Nihrida's swatch convinced me I need that one too. The black one of the collection I didn't take because I have similar blacks at home, and nothing will beat China Glaze Haunted or Catrice Back to Black for me. The white one seemed awfully close to the gorgeous Misa's Grey Matters. So I left it behind. I don't regret buying True Love, it's a lovely shade of purple. But Zoya Yasmeen completely stole my heart when it comes to purples. It is my perfect, truly perfect purple and frankly, it's the only purple I need. Obviously it's not the only one I have, but you know, if I only had to pick one purple and stick to it, that would probably be the one. But let's not steal the thunder from this great purple, for True Love is a great purple to have!

I manage to capture True Love in natural light, direct sunlight and my usual lightbox pictures. So you can see how it looks like in every light. :) Two coats for full opacity, I like that! Still, purple phase is well behind me, I think. I rarely feel like wearing purple and I rarely get crazy over purple shade I see in new collections. Great colour nevertheless, I can imagine a lot of purple fans loving this.

Which colour rocks your world the most right now?

Thank you for reading!

Essence Prince Charming over Revlon Royal

Heya people! I'm going to be extra short today, it's beautiful, calm, rainy day here in Ljubljana, perfect for tea and a good book under a blanket. Another Essence today, this time a topper from Snow White LE, the only one I decided to take after close inspection. The silver and blue combination looked awesome in the bottle. I wish they were easier to get on the nails though. You kinda have to struggle to put them on nails. On pictures I layered it over Revlon Royal, gorgeous, gorgeous blue. Since it's a jelly, I can't show its true beauty on pictures, it always looks uneven, although it's not IRL. 

Gorgeous combo, very glossy too.Two coats of Revlon Royal with one or two coats of Prince Charming, I needed to tap the glitter (especially the blue particles) on the nail. Still, I love it!

Any other bases for Prince Charming you recommend? I find this to one to be quite perfect. :)

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Gold Old Buffy

Until this very moment I thought the name of the polish was Good Gold Buffy. Hah. Go figure. I continue with my Essence mani's, because, frankly, Essence doesn't get enough love on my blog. I was cleaning up my stash last night and I realised I have a lot of Essence that I really like, but I just never show them to you. Same goes for Gold Old Buffy. This colour is incredible. One of the best colours Essence ever made, in one of the strongest LE they ever did, Vampire's Love. You've seen it all before and I loved the swatches of this baby. Still, it took me months to wear it, so the swatches are late, but maybe they'll remind you you have this beauty in your stash and you haven't worn it since the LE came out.  ;)

Three coats for this beauty,  I can't remember why, really, perhaps I wanted to make the colour even richer. The formula was flawless, so was the brush. Amazing polish, really. It reminds me of China Glaze Wagon Trail, but being a better version of it. Since I had an enormous crush on Wagon Trail, that's saying something! 

Anyway. I hope you got at least this colour from Vampire's Love TE. It's gorgeous! Or do you prefer other shades from this collection?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Chirp Chirp with China Glaze glitter

Heya everyone! My Essence week was ruined yesterday when I didn't have the time to post, but no matter, we continue today. I have a not so typical for me polish to show you. Essence Chirp Chirp was a part of Natventurista LE and I didn't care for it at all. A nude stuff with pink shimmer? I'll pass, thank you! But then I saw swatches at Das Experiment. Naturally, on her *perfect* nails, the polish looked amazing. I wanted it immediately, but by then the LE was long long gone and I doubted I'll get it. Strange enough, Natventurista is one of those limited editions I can see in some forsaken jar in DMs even today. So I found my bottle of Chirp Chirp and I'm glad I did, it's one of those nudes I adore.

 One in the nature, since that's the whole theme of the collection. Plus, you can see what I love about this most, my nails look so perfectly clean. :)

 I tried to caught some of the duochrome shimmer Chirp Chirp contains, but it was really hard to in the dull weather I had when I wore it. On the photograph up you can see a bit of the pink shimmer and on the one below a hint of the green one.

The formula and brush were great on Chirp Chirp. Three coats, an no clean up. I love the final result. This LE caught me by surprise, I didn't think I'll get one thing from it. In the end I have 4 items from Natventurista, 5, if you count both brushes. 

I layered China Glaze Marry A Millionaire on Chirp Chirp a few days later. It's a part of Eye Candy 3D Glitters Collection for Winter 2011, and I loved the Marilyn Monroe theme it had. Still, Marry A Millionaire was a disappointment for me, which I didn't expect, being a unique glitter in my stash.

OK, FYI, the polish doesn't look that bad in real life, my pictures turned out horrible for some reason. But I didn't like it as much as I thought I will. Oh well. Plenty other glitter to play with!

Did you get any items from Natventurista LE or Eye Candy collection?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Bashful

Hello everyone! It's so hot in Slovenia. I'm having an extremely lazy day, I think I still haven't recovered from the last week. I woke up after 11 am, had breakfast, watched TV and fell asleep for three hours. That never happens to me! o.o  So I'm typing this away still in my PJ and thinking of going back to my book. Finally reading One Hundred Years of Solitude, it's been on my to read list since forever.

I have another Essence for ya today. Bashful was a part of a very popular Snow White LE. I loved the promo pictures, but then picked up only two of them when I saw them on counter. Bashful is one of them, I love the shimmer it has.

Bashful needed only two coats, the application was very easy. Lovely colour, I like it a lot.

Did you get any shades from this LE?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - A Lovely Secret

Hello my dear people! How are you doing? It's been a while, I know, I wanted to let you know before I left for our Annual Meeting, but I seriously lacked time so I wasn't able to post anything. I had the most amazing week (9 days actually), I can't find the words for awesomeness of it. I love the magic we create and all the lovely people there with me just having a blast. But now I'm back and since I need to get to my studying again, I'll probably post more often. ;) 

Since this is a nail polish blog, I can also mention my nails are not talking to me at all ATM. As much as the last week was a perfect place for my soul, I didn't do anything for my nails whatsoever. I washed a lot of stuff with my hands and aggressive cleaners and I think I put on hand creme 4 or 5 times in all 9 days. When I got home I had to cut them to the meat and they are still split. So I'm going to show you old pictures for a while, so I can decide whether the pictures I make now are good enough for showing. Oh, I wore Orly Nite Owl, I've shown it before. Gorgeous polish, I'm still not sick of it. My BF hates it though. xD

For today I have another Essence, the photos are piling up again in the Essence folder ... A Lovely Secret is a colour I'd never buy if I saw it on the counter. A pale purple, nothing bad but also nothing special. But then I saw the swatches Nihrida made and I had to have it. The secret of the polish are the tiny blue specks and I adore the result.

Three coats of this lovely secret, because I was really sloppy. The brush is great on this baby, really great. And a gorgeous colour, I love it. Thanks to Nihrida for revealing the secret!

And just because I cannot stop singing this in my head ever since I went to the dentist on my bicycle this morning.

A lovely secret. Have it? Want it? Any suggestions on what I should get in new Essence line?

Thank you for reading!

Take two on China Glaze

Heya people! How are you doing? I put on China Glaze Watermelon Rind again today and remembered I wanted to redo the swatches of it. Then I saw I already posted them and they are, in short, horrible. As I scrolled down my China Glaze label I also noticed my Bad Landing and Orange Marmalade swatches probably convince you not to buy them and not vice versa. Luckily I took a few shots of each when I wore them this Summer, so here is my take two on all three of them, in hope of doing them a little more justice, for they are awesome, especially Orange Marmalade and Watermelon Rind being my favourite China Glazes. 

Watermelon Rind. A green/blue/teal glass flecks. How gorgeous is that. This polish is incredible, really. If I had to hold on to just one China Glaze in my stash, this would probably be it. It contains everything I hold dearest in a nail polish. Yes, it's sheer, but with glass-flecked finish I'm willing to look past that. The formula was great, I had no troubles today with the application, so the extra coats weren't time consuming. 

Orange Marmalade is the orange sister of Watermelon Rind, the orange glass-fleck of the Summer Days collection that China Glaze released in 2009. I still don't think I did this amazing orange justice, but you can see how it glows and just how bright it is. And juicy, I always crave orange juice when I see it, hehe. Again a great application. Every time I wear these two I remember why I want the entire Summer Days collection. Glass-flecked finish at its finest, and you know how much I love that finish! 

Bad Landing. When I wore this for the first time, Tevta lent me her China Glaze collection. The second time I wore it, it was already mine, because Tevta hated it and gave it to me. I still love it, I have no idea what I love so much about this polish. Probably that it is so insanely bright (my pictures don't show that correctly). Or that it shifts from red to orange to pink, depends on the light. It's a cool colour, I like it. :) I can't find if Bad Landing was a part of a collection, so I'm guessing it wasn't. Oh, the application is superb, I don't think I needed clean up with this one at all.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think my new swatches are much much better than my old one. Finally figured out my nail shape, my hand position when taking photos etc. Bloggers, ever redo your swatches simply because it bothers you that you have a set of bad ones on blog? :)

What's your favourite China Glaze polish? Ok, top three? ;)

Thank you for reading!

Guest Post at Polish Chest

Hei everyone!

Today I'll be extra short. I have prepared a guest post for Danny at Polish Chest and I invite you to check it out here, as well as her wonderful blog. :)

Have a great evening!

My Awesome Beauty Competition mani

Hei everyone! How are you doing on this very hot day? I'm doing my nails ATM and I remembered I wanted to mention Sophie's competition early enough for you to participate too (in case you haven't yet). Well, you still have today and tomorrow until 10 am. And that is enough time, btw! Here's the deal. In case any of you don't know Sophie: she owns My Awesome Beauty blog.  A beautiful blog with a beautiful author, her blog is versatile, fun and holds incredible photographs. I do recommend you visit it! Nail wise she does awesome designs with great colour combinations. I always wanted to recreate them, but you know how I am with time and my nail art ... until the competition started. You have to recreate one of the two patterns, but with your own ideas. I got hooked immediately and searched for inspiration. That's how I finally discovered that the designs are actually very user-friendly and that they don't take much time, so they're in my nail art book now! 

In short: my inspiration was the Eye of Sauron, that's why it is in the background of the pictures. Beyu 209 with Essie flakies on top represent the lava of Mount Doom, the gold is for the One Ring and the orange Finger Paint seemed a better combination than the predictable red or yellow for the eye. So I mixed them in an orange colour. ;)  I played with the pictures a bit before I sent them, here you'll see them separated.

Really wonky position of my fingers, Finger Paints bottles are not nice for holding. 

I liked the result, I didn't get tired of this mani until it looked to tired so I basically had to remove it. It's a bit blingy, but I wanted that. And yes, it's another geek inspiration for me, but frankly when you walk into my room, Tolkien is pretty much the first thing you notice. That and nail polish. So they're bound to come together every once in a while. And btw, yes, that's an actual poster of the Eye, my BF thought I photoshoped it, I didn't. :P 

Enter the competition! You have enough time and the prizes are wonderful! Good luck to all of you and Sophie, thanks for the chance!

Thank you for reading!