Ludurana ~ Fascinante

Hey everyone! Today i have another Ludurana for you. These multichromes have to be the strongest multichromes I've ever seen. They are really amazing. So far Brazil nail polish has left me truly fascinated (no pun intended). You have all seen Ludurana Aurora Boreal collection before, but you know what, they deserve all the attention they can get, so I'm showing you Fascinante once more. :)

I was lucky enough to capture some free minutes to do this mani in daylight (grey as it was) and take photos in natural daylight. It shows the colour shift the best. One coat of Essie Bobbing for Baubles and one coat of Ludurana Fascinante. Gorgeous colourshifter, it feels so Autumn like. 

A short one today as I am really tired. Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Thank you for reading!

This Guacamole is quite Hectic

I did not plan to post today at all, for the lack of time. As it seems, all the work in the world is waiting for me ... but you gotta see this. I remember asking for Guacamole at the last moment, when I saw the post on Tudo Sobre Esmaltes and fell in love with the name. The glitter looked great too, but I'm a huge fan of guacamole sauce and the word itself. It sounds so fun! Luckily Eveline was able to get me a bottle. I immediately thought Illamasqua's Hectic would be a great base for this baby. And they make, for me, a perfect combination. I'm wearing this for the third day now and I'm still not sick of it, not one bit. I think this will be one of the really rare moments when I have to remove the polish because the nail growth shows too much and not because I got sick of it. Oh, and FYI, third day going and minor tipwear on only two of my nails. Honest!

 Taken in artificial light. As you can see, the neon finish of yellowish green glitter turns into 'normal' greenish one. Love it.

Frankly, BBF is perfect in all lights. I freakishly adore this glitter. And I think it looks perfect on the unique green that Hectic is. Three coats of Hectic and two of Guacamole. Oh, and the brush is great on Guacamole. It hugs nail perfectly and the glitter is distributed evenly.

BBF is otherwise, if I understand correctly, an indie brand that is also a reseller of some known brands (also Penélope Luz!). BBF has some pretty great collection of nail polish, especially glitters, from what I remember off their official page and FB page. For some unknown reason their official page doesn't work for me right now, hopefully they bring it back soon. Anyway ... I'm really impressed with Guacamole. Seriously awesome glitter and Eveline, you're awesome for sending me this one! :)

Do you know BBF? 

Thank you for reading!

Penélope's Lotus with Zoya's Lotus

Evening my dear people! How are you doing? I trust you USA gals are having a wonderful holiday! I'm feeling a bit under the weather. My ear is starting to ache and I dread the pain, because I had earache very often as a child and I loathe it. I think that is one of the worst type of pain a person can get. Hopefully it is nothing serious and it will pass soon. 

Today I have two gorgeous colours for you. I'm sure you all know Zoya Lotus, from Zoya True collection for Spring 2012. It is a lovely, smoky purple with pinkish shimmer. Of course it turns a bit too blue on my photos. I'm starting to see the pattern with these types of purples and my camera. It is a lovely polish, I love it.

I decided Lotus would be a great base for another Lotus. Penélope Luz is, as far as I understand, a Brazilian indie brand. And oh, Lord of the Rings, are those babies gorgeous!!! Lotus caught my eye the moment I unwrapped it. It is such an amazing glitter. It consist of black, white and pink round glitter, and there is a very generous amount of it in the clear base. I think you could easily built up Lotus with three or four coats. Here is how it looks like in two coats over Zoya Lotus.

And the best colour accurate photos I got of Zoya Lotus:

Penélope Luz Lotus looks even more stunning IRL. I love it. Plus the base is a bit less blue so it compliments the glitter more than on these lightbox pictures. Penélope Luz has a Facebook page and you can buy it of Loja BBF page. Fair warning: after seeing pictures on the FB page I built up a wish list of Penélope Luz wonderful creations (just check Ocean Jewel, Wicca, Geisha, Wedding Dress and Gitana out!). If they are half as amazing as Lotus is, I need to get them somehow. Remember them on Brazilian swapping! I can only thank Eveline for surprising me with it, Lotus is amazing, dear, thank you!!

Do you know Penélope Luz brand, have any of her nail polish?

Thank you for reading!

Zoya ~ Crystal a.k.a. Ice Queen nails!

Hello everyone! I just finished the biggest sandwich I saw in my life and am too full for work, so why not show you my NOTD. I've been wearing Brazilian polish until today and I absolutely love it, can't wait to show them all to you! But today Zoya Crystal looked too beautiful to pass. I wore almost every Zoya from my Zoya package I got few weeks ago and ... I don't know, if someone told me I have to buy only three brands of nail polish from now until the rest of my life, Zoya would be one of them. They make the best polish colour and formula.

Crystal is a gorgeous polish. I'm sure you all remember the hype this baby created. Ok, maybe not hype ... a buzz of love all around blogsphere. Everyone seemed to like it. Not me though. Crystal was one of those shades that didn't look at all intriguing to me from the swatches. I get that every now and then. It was like that with Paradoxal and now with Peridot and others. Since I love the Paradoxal dupe I have, and I love Crystal, maybe I should get one of peri-dupes too, hehe. But anyway. Crystal didn't make it on my WL right away, it took me months until I decided to give it a go. Luckily, Kris sent it to me in our last package and I honestly don't know what was I thinking, not liking this colour. I can't stop staring at my nails, seriously. It is insanely gorgeous. It has this really icy feeling to it. I think Ice Queen would wear this for certain if she was cool and payed attention to her nails as well! I get Winter Wonderland association looking at it. Clear blue sky, pure white blanket of snow, naked trees with snow on their branches and warm, woolly clothes as you walk in the silence of winter forest. Ah. 

Lucky for me, Crystal is also very photogenic polish. Lately I have been having so much trouble with trying to capture the right shade of varnish, I was starting to think either my camera broke or I forgot how to take good pictures of nails. Crystal is a part of Zoya Fire and Ice Collection for Winter 2010. I also have Valerie from that collection, just as stunning as Crysta. Although light blue foil with golden foil specks wins in my book. Three easy coats, the formula is amazing. No complaints. Thank you, Zoya!

Do you have Crystal? What colour gets all hyped but you don't care for it at all?

Thank you for reading!

Ludurana ~ Show

Heya people! How are you doing on this lazy Sunday? 

As you can imagine, my fingertips were itching to try a multichrome with all Luduranas lying around. I'm a huge fan of duo/multichrome finish, it could be my favourite, next to glass-flecks. And yes, multichromes beat holos any day on my book. 

I had no idea which one to try on first, then I decided to go with Show, the teal shift intrigued me. Naturally, this is a polish that is very hard to capture with my little ol' camera. The teal shift became too blue (except on one photo) and the multichrome is so intense on this baby, it is hard to capture it as a whole. A tried to do a video and failed. So I give you all the photos that came out good and still, can't do this baby justice. Ludurana Show is a part of Aurora Boreal Collection. I have no idea when these came out, but nail polish world has been loving them. Show is a dupe (or is insanely close to it) of Ozotic 505. Before I craved Ozotics, but they were impossible to get and expensive as hell. With Ludurana I am a happy hobbit. 

One coat of Ludurana Show over one coat of Essie Bobbing for Baubles. Which makes it a super fast mani as well, double points! This is such an amazing polish. Nihrida made fantastic photos of it, in case you haven't seen them yet, I recommend her photos, they are gorgeous. Can't wait to play with others as well!

Do you have any Ludurana polish? Which one is your favourite?

Thank you for reading, have a great week!

Paket petek (haul post)

Hello my dear people. It's haul post again! I had emotionally a pretty hard week, so I was glad to receive these beauties and make my day a bit brighter. It is the first half of our swap with Eveline, that came second to my greedy claws. As I mentioned before, Eveline and 5 other Brazilian ladies own a beautiful blog called Tudo Sobre Esmaltes and she made this swapping experience simply wonderful. This package contained basically my entire WL when it comes to Brazilian nail polish. Oh yes, Ludurana multichromes!

I really like how the first one turned out, so I'm posting two photos. As you can see, I have a set of Powerpuff Girls as well! Wiii! And oh, I can't get over how amazing Ludurana polish looks in the bottle. I also wished for a couple of Hits holographic polish that you all know so well. Now I have covered every holographic shade I ever wanted to have, except white. But teal, red and black are right here, can't wait to try it on. But Ludurana shall be first. The problem is, which one ... ;)

Eveline, this package is amazing, thank you so much for everything!

What was in your latest package?

Thank you for reading!

Born Pretty Store Review ~ Nail Art Striping Tape Set

Hello everybody! Today I have for you a set of manicures done with my favourite nail art ever - the stripes! I usually use scotch tape but the trouble with it is that the stripes are usually not of the same thickness and that it is hard for me to cut them very thin. So Nail Art Striping Tape Design Lines Set was my first choice when Born Pretty Store contacted me about the review. And I was really happy they were willing to send them to me. 

The people at Born Pretty Store are really nice, everything went smoothly and I received the package under 14 days, which was quite a surprise, very fast shipping!

The set contains 12 coloured rolls of tape. The official Born Pretty Store site says they are self-adhesive and come in colours Gold, Pink, White, Deep green, Red, Deep blue, Pink, Silver, Brown, Light blue, Green and Purple. 

While I agree, they are self-adhesive, the colours I received were holographic-silver, white, purple, green, golden yellow, copper gold, royal blue, pink, silver, red, brown and black. Not a terrible difference, but still, if that matters to you ... I actually think the choice of colours I received is great, so I'm not complaining. 

I will show you three manicures I did with the tapes and then tell you my thoughts on the product.

  

I had small owls helping me with the swatches. I didn't want to hold polish bottles, because they're not the main theme in the review. They are quite adorable as well. :)  

What I liked about the product: 

• You can see on the first mani the main use I got from these tapes. Stripes of layered nail art, I love this so much! And I think these are perfect for the job! They stick to the nail easily and firm, not allowing any bypassing of the polish that often happens on the edges when using scotch tape.
• They are very easy to cut up, the whole process is very fast, you don't have to take special care of the thickness of the tape.. 
• Although they stick to the nail firmly, they do not lift up the base polish even if you don't 'dirty' the adhesive part of the tape.
• The colours are lovely and vivid, I especially love black, white, green, red and blue. 
• When you wish to use the tapes as a part of the manicure you can apply them very easy with tweezers. You can also rereplace them when necessary.
• The tapes last about three days without taping off, which is much longer than I expected them to.
• They are cute and handy for storage.
• There is a lot of tape on one role, the set will last you a liftetime even with regular use.
• They are really cheap. 12 rolls for 8.99$!! Extra plus: if you don't wish to get 12 rolls, you can buy them separately for 1.90$. Free shipping as well!

What I disliked about the product:

• The colours can bleed when top coat is applied. You can see that especially on my last manicure, the blue one bled like crazy. I put them to the test, had all the colours on a piece of paper and applied three different top coats on them. But not one of them bled on the paper. Make of that what you will, on the nail some of them bleed, you have to take care which top coat you use if you do not wish to ruin the colour.
• Top coat has to be used if you want them to remain on the nails for longer period of time. They will not bleed with no top coat put on them, but they will last only until the first shower, then the edges will start to lift. So you have to decide, depending what you prefer and how long you wish to have them on the nails.
• The thickness of the tape is not consistent on some of the rolls, so they can tear unwillingly. Honestly, it doesn't bother me much, it didn't happen often and there is tons of product on the roll anyway, but I thought I should mention it. 

The main minus is definitively the bleeding part. I shan't be using these on the nail but for the tape manicure most of the time, so I don't hold that against them, but if you are buying them for the colours, you will probably need to find a top coat that won't bleed them.  

I honestly think this is a must product for all that love scotch tape manis if you wish to create thin, crisp lines. I love how easier and faster it is with these babies. 

And if you want to buy them, here is a code that will make the low prices even lower: SSL91!

 I recommend you check the rest of the page as well, they have some pretty cool stuff. Striping Tape Set is definitively a win, I love the thin lines I can create with it. 

Have you shopped at Born Pretty Store? What did you get and can recommend?

Thank you for reading!

*Product sent for reviewing purposes, you can read my disclosure here.