Did someone say nail polish?

The Polished Perfectionist mani

2012-02-21T21:05:00.000+01:00

Hello people! How are ya? Hope all is well! It was a sunny day here in Ljubljana and so I didn't mind my pile of work so much. I miss sunny days, they make me feel so much better right away!

Today I have another inspired mani for you. As I read Bergje's blog I realised I might have, accidentally, copied her idea a bit. Hope you don't mind, dear! She has a 'blogger inspired mani' section, that I think is really great. I, on the other hand, won't do inspired mani but rather reproduce the mani i loved on another blog. I did so with Nightly Nails and I realised this is a great way to finally do all the manicures I absolutely loved on other blogs. You know the situation, you go through your favourite blogs and you're literally drooling over all the amazing manicures you see, thinking 'I totally need to do that ASAP' ... and then you don't. You just don't. At least I don't. Now I have this little project, that will, hopefully also teach me new techniques of nail art. I'm marking all the manis I'd like to try out and then I do. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I don't. But it's fun! And challenging!

Now. I don't really need to say 'you probably know The Polish Perfectionist', do I? We all wish we had AmyGrace's nails and steady hand. :) You know you really love a blog when you're having coffee with a friend and you mention a blog. The friend replies 'oh yes, she did that amazing mani that was inspired by a cup, white and blue'. And you correct her, instantly seeing the mani in your head, 'no, that's Amy Grace, the Polish Perfectionist'. And the friend knows who are you talking about. She's just that good.

So ... yeah, what the hell am I then doing, trying to reproduce one of her manis, right? I went with one, that I fell in love with ages ago, but still remembered it, being so insanely awesome. Plus! My first sponging! Holy cow! So it's not perfect, not at all. But I did it! Yay!! Her manicure was Sparkly Fruity Forest. Although I have the Enchanted Forest dupe at home, I really felt like wearing Zoya Shawn, so I took that one as my base colour, and I didn't have the lemon fimo, so I skipped it, I'm not really a fan of fimo, although I really love it on this mani.

So, I used Zoya Shawn and then sponged with China Glaze Emerald Sparkle and Zoya Ivanka, just like AmyGrace did. I think I need a better sponge and some more practise, but I already seriously loved the result.

Yay, my first sponging! And I really love how it looks and how simple it actually is, so hopefully I'll make a habit out of it. :)

What do you think? Do you ever copy an idea from another blogger or not, even if you like it?

Thank you for reading!

Deborah Milano Pret A Porter gorgeousness in It's Evergreen and Stardust

2012-02-16T23:25:00.001+01:00

Good evening everyone! How are you doing? I'm tired as hell, but really feel like posting. These are long effing days for me, people. Loads of work, loads of stress, add a few douchebags into the mix and you can get the general situation. Maybe that's why I want to post this, blog is always such a nice stress relief. Plus, I really really really wanted to show you It's Evergreen since the moment I wore it. ATM it's not on my nails anymore, but it's one of the biggest crushes I had lately from my untrieds end of the table. It's been sitting there for months, since we've gotten Pret A Porter in Ljubljana. Lame, I know. I noticed then in my Deborah Milano folder the gorgeous Stardust is still waiting to be published, so I'm posting them together.

First Deborah Milano Pret A Porter It's Evergreen. *dreamy sigh* Isn't this utterly gorgeous? Such a perfection of a green. Bright green, with golden shimmer. I love it so much. Also, the formula is fantastic, the brush is great and it needs only two coats for full opacity. This baby was a really nice surprise.

And Deborah Milano Pret A Porter Stardust. You probably noticed already that I have a thing for foil finish. I just love it. And this baby called for me right from the bin where it was hiding. I love how Ice Queen this feels. Something the evil Queen of Narnia would wear. And it's also so insanely bright. It needs three coats for full opacity, the formula is again wonderful, so is the brush. I love their brush, it's a bit wider.

So yeah. Two great discoveries from Deborah Milano Pret A Porter series. We were told it's a LE when they came to our stores but I quickly realised it's not an essence type of LE, the shelves/bins were actually refilled and we can still find a lot of shades in Ljubljana. And I always love to find really awesome colours in my local drugstore. These two and Celestial Sky are really a must.

Which shades form Pret A Porter do you have and like?

Thank you for reading!

Comparison: A England vs. Depend vs. GOSH

2012-02-14T18:51:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone! How have you been? I'm back on my study time. Did I ever mention how much I dislike that? Not just because I can't blog as often, but my far the most because my spare time gets incredibly limited, which means less time with my friends and boyfriend. It sucks. So I've gotten myself 3 more MAC eyeshadows and a Venomous Villains lip gloss with Cruella de Vill, as comfort make up. Does that count? It has less calories than comfort food. Sucks big on the wallet though, even if it was a total bargain. ;)

I owe you this comparison post. I love bright blues and I love glass fleck, so you can imagine I have a few. I compared A England Order of the Garter with GOSH Blue Monday and Depend 252, they felt the closest to A England. I also have Moyra 89, which is much much darker, and Revlon Mint Fizz, which is closer to the base colour of Blue Monday but has much larger particles. So i didn't include them.

Photos taken in the grey light of Ljubljana, like A England pictures were. But I went out on snow without jacket for ya, so snow helped a bit. ;)

Enlarge this one, it's pretty good.

The photos are left fairly large, so you can see the details better. All of them need three coats for full opacity, Depend too, I don't know what happened on the edges of my nail, it looked fine IRL. GOSH would need a fourth one for my taste though. Which is funny, I remember when wearing it as a full mani three were more than enough ... go figure.

Anyway. Not dupes, of course, very obviously not. Depend 252 is the brightest, GOSH Blue Monday the tealest and A England Order of the Garter the truest blue. The particles differ too, you can see that best on the first picture.

Formula wise A England has no faults, the same goes for Depend. Fantastic formula on both of them, very easy application. GOSH however went a bit diva on me. For some odd reason it gathers on the edges, making my nails look thick. This happened every time with full mani too and I really hate that effect. Plus it would need the fourth coat. It also dries the slowest. Still, i love the colour. I love all three colours, actually. Very good varnishes, I do suggest you get them. :)

Which one is your favourite? Do you have any of them, did any of you have the same problem with Blue Monday?

Thank you for reading!

A England - Order of the Garter

2012-02-12T21:44:00.000+01:00

Evening everyone! How are you doing? It's a lazy Sunday here. I baked something though. I think I'm addicted to cinnamon. That's also why I'm posting this later than planned. I also watched the news, Whitney Houston passing away was quite a shock. I swear, just last week I was dancing to I wanna dance with somebody playing in my head. Whether you like her style of music or not, she was one of the best voices out there. Oh, my favourite song (and probably the one of the three or four I really like by her) is I learned from the best. I remember being in my teens when I heard it first and liking the lyrics, not being all 'I'm gonna die because you left me', hehe. Plus her voice is incredible, of course.

I put A England Order of the Garter on yesterday, to match my teal make up. A friend of mine did photos of it, combining with the teal cocktail I was drinking, hehe. Order of the Garter isn't a teal, though, it's a true bright blue. And you know what? You know what??!? It's a glass flecked bright blue! GLASS FLECKS! YES! Naturally the photos from my lightbox make it look to bright, so I tried to do some decent photos today in a very grey light of Ljubljana and failed miserably. Photos are the way they are, I might redo them in the Summer.

I don't need to talk much about this one, do I? The A England The Legend collection is everywhere and everyone seems to want them. Myself included, thank you very much! Order of the Garter is amazing. Vibrant blue that I adore and to top that, a glass fleck, being my favourite finish, or one of them at least. Awesome. It took me three coats for full opacity, I'm guessing two will do for a lot of people, I'm just annoying like that. :) But glassflecks are usually on the sheer side, so it wasn't much of a surprise for me.

What I was curious about was the formula, because I haven't ever heard anything bad about A England's formula and it's my first. The formula is superb. Seriously. It's incredibly easy to work with. All in all an amazing polish. Even has a little tiny hue of purple, but my camera naturally didn't catch that. Thank you so much for this gem, Stefanie!

So, now I ask you, what's you experience with A England and what's on your WL from The Legend? You know me. St. George, Dragon. Seriously, now, it's pass the 'i want' and already in the 'i need' sector. ;)

Oh, I prepared a comparison with Order of the Garter for ya too!

Thank you for reading!

11 questions tag

2012-02-09T17:00:00.000+01:00

Hey people! So, Zebra-nails (hehe, love the name!) tagged me with 11 questions. I get tagged quite often, but usually I already received the awards numerous times. This one is my first and it looked like fun! If I ever forget any award you tagged me with, forgive me, please, I get lost in my swamp of emails, plans for posts and other stuff really fast. Let's do this!

Here are the rules:
Each person must post 11 things about themselves on their blog.
Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post and create 11 new questions for the people you tag to answer.
You have to choose 11 people to tag and link them on the post.
Go to their page and tell them you have linked him or her.
No tag backs.
No stuff in the tagging section about 'you are tagged if you are reading this'. You legitimately have to tag 11 people.

11 things about me:

1. I'm seriously not a morning person. My best hour to get up is around 11 or 12. But anything earlier than 8 a.m. turns me into a grumpy monster you should avoid until it gets its morning coffee.

2. I'm on a serious bright eye make up kick. The brighter the better!

3. There is a giant closet full of books in my room and my secret dream is I'll once have a giant room full of them in my house.

4. I love cinnamon and marzipan.

5. If I'll ever have enough money I'd love to visit all countries in Europe.

6. I think I'm awfully unphotogenic, that's why I hate taking pictures of myself.

7. I love warm wind.

8. If there would be a way to meet beings what (officially) don't exist, my top 2 beings would be a dragon and an ent.

9. ATM I can't sleep. I'm typing this away at 1.30 a.m. Which is kind of a normal hour to be awake for me anyway.

10.I really want a Sheldon T-shirt. With 'Bazinga' written on it. Or the rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock sign.

11. I have a few words, that I really love just because of how they sound, regardless of their meaning.

Here are Zebra's questions for me:

1. What is your favourite basecoat and topcoat?

ATM my favourite basecoat is Essence Nail Art Protecting Basecoat. Very good at preventing staining! Topcoat: Revlon Quick Dry, it's really awesome.

2. What is your all-time favourite nail polish?

Just one? That's impossible, I said it before, I'm saying it again. It's hard for me to even say a few favourites, so here are few that came to mind: H&M Blue My Mind, Brucci Blue Sapphire, Illamasqua Rampage, China Glaze It's Alive, China Glaze Watermelon Rind, Zoya Gemma, BB Couture Widow Maker, China Glaze Haunting, Nubar Forest, Zoya Dree, Nubar Greener, Essie School of Hard Rocks, Essence Blue Addicted, Jordana Wicked, Misa Quirky Smile, Misa Phazers on Stunning, OPI Jade is the new Black, Orly Nite Owl ... sheesh, I think that's enough, and I still left out quite a few.

3. What nail polish was your biggest disappointment?

Probably Nubar Indigo Illusion, because I craved it for so long, and when I got it on my nails I didn't like it at all.

4. How many nail polishes do you own?

ATM 292. I'm trying to keep it under 300. Lol, I wonder what the limit will be next year ...

5. How many of them are still "untrieds"?

ATM 71. I'm trying so badly to clear them, it has become like a major project, which sometimes actually keeps me from wearing one polish more often. Weirdo.

6. Do you have backups?

Only of one polish, Catrice Back to Black.

7. How many?

One. :) And even that's just because it's the coolest black I can do million things with and discontinued.

8. What is your favourite nail polish colour?

Green.

9. What is your favourite nail polish finish?

Hmmm ... probably glass flecked finish, but I also love creme and duochrome.

10. What was your first nail polish ever? (if you remember)

I think it was ArtDeco, a deep wine red colour. 120 or a similar number. It's still somewhere in the house, I think, my mum uses or used it.

11. What nail polish is on the top of your wishlist?

Right now? A England Staint George and Dragon. I. Effing. Need. Them.

My questions to you:

1. What is the one song that was that bad you regret ever hearing in your life?

2. Are you a Smurf fan?

3. If you had only one chance to enter your house/apartment and all your other precious things would be already saved, which make up items would you grab?

4. Do you have any discontinued nail polish you're keeping as a secret treasure?

5. How many untrieds do you have in your nail polish stash? (I like this one, so I'm using it too, tnx Zebra!)

6. What's your favourite sweet?

7. Do you prefer tea or coffee?

8. What colour prevails in your nail polish stash?

9. Is that colour still your favourite colour to wear?

10. What made you start a blog in the first place and did you change the main topic of it any time from the start until now (you know, from make up to food etc.)?

11. Is there any colour or finish of nail polish you always firmly say no to and can't imagine wearing it ever?

The 11 people/blogs I tagged:

1. Vettelicious

2. Nail Crazy

3. Nihrida

4. My Lucid Bubble

5. Love, Varnish, Chocolate and more ...

6. Fingers Polish Mania

7. Biberlee

8. Danny

9. Ivana

10. Nails For Fun ...

11. An Amateur's Nail Obsession

Phew! Lot's of work in one tag, my questions are very random for a reason, I just couldn't think of any other. Of course tagging is completely optional, if you feel like doing it, go ahead, i'd love to read your answers! If not, it's totally cool too. :)

This is a scheduled post, so I'm not going to spread the word to tagged bloggers just yet. So if you read this before I bug you about it, consider yourself tagged! :)

Thank you for reading!

BB Couture hot things Widow Maker and Playboy

2012-02-08T19:32:00.001+01:00

Hello people! How are you doing? It's sunny outside! Yay! Still cold cold cold, but sunny. I was sitting next to our porch doors, sunbathing like a cat for hours. It's national holiday today for us in Slovenia, we're remembering one of our greatest poets today, France Prešeren. If you like poetry, I really recommend his works, he's fantastic. Plus, there are many translations in many languages of his work, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Today I want to show you one of the colours I've received in my latest package, Widow Maker. As usual, I went first for the colour that seemed weirdest in the bunch. I always do that, even if others are my great lemmings. Widow Maker is incredibly unique and weird in a very good way, so it called for me. When I opened my BB Couture folder I saw many more were yet to be edited and showed. With my little collection of BB Couture in general that felt a little lame. So I'm showing you Playboy too. One of the best teals ever made. They are both from BB Couture polish line made for men, so it seemed like a good idea, showing them together.

While we're on the subject, I want to ask you about your thoughts and opinions on men wearing polish. I thought about it a while ago, and especially when there was the Essie and pink nails on a boy 'scandal' I firmly made up my mind. Men are cool with nail polish. I see no problem with them wearing nail polish, I salute their care for nails and hands in general, because neglected nails are just disgusting, on men or women. If they throw some colour on them too, even better! I think we're generally a very unisex society and I think is about damn time we break the stereotypes around make up too.

And just in case there are any men who'd like to wear polish, but are afraid of it, out there reading this. Here's one of the hottest man on this planet, wearing sky blue polish. So awesome. :) You can't argue about awesomeness of Johnny Depp, it's a fact, just like gravity.

source: denisedoesjohnny.com

This is all, of course, just my opinion. When I'm asking for yours, I'm completely aware of the fact some might feel differently and I respect that. I respect every opinion, whether it's different, similar, the same, or 50-50 with mine. So don't worry about that, all right? There will be no arguing, only opinion sharing, if you'll be willing, of course.

Anyway, to the nail polish!

Here's Widow Maker. What a fantastic, utterly gorgeous grey this is. It has this shimmer, that on sunlight warms the grey, making it a bit taup-ish.It's hard to explain, you'll see what I mean on the pictures. The black glitter is fantastic. It's very subtle on the nails, you have to look for it, but when I find it, i go 'wiiii'. :)

See what I mean? On the sunlight it gets this steel look, or how should I describe it ... it's incredible colour, a complete surprise for me, really. I didn't even know it existed until I unwrapped the bottle. What a hidden gem! This isn't a part of a named collection, as far as I know, it's from the very first set of BB Couture nail polish for men (together with the ever so perfect Grenade). I did 3 coats, for the picture's sake, two would be enough, with a bald spot here and here, that only macro shot would catch.

The second one is Playboy. A gorgeous, gorgeous teal with shimmery glass-flecked finish I adore so much. I got this from the wonderful Kim on her Thoughts of Beauty blog. There was this competition called Tell us a story, and the winner would get a bottle of Playboy! To my great surprise I was the only one who entered with a relatively boring story. I never thought I'd win it, I just wanted to be a part of it, since I thought it's a wonderful idea. And so I won. I'm not complaining, mind you. This teal is gorgeous.

Isn't this amazing? Teal/peacock (as some call it) with teal, purple and silver glassflecked/micro glitter or whatever you wanna call it. My pictures sadly don't do it justice at all, I failed to capture the amazing shimmer it has. It's a part of BB Couture Eye Candy Collection for Spring/Summer (not sure) 2011. For men part, of course. On my WL from that part also Sexy Centerfold and Rustic Romance. But Playboy is the gem of this collection. Two easy coats.

The formula on both of them was amazing. As usual. BB Couture has a flawless formula, I never had any troubles with the application. I was expecting Widow Maker to be brush stroky, but it wasn't so that's great. All in all perfect polishes, really, I'm really happy I got them.

Any thoughts on men wearing polish, Widow Maker and Playboy? Do share. :)

Thank you for reading!

Vettelicious - Teal Rex

2012-02-06T18:46:00.001+01:00

Heya people! How have you been? It's been a couple of days, I know. It's been hell around here and it's not finished yet. But I felt like writing this one, it's been on my list for ages.

This is one of my most cherished polishes I have. I got it in my swap with the lovely Vetten from Vettelicious blog, it's her teal franken and it was the nicest surprise ever when I unwrapped my own bottle of it. I saw it on her blog, obviously, and that post left me with my jaw on the floor. The bottle design and the colour were just perfect. Perfect, I tell you! This teal still remains my favourite teal, after I've worn it on my nails for days, I can only confirm what I said when seeing the pictures. It's a teal with strong green undertones and with the type of shimmer I adore ... hard do miss why I love it so much.

This is the best colour accuracy I could get, I feel it's sometimes a bit too green, but the rest of the photos kept going totally blue on me. This is basically how it looks like, but you should see it live to see just how incredibly awesome this colour is. Also, the formula on Teal Rex is perfect. I could almost do with only one coat, I did two for full opacity. The brush on the bottle was great too, so yay for that!

Vetten, thank you so much for Teal Rex! It's beautiful. :)

What's your favourite franken or teal? :)

Thank you for reading!

Paket Petek

2012-02-03T17:00:00.000+01:00

Heya people! Another Friday, another package! Ah, but this one is even more special than usual. I'm always extremely happy to receive any kind of packages, you know, in general, they're just super fun, and with having an awesome swap buddy every package is a total win. That is why I started with this particular label. To praise the packages! :)

Today's particular little gem of a package came yesterday. And it was completely unexpected and I can't get over the awesomeness of it. Remember when I was utterly surprised by dear Stefanie with a bottle of BB Couture Clyde? I keep it in my display picture too. Well, guess what. A couple of days ago I received another email from her. I don't think I could be more surprised about it. It was also a surprise package, so I could hardly wait to get it and when it arrived in a cute box, I could not open it fast enough. What was inside left me speechless. The totally great Rembrandt card with the cutest message that made me smile and ... these:

I couldn't believe it. Honestly. I mean, look at them. Before I forget, L to R: Kiko Frozen LE 06, BB Couture Horned Devil and Widow Maker, A England Order of the Garter, Cult Nails Power Thief and Nubar Gem. And now I'll go faint.

I could go on and on about this. Two of my great lemmings, my first A England (and what a pick, this blue and the teal and the green holo are the ones I want the most from the new collection, the blue is SO electric and bright!), my first Cult (that looks like a darker Orly Nite Owl with not only silver but green and pink shimmer, FTW!!) ... Kiko looks like it's going to kill my Zoya Raven lemming and Widow maker makes me stare at the bottle for a few moments with its black glitter.
No words for how awesome this package is. Nor for how touched and honoured I am that Stefanie remembered me once more with this wonderful gift. Thank you so much, darling. It was the nicest surprise, I just can't get over it. I'll stop typing right here, because I can't think of words cool enough to express my gratitude or happiness. In short, Stefanie, you rock!

And now to pick the first one to wear! I'm thinking bright orange or bright blue. They are BRIGHT!

What was in your latest package? :)

Thank you for reading!

H&M - Envy Me

2012-02-02T22:32:00.003+01:00

Good evening from incredibly cold Ljubljana! Holy cow, the wind is running around, beating people up, I always come to college with tears running down my face, it's impossible to keep your eyes open without crying. I liked the mild winter we had. The lady started to show her claws now. And I forgot my gloves today at home. Can I get a high five? On the head? With a hammer?

I want to show you an older one today. You know, back when my nails were superlong still. I'm really pampering them now, with all the cold and everything, and I think (hope) they're getting better a bit. Anyway, this polish is from my swap with lovely Vettelicious, and I adored it so freakishly much. It's deep green shimmer, what did you expect?

Two coats, although it's pigmented enough to be a one coater. I couldn't do it in one coat because the handle is just unbelievably wonky, I have the hardest time, polishing my nails with this giant square in my hands. Oh well. The colour is well worth it. It's such a rich shimmer, yummy! Hope H&M comes out with more shades like this! And brings them to Slovenia too! :P I'm not too happy about the pictures here, only these three were good enough to post, all others were blurry. :S Go figure. And even here there is too much reflection ... sorry about that.

What do you think?

Thank you for reading!

Comparison: Nubar Vino vs. Jumpy 140

2012-01-30T16:44:00.000+01:00

Heya people! How are you on this cold day? We have a little bit of snow in Ljubljana. Nothing major, but it stuck to the ground for a day. Souther Balkan has some serious snow troubles though, as much as I saw, I'm worried that it will get to us too, brrr.

So, when I wore Jumpy 140, it looked a bit familiar. I knew I didn't have anything like it for sure, but still, it bugged me. Then I remembered why. I think I wore Nubar Vino just days before and the base colour looked very close. So I compared them.

Aren't they cute? ^.^

On these upper pictures, made outside, you can see the base colour is quite close. They're not the same, Jumpy is brighter, but close enough that when you're not wearing them at the same time, they remind you of each other. But here's the thing that Vino doesn't have and that makes Jumpy own his ass:

The mighty DUOCHROME!! Yes!! Jumpy is a duochrome, Vino is not. Here's a seriously bad blurry picture with a bad position of nails, just to show you the difference better:

See it see it see it?

Although I think both colours are fantastic, Jumpy 140 is cleary the winner for me. It's also enough for me to remove Nubar Vino off my WL. The base colours get close enough for my taste, and well, could you say no to the duochrome on top of everything? :) My thanks go to Tevta for letting me play with her Nubars.:)

Thank you for reading!

Vipera Jumpy 140 and 155

2012-01-29T18:27:00.000+01:00

Hello darlings! How are you doing? I went jogging again today, yay! I miss going out and run at least for a couple of minutes. Although it was so so cold. I guess winter has finally visited our little country. No snow still though. But let me tell you something! I'll be seriously pissed off if there will be snow in March! I want flowers for my bday, it's not my fault if Winter was late on her own time! :P

Anyway. Nail polish, right? I have two Polish beauties today for you from my swap with Spooky nails. These two are stunning. Especially 140. Oh. My. God. Look!

The duochrome, people!

Jumpy 140. Are you insane? Seriously?? This is what I find in a 5 ml bottle of strikingly cheap unknown Polish brand!? This polish has to have a significant take in your decision about visiting Poland! Just looooook at eeeettt!!! Also keep in mind this looks about 1526874321 times better on the nails than on pictures. Just FYI. And to keep matters even more perfect - application is without faults. No troubles at all, perfect brush, I had NO FREAKING clean up and i did it while watching something on the computer. Amazing. Three coats. Gorgeous little thing.

Jumpy 155. Such a cute, juicy colour. And look at the golden specks that look like glass-flecked finish! Aaaagh! Love it! Golden specks swimming in rich, warm bright red/berry colour. A happy colour! Application was again a bliss, no troubles whatsoever. Great brush. Two coats only too! It reminds me a bit of China Glaze Ahoy, but this is redder. An amazing one too, really.

So yeah. Vipera Jumpy. What do I have to do to get them in Ljubljana? Why do we have Joy when we could have Jumpy with their SO adorable chubby bottles? Tell me, what have we done wrong? I want them! N.O.W.

Do you have any experiences with Jumpys, do you like them?

Thank you for reading!

Paket Petek

2012-01-27T18:11:00.000+01:00

Oh yes, another Package Friday! You know I'm loving those! This time more make up, less about nails. I've decided I'll clear my secret WL a bit and since I went crazy with eye make up since I got the brushes, I of course wanted to clear my WL of EL. This is what I got in my mailbox on Tuesday:

Licila.si had a cool offer, when you bought for a certain amount of money, you got a present and you could choose which one too! Awesome! I picked the Konad plate and I can't wait to use it. :))

4 Beauty UK eyeliners, two pearl, two metallic sparks. I blame the gorgeous Nihrida for those. I think her review on Beauty UK Pearl eyeliners was a bit revolutionary for me. When I watched that smudge test the room got full of strange light and you could hear a distant heavenly 'AaaAAaaAAaahh'. I wanted them. Right in that moment, in my hands. Imagine my happiness when I discovered licila.si holds the Beauty UK brand. Yes!! I've ordered three right away and they are in all meanings of the word pure Perfection. No faults. So I knew it's only a matter of time before I order more. This time Oceania and Purple Haze, Oceania being my wild card. That's also why I was drawn to it the most and tried it out right away. I just might created my favourite look of all times with it. It's SO gorgeous!!

Anyway. When I also saw another fantastic review made by Nihrida (not to mention the eye looks!) on Metallic Sparks my list got a bit long. And even now they had the Bronze one out of stock. *sad sigh* Oh well, I have an excuse for another order, hehe. Right now I got Green and Purple. Yum! Wearing mostly black really pays off. You can have every colour on your eyes and nails and still it's not too much. :D

Colour wheel I picked for my green shimmer comparison. I don't have the time to do another big comparison on my nails, so I decided I'll try the famous nail wheel, to spot the dupes.

Are you a fan of EL? Do you prefer gel, liquid or pencil? :) And what was in your latest package?

Thank you for reading!

Kiko 255 and 296

2012-01-26T16:10:00.000+01:00

Hey people! How are you doing on this beautiful sunny day? Hope you're having a good one! As already mentioned, I have tons of stuff to show you, so I'm combining colours of the same brands in one post. It's more interesting that way too, I think.

Today I have another two Kikos. I've shown you couple of colours before and I must say, their quality still impresses me. The formula and the brush and the colours. All of them awesome. So if you get the chance to grab a few bottles, do not hesitate!

First the number 255. I dare say this is the star of Kiko line. Everybody seems to love this colour. And so did I on the swatches. On my hands, alas, not so much.

Don't ask me why I didn't like it, I don't know. It's not like I hated it ... just didn't like it as much as I thought I would. Great formula though! I needed three coats. Oh yes, I did a video of all the sparkling for ya too:

And now the second one, called, very originally, 296. A wonderful bright spring green. That was a bit of a diva to photograph.

Take the first almost-neon photo and then calm it down a bit, but not as much as it is on the other two photos. Then you get the vibrancy that is 296! It's a really bright green, but not neon. My kind of green! Formula, of course, superb. Two coats. I freakishly loved this one. Must wear it again asap.

So yeah ... Kiko is really great. I wish they'd bring them to Slovenia too. What's your experience with Kiko?

Thank you for reading!

L.A. Girl Rockstar and Heavy Metal

2012-01-24T13:07:00.001+01:00

Hey lovely people. How are you doing? Hope all is well and that you like the polish on your nails. I changed it half an hour ago, because I disliked yesterday's colour so much. That rarely happens.

Today I have two colours for you. Remember how long my L.A. Girl WL got a few months ago? Well, I shortened it a little bit. :) These two are both from their Rock star line, one being Rockstar and the other Heavy Metal (which I'd love totally for the name only, even if the colour wouldn't rock).

First Rockstar. Although it looks like an insane duochrome in the bottle, i knew I can't expect that on the nails, from swatches and all. So I wasn't disappointed in that and I actually seriously adored this on my nails. I *love* blacks with a twist. This is basically a black polish with duochromy particles in it. Love!! Three coats, much better application than on the Color Addict line.

Heavy Metal. Basically a black, with tons of shimmer, making it silvery-black. The thing is, the shimmer is quite colourful, as you can see if you enlarge the last picture of it. That's what makes me love this polish. It's actually more complex than it looks when you only glance upon it. In general you probably noticed already I'm a fan of shades like this so I really enjoyed wearing it. Two easy coats, wonderful application.

Hmm ... I just noticed, whenever I show you more polish in one post, there is a set of longer nails and then a set of shorter nails, hehe. The nail lenght on Rockstar is insane. I haven't had my nails that long in months now. I actually enjoy having nails shorter. I just don't like them breaking all the time.

So! Any thoughts on these two? Do you have any shades from Rock star line?

Thank you for reading!

Bell Spark 1 and 2

2012-01-21T17:30:00.000+01:00

Heya people! How are you doing? I have some more Polish polish for you today! I got the two Bells from the swap me and Sabbatha of Spooky nails did a while ago. I've said it before, I'm gonna say it again - I'm really impressed with varnish Poland has. Awesome colours for more than a decent price.

Bell Sparks were limited edition so I was really happy Sabbatha was able to find me the bottles. Pictures!

Bell Spark 1 is an amazing sparkly teal. So gorgeous! Plus the application on Bell is fantastic, the formula and the brush are really great. Three coats on my long nails back then. Totally worth it. <3

I'm sorry to say I did no favour to Bell Spark 2 with my pictures. I couldn't capture the gorgeous shimmer it contains to save my life. Sucks. Here's post Sabbatha did on it, you can see it there clearly. It's a lovely shade of purple. I wasn't so impressed by it as I was with Spark 1, but I'm on a huge teal&green kick, so I'm guessing that's the reason. Two coats on my very short nails, again a great formula.

All in all I can only recommend Bell, judging from these two. Thanks, Sabbatha, for getting them for me!

Did you ever tried Bell polish, do you like them?

Thank you for reading!

Nightly Nails mani

2012-01-20T13:48:00.000+01:00

Heya darlings! How are you doing? It's a day from hell for me. Shitload of bad news and a dead, rainy grey day. Oh yes. Bring it on. But I started typing this post yesterday and now I want to finish it so here we go!

I have a cool one to show you today. You know the feeling, when you see a really really awesome mani on a blog and can't wait to do it yourself? I actually get that a lot. Very often for manis I don't have time to do so I slowly let it go. But this one was very simple. And amazing. It was 3 a.m., I was studying and having a break with browsing through the blogosphere, sleepy as hell. And I saw the mani (I think it was the top something of the 2011 post) and I freaking woke up! So it was a good one, no? It was seen on Nightly Nails blog and I instantly went for the original post, to see how it was made. Sinful Colors Seaweed, flakies and matte TC. I have all that. Yay!

So here is what I used. Sinful Colors Seaweed, two coats, one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, and one coat of Essence Matte TC.

First not mattefied:

And then obviously so:

A lousy attempt to try and show you the green hue the flakies have.

I love the combo, it's very unusual, subtle, but unusual. :) And the polishes. Essie did a great flakie, awesome application! Thanks to Nightly Nails for the idea!

What do you think, yay or nay?

Thank you for reading!

My most worn polishes

2012-01-19T17:00:00.000+01:00

Heya people! So, a few days ago I saw this tag awesome Danny created and I loved the idea instantly. But while searching through my stash to find my most worn varnish, I encountered a problem. I'm not in this 'business' long enough to actually have very worn polish! Especially since I get into wearing all my untrieds project a lot of times and ... well, you know, in general wearing something often for me means I wore it in the past year more than twice.

The other thing is, I lend my polish to my friends. So some of these bottles shown here were not used only by me. But they were worn, so they count. I love seeing my polish actually being worn, so I love lending it too, to keep it in motion. :)

So here they are, I picked 7 that actually were worn by me many times and 7 that perhaps not so much, but I still feel like they were or have some other story behind their bottle usage. Makes sense?

LtR: Illamasqua Rampage, Essie Angora Cardi, Zoya Isla, China Glaze Below Deck, Jesse's Girl Confetti, Catrice Back To Black, Zoya Gemma.

LtR: O.P.I. Kangarooby and Suzi says Feng Shui, China Glaze It's Alive, Brucci Sapphire, Catrice Wine-tastic, Zoya Caitlin, Givenchy 739.

The first row is quite obviously worn a lot, right? No need to explain it. About the second row, Kangarooby was like my fifth polish I've ever gotten (along with Isla) from my dear Tevta and of course I wore the crap out of it. Now it's been neglected for many months, but still.

As for Givenchy, it's almost used up because it's my oldest (and first) polish. It's 8-9 years old, and the bottle contains only 8 ml. It's an awesome polish, at least I considered it to be back then, I need to put it on and show it to ya. But that's the reason why it's so empty, it's rather old. I haven't worn it in years.

So here ya go! I think this tag is great fun because I'm a huge fan of looking at my bottle and seeing the visible usage of the polish. Am I the only one that likes that? :)

I tag, of course, everyone that finds this fun enough, but just for fun, I'll link a few people, that I'm particularly curious about their most worn polishes:

Parokeets ladies
Nihrida
Alizarine Claws
Nail Crazy
Džumbus
Biba's Beauty Corner
You've Got Nail
Das Experiment

and the rest of you all! It's fun, do it. ;) Or at least write me a comment about your most worn polishes. :)

Thank you for reading!

Glittering Garland with Twinkle Lights

2012-01-18T16:38:00.000+01:00

Is it too late to show you my NY mani? I didn't think of it earlier and now it's January 18th, lol. I loved it, I really did. I remember mentioning this combination when first showing you Twinkle Lights, and it did not disappoint, it looked lovely. Twinkle Lights is a major surprise on my part. I love it so much more than I thought I would. I mean, I knew I'll love Glittering Garland, so that's not a surprise, but I didn't even plan to get Twinkle Lights. I love it when polish surprises you.

Two coats of Glittering Garland and one of Twinkle Lights. Very easy to do mani. I love it how green and red glitter pop out on the green base. They are both part of China Glaze Let It Snow collection for Holiday 2011 and both very easy to work with. Thanks to my awesome swap buddy for getting them both for me!

Did you get any colours from the Holiday Collection?

Thank you for reading!

Nubar Forest

2012-01-17T18:52:00.000+01:00

I still haven't shown you Nubar Forest? Seriously? There must be some kind of penalty for keeping these pictures hidden for a long period of time ... oh well, better late than never. Believe it or not ... I actually enjoyed wearing Forest more than I did Greener. Don't believe me? I can imagine. But I did. It's such an amazing, rich and smooth and GREEN green creme. Don't you think? It screams green, and that's such an awesome feeling when you look at your nails. Well, it is for me. :)

Love it, seriously. Forest is, as you may know, a part of Nubar Going Green for 2009. I won't even go on about this collection, you probably grew tired of me going on about it like last month. Two coats, application is so easy, it applies itself and sings you your song of the day while doing so.

If you like green and like to wear cremes, this is the polish for you. Eh, you probably have it already. It's just me, I'm always late to the party.

It's a short one today, I know. I'm a bit sleepy AND I'm in the mood for Dylan Moran and his What It Is show. I love that man.

Your feelings about greens and cremes and the combination of the two? Any Dylan Moran fans out there?

Thank you for reading!

Awesome mani for an awesome day!

2012-01-16T16:00:00.000+01:00

Heya my dear, dear people! How are you doing? It's a beautiful sunny day here in Ljubljana and my day just rocks. I passed a very very hard exam today, can I get an invisible high five here? :) I feel 152036 pounds lighter, haha!

Of course, when I came home I looked at my nails, having a beautiful but so tired mani on them (because of the studying I can't remember the exact duration of it, but I think it lasted for 6 days without chipping (you can imagine my nail-growth showing though)!) I said: today I need a celebration mani! And sunny day just called for a holo polish that I didn't wear for months now, probably. And the awesomest holo polishes in my stash being Nubar Reclaim and O.P.I. DS Glamour, I of course pondered over the two. Glamour won. Just because I've been neglecting the poor beauty for far too long.

I've shown you DS Glamour before, but I wanted to redo my rookie pictures of it. Sadly, there is no way to rightfully catch the unbelievable beauty of this polish. I even did a video, but failed miserably to catch the awesome holo effect. You just have to see it in person, and I hope you do have a bottle of this goodness!

*dreamy sigh* Two coats of this beauty, plus BC and TC. I hope it lasts, it's so beautiful. The application is so easy it's unbelievable.

What's your 'I feel like a million bucks wearing high heels' polish? :)

Thank you for reading!

Misa - Grey Matters

2012-01-12T18:00:00.000+01:00

Hey people! How are you doing? I'm tired but good. :) I just discovered Blogger changed the commenting system so I can reply directly to your comment. That's SO awesome, I wanted to change the system solely because of that and now they did it. Yay!

But let's look at the awesome, awesome polish Misa gave us in their latest collection. I remember someone looking forward to my pictures of it in Phazers on Stunning post and I still haven't posted it until today. *sigh* The beauty that is Grey Matters:

I freakishly love this. Grey with black specks. AWESOME! I think Scrangie's description is spot on - it looks like bird eggs and it's really cute because of that. It's a part of Misa Surreal Escape Collection for Winter 2011. I had no troubles with application, two easy coats. It lasted for a very long time with minor tip wear too! Awesomely gorgeous colour. I love Misa.

Did you get any colours from this collection?

Thank you for reading!

Orly pretty pair Fowl Play and Nite Owl

2012-01-11T18:09:00.000+01:00

Heya people! Whoa. You have no idea how many pictures I have prepared for you and are just piling on the computer, because I don't have the time to post them. Sucks! I had an exam today, I hope it went well. Came home, changed my mani and now I'm half way through the door already to my dance practise. No rest for the wicked.

I remembered I haven't shown you the two Orlys I got a while ago yesterday, as I was admiring my Nite Owl mani. Nite Owl is one of the varnishes I actually wear ... you know, more than once. There is something so nice and clean and subtle on it. Fowl Play on the other hand is the big bird showing off of this collection. Look at me, all beautiful and gorgeous and FLAKIED. Yeah. So imagine my surprise when I put it on and wasn't over the moon about it. Don't get me wrong, it's a stunning colour, but it didn't rock my world as much as I thought it will. Nite Owl is the quiet winner of this collection in my humble opinion.

The most gorgeous part of Fowl Play is the blue glitter. I love that SO much on this polish! It's not nearly as visible on the pictures as it is on the nail. What I don't like is the tricky application, my nails look thick, I really dislike that effect. Still ... eh, you know, it's a totally gorgeous colour, one can't help but think that. I just didn't see fireworks wearing it. Three coats.

My little beauty. Nite Owl. BTW, how can a nail polish not be awesome, if it's named after owls?! I love it. I totally didn't think I will love it so much, but I do. It looks so much better on nails than in the bottle, and there is nothing wrong with how it looks in the bottle either! Three coats, after the second I still had bold spots. Perfect formula though!

BTW ... wouldn't this pic be PERFECT for Orly's display on this collection? I'd probably buy the entire collection if I saw this as the official promo picture. :D

xD It's probably an old joke with this collection, I'm just months behind, like usually, so if i'm the only one chuckling, it's understandable. ;)

These two are a part of Orly Birds of a Feather Collection for Fall 2011. A rather strong collection, IMO, with two more neat colours, but as I have similar blue foil and jade green creme, I passed on the other two. Fowl Play and Nite Owl are totally worth buying though!

Did you get any colours from this collection?

Thank you for reading!

Paket Petek

2012-01-06T17:00:00.000+01:00

I could hardly wait for this Paket Petek, I wanted to show you this package right away when I got it! After I got back home from our NY party and went online, to check out the blogsphere, I was happy to see Maestra, my make up guru, did another post on brushes, that are rapidly becoming my obsession. Little have I known that the big surprise in the end of the post included giving away the amazing set, and that the little ol' me is getting it. I just sat on the chair, staring at the monitor for a moment without even blinking. I wanted a good set of brushes for so long - even had it on my WL I posted a while ago. And now all of the sudden I have it.

Another thing I wish to point out - these were sent to me directly from the online store that sells them in Slovenia, licila.si. This was a gift, they were sending it for free, I didn't pay for it. And still I got them the very next day that Maestra gave them my address. I already have great experience with licila.si from before, but I was really impressed by their speed and care in this case, since sometimes I read about some brands and stores that really take their time with sending free items. Great job and thank you, licila.si!

I want to thank Parokeets for this amazing, amazing package. There are no words for how happy I am about receiving the set. Thank you, so so much! I put my make up on yesterday with them, as I was getting out for a lunch and they are SO amazing to work with! I could already see the difference in my eye make up, being much more precise. I'm talking from a rather big brush-rookie aspect, so I can only tell you how it felt applying make up with them, nothing about the shape, the right firmness of them etc. And they felt awesome.

Pictures!

And the little ones again, that I'm most excited about. :)

For the awesome review and better pictures visit Maestra's post on them, in there you can also see my latest favourite eye look by her she did with them. <3

Thank you again, darlings, you're the best! *hug*

And you, my dear reader, brush & eyeshadow fan or not so much? :) What lovely packages did you receive this week or for NYs?

Thank you for reading!

Road trip moments: a little bit of Czech Rep., tea and Call to Arms

2012-01-04T17:30:00.000+01:00

Heya people! It's still all about travelling! I was planning to write one more post on my road trip in November and here it finally is.

First an awesome coffee, I forgot to show you in Žilina post! Yum, coffee, it was so good!

The candy was good too. But coffee was better.

So in my last entry we left Žilina, Strečno Castle and Slovakia and went to visit their neighbours, Czech Republic. Ah, Češka ... I love that country. This time we stayed only a little bit and planned only to spoil ourselves in the wonderful spa of Savannah hotel. O-M-G! Savannah is an amazing hotel. They spoil you SO much, the rooms are amazing, the staff is amazing, the food is amazing, everything is so good! It's the hotel I'd gladly pay full price for, even if we didn't have the certificate. I totally recommend it, you won't be sorry. It's basically on the border with Austria, you get the feeling it's made just for Austrians, to go spoil themselves abroad. Next to it is a giant complex of stores of basically everything, from food to jewellery. We went only to one, there were just too many of them and we didn't want to lose time there. But Savannah is amazing for relaxation, really. We spend the day like kings, by luck we had the pool for ourselves, and very few people were at sauna, and the day ended with the most amazing dinner. After few days of hectic travelling that felt really good.

The washbowl in the bathroom. Doesn't it look awesome? Marble mani in these colours would be neat. ;)

We visited Znojmo the next day, for a short while, we didn't have much time anymore. We went to Albert, one of the bigger stores there, for Czech beer and Krivoklatska mead, because they simply rock. And something else. Tea!! Loads of tea! For some odd reason we don't have the choice of tea they have in Slovakia or Czech republic. It sucks, because I LOVE tea and so I piled it throughout entire travelling. This is what I brought home.

Tea!! They're really good too!

And so we went to Austria, Vienna, where *the* concert of this travel occurred, Saxon on a tour with Anvil, I couldn't wait to see them! Although at first I wanted to go for Anvil, after a few weeks I couldn't wait for Saxon too, their music is fantastic, not to mention their energy on stage is simply ... beyond awesome. Really, to this day only Primordial could mesmerise me so much as Saxon did. Awesome, awesome concert! And don't get me wrong, Anvil were really great too, I just regreted their very short set list, they skipped some great songs.

BTW, if you're in Vienna, I recommend hotel roomz. Cheap for Vienna and very nice! We had like 10 min walk to the concert place, great location, it's rather close to the city centre too.

So yeah ... the concert was so amazing, we came to hotel, almost missed the check-out in the morning (we're the definition of a not-morning person, especially after a concert the night before) and headed for Slovenia.

It was beyond awesome, seriously. I'm in a better mood if i just think about that trip. I have the best boyfriend in the world, have I ever mentioned that? Thanks for everything, dearest. :*

Any thoughts on this entry or on road trip in general, any favourites, any places/hotels you saw differently if/when you visited them?

Thank you for reading!

New giveaway winner

2012-01-04T15:30:00.000+01:00

Hey guys! I haven't heard back from the winner of my Loads to celebrate giveaway, so I picked another one today. This time the lucky number was 22 and under that number hides

Anibani!

Hehe, very cute nickname. :) Congratulations! Anibani, you have until Friday at midnight (GMT +1.00) to get back to me, I'm sending you an email right now. :)

EDIT: I'm so silly. I forgot Anibani has a blog, I just realised that when she commented on the post! Her blog is Me, Makeup and I, and she has the cutest set of nails ever! Forgive me for not linking the blog before, this cold I'm having is really getting to me.

Happy Birthday, Professor!

2012-01-03T17:10:00.000+01:00

Hey people! A short one today, I don't have much time. But it's a very special day today, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien would celebrate his 120th birthday today! As my regular readers have already noticed, Tolkien means a lot to me and I'm a complete fantasy geek.

We're celebrating his birthday today with our Tolkien Society, as every year, and of course I needed to do a mani just for my favourite Professor on the planet. I wanted something green again, but this year I wanted it to be mossy green. I planned to top it with mossy glitter, to bring in the extra bling, but to my great surprise China Glaze It's Alive is so opaque, it looks like I'm wearing it alone, not over Zoya Dree.

And these are REALLY thin coats of It's Alive! When I took a closer look I could see Dree peeking through, but apparently it's such a good base colour for It's Alive, it blends right in. Anyway ... this reminds me of mossy forest ground, with forest being a bit gloomy. I didn't want to take typical forest green, just to keep it more interesting. Plus, It's Alive is probably my favourite polish of this year. One of them, at least.

Anyway. Tolkien gave me so much with the world he created. Happy birthday, Professor! Wherever you are, hope you are well and happy.

Thank you for reading!

Essence Into The Dark vs. Bourjois 10 Days 18 comparison

2012-01-02T18:12:00.000+01:00

Heya people! First post this year, woohoo! Hope you had a wonderful entrance and start of the year 2012. I know I said I'll be back on the 4th, but I feel like posting this now. Lovely MissDoll asked me in my last entry how close does Bourjois 18 get to Essence Into The Dark. I haven't worn Into The Dark yet, but luckily I did get my greedy little fingers on it. And you know how much I love to do a comparison for ya, so I did it today while changing the polish on my nails, because the one I put on yesterday seriously wasn't working for me.

A big close up of the bottles, to see the difference in the shade of blue and size of the shimmer more clearly.

The only half decent picture of the nails outside. Dead gloomy weather, bah.

The difference in colour is quite obvious, Into The Dark is darker, with bigger silver shimmer - it's seen also on weak light, while Bourjois' silver shimmer is so fine it almost gets lost in weaker lightning. They are both beautiful, although I prefer Into The Dark, it's fantastic, can't wait to wear it as a full mani!

Other stuff: application of Essence one is good, the formula is a bit thicker, but nicely manageable, two coats are more than enough. Bourjois has more watery formula, but I prefer that in general. The big fault of Bourjois is the brush. What. The. Hell. I did manage to get it on better this time, I guess there is a learning curve here too, but it's such an unnecessary experiment with the brush. Essence has a great, flatter brush, I love it.

I did three coats of Bourjois, because I had bald spots, also the shimmer is more obvious with three (if you check my other entry where I had only two you'll see it). Essence is insanely pigmented, I did two coats, but if you're careful enough and use thicker coats, you can get away with one.

Into the Dark is a part of Essence limited edition Vampire's Love and is no longer available, but it costed under 2€. Bourjois 10 Days 18 is still available, here it costs around 5€.

I love both colours, but if I have to pick a winner, it would be Essence Into The Dark. If you have it, don't let go of it!

Which one do you prefer?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Blue Addicted over Bourjois 18

2011-12-29T21:06:00.000+01:00

How about I show you a mani I really loved while I'm stuffing my face with pancakes?

I started with Bourjois 10 days number 18, a really cool blue colour with a less than good brush. It's cut inclined and it gave me quite a lot of troubles. I know it's supposed to make the application easier, but for me it didn't. I prefer the classic brush. But the colour is beautiful. Although I liked it, i wanted something more on my nails. I'm into layering lately, and Blue Addicted was in my untrieds box for far far too long. Magic happened.

And Borujois 18, as you can see, a lovely shade of blue with silver shimmer.

Nothing could prepare me for the awesomeness that is Essence Blue Addicted. I loved it so so so freakishly much. The application is good, you have to search for the hexagonal glitter a bit, but it works with you, so it's not too much trouble. Two coats, over two coats of Bourjois. And it was a perfect mani, that comes with a heavy removal, just like all Essence glitters. Well worth the trouble though.

You can build Blue Addicted too, but I prefer to layer it. Definitively on my top 10 for this year. Fantastic polish, truly a must-have in Essence department. Yes, I know it's a dupe of Across the Universe, and I really love Essence for doing a dupe of this marvellous polish that I shall never have due to the price.

Do you have Blue Addicted? Do you like hexagonal glitter or does the hype around it baffle you?

Thank you for reading & have a great NY celebration!

My Loads to Celebrate giveaway conclusion and the winner

2011-12-29T19:18:00.000+01:00

Hello everyone! I've been MIA, I know. It's holiday season, mix it with studying and you won't have any time left on your hands! I miss blogging a lot, so I hope I'll get back on track soon. I have my heavy exam in the middle of January, but I hope I'll get to you sooner than that.

Now, I finally went through all your entries for my giveaway, added the extra entries and disqualify the cheaters. I want to thank each and every one of you for entering and for putting comments and suggestions, I appreciate it! So first of all I'd love to address them, I'd appreciate if you'd read them, not only scroll down to see who won. :)

I'm really happy you so warmly welcomed my travelling and non-varnish posts! Which also reminds me I owe you one more post from my last road trip! I'll try to post with more variety from now on - that is, when I'm back to my regular posting about anything at all.
Someone asked me what the base colour in my giveaway post for the flakies was. It was Essie School of Hard Rocks and here's also my post on that combination.
Yes, Number of The Beast giveaway (that then didn't happen for already mentioned reasons) was based on Iron Maiden Number of the Beast song. I even wanted to make a little joke with extra entry for listening to the song on YT. :D I really liked that idea, too bad it went agley.
Someone asked if I could make my pictures bigger. I'm already doing that, can you tell? Sadly I can't put them larger in the post, since my template doesn't allow that (which reminds me I need to work on the look of the blog too), but when you click on it, it's usually bigger. Is that better, would you prefer them even larger?
I got two requests on nail art, one quite specific, horoscope themed nail art, made me chuckle, I don't know if it was a joke or not, but it was amusing. I'm kinda more on Sheldon's side when it comes to astrology, so I doubt I'll ever make a horoscope themed nail art, but you never know! :) As for nail art in general ... *sigh* I remember I did a NY promise for 2011 that I'll do more nail art, and still I'm down to a minimum. Sure, I've started with stamping, and i love scotch tape art, but I seriously lack the time for nail art, it bugs me, but I can't help it. Lately I lack the time for changing my polish to begin with, let alone to do a nail art. And I really want to try sponging, argh! So I promise, I'll try to post more nail art in 2012 and I take that to my heart, ok?
As for reviews and haul posts, I'm doing that when I have something to post. :) I turned haul posts to 'Paket Petek' label posts, as for reviews, I will post if I find something really awesome. But other than that I consider every post I do a small review of the polish I'm showing - that's why I'm always writing about the formula and all.
Someone kindly warned me about GFC being removed. I figured that one out after I started my giveaway, that's why I left the condition of being my GFC follower be, but I'm aware that soon I'll gave to make a Google+ site for you guys. If anyone has any helpful advice on how to make the transition easier, let me know in the comments, please!

Thank you again for all your kind words!

All in all I had 144 people entering, that's before I did the extra entries for regular commentators and checked the GFC status. In the end the number was 161 and the lucky number that was randomly picked was 73. Who was hiding under that number?

Tashiiika

Congratulations! Since it's NY and a lot of people are not at home, I'm leaving the deadline for getting back to me until January 3rd. If I don't get a reply until then, I'm choosing another winner.

Thanks to my BF for helping me with the secret ways of Microsoft Excel, making the whole checking deal and choosing a lot easier. :*

And thank you guys, for simply being here, making my day with your comments, and not giving up on my blog even when I disappear for a while. :) You're the best!

I'll be away until January 4th, but then I hopefully return with my top 10 of this year, I like the posts other ladies are doing, I hope I find the time for it too. Plus the last post on my road trip!

Have a great great new year 2012, may it be magical, full of health, happiness and joy and of course nail polish! :*

China Glaze - Twinkle Lights over Etos 26, my Christmas mani

2011-12-25T16:11:00.000+01:00

Hey darlings. Merry Christmas! Hope you're having lovely holidays with your loved ones! I want to show you my Christmas mani. I don't really celebrate Christmas and I greatly dislike how they're washing out the magic of it with all the decorations and all in the end of November already, but I do a Christmas themed mani nevertheless. It's very simple, but I like it.

I wanted to make an impression of colourful lights in the silvery whiteness of snow. Sadly, Etos ruined the plans, being a very flat silver, so I put two coats of China Glaze Twinkle Lights over it, instead of just one, making it almost opaque. I still love how it turned out, I wanted a bright mani and I succeeded. Alas the pictures are less than good. They kill the playfulness of Twinkle Lights. It's a happy glitter, I love that so much. Simple, but colourful and not too much in your face. I love it so much more than I thought I will.

Pictures, as much I don't like them.

Sparkle check photo.

The base colour. I find it very flat and boring. Pity.

Like I said, you should see Twinkle Lights in person to really appreciate its beauty. I love it. It's a part of China Glaze Let It Snow collection for Holiday 2011, also a varnish I didn't plan to get at all. I'm happy I got it thanks to my awesome swap buddy. I also can't wait to layer it over red and green. Glittering Garland + Twinkle Lights = squee!!!

Etos 26 on the other hand was a bit disappointing. I also wanted a sparkly silver, so my expectations weren't met. It's a bit brush-stroky, but nothing major. Two coats for full coverage, application isn't difficult at all. Still, I need a sparkly silver!

Did you enjoy your Christmas/holiday celebration? Any suggestions on sparkly silver polish? Would be appreciated. :)

Thank you for reading, have a lovely Sunday!

My (not so very) secret wishlist/plan for 2012

2011-12-23T21:14:00.004+01:00

I just saw this post at Scrangie's and was amused, as I'm planning to do something similar for weeks now. Great minds think alike, haha! Mine isn't planned as the holiday beauty wishlist but rather as wishlist of things I'm wanting for quite a while now but I don't get around to buying them, either for the lack of money of time or ways to buy them. But I want to make them my little projects for the next year. At least those that I can get fairly easily.

Naturally this is the beauty wishlist only. I think it's logical my biggest wishes for next year aren't material. But here are the little material things (in no particular order) that make also my spiritual part happy. ;)

source: harpersbazaar.co.uk

A good set of brushes. Not the prepared set, but my set of brushes, with good quality and all. Brushes are the only thing in make up department I am actually justified of buying. You know, I really need them, right now I'm operating with three or four brushes and it's really not pleasant. So a good set of brushes - a couple for eye make up (the whole deal, eyeliner, smokey eyes, blending, eyeshadow etc.), a couple for lip stuff etc. etc. I'm planing to make a list, suggested by other bloggers, especially my eye make up guru Maestra and then slowly buy what's on the list. Right now I'm itching to try the famous eyeshadow MAC brush aaaand ... that's the start of my list, I guess. :S

source: beauty-locator.de

Burberry The Beat perfume. I'm completely in love with this perfume. It's fantastic. I'm a huge fan of parfumes and I'm really not happy when I don't have it, I always feel something is missing. So now this is probably my next purchase, I found an awesome on line store here, where they sell originals for almost half a price of drugstores!

A wishlist in a wishlist for BB Natura store. There are three Derma E products I'm dying to have (especially Vitamin A pore refining gel), three Badger products (especially hand creme), and a couple of Akamuti products (especially the green tea tonic). I can find all of that at BB Natura, I have fantastic experiences with them and therefore love to shop there.

source: nihrida.com

Beauty UK Metallic Eye Spark and Pearl eyeliners. I blame the totally fantastic Nihrida for those. I bought three Pearl eyeliners because of her phenomenal review and frankly, I want more. She's a WL maker, oh yes, but the product really act like she says they do and that's beyond awesome, it really makes me trust her with the products she's showing. So I need Beauty UK Pearl Purple Haze, and Metallic Eye Spark in Green, Bronze and Purple.Want those, especially since they're really cheap and again, coming from an online store I had fantastic experience with.


source: 1.bp.blogspot.com

Concrete Minerals Eyeshadow. Oh man. Their eye shadows look SO fantastic and crazy!! Won't even go into how many of them I want. Top two sets are the Flame Collection and The Envy Me collection, let's stop at that. They will be hard to get for me, but not impossible!

source:amazon.com

BH Cosmetics 120 colour palette 2nd edition. I blame Maestra for this one. ;)

Let's stop at this point. ;) Basically these are the stuff that I really want to get. You can also see which stores I love and check their offer often by this wishlist too. Well, I have an entire year for these babies, let's hope I manage to get at least half of it. ;)

What's on your secret wishlist (or rather plan) for 2012? :)

Thank you for reading, have pleasant holidays! *muah*

China Glaze - Glittering Garland

2011-12-23T18:37:00.000+01:00

Heya people! Wow, it's been a while. Thing is, I have a big exam in January and so I asked again my BF to lock the computer, so I don't spend too much time on it. With studying and the holidays I barely have time for the internet anyways. Right now I'm still a bit hangover-ish from the beyond awesome ladies night yesterday and I feel like showing you my NOTD. I wasn't even sure if I should get Glittering Garland, since it looked a lot like Emerald Sparkle which I already have. The thing is, I think Glittering Garland is Emerald sparkle 2.0, meaning, it beats the hell out of it. And I LOVE Emerald Sparkle. But I love Glittering Garland even more, because sparkles look like glass flecks. And you know my love for glass flecked polish.

Check the sparkles on the blurry ones!

My nails are at this point painfully short. Seriously, it hurts me, like right now as I'm typing this away. They are too short, but they started to break and plaster and I cannot moisturise them enough for them to be happy again. *sigh* Stupid cold.

Glittering Garland is a part of China Glaze Let It Snow! collection for Holiday 2011, a collection that didn't call my name at all when I first saw it nor when I saw the first swatches. Now I have 4 varnishes at home, Glittering Garland and Ring In The Red being my new discovered loves, they are fantastic. Glittering Garland is also so easy to work with, two coats is all you need, the formula is excellent as well. No complaints. Gorgeous one, don't you think?

Thank you for reading!

China Glaze - It's Alive

2011-12-18T17:49:00.000+01:00

Hey guys! A quick post before my lunch, as I realised on Friday I STILL haven't shown you It's Alive, that is in my top 10 of this year's polishes, it's so fantastic. I hope I'll have time to do my top 10 of this year, I've seen it on a blog and it looked fun. :)

It's Alive is fantastic polish, the mixture of small and large glitter is awesome, great idea, China Glaze! It's from their Haunting Collection for Halloween 2011, I got Haunting too from this collection, but haven't worn it yet. *sigh* It's Alive is without a doubt the star of the collection and quite possible my favourite glitter I own. At least top 3 for sure.

See how the finer glitter sparkles on my ring finger?? Awesome!

As always a video for the glitter check. I've finally come to conclusion that blurry video does that best, the sharp one kills the glitter completely.

Anyway ... as you can see, this is a bit older mani, my nails were longer here. Lately they're really week, I need to shorten them regularly otherwise they just break. As for the formula and application, my notes tell me the formula is quite tooth paste like on this baby. Surprisingly, I don't have many China Glaze with bad formula. Still, it doesn't show on the final result, so it's all good. Oh, and only two coats, people!! Two freaking coats for glitter polish, holy crap, that's great! Two coats of TC too, to minimise the roughness and you're done. Frankly, I'd put up with a lot of work with a colour like this. It's an awesome, quite unique shade of green and it's a fantastic glitter. Right up my alley.

Oh, another thing I have to show you. My BF discovered this guy and I can't stop listening to it. Seriously, it's been on repeat since he found it. It's a mixture of the most famous tunes from Lord of the Rings, played with electric guitar.

I CAN'T STOP LISTENING TO THIS! IMO soundtrack for Lord of the Rings is one of the biggest masterpieces ever, plus a major homage to Tolkien's world, being really musical and all. Howard Shore has made Perfection with his work. My favourite tune is that from Shire, btw (the beginning of this video). :)

Thoughts on It's Alive? What's your favourite melody from Lord of the Rings (if you are such a fan you have it anyway ;))? :)

Thank you for reading!

China Glaze - Love Marilyn

2011-12-17T19:50:00.000+01:00

Heya people! How are you doing? I'm drinking my coffee, yes, internet is again down to my coffee breaks only. *sigh* Oh well. :) I planned to write my last road trip moment post, but I feel like showing you this particular beauty. Love Marilyn feels like an upgrade of Ruby Pumps, you know, like someone at China Glaze lab said 'I need even more bling, dammit!' and randomly threw a box of glitter in the mix. So the powerpuff girls were bo- oh wait, wrong channel, sorry. So Love Marilyn was born! A glitter bomb that it completely suited for its name, it is hot and sexy and gorgeous, just like Marilyn was. One of the rare so-called sex bombs I do consider well worth the praise and fame.

Sparkle check blurry photo, just to show you how insanely glitterish this baby is.

FYI, macro shots really made it look like I had tips half-naked, I didn't, IRL my nails looked completely covered in glitter.

Oh wow. Isn't this one of the coolest glitters you've ever seen? I mean, seriously, we all had our share of plain red glitter and frankly, I lost my interest in most of them. Then comes China Glaze and does a silvery red glitter and I'm hooked. I love how silver glitter is almost in the same amount as the finer red glitter. I must say, that pictures kinda take away some of the magic of this polish. It looks TONS better on your nails than on this pictures. I feel like it's always like that with seriously awesome polish ...

The application was really easy, I did three coats, because I like good opacity. And three coats only are with glitter always a plus! I put two coats of TC on then, it still felt a bit rough but manageable. It started to chip on the third day, but it might be my nails being weak and all, I can't fix them to save my life. :/

So, as you all know, Love Marilyn is a part of China Glaze Eye Candy collection for Winter 2011, some majorly awesome glitters in the collection too! They're supposed to be 3D glitters, since there are different sized glitters in the mix, if that makes sense to you. All I know is that Love Marilyn is fantastic. I really love it.

Don't ask me about the removal. It was a major PITA, even for a glitter. This is the first glitter where I actually would do the foil method for 5 minutes. Otherwise I never do, it's just wrong, glitter goes off very nicely even if you keep the nails covered for only 45 sec to 1 min. But with Marilyn, give it a couple of minutes, so you won't have the troubles I did. Still, totally worth it, mind you!

What do you think about this collection? You a glitter fan or not so much?

Thank you for reading!

Paket Petek

2011-12-16T17:03:00.000+01:00

Whoa, it's time for Paket Petek (Package Friday) again! Ain't that sweet? :)

I've had so much work to do for school lately, guys, I'm sorry I'm neglecting the blog again. I didn't even post the last day for the giveaway yesterday, I was studying all night long. It sucks. Well, the giveaway is closed now, thank you all for entering! Due to my studying it will take me a bit longer to check all the entries and together with upcoming holidays it just may be a post-NY gift for one of you. I'll do my best to do that as soon as possible, I promise, but don't feel offended, if you don't hear about it for a while, please, school work has to come first, even if that does suck.

But anyway! Let's check out the glitter bomb I got in the latest package that I got from the awesome author of My Lucid Bubble. She cannot miss with the colours, seriously, they are always spot on for me.

Group picture (I guess leaving pictures large doesn't work very well, they look all blurry :/)

The flakie from Essie Luxeffects and 4 from China Glaze Let It Snow collection.

Three from China Glaze Eye Candy 3D collection.

Am I spoiled or am I spoiled? *dreamy sigh* I'm wearing Love Marilyn (the red-silver glitter) as I type this since Tuesday night and it's like ... it's like ... beyond freaking awesome! Must show it to you asap.

Another thing I've noticed. China Glaze apparently figured out how much we love this type of glitter that first showed up in form of It's Alive, and has now made two on the same note, but different colours. China Glaze, I really love you for that. Look at these beauties:

What goodies have you gotten in your latest package? :)

Thank you for reading!

Guest Post: Nail polish through History

2011-12-16T16:20:00.001+01:00

Hello people! How are you doing? I'm flooded with work, right now I'm having a small break, and I *really* need to post this, I cannot believe it took me so long! Lately I keep forgetting stuff about blog, I'll need to start some sort of planner, seriously!

I was contacted by Izzy Woods a couple of weeks ago, she's a freelance writer and super nice! I guess she can also read minds a bit, because she completely nailed it with combination of history and nail polish (I only asked for the article to be in some sort of connection with nail polish, I didn't propose a theme). I'm a huge fan of history, and, well, obviously nail polish. ;) So I thank her for the article, I hope you'll enjoy it as much as I did, even if you're not a fan of history, it sums up the main years for nail polish nicely. :)

***

Nail Polish and Manicures - a History

From henna to flappers and barbershops to Hollywood, a history of nail art and fashion around the world.

3000 BC – The first known instance of nailart, in China, using enamel to tint nails pink.

1300 BC – Ancient Egyptians use nail coloras a marker of social status. Queen Nefertiti goes for ruby red, and Cleopatralikes crimson, but lower class women are only allowed pale shades. Henna isalso used to tint nails.

600 BC – Chinese royalty use gold andsilver to enhance their nails. Non-royals use mashed up flowers combined withadhesives such as gelatin, egg white or gum Arabic to colour their nails pinkor red. Longer fingernails denote higher social standing.

1500 – Nail art is born in the Incacivilisation, where nails are decorated with pictures of eagles. Prettyawesome.

1800s – In Europe, nails are not justcolored, they're also scented with oils and buffed with a special cloth.

1830 – Orange wood sticks are first usedfor cuticle care in Europe.

1880s – First nail salons appear in theUS.

1878 – Vaseline petroleum jelly patented.One of its uses is for giving nails a healthy shine.

1900s – In Edwardian Britain, manicuringbecomes a profession in its own right (rather than being done by doctors). Itbecomes a popular profession for working women, usually employed by a barber'sshop, and initially the main customers are men. The service includes trimming,filing, shaping, removing stains and polishing. Essential products: castilesoap, Borax, nail bleach, nail powder or polish, nail cream, cold cream,styptic pencil, and tincture of benzoin (used as an antiseptic). Cocoa butter,vaseline or olive oil may be massaged into the nails to add shine. The tips ofnails are whitened and polished with products such as Graf's Hyglo nail polishpaste, a clear varnish applied with a camel-hair brush.

1917 – Cutex introduces a new cuticleremover, which softens and removes surplus cuticle without any soaking orcutting required. Meanwhile Cutex Nail White remove stains, and Cutex NailPolish – applied just by rubbing onto nails with the palm of the hand – gives ashimmering finish. There's also Cutex Nail Cake and Cutex Nail Paste. Fullmanicure set available for just 14c.

1920s – Colored nail polish becomespopular, inspired by the availability of a wider range of automobile colors.Only part of the nail is painted – the tips and nail-bed half-moon are leftbare. In Paris, the French manicure takes off.

1923 – Q Tips invented by Leo Gerstenzang,a Polish-born American.

1930s– Long fingernails are in vogue, withscarlet shades favored for fingernails and pink for toes.

1932 – Revlon is founded, in the midst ofthe Great Depression, by brothers Charles and Joseph Revson and chemist CharlesLachman – the source of the 'l' in the middle of Revlon. They develop arevolutionary new type of nail polish, using pigments instead of dyes toproduce a more opaque effect.

1937 – Revlon's new range of opaque shadesbecomes available in department stores and drug stores.

1945 – Revlon launches its first fullcolor advertising campaign, based on matching lipsticks and nail polishes withexotic and eyecatching names, such as Fatal Apple, Sweet Talk and Paint theTown Pink. Following World War II, the 'flapper' look takes off, based on a statementlook by Coco Chanel: dark eyes, red lips, red nails.

1950s – Color films have a big impact oncosmetics. Towards the end of the decade, titanium is added top products totone down brightness, creating paler frosted effects.

1955 – Revlon becomes a public company,opening priced at $12 per share but rising to $30 per share in eight weeks.

1960s – The Cover Girl brand, aimed atteens, is launched in grocery stores. Pastels are in fashion – partly becauseparents are less likely to object.

1979 – Beginnings of the Goth movement.Black nail polish has its heyday.

1990s – Magazine freebies become widespread, with nailvarnishes a hot favorite.

2000s – Revlon moves away from fashionmodels to movie stars to front its campaigns. Goodbye Cindy Crawford, hello Kate Bosworth, Jessica Biel,Julianne Moore and Halle Berry. Oh, and Elle MacPherson, even though she's amodel.

2003 – Water-based polish invented. Thisis more eco-friendly and free from all the chemicals in most varnishes.

2006 – Some makers agree to stop using dibutyl phthalate,which has been linked to testicular problems in humans and lab animals.

***

Thank you again, Isabel!

And you, thank you for reading, do share your thoughts in the comments. :)

Zoya is Jesse's girl!

2011-12-13T17:45:00.001+01:00

Hey people! How are ya doing? I'm having a post-lunch warm beverage (an expression that totally reminds me of Sheldon, hehe), today a gorgeous black tea with cinnamon, vanilla and something else flavour and I decided to show you my NOTD. Since it is an epic win after all. Btw, I read a little rant about overuse of the word 'epic'. Are you fed up with it too or are you like me and use it all the time? ;)

I tried this combo on a ring I'm making as a gift, and loved it so freaking much, I changed my mani, trying Zoya Yasmeen with it for the first time. You know, I generally think I'm quite fed up with purples. That the purple phase is well behind me. And then I find a purple like Yasmeen and pass out from excitement. No words can describe the beauty and depth of this utterly gorgeous purple. I was actually sorry a bit to layer it. I did it anyway, knowing I'll love the combo, but Yasmeen is a gorgeous little thing all by herself. I did only one coat of Jesse's Girl Confetti - probably my favourite layering polish ever - to keep the purple base more clear and I love the result. Mind you, on the nails the duochrome is a lot more visible, i didn't capture it well.

And the beauty herself.

I feel like Yasmeen came out on my pictures a bit too bright and it lots a bit of depth too. *sigh* Simple camera, no help there. But I'm sure a lot of you already know her, probably also own her, I think this is easily one of the most popular Zoyas out there. It's a bit older, from Zoya Provocateur collection for Fall 2006. Yasmeen is obviously the star of the collection, I can't even find the swatches of the rest of the collection, but promo bottles look pretty boring. Not Yasmeen though! Two easy coats on this baby too, it's really simple to work with. For every purple lover this really is the polish to have.

What do you think of the combo and Yasmeen alone? What's on your nails today? :)

Thank you for reading!

ASK Cosmetics and their Gigantic Festive Giveaway

2011-12-12T19:07:00.000+01:00

Hello darlings! I'm sorry I've been MIA, school work got the best of me, and right now I'm still on a tight schedule as I type this away. But I just read an email I received from the very kind Lisa from ASK Cosmetics and I know you'll want to know this!

As some of you already know, I'm a giant fan of nail care products. Seriously. I love my nail polish, of course, but nail care products are a thing I'm always on the look-out for and I love to try and discover new things. Of course I was happy to browse through ASK Cosmetics site. Natural cosmetics, yes! Aaand as it happens, they're having a gigantic giveaway of their products and the group picture looks SO yummy!

For more information I suggest you go to Lisa's Nailcare Blog or visit their Facebook page, if you prefer that. I think it's a wonderful prize and well, I'm a big fan of trying out new cosmetics!

I hope I'll be able to post something more today, if not, then tomorrow. But do tell, did you try ASK Cosmetics, do you have any experiences with any of their products?

Thank you for reading, have a great week!

Zoya - Caitlin

2011-12-09T16:01:00.001+01:00

Hey darlings! How are you doing? I'm having a headache again, I hate it. It's because of the nerves, I presented a paper today in my class. It went well, but you know how it is with nerves before you start talking in front of many people. That's also the reason why I haven't replied to your emails if you sent them, I've been just too busy, sorry, I'll get to all the polish business on Monday, I promise.

I'm going to show you something soft today. It's an old mani, I wish my head would hurt a bit less, so I'd be able to change my mani and wear Caitlin. I love this colour. When I first saw it, I didn't like it. I thought it was boring. Honestly. The weird thing was, the more I saw it on blogsphere, the more I liked it, until it got to my top three of Zoyas I wanted!! I'm not kidding, I wanted it so bad. There is just something so soft and serene in this colour. I adore it. Now that I'm getting used to stamping i think it also makes a wonderful base colour, hehe, I must try something soon. :)

Only three pictures, because most of them were blurry. Grrr, I hate it when that happens.

You all know her, but for the habit's sake - Caitlin is from Zoya Intimate Collection for Spring 2011. A soft and gentle collection, that you would think at first will be boring, but then it totally gets under your skin and you realize it's in fact, fantastic. I own Gemma and Caitlin from this collection, both are utter, and I mean utter perfections. The two I can't decide over - but can't let go either - are Dannii and Dove. I just might get them, to stop pondering about it. :) Actually, the feeling around this collection was similar to the one I'm getting with the new Winter collection Zoya unexpectedly released, Feel. First impression is 'eh', and then you take a closer look ... and want three colours out of six in the collection. I don't know how, but Zoya nails it, whether we're talking about soft colours, bold ones, shimmer, creme or glitter.

As for Caitlin, she is a two coater and applies perfectly. No complaints. I love Zoya formula.

Did you get any colours from the Intimate Collection? What are your thoughts on the new, Feel collection?

Thank you for reading!

Born Pretty Store 10% off discount code

2011-12-08T15:40:00.001+01:00

Heya darlings! Before I forget (again), very kind Jayce from Born Pretty Store reminded me to share with you the 10% discount code! Just type the code 'KOJ61' with your purchase and get the discount. :) Great way to make your Christmas gift shopping even more wallet-friendly! :)

KOJ61

Nubar - Greener and my deep green shimmers

2011-12-07T05:30:00.000+01:00

Heya darlings! How are you doing? I have to show you Greener ASAP. It's ... it's ... perfect. It's a perfect green shimmer polish. I remember writing something like that for RGB Sea. Nubar is his brighter brother, but they both come from the "Perfection" family.

Greener was such a lemming of mine. I told you before, Nubar Going Green collection for 2009 is one of the rare collections I want as a whole. And as it happens, I have half of it already. Whoa! I feel so good when I look at my polish table, seeing Reclaim, Greener and Forest hanging out together in a tiny group. :)

Having a lemming so strong, there is always a danger of being disappointed when you finally get the polish you wanted so badly. Not Greener though. Greener surpassed all my expectations, and they were hiiigh.

Pictures. Then you'll understand what I'm talking about.

And for all of you who don't change polish that often. I couldn't remove Greener until I thought nail growth showed already. This is how this beauty looks like after four days. And no, I didn't just sit for four days, staring at my nails. :P No chipping, just a tiny tiny bit of tip wear. Frankly, with some polish I have bigger tip wear on the second day or after I hit the shower on the same day even.

Application is a bliss. Nubar, in short. Utter perfection, no faults. I did three coats, wanting to see if anything changes, two coats are needed for full opacity.

Nubar, seriously:

followed up with:

nicked from brilliant Baucek, she rocks with gifs like that

Oh, yes. If you're wondering, i have a few of deep green shimmers. I have also other green shimmers, but here i stuck with the deep/emerald shimmer. It's my weakness. Kinda like a good green creme is. Can't resist, nope. So I put them in line, to show them to ya.

Not helping much, eh? Closer looks:

If you want to see any of them compared, let me know in the comments! Any thoughts on Nubar Greener?

Thank you for reading!

Road trip moments: Strečno castle, Slovakia

2011-12-05T22:54:00.001+01:00

Hey people! It was a gorgeous day here in Ljubljana! I went on foot wherever I could and then even went jogging, it was so awesome. Right now I'm hungry as hell and have to work on a paper, but I still owe you a few road trip moments that I'd love to share with you!

We left Spiš Castle rather late, being so impressed with it, and were rushing to Žilina, a town close to the Slovak border with Czech Republic, where our first concert on this trip occurred. Honestly, it was more of my BF's interest than mine, 4 local (3 Slovak & 1 Czech) metal bands, I didn't know any of them, but the ticket was cheap and well, I don't say no to a good night out.

The hotel Grand in Žilina was so-so. Very cheap equipment, better said - very old and it showed. A lot. But the restaurant next to it was awesome. Seriously awesome, one of the best Caesar salad I ever had and the coffee was amazing! It's an open restaurant/bar, it's not hotel-only, so I really recommend it.

But I'm skipping things, let's start with our arrival to Žilina, being very late for the concert that started at 6 p.m. already (4 bands and all). When we realised we'll have to walk around 20 minutes just to the place where they were playing I totally saw us missing half of the concert. Since there was one band that my boyfriend wanted to see particularly, that wasn't the best position for us. In the end we missed one band, and luckily it wasn't the most wanted one. I must say the band itself REALLY surprised me, it was fantastic! They don't even have a web page or a CD out yet, but the concert was freaking awesome. Plus the beer was 1 € only, ah, the good old low prices that are no where to find in Slovenia anymore. :)

Žilina wasn't interesting for us just because of the concert, it was also interesting because of the Strečno castle, Slovaks call it Strečniansky hrad, that is located nearby Žilina. Again info on the net told me the thing closes up at 4 p.m. and that there are no guided tours in November. As we came there, we saw naturally there are guided tours but that we missed them. Figures. Then again, they were in Slovak language, as far as I could figure, but we could at least go inside the castle with a guide. Luckily, the castle itself was beautiful on the outside too. Pictures!

IMHO this view alone was worth the walk up hill.

The path to the castle is gorgeous.

The view from the castle hill.

A poor picture of otherwise awesome scene. This is where you have to park your car and then walk up to the castle, off the road it looks kinda like this.

Strečno castle is beautiful. Really, I want to go there again and take the tour too. Slovakia, like Czech Republic has a lot of castle, that's why I'm probably a fan of both forever. :)

I have one more post prepared. From Žilina and Strečno castle we went to the Slovak neighbours, Czech, very close to their border with Austria, where *the* concert happened. :)

Hope you liked the entry, thank you for reading and commenting!

Misa - Hot Couture

2011-12-04T17:00:00.000+01:00

Hey people! On my previous post the first comment was about Misa Hot Couture and I realized I haven't shown you this beauty before. BTW, the commentator, as I discovered after clicking her nickname, has an amazing set of nails and amazing set of photos on her blog, The Scholarly Nail. New blog to me, but I fell in love with it yesterday, I recommend checking it out. :)

So, Misa Hot Couture. One of those polishes I get in Kris' packages that surprise me, thinking it's not really a me colour and then I put it on and it's 100% love (also one of the reasons why I call her the expert on "my colours"). But I was immediately drawn to Hot Couture. It's such an unusual colour, I couldn't wait to try it on. It looks amazing on the nails. It feels like a yellowish nude, being yellow enough not to bore me. It reminds me of Winnie the Pooh and cosequently of honey and that's why I love this polish even more. Major, major win, Misa.

Hot Couture is a part of Misa Runway collection. I have no idea when it was released, but it's an older one. The Polish Addict says in 2008 that it was released several seasons ago. I didn't even know it existed before I got Hot Couture. Other colours in the collection are classy, but I wouldn't buy them, we've seen too many of those shades already, but Hot Couture is a winner.

It's a two coater, the application was good, I didn't have any troubles with the polish. I understand this is one of those colours people either love or hate. I adore fugly colours with a bit of edge so it's a great discovery for me.

How are you with fugly colours? A fan, or do you get, like a lot of people all kinds of more or less repulsive assotiations with the colours?

Thank you for reading, have a great Sunday evening!

Born Pretty Store review m69 plate

2011-12-03T19:03:00.001+01:00

Hello people! How are you doing? I'm finally posting this review. I am so late with it I actually feel bad about it. After I got the plate (the package appearantly got lost somewhere on the way and it took longer for it to get to me) I went on my blogging break due to the studies and now that I got back to blogging I still didn't have enough time for my plan on this review. I planned to do each pattern in seperate post, having at least 3 manis done with it. Since now I'm back to my studies, I realize this is not going to happen this year. So let's make this the official Born Pretty Store review with extra linking on every design I'll do from now on with the plate, making them little reviews too, deal?

I'm showing you what I already created with this plate and my experience with stamping. With this plate it's basically the first time I tried stamping and liked it. Since I'm sure you all know your stamping and are admiring the same bloggers simply rocking the whole stamping deal as I am (yeah, I'm looking at you, Ohh Shinies!), you'll immediately notice my stamping is still rookie stamping.

So let's see some observations of a rookie that just might help another rookie out. :)

Stamping actually takes a lot less time than full scotch tape mani.
Practice makes perfect. Seriously, the more you do it, the better will you get.
Born Pretty Store plates have the design cut deep enough you actually pick up the pattern.
It's fun! I used to think it's just a lot of work, but it's really fun! :)

All in all, I can only recommend buying from Born Pretty Store. They're really really nice and helpful and their prices are very low. Plus the choice they have of plates is almost endless: click! IMHO they also make a very awesome place for your Chirstmas/NY gift shopping.

Pictures!

Misa Grey Matters with Brucci Sapphire. My latest mani too, I loved it. :)

Misa Hot Couture with Catrice Back to Black. This is the pattern I don't really understand. What is it suppose to be? Well, Hot Couture reminded me of Winnie The Pooh and the pattern of honeycomb, so this is what came out.

Finger Paints Give Pink A Chance with Color Club Hot Like Lava and Cold Metal. You've already seen this. I wish I would do the blue pattern on all my nails ... oh well, next time!

Essence Barefoot Thorugh The Moss with BB Couture Clyde. My very first try and I disliked how I couldn't capture the tiny dots.

The funny thing about the whole deal is, I didn't use my favourite pattern on this plate, wanting to do an awesome green combo and ran out of time. That one is waiting for the proper moment, the idea is running in my head for way too long.

What do you think of stamping? Are you a fan? Did you shop at Born Pretty Store yet? Any suggestions what I should buy when I place my order?

Thank you Born Pretty Store for providing me the plate for the review!

Misa - Phazers on Stunning

2011-12-01T17:26:00.001+01:00

Heya! I'm going to be rather short today, I don't have much time. It's December the 1st and it hit me with full force I have two exams in a month. Panic? Oh yea.

I've always thought Misa isn't getting the love she ought to get, so I'm going to say it again: Misa rocks! Sure, they had some quiet time (that still wasn't as quiet as OPIs IMHO), but they remain, next to Nubar and China Glaze, the brand that came out with a collection I want to have as a whole and I think that's a major achievement.

I'm wearing Grey Matters as I type this for the second day now and I'm not tired of it at all, it's so perfect. Grey Matters and Phazers on Stunning are the only two from their Winter 2011 Surreal Escape collection, but they are so perfect they're getting solo posts.

Phazers on Stunning. Love!

I need to wear it over black, to see if the duochrome effect gets even stronger. This is three coats, the application was good (i was worried about it, Scrangie said it's a bit tricky, but I didn't have problems with it) and the duochrome effect is very strong, cool strong green colour and redish brown compliment each other wonderfully, plus the silver specks are a major win.

I think this is a must-have, really. Gorgeous shade. Did you get any colours from Surreal Escape collection?

Thank you for reading!

Road trip moments: Spiš Castle, Slovakia

2011-11-29T17:19:00.001+01:00

Hey guys! Thank you for your response to the giveaway, I'm really really happy you like it. :) Someone asked me what the green base for Waking up in Vegas is on that picture - it's Essie School of Hard Rocks, here's my post on it. :)

Today I continue with my road trip moments. We left Košice and continued up to the northern Slovakia for this beauty. I think we planned the whole trip around it at the back of our minds. Spiš castle, or as Slovacs call it Spišský hrad. I've already shown you castles on my blog and so regular readers already know how much I adore castles, as long as they don't look too modern or baroque. They are my great love, if I get the chance to visit one, you can be sure you'll meet me there. I'm lucky enough to live in a country full of castles, I even camped for a week at one once (still remaining one of my all time favourite castles in the world, Rihemberk castle near Branik or Ajdovščina if that makes it easier for orientation) ... in short, castles are my thing.

Spiš castle is ... unbelievable. It was really foggy that day and so we were worried a bit how everything will turn out and when will we actually spot it. The thing is, you don't really get it how huge this monster is until you actually see it with your own eyes. Monster is a pet name and I mean it as a compliment. The castle is enormous, it's like the mother of all castles. It's also a part of UNESCO heritage, I'm glad about that, since that usually means someone will keep an eye on it.

We were visiting it off main season and they warned us in the email (they do reply, thumbs up!) that in case of snow and ice the castle will be closed and that there are no guided tours in November. So I held my fingers crossed the weather will endure and it did. Mind you, it was cold as hell, but dry. We understood the moment we started walking up to the castle why they close everything when there's snow. Don't even try to reach it with ice and snow on the land, you'll break your leg, seriously.

When you come in a very sweet lady welcomes you - we spoke in German, in general I think Slovak people find it easier to communicate in German. A pleasant surprise: we got the mic guide for entire castle (they have it in English and German). The guide itself is very well made. It explains the history of every point/part of castle you visit and there is usually an extra explanation or story/legend with pushing the red button, if you want to hear more about anything. Yay! I LOVE to hear more about what I see, so we gladly took the mic and went discovering.

Again, some pictures, I held back, trust me. Maybe you should enlarge them, they look really tiny as I type the entry.

This is how it looks from far away. Really far away. The picture is not blurry, it's really foggy. ;)

You can see by the main tower we're getting closer to the castle hill here and yet we're still not under the castle. It's already so huge I cannot capture it entirely.

A picture shot from the battlement, one of the crenel anyway. You could see entire village from the hill. Or we could, if the fog would rise.

The orange signs were the guide stops. :)

I found the location of this cannon very amusing. You bearly notice it, we stood on that spot for a couple of minutes before I looked right and noticed it. It seemed to me like it was trying to fit in the wall like "just standing here, minding my own business, lalala". Eh, I'm weird sometimes.

The really REALLY narrow staircase up the tower.

Two pictures from the top of the tower. On the second you can catch a glimpse of the forest near the castle (on the other side of the parking place), it was SO gorgeous, covered with rime and with the autumn colours still peeking through the whitness.

Another one from the crenel ... yeah, I liked the photo idea. ;)

My mani, with the part of the castle in the background. I thought Misa Toxic Seduction rocks hard enough to visit the coolest castle in Slovakia. :) The reflection on my nails is so clear I can see us in my nails, lol.

The whole tour lasted for about an hour and a half, with us stopping quite a lot to enjoy the view and the castle itself. I love the microphone guides since they allow you to discover the place at your own speed. The castle wasn't too crowded, which was a major plus too. And the entrance fee is stinkingly cheap, we payed 5 € for both of us (again me with the student discount), but maybe it gets higher in the season (May-October, if I'm not mistaken). The only thing I regreted was that the souvenir shop was closed. I really wanted to buy something about the castle. Bummer. Well, it's an excuse to go there again! Quite close to Spiš castle is also Drevenik with stone caves and awesome flora, and we'd love to see that sometimes in the Spring. Why not stop again at Spiš castle then too? ;)

Any castle lovers out there? Do recommend them, the more the better! All I can say is, if you're in Slovakia, make plans for Spiš castle too. You won't regret it.

Thank you for reading!

Loads to celebrate - a giveaway

2011-11-28T21:00:00.000+01:00

I bet you thought: "That little bitch. Before she left she told us there will be a giveaway when she gets back and what do we get when she returns? Freaking novels about her road trip and no freaking giveaway!" Or didn't you? ;) I of course haven't forgotten about my little promise. I just waited for a silly thing, as I was getting really close to it. This is my 300th post on Did someone say nail polish! Holy cow! 300 posts! I thought it would be fun to launch a giveaway on my 300th post.

And not just the post number ... I really planned this giveaway to happen months ago. First with me reaching 666 followers (I even had the title of the giveaway - The Number of the Beast, hehe), but my studies just didn't allow it to happen and time passed. Then I wanted one for 700 followers, but I had a big break in blogging when that happened. Then, on 19th September, my first blogoversary happened, and all I did was study my ass off for a very important exam. And I'm sure a lot of other little or big milestones that I missed. Right now I'm over 800 lovely people who take their precious time to read my blog and it's about damn time I show you all the stuff I gathered for you in the last months. Since there are a lot of stuff I wanted to celebrate with this giveaway, I decided I'll just call it "Loads to celebrate". Since there is.

I wanted to do as many colours and finishes as I could so hopefully you'll all find something that looks appealing to you in the giveaway!

And a closer look:

Depend 204 (all the way from Finland, we didn't get it in Slovenia. Thanks Kaneli, for getting it for me!)
Eveline Holografic Shine 401
Deborah Milano Pret A Porter Burlesque Red
Aden Cosmetics 58
Aden Cosmetic 53

Essence 50's Girls Reloaded LE You're a Heartbreaker
Essence Re-mix your Style LE DANCE Waking up in Vegast top coat
Kiko 268
Catrice Papagena LE Welcome to the Jungle (thanks to Tevta for getting me another bottle!)

My pictures of some of them, to get a better look at the colours (they are NOT made with polish I'm giving away, I have my own bottles!):

And I still haven't worn Welcome to the Jungle, OMG, I was sure I did! Some awesome swatches of the rest:

Welcome to the Jungle (Parokeets)

You're a Heartbreaker (Nihrida)

Burlesque Red (Cherry Colors)

Kiko 268 (Babina70 flickr)

I'm sorry, I couldn't find any swatches of Aden Cosmetics polishes. They are both glitter, one blue in a blue base, other pink and blue in clear base. They looked cool, so I grabbed them on my road trip for ya. :)

I'm going to keep it simple this time. All you need to do is follow Did someone say nail polish via GFC and fill in the google document below. But here's one thing I'm allowing myself to do. As you probably noticed, I love your comments. I greatly appreciate every single one of them. Because I know commenting takes time. It really does. When I had time to comment a lot of blogs often, it easily took me an hour and a half to get through them all. So I completely understand all of you who simply do not have time to comment, even when you want to. I honestly do. But I'd love to show gratitute to all of my regular commentators in the past year by giving them an extra entry. I know the giveaway isn't big, but i still hope you'll see it as a token of my gratitude for every single minute you spend on commenting this little corner of mine. It doesn't mean I consider you a regular commentator only if you comment on every single one of my posts. Basically if I remember you commenting, I consider you a regular one, since that usually means you did it more than once and it doesn't really matter if the last comment was months ago or last week. I know things happen and sometimes you just have to stay away from the computer for weeks.

The giveaway is opened internationally and it ends on December 15th at midnight. Any sort of cheating will lead to deleting all of your entries to the giveaway. If you're not sure if you already entered, write a comment, don't do another entry!

All in all it has been a great year, my dear people. I love blogging and the nail polish blogsphere is seriously one of the nicest I've ever encounter. I met some wonderful people in this year and I hope I'll meet even more of you in the next. :) Thank you for sticking around! YOU ARE AWESOME!

Do tell in the comments if you like the colours and if anything is left unclear! Thank you!

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RGB Sea

2011-11-28T18:00:00.000+01:00

Hey people! I have another beauty for you today. This one is utterly gorgeous, I do not have words for this polish, seriously, it left me speechless when I put it on. I also did a bazillion photos and had the hardest time picking a few. The depth of the shimmer is mesmerizing. RGB Sea. Wow. The name is a perfection itself too. That's exactly how I like sea. Greenish. Not the turquoise-water-white-beach stuff. Deep, greenish sea with pebbles beach for me, thank you.

The formula is superb. No faults. I'm not kidding. Insanely pigmented colour, silky smooth application, brush that applies the polish all by itself. Two coats are more than enough, I did the third one to see if the colour would deepen, but two coats are enough. Hard Candy Envy is a dupe of the RGB Sea colour, but you will not get the superb formula with it, as VV tells us. I think the formula is well worth the buy.

I also like the minimalistic design of the bottle and the box. Elegant and simple.

For fun I searched through my stash to find a bottle that has the biggest difference between the bottle size and the amount of the polish. Givenchy with 8 ml won. This is how it looks like nex to the 12 ml RGB. And it just hit me that I should turn the RGB bottle on the side for you to see just how much thinner it is than Givenchy that is round. RGB is about a centimeter thick.

All I can say about RGB Sea is that it is perfect. It just is.

If you get the chance, grab it. Or you not as impressed with the colour as I am? :)

Thank you for reading!

Road trip moments: Košice, Slovakia

2011-11-27T16:23:00.001+01:00

Hey darlings. How are you doing? It was a beautiful sunny day here in Slovenia. And I slept through half of it, I went to bed really really late yesterday. Oh well. I hate being cold too. Our house just doesn't seem to warm up at all. Let's continue with some cool things from my road trip that I wanted to show you.

After Hungary we went to Slovakia/Slovaška, and I was most excited about our visit to Košice. Košice are the second largest city of Slovakia and I am completely in love with them. Such a lovely city, with a very pleasant atmosphere. Since we didn't have whole lot of time, my two major things to visit in Košice were the St. Elizabeth Cathedral (I'm a HUGE fan of gothic cathedrals) and the Mikluš prison museum, where you are able to see how Košice looked like in the Middle Ages and how the prison of that time looked like. I'm a huge fan of Middle Ages too, plus the criminal-law sanctions of any time in the history, so it was a major win for me.

We arrived as planned in our lovely hotel, Bankov. The whole experience of the hotel would be perfect, if there wasn't for the unpleasant waiters. I'm sorry, I hate unpleasant waiters, they can really ruin your dinner. It's not my fault she didn't speak a word of English nor German and didn't even try to communicate with us with Slovak language, and she should treat us just like the rest of the guests. That aside, the food was to die for, and the rest of the staff really nice.

It was quite surprising to see how rarely we found someone who spoke English in Slovakia even on major tourist points. But most of the time they tried their best to communicate with us, which is a major plus. We quickly realized we can understand each other if only we spoke a bit slower than usual - Slovak language is very close to all the other slavic languages, for me it was a cool mixture of Slovene and any language of Southern Balkan (Croatian, Bosnian, Serbian) that I also understand, so it wasn't really a problem, as long as we gave each other a minute.

Btw, a cool little trifle. We call our country Slovenija (it's pronounced the same as Slovenia, as long as you pronounce the "e" as in "love" not as "ee" in "deep") and the adjective of the word is "slovensko". The slovak word for Slovakia is "slovensko" and they call Slovenia "slovinsko". :) It's quite obvious we're all Slavonic brethren.

I'll show you a lot of photos in this one, it's going to be a long post, I hope you'll enjoy it, but I want to emphasize one thing. I'm not a professional photographer. Moreover, I think i'm somewhere in between of a bad and average amateur. I don't see the lights or the angles. I like a thing, I press the button, end of story. So don't think these will rock your world, for that google the things and you'll get a lot of professional photos. Or even better, visit them. It's the best way to see them anyway.

The cute little doggy statue at the entrance door of our hotel (that actually has a function, as one of you lovely readers pointed out :D)

When we got to the centre of Košice it was already getting dark. BTW, for those who will drive there with a car - their parking is really well organized and cheap. But do pay for it, they will check regularly for the tickets and will bust your ass. I don't see the point of cheating since the parking is so cheap, but we saw people do it anyway.

The main street called Hlavná ulica was easy to find and is quite recognizable with the little stream down the middle of the street. I fell in love with the whole look immediately. Wide, spacious street, cool buildings all around, not too many people. We went immediately to the St. Elizabeth Cathedral, since I read on the internet it closes up earlier than the Mikluš museum. Sadly, it is partially under construction and we couldn't see any sign of tours or anything going on. So we just checked it out all around.

The magnificence that is St. Elizabeth Cathedral. The Slovak call it Dóm svätej Alžbety (we'd say Katedrala svete Elizabete) and it's a total must-see. My pictures don't do it justice at all. It's gorgeous with all the gothic details. The pictures on the first day aren't so nice, my camera doesn't work well in the dark, these were taken the next morning.

I love the spikes everywhere and the tall pointy windows!!

Upper and below pictures show my love for these kind of doors. Why are our modern doors so ugly? I want such details on my doors too!

I greatly enjoyed walking around the cathedral and seeing the park and the chapel near it, even in the evening. Then we went to the Mikluš museum or Miklušova väznica, wanting to get there in time, according to the opening hours I found on the internet. And it was already closed. We missed it for about 45 minutes. I seriously advise you to write them an email next time, I'm writing here now and officially: they are opened from 9h to 16h (last entrance), but write them an email just in case.

The problem my BF now had all of the sudden was me being in a seriously bad mood. You don't want me in my bad mood. Seriously, just turn around and walk away. I hated myself for it, because I know how annoying I am when moody and I wanted to turn it off but couldn't, I wanted to see the Mikluš museum and I knew the next day we're already heading for the castles and we will not be able to pull this off. I was in such a bad mood I didn't even want to go shoe shopping (as he tried to suggest to cheer me up). That's usually quite alarming. Of course after some time he did something incredibly cute as he usually does and I started laughing like crazy and so my bad mood passed. I really love him for that. We walked through entire Košice, going through the park and later on stopping at a cool bar that played Iron Maiden so loud we could hear it on the street. FTW! The beer was good and so was the cappuccino and so the day ended well. Btw, another thing I noticed. Punk isn't dead. It just moved to Košice! It was surprising how many punks are in Košice, I guess it's the main subculture there, or so it seemed.

The next day we got up a little late, our travelling already showing on our energy and we started discussing how hectic the day would be if we wanted to catch two castles that both closed at 15 o'clock and a concert that started at 18 o'clock, all being a few hours drive from Košice. We decided to stay in Košice, visit the Mikluš museum and skip a castle, so we'd have more time on the other castle and be on time in Žilina (where the concert happened). I was actually quite happy I was able to see Košice in the daylight and visit the museum so it was a good plan. :) Few pictures from the museum, where all was awesome after a few complications in the beginning.

The executer's swords. They chopped heads with these! Ugh!

As for doors, so for the keys. Can we please bring back the beautiful large, carved keys they used to have? Why the modern ugliness?

Upper and picture below show the prisoners were hardly comfortable. Middle Ages really excelled at torture.

The only picture I'm showing from the basement, so-called "interrogation room", for I do not know how sensitive your are about these things. Basically a torture room, with a gloomy feeling as you walk down the wonky stairs and a presentation of one of the torture devices with the wax dolls. Middle Ages really didn't care about resocialization, no sir. Still, a totally interesting insight. You can probably get a pretty good idea what these spikes below were for.

It was an awesome tour, really. We had the mic with english guide for every room in the museum and the tour lasted for almost an hour and a half. The entrance fee is also stinkingly cheap (3€ for both of us, I had student discount), so I really do recommend the visit, if you're into this sort of things. There is also a good video and an awesome model about and of the middle-age Košice, but I've already posted way too many pictures.

It turned out to be an awesome idea to stay and Košice are now one of my favourite places in Europe. I have to visit them again, really. After Košice we went to the Spiš Castle, but that beauty deserves an entire post for itself.

Tell me, please, do you find these kind of posts interesting? Are they too long? Any comment on the city itself? :)

Thank you for reading!

Paket petek

2011-11-25T18:00:00.000+01:00

Isn't it awesome I can do another Paket petek (Package Friday)?? You know why it's awesome? That's right, because that means Ulmiel got a package full of goodies this week!

The customs sent their love right before I went on my roadtrip. I wasn't very happy about it, since basically, I could have had the package already in my hands, if there wasn't for the customs procedure. Oh well ... they finally sent it right on the day I got back to Slovenia, so when I got home, the package awaited me. Torn, poorly stuck together with a short piece of duct tape and with two (!) polishes completely out of the bubble wrap (you know, so they could easily hit each other and break, why make it hard for them and unwrap only one?)! Not only did they tear it, they took them out and didn't bother at all to wrap them again. Can I mention too that one of these two was one of my biggest lemmings in nail polish ever, Nubar Greener? My wrath disturbed the Force that day, really. Not for long though, I got SO happy about the package, it was pure and utter perfection. I love my swap buddy, seriously, she rocks.

Not one but TWO from *the* Nubar collection for me, Greener and Forest! I honestly couldn't sit anymore when I saw them in the package. The entire package is perfect, but these two really made me go

The gif was probably nicked from the awesome Kaz (Pretty Random). She puts cool stuff like this on the blog, making me laugh like hell.

As for the eyeshadows. I know, I know. I keep telling everyone who is willing to listen I have a strict no-buy in eyeshadow department. And now this. I blame it on Kelly (Vampy Varnish). Who can say no to a product she presents so amazingly in her post? Not me, no sir. And they really are great.

Perfect package, yes. What did you get in your latest package? Do tell, don't be shy!

Thank you for reading!

Búk 116 with Nfu Oh & Essence flakie comparison

2011-11-25T17:00:00.000+01:00

Hey darlings! What's in the news today? I'm having a coffee day today, first a coffee/tea time with a couple of friends, including one of the darlings that came to Slovenia for a couple of days (she went to Spain for a year) and then another later in the evening, so I'm really happy about that. :)

Today I want to show you my roadtrip mani. This baby lasted for three days and I still didn't get tired of it, but the mani got so chipped I just had to remove it. BTW; being tired as hell and in a hotel room isn't really the best motivation for a foil removal. The first time I regreted putting a flakie on my nails.

I also compared Essence Waking up in Vegas with Nfu Oh 49 on this mani, I wondered how close they get.

If you see any kind of difference between them, your sight is better than mine. I didn't see any difference, they are both the same. In general Nfu Oh has a bit bigger flakies, but that's the only difference I could find. They're both amazing, don't you think?

My base colour was Búk 116, the only polish from Lithuania that I haven't tried yet. I've already talked about it, the brand is a local Lithuanian brand with a nice brush and an old but good formula. 116 is a bit disappointing though. It looks SO awesome in the bottle, sadly the shimmer is much much weaker on the nails. If it would be so strong as it is in the bottle this colour would rock.

Even in lightbox the shimmer is poor, on softer light it disappears completely. This was three coats, the formula is a bit runny and smelly, but all in all a very well behaved polish. I just wish the shimmer would be more visible. Still, it's an excellent base for the flakies! :)

What do you think about these babies? Did you get any of the top coats from Re-mix your style LE?

Thank you for reading!

Well, I'm back.

2011-11-24T17:45:00.001+01:00

Extra points for everyone who knows the origin of the title. ;) Heya darlings! How have you been? I'm back a bit later than expected, but you know how it is right after you return from a trip. I'm tired and suffer from my standard post-travel sadness, combined with one of my dearest friends leaving for a whole year, without any kind of visits to the homeland in between. It's quite a cut. I miss her already.

I decided I'll show and tell you a bit about the roadtrip me and my BF did, what say you, would you be interested in that? I won't do a diary, I'll just point out a few interesting or/and fun or/and cool places and things we saw, k?

First some facts. We did a giant circle that started in Slovenia (obviously) and then we went: Hungary - Slovakia - Czech Republic - Austria and back to Ljubljana, it lasted for 6 days, and we arranged the stops so my BF didn't have to drive an entire day because that's just too exhausting.

First two days we spent in Hungary or Madžarska as we call our neighbour's country. First day was in a lovely spa near our border (Szombathely) and the second in Budapest, the capital of Madžarska. We didn't see much of it, as, personally I'm not that drawn to Hungary's past and sightseeing and I focused more on Slovakia on this roadtrip. But I would highly recommend you the Walzer hotel if you're planning to go to Budapest. The staff is SO friendly and kind, they helped us with bus tickets and everything, the rooms are comfortable and the food is ah-mazing. They are 10-minute-bus ride away from the center of Budapest and the bus stop is like 3 minute walk from the hotel, plus the bus stops there really often, we didn't wait for it going to or from the city centre.

Since we didn't plan anything special to see in Budapest we just took a long walk around the city centre, to get some feeling of the city and to see the old buildings (I'm a fan, yes) and the bridges and so on. But mostly Budapest meant polish shopping. My BF discovered quite a cool shop - I didn't even want to go in, it looked like a grocery store. But on the second floor they had a local cosmetic brand called Aden cosmetics (plus a few others) with, oh yes, nail polish! I also bought an eyeliner, since it was stinkgly cheap. It's soft, shows colour really well and stays on for entire day. For 65 cents that's basically a legalized steal, don't you think?

On the picture also Essence and Golden Rose that i bought in Slovakia, but this is my complete roadtrip haul when it comes to cosmetics. I would have bought more, but I already broke my budget as it is. In my defence, these aren't all for me! :P

Oh, and a funny thing we saw on our way to Slovakia. Hungarians took AC/DC with "Highway to hell" quite seriously.

Later on it turned out to be a factory of an energy drink, but it was still amusing.

Sorry for the bad photos, they were taken from a driving vehicle.

After leaving Hungary the most expected part of our roadtrip began. Slovakia was the "main" country we wanted to visit and we had a blast. I'll show you more in the next posts.

Tell me, anything new in nail polish world I missed in this week?

Thank you for reading!

A short break, a question and a preview

2011-11-14T18:14:00.001+01:00

Hello darlings! How are you doing? I just wanted to let you know I'm going on a short roadtrip on Wednesday and I won't be back to Slovenia until Tuesday. I cannot wait to get moving, I really like the plan we made for the trip, hopefully the weather will also be on our side. :) Tomorrow I won't have time to post, since I'll be packing, that's why I decided I'll post today. So you'll have a break from me for an entire week, haha. ;)

The question of the post is for lovely ladies from Slovakia and Czech Republic. These two countries are the main ones we'll be travelling in. Naturally I'm curious and would love to know if I can get any special nail polish beauties in these two countries that I should pay attention to and grab it if I get the chance? Any name of the drugstores, nail polish brands or even towns/streets will be highly appreciated. You can also write me an email (Contact page on the blog), if you're not comfortable with comments. :) I'm keeping my fingers crossed for any Polish brand, since I'll be much closer to Poland, but I dunno, maybe Slovakia has some kickass brands too. :D

And the preview part. I'm going to launch my giveaway, that I've been promising for months, when I get back. So I decided I'll show you a couple of colours I already have for the prize. Just for fun.

Have fun this week! *muah*

Baubles up! mani

2011-11-13T16:51:00.001+01:00

Heya darlings. It's beautiful autumn sunny day here in Ljubljana. Cold, but beautiful. Well it was anyway, it's already getting dark. I have another flakie layering today for you, again with Essie and Essence. I decided it's finally time that I crack open my Essence Glisten Up! bottle since Bobbing for Baubles seemed like a perfect base colour for it.

Glisten Up! is an already discontinued Color&go beauty and before Waking up in Vegas basically the only flakie polish we could get here for really little money. Still, I never read much about it. What is more, when Essence discontinued some colours (which means they're selling them 50% off already cheap regular price), Glisten Up! always seemed to stay behind, I always got the chance to pick a bottle or two for swapping, even if I never searched for it actively. I have no idea why, it's a gorgeous flakie polish. Plus it's a baby sister of stunning Nfu Oh 52.

So, pictures! Essie Bobbing for Baubles with Essence Glisten Up!

Why I call this a baby sister of Nfu Oh 52? As you can see the colour play of green and blue is pretty much the same in flakies, plus Glisten Up! also contains the green shimmer, like 52. The differences are that flakies in Glisten Up! are sparser (you can see I basically don't have them on my index finger) and smaller, thus you'd need more coats to achieve what you achieve with one of 52. Plus, it has a holographic glitter in the mix too and a different base colour (it's lighter). It's rare glitter, but I prefer it that way, it spices up a bit the whole thing. All in all a wonderful layering polish, don't you think? Oh, removing is really nice and easy too. I removed it few hours ago, didn't even need the foil technique.

I think this was a nice and cheap substitution for Nfu Oh 52. Ok, it's not as rich as Nfu Oh, and doesn't give so much depth, but considering the availability it had and the price difference, I dare say so. I got mine in a giveaway from Colorful Bottle (that i miss on blogsphere!) actually. If you're reading this, thank you, dear. :) I've already talked about Bobbing for Baubles, so no words on that beauty here. :)

Do you have Glisten Up!? Do you find it close to 52 too?

Thank you for reading!

Essie - Bobbing for Baubles

2011-11-12T17:04:00.001+01:00

Heya darlings! How are you doing? I'm staaarving, waiting for the food to cook. I promised I'll show you the Essies I fell in love with this week, and I only have two days of it left, so let's get this show on the road. Bobbing for Baubles is such a wonderful dark blue. It's really dark, but so so beautiful. Mind you, in soft light it will get black, but surprisingly in most light it will keep the dark smokey blue hue, even in the grey morning of Ljubljana's soft light and in the soft yellow artificial light on our office (that is really the best judge for blackened polish). So even if you're like me and are really sick of blackened shades, that are supposed to be a colour but are not, this one get's a thumbs up from me! Very cool for a dark phase, really.

Bobbing for Baubles is, like School of Hard Rocks, a part of the Essie Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011 and like School of Hard Rocks it is a two coater with a lovely formula. Very nice application and a really lovely colour that remains blue 99% of time. FTW!

Did you get any colour from Cocktail Bling collection?

Thank you for reading!

Rocking hard in Vegas

2011-11-11T16:00:00.000+01:00

Heya darlings! Welcome new people! As I told you yesterday, I upgraded School of Hard Rocks after a few days. Sadly I had to remove it yesterday, because the mani was getting way too tired for my liking. It was SO gorgeous I didn't want to take it off even after like five days! Awesome!

BTW, if you own a Facebook account, could you like this mani? It's from Biberlee, and it's a gorgeous mani, it totally deserves to win (and the winning is Illamasqua!!). We have two days to get her the extra few likes she's behind the leading (*big big yawn*) mani. Thank you! :*

I added one coat of Essence Waking Up In Vegas, from Re-mix your style LE. You know, *the flakie* of the collection. Nihrida showed us teal is the answer for this topper, and naturally I couldn't wait to try a similar combination and here it is. Btw, Waking up in Vegas is one of the polishes I'm adding to my giveaway, that I'll probably launch in the next few weeks!

Like I said, one coat of Waking Up in Vegas over Essie School of Hard Rocks. I absolutely adore it. And it looked bazillion times better IRL, the play of colours in flakies was mesmerizing.

What do you think of this combo? Did you get any toppers from Re-mix your Style?

Thank you for reading!

Essie - School of Hard Rocks

2011-11-10T17:00:00.000+01:00

Heya ladies (and gentlemen, of course)! I'm going to be quick today, don't have much time, but I need to show you this one!! Not because you wouldn't see it before but because I'm completely in love with this colour. I think I'm wearing it now (with an extra bling, sure, but still) for the fourth or even fifth day. Which is like ... since beginning of time for me. This is the best colour Essie has ever done IMHO. It's beyond perfect. Kris seriously rocks for sending me this one. I think I say this for every second polish I show you, since every second polish I show you is from her package ... basically she nails my colours real bad. :)

School of Hard Rocks

I freakishly adore this colour for it's dustiness. Look at it! The dusty factor and the richness of the colour remind me of Angora Cardi. Sure, that one is purple, but also one of the best purples I own, precisely because of the dustiness the colour has. School of Hard Rocks is amazing, seriously gorgeous teal. I needed only two coats, it applied wonderfully (remember my theory on Essie being for shorter nails?). The formula was a bit on the watery side, but I prefer them that way. No complaints, it behaved beautifully.

School of Hard Rocks is otherwise from Essie Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011. I dare say it's the star of the collection, but I'm not sure, there wasn't much vibe around the collection in general to get the right feeling. Still, I think fans of good cremes should check it out.

Oh yes, this is how short my nails are right now. I kinda like it, but i don't like how they hurt where they've broken. Oh well. I'll live. :)

What do you think? Fan of teal? Did you get any colours from this collection?

Thank you for reading!

The boots beauties

2011-11-08T20:47:00.000+01:00

Well, imagine my surprise when I got back to my blog, curious about what your comments will be on Power Clutch, just to see that my first paragraph on boots stole the show. ;) Here are quick shots of them for the curious ladies in my previous post. :) I did them, believe it or not, in my freaking lightbox. My camera cannot make a clear photo in artifical light to save my life. *sigh*

They were bought in Bata, last pair too!

Do you like high(er) heels? How about boots?

Thank you for reading!

Essie - Power Clutch

2011-11-08T17:30:00.000+01:00

Heya! Guess what! I found *perfect* boots for this Fall/Winter! I'm SO happy! I love boots, looove them, but I couldn't find any that would suit me (or they had 15 cm heel, which isn't really a problem for me, but the problem of walking in them to my classes in the snow appeared, not to mention they aren't really something I'd like to waste on 8 hours of college time). I was on the point of buying flat shoes, which happens really rarely ... and then *bam* the beauties appeared! They jumped right out of my head, I'm actually worried Murphy will break the heal or detach the sole or something, they are too perfect. ;) Ok, totally OT, let's go to the nail polish!

It's about time I start showing you more fall colours. And to reveal the latest news. Me and Essie made up, so I'm going to show you in the next few days the Essies I'm loving. As you may have noticed, I don't own many Essie polishes (or didn't, I guess). Before I found them a bit on the boring side and my first impression of the brand was the extra tricky Mint Candy Apple. That being said it's also the only flop in the formula I experienced in Essie department from that day. And this Fall Essie won my heart all over again. Starting with Power Clutch.

Power Clutch is a part of Essie Brand New Bag collection for Fall 2011 and also the only one that really called my name, but boy oh boy, what a star of the collection! I love it! Yes, it's "just" a creme. But guess what ... I adore a good creme! I never got bored with the creme finish and I probably never will. Power Clutch is such a rich creme and extremely glossy too. It's grey with green undertones (although they didnt' show much on me, like on Once Bitten, for instance, insanely beautiful!) and I love it for the dark grey it is. I love grey colour in general, but I missed a good dark grey in my stash. Now I have it!

This was three coats on my almost too long nails. I wore it right before the big breaking phase that's lasting for a month now (the last one was particularly painful, I can't even type with that finger ATM) and my nails were insanely long. When I applied the varnish I started thinking Essie is a polish perfect for shorter nails. The formula and particularly the brush suggest that. I had bold spots after the second coat with this nail lenght and the brush was too thin for my liking. When I shortened my nails the formula and the brush got perfect. Or is it just me?

I really love this one. It's not an over the top collection, it's a rather calm and sophisticated one, but Power Clutch remains the edgy child in the collection and it's one of my favourite greys in the stash.

Did you get any colours from Brand New Bag collection?

Thank you for reading!

Essence - Be Optimistic

2011-11-06T18:28:00.000+01:00

Hey guys! How are you doing? It's a lazy Sunday. The weather is so sad and I'm having a post-concert laziness in my bones. It was a cool night yesterday. Thanks to my studies I put concerts down to a minimum and so I enjoyed it even more when I finally went out after a while. But I got so tired I fell asleep with my contacts and full make up still on, my BF woke me up after a couple of hours of sleeping, and I almost ran to the bathroom to clean everything off. I felt like I did some great injustice to my poor skin, I really take care of removing my make up every day, so my skin is clean for the beauty sleep. *sigh* Oh well, it's good that only now it's the first time that happened to me, I guess. :)

Today an Essence beauty from the new sortiment. This one was my number one on the list to buy. Great copper orange, epic win polish.

Two coats, application is a bit tricky, it can get brush-stroky fast, so you have to be a bit careful about that. But look at the colour! It's sooooo gorgeous. IMO one of the best Essence ever made.

Your thoughts? Which ones did you get from the new sortiment?

Thank you for reading!

Paket petek (Package Friday)

2011-11-04T15:29:00.001+01:00

Heya! Yes, I'm again trying a new theme on the blog. Since the Question of the week failed miserabily thanks to me, I'm thinking of starting something that isn't exactly on weekly basis. Here's the thing. Whenever I get a package I'm SUPER excited and happy. And I always want to show everyone what cool stuff I got. But then I open the package, sort the polish/other items, try them out and after a couple of hours or a day or two I already have the products on at least two different places and I get too lazy to put them all in one place and photograph them. Now with the new theme I'll hopefully remember to take a picture of the stuff and share them with you, just like I always want to. It will include all the packages, of all the make up and basically every package I get, since my Lipstick tag got a good reaction I said why not. :)

Oh, the name. Paket petek is literally Package Friday in Slovene. Paket = package, petek = Friday. I really like the word play, since basically both words are a mixture of the same letters so it sounds kinda funny. I hope. Or am I being silly?

I got two packages in last two weeks.

I got these two beauties on a forum sale from one of my favourite nail showers on the internet. She's rapidly becoming my dearest source of BB Couture polishes, since it's SO much easier for me to get them off second hand and BB Couture Studio 54 is of course one of many greens of BB Couture I have on my WL. And well, L.A. Girl Heavy Metal. I think the name explains everything. I just had to have it. It's utterly gorgeous too!

This was a package I got from my favourite beauty portal (Planet Lepote), I got both items - Fleur de Sante Clarity cleanser & mask and YSL Rouge Pure Shine sheer lipstick in Rose Paillette - as an award and I was SO happy about them. Lipstick looks incredibly pink and, well, not-me, but notice the title "sheer" on the box. On the lips the pink is down to a minimal and all you get is this fantastic silverish sheen on the lips that makes them look awesome. It's not the watery reflection of lipglosses that I'm not too fond of, it looks silvery, I can't really think of a good way to describe it, but is makes this an awesome lipstick for everyday and when I feel like emphesizing my eye make up only. Plus, ladies, this lipstick lasts for ages. Seriously, I was shocked at how well it stays on the lips. Pity YSL is so much into gold package, I mean, what an overkill. If it was silver or matte black it would be a perfect package, don't you think? :D

As for the mask, I cannot say anything smart about it yet, I haven't tried it yet. It smells divine though. :)

That's it. I've been good when it comes to shopping. Well, I basically don't buy myself nail polish anymore, I prefer to get the swap package. Honestly. Packages are a cool source of my happiness, I'm always sooo excited when I get them. :)

What did you find in your latest package when you opened it? :)

Thank you for reading!

Zoya - Yara a.k.a. THE polish of this Fall

2011-11-03T19:12:00.000+01:00

Hey everyone! How are you doing? Yes, I know the statement in the title is a bold one, considering all the awesome colours we got in this Fall's collections ... but Yara is the only one I used more than once in the past few weeks from when I got the bottle. And I freakishly love her, she's still standing on my polish table, and I'm still thinking of applying her next when I'm changing my mani. Usually I grab another, but as right now, I'm playing with the thought of wearing Yara again. So, in short, it's love. It's in the "so beautiful it could make me cry" section, and to this day I have 5 or 6 polishes in that section, no more. When I applied Neeka on my nails I thought nothing can beat her, not even green polish, but Yara being the green sister of Neeka ... well, you know me, right? I was planning to do another 3 green Zoya beatuies post as before with Yara in it, but she deserves all the attention.

You've seen her already, but let's look at her again.

A bad picture, but you can really see the micro glitter/gold flakes on my ring finger&pinky.

Let's write the obvious. It's from Zoya Smoke and Mirrors Collection for Fall 2011. IMO the best in line, with Neeka as close second. Two easy coats, wonderful formula and brush make this baby slide on the nails by herself. Yara has no faults. No other words needed.

Did you get any colours from Smoke and Mirrors collection? What is your colour of this Fall?

Thank you for reading!

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky

2011-11-01T20:30:00.001+01:00

Hey everyone. How are you doing today? Did many of you got two extra days off like we did in Slovenia? I have no idea how the holiday systems work in other countires. We had our Reformation Day on 31st of October and today it's All Saints Day, so our regular week starts tomorrow. Sadly I have one of those days that start well and then slowly but surely turn into crap. Since early afternoon it's been a giant pile of guilt, sadness, tears (that come with compulsory migraine) and general bad feeling. Not one of my best days. Even changing nail polish didn't help. So I decided I'll show you something I really like and makes me feel good. I already told you about two projects I was working on last week - one was the Nail Polish Blogger Challenge and the second I show today. I quite successfully combined my two favourite hobbies - nail polish and fantasy world.

As I already mentioned before, I'm a member of our Tolkien society and as every year we had an art competition this weekend. I was officially one of the organizers this year so I didn't compete, but since winning really isn't the point here, I of course made something for the competition, also because I loved this year's theme so much (Magical objects of Arda). I decided I'll try the nail polish jewellery thing and create the Three Rings of Elves.

***

If you don't find fantasy/Middle-Earth/Tolkien works/reading interesting you may want to skip this paragraph. I skipped way too much data for my liking, and yet it remains a long one.

A bit of history behind the Rings of Power. Even if you know Lord of the Rings only by movies, you already know Rings of Power exist. All of them are combined into the most famous verse/poem in Tolkien's world:

Three Rings for Elven Kings Under the sky,
Seven for the Dwarf Lords in Their Halls of Stone,
Nine for Mortal Man Doomed to die,
One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness Bind them,
In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

The Rings of Elves are named Narya, Nenya and Vilya. They were the only three their creator, Celebrimbor, made alone, without Sauron's help (all Rings of Power were made with the help of Sauron, that back then could shift his form and decieved the high Elves of Eregion so they didn't recognise him and let him teach them the art of Ringmaking), and their power was in understanding, preserving and healing - hence the magical "islands" of Rivendell and Lothlórien. Since Sauron never got them, they couldn't make the bearer invisible, but they could be used as a weapon against their foe even if that wasn't their purpose.

Narya ('nar' means 'fire' in Quenya, the Elvish language) is the Ring of Fire. That's the Ring Gandalf is wearing as the last bearer. It's power is to resent the tyranny over the bearer and his despair. It's ring stone is ruby.

Nenya ('nen' means 'water') is the ring of Water. Throughout the history of the Ring Galadriel was the sole bearer of Nenya, she used it for keeping Lothlórien timeless and safe. It was made out of mithril, the ring stone is white diamond.

Vilya (the word means "air, sky") is the most powerful ring of the Three Rings. The last bearer of Vilya is Elrond. He used it for keeping Rivendell safe, like Galadriel did with Lothlórien. It was made out of gold, the ring stone is Sapphire.

The Three Rings leave Middle-Earth with their ring bearers, together with Frodo as the One Ring bearer. With the destruction of One Ring the power of the Three faded and they returned to Valinor.

***

Naturally I didn't remake the Three Rings. I couldn't even if I wanted to. I wanted to try to create them from what I have, wanted to show how I see their colours through the magical world of nail polish. ;) Sorry for loads of pictures, I like how my box turned out. *blush* Plus, flakie rings always need at least two photos. Right? Right?

The letter in the middle is Tengwar "C" for Celebrimbor (although I should write "K", as Tengwar is a phonetic writing *sigh*).

GOSH Holographic for Nenya. White Diamond sounded a bit boring.

Brucci Sapphire + Nfu Oh 52 for Vilya. My favourite!

Nail System 97 with Nfu Oh 49 for Narya. Probably my next mani combo.

If you want actual swatches:

Brucci Sapphire, GOSH Holographic, Nail System 97, whole bunch of Nfu Oh combinations.

Let's put some music in here too. My favourite song about Tolkien world ever. It's not for everyone taste, mind you, but I'm sure some of you will like it, and I honestly believe that if you like music, you have to like the melody . You'd be surprised how much Tolkien lore is used for metal! Summoning - The Legend Of The Master Ring

Making nail polish rings is fun! What do you think, did I do a good job for a first timer? :) I feel so much better after writing this down, yay!

Do you like nail polish rings? How about Lord of The Rings and fantasy in general?

Thank you for reading!

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 7

2011-10-30T17:30:00.000+01:00

Hello! It's Sunday, but it's not the end of the weekend for me, woohoo! Two extra free days! And it feels goood! :P It's the last day of the challenge ... I hope you had fun with it, or at least found it a little bit interesting. :) As for my part ... I loved how it pushed me to do more art work. I did serious stamping for the first time, i did dot manicure for the first time and I had tons of fun making up new manis and combinations. So it's a good thing! The only thing I had problem with was the time. I just don't have so much time as I used to for blogging, it sucks. But I love a good reason for thinking up new ideas, so the challenge has been awesome. And challenging with a colour I don't normally wear. At all, let alone for so many combinations. Pink is out of the box for me. Or going inside the box when I'm mostly out of it? Haha xD Anyway ... this was a pink that actually grew on me, but I need a serious break from pink now. :D But i discovered some awesome combos. My favourite mani of the week was the one with Deborah Milano layering, I'll do that one again for sure. And the flakies, of course, but what else is new.

I loved my flakie mani (day 6) so much, I decided I'll built from that. I mattefied it with Essence Matt Top Coat and then I decided I'll do some serious scotch taping. And I went to my favourite accent finger style, diagonal stripes. Of course I failed miserabily at attempt to make them all at the same angle, but I like it anyway. :) The top colour is Catrice Plum Play With Me. I don't recommend it for this kind of work, it needs two coats to be opaque enough and the coats need to be really thick, which can result, as you can see on my ring finger, in bubbling. Still, hell, I like it!

Mattefied flakies. I don't normally like it, but I wanted them to really pop out on this rather bright base colour, and matte TC makes them more yellow. :)

What do you think about this combination? Which of the manicures of this challenge did you like the most?

Thank you for reading & don't forget to check the others too. Ladies, it's been fun! :)

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 6

2011-10-29T17:00:00.000+02:00

Hey darlings! Welcome new people! :) How is life? Mine ... hectic but fun. Due to the hectic part I'll need to make this extra short again, which kinda bothers me, for some odd reason I prefer to make my posts more personal than this. But here we go ... I knew I'll do a mani with Nfu Oh flakies since the beginning of the challenge, I just think they're the perfect option for making the mani more interesting. I left it until the final days, since I suspected I'll want to build it for another mani and I did. But I didn't want to ruin the combination because I really loved it. Mind you, it looks TONS better IRL. Seriously. Especially since Give Pink A Chance darkens a bit in yellow artificial light and flakies really pop out. Love it. The pictures, sadly don't do this combo justice.

Finger Paints Give Pink A Chance (three coats) with two coats of Nfu Oh 49.

The flakies are much more visible IRL. Sorry I can't show you this, but the weather is just unbearable here, if I didn't have my lightbox I wouldn't be able to make a decent picture for a week now.

What do you think of this combo? I got pretty far for an ex not-a-flakie-fan, eh? ;)

Thank you for reading, check the other participants of the challenge too!