Sally Hansen Velvet Texture ~ Lavish

Like I said, I am on the matte waggon lately. Sally Hansen seemed like a pricier version of the Rimmel I first bought, but then I saw swatches and I just had to have it. Lavish is basically like having velvet on your nails. Utterly gorgeous, my pictures do not do it justice. The risk I also took with this baby is that it is a slightly textured polish, which I am not really fond of. But it was definitively a good purchase.

On this photo the colour is too dark, but you can really see the texture of the polish.

Excuse the dent on my last photo, as I changed the settings on the camera I also conveniently forgot I am obviously wearing a rather fresh mani with no top coat.

You can see I changed the settings while making these quite a lot, in want of finding perfect shade of the colour. It is also a bit of changer, at least to my eyes it goes from perfect wine red to sometimes almost a purple undertone, so there you have it. My photos are almost too crisp, as they sharpen the velvet-y feeling too much, the texture of this polish is really brilliant in that aspect, it does look like velvet. 

The application was easy, I used three coats on my longer nails. It also dries very fast, as most matte nail varnishes do. The brush is also great. I kind of wish I bought more shades, but in Bratislava, where I purchased this baby, they had only 3 other shades that I didn't particularly want. In Vienna, they had the rest of the collection, but they almost doubled the price and I thought that was madness. I bought Lavish for 4,99€ in DM in Bratislava, in Müller in Vienna Velvet Texture Collection costs around 8€. 

Still, I think it is a great collection, if I could, I would buy Plush as well. But Lavish is a must, if you like this sort of finish. :)

Did you get any colours from Velvet Texture collection?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Rimmel London Velvet Matte ~ Sumptuous Red

Lately I have been on a matte kick. I want every nail polish colour to be matte. I had this phase before, and now it is back. I remember wanting ManGlaze mattes like crazy, especially the white one. I really need to get that one!

Luckily I found two matte lines when I was in Bratislava, from Rimmel and Sally Hansen and I took a couple of shades. First I wore Rimmels Sumptuous Red.

Why this is called red I will never know, because it is very much purple. In the bottle, on the nails, with first, second or third coat. Purple, people. But honestly, I care not for the name, as the colour is beautiful. 

My brush had a stray hair that I needed to cut off, otherwise the brush is good, flat and quite big, and also quite popular, I think. I would prefer it to be a bit thinner, because I think that application would be a tad bit better then. 

I wore three coats, to even everything up. The formula is good, but typical for a matte polish, it dries fast and for me that means bald spots on my nails. But it is a very fast done mani, you don't need top coat and it dries in no time. 

I adore the colour so I'm happy that I got it. I paid somewhere between 3 and 3,50€ for it in DM (12 ml bottle).

Do you like matte nail polish? Any recommended shades I need to check out?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Blue matte with flower accent nail

Hey everyone! It's hot in Ljubljana! Hope you're reading this somewhere in a nice shade with a big bowl of ice cream. :) I'm going to show you a quick mani I did some days ago. I love this Deborah Milano matte nail polish. It's number 10, and I cannot find it anywhere anymore, so I'm guessing it was discontinued back when they were on sale? I don't know, nor can I figure out why Deborah Milano decided to discontinue its matte line right before the comeback of matte finish. :) Oh well! I combined it with a water decal I got from Born Pretty Store for reviewing purposes, for some reason I thought they will look good together, but I didn't like it much in the end.

The water decals are called Chic Flower Nail Art Water Decals Transfer Stickers Splendid Water Decals Sticker (item ID 14474). Say that really fast three times, I dare you! Basically it is a whole sheet of a flower pattern, you get four different ones to choose from. And then you can shape it however you wish, I decided to try and do a whole nail with it, but I think it would look better with a smaller pattern. ATM they are on sale for only 1,59$. Not my favourite water decals from Born Pretty Store, I think they have toooons of much much better ones. 

This is how the whole sheet looks like:

Deborah Milano Sense Tech needs only two coats for full opacity and is utterly gorgeous and lasts really long for a matte-no-top-coat mani! Love it! If you can find it anywhere, I do recommend you grab it. :)

If you are shopping at Born Pretty Store, do not forget about my 10% discount code. And remember, free worldwide shipping! :)

Do you have any suggestions for these types of water decals, your favourite shape to cut it into? Do you know about any place where we can still get Deborah Milano Sense Tech?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

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

Matte winter frost lace mani

Whoa, would you believe the stupidity of the title? I have no idea how to name this mani. :) In the last few days I fell in love with Inspired by Winter posts Taya is posting (I'm trying to recreate this today for a night out, j'adore!) and while I was trying to watch an incredibly stupid movie about going to the north pole, the screen being all white and frosty, I wanted to occupy myself with something cool and the idea of winter helped to create this mani. 

I used the water decals I've already shown you and I must say, I prefer water decals over nail stickers, they are so easy to use and they last on the nails for days. Other than that, Deborah Milano was already a matte, I put matte TC over the decal, and I mattefied the gorgeous Misa Grey Matters, one of my favourite shades ever. Why I do not have more Misa in my stash, I will never know, their polish is amazing. 

My matte TC is the Essence one, I think it is already discontinued and I hate that, because it is perfect and I already spent more than half of it. The rest I already described. It was actually a very easy mani to make, because both Deborah Milano and Misa are great, opaque in two coats (DM might need only one, actually), water decal sticks to the nail in no time (I needed to cut half of it for my short nails, still, I love the way they look), and you put your matte TC on et voila!

What is on your nails today?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Stone and Grape flowers mani ~ a 3D Metalic Sticker review (ocena nalepk za nohte)

Hey my peeps, this one will again be only in Slovene. Still, you can check out my two manis I did for this review. The base colours were Stone Cold and Catherine the Grape, hence my weird title of the post. :)

***

Živjo! Danes se bom posvetila drugemu izdelku iz mojega paketka, ki mi ga je prijazno poslala Mojadrogerija.si, 3D nalepkam za nohte. Skupno fotko vsebine paketa sem vam že pokazala:

In še close-up nalepk in navodil za uporabo:

 

Uporaba nalepk je sila preprosta. Jaz si pomagam s pinceto, tako da ne poškodujem laka ali nalepke same, in jo preprosto odlepim s plastike ter položim na noht kamorkoli želim. Nalepka se potem prilepi na noht, z nadlakom jo še dodatno zaščitiš, da podaljšaš obstojnost. So pa to res 3D nalepke, so reliefne in se bodo čutile na nohtu, tudi z nadlakom. Jaz osebno nisem pretirana ljubiteljica tega, ampak z nalepkami sem na to računala, tako da me ni motilo.

Bolj me je zmotila precej slaba obstojnost nalepk. Na prvi manikuri so nalepke brez vihanja zdržale dva dni, na drugi manikuri pa zgolj en dan, potem se je vse skupaj v treh dneh zelo poslabšalo. Ko se začno vogali vihati, se ljubezen hitro konča, ker slej ko prej odtrgaš del nalepke, pol cvetka. Na nohtu potem ostane samo lepilo od nalepke, kar je mene osebno izredno motilo, videti je, kot da imaš poškodovan lak. Zakaj se začnejo tako hitro vihati, mi ni jasno, saj je nalepka zaščitena z nadlakom in pritrjena na noht z lepilom. Tudi mat manikuro sem zaščitila z mat nadlakom, tako da nisem pustila nalepke nezaščitene (zanimivo, da mi je ravno mat manikura zdržala cel dan dlje kot nemat).

Drugo manikuro (z vijoličnim Catherine the Grape lakom) nosim tudi zdaj, tretji dan. Na sredincu imam še polovico zgornje rožice, na prstancu tri cvetke spodnje rožice (brez zelenih listkov) in en odpadli listek ter vejico, ostalega ni več. Pusti pa lepilo obliko nalepke na nohtu, kar v teoriji zveni lepo, na daleč pa kot da sem se v kaj butnila ko je bil lak še relativno svež.

Na kratko plusi in minusi:

+ enostavna in hitra uporaba nalepk

+ ugodna cena (1,62€ za celo folijo)

+ lep dodatek k preprosti manikuri, prvi dan obeh manikur sem dobila več komplimentov

- slaba obstojnost nalepk (z eno manikuro en dan, z drugo dva brez poškodb nalepk)

- ko nalepka odpade z nohta, pusti za sabo moteče lepilo, ki dodatno kvari izgled manikure

Jaz svoje manikure rada nosim vsaj 4 dneve, tako da me je obstojnost razočarala. Menim pa, da če želite poskusiti nalepke na lastno pest ali imeti cvetlice za kakšno posebno priložnost, da so dovolj ugodne, da se splača, tudi če morda ne bodo zdržale več dni. 

Če vsak dan menjate manikuro, je pa najbrž obstojnost itak irelevantna, en dan so meni v obeh primerih zdržale. :) Sicer pa mojih standardov obstojnosti ne dosežejo, niti jih ne bi priporočila nekomu, ki želi imeti isto manikuro na nohtih več dni.

Ste že poskusile te nalepke? Ste naletele na isto težavo, je to morda običajen problem pri 3D nalepkah?

Hvala za pozornost in komentarje! 

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

China Glaze ~ Fast Track mattefied

Hello mah peeps! Whoa, I think this is the weirdest hello so far on this blog. :D I am full as a hobbit, and that's saying something! But I have a dance practise in the evening and I'm also happy as a hobbit for it. Sure, after that I'm working my butt off the entire night, but details details! No matter. It is a good day! :) 

Today we continue with China Glaze and the seriously spectacular collection that is The Hunger Games Capitol Colors. Fast Track wasn't really my first choice in this collection but I was very happy when I saw it in the package. The golden glass flecks looked ah-mazing! I thought it will be an excellent neutral work-college-appropriate colour and I was right. Plus, the golden twist is very nice and does bring a bit of bling to the whole look. The next day I mattefied it and I loved the result even more.

A friend of mine told me that Essence Matt top coat isn't available anymore. And I'm using mine surprisingly often! :/ Sucks, really, I love how strong the matte effect is with this one. Oh, on Fast Track it looks even more yummy because the golden flecks keep a bit of glow even when mattefied. I think it looks awesome. :) 

The original finish:

The golden glassflecks are quite strongly visible, they give a very nice twist to the nude base colour. I think it looks beautiful. Still, I prefer the matte version. :)

Do you have any suggestion on wallet-friendly substitute for Essence matt top coat? 

Thank you for reading & have a great week!

China Glaze Stone Cold and trailer for one of the greatest projects I am a part of

Heya peeps. This is my 400th post! It sure doesn't feel like I've written 400 post on this blog, hehe. And I'll skip the apologies for my rare posting, because they seem pointless now, I do it in almost every post. Thing is, I have a major competition/work on my college. I waited for the news for quite a few weeks and now I know I'm in and it's going to be a lot of work, but in the end I hope it will be worth it, everyone that's been a part of it says it is. So I'll write when I can and I honestly don't think anyone will be in a bad place for it. ;)

I've shown you my packages in my last post and I've worn almost all China Glaze polish already. They. Are. Fantastic. Lord of the Rings, did China Glaze make an incredible Spring collection!! I can't really say which colour I wanted most, but Stone Cold was definitively near the top, a gorgeous black matte with silver particles, I adore this type of matte polish. It reminded me of the ManGlaze mattes that I dream of. Stone Cold is the perfect black matte for me and the hunt for that baby is over.

Two easy coats, application was awesome. A very strong colour in China Glaze The Hunger Games Capitol Colors collection (Spring 2012), at least for me, I'm a matte fan.

Now about the project I wanted to mention. As you all know, I'm a big Tolkien geek and a member of our Tolkien society. This summer, on our grand meeting we started a project that already grew and is still growing into something incredibly awesome. We filmed a short version of Tolkien's Hobbit. We're all eagerly waiting for PJ's Hobbit (first part), and as we were planning to film some sort of scenes from Tolkien's works, our director said 'hey, let's make a short Hobbit movie'. And we said, why not! Such a crazy bunch of people. I love them all to death. So this is in fact a parody of Hobbit, but a nice parody! I always think of bad fun making when I hear the word parody, The Epic Hobbit is not that. It's our way of showing how much we love Tolkien and his works and have an amazing time while doing that. :) So here it is, the trailer of The Epic Hobbit. :)

Did you get any colours from Capitol Colors collection? Are you looking forward to the Hobbit movie? PJ's or ours? ;)

Thank you for reading & have a great first week of October!

Guest Post at Polish Chest

Hei everyone!

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

Have a great evening!

NOTD: Blair on Sea Spray

Hello my dear people! How are you doing? My posting frequency is getting shameful again, isn't it? You know my list of excuses and they are all still very true and real. So I won't bother you with them again, I'd prefer to show you my NOTD, once for a change. I like the combination. When I did the mani I felt it looked awfully familiar, so I thought I must have seen it on a blog somewhere. But I haven't found anything on blogsphere, which surprised me a lot, until I remembered I did a nail polish ring (or rather cabochon only) with this combination! So maybe that's the reason it looks familiar. And lovely, it feels ... soft and springy with a bit of glitter thrown in there. 

Two coats of China Glaze Sea Spray, from last year's Anchors Away collection, one coat of Essence Blair (from twin set Blair & Chuck). Very simple mani, but I love how it turned out. Today I mattefied it, because I like how this kind of glitter looks like mattefied:

Surprisingly there isn't a lot of change, only the silver glitter pops out more, and Sea Spray looks awesome matte. :) I remember someone commenting on my Blair & Chuck post that she likes Blair in just about every combination more than with Chuck. I see what she meant. I like it TONS better on Sea Spray.

What's on your nails today?

Thank you for reading!

Nightly Nails mani

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!

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 7

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! :)

• Beauteous Blog
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails

Nail polish blogger Challenge day 3

Heya darlings! Another day, another combination for the challenge! This one is kinda special. Because it's my first real attempt at stamping. I got the chance thanks to Born Pretty Store who kindly sent me a Bundle monster plate for a review that i have yet to post, but I will, I promise! I actually love how this turned out. 

I'll try to do an accent mani in these posts too, so my ring finger will tend to be a bit different from the rest. Here is the same. I used Color Club Hot Like Lava for stamping on most of my finger and Color Club Cold Metal on my accent finger. Then I mattefied the whole thing with Essence Matt Top Coat and I love how it looks. Pictures!

 See how the pattern still shines due to the foil finish of Color Clubs? Love it!

And how it looked before getting mattefied ...

As you can see, I have miles to go before I get the stamping thing. My lines were not perfect at all and it bothered me quite a bit, but then it sort of grew on me with the imperfections and all. Sure, some just might call it sloppy work. We live and learn.

What do you think about this one? 

Thank you for reading & check the art of other lovely participants:

• Beauteous Blog
• Emerald Sparkled
• Gejba and Maestra of Parokeets
• Good Lack, Nail!
• Lucky Lacquers
• Nail Polish Art Addiction
• PolishSis
• Rebecca likes nails