"Jacques' Below Deck, Captain!" mani with From Dusk To Dawn Comparison

Hello darlings! How are you doing? I'm sorry for going MIA all of the sudden, after the busy Friday at college (I passed the first exam, yay! Now we're waiting for the second one) I had a couple of days at my BF's and a girls night out. But as a real nail junkie I have of course a lot of stuff prepared for you! Before I get started with todays post I must ask you how are you feeling the new collections that are coming out on nail blogsphere? I saw first swatches of Color Club at My Lucid Bubble. I have to say I'm disappointed a bit. Not really what I expected, and I expected I'll have to order half of the collection. Oh, and have you see the China Glaze Crackle video?? It looks yummy! I expected Crushed Candy to be more teal, actually, but I think the mint colour will kick ass too. Can't wait for these beauties! Another collection that is kicking asses is Depend Spring Collection (Alizarine Claws post). I already orded 4, I think ... the blue and the green section is awesome, also the red crackle that I miss in the Crackle Glaze collection. :) Not to mention my next order will just have to be the new Zoyas, now I'm up to three, I must order fast, or I'll get entire collection. ;) So yeah ... although a couple of brands will be a pass for me, I'm actually surprised by how many I want to get, since the Spring Collections tend to be soft, pastel little things that I'm not too crazy about. 

But now really to my beloveth Below Deck ... I wore this baby twice in a week. Yes. I love it that much. And this one I wasn't too sure how much will I dig it. Well, I effing worship it!! I did a lil' bit of scotch art (thanks to Chloe's Nails for inspiration) with You Don't Know Jacques! by O.P.I. in wish to make it a bit different, yet put two elegant colours together, and these two are probably the most elegant colours I have in the bunch. 

As you can see, I tried to make lines go from thinner to thicker. I actually really really loved how this one turned out, I wore it until the tip wear was too big. 

As for Below Deck, you already know, it's a part of Anchors Away China Glaze Spring Collection 2011 and as much as I adore the colour, I really do, it's a bit of a diva. Although Starboard is also on the thicker side, Below Deck is almost too thick for my liking. Or I just got spoiled with all the sparkles and foils and duochromes over the past few months, with them you can really pile polish on your nails, but these cremes demand a bit of carefulness, no too thick coats and a steady hand. I must say the second application was much better, so maybe I'm just out of shape for these kind of polishes. :) All in all a wonderful colour. All the photos are without TC, this is how glossy this baby is!! It dries fast so you don't even need TC, two coater too. I'm wearing it without also because my SV is a bitch and is bubbling and thus ruining my manis. Luckily Below Deck doesn't need TC, it's perfect and glossy on its own.

And now to the comparison I did with Catrice From Dusk To Dawn, because when I looked at the bottles together in softer yellow light of my room, they seemed completely the same. After the click!

Bottle sizes USA vs. EU brands

Hey people. How are you doing? Since I can't really get Mr. Sandman over here to get me some sweet dreams, I'll write my thoughts that I mentioned for our next chat. When I was typing away the Cosmic Girl entry, I started thinking about bottles sizes that we have in Europe and those of  USA brands.

 Source: zingerbug.com

Why? Because I have this feeling that most of USA brands make strictly 10-15 ml bottles and most of EU brands make bottles 4-10 ml, the only exception I can think of right now is Illamasqua, but that's a high end brand. For those who don't appreciate me talking about mililiters, here's a scale to compare: 0.5 fl.OZ. is 15 ml.:) 

But think of ArtDeco (6 ml), Isadora (6ml), Alessandro (10 ml or 5 ml) also Essence (8 ml), ok, S-he being a slight exception with 11 ml, Miss Sporty with 7 ml, Barry M with 10 ml, Vollare with 5 ml  ... and so on and so forth. USA brands: O.P.I. 15 ml, China Glaze 15 ml, BB Couture 15 ml, Orly 15 ml (even 18 ml!), Wet'n'Wild 13,5 ml, Sally Hansen 14.7 ml, Diamond Cosmetics 12.6 ml ...

  

source: indiamart.com

Obviously I'm not saying it's a rule. I'm sure I'm missing some huge EU bottles of polish and some tiny of USA. But you can see the pattern, and that's just brands from the top of my head. The difference in prices is vice versa, I'm afraid. Euro being stronger now makes the difference even worse. It's not really fair to compare China Glaze prices, perhaps, because we do have to pay duty and so on. But just to let you know, in Slovenia: 9 € + shipping. 1 $ = 0.75 € (in the first transformer Google found, as I'm typing this, so it might changed when you're reading this ;)).

Let's look at "our" brands. Lumene for 4.5ml around 4 €, ArtDeco for 6 ml from 8 to 9 €, Essence 1.50,€ Miss Sporty 1.75 - 2.15€. ArtDeco perhaps being in the range of OPI or Nubar, I feel, and Essence/Miss Sporty being in the range of USA's Wet'n'Wild and similar department store brands.

I don't know about you, but I'm surprised about bottle size difference and the price difference. OK, I get that most american brands are expensiver here, it's kinda logical, isn't it? But why EU brands, why such difference? Is it the smaller market? I bet it is. But it can't be only that, can it?

Anyway ... just my thoughts on that. Fact is, nail polish junkies can easily go with 7 ml bottles, in average,  since we usually don't tend to empty one bottle of polsih. ;) But I personally think the prices should be more equal to the sizes. If it's a smaller bottle make it a lower price.

I'm curious about more info if you have it and about your opinions. I tend not to bitch too much about our prices, because you can get a gorgeous polish for a decent price here too ... here are just the fact and I'm curious about your opinion on it. :)

Thanks for reading & chatting!

Color Club Spring Collection preview and another giveaway

Hey people. While I'm relaxing from the studying I just as may ask you for your opinion on new Color Club collection. Bottle photos are out, and some of them are looking goooooooood!

I got the photos on Scrangie's blog, I hope she doesn't mind, click on the nick to go to her page. Not that you don't already know it. ;) 

The bottom bottles look soooooooo awesome! From these picutres I want the first, the third, the fourth and the sixth. On the upper picture, with pastels I'm not sure if I want any. Perhaps the fifth one, but I'll need to see some swatches. Anyway. Duochrome, baby!! Color club is so freakishly awesome! Can you believe I don't have a single bottle of Color Club? Sure, I tried them out from Tevta's stash, but a bottle of Color Club being just mine? Not yet! OMG! I know! These look beyond awesome to me. Can't wait for some swatches and I bet I'll want at least 4 colours.


Second thing I want to point out is American Apparel giveaway Sam from Fashion Polish is having.

Now, American Apparel is one of those "I wannaaa" brands for me. Like Eyeko. I just totally want to have them and I can't get them anywhere, and they don't even have the top number of  colours on my WL I want. There were a couple of giveaways of AA I was chanting every day to get, but of course I didn't. I don't know what's with AA that I want so badly. Ever since I saw giant haul Parokeets ladies did, I seriously want them. Colours like Hunter, Peacock, Army Jacket (!!), Malibu Green, Mount Royal, Dynasty, American Violet get me drooling all over my keyboard. Although I know I must know million dupes of Hunter, but all others I wouldn't mind one bit to have. Anyway. Sam gives us the opportunity to get 5 polishes from the new American Apparel line of our choice. From the colours above I think it's quite obvious that won't be a problem. Army Jacket is the third from the left and it's killing me!


Now, I'm curious. What do you think about new Color Club colours? And do you have any brand that you totally want to have, even though it doesn't have the highest number of shades on your WL? :)

Thank you for reading!

China Glaze - 2NITE and info on Tronica

Hey people! I hope you had a good welcoming party for 2011 and are good and healthy right now! I kinda caught a cold yesterday, me and my darling went for a walk after midnight, we were in the mountains and there was a stream there so we walked to it. I didn't realized my feet were burning from cold until we got back into the hause, but nevermind that. The stars were just beautiful.  And so were the fireworks. :) 

Tonight I'll show you one from the Project Lativa, that I swatched on a sunny day. And loved it! It's holo China Glaze, from OMG collection and it kinda fits right now, because the Tronica swatches are slowly coming online and I just thought it would combine nicely with my rambling about it. :)

 Off direct sunlight holo is not so intensiv, but still visible.

It's a gorgeous light blue holo that I really love. Two coats, it gave me no trouble whatsoever. Very nice.

And now to the Tronica insanity we got here. :) Of course I had to peak on my blogroll right after I came home if there is anything new on the 2011 collections. And Sam from the gorgeous Fashion Polish blog fed me some news! Colour drops and colour comparison to the OMG Collection! :) I got my wish, it's closer to the OMG type of holo and not Kaleidoscope type, but the colours are also pretty close, don't you think? I think i'll just reflect my WL from OMG collection to Tronica Collection. :) Not that I'm complaining much, but if you have OMG collection, I don't think you'll be over the moon about Tronica. Could be wrong though! I do think, that if you're a huge fan of certain colour, you won't mind having more shades, since they are different. I wouldn't mind having both DV8 and Techno Teal, for instance. But right now I have my eyes on Laser Lime, Hyper Haute, Gamer Glam, Techno Teal and perhaps also Cyberspace and Virtual Violet. High Def looks dangerously close to 2NITE that I already have. So half of the collection. But I think I'll be really happy if I get one. ;) My personal favourite: Techno Teal, without a doubt! 

And before I forget. If her gorgeous nails, application and creations (check this one out *drools*) aren't good enough reason for following Fashion Polish, she has a giveaway. Yes. One 13 ml polish bottle. One? Oh yes. But did I mention? It's Chanel Black Pearl! Oh, now you're interested? I bet you are! :D OK, Sam, I hope you don't mind I wrapped it in a good intended joke. :) 

And here we are. My first post for 2011. Tell me, if you already have the OMG collection (or the ones you want), what do you think about Tronica? Will you be getting any? And if you don't own OMG, which ones from Tronica would you like to have?

Thank you for reading!

My top 5 of 2010

Hey people. Me again. I'm getting this out in the last moments, I'm about to hit the showers and tomorrow I'm gonna have a hectic day, preparing for NY party, so i better write it down now. Jette Fromm tagged me with my top 5 of 2010, check her top 5 too! :)  

Here it is, for 5th to first place. I payed attention about this being all 2010 collections, although I discovered this year some of really the best polish ever, from previous collections.

5. I had to do a tie, I'm sorry. MAC Bad Fairy  from Venomous Villains is one baddass polish, and I can't choose between her and Orly's Meet Me Under The Mistletoe from Orly's Holiday Collection. So they share the fifth place. And this is by far the best I could do to shrink the number. ;)

4. O.P.I. Nevermore from Go Goth! Halloween Collection. I cheated, I know, it's actually Ink, but it did came out this year! :P

3. Violet Sparkle from Nubar Sparkle Collection for Spring 2010.

2. Verde from Nubar Venetian Glass Fall Collection 2010.

1. And, of course, you probably saw this one coming. From the Cosmic FX Orly's 2010 Fall Collection, Space Cadet!

This is it. It was hard for me to choose, even in this year my crushes were also Who The Shrek Are You?, Halley's Comet, Fire Sparkle and so on. And some of my biggest lemmings come from this year, but I just didn't have the opportunity or/and money to buy them. Like quite a few bottles from BB Couture's Ladybug collection and Infamous Lovers, where I want like entire set. :)
One thing did surprise me. No China Glaze in my top 5? What? I worship China Glaze, right now it's my number 1 brand, from all the gems I discovered lately! But I have to admit, their collection from this year weren't my cup of tea, with the exception of the Holiday collection, where I still have three polishes to try out, and I do suspect Jolly Holly would have made it to the list.

Saying all this, I must mention a few of my biggest crushes this year, that are found in earlier collections, but I discovered them in this one. In no particular order:

China Glaze: DV8, Watermelon Rind, Wagon Trail. (2009 OMG, 2009 Summer Days, 2008 Rodeo Diva)

Kinetics: Magnificent (2008 Pure Elegance)

O.P.I.: Yoga-ta Get This Blue, DS Glamour (2008 India, no collection that I know of)

SpaRitual: Mood (2008 Inspired)

Illamasqua: Rampage (I don't know when it was released, Scrangie first mentions it in may 2009)

Magnetic: Spectacular (Spect.) Stone (I don't think Magnetic gets out in collections)

Zoya: Rea, Suvi, Midori (both 2008 Downtown, 2009 Oh-La-La).

And bazillion more. I'm sure I forgot quite a few of them. But there you have it. A sneak peak into my nail polish favourites. :) 

And now I must tag, haha! I tag Lalica, Biba, Nail Crazy, AmyGrace, Alluring_mum, Taya, Sonidlo and everybody else on my blogroll, because I'm tooootally curious about your top five! Come on! :) And if you're not a blogger or don't have time for posting it, write it down in the comments. :)) 

All that is left for me to do now, as I'm already typing this away on the last day of 2010, is that I wish you  

a happy new year, may it be succesful, full of love, laughter and joy, may your expectations be reached and surpassed and let us all have the best nail polish year! 

Thank you for reading, have a great new year's party!

Orly's Precious and China Glaze's Anchors Away Spring Collections

Hey again! I've been going through my nail blog list (that is even longer than that on my blogroll), looking at your gorgeous swatches, reading the news, and saw a post on BodyAndSoul about Orly spring collection!  Truth be told, I got so into Tronica mood I almost forgot for a moment that basically all brands are launching a Spring collection. ;) So lets have a lil' chat about both Spring Collections, what say you?

I grew very fond of Orly in the past few weeks. Their brush is awesome, colours also, I already have quite a few lemmings on my WL ... and how couldn't I love the brand that gave us Space Cadet and Meet Me Under The Mistletoe? :) So seeing their new shades got me really excited. Especially because of the manner they did it. We can actually see the colours, because of very realistic polish drops and the bottles. 

As I was googling for more info, I found only pictures, but no release date yet, sorry to say. I think the name of the collection is quite suitable for this choice of colours. Very gentle, girly, if we don't include dark blue and teal, I dare say. Of course only teal and dark blue interest me. :) Perhaps also mint one. So Sapphire Silk, Royal Velvet and maybe Ancient Jade. 

I'm dying to get teal colour! I don't know why I haven't grabbed Peacock from AA or Ski Teal We Drop from OPI ... teal always slipped off my radar and lately I'm totaly craving it. If Orly is doing teal, I'm very gladly grabbing it with both hands. I just hope they arrive soon. ;) Note on Royal Velvet: bottle looks dangerously close to Health & Wealth And Happines from SpaRitual, for those who already have it, it may be a dupe alert. For me, if Orly does a dupe from that gorgeous colour, even better, since their brush suits me better. 

And CG's Anchors Away after the click :)

China Glaze goes holo! Again! (new info!)

This is going around blogosphere for a few days now, so I'm sure you already know it, but since i posted crackle collection, i decided, I'll post this one too. 12 holographic colours, people!! 

Futuristic and edgy, the China Glaze Tronica Specialty Collection is a holographic 3D selection of evolutionary and fun nail colors. These 12 colors are fashion forward, high-tech, bold, sleek and sure to change the face of the nail world! With names such as “Hyper Haute” and “Gamer Glam”, China Glaze combines the two worlds of innovative technology and high fashion color to create a collection that is sure to stimulate all the senses.

(chicprofile.com)

From what I'm seeing on this tiny picture, I'll grab teal one in the front, purple, I see red, I think, and, oh my, is that green, or am I just wanting it to be so bad I see it green? The warm purple next to silver one looks promising too.

I don't think I can love China Glaze more than I do since the moment I read about this one. Crackle and holo collections? Come on! This is so perfect! Where O.P.I. has been a bitter disappointment with this years and the next's collections, China Glaze gets me jumping around like a madman. And CGs holos are such perfection, I'm really having my expectations high on this one. Now let us all put a cookie on our nail-polish shelves/drawers/helmers/boxes for the nail-polish fairy so both CG collections will be as kick-ass as we're all hoping them to be! 

And I forgot to mention this is a Spring collection, other bloggers (body & soul) are thinking about February, I agree, if it's Spring, we can expect it in next two months. But no official date so far. Thanks to Rachel Marie, for reminding me of release date!

What do you think, will Tronica beat OMG Collection? Do you even like holo and crackle, or are those two CG collection "pass" for you? 

Thank you for reading!

***

Just in, China Glaze spreads the word on FB page! 

Girl, you know it's true! China Glaze Tronica will beature 12 limited edition holographic polishes that will be available for a limited time at BSG (Jan/Feb 2011) and Sally's Beauty (March/April 2011).

So, yeah, nailsbybellan is sadly right, they're limited and available only at BSG and Sally's Beauty. And, ladies, let me tell you one little thing. WE DON'T HAVE THOSE IN SLOVENIA! :( I'll need to think about how to get these babies, if CG doesn't launch it somewhere online too.

PS: A better, larger picture. I want teal even more, the purple one behind it, the warm purplish pink behind the silver one and the orange-red one behind the purplish pink one aaaand I think the one on the left from silver one really is green! Wiiiii! Wow, you really wish they'd put out the names too. :D 

China Glaze cracks ... in colours!

Aaand before I forget! I saw this promo picture on CG's FB page:

Source: blogs.nailsmag.com

 

 

 

 

I don't know about you, but I need this crackle beauty! Soooo awesome! The official China Glaze blog tells us it's gonna be six!!! crackles in the collection:

• Black Mesh (black crackle), 
• Lightening Bolt (white crackle), 
• Broken Hearted (pink crackle), 
• Cracked Concrete (grey crackle), 
• Crushed Candy (teal crackle) and 
• Fault Line (purple crackle).

And, wow, I only don't want to have the pink one. Otherwise all of them. Seriously, pronto. Hell, for just one skipable colour, I can order the whole effing collection and have the colours covered when it comes to crackle. I cannot wait for this collection, seriously. China Glaze tends to make me go "wiiii" with so much nail-polish, it's definitively on my top 3 list of polish brands. So I really do hope it will be availabe to the Old Continent too.

On related topic, to make this a nail polish chat (I already have my new, very cute, strawberry shaped cup of tea here) - I love crackle efect on the nails. With the right colour combination it's just droolable. And considering I'm not a big konad fan (I must admit, I'm starting to like it more and more, since I've found couple of bloggers that do konad to the right measure and really gorgeous creations), this may be surprising. But I love it. Love it!! Sadly I only had the chance to admire it on swatches, since Isadora is just too damn expensive for my wallet, and I just can't get around p2 crackle polish to save my life. But anyway, now I'm really thinking this collection will nail it. Can't wait till February when it's out! 

So, the question for you is obvious. :) What do you think about crackle polish? Is it a stupid trend for you, or do you like it, even own a crackle polish? If you do, do share your favourite color combination. :)

So yeah, I'm chatty today again. :) Thank you for reading!

Dear St. Nicolas/Santa/Grandpa Cold/Nail-polish Fairy etc.!

Hey everyone! How are you doing? It's freeeezing cold, but I do have my cup of coffee right here with me, and I want to share my this years letter to st. Nicolas with you. :) I don't know which person do you have a habit of writing to, in our family St. Nicolas was always the old man to bring us gifts (we call it Miklavž in Slovenia), although I think Santa Clause is getting much more popular with todays kids. We also had Grandpa Cold (I don't know if that's correct, it's literal translation), but st. Nicolas stuck.

Dear St. Nicolas!

How are you? I hope you'll dress up warm this night, because it will be one of the coldest, don't want you and your angels and devils to freeze to death while giving us presents. This year I've been a very good girl and since i'm all into green, I wish these things, if you'll be so kind. I'll stick to 5 items, as every year. 

From USA's BB Couture I wish to have

Bonnie, Caterpillar, Fuel Injector, Saturday Night Fever and Grenade, please.

-- What? Not feeling too green? No problem, my dear old man, we can go purple! 

You can bring me Michael, Carla, Dragon's Breath, Balboa Beach Bunny and Huckleberry Martini.

-- What's that? Not liking the purple this year either? Nicky, not a problem, here's the set of reds by BB Couture.

Tuxedo Night, Nightmare, Bullfighter, Horned Devil and Napa Valley Red.

-- Hm, ok, now I'm hearing words like 'insane', 'costs', 'bankrupt', 'not the only one in the universe' ... Ok, ok, I get it, they're expensive, lets go wallet friendly. 

How about a set of China Glaze? VII, Jolly Holly, Gussied Up Green, IDK and Bad Landing. Better?

Still too expensive? How about Color Club?  Revvvolution, Slow Jam, Wild At Heart, Gossip Column and Rule Breaker.

-- Oh man, now you're not feeling like travelling to the USA? Fine. You're getting old, I guess. Let's have a set of Illamasqua then.

Hectic, Phallic, Smash, Velocity and Boo!. Aaand before you get a heart-attact after seeing the prices, you can always get me an Eyeko set, because it's so darn cute, while you're in the UK, with Cosmic, Rain, Vampira, Military and Saucy and they're tons cheaper.

Ok, I've given you a lot of choices right there, and you can pick anything you want from this list, or look at my WL (on the computer, it's more up to date than blog one), and grab any OPI, Kinetics, Essie, RBL, Nubar or whatever you find easier.

With all my love, have a nice holiday, 

Ulmiel. 

***

Ok, on more serious note, guys. This is (perhaps a bad) joke, I don't expect to get all of these. I wouldn't mind, but lets face it, these do cost an arm and a leg. :) It's just me showing my lemmings more clearly. This year is ending with strong lemming for BB Couture. The strongest! I'm deep into green polish worshiping, and BB Couture has the best greens I've ever seen. All the others are my usual lemmings, of course, I'm especially feeling a strong gap with Color Club, that I really need to fix, and I need Jolly Holly from China Glaze in my life ASAP. And I have a phase with Eyeko polish, because it's so darn cute. And some neat colours they have too. 

Anyway, the point of my babbling around this is partly my lame attempt to entertain you and partly because I want to know what your letter to nail-polish fairy would be like! Or whoever you feel like writing to. :) You can pick any 5 polishes you like, if you can't break it into brands, like i did (because I really couldn't pick just five polishes to save my life ...). 

After the click I'll show you my early holiday present from my darling. :) Yes, it's a nail-polish! ;)

When nail-polish hits your wallet

Another one of my attemps to do topic-related picture, bear with me.

Hey everyone! How are you? It's freezing in Ljubljana, I had to walk way too much around in this weather, I'd say! Almost fell once, humpf! At least the buses always arrived fast. :) I'm in a chatty mood today! So, you know the drill, put those kettles on, boil some water or milk, get warm tea or hot cocoa and let's talk some nail polish! I'm curious about this topic because I've met so many different opinions on it, I want to hear yours too. 

It's about brands and prices of nail-polish. We all know nail-polish can be sooo cheap or so insanely expensive, you halt for a moment, asking yourself if you really just spent so much money on just one bottle. It goes from under 1 euro and all the way up to 30€, even more, if you're searching for rareties on ebay. Of course, with the price comes the name too. And my question to you now is: do you prefer to buy the brand, although for more money or you don't care about it? For instance: Essence has a dupe of Zoya, OPI and Orly, as you all know. Would you prefer the other three just because they're brands and you feel better buying them? Ok, Essence has shitty brush, let's say Catrice dupe of Chanel. Chanel for sure, or are you just happy Catrice has a decent dupe?

Before I start, I feel I must emphasize one point of this chat. It seems as one of those questions, that have the right answer. You know: no, I don't care, I'm not that "posh". Please don't think that. I honestly want your opinion and I do not judge those who prefer brands nor do I look down on people who prefer only cheaper polish. I honestly think it's your money and your choice, you don't need to apologize to anyone about anything. I'm not saying that you do, just that I want your opinion on subject, and I don't want you to think about this as a given, right/wrong answer.

As for me, thing is, if I see beautiful colour, I don't care about the name and most of the time for the price. I'm a total nail-polish junkie, if I want it, I feel like I need it, you know what I mean? But. I do differ my polishes if I prefer the brush of one brand. Essence loses with me just about every single time. But I do love brushes of Catrice and S-he. 

I do have a borderline about the price. First, I can't afford, with my student budget, to buy very expensive polish every other day, second, I don't want to. Honestly, Chanel, Dior and so on have prices so high, I don't think they can make colour perfect enough for me to spend that amount of money. But then again, it might be like with Illamasqua - once you try it, you never go back. :)

Second thing that I notice about myself - I appreciate expensiver polish more than the cheaper one. It's silly, but I do. Perhaps because I know I can buy another bottle of S-he anytime I'm near DM, but if I break BB Couture, I'll have to wait for quite a while before I can afford another one. Not to mention some of my jewels were gifts from people close to me. Illamasqua was a birthday gift from my dear Tevta and means the world to me, BB Couture from my BF, I must tell you about this one, it's a new one! And so on and so forth. And I do have favourites, I won't lie. Brands that I prefer over others, but that's because of the amount of really awesome colours, very good brush, and sometimes even bottle shape. I'm a sucker for nice bottles. And in my favourites you have all kind of price range. From Illamasqua to China Glaze to Catrice.

So, where do you stand? Do you have a special polish, that means more to you than others? Even brand? Make this monologue a dialogue, will you? :) 

Hope you like the topic and chat away, my darlings!

Thank you for reading!

Opening bottles in stores?

 My lame attempt to do a topic related picture, be gentle. xD

Hey guys! I have another nail polish related theme for our chat that got me thinking the other day, when buying things for little somethin somethin to give to you (it's a slow proces, because I'm on a student budget, so I'm buying it piece by piece and thus buying it eeeearly :)): should I or should I not open the bottle to see if it has been opened before. Since I'm not buying it for myself, I shouldn't open it, right, but to give away a nasty neck, claiming it hasn't been opened, because someone else opened in the store, argh, it makes me nervous just thinking about it.

Because, you know, I could yell at this lady next to me opening every piece of make up she put her hands on, smelling the mascaras, wiping the brush and so on and i knew  if she got her hands on those nail polish bottles, they have necks dirty as if I put them through 15 manicures already. Once we went shopping and a friend of mine opened a bottle and wiped the brush on the neck so a drop of polish was on the outer side of the neck. Poor thing got such a nasty look by me, telling him off, I hope he wasn't offended ... he didn't mean anything bad by it, he just thought that's the only way to see the colour of the polish. 

And now I'm asking you - do you open the bottles to see the polish inside, or do you look only at the bottles? For me, it's swatches first (if they exist), then buying the polish without opening it or just buying if i like it in the bottle. It's not like it's any different on the brush as it is in the bottle, it can still look like crap on the nails - or really surprise you with the second coat. :) The only thing I do, and I don't feel bad about it is, that I open it carefully (!!), not touching the neck with the brush, to see if anyone wiped the brush already. Because I'd *freak out* if I got (by chance a very expensive one) polish home, open it and saw that the handle is practicaly glued to the neck because it has been opened so many times. I mean, yeah, maybe it's a bit of overreacting, since nail-polish is someting that lasts for ages, but hey, if I buy it, I want it clean and not used before, unless I know it has been used (like for swatching or something). I don't mind getting used nail-polish, because it's not really a tooth-brush, is it, but if I know that before I buy/get it. You know what I mean? I'm all for swaping and exchanging nail-polish, it's a very changable thing, but I don't really like buying used bottles in a store without anyone letting me know they've been used.

So yeah, basically, I'm just wondering, do you have a habit of opening the bottles in the stores or not? :) And would you mind getting a nail-polish in a swap on a giveaway if it has been used before, maybe only for a nail or two or a manicure or two? Of course, if you knew that before getting it. :) I don't think anyone would be particularly happy if they just got opened bottles, without anyone saying a thing.

I'm posting this as the last post of the week, I really doubt I'll have the time to post anything tomorrow, I'm abroad 'till Sunday. Me and 3 of my friends will have a lil' party weekend to celebrate a project that we  successfully carried out during the summer (yeah, it's been months, we just didn't find the time) and so you'll get a bit of rest from me. ;)

To let you know about my blog plans - I have a couple comparisons planned, Zoya vs. Orly (judging by the bottles, I have a 100% dupe of Out Of This World in Zoya's Julianne), SpaRitual vs. Orly (Optical Illusion - It's Not Rocket Science), I need to find out if I need to buy Halley's Comet due to Essence's brush in Choose me! bottle, and I fear Choose me! is more blue than Halley's Comet, so I'll have to compare them, and finally Orly vs. China Glaze (Glam -Ruby Pumps). Other than that I'm enjoying trying out my Project Latvia polishes, by poll I'll get DS tapestery and Nubar Indigo Illusion next week, yay! After the poll polishes, I still have to decide, whether I'd try the rest of SpaRitual or go through my untired nail-polish, it's around 15 bottles or more by now and I feel bad every time I look at that pile.
If you have any special wishes let me know. :)

Oh, my manicure for the weekend, just a quick shot I did today. The gorgeous Wagon Trail, one of my favourites in my collection.

And chat away! :) Thanks for reading, have a nice weekend!!

Taking care of nail-polish

Hey everyone! Thanks for awesome feedback on 42, it made my day! :)) Today we actually had a little bit of sun, at one moment it was raining while the sun was out, it was really nice, but otherwise a lazy day (although it shouldn't be), so I decided to take care of the bottles a bit and now I'm in a chatty mood, and encouraged from the *awesome* feedback on my first chatting post few days ago, I'm asking you today: how do you take care for your nail-polish? :)

I admit, I have a slight OCD about it, every now and then I take all the bottles out, shake them, roll them, clean the necks and so on. What I find interesting is, that a lot of people are saying how important it is to clean the necks of the bottles, and yet, I know only a few persons that actually clean the necks. I'm not saying I do it regularly, but like every month or so I take out all the bottles I used in past weeks and clean them all. I know a lot of people probably remember that after they did their manicure - I know I do - and I've found the perfect solution for that: rubber gloves. It's the only way that actually allows me to clean the necks regularly, because I don't think about doing that when I remove the nail-polish off my nails, and basically, the only time that I wouldn't ruin my manicure with cleaning the bottles is in that minute, that I'm preparing for another colour. 

So, I'm telling you, rubber gloves, a pile of cotton pads, an n-p remover bottle and 10 minutes of your time for around 11 bottles (that I cleaned today). What I noticed with cleaning the necks - it gets faster after a while, you get used to it and, this is important, you have to learn to clean it so that the remover doesn't get into the nail-polish. It's the easiest way to soak a pad in remover, put it on the neck and rub it really hard, but that's how you get the remover into the polish, and that's really not a good thing, so I'm avoiding this now by "hugging" the bottle with the pad and moving it around it, not on top of it. I know, I made a science out of it, but knowing, that I'm not cleaning just my polish, and even with mine, I want it to last, I don't want to ruin a bottle with trying to do something good. :) 

Just for fun, I took a few shots today, because I'm so used to have my camera with me when I'm doing something nail related.

This is Guissed up green, and you can tell it's been used a lot! :D I did a very fast shot while cleaning, because I don't want to leave bottles opened for too long. I like after the cleaning, how better the handle closes up the bottle and it's much easier to open it then.

So, the other, usual stuff is shaking the bottle every once in a while (although, I'll admit it, I don't do it so often as I should and then sometimes I grab a bottle that has visible pigment and start to shake it like crazy), keeping them in shade or boxes, on a steady temperature - in my room and the office/guest room I have a pretty steady temperature throughout the year and no direct sunlight on the bottles, but I don't know what I'll do when I'll run out of space, which will happen ... very soon. o.o

Anyway, yeah, I think that's just about it. Luckily nail-polish doesn't take much to be just fine. :) So tell me, how do you take care of nail-polish? Do you bother with the necks or is that not important to you?

Thanks for reading!

Jordana - Wicked and 5 minutes tea break for nail-polish

Evening everyone! It has been a loooong day, I had classes until 6 p.m., but am in a chatty mood, I hope you're with me, get a nice cup of tea (or coffee if it's not too late for you) or cocoa and lets us talk nail-polish. Man, I  sound like a bad commercial. :D First I wanna show you an old beauty of mine, it's an old mani, but this was the reason why I started liking glitter. 

Small pictures, I know, like I said, they are old, one of my first swatches, I think. It totally needs three coats, but then becomes amazing, copper specks of glitter in black base, ah! It's quite easy to apply, if you ignore the three coats thing (and three is not a problem for me anyway), dries up a bit rough though, if you don't like that you'll probably need two coats of top coat to make it smooth.

Chat after the klick. :)

My thoughts on ... Essie - Morticia's Nails

I just saw this on Essie FB page. Honestly, I want this, for nothing else, just because it's The Addam's Family theme and it's MORTICIA!! I love that woman. Anjelica Huston was the perfect Morticia for me, just look at her: 

source: dailymail.co.uk

Love the nail colour. ;) I can't find swatches of these three colours in the set, but there is a dark red, that I love, a dark blue, that I just possibly love and ... well, white. Names: Blood Curdling Red, Bone Chilling White, and Midnight Tango. Pale skin is 100% Morticia, I agree, but I don't get it, why the white nail-polish. But then again, black would just be too predictable. I think. ;) 

Essie BFF-ed with The Addam's Family Musical on Broadway for this one and the money from this limited edition (only 5,000 sets!) will go to Actors Fund. Each set costs 30 dollars, is available here and on Essie's offical website, although I can't find it there.

I can't stop singing the Addam's family song:

They’re creepy and they’re kooky,

mysterious and spooky,

they’re all together ooky,

the Addams Family!

The house is a museum,

when people come to see ‘em,

they really are a screa-um,

the Addams Family

ta-da-da-dum *snap, snap*,

ta-da-da-dum *snap, snap*,

ta-da-da-da,

ta-da-da-da,

ta-da-da-da! *snap, snap*

That's the part that I remember. :) I totally totally LOVE the idea behind this! Come on, it's Morticia!!! The Addam's Family!! I love the cartoons and the movies! I totally want this. And it's LIMITED edition! Yes, I'm a sucker for theme-related nail-polish collections. If I dig the theme, I'll buy it. I'd have entire Shrek collection by OPI, if my guru wouldn't make me snap out of it and getting me only the Shrek one, thank god. :D 

What do you think about the collection? Are you an Addam's fan or not? :D

*snap snap*

My thoughts on ... O.P.I. Burlesque Collection

I just realized, I haven't caught up on swatches from OPI's Burlesque, I just saw promo pictures of bottles, and since it left me quite cool I didn't make a mental note to check regularly for the colours on the nails. Now I found them by chance on Krex's blog (link is to the second part of swatches, there is also a first, non glittery on the blog) and, well, since I'm doing this my thoughts on... thingie and can't sleep anyway, what the hell, right? :) 

For the record: I love OPI. They have produced so many totally kick-ass colours that I adore, and still do, my keyboard can't handle the excitment over the brand and how much I love some of their nail-polishes. Sadly, Burlesque Collection is not really my cup of tea. From the bottle pictures I liked three, possibly four colours - in first row the second, fifth and the last one and in the bottom row the second. So purple glitter, red, vampy red and green glitter.

From the swatches I don't like one glitter polish (for me that's way too much glitter on one nail). From non glitter polish I like the red one, Ali's Big Break, but it's nothing really special to me, you know what I mean? I have quite alot of reds at home, and right now I'm looking more forward to my two red S-hes that I still haven't tried out than to this one. There is another red (i have no idea how to combine swatches with the bottle pics, since there seems to be more reds than on the bottle picture) that  I think it's pretty awesome: The Show Must Go On (oh my, I won't be able to stop singing Queen whole night long). It's totally cool from the swatches! 

Let Me Entertain You is, from All Lacquerd Up comparison, a worse version of Don't Toy With Me, another OPI red that I toooootally adore! So that's why it's a no no for me, but otherwise a cute colour. 

And the winner of the collection Tease-y Does It. That's a cool colour with an unbelievable silly name! I thought at first that it's a dupe of Milani's Spellbinding, but as it seems, it's more brownish based and with coppery glitter, not so much red, so that's a plus!

In short, out of 12, two. But those two are pretty cool! So yeah ... not my favourite collection done by OPI, but I'm not complaining too much. O.P.I. is still one of the best out there. :) 

Your feelings about the collection? Hate it, love it, i-need-them-all, OMG-gimme-bleach-for-my-eyes? :) 

Thanks for reading! :) 

My thoughts on ... Fire and Ice by Zoya and China Glaze Holiday 2010

Yaaaay, Scrangie published Fire and Ice swatches! Couldn't wait for them! I've already talked about it, and don't know what was I thinking with Tiffany - yuck? Totally not my colour. Looked promising on the spoon, what can I say. Gloria doesn't look bad at all! On the verge of being too pink for me, but still a cute colour. Sarah I dig! Red sparkles, I can't complain. Valerie though ... man oh man, that's one beautiful colour. It goes straight on my top 20 list! Wonderful, seriously.

And I stumbled upon new China Glaze on Magic maid's blog! Now, China Glaze hasn't done much wow polishes for me this year. Some previously done collections are to die for, but not this year. I guess they're getting better with holidays! By looks of the bottles, I want at least 5 of them, with swatches I'll probably want a couple more. It's basically red and green collection, how can I resist? They have this cute little packages of different shades, but it's always with some shade, that I don't really like. But still, I totally wouldn't mind getting at least these:

 

 Actually I hate green Christmas, I love the snow, but this package (ignoring the champagne colour) is pretty damn awesome. :)

I totally love the way Sugar Plums looks in the bottle, and frankly, you can't get enough reds, although this red looks simply like a classic red, nothing big ... and you get a Reindeer, that's good enough reason for me to buy it. ;) 

These are not all that I want, there are still couple of greens missing, Magic Maid has them all nicely listed. What do you think about both collections? Will you be getting any of them, or is it "pass and full wallet" for you? :)

My thoughts on ... BB Couture Infamous Lovers - The Men

Source: nailpolishforum.com

Nina asked me what about men in the entry about the Ladies part of collection. I didn't have time to search for Men untill now, and here they are:

Clyde ~ bright green
Adam ~ grown brown
Romeo ~ red pink
Anthony ~ blue green
Michael ~ purple blue
John Smith ~ tan

I adore Clyde (no surprise there, eh?), hate Adam, love Romeo, like Anthony, can't decide if i love or hate Michel and kinda like John Smith. 

I watched swatches here, thank ladybuglexus!

Hmmmm ... I think they did a better job with the Ladies. I can't really say I hate any of them, but Adam overhere makes me go eeeeeeeeeeww, really not my colour. I'm also curious if Clyde is dupe of RBL Recycle or Illamasqua's Rampage ... it's a gorgeous green creme, don't get me wrong, but I think that I need at least 10 other BB Couture greens before I get to this one. :D John Smith reminds me greatly of RBL Opaque Nude (on ladybug's picture colour seems almost white, but I've stumbled upon picture where it looks like Opaque Nude) and that's one of rare nude colours that I want. You know, for "must-have-discreet-nail-colour" situations. Anthony doesn't seem too original to me, but is a nice bluish colour. I love Romeo, it's a totally cute colour, I'd grab it in a second. And for Michael ... man, I don't know! It looks like that kind of colour that just looks a bit weird on pictures but is amazing on the nails! I totally want to try it on my nails. Because I have this feeling it's a freakshly awesome colour, but on swatches it looks just ... "promising". 

All  in all I loooooove the idea behind the collection, and I think both parts make one of the best collections this Fall has introduced. And what do you think? Which men and ladies will you be taking home? :)

My thoughts on ... BB Couture Infamous Lovers - The Ladies

nailpolsihforum.com

Just when I thought my WL will stand for at least a couple of days, this showed up. I haven't even known that this collection was coming out! Ugh! Scrangie already did the swatches and of course I fell in love with two of them. Bonnie (the green one) and Cleopatra (the bluish one), about Eve I'm not so sure. Scrangie says it's murky-olive green, but I just don't see it, it looks brown to me. And there are just few browns that I like. Pocahontas just might be one of them, it looks a bit purple toned and has speckles of glitter or shimmer or something. I can see tons of people just worshiping Juliet.

Frankly, BB Couture is in my opinion unbelievable brand. They have tons, and I mean tons of green nail-polish and all of them are unique. Not just that they don't duplicate themselves (sure, some look similar, but when you put them together, you see the differences - and yes, this is green nail-polish junkie talking, I can see two specks of glitter making a difference!) but they are also not duplicating other brands! For me that's a total success, BB Couture has climbed enormously high on my scale of brands.

This collection is no exception, awesome green, awesome blue - and I'm not a blue lover - and all the others seem really nice to. Again no disappointment form BB Couture. And no Charla look-a-likes, yay!

And what do you think about the collection? Like/dislike/omg-i-need-them-all-in-my-life-right-now? :) 

My thoughts on ... new Misa and Zoya collections

Let me start with Misa and Zoya. Everybody in nail polish world already know about the collections, so i won't lose to much words on the pictures and describing it. I was super excited when I say the bottles of Misa's Spark my Interest. They looked ... sparkly!

 

source: vampyvarnish.com

See?

When I saw the swatches bitter disappointment came. The colors are cute, yes. But nothing that we haven't seen already. And sparkle? Where? In swatches that I saw (Lacquerized) sparkles are down to a minimum and the whole collection looks kinda ... cheap. My favourite is Date Nights To Twilight, as it will be of many, but nothing that I don't already own or have on WL and that from cheaper labels. From the collection, that includes mainly my colours and it should be sparkly and, well "a must have" for me, there is nothing that I haven't already seen. In better version. With sparkles! And I hate that! I hate it when label goes safe and just follows trends instead creating new ones. Misa gave us Toxic Seduction, so I can't say I didn't have large expectations ... alas, no WOW! reactions from my side.

Zoya's Fire and Ice is, as it seems, on every nail blog. :) The spooning is used now also for teasers, and, my oh my, do those spoons look nice! And sparkly! :)

 

I'm seriously looking forward to Valerie (the purple one), but Gloria and Tiffany just may be the great surprise for me, I'm keeping my fingers crossed for these three colours. All in all I'm loving Zoya's nail polish. So many of them on my wish list, I don't even dare to count them anymore. It rarely disappoints and I'm looking forward to every new collection they make.