Red comparison week - 4th day: two on two comparison

Hey guys. A really fast one, because I have literally no time at all. This time two groups, because they were a couple comparison and the only two, so I did them at once.

Wine Me & Dine Me, 2007 O.P.I. Holiday in Hollywood Collection.

Romeo & Joliet, 1997 O.P.I. Route 66 Collection for Fall. Since mine is already B3F I'm guessing it went to the classics range - or the data on the net is wrong.

Bing Cherry is a part of China Glaze core collection. 

Kangarooby, 2007 O.P.I. Australia Collection.

Except Bing Cherry all O.P.I.s I have are B3F. I suspect, if Bing Cherry has become a part of the core collection, it's also already made with the new formula, the bottle I used for comparison is really really old, it still has the old handle of China Glaze.

Brush: as ever, O.P.I. pro wide brush is to my liking, no complaints, China Glaze, even an oldie, perfection, as always.

Coats: All of them are two coaters. They apply like magic, I had no troubles at all. Well, it's China Glaze and O.P.I., what did you expect?

Dupability: No dupes. I kicked in the dark with Bing Cherry and Kangarooby the most, OPI is really darker. Besides, Bing Cherry has this mini, really subtile, white shimmer, that makes this polish SO amazing! I really fell in love with Bing Cherry, it's such a cute colour. As for Romeo & Joliet and Wine Me & Dine Me it is quite obvious they are made the same way, once can actually say they are similar. R&J is more brown though. But they are related. And gorgeous too, come on, how can you choose between the two? R&J is mine, but hell, I'll need Wine Me & Dine Me too, I think. :) All four of them are gorgeous, and so different, I wouldn't mind having the other two too. Oh well. 

What do you think about two on two comparison? Like any of them?

Thank you for reading!

Red comparison week - 3nd day: golden shimmer: 4

Hey guys! How are you doing on this beautiful day? I'm waiting for my lunch, huuungry! But it's going to be sushi again, yum! On nail polish related stuff: I'll die if i don't get my hands on that new Zoya collections! Sooo gorgeous! Have you seen them? Ok, I'll pass on a few, but boy oh boy, Zoya nailed it again. In general I feel great, and I mean great lack of Zoyas in my stash. It was the first brand i was shoeboxed with and so they're special to me also as they were the door to nail polish obsession. Fact that I only have two bottles of their gorgeousness is simply wrong. Must get more Zoya!

But now to our red comaparison week. Today I have for you what I called golden shimmer reds. They all have goldish shimmer, but quite different base reds. Still, main note remains, although you'll see they differ a lot! For some odd reason a lot of them came out blurry, forgive me, please, I didn't know till I edited the pictures.

 Stupid typo, sorry, didn't notice it until I saved everything on the pic. Also "vould", not "would" on OPI. *facepalm*

Mmm ... Vould You Like A Lick-Tenstein? (although I get different variations of names online) 2002 O.P.I. European Collection for Fall/Winter.

Essie Vintage Wine - couldn't find any info, sorry.

Autumn Sunset 2008 Nubar Nature's Touch Collection for Fall.

Charge It In Milan 2005 O.P.I. Shopping Around The World Collection for Holidays.

Both O.P.I.s are black labels, so they're not B3F (with these colours I couldn't care less, to tell you the truth), Nubar and Essie of course are.

Brush: I've already mentioned I really don't mind the thinner O.P.I. brush, it doesn't give me any kind of troubles, and so both OPIs behaved very nicely. Nubar has the perfect brush, of course, and also Essie, that has a rather thin brush that I'm not a fan of, behaved really nicely when it comes to brush. So these four get extra points in this department.

Coats: O.P.I. Mmm ... Vould You Like A Lick-Tenstein? (any others that think of this name as major stupidity, raise your hands!) and Charge it in Milan are two coaters, Nubar Autumn Sunset needed three, Essie Vintage Wine also three, although it still remained unever even after the third one, and I'm not particularly happy with that. BUT! It got the punishment of being on my biggest nail, the middle one, so I think three should work fine otherwise. You probably noticed I talk about the application in the 'coats' department too. All of these were really nice to apply. I didn't have any major problems. Nubar can be a bit stroky, but nothing major. Essie doesn't have my love due to the thin brush, but like I said, nothing major with Vintage Wine. O.P.I. obviously wins, with only two coats each. They apply like magic too.

Dupability: Well, no need to tell you that these are not dupes. :) They are really different enough to own them all and don't even bother to compare them. The shimmer is most obvious on Nubar, that's also why you need to be more careful with strokes of brush, as it can show a bit. Shimmer basically disappears with Vintage Wine though. But it's a gorgeous burgundy colour, so it's forgiven. About Mmm ... Vould You Like A Lick-Tenstein? and Charge it in Milan ... I won't even lose my words over them. Aren't they JUST PERFECT?! I feel in love with them immediately, especially Charge it in Milan. Which is of course, discontinued. Yay. Not. 

I would gladly have all 4 of them. The only one I could pass on is probably Nubar, by my great surprise. But I wouldn't mind having it anyway. :) My love goes to both OPIs, but I'm not sure how easy they are to get them, especially Charge It In Milan, both being of old collections and discontinued, as it seems. Correct me if I'm wrong, please! My thanks to Tevta for letting me play with them!

What do you think, do you have any of them? Want them? ;)

Thank you for reading!

Red comparison week - 2nd day: dark wine/blood reds: 4

Hey people! How are you doing? I'm great, just discovered perfect crackle combination, woohoo! Depend rocks, it's official. Now, you may be thinking blood and wine red are a bit far off for a comparison. And you're right. They are. But, as it happens, these 4 bottles got me thinking they're all wine reds. Nope! Come to think of it, I'll probably need to use half of them with my blood reds also. I have this feeling those two mix when you look at the bottles. We'll see. I'm glad I have half ot these already done, because I'm running out of time like crazy! So lets go to the pictures. Please excuse my cuticle state, I'm not happy with it at all. Oh, and about poor application with Essence - I blame the brush, thankyouverymuch. ;)

I don't think these came out in collections at all, except Thirsty! of course, being a part of last years Essence LE Eclipse Twilight Saga Collection.

When it comes to B3F question, I can only tell you what you already know - RBL does not contain any of the harmful ingredients, and as for the others only what I can smell - they all smell like good ol' ancient bottle of polish - RBL, on other hand has one of my favourite smells of polish. It acutally smells like paint. I'm a bit surprised by the bad smell of other three, as BeYu is an expensive brand, but I couldn't find any info online (or official site of BeYu, for that matter).

Brush: I love Rescue Beauty Lounge brush. I never have a problem with them although Atame was a bit uneven. When it comes to both Essence, you can already see by my application I really dislike the brush. This comparison was actually my first try of Multi Dimension Essence line and the Eclipse one. I've already read about Multi Dimension bad brush, so I kinda expected it. It wasn't the worst I tried though. BeYu - nothing to complain about.

Coats: With the exception of Late At Night all needed 3 coats, LAN 2. They are nicely pigmented, just really uneven. I think Thirsty! could use the fourth one, since it's still a bit uneven. Since three coats are due to uneveness of my application, not pigmentation, you can count on 2 with smaller nails or indeed a better application. Especially Atame is gorgeously pigmented, like most of RBL.

Dupability: Oh yes! Two on two, baby! The much wanted Thirsty! from Eclipse collection is a dupe of an old Essence Late At Night - I can't see it on their page anymore, so it's possible that it's already discontinued too. 

RBL Atame has a dupe in BeYu 306. Funny thing is, I compared BeYu more than a year ago with few other reds ... it was a beginning of my swatching career and the pictures are so awful, I won't show them to you, but I can 100% guarantee that BeYu 306 is a 100% dupe of ArtDeco 42 (too old to be a B3F) and Jessica Midday Rendezvous (B3F). So a chain: RBL Atame = BeYu 306 = ArtDeco 42 = Jessica Midday Rendezvous. I'm not sure how much that helps, since they're all pretty expensive though ... hope it does! 

I'm sure one or the other will show up in other comparisons too, as I mixed them wrongly. If you have any comparison requests, let me know! I love both the colours, so I'm really glad I have one of each. :)

Do you have any of the four, or rather, 6, with all the added dupes? :) 

Thank you for reading!

Red comparison week - 1st day: brighter reds: 4

Hello guys! How are you doing? Today we start with our Red comparison week! I hope you'll enjoy it or at least find it useful!

First to explain a few things - although I don't mind finding dupes (especially if it's a cheap dupe for an expensive/discontinued colour), this was not a dupe hunting comparison trip. Meaning, I know some of these are far far off, also by the bottles, but as I divided them into groups, they seemed they have a similar idea in the colour, shimmer or finish. 

Second of all - there will probably be 8 days of comparison. Probably. As I go through the bottle count, I find new and new groups. I must stop at some point, or I'll do this for a month, hehe. Also, this big comparison is a mixture of my and Tevta's reds, just to let you know. My stash of reds is rich, but not that rich! ;) 

As I compared them, I noticed that with reds bottles can really be decieving. They look dark, but are really brighter on the nails - so you'll see some of the colours compared multiple times, as I discovered comparing them they belog to a different group. The point of the red comparison week is for me and for you to decide, which reds do we need still and if some of them are close enough to each other to cut them from the WLs. All in all, I hope you'll discover some new beauties with it too. :) 

First one is brighter reds. 3 O.P.I.s, one Lumene. Pictures first.

 They seem a lot closer in soft light, still, the main difference in brightness of colours remains. 

My Kind Of Brown 2005 O.P.I. Chicago Collection.

Little Red Wagon 2008 O.P.I. Holiday In Toyland Collection.

20 Candles On My Cake originally 2001 O.P.I. World Collection, now in O.P.I. classics range.

Lumene 80 - no bloody idea. I don't think they do collections, but it's a part of Quick & Chic range.

My Kind Of Brown is a black label O.P.I., so it's not a B3F polish, all the other OPI are. Lumene says on the bottle "no formaldehyde" only, and it smells bad too, so the other two are probably in there.

Brush: I like the OPI pro wide and the old brush, they didn't give me any trouble whatsoever. My kind of brown is runnier due to its formula, but nothing big. Lumene has the worst bursh I've seen in my life. I trully hope it's an accident, because this was an effing Barbie broom, you can see my application is a horror.

Coats: Little Red Wagon can be a one coater, if you don't mind a bit of VNL, other O.P.I.s are two coaters. Lumene needed four, just because the brush wiped the polish off with every stroke.

Dupability: As you can see, no dupes. 20 candles on my cake and Lumene 80 seem to be the closest, but Lumene is a bit darker, has a little bit more brown in the colour and the brush is an effing abomination. I really love the three O.P.I.s, I wouldn't mind having all three of them. Naturally only Lumene is mine. :P I think you can have all 4 of them without worrying that the colours are too close. For me, they're totally different. They seem closer in the bottles though. 

If you have any other suggestions what should I keep an eye on with these comparisons and any additional questions about these 4, let me know, please! Do share your thoughts about the first comparison. :) What do you think, need them all or ney? :)

Thank you for reading!

Nfu Oh 51 and another varnish related present

Hello darlings! Well, I started to type away this entry and then the main fuse in the hous blew. o.O Awesome, especially on Sunday night. Luckily my father knows a few electricans. Anyway. I hope my swatches are still where they're supposed to be. Today I have for you my last flakie that I haven't shown you yet! And this one I'm wearing alone, I fell in love with the look at a blog, don't know which one, nor am I sure if the blogger is still active. Too bad, the swatches she does are awesome!

 The best I could do, I think. At least the most accurate. 

 Up and bellow have too much red in the base, but this is how it gets sometimes, but it's not the look this polish has most of the time.

 Here it is! This is how this beauty looks like, BUT cut the VNL, because it's not there! Also, flakies are more alive.

A bit picture heavy, but this is Nfu Oh 51. Now I finally understand all the bloggers that are always telling us how pictures don't do this one justice. They really don't. You can catch a glimpse of the colour play and the awesome jellines of gorgeous purple base colour, but no more than that. At different lighning this baby acts like hundred varnishes in one. Yesterday in the pub it turned is such an amazing polish, I really wished I had my camera with me, but I don't think I could capture it. The purple got really dark but still remained purple, and the flakies somewhat faded, and out it came this gorgeous goldish-reddish-orangish glitter or rather sparkle, it was so amazing! And so vivid, totally awesome.  I don't think I need to write about the beauty of this one much anymore ... if you own it, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, I'm sure it's on your WL. If not, get it there. :)

This was four coats. VNL was minimal then, my camera emphasized it. I added SV, because I was in a hurry, but I like how glossy Nfu Oh are by themselves. I still think 51 will be better layered, though. Although 4 coats give the mani this amazing depth, since it's a jelly base, the multichrome effect of flakies is somewhat subdued. But I love it anyway. I was slightly disappointed by the fast and large amount of tip wear I got the first day, but that's the only problem I really had with this mani. 

Now that I also had full mani with Nfu Oh alone I feel I can talk about the formula too. It has the B3F syndrome, and quite heavy one too. Polish drop can really soak your nail if you're not careful. But if you pay attention to it, it's not a big deal. I love their brush, it's really perfect, really easy to work with. I'm in love with these Opals. Really. They're gorgeous, simply put. My favourite is still 56 and I bet you saw that one coming. But I love them all. Great polish, they really spice up the mani. I don't get sick of the mani after days either, because they're so interesting. My WL of Nfu Oh is ridiculous. Right up there with China Glaze and BB Couture. Wow. I want them all. I'm discovering new love for jellies with their Pure Colours. I always prefered creme over jellies because jellies give you VNL and I simply can't live with that ... but seeing swatches of Pure Colours ... man, I want them, so gorgeous! 

I think that's just about all the praise I can gather in a post about a single brand without getting deleted. ;) And now to the nail polish part of my bday present I got yesterday. The present was a really nice surprise, I totally didn't see it coming! :) I got two of Depends I was really missing, I didn't order them because of my limit of spending money on polish, that I'm trying to stay true to (and failing most of the time). Depend 221 and the blue crackle Depend. Yay! Thanks guys! :*

Tomorrow we start with Red comparison week, woohoo! Hope you'll like it. :)

Do share your thoughts about Nfu Oh! :)

Thank you for reading!

Crackle Glaze Lightning Bolt over Depend 225 = fail

Hey darlings! How are you doing? I'm in the middle of my preparations for today's night out, so I'm in a hurry a bit. But I promised you this combination yesterday and here it is. Why fail? Because I didn't let Depend 225 dry completely and Lightning Bolt cracked with ugly weird cracks and kinda dragged Depend and made it look wrinkly. I do like the colour combination tho so I'll try it again sometimes.

Yes, three pictures only, you probably noticed already I do that when I don't like my mani, don't wish to trouble your eyes more than necessary. ;) I hate the cracks on this one. Index has the coat too thin, middle is just one giant crack down the middle, ring finger is ... well, look at it, where do I begin, and pinky is just plain weird. So moral to this story is, put crackle on dry polish only! Other info - I've already talked about Depend 225, it's two to three coats, one coat of Crackle Glaze Lightning Bolt on top, no TC, because I removed it right away. 

Like I said, I like the colour combination, but I hate the cracks on this one. Sorry about the failed manicure, I know it's not pretty, but I wanted to show you anyway. :) What do you think about it? You can tell me, I hate it too. ;)

Thanks for reading, have a great Saturday night!

Depend 225

Hello darlings! As I'm waiting for my BF to show up so we can go out and enjoy this beautiful day, I'll show you another Depend dear Kaneli sent me all the way from Finland. One of the two greens from new spring collection by Depend, this one is a problem child, tricky and a bit unusual.

You can see why this is a problem child. Because of the amount of fine silver shimmer, this one is very brush-stroky, it dries metallic kinda-matte and well ... it's a goopy mess. It actually dragged from the bottle like a tooth paste! So I'm not very happy with the formula. Although brush is good, as always with Depend, I had troubles dealing with the blasted thing of a varnish. I think this was two coats ... I think I needed three on some fingers, to even it out, but I'm not sure. Later on I added TC, but forgot to take pictures, finish changes a bit, gets glossier, metallic finish fades a bit.

As for the colour - very special polish. I can imagine lots of you are going "eeeww" right now. ;) Tell you the truth, I didn't like it much, although the bright greens are my love, this finish isn't. I didn't hate it, but I think it's one of those colours you really need to be in the mood for. What bothered me the most is that varnish didn't sit on my nails ... it looks like I have fake nails, and that's the look I dislike. That's why I maybe didn't give the right chance to the colour. But I'm sure I won't grab this bottle often nevertheless. 

I tried this one with Lightning Bolt, you'll be the judge of that combination tomorrow. :) What do you think about Depend 225 alone? 

Thank you for reading!

Giveaway with 7 winners by Varnish Vixen!

Hey guys! As you probably noticed, I stopped posting about giveaways a while ago. I put them on my sidebar, or if that isn't an option, just lose an entry, since there are just too many giveaways out there and I would swamp my blog into giveaways-only blog and I don't want that. But every once in a while a really big, crazy giveaway happens, and I just have to let you know about it! And yes, get an extra entry, dude, I want these! ;) 

Varnish Vixen prepared a Yay! Spring Giveaway! She included 7 different sets of polish, they include Katy Perry Collection by O.P.I., Illamasqua's Scorn, RBL Insouciant, the MAC Wonder Woman nail polish duo (!) aaand holografic polishes from China Glaze (DV8, LOL and two more!) aaaaaaaaaaaand three BB Coutures!! OMG. Can we make a deal, don't choose BBs, so I'll get them? LOL Just kidding. ;) But seriously, getting any of them would be totally awesome. Oh, one more! Giant grab bag with 19 (!) polishes, including Deborah Lippman, Milani, RBL, Butter London, O.P.I. etc. 

Crazy, eh? Varnish Vixen, dear, you're awesome, it's a fact. The pictures are great, I'll post just one, go and sign up for the giveaway and see the rest of them!

Good luck, darlings! :*

Nfu Oh 52 (over O.P.I. Glacier Bay Blues)

Hello darlings! How are you doing? I'm feeling a bit under the weather, which is ridiculous since the weather is finally true spring sunshine and warmness! Today I have for you the first Nfu Oh I've tried out, so this is about a week old. Still beautiful, though! ;) I wanted to place 52 on a duochrome, to maximize the awesomness of both polishes. Personally, I still think this baby will look best over a dark or royal blue.

 Perhaps you should enlarge this one, since here the duochrome is the most visible.

Although the duochrome of Glacier Bay Blues isn't really visible on the pictures, it was visible on the nails, under the Nfu Oh. I don't know why, but I don't think this looks good on the pictures. I don't like the pictures much, although the mani rocked on the nails. And I'll definitively try it next time on a royal blue. 

This one was a bit of a coats-heavy mani. I always put Nfu Oh Base coat as fundation now, so I'll stop mentioning it. Then I had on 4 coats of Glacier Bay Blues (from the comparison) and one coat of Nfu Oh 52, followed with Nfu Oh Ultra Shine top coat. So yeah, removal was fun, as you can imagine. Nevertheless, I liked it. Next time I'll put two coats of 52, but on 4 of GBB I just didn't have the will to put one more anymore. :) 

Another thing, I'd like to mention. Although I don't like to mention such things, because then I should write one like this every day, since every day people die and they are all special to someone, but this one was a bit of a shock, despite her sickness. Elizabeth Taylor was for me one of the most beautiful women that ever existed. May she rest in peace and have fun wherever we go after we leave this world. 

source: celebrity-pics.movieeye.com

Thank you for reading, darlings!

Eveline Holografic Shine - 412

Hello darlings! Beautiful day, isn't it? Awesome, love it when it's so sunny. I have to run in a short time, but before I do, let me show you my NOTD, what say you? Now, today was a bit of nail polish torture for me. First I did one of the red comparisons, because I needed the sun for this particular group - in case you're interested, I'll probably start my Red Comparison Week next week. We'll see how I'll be with the time, k? I want to have at least half of the week already prepared before I launch it, in case I run out of time while executing the themed week. Yes, I'm a bit of a control freak. But anyway. After doing the comparison a failed manicure happened to me. I hate it when that happens! The colour didn't feel right and then I messed up the crackle varnish on top of it so everything had to go. I went holographic then, and this is what I'm showing you now. I'm so lucky with these Eveline babies. Tevta already found 11 colours for me! She's a magician when it comes to getting cool colours! I started with 4 of those I gave away in my giveaway and now I see they also have a pretty nice range of colours! I'll probably hoard them for future giveaways, also some for swapping. I know this isn't the strong linear holo everybody adores, but hell, I love them for their scattered holo too. They're lovely. 

As you can see, holo effect isn't strong, it's down to a minimum in soft light. But I like the warm, berry colour of this one. Tevta surprised me with it the last time we had coffee and I immediately separated it from the bunch. I'd call this Rain-bowl of Barries. Ahaha, silly name, I know. But I don't like numbers much, I can never connect them with a colour. Except with Nfu Oh. 

This was two coats, I later on put a TC on, just because I'd go insane if I messed up my mani again today. The brush wasn't the nices, it was curved a bit on one side, thus giving me some troubles. But nothing major, I hope it's only a small defect of this particular bottle. The bottle contains 4,5 ml (a random conventer says that's 0.15 fl oz) and it costs 1,75€ (2,5 $). Despite the weird brush I love this colour. It's so perfect for a day like this and the colour is springy enough for me to adore it.

The obvious question is - with 10 more Holografic Shine Evelines, would you like an extended week of it? Or do you prefer it random, every once in a while? :) What do you think about 412 aka Rain-bowl of Barries? ;) 

Thank you for reading, have a great day! *muah*