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!

Paul Mitchell Instant Moisture Daily Shampoo

It's Friday!! Today's party: great book (I'm re-reading Garth Nix Old Kingdom series, Abhorsen book and it is ah-mazing) and a large cup of tea. Yeah! But first, I want to do a review of the Paul Mitchell Shampoo. I'm sure you don't remember, but I have shown it to you in a New In post I did in July. I bought it together with Protective oil for sun from my hairdresser and after 7 months of using it regularly I feel I can give you a decent review of it.

Paul Mitchell is a professional hair brand, that is sold in hair saloons, at least in Slovenia - my hairdresser warned me about the fake products online, so if you are buying online, make sure it is original product. The Instant Moisture Shampoo is supposed to be a gentle daily shampoo, that hydrates extremely dry hair, and helps to revive damaged hair. I use it in combination with La Roche Posay anti-dandruff shampoo for my scalp and I hoped it will help with the way my hair looks and feels, because anti-dandruff shampoos as a rule do nothing for my hair (and usually very little for my scalp, but that's a story for another blogpost). 

The design of the bottle is nice, a classic tube, with a quite a large amount of shampoo of 300 ml. The shampoo itself is not too runny or thick, with a semi-white colour and a very nice, gentle odour. It doesn't smell of anything, just a good clean, gentle scent. It foams quite nicely as well and you do not need a lot of it (after 7 months of regular, twice a week usage I am still down to one third of it).

The opening helps you regulate how much you use, that's a big plus for me.

The ingredients. I was sold after reading the bold text, failing to see the obvious no-no.

And how are my hair doing after 7 months of usage? Not very well. In fact, I think the ends began to dry out and snap a lot faster than before and although the first impression was rather good, as I ended up with softer hair, after regular usage my frizzy hair got worse and the ends extremely dry. Of course, now when I look at the ingredients, I realise what a stupid mistake I made, not noticing the alcohol being on the third place of the list. I cannot use anything with alcohol in it, it dries my skin and apparently it dries out my hair too. In the long turn my hair does not feel hydrated and my ends are in a very bad shape.

Price? 15,90€, if I recall correctly (definitively somewhere between 13 and 16 EUR). I wouldn't mind the steep price, if the shampoo would be the answer to my prayers, but for the effect I get, which is actually worse than what I got from Le Petit Marseillaise shampoo I bought for around 2€ ... I wouldn't recommend it nor repurchase it.

Mind you, I have been using a lot of conditioners and hair product that were supposed to help with the situation, to no avail. My hair is making me pay dearly for mistakes I make in choosing the wrong products. La Roche Posay anti dandruff shampoo is crap, Paul Mitchell shampoo doesn't work and apparently my hair is done with me. I  am planning to visit my hairdresser again and make a hardcore list of product to buy, like I planned 6 months ago, based on Mateja's recommendations. My hair is what her hair was and I want mine to be like hers are now, which is, in short, perfect.

I hope this was helpful to some of you. If you have dry ends, like me, and big problem with frizzy hair (again, like me), I wouldn't recommend Paul Mitchell's instant moisture shampoo. I think the alcohol is the main culprit for the drying of ends, and as for the frizzines, I need something by far stronger to help me tame it.

Do you have any experiences with Paul Mitchell products? What's your favourite shampoo, that really works for your hair?

Thank you for reading and commenting! Have a lovely weekend!

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!

The bitch is back!

Hello everyone! I do not even know where to begin. :) Hopefully there will be some people still clicking on the new post thingie when they see Did someone say nail polish? popping up. Geez, it has been 6 months since my last post! It doesn't seem like it has been that long, really. A lot of stuff going on here. I am going to make it short. Basically, in Summer my posting got very seldom due to my work. After Summer, in Autumn, I needed to finish my degree while still working and had put everything on hold. I wasn't particularly happy with the quality of posts at that point and I knew it will only get worse if I keep forcing myself to blog when I honestly didn't have the time or the camera for it. 

So then I graduated in the end of December and I got to keep my job in the new year as well, which makes me incredibly happy. As a present for graduating I received new camera from my parents. A very very nice toy. I didn't want anything professional, because I am not really the type of person to travel or go to a concert with a camera, but it is handy to have it, especially if you are considering blogging again. :) 

Oh, I also got a new pet:

It is Dracarys. A dragon, obviously. ;) For my character of Daenerys I decided to be on last year Convention Na meji nevidnega. I wear it on my shoulder, ATM it is hanging in my room (quite literally). 

But back to the topic. As I am making photos with my camera, I will show you the box it came in:

It is still a small camera, I can hold it with one hand without a problem, but I have two lenses, for extra zoom. Personally, I love how it catches the colours in poor lightning and the colours are awesome and correct. Yes! The other wish I had was that it is user friendly. I am not big on photography, so I do not wish to get a PhD in my camera before I can use it. This little thing looks user friendly enough for me to actually explore all its possibilities. 

So yeah, after finishing my degree I started considering blogging again, because I do think it is fun, plus my love for nail polish and make up in general didn't really die, just calmed down a bit. ;) And here I am, trying to revive this little corner of internet again. And I cannot wait to browse through all the blogs out there!! 

Some of you might think: if this was your NY resolution, you are a bit late with it. Well, yes. The thing is, I wanted to wait for my camera to arrive. Second, I went to Madrid for a week and then to Bratislava. It seemed a bit lame to start in January with new wave of blogging, just to add in the very first post: oh yeah, and, ladies, I will be offline for the next two to three weeks, see you soon. ;) 

So today's post will be a sneak-peak of the things I bought or got in Vienna and Bratislava, plus my nails for the vacation. 

I will do the reviews of all the things on the photo, if you have any wishes to see something ASAP, let me know, please!

Until next time, hope to read more about what is going on in the blogsphere in the comments. If you have any blogs you would especially recommend I check out (I was out for 6 months, mind you), leave me the link in the comments! 

Illamasqua Rampage with BBF Guacamole glitter.

Thank you for reading!

~ Ulmiel