Comparison: A England vs. Depend vs. GOSH

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

 

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

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

 Enlarge this one, it's pretty good.

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

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

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

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

Thank you for reading!

Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky

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

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

***

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

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

Three Rings for Elven Kings Under the sky,

Seven for the Dwarf Lords in Their Halls of Stone,

Nine for Mortal Man Doomed to die,

One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne,

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie.

One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,

One Ring to bring them all and in the Darkness Bind them,

In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

If you want actual swatches:

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

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

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

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

Thank you for reading! 

Gosh - Holographic

Hello! Yes, I'm a few hours later than usual again, and I suspect this will be my posting hour for a while, until I get my study-mode on and will be able to post earlier. Hope you don't mind. It's afternoon now somewhere on this planet, right? ;)

Anyway. I'm eating my very light dinner after the jogging hour right now and I can afford to post this one, sice it doesn't need much words to go with it. You all know it, and probably hate me right now for showing it again, since it's impossible to find. Unless you know one of the coolest persons in the world and she sends it to you in a swap package!

This is seriously soft light, I mean, seriously, no sun at all, it only catches a bit of light out of the window on my right and still it shows the straigh lines of holo effect.

This is two coats over Gosh Fix Base coat that Jette also send, giving me a little bottle from her own BC, how cool is that? Holographic applies like a dream, seriously, i could do it drunk and shaking from starving (I can *never* polish my nails when hungry, my hands shake like crazy), it dries really really fast. It lasted on my nails for three days with minor tip wear without any TC, so that's pretty awesome!

It made my camera crazy though, it just wouldn't pick up the holo effect, wouldn't even pick my entire hand while wearing it, it was quite an achievement to get the photos. I don't think I'll ever call any other holo insane, now that I had this baby on. It stayed holo basically in every single light, if only it had a lil' bit of lightning to pick up, it was ... insane. :) Jette, thank you SO much for this one!! You're beyond awesome for sending it to me!

I'm reading a lot about being fed up with a certain colour or finish (crackle, taupe, blurple etc.) ... is anyone out there sick of holographic yet? Or not a fan at all? Don't be shy. :)

Thank you for reading!

Gosh - Blue Monday

Ahoy maties! No, I didn't go loco, I just think 'hello darlings' needs a change every once in a while. ;) Did you look outside today? It's a beaaautiful sunny day here in Ljubljana, I'm full of energy! :D AND I got a package from lovely Kaneli from up north with 4 Depends and a H&M polish that I cannot wait to show you! Alas, I don't have time to change my mani today, it's a busy busy Monday, and since it's Monday, let's go with a polish that has the day in the name. My one and only Gosh, I got it as a gift from my dear Tevta, and it rocks!! 

As much as this polish rocks tho, my pictures of it don't. You'll just have to take my word when I say this baby is packed with purple glitter. It's not in your face, but it's visible in almost every light. That's why I posted also the ugly yellowish last picture, since I think there it's visible just a tad bit. With the blue base and other blue particles that create almost a glass-flecked finish, this polish really is awesome. My SV is being a little bitch and caused shrinkage, but we're on a hate-hate relationship for a while now. Oh well. This is older mani, and I see I need to file down my nails a bit, I like this lenght. It was three coats, because I don't like VNL, otherwise you can manage with two. 

Sorry for the short post, I gotta run! What do you think about Blue Monday? :)

Thank you for reading!