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!

MAC - Bad Fairy

Hei! I just *have* to show you this one. I know you've seen it a million times before and I've planned to post some other stuff before I post this one, but cannot resist. This is the nail polish that completely corrected my opinion on MAC. I give credit for Mean&Green to Orly's Space Cadet, since it was out first, so yeah ... Bad Fairy is so goregous, it's totally worth the trouble of 4 layers. It's unbelievable. I need this one!!

Behold, I shall say no more.

 Under strong light, it looks like magic, dude!

 Another one under strong light. I simply ADORE this.

 Here's the duochrome effect. Du-de!!! Love it! LOVE IT!!

 I don't know why, but I really like this type of photo, you probably noticed I do it quite often.

Except the first two all the other pictures were taken in shitty grey outside lighting, and still this nail-polish looks stunning. I love it. Simply love it. It's undoubtely the winner for me in this collection. I have it on my nails now, and it's a WOW! effect every time I look at my nails. Ah. <3

Now, i've said it before - MAC is overrated in my opinion. Yes, Bad Fairy is a pure perfection, Mean & Green is a total dupe of Space Cadet that is again a pure perfection, and as you all know, Formidable! is not my thing. Still, for a company, that is sooooo worshiped, I'd want and expect piles of awesome, unique colours. Until now the only one that really made me fall in love with it is Bad Fairy. I mean, even looking at swatches. But I guess this is just a thing that every one of us has with a brand. My altar is dedicated to BB Couture and Illamasqua. And, if I'm really sincere, Illamasqua has some kick-ass nail-polish, but i've seen dupes of it, and lately nail-polish section was not up my alley, I prefered other make-up. Do I care? Nope, still my Illamasqua, no matter the price. I guess it's the same with MAC lovers.

What are your feelings towards Bad Fairy, Venomous Villains Collection and MAC in general? :) 

Thanks for reading!

Comparison: Orly Space Cadet vs. MAC Mean & Green

Here it is, the second comparison.

 I marked which polish is on which finger, this is taken on direct sunlight.

 In the shadow.

 Inside, in a bright room.

The pictures are clickable, but I think it's obvious they are 100% dupes from smaller ones too. I put 4 coats of both polishes and, honestly, I think I should use the fifth one, but was just too lazy to do that. I didn't use top coat, MAC dries up much faster than Orly, I smudged polish on my middle fingure, thinking it's all dried up, but Orly didn't think so!

Same as with Formidable! and Galaxy Girl, it's your choice. The brush and drying time are alot better with MAC, otherwise all the same. I love this colour, it's really awesome. 

Gotta go, running time! Gave a good evening! :)

Comparison: Orly Galaxy girl vs. MAC Formidable!

Hey there. Finally I have enough time to write this down and show you some pictures. :) First comparison I did with Galaxy girl and Formidable, because I just wore Space Cadet and wanted some change. So here it is ...

This is taken outside, I marked the fingers, the order is the same on every photo. 

On direct sunlight (again L to R: MAC, Orly, MAC, Orly)

Play of colours in the finish. (MAC, Orly, MAC, Orly)

The blue shimmer. (MAC, Orly, MAC, Orly)

I have no idea why the pictures aren't clickable. I left them large so you can better see the comparison, but now the blogger won't let it change into original size in a new window. I'm really sorry about that, I'll try to fix it. o.o EDIT: did fix it. Man, it got personal!! They are klickable now. And huge. o.o

I did three coats of both polishes. I'm wearing it whole day long now and I think it's safe to say they are 100% dupes. The shimmer is the same, the finish, the base colour. Even first and second coat are the same - same amount of shimmer, same precentage of cover. Frankly, if I haven't wrote down on which finger is which polish, I'd have forgotten the order by now (luckily I did write it down, since I knew I won't be able to publish pictures right away).

I love MAC's brush! It was much easier to apply the polish. Otherwise all the same as Orly. I cannot judge the drying time, because I used top coat as I always do if I put more than two coats of polish. And the colour, well, I really really don't like it. I wasn't too crazy about Galaxy Girl's bottle (same goes for Formidable!), and I'm even less crazy about the colour on the nail. I'm thinking it's gonna go fast. I really don't like it on my nails. 

All in all it's basically a decision about a brand, since the colour is the same. Which one, if any one, will you be buying? To you prefer MAC or Orly and why, if may I be so curious. ;) :) 

Thanks for reading, have a good week!

MAC Venomous Villains vs. Orly Cosmic FX comparison - the bottles

Well, look what new toys I've got today to play with! :D The famous Venomous Villains collection done by MAC! Frankly, MAC is one of the labels in nail-polish world that I always found overrated - never have I seen colour made by them that would catch my eye. Untill Venomous Villains pictures came out. I thought: whoa, finally something worth buying! And then of course the Cosmic FX collection came out by Orly and the dupes were quite obvious. 

I really wanted to do comparison on my nails today, but the lighting today is even more shitty than the lighting I had when I swached Space Cadet, so alas only the bottles, since I couldn't wait till tomorrow (when, hopefully, weather will be cured from the hangover it's having today, as it seems). 

Here they are, the bottles!

MAC Mean & Green vs. Orly Space Cadet - inside capture.

Orly Galaxy Girl vs. MAC Formidable! - inside capture.

Orly Galaxy Girl vs. MAC Formidable! - outside, on the rain -.-

Orly Space Cadet vs. MAC Mean & Green - outside, no rain, just dead weather. -.-

Group picture - with flash.

Group picture - without flash. 

It looks like a factory made the two polishes and went: "one spoon for Orly, one spoon for MAC, one spoon for Orly again and another one for MAC" etc. In the bottles polishes look identical. Can't wait to try them on my nails. I suspect it will be the same colour, but I'm wondering if the brushes by MAC are better, or the removing of the polish a minor PITA. Basically,  I'm looking for a reason for the fanatism around MAC polish, these are my first MACs. :) 

As for my mark on the pictures, I'm asking for a bit of patience, I'm trying to figure out "the" signature, but since I want some magic around it, I'll need to get someone to do it for me or something. We'll see. :)) Anyway, I'm really excited about this trio of MACs, can't wait to try them on, to see what's the big deal. :)) Huge thanks to my nail-polish guru, you're the best! *hugs*