NOTD: OPI Take The Stage and Zoya Myrta

Heya guys! Today I have for you a quick NOTD I am wearing right now. I already showed you I got O.P.I. Take the stage mini and it was about time I wore it as well. I wanted to do a simply accent mani, as I seriously lacked time to do something more innovative. I thought Zoya Myrta might be a cool bright accent, only to realise when putting it on, it is way to close to Take the Stage. Oh well. :)

I really like the sparkly Take the Stage. It is a part of O.P.I. Burlesque Collection for Winter 2010 (omg, really, I feel like it was released two years ago!!) and I remember everyone went mental for the collection and I didn't get why. Take the Stage is actually a gorgeous copper foil, I love it, so I am glad I got it. I takes 3 coats to be opaque on my really short nails, I imagine I would need to work for it to be opaque on longer nails.

Zoya Myrta is a part of Zoya Surf Collection for Summer 2012, full of bright foils and definitively one of my favourite collections out there. I adore Myrta as well, such a rich orange. Two coats and you are done. 

Yeah. The combo seems a bit pointless, but I love both nail polishes, so it is all good. :)

What's on your nails today?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

NOTD: Myrza envies the lemondrops

Heya everyone! Can I get an extra point for making up a silly name for this mani? :) As I showed you yesterday, I got a lovely package of nail polish. And when I got them out, I couldn't decide which one to put on first. So I just combined three of them, although I wanted the fourth one there too - the Kiwi one. The three I combined were Barielle Myrza's Meadow and Lemondrops plus Color Club Glitter Envy.

First, Barielle Myrza's Meadow. It was my lemming for years and finally I got it. And I was so happy to see it didn't disappoint. It is on my nails right now and I still love it. The shade of jade green is perfect and the scattered holo glitter is fine and on the subtle side once on the nails, it is a wonderful combination. Needs only two coats too. It was part of Barielle Spring 2010 Wildflower Collection. Now I am on the hunt for June Bug from the same collection.

Barielle Lemondrops is a perfect bright yellow creme. I searched for something like this a while now. For a yellow polish it is very easy to work with. It needs two coats on most of my nails, on the longest a third, but on shorties two will be enough. I love the brightness! It was part of Barielle Summer 2009 Collection. Apparently there was a re-release in Summer 2013, but judging by my bottle, it is from the older collection. :)

Last, Color Club Glitter Envy is really bright neonish green with holographic glitter in it that is quite dense. It applies easily in two coats, and it is somewhat gritty, but nothing too extreme. What was my biggest disappointment with this nail polish was that it chipped in like two days. And I mean major chipping, up to one third of my nail. It looked even worse since both Barielles still looked perfect right next to it. I will wear it again for sure to test it again, but ATM it is not my favourite nail polish. It was a part of Color Club Summer 2011 Starry Temptress Collection, in this one I love Otherworldly as well. 

When Glitter Envy chipped so terribly I removed it and put Lemondrops on instead. I love this combo even more.

Barielle, man. I need more Barielle in my life. :) And I am already tempted to put water decals over Lemondrops.


What is on your nails today? Any particular Barielle shade you would recommend?


Thank you for reading and commenting!

Royal & sea & turquoise blue trio

Heya everyone! How about new NOTD? Nail crazy said I should show my NOTDs more often and lately I actually feel like wearing more than one colour I've already shown, so with posting these I don't fear I am not boring you with my nails. :)

I think I am in my blue phase quite strongly lately. I constantly feel like wearing some sort of blue shade. For this I mixed up two colours and a glitter. I actually wanted to fling a duochrome topper in there as well, but I thought it would get too busy. Please excuse the state of my cuticles, I wasn't home when I took these and there is no dishwasher in my BF's cabin up north and that shows. :)

I combined them a bit differently on my right hand and I prefer this combination to the one on my left hand, hence the picture. Excuse the weird position of the hand, I am not used to taking photos with my left. :)

The royal blue is Revlon Royal, I think it has to be one of my most used nail polish, the colour is just sickening. It is a jelly and so it photographs a bit sheer even if it is not. 

The turquoise blue is Kiko 342 and it is in fact a true turquoise, not sky blue, like it is on my photos. Online swatches prove also it is a very nice dupe of O.P.I. Fly, if you really want a cheap but great substitute of that baby. 

On top is the utterly gorgeous Sea Blue glitter made by Esmaltes da Kelly (EDK) I got from lovely Eveline all the way from Brasil. I love how irregular the glitter is, and that it is dense enough I only need one coat to spread it evenly over the nail. Brush is awesome, a lot of brands could learn from this indie np maker. :)

And of course  I needed to put a matte TC on the Kiko combo. Apparently that's what I do with lately with at least 2 nails, my brain decided it is obligatory. 

What's on your nails today?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

NOTD of three colours

Heya everyone! How are you doing? It is hot here, a proper summer. I'm not the one for the hot weather, but I guess most people love it. The coffee shop where I'm right now has an amazing ice cream, pure fruit, water based ice cream, it is just heavenly. :) 

Today I'm back with a NOTD. I do not normally post them, but I played with different colours yesterday and I loved the way this turned out. 

And one without the lace, so you can see the colour more properly.

So yeah, I picked three colours I thought might look good together. Zoya Zuza is on most of my nails, on my middle fingernail Deborah Milano Pret-a-porter Stardust and on my index finger a The New Black mint shade I got at the blog event a week or so ago. On the mint shade I put the Born Pretty Store water decal (I showed them already in a few manis, here's the first post) and then mattefied it with Essence matte top coat. It is getting quite lumpy, sadness! Anyway. I love how it turned out! :) It's on my nails now, hopefully it lasts. :)

What's on your nails today?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Matte winter frost lace mani

Whoa, would you believe the stupidity of the title? I have no idea how to name this mani. :) In the last few days I fell in love with Inspired by Winter posts Taya is posting (I'm trying to recreate this today for a night out, j'adore!) and while I was trying to watch an incredibly stupid movie about going to the north pole, the screen being all white and frosty, I wanted to occupy myself with something cool and the idea of winter helped to create this mani. 

I used the water decals I've already shown you and I must say, I prefer water decals over nail stickers, they are so easy to use and they last on the nails for days. Other than that, Deborah Milano was already a matte, I put matte TC over the decal, and I mattefied the gorgeous Misa Grey Matters, one of my favourite shades ever. Why I do not have more Misa in my stash, I will never know, their polish is amazing. 

My matte TC is the Essence one, I think it is already discontinued and I hate that, because it is perfect and I already spent more than half of it. The rest I already described. It was actually a very easy mani to make, because both Deborah Milano and Misa are great, opaque in two coats (DM might need only one, actually), water decal sticks to the nail in no time (I needed to cut half of it for my short nails, still, I love the way they look), and you put your matte TC on et voila!

What is on your nails today?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

NOTD: Zoya ~ Isla

Hey people! How are you doing? I have a quick NOTD for you today. I picked this colour because it is one of my BF's favourites and it is his birthday tomorrow. Zoya Isla is a gorgeous, utterly gorgeous, sexy red. It is one of my most used colours in the stash. Love her.

I never read much about Isla, apparently it is one of the quiet beauties Zoya created. If you like sexy reds, I do recommend it though, it has an amazing formula, perfect brush and shimmer to die for. :)

What is on your nails today?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Givenchy 739 ~ My first 10 year old

Hey ladies! Yesterday, as I was finally re-arranging my list of polish and making the final cuts to the collection, I realised I have a polish that is right around this time of year 10 years old! It is almost empty, as you can see in this My most worn polish tag I did a year ago and is consequently quite thick, but I wanted to wear it today! Givenchy 739 or Intense Red can still be purchased, apparently, I found it on a web site for 6,66 dollars. It is funny because when I bought it it cost me (or my mother actually) a fortune. I bought it for the end of primary school dance, we call it valeta, I guess Americans have a similar thing called junior prom? Not sure. Anyway, that was in 2003 and I wanted a nice red polish to go with a red top I was wearing and I found Givenchy 739 beautiful with the golden and red shimmer. Back then this was probably my first nail polish or one of the first and my Mom does not use nail polish at all, so we did not deem it expensive. If I recall correctly, it costed around 5000 SIT, which now adds up to around 21 EUR or 28 dollars. Without a doubt the most expensive polish in my collection. I do not think I will ever spend that amount of money on any polish. Ever again. But the formula was and still is gorgeous. I remember it still, because one coat was enough and there was no troubles with applying it and I was a noob back then! I loved to wear the polish regularly until my second half of high school, then I forgot about it a bit. The brush is still excellent and it is still a one coater, even though I should use thinner before applying it today. I was not diligent back then when it came to cleaning bottles and I had troubles opening the bottle today, horrible.

The biggest flop Givenchy bottle has is the handle. It is thin and ugly, I have no idea what were they thinking when designing it. I actually smudged the polish when polishing my nails, because the fingers stick to each other around the handle. I saw they redid the design a few years back, which was a very good call, thank you very much! 

The golden shimmer is not visible on the nails, just the red one. It is a rich red, but nowadays not really all that special. I will probably get sick of it quite soon. But it does held a nice measure of nostalgia for me, that is why I will probably use it up sooner or later.:)

What is the name of your oldest (or most expensive) nail polish and how old (or expensive) is it?

Thank you for reading!

NOTD: Catrice ~ Mint Me Up

Hello people! Today I'm going to show you my NOTD, because I love this colour so freakishly much I need to share it with someone else than my BF who's only comment was: you can sell this one. To elaborate: I am planning to thin my collection a bit and obviously he thought I do not need to stick to this particular shade. Then again, I know he hates these colours on me. But I shan't sell it because i LOVE it! 

I am a bit late with the new Catrice colours, I was in Hong Kong when they came out. And then I first saw them in Vienna and I've bought The Dark Knight, because I needed a vampy colour and I adore the name (Batman fan!). The brush on that one was a disgrace! A very old and used broomstick came to mind when applying the polish. Catrice, what have you done? You had perfect brush, what the hell happened? But still, seeing new colours on Parokeets blog, I realised I will buy some other shades as well, even if I swore I shan't be buying any more polish for myself. Mint Me Up was the first one I bough then and luckily the brush is wonderful, and the colour is simply fantastic. Yay! 

To see the golden shimmer more clearly.

This was three coats, two would probably be enough, but I wanted my macro shots to look nice. Good brush, a bit tricky formula though. Mint shade, what can you do. All in all I love it. It's like someone in Catrice factory would mix I Sea You! and Am I Blue Or Green? and added a bit of shimmer. Success!!

Which colours do you recommend from the new line?

Thank you for reading!

Midnight layering

Lately I am wearing 'older' shades in my stash. The one that is getting a lot of love lately is Essie Bobbing for Baubles. Yesterday I put it on again. Today, as I returned home around midnight, I noticed my layering polish on the desk and grabbed two that looked neat. And used them both too. Because I still cannot decide which is the winner for me, flakies or glitter. So I am wearing both now.

Forgive my cuticles, here in Ljubljana cold cuts like razor blade, and I was on the phone while walking home without my gloves. Epic win!

What do you think, glitter or flakies?

Have a good day tomorrow and sweet dreams tonight!

Zoya - Dree NOTD

Hey people! How are ya? I'm a bit sleepy, had to get up early. I also got new shoes, my BF bought them (I'm lucky enough that my BF loves me in high heels, haha :)) and I wanted to take them out for a walk, but our weathermen threatened with rain so I changed my mind. It's actually a lovely warm but insanely humid day here in Ljubljana. I'm about to leave for a coffee with a friend before she leaves for Paris. She'll stay there for 6 months. There is one reason why I'd like to visit Paris. The city is the mother of all perfumes! I can just imagine going through all the perfume stores and finally discover some niche perfumes as well ... I think it has to be a great place for a perfume fan. And yeah, I am a perfume fan, a big one too. If you like perfumes too, check fragrantica.com, they have a great base there, with notes and everything!

But aaaaanyway! My NOTD is Zoya Dree. It's the second time I wear it and it called to me from the shelf. Lovely, gorgeous olive colour, I adore it. It's a part of a very strong collection Zoya made in Fall 2011 called Smoke and Mirrors (Dree being in the Smoke part of it). I can't get sick of this type of colours, olive, dusty green, creme is still one of my favourite finishes, so yeah ... Dree is a great colour. 

I published the fourth picture just so you'd see how insanely glossy this polish is. Look at it! The pictures made outside are completely useless due to the glossy reflection. But it makes the polish look fantastic! This is actually two sets of pictures, I already took them the first time I wore Dree and my nails had a more beautiful lenght. My index finger is slowly recovering so hopefully it won't last long until it grows back and hurts less too. ;) Dree is a great little gem in my Zoya collection, the formula and brush are, as always for Zoya, flawless. Too bad this year's Zoya collection for Fall is a disappointment. Then again, I can wear Smoke and Mirrors more often now! :)

Do you like this type of greens? Do you like Zoya collection for Fall 2012?

Thank you for reading!

Catrice - Virgin Forest

How about some nails for this rainy day? I don't mind rain much, it cools the air, which is a big and nice plus for me. I'll show you my NOTD and yes, it's a green. I remember telling Gejba Virgin Forest is too frosty for me, so I didn't miss it much when I couldn't find it anywhere. A friend of mine did though and I said ok, take it, I love the design on the bottles and well ... it's hard for me to say no to a green. ;) I'm glad I have it now. The brush strokes are much more visible on the pictures than IRL, at least on my hands and the green is this beautiful emerald green that simply glows. I like! 

This was three coats and absolutely no clean up, because I ran out of my correction pen. The brush and the formula on this one were great. The colour is rather close to King of Greens and it reminds me of Sinful Colors San Francisco too. I like the freshness of it.

Did you get anything from Coolibri LE? 

Thank you for reading!

Barielle - Buddha-ful (a.k.a Luna Lovegood polish)

Heya people! How are you doing? I'm enjoying my cup of coffee after my lunch and I think it's about time I show you this beauty. Buddha-ful got the most 'votes' or rather wishes to be seen first in the last package I got, so I'm showing it first too. I was curious about how we'll get along, being a very gentle colour that I don't usually wear, and still intriguing me from the bottle. I went through the blogsphere, trying to figure out whether to layer it or build it up and then I decided to build it up, since I wanted to have the bottle colour on my nails. 

I'm wearing it ATM and after two days I'm still loving it. I knew this will be the colour I'll either love or remove after an hour of wearing and as it seems, it is a major win in my book. It's unusual. Unique flakie.Of course I don't have anything near the colour in my stash yet. It's hard not to stare at your nails, the soft rose/beige base colour making your hands so gentle and elegant and the green-blue flakies providing the twist for the gentleness, making it a bit weird. 

I understand the connection with Buddha and the esoteric feeling this colour gives you when you're looking at it, but the first thing I thought of when my mani was complete was one strange and cute little witch, Luna Lovegood. From Harry Potter books, of course. Luna is very gentle, sweet and at the same time very unique and strange person. One of my favourite characters from the HP world, I love that girl. And I think the weird combination of soft beige base colour and green flakies would be a nice polish to make for Luna in Harry Potter nail polish collection. Yes, I had an idea of making it, 12 bottle collection, I'd go big. :D

Pictures!

The only way I could capture the blue shift of flakies is this rather bad photo, I'm afraid.

Alas my camera wasn't made to capture such details correctly. You'll just have to take my word for it, the flakies are much more visible IRL and the green-blue change isn't so hard to see with the naked eye. Still, most of the time flakies are green and i think that suits this polish just fine. I made a million photos and even a video,  and this is the best I could come up with. 

Buddha-ful is a part of Barielle Karma Collection for Summer 2011, a collection that does have some nice colours, but Buddha-ful is by far the most unique. On the pictures I have 4 thin coats, I payed special attention to not flooding my nails with too much polish, making them 'fat' as I call it. With four coats it builds very nicely. Three would be enough if you don't mind VNL. I think I'd have VNL with four too, if my nails were longer, but now I basically don't. I love how this polish builds, the base colour is sheer enough so the flakies look layered. You can also layer it but I don't like the milky touch the base colour gives to the mani if it is layered over a dark colour, so I decided against it.When my nails will be longer I'll probably layer it over a total nude, so it won't show.

The brush and formula were great too. This is my first Barielle, so I was curious about that. :)

Buddha-ful is a gorgeous polish. Very unique. I'm very positively surprised by it. :) How about you?

Thank you for reading!

NOTD: Blair on Sea Spray

Hello my dear people! How are you doing? My posting frequency is getting shameful again, isn't it? You know my list of excuses and they are all still very true and real. So I won't bother you with them again, I'd prefer to show you my NOTD, once for a change. I like the combination. When I did the mani I felt it looked awfully familiar, so I thought I must have seen it on a blog somewhere. But I haven't found anything on blogsphere, which surprised me a lot, until I remembered I did a nail polish ring (or rather cabochon only) with this combination! So maybe that's the reason it looks familiar. And lovely, it feels ... soft and springy with a bit of glitter thrown in there. 

Two coats of China Glaze Sea Spray, from last year's Anchors Away collection, one coat of Essence Blair (from twin set Blair & Chuck). Very simple mani, but I love how it turned out. Today I mattefied it, because I like how this kind of glitter looks like mattefied:

Surprisingly there isn't a lot of change, only the silver glitter pops out more, and Sea Spray looks awesome matte. :) I remember someone commenting on my Blair & Chuck post that she likes Blair in just about every combination more than with Chuck. I see what she meant. I like it TONS better on Sea Spray.

What's on your nails today?

Thank you for reading!