Green foil flakes mani (a review)

Heya folks! How are you doing? I got some pretty awesome news yesterday in my inbox, which is pretty awesome for you too, and that can only mean a giveawaaaaay! Yeah! We just need to iron some details out and then it shall begin. I am really excited, I haven't done a giveaway in such a long time! 

I also want to thank you for all the advices on the stamper in my previous post, they were tons helpful, the stamper works now!! Thanks, girls! :)

For today I have another lovely nail art toy for ya. Again Born Pretty Store gave me a choice in what to order for review and I wanted to try out this foil thing-y, it looked quite fun. Like flake polish, but without the polish and with bigger flakes. Awesome! You can find it on Born Pretty Store site under the name Fantasy Starry Holo Nail Foils Glitter Transfer Stickers Nail Decoration (item ID # 12413), I picked the pattern number #75. And I fell in love with the effect, the mani looked great ... if only it would last a bit longer!

I used RGB Sea as the base, a gorgeous dark green with green shimmer, it seemed perfect for the bright holo green foil.

The foil itself comes in a need square package and it looked like a decent amount of foil for under a dollar, but then I saw it unfolds in to a much bigger sheet! Awesome!

Now, for the pros and cons:

+ the foil is incredbily easy to work with, you have a tutorial on Born Pretty Store page that works very nicely, it is the nail art for dummies, really (which means it is perfect for me ;))

+ you use a very small amount of foil per mani, as a little corner can be used for an entire hand. For my nails I used approx. 2 cm x 2cm of the foil and I could still use it for a couple nails more, would I have them. :)

+ the effect is gorgeous, especially because it is so random, I love it! You cannot control where the foil will stick, which makes it a very asymmetrical mani

+ the removal is very easy, the foil does not bother the removal at all

- TC will dull the holo effect of the foil. Yes, it will still look nice and bright and metallic, but holo effect will be gone. Still, it is better to use TC because the alternative is:

- the foil without the TC does not last long at all. Meaning, I washed my hands, dried them with a towel and the towel pulled off the foil. I was quite disappointed with that. If you have any tricks, how to avoid that without dulling the holo effect, let me know, please!

All in all I love the effect, but I hate how it gets damaged so quickly! I will use it again, but with TC, so it will last as a normal manicure should. 

If you are planning to buy at Born Pretty Store, don't forget to use my code SSL91 that gives you a 10% discount on your purchase! :) 

 Do you have any tricks up your sleeve for this foil method?

Thank you for reading and commenting!


*Product sent for reviewing purposes, you can read my disclosure here.

Emerald Sparkle meets flakies

Heya guys. I have about 15 minutes before I need to run to my dance class, so I will be short. I want to show you one of the best manis I have worn in the past few months. I layered Nfu Oh 56 over China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. It is a combination I did not wish to make, because I imagined the removal will be an agony, but my BF insisted on it. Yeah, every once in a while he looks at my stash, grabs a bottle or two and says I should wear *that*. With this combo I needed some convincing, but I so did not regret wearing the combination. Emerald Sparkle is easily one of the best greens in my stash, is absolutely stunning. And Nfu Oh 56 is my favourite Nfo Oh flakie I have ... both create such a rich colour. The glitter of Emerald Sparkle gives it depth and the green flakies that shift to blue at some angles, an extra touch to the awesomeness. It really is a gorgeous mani. Oh, and the removal was not messier because of the combination, the standard foil removal did just fine (although admittedly I dislike the foil removal in general ;)).

As always with manis I really love, I do not think the pictures do this one justice, but I tried. And even made a video of it, just so you will see how the sparkles become alive under the flakies.

 

It also has that 'lit within' effect, but my camera failed to capture it. Still, I absolutely adore this. Emerald Sparkle really is not just a Christmas polish, I should wear it more often. And in case you are wondering: 3 coats of Emerald Sparkle, two (thin! - I noticed thin coats work much much better for these flakies) coats of Nfu Oh 56 and a dash of top coat. 

What do you think? What is your favourite layering combination?

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!

Finger Paints glitter and flakie - which one is your drug?

Heya people! This is going to be rather short, I'm afraid, I'm losing daylight and I really want to go for a walk before I start to study. It's a beautiful warm-but-not-hot day and I want to savour it before it's study time. This has to be my favourite time of the year, when it comes to weather. I'm not hot or sweating just by standing and breathing, the autumn colours of trees are gorgeous, the woods smell divine ... and yes, tea! I went to La Palais Des Thés today for the first time and that shop is seriously amazing. I fell in love with tea they had for try and I had to buy it, it's called Thé du Hammam and the name itself brings so many lovely memories, I simply had to have it. I just drunk a cup of it and it's fantastic. Although Le Palais des Thés is a bit pricey comparing to Cha (my regular source of teas), I love what I saw and the aromas of teas I smelled ... so yummy! Although I am a giant coffee drinker, because I love the taste and everything, I drink almost the same amount of tea when the Summer ends and Autumn comes, and naturally during Winter.  With my regular 2 l of water per day I can only say I drink a lot of fluids on daily basis. o.O

Nail polish, what say you? I have two beauties today that don't get enough attention from me, they are gorgeous. Plus when I saw them together in FP folder I got curious: which one is your greatest drug in nail polish world? Glitters? Flakies? Holos? Something else? I must say, glitter and flakies are pretty darn close for me. Close second, mind you, first two are still glassflecks and duochromes. Some might argue glassflecks are actually glitter polish, so perhaps glitter is a tad bit closer? But I adore flakies, so go figure. If I  might add, I absolutely love cremes to. So basically, Ulmiel, shut the frak up and give us pictures, right?

 To show you the sparkles, this one is really insanely sparkly!

 This is called All You Need Is Color, it came out in Finger Paints Peace and Love Collection for Summer 2011. The collection didn't get a lot of love, but I actually like most of the colours in the collection. All You Need Is Colour has to be my favourite, it's such a gorgeous, gorgeous teal glitter, made from tiny green, teal, blue specks of glitter, I love it. It needed four coats on my nails and two coats of TC for the rough finish. But I'm one of those that believe the final result is well worth the extra layers. I wore this mani for a long time. Oh, the lovely flowers are Depend stickers, I think I've shown them before. I like them, I like flower patterns. :)

Ah, yes, flakies. Man, it's a really close call for me, I LOVE flakies!! Finger Paints Asylum has to be one of my favourite flakie polishes ever, the colours are insane in this one, I loved this mani. I think I actually wore it for a special occasion, I just am not sure which one. Perhaps my birthday? Dunno. Anyway. My nails were beautiful here. *dreamy sigh* Two coats of Catrice Back To Black and two coats of Asylum over it. Asylum was a part of Finger Paints Special Effects Flake Glitter Topcoat collection that came out in the beginning of 2012, was quickly sold out and so I need to once more thank the best swap buddy in the universe for getting it for me. Oooh, flakies are a vein of glitter then? Glitter all around then, ladies! 

Well, not such a short post after all. 

Thank you for reading!

My Awesome Beauty Competition mani

Hei everyone! How are you doing on this very hot day? I'm doing my nails ATM and I remembered I wanted to mention Sophie's competition early enough for you to participate too (in case you haven't yet). Well, you still have today and tomorrow until 10 am. And that is enough time, btw! Here's the deal. In case any of you don't know Sophie: she owns My Awesome Beauty blog.  A beautiful blog with a beautiful author, her blog is versatile, fun and holds incredible photographs. I do recommend you visit it! Nail wise she does awesome designs with great colour combinations. I always wanted to recreate them, but you know how I am with time and my nail art ... until the competition started. You have to recreate one of the two patterns, but with your own ideas. I got hooked immediately and searched for inspiration. That's how I finally discovered that the designs are actually very user-friendly and that they don't take much time, so they're in my nail art book now! 

In short: my inspiration was the Eye of Sauron, that's why it is in the background of the pictures. Beyu 209 with Essie flakies on top represent the lava of Mount Doom, the gold is for the One Ring and the orange Finger Paint seemed a better combination than the predictable red or yellow for the eye. So I mixed them in an orange colour. ;)  I played with the pictures a bit before I sent them, here you'll see them separated.

Really wonky position of my fingers, Finger Paints bottles are not nice for holding. 

I liked the result, I didn't get tired of this mani until it looked to tired so I basically had to remove it. It's a bit blingy, but I wanted that. And yes, it's another geek inspiration for me, but frankly when you walk into my room, Tolkien is pretty much the first thing you notice. That and nail polish. So they're bound to come together every once in a while. And btw, yes, that's an actual poster of the Eye, my BF thought I photoshoped it, I didn't. :P 

Enter the competition! You have enough time and the prizes are wonderful! Good luck to all of you and Sophie, thanks for the chance!

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!

Nightly Nails mani

Heya darlings! How are you doing? It's a day from hell for me. Shitload of bad news and a dead, rainy grey day. Oh yes. Bring it on. But I started typing this post yesterday and now I want to finish it so here we go!

I have a cool one to show you today. You know the feeling, when you see a really really awesome mani on a blog and can't wait to do it yourself? I actually get that a lot. Very often for manis I don't have time to do so I slowly let it go. But this one was very simple. And amazing. It was 3 a.m., I was studying and having a break with browsing through the blogosphere, sleepy as hell. And I saw the mani (I think it was the top something of the 2011 post) and I freaking woke up! So it was a good one, no? It was seen on Nightly Nails blog and I instantly went for the original post, to see how it was made. Sinful Colors Seaweed, flakies and matte TC. I have all that. Yay!

So here is what I used. Sinful Colors Seaweed, two coats, one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, and one coat of Essence Matte TC.

First not mattefied:

And then obviously so:

A lousy attempt to try and show you the green hue the flakies have.

I love the combo, it's very unusual, subtle, but unusual. :) And the polishes. Essie did a great flakie, awesome application! Thanks to Nightly Nails for the idea!

What do you think, yay or nay?

Thank you for reading!

Orly pretty pair Fowl Play and Nite Owl

Heya people! Whoa. You have no idea how many pictures I have prepared for you and are just piling on the computer, because I don't have the time to post them. Sucks! I had an exam today, I hope it went well. Came home, changed my mani and now I'm half way through the door already to my dance practise. No rest for the wicked.

I remembered I haven't shown you the two Orlys I got a while ago yesterday, as I was admiring my Nite Owl mani. Nite Owl is one of the varnishes I actually wear ... you know, more than once. There is something so nice and clean and subtle on it. Fowl Play on the other hand is the big bird showing off of this collection. Look at me, all beautiful and gorgeous and FLAKIED. Yeah. So imagine my surprise when I put it on and wasn't over the moon about it. Don't get me wrong, it's a stunning colour, but it didn't rock my world as much as I thought it will. Nite Owl is the quiet winner of this collection in my humble opinion. 

The most gorgeous part of Fowl Play is the blue glitter. I love that SO much on this polish! It's not nearly as visible on the pictures as it is on the nail. What I don't like is the tricky application, my nails look thick, I really dislike that effect. Still ... eh, you know, it's a totally gorgeous colour, one can't help but think that. I just didn't see fireworks wearing it. Three coats.

My little beauty. Nite Owl. BTW, how can a nail polish not be awesome, if it's named after owls?! I love it. I totally didn't think I will love it so much, but I do. It looks so much better on nails than in the bottle, and there is nothing wrong with how it looks in the bottle either! Three coats, after the second I still had bold spots. Perfect formula though!

BTW ... wouldn't this pic be PERFECT for Orly's display on this collection? I'd probably buy the entire collection if I saw this as the official promo picture. :D

xD It's probably an old joke with this collection, I'm just months behind, like usually, so if i'm the only one chuckling, it's understandable. ;) 

These two are a part of Orly Birds of a Feather Collection for Fall 2011. A rather strong collection, IMO, with two more neat colours, but as I have similar blue foil and jade green creme, I passed on the other two. Fowl Play and Nite Owl are totally worth buying though!

Did you get any colours from this collection?

Thank you for reading!

Búk 116 with Nfu Oh & Essence flakie comparison

Hey darlings! What's in the news today? I'm having a coffee day today, first a coffee/tea time with a couple of friends, including one of the darlings that came to Slovenia for a couple of days (she went to Spain for a year) and then another later in the evening, so I'm really happy about that. :) 

Today I want to show you my roadtrip mani. This baby lasted for three days and I still didn't get tired of it, but the mani got so chipped I just had to remove it. BTW; being tired as hell and in a hotel room isn't really the best motivation for a foil removal. The first time I regreted putting a flakie on my nails. 

I also compared Essence Waking up in Vegas with Nfu Oh 49 on this mani, I wondered how close they get. 

If you see any kind of difference between them, your sight is better than mine. I didn't see any difference, they are both the same. In general Nfu Oh has a bit bigger flakies, but that's the only difference I could find. They're both amazing, don't you think? 

My base colour was Búk 116, the only polish from Lithuania that I haven't tried yet. I've already talked about it, the brand is a local Lithuanian brand with a nice brush and an old but good formula. 116 is a bit disappointing though. It looks SO awesome in the bottle, sadly the shimmer is much much weaker on the nails. If it would be so strong as it is in the bottle this colour would rock.

Even in lightbox the shimmer is poor, on softer light it disappears completely. This was three coats, the formula is a bit runny and smelly, but all in all a very well behaved polish. I just wish the shimmer would be more visible. Still, it's an excellent base for the flakies! :) 

What do you think about these babies? Did you get any of the top coats from Re-mix your style LE?

Thank you for reading!

Baubles up! mani

Heya darlings. It's beautiful autumn sunny day here in Ljubljana. Cold, but beautiful. Well it was anyway, it's already getting dark. I have another flakie layering today for you, again with Essie and Essence. I decided it's finally time that I crack open my Essence Glisten Up! bottle since Bobbing for Baubles seemed like a perfect base colour for it. 

Glisten Up! is  an already discontinued Color&go beauty and before Waking up in Vegas basically the only flakie polish we could get here for really little money. Still, I never read much about it. What is more, when Essence discontinued some colours (which means they're selling them 50% off already cheap regular price), Glisten Up! always seemed to stay behind, I always got the chance to pick a bottle or two for swapping, even if I never searched for it actively. I have no idea why, it's a gorgeous flakie polish. Plus it's a baby sister of stunning Nfu Oh 52. 

So, pictures! Essie Bobbing for Baubles with Essence Glisten Up!

Why I call this a baby sister of Nfu Oh 52? As you can see the colour play of green and blue is pretty much the same in flakies, plus Glisten Up! also contains the green shimmer, like 52. The differences are that flakies in Glisten Up! are sparser (you can see I basically don't have them on my index finger) and smaller, thus you'd need more coats to achieve what you achieve with one of 52. Plus, it has a holographic glitter in the mix too and a different base colour (it's lighter). It's rare glitter, but I prefer it that way, it spices up a bit the whole thing. All in all a wonderful layering polish, don't you think? Oh, removing is really nice and easy too. I removed it few hours ago, didn't even need the foil technique. 

I think this was a nice and cheap substitution for Nfu Oh 52. Ok, it's not as rich as Nfu Oh, and doesn't give so much depth, but considering the availability it had and the price difference, I dare say so. I got mine in a giveaway from Colorful Bottle (that i miss on blogsphere!) actually. If you're reading this, thank you, dear. :) I've already talked about Bobbing for Baubles, so no words on that beauty here. :)

Do you have Glisten Up!? Do you find it close to 52 too?

Thank you for reading!