Glittering Garland with silver drops

Hello people! How are you? I hope you are having a great holiday week, whether you celebrate Christmas or not! :) I already feel much much better, thank you all for your kind thoughts! 

I redid my mani yesterday, as my previous one got pretty tired. I adore Glittering Garland, it has to be one of the best greens I own. You know I love greens and glass flecks, so GG was pretty much meant for me. Lately, with having little time for taking pictures and the gloomy weather that kills all chances for natural daylight photos (that is especially important for multichromes and holos), I'm enjoying discovering the beauties in my stash all over again. Glittering Garland seems perfect for this season. 

Because I really like the effect of drops some bloggers do on their manicures, I decided to try something like that as an accent finger. It did not came out as I wanted, my drops are too shaky and just not right. And this is a dotting tool, for crying out loud. One would think a monkey can use a dotting tool, but honestly, I always screw up my dots. I like how it looks if you don't pay too much attention to the details at least.

I think silver and green go well together. I just thought of Slytherin though ... not a fan of Slytherin, really, but their colour and animal choice are superb. :)

What is on your nails today?

Thank you for reading!

Comparison: China Glaze Fast Track vs. Catrice Clay-ton My Hero

How I thought these two were similar I still do not know. Scrangie said Fast Track reminds her of Essence Irreplaceable and in my head Essence and Catrice are close enough not to own them both. As you will see in the pictures, they are not really similar. Actually, they're not very close either. My skin had a rough time when I made this comparison. Luckily now it's much much better, thanks to my hand cremes and oils. It was dried up and I got a major cut on my pinky, like a paper cut, only a bit thicker and longer, it hurt like a papercut though. I was able to cut it out from the pictures, so I'll spare you the view. ;)

Clay-ton My Hero is a taupe with golden shimmer, while Fast Track is beige with golden glass flecks. I suck at describing colours, but I guess that's close enough. :) Naturally they don't look at all similar, I guess the concept of making could be, although I think China Glaze wanted the golden glass flecks to really pop out, whine Clay-ton My Hero is very work appropriate with shyer shimmer. 

Two coats of Catrice, three of China Glaze, both polishes have a wonderful formula and wonderful brushes.  I like them both, I was on the verge of giving Clayton away, but there is something awesome on it that I really like. So I kept it. Glad to know I don't have any dupes of it! :)

Do you have any of the two? Which one do you prefer?

Thank you for reading!

China Glaze ~ Smoke and Ashes

Good evening! How are you on this Friday night? It's all about work with my Friday, so I'll be brief tonight. I have another beauty from China Glaze The Hunger Games Capital Colors and this one is one of those that you just have to see IRL to appreciate the beauty of it. It's easily one of my favourite polishes made by China Glaze, it is a fantastic colour. And yet, it looks somewhat boring on the pictures. Pity. Trust me, it looks stunning on the nails in real life. I give you Smoke and ashes.

Like I said, pictures don't do Smoke and Ashes justice. It's a black base with greenish glass flecks that are very visible in real life. It actually does give an ashy impression, or maybe it's just my brain, trying to fit the name to the colour. The formula is amazing too, it could almost be a one coater, perhaps it is if you're a bit careful with the application. Not a bad thing about this one. I absolutely love it.

Where do you stand with black polish and black polish with something extra? :)

Thank you for reading & have a great weekend!

Essence Open Water Dive or "Challenge accepted!"

Hey everybody! How are you doing? I'm having my cup of tea that I spoke of yesterday so I decided this is the perfect excuse to write little something here too. :) A week or two ago I wore this mani with Essence Open Water Dive and as it rekindled my obsession with the 'completely the same mani as it is in my head', I have to give it the special attention.

The thing is, in the beginning of my nail polish discovering I had so much energy, patience (and time, as it seems), that I was able to do infinite amount of coats for a mani I wanted, or even change one polish up to three times a day, because I got fed up with the colour I was wearing. Naturally, that didn't happen often, but it did happen. It seems so weird now, hehe. The phase luckily passed and I enjoy polish on a normal scale now. ;) Thus enters Open Water Dive. This is an oldie, Essence Into the Ocean LE came out in 2009 and I got it from a friend,  not even trying it on. It was always on my 'give away' pile and few weeks ago, when I did a large selection of polish in my stash, this little thing got the number again. As I watched the swatches though, Nail Junkie had such an amazing swatch of it, I decided to put it on. I love it over black polish but I really wanted to have its real bottle colour on my nails. Knowing Open Water Dive is sheer as hell (you can see that just by turning the bottle in your hand) I prepared for massive coat number, but Lyra's beautiful swatch convinced me it could be done. 

After putting 4 coats on my nails and still having very clear VNL on my short nails, I went back to the post and actually read it. Of course Lyra layered it over white and wrote that that clearly too. Facepalm for Ulmiel, yes. But here's when I got stubborn. I wanted the mani to look like that on my nails too! So I removed the 4 effing coats, put 2 coats of H&M White and two coats of Essence Open Water Dive and was a happy hobbit. 

Naturally it was a bitch to photograph. It is in fact a very complex shimmer, creating this soft minty-seafoamy colour, appearing to have only silver particles, but contains also green and purple specks of glassflecks, that are acutally visible to the naked eye, especially in the artificial light. And I needed all together 56 pictures taken, before I could semi-capture that on the 50th picture. Ho-ly crap! So here it is, set of my best pictures, plus a video to show how sparkly this is.

 This is direct sunlight, my camera barley handled all the sparkle.

The only picture where I actually captured the colours of sparkles. You may need to enlarge it. The artificial light makes my skin really yellow, but it's the best one to show all the sparkles.

Naturally I loved the result. It's an amazing shade, I love it. White with a twist, I guess (or, as my BF calls them, water-pipes-in-hospitals colour), I really like the greenish hue it has. And the glassflecks really make a difference. So yes, worth the troubles, at least for me. It also stayed on my nails for quite a few days. Next layering will be over dark blue, I think, Biba's mani looks amazing!

What is your 'Challenge Accepted' varnish/finish/colour? :)

Thank you for reading!

Take two on China Glaze

Heya people! How are you doing? I put on China Glaze Watermelon Rind again today and remembered I wanted to redo the swatches of it. Then I saw I already posted them and they are, in short, horrible. As I scrolled down my China Glaze label I also noticed my Bad Landing and Orange Marmalade swatches probably convince you not to buy them and not vice versa. Luckily I took a few shots of each when I wore them this Summer, so here is my take two on all three of them, in hope of doing them a little more justice, for they are awesome, especially Orange Marmalade and Watermelon Rind being my favourite China Glazes. 

Watermelon Rind. A green/blue/teal glass flecks. How gorgeous is that. This polish is incredible, really. If I had to hold on to just one China Glaze in my stash, this would probably be it. It contains everything I hold dearest in a nail polish. Yes, it's sheer, but with glass-flecked finish I'm willing to look past that. The formula was great, I had no troubles today with the application, so the extra coats weren't time consuming. 

Orange Marmalade is the orange sister of Watermelon Rind, the orange glass-fleck of the Summer Days collection that China Glaze released in 2009. I still don't think I did this amazing orange justice, but you can see how it glows and just how bright it is. And juicy, I always crave orange juice when I see it, hehe. Again a great application. Every time I wear these two I remember why I want the entire Summer Days collection. Glass-flecked finish at its finest, and you know how much I love that finish! 

Bad Landing. When I wore this for the first time, Tevta lent me her China Glaze collection. The second time I wore it, it was already mine, because Tevta hated it and gave it to me. I still love it, I have no idea what I love so much about this polish. Probably that it is so insanely bright (my pictures don't show that correctly). Or that it shifts from red to orange to pink, depends on the light. It's a cool colour, I like it. :) I can't find if Bad Landing was a part of a collection, so I'm guessing it wasn't. Oh, the application is superb, I don't think I needed clean up with this one at all.

Well, I don't know about you, but I think my new swatches are much much better than my old one. Finally figured out my nail shape, my hand position when taking photos etc. Bloggers, ever redo your swatches simply because it bothers you that you have a set of bad ones on blog? :)

What's your favourite China Glaze polish? Ok, top three? ;)

Thank you for reading!

Vipera Jumpy 154

Hello! How about another Jumpy for today? I still haven't got through all the gorgeous polish Sabbatha sent me, but I'm getting there. I wore quite a few in the past few weeks and my enthusiasm for Polish polish has not ceased. They make awesome nail polish, I can tell you that.

Vipera Jumpy seemed like a perfect little thing on my very short nails and in gloomy weather, you know, to cheer me up a bit. This was a few weeks ago, after my heavy exams and the stress took all my nails to hell, so I needed to shorten them completely. 

Jumpy 154 is very similar to Jumpy 155, but the base colour is brighter and more juicy. The glass flecks are similar too, and I *love* them. It is an awesome polish with an awesome formula. Three coats, two would be enough, but the third one creates more depth. 

Another gorgeous Jumpy! I love all that I have, actually.

Do you have any Jumpys? What do you prefer to wear on very short nails ... or on a gloomy day?

Thank you for reading!

Depend 313

Hello people! I have to show you this colour ASAP. I put it on like half an hour ago and thanks to my newest discovery in TC department (Essence Studio Nails fast drying topcoat - yes, I'm late to the party with this one) I already did the pictures and well ... you know how you sometimes love a colour on swatches but when you have it on your nails the awesomeness it contains blows you away? That's what is happening here. I love this so much I can't stop looking at my nails. 313 has to be the most gorgeous Depend I've ever worn and I never thought I'll see 170 beaten! 

Sorry for the gloomy pictures. I went back to blogging, of course the summer days got all grey and dead, what did you expect? ;) I'm kidding, I don't mind being a tad bit cooler for a change. But pictures are the way they are, lightbox killed the blurple base colour. 

Isn't 313 simply gorgeous? Blurple with green glass flecks, hell yeah Depend, way to go! Three coats for moi, I don't like bald spots plus I think the third coat gives much more depth to the polish. Gosh, I love this one! 

You can get in Slovenia now too. I am a very inpatient person, so I asked Kaneli to get them for me from Finland earlier, thank you, dear! :) Hopefully the other colours from Summer 2012 will get here too, as it seems only this one came so far. Our distributors are weird like that. Anyway. Get it if you can! 

Thank you for reading!

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!

A England - Order of the Garter

Evening everyone! How are you doing? It's a lazy Sunday here. I baked something though. I think I'm addicted to cinnamon. That's also why I'm posting this later than planned. I also watched the news, Whitney Houston passing away was quite a shock. I swear, just last week I was dancing to I wanna dance with somebody playing in my head. Whether you like her style of music or not, she was one of the best voices out there. Oh, my favourite song (and probably the one of the three or four I really like by her) is I learned from the best. I remember being in my teens when I heard it first and liking the lyrics, not being all 'I'm gonna die because you left me', hehe. Plus her voice is incredible, of course.

I put A England Order of the Garter on yesterday, to match my teal make up. A friend of mine did photos of it, combining with the teal cocktail I was drinking, hehe. Order of the Garter isn't a teal, though, it's a true bright blue. And you know what? You know what??!? It's a glass flecked bright blue! GLASS FLECKS! YES! Naturally the photos from my lightbox make it look to bright, so I tried to do some decent photos today in a very grey light of Ljubljana and failed miserably. Photos are the way they are, I might redo them in the Summer. 

I don't need to talk much about this one, do I? The A England The Legend collection is everywhere and everyone seems to want them. Myself included, thank you very much! Order of the Garter is amazing. Vibrant blue that I adore and to top that, a glass fleck, being my favourite finish, or one of them at least. Awesome. It took me three coats for full opacity, I'm guessing two will do for a lot of people, I'm just annoying like that. :) But glassflecks are usually on the sheer side, so it wasn't much of a surprise for me.

What I was curious about was the formula,  because I haven't ever heard anything bad about A England's formula and it's my first. The formula is superb. Seriously. It's incredibly easy to work with. All in all an amazing polish. Even has a little tiny hue of purple, but my camera naturally didn't catch that. Thank you so much for this gem, Stefanie! 

So, now I ask you, what's you experience with A England and what's on your WL from The Legend? You know me. St. George, Dragon. Seriously, now, it's pass the 'i want' and already in the 'i need' sector. ;)

Oh, I prepared a comparison with Order of the Garter for ya too! 

Thank you for reading!