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!

Essence I'm The Boss!

Another day another Essence! :) My whole body hurts today, yesterday I had my very first dancing class for this 'school year' and it was awesome! Even the muscle ache right now feels good, because that means I did something yesterday! I came home late though and started working on a project and went to bed around 4 a.m. Seriously, I'm becoming an owl or something. Creature of the night. ;)

Today's shade is one of the new colours of Essence with their new and very adorable bottles. I love them. And I think the new line has some very decent colours too! What surprised me very much and very badly was a disgrace of a brush I'm The Boss! had. What. The. Hell. Essence?! You had a perfect brush, why change it?! I'm not reading much rants around blogsphere about the brush so I can only hope this was only a bad bottle choice. The brush on this baby was completely uncontrollable. I've never had so much clean up with Essence before. This better be a bad bottle choice on my end, Essence, I want your brush back!

Two to three coats, the third one was done on some nails to correct the application, otherwise the polish is well pigmented. Gorgeous shade too. I have some others on my WL, especially Grey-t to be here. It looks amazing on swatches!

Which ones did you get from the new line?

Thank you for reading!

SpaRitual - Sacred Ground and a short break

Hello my dear people! It's been 10 days again since I've posted something and even that one was a scheduled post so it's been even longer since i've actually been blogging or checking your wonderful works of art you're doing with the varnish and the nail. My older (and regular) readers probably know this from last year, May and June are months when I really need to shift into fifth gear when it comes to studying. This year the stakes are even higher, thanks to my ambition to get the highest marks and the fact that I'll be leaving for Spain in the middle of June for one week. Thus I have to pass the planned exams before I departure. 

The stress has hit my nails too and twice now I had to cut them completely off, right to the meat. It hurts like hell for three days, even doing just simple work with your hands. You understand what I'm talking about. But most importantly, with all the work and other stuff in my life, I'm neglecting my nails. Not proud of it, but hey, it happens. That's why I'll do what I planned (and kinda succeeded) to do last year during this time of year. I'm taking a short break from blogging. A couple of weeks, I dare say, with dropping in every once in a while. Somewhat like my blogging is now, but now i'm making it 'official', if you will. If I'll have a spare moment to edit the billion photos I have and write about it, I'll definitively do that - like today, as I'm resting from the exam I had in the morning. I'm also hoping to post a couple of guest posts, if all will go as planned.

But until then, I want to show you another beauty. My first SpaRitual! Yes, I've shown you a couple, but they weren't mine, but this baby is! And it's beautiful! And so cute, a mini bottle, argh, adorable!

SpaRitual's brush isn't in my good books. Usually I had problems with the application. Here, on my shorter nails I didn't, the application was a breeze, actually. I guess my longer nails gave it troubles. Or I just got better at applying nail polish? Anyway. This was three coats of the beautiful, complex polish Sacred Ground is. Just look at all the details. Amazing, I love it. It's also a part of a rather strong collection, SpaRitual Wilde Collection for fall 2011. With quick glance over the swatches I wouldn't say no to another three shades! But Sacred Ground is by far the best in the collection. I love it. 

Any thoughts on this SpaRitual baby? Do you have it? 

Have a great next couple of weeks and if you're studying too - may it be successful!

Thank you for reading and commenting!

BB Couture hot things Widow Maker and Playboy

Hello people! How are you doing? It's sunny outside! Yay! Still cold cold cold, but sunny. I was sitting next to our porch doors, sunbathing like a cat for hours. It's national holiday today for us in Slovenia, we're remembering one of our greatest poets today, France Prešeren. If you like poetry, I really recommend his works, he's fantastic. Plus, there are many translations in many languages of his work, so that shouldn't be a problem.

Today I want to show you one of the colours I've received in my latest package, Widow Maker. As usual, I went first for the colour that seemed weirdest in the bunch. I always do that, even if others are my great lemmings. Widow Maker is incredibly unique and weird in a very good way, so it called for me. When I opened my BB Couture folder I saw many more were yet to be edited and showed. With my little collection of BB Couture in general that felt a little lame. So I'm showing you Playboy too. One of the best teals ever made. They are both from BB Couture polish line made for men, so it seemed like a good idea, showing them together.

While we're on the subject, I want to ask you about your thoughts and opinions on men wearing polish. I thought about it a while ago, and especially when there was the Essie and pink nails on a boy 'scandal' I firmly made up my mind. Men are cool with nail polish. I see no problem with them wearing nail polish, I salute their care for nails and hands in general, because neglected nails are just disgusting, on men or women. If they throw some colour on them too, even better! I think we're generally a very unisex society and I think is about damn time we break the stereotypes around make up too. 

And just in case there are any men who'd like to wear polish, but are afraid of it, out there reading this. Here's one of the hottest man on this planet, wearing sky blue polish. So awesome. :) You can't argue about awesomeness of Johnny Depp, it's a fact, just like gravity.

source: denisedoesjohnny.com

This is all, of course, just my opinion. When I'm asking for yours, I'm completely aware of the fact some might feel differently and I respect that. I respect every opinion, whether it's different, similar, the same, or 50-50 with mine. So don't worry about that, all right? There will be no arguing, only opinion sharing, if you'll be willing, of course. 

Anyway, to the nail polish! 

Here's Widow Maker. What a fantastic, utterly gorgeous grey this is. It has this shimmer, that on sunlight warms the grey, making it a bit taup-ish.It's hard to explain, you'll see what I mean on the pictures. The black glitter is fantastic. It's very subtle on the nails, you have to look for it, but when I find it, i go 'wiiii'. :)

See what I mean? On the sunlight it gets this steel look, or how should I describe it ... it's incredible colour, a complete surprise for me, really. I didn't even know it existed until I unwrapped the bottle. What a hidden gem! This isn't a part of a named collection, as far as I know, it's from the very first set of BB Couture nail polish for men (together with the ever so perfect Grenade). I did 3 coats, for the picture's sake, two would be enough, with a bald spot here and here, that only macro shot would catch.

The second one is Playboy. A gorgeous, gorgeous teal with shimmery glass-flecked finish I adore so much. I got this from the wonderful Kim on her Thoughts of Beauty blog. There was this competition called Tell us a story, and the winner would get a bottle of Playboy! To my great surprise I was the only one who entered with a relatively boring story. I never thought I'd win it, I just wanted to be a part of it, since I thought it's a wonderful idea. And so I won. I'm not complaining, mind you. This teal is gorgeous.

Isn't this amazing? Teal/peacock (as some call it) with teal, purple and silver glassflecked/micro glitter or whatever you wanna call it. My pictures sadly don't do it justice at all, I failed to capture the amazing shimmer it has. It's a part of BB Couture Eye Candy Collection for Spring/Summer (not sure) 2011. For men part, of course. On my WL from that part also Sexy Centerfold and Rustic Romance. But Playboy is the gem of this collection. Two easy coats.

The formula on both of them was amazing. As usual. BB Couture has a flawless formula, I never had any troubles with the application. I was expecting Widow Maker to be brush stroky, but it wasn't so that's great. All in all perfect polishes, really, I'm really happy I got them.

Any thoughts on men wearing polish, Widow Maker and Playboy? Do share. :) 

Thank you for reading!

Misa - Grey Matters

Hey people! How are you doing? I'm tired but good. :) I just discovered Blogger changed the commenting system so I can reply directly to your comment. That's SO awesome, I wanted to change the system solely because of that and now they did it. Yay!

But let's look at the awesome, awesome polish Misa gave us in their latest collection. I remember someone looking forward to my pictures of it in Phazers on Stunning post and I still haven't posted it until today. *sigh* The beauty that is Grey Matters:

I freakishly love this. Grey with black specks. AWESOME! I think Scrangie's description is spot on - it looks like bird eggs and it's really cute because of that. It's a part of Misa Surreal Escape Collection for Winter 2011. I had no troubles with application, two easy coats. It lasted for a very long time with minor tip wear too! Awesomely gorgeous colour. I love Misa. 

Did you get any colours from this collection?

Thank you for reading!

Zoya - Caitlin

Hey darlings! How are you doing? I'm having a headache again, I hate it. It's because of the nerves, I presented a paper today in my class. It went well, but you know how it is with nerves before you start talking in front of many people. That's also the reason why I haven't replied to your emails if you sent them, I've been just too busy, sorry, I'll get to all the polish business on Monday, I promise. 

I'm going to show you something soft today. It's an old mani, I wish my head would hurt a bit less, so I'd be able to change my mani and wear Caitlin. I love this colour. When I first saw it, I didn't like it. I thought it was boring. Honestly. The weird thing was, the more I saw it on blogsphere, the more I liked it, until it got to my top three of  Zoyas I wanted!! I'm not kidding, I wanted it so bad. There is just something so soft and serene in this colour. I adore it. Now that I'm getting used to stamping i think it also makes a wonderful base colour, hehe, I must try something soon. :)

Only three pictures, because most of them were blurry. Grrr, I hate it when that happens.

You all know her, but for the habit's sake - Caitlin is from Zoya Intimate Collection for Spring 2011. A soft and gentle collection, that you would think at first will be boring, but then it totally gets under your skin and you realize it's in fact, fantastic. I own Gemma and Caitlin from this collection, both are utter, and I mean utter perfections. The two I can't decide over - but can't let go either - are Dannii and Dove. I just might get them, to stop pondering about it. :) Actually, the feeling around this collection was similar to the one I'm getting with the new Winter collection Zoya unexpectedly released, Feel. First impression is 'eh', and then you take a closer look ... and want three colours out of six in the collection. I don't know how, but Zoya nails it, whether we're talking about soft colours, bold ones, shimmer, creme or glitter. 

As for Caitlin, she is a two coater and applies perfectly. No complaints. I love Zoya formula.

Did you get any colours from the Intimate Collection? What are your thoughts on the new, Feel collection?

Thank you for reading!

Essie - Power Clutch

Heya! Guess what! I found *perfect* boots for this Fall/Winter! I'm SO happy! I love boots, looove them, but I couldn't find any that would suit me (or they had 15 cm heel, which isn't really a problem for me, but the problem of walking in them to my classes in the snow appeared, not to mention they aren't really something I'd like to waste on 8 hours of college time). I was on the point of buying flat shoes, which happens really rarely ... and then *bam* the beauties appeared! They jumped right out of my head, I'm actually worried Murphy will break the heal or detach the sole or something, they are too perfect. ;) Ok, totally OT, let's go to the nail polish!

It's about time I start showing you more fall colours. And to reveal the latest news. Me and Essie made up, so I'm going to show you in the next few days the Essies I'm loving. As you may have noticed, I don't own many Essie polishes (or didn't, I guess). Before I found them a bit on the boring side and my first impression of the brand was the extra tricky Mint Candy Apple. That being said it's also the only flop in the formula I experienced in Essie department from that day. And this Fall Essie won my heart all over again. Starting with Power Clutch. 

Power Clutch is a part of Essie Brand New Bag collection for Fall 2011 and also the only one that really called my name, but boy oh boy, what a star of the collection! I love it! Yes, it's "just" a creme. But guess what ... I adore a good creme! I never got bored with the creme finish and I probably never will. Power Clutch is such a rich creme and extremely glossy too. It's grey with green undertones (although they didnt' show much on me, like on Once Bitten, for instance, insanely beautiful!) and I love it for the dark grey it is. I love grey colour in general, but I missed a good dark grey in my stash. Now  I have it!

This was three coats on my almost too long nails. I wore it right before the big breaking phase that's lasting for a month now (the last one was particularly painful, I can't even type with that finger ATM) and my nails were insanely long. When I applied the varnish I started thinking Essie is a polish perfect for shorter nails. The formula and particularly the brush suggest that. I had bold spots after the second coat with this nail lenght and the brush was too thin for my liking. When I shortened my nails the formula and the brush got perfect. Or is it just me?

I really love this one. It's not an over the top collection, it's a rather calm and sophisticated one, but Power Clutch remains the edgy child in the collection and it's one of my favourite greys in the stash.

Did you get any colours from Brand New Bag collection?

Thank you for reading!

Seaweed on Adventure Island of Sin

Wow, that "of Sin" really puts the drama into the title, doesn't it? Well, as you probably know already, it's just a play of the boring title that would be "Sinful Colors Seaweed and Adventure Island with scotch tape accent mani" although it basically covers everything I want to show you in this post. 

I have no idea what's up with Sinful Colors and O.P.I., but as it seems, Sinful will be the cheap way to get some O.P.I. from now on. Not that I'm complaining, I like Sinful, plus it's really cheaper. Of course we don't have it in EU, but they're a great brand to swap for, ladies.

Anyway. When O.P.I. came out with Stranger Tides collection I was expecting a lot. I love pirates, and I love POTC - at least first two movies. I won't bore you with another rant over a relatively old collection, but pastels didn't go well at all with the theme, IMO. And when I finally saw the fourth movie (Stranger Tides, obviously) I was so disappointed, it's such a lame story. The only thing worth seeing in it is of course Johnny Depp and that's it. Oh, and Geoffrey Rush! My love and affection for Mr. Depp runs deep for years now. I watched most of his films, when I went through his filmography sistematically back in high school. I still have few on the list, but all in all I can easily say he's my favourite actor of all time. Yes, he's probably the sexiest man that I ever saw on the screen (for my taste at least), but not only that - he's a superb actor too, which is by far more important for a good movie, i'd say. ;) I love so many of his movies. I know he got really, "commercially", famous with POTC, but I love his older, "weirder" movies so much more. I do recommend them!

Oh wait, what was I sayin ... Nail polish! Yes! *shakes head* You can tell I'm getting down with a cold, can't you? From Stranger Tides collection Stranger Tides polish was the one that caught my eye and I asked Kris for it or the duplicate from Sinful, when it got out in their Adventure Island collection for Spring/Summer 2011. She got it for me, and sent me Adventure Island too (that one doesn't have a dupe in OPI collection). I did a bit of scotch tape design with them too, because they looked so good together on my desk. Nothing major, since I seriously lacked time back then. But I like it.

 I really like how this picture turned out. :) 

I was surprised by how much I loved Adventure Island. Don't know why I didn't think I would when I looked at the swatches, it's yellow and green and I like both colours. Well, I love it. It's a cool, unusual colour and I don't have anything like it in my stash. It applies a bit tricky (must be the yellowness of it) but will cover up nicely in three coats. It shows more yellow on my nails, but you can't deny the greeness of it too. Cool! The scotch tape was a poor attempt of doing one of the Nailside lightning bolts but I couldn't remember how to do it from the top of my head and I didn't have time to start the computer, so I ended up with something simpler. It looks like a shark in the water, so maybe it goes well with the colleciton theme too. ;)

And the Seaweed alone.

I totally love this one. I really really do. Two to three coats, depends on the nail, formula is ok, but the colour is awesome!

I think I'll go and make myself a cup of tea and try again to breathe through my nose. That should be an adventure too.

Thoughts on these two?

Thank you for reading!

Welcome to Slovenia, Depend! *hugs the Depend counter*

It's been almost two weeks since the first notice of Depend in SLO came to me (and I'm guessing to the general nail polish population in Slovenia). There was no rumors about it, not a whisper, nothing. One day I was having coffee with Kaneli and she said she saw the counter of Depend in our local DMs. Needless to say I almost fell off the chair. Depend! In Slovenia?! Holy crap!! I love Depend so so much and now Depend came here? I can buy my bottles like 5 minute walk away from where I'm sitting right now typing this away? I must say, I'm extremely happy about it. What is more, they cost almost half the Scandinavian price, with 1.70€ for regular polish and 2.10 for crackles.  

Naturally I had to buy one, just so I can say I bought one in Slovenia, I picked the purple crackle, since I regreted not ordering it from Finland months ago. Right now the counters are pretty empty, girls are buying them in big numbers. I'm happy about that, since that also means Depend will stick. And what's not to love, anyway? The colours are awesome, brush is great, formula can be a bit tricky, but completely managable. All for 1.70 €. 

You all know my favourite source for Depend is also one of my favourite blogs evah, Alizarine Claws, but just because my colleciton of Depends isn't so small, I'm giving you some more in this post too. Three are missing, I still haven't worn them, bad Ulmiel! 221 wasn't shown on the blog yet, so there's a new one too! With crackle effect on top. 

 221. Photshooting of this beauty is a bit tricky, usually the pictures came out way too blue. It has a little bit of green in it too, this is the best I could do. The application was excellent, it needed two coats only.

Sally Hansen Crackle Overcoat called Distressed Denim. Yes, you see me doing bright-dark blue crackle combination way too often, I know. But I love it. And this crackle is awesome because when you add TC, it gets very jelly-like finish. Love! 

And now those that you've already seen, but I want to show them again. Some swatches are horrible to me now, rookie. And sometimes my nail shape is just WTF. o.o

 Blue Crackle, 5002, my favourite crackle in the world, with or without TC (below you can see the magical shimmer it contains). Upper picture with Brucci Giana's Rockin' Blue, below with Wibo 311.

 Sadly discontinued, but too beautiful not to be mentioned. 170

 209, interesting colour, horrible nail shape. 

 225. The worst formula I've met with Depend.

 19. Classic red, bit boring to me.

 204. Gorgeous one, especially on the sun. 

 228. One of my favourites.

 249. Again, one of my favourites. :)

The red crackle, 5004. Not the best combination, I know. Still, crackle is a great one. Base is Essence Forget-me-not. 

Like I said, I love Depend. The formula can be a bit tricky sometimes, but even if it is, it's completely managable and most of the time it's just fine. I've heard about some drying problems with Depend. I've never, not once, encounter them. Fast drying TC anyone? With TC Depend behaves nice, even if there is slow drying present in the formula. All in all I can only recommend Depend. 

I still have three more to show you, if you count the purple crackle. But I think you had enough. :) 

Do you have any Depend bottles, what are you experiences with them? My Slovene ladies, did you grab your bottles in the first wave or are you waiting for the second round? :)

Thank you for reading!

China Glaze - Sea Spray with accent scotch tape and CND effect

Wow, very unooriginal title. Yay me. It's still a bit early for me, I guess. You know, I study by night, sleep until not very decent hours ... guys, you can probably tell, my time for blogging is getting more limited than I thought. If I all of the sudden don't write anymore, don't think I've stopped blogging, I just got so busy with my exams, I cut the blog completely, as it does take time. I'm thinking Ivana*, our pink lady, did the right thing about it, taking a break for studies, I feel I should do the same. And maybe I'll just have to. I love blogging, but I have to pass my exams too. :S Anyway! Just to let you know. :)

Today I have the already famous and seen a gazillion times China Glaze - Sea Spray. I feel like Ahoy! has stolen his moment of fame, but still it's a gorgeous colour. My Anchors Away order got very streched due to the always sold out Crackle Glaze, but at least I'm showing them now, when all the hype is over. ;)

The first step, and how very wrong I was to hope any of the Anchors Away will be dupes for my beloveth Depend 170. :)

Later on I put CND Effect Sapphire Sparkle on, one coat.

I'm doing all this in old Blogger, so if there are any unexpected changes, it's due to that. I'm really starting to hate blogger, you know. Picasa is so effing weird, it's supposed to make another album when the older is full, but mine has like 40 pictures in it and it still won't post pictures, and of course nobody in blogger department is doing a damn thing about it, as far as I can see from all the other bloggers, trying to solve it and being pissed off about it. Google really sucks with this ignorance of problems. It's taking even more time from me for blogging when I can least afford it. Stupid program.

Anyway, as you can see, I played with Sea Spray a bit. The tip wear is getting bigger by the picture, since I did wear it alone for a day or two. Then I put the accent finger on, scotch tape try, with Depend 170 and Catrice London's Weather Forecast and then I put CND Sapphire Sparke effect on, although I think it looks better over darker shades.

Two coats of Sea Spray, it doesn't need TC, as it dries really fast, one coat of everything else. I loved this mani, although I think London's Weather Forecast and Depend have too little contrast, you see the difference only if you really look at it. I'm still on the hunt for a dupe of Depend 170 as it's an illegally small bottle of this gorgeous discontinued polish, so if you have any suggestions, let me know! I went through Tevta's helmer with no luck. The closest one was MAC Blue India and that doesn't help me one effing bit, being even more HTF and expensive as hell. :) Besides, Blue India is a tad bit more blue. I have another one in mind, but I'll wait until I get it and compare it.

Ok, now let's hope blogger at least publishes this correctly. Hope you guys liked the mani!

Thank you for reading!