Comparison: Nubar Greener vs. H&M Envy me

Hey everybody! It has been a while, I know. About a week ago I got a lovely surprise in my mailbox - a request from one of my readers for a comparison. Which is exactly the nudge i need to get myself to pick up the camera and work with it, as lately I did not have time for that. And I really am a fan of requests like these, they give me an idea for posts and additional motivation to actually post them.

To get to the comparison. As it happens, these two are amongst my favourite nail polishes in my stash. Absolutely adore the rich green shimmer. And yes, they are quite close, but are they dupes? Let's find out. 

Index finger: HM Envy me,

Middle finger: Nubar Greener

Ring finger: HM Envy me

Little finger: Nubar Greener

No topcoat on the photos. 

The bottles emphasise the fact that Envy me is in fact bluer than Greener. But on the nail that difference is not as obvious. After wearing them both at the same time for 5 days now, here are my observations:

- H&M Envy me has a bluer, hence colder undertone, while Greener is a slightly warmer green, even though they are both definitively on a colder side of green shimmers.

- Nubar Greener is a richer shimmer, which creates more depth in the colour.

- In most of the lights they look almost the same, but if you look at the nails up close you notice the difference between the undertones.

- After five days Envy me is chipped on half of the nails, Nubar remains only with a slight tipwear (I put topcoat on after I took photos).

Both brushes are excellent, although I am a firm fan of Nubar brush, it is my winner. Although H&M Envy me has more coverage with just one stroke, both can be two-coaters (and both get more depth with a third one). 

There you have it. I cannot pick a winner, I love them both, both are nail polish of excellent quality and I wouldn't switch one for the other, as I do find them different enough to own both. However, if you are not too picky about your undertone and all you need is a very rich dark green shimmer, you can easily pick either of them.

If you have any other comparison questions, let me know via email or comments. I hope this was helpful!

Have a lovely weekend!

~ Ulmiel

Catrice ~ Doll's Collection ~ Playing in Lavender Heaven

Hey everyone! Another Catrice polish. I am sort of re-discovering my love for Catrice nail polish. I have some true beauties in my stash by Catrice, I need to wear them again. Playing in Lavender Heaven caught my eye on the shelf because of the shimmer that was nicely visible when moving the bottle, plus it looked like a very nice subtle lavender shade, great for office as well, so I grabbed it. 

The application was good, this is three coats, as my nails were a bit longer at that point. I think Playing in Lavender Heaven will appeal to many, as it is a very wearable colour. I am a bit on the fence about it, I feel like shimmer is almost brush-strokey, even if it is really not. I don't know. It held beautifully on my nails, almost a week. 

Did you get any of the shades from Doll's collection? 

Thank you for reading and commenting!

~ Ulmiel

O.P.I. ~ Congeniality Is My Middle Name

Hello everyone! I feel a bit better after a horrible night I had, I felt very ill and slept until after noon. Yay. I hope it is just a one-day bug. So I went through my folders and realised I haven't shown you one beauty I wore in Bratislava. It is my flatmate's, and I loved it. Alas it is one of the colours that never photograph well, it looks much better IRL. 

Congeniality Is My Middle Name is a part of O.P.I. Miss Universe Collection for Summer 2011. This was three coats. I couldn't capture the incredible shimmer it contains, it looks amazing in artificial light, but my camera can't handle that. The berry/magenta base is gorgeous as well. A nice one! I haven't bought OPI in the last two years, I think. But ATM I am wearing DS Extravagance and I love it. Hope they'll make an amazing collection again soon.

Any OPI beatuies I am missing out on?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

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.

Catrice ~ Berry Potter & Plumbledore

Heya my people! How are you doing? It's been crazy here lately, wohoo! But I really wanted to show you this beauty. Alas the pictures are not as good as I wanted them to be, IRL the colour looks much nicer. I feel like the shimmer is still a bit more tealish than on the pictures, you know? Those who have this colour, do you agree? 

Anyway. Naturally I bought this for the name itself. Geek references in make up names, that's what we want!! Lucky for me, the colour itself is gorgeous. It reminds me of a simple version of Royal Velvet by Orly, but it is different enough to have both.

I think that on the last one you can see the shimmer is in fact more on the teal side. Excuse the cable and the dust, I was improvising. :)

So yeah. New line of Catrice colours. I actually want another one, but the rest didn't really call me from the stand. But as I am on a mandatory no-buy (meaning I am too broke to buy nail polish), this might be the only one I buy. Luckily the brush on this Catrice was very nice to work with. It is not the brush from Catrice's former glory days, but it is by far better comparing to the previous two asortiment changes. Thumbs up! I needed three coats for full coverage, if that matters to you. The formula was good, it applied nicely. 

So yeah. One of those Catrice I would totally recommend! 

Which colours did you get from new line of Catrice, any recommendations? 

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Rimmel 60 seconds ~ Chocolate Fountain

Hello my dear people! How are you doing? It is getting cold here! I found GOSH pigments in a shop and I am tempted to buy them! Also I am itching to buy another book. I find books here so cheap, I cannot resist. :) 

I have another Rimmel for ya today. It is my flatmates and it is a brown shimmer. I do not like brown shades, but I wanted to try this one, it looked very nice and quite similar to O.P.I. Romeo & Joliet, that I adore and I hoped I found a very cheap and decent dupe of it.

This is three coats, the second one was still patchy, but probably because I was multitasking while applying it (eating, Skyping, adjusting the lamps for my impro-lightbox ... I'm surprised my mani turned out well, actually). Chocolate Fountain is incredibly rich brown shimmer. I think it looks quite lovely, even if it is brown, it is a brown I can wear. Again, great brush, great drying time.

And a quick comparison of Chocolate Fountain and Romeo&Joliet in the bottles. As you can see, R&J is more red, so no dupes. The shimmer is just as rich though.

Do you like brown nail polish, wear it often? Which one is your favourite?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

H&M ~ Moonlight

Heya people! As promised, swatches of the nail polish I purchased here in Blava. First I shall post Moonlight, because I am wearing it ATM. I am not particularly happy with the way pictures turned out, because I couldn't capture the amazing shimmer it has, but I do not think my camera is capable of doing that anyway. 

 You can kind of see the blue and green particles of the shimmer on my ring finger here. :)

Natural light. 

So Moonlight has this amazing mixture of blue and green shimmer, I love it, it looks amazing on the nails. The blue prevails most of the time, but every once in a while the green pops out too, and looks amazing. The brush is good as well, but the colour is sheer. Most bloggers layer it, and after trying to wear it alone, I can see why. It needs 4 coats for complete coverage. Too much. Next time I will layer it as well. Anyway. Gorgeous colour. :) 

Do you have Moonlight? Any H&M colours you think are a must and I should get it? :)

Thank you for reading, have a nice day!

Illamasqua ~ Baptiste

Hello everyone! How are you doing? I am just a couple of weeks away from leaving for Bratislava for six months and I am already getting quite nervous. I hope everything will turn out right, I still have to wait for confirmation from my faculty about some things. But anyway ... I opened my folder of swatches today and saw I have tons of unposted pictures. One of the colours still unrepresented on my blog is Illamasqua Baptiste. Insanely rich purple shimmer. Lightbox pictures turn it out a bit too blue-base so I am posting also a rather poor set of pictures taken outside. The base is more accurate there, but the light is bad. Oh well. It is still a cool colour!

Two easy coats, really rich colour, very nicely pigmented, the brush is great too. The price tag is way too high for my taste, but Illamasqua does have some colours worth the coin. We do have Illamasqua now in Slovenia as well, which is great, especially since they didn't set the price even higher as I expected them to.

Do you have any Illamasqua polish? What is your favourite one?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Kiko 266 and a comparison with Catrice

Hey my darlings! How are you? I put this Kiko 266 on yesterday and realised I probably never even posted a comparison I did ... well, probably a year or two ago with Catrice Blue My Mind. I did show you 266 before but the photos are not so good, so let's look at it again. It is a gorgeous shimmery blue, I cannot get sick of these type of blues.

This was two coats, very easy application, Kiko has great brushes. And now for the old comparison, Kiko 266 vs. Catrice Blue My Mind.

My gosh, look at my nails! I can't remember the last time I had them this long. Blue My Mind is a discontinued beauty Catrice made in the first wave of their polishes, and both brush and formula were amazing. The colours are very close, Kiko is a tad bit lighter.

Which is your favourite Kiko shade and which one is the winner for you in the comparison?

BTW; this made my day:
 

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Catrice ~ Petrolpolitan

Hey everyone! How are ya? If you have 5 minutes, do the anti-rain dance with me, I want to jog today and the weather suddenly decided to get all rain-y. I prefer not to jog in rain, because I always bring a pound and a half of dirt home. 

Today I will show you a polish that everyone probably knows, it's one of the most popular new(ish) Catrice shades, Petrolpolitan. It is a beauty, it reminds me of I Sea You darker, sparkly sister. My nails here are quite long, I wore it right before my middle finger nail snapped quite painfully. But it was after a long long time that I was able to wear my nails that long. 

This was three coats and the brush was horrible. But the colour is quite awesome. I hope Catrice brings back their old brush with new line in Fall, I really do. 

What shades did you get in the last renovation of Catrice?

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!