Catrice Luxury Lacquers ~ Sandhopper

Ok, honestly, people, the whole hype around sand finish never got to me, I just did not find that finish appealing. Typical of me that I am slowly discovering it now, with perhaps more affordable brands. I kind of like it, especially if it is glittery. I found Catrice Sandhopper in one of the "on sale" jars in Leclerc and it looked stunning in the bottle so I took it. Apparently it is from a limited edition called Sand'sation, I do not remember this one at all. :)

Sandhopper looks amazing on the nails too, I love how shiny, glittery metallic it is. The finish is very sharp comparing to other sandies I already tried, and it lasts really, really long time. I am very pleasantly surprised about that - I do not have top coat on and it is still on my nails after 6 days of wearing with only two minor chips. 

Oh, my pinky nail got really badly broken right before we went to a music festival in Germany, and at that point my nails were really long and I really didn't have time to file them down, so I used the Nail Crazy advice and tutorial with fast drying glue and it works like magic! Thanks, Žana, you saved my life that day, when I didn't have enough time to eat, let alone do my nails!

What else? Oh yes, this was three coats, you know me, better one coat extra than a visible nail line. ;) The brush is OK. Still not the old Catrice I remember, but it is ok. The polish dries really fast, and, as mentioned, has really good staying power. I might look for another one from this limited edition, Sandhopper was a good surprise!

Have you gotten anything from Sand'sation edition? Any sandies you would recommend?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

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!

Color Club ~ Gossip Column

Heya everyone! How are you? How is your end of Summer going? I'm already reaching for more Fall-ish colours for my nails and Gossip Column is definitively one of them. It is a beautiful teal colour, I craved it for so long. And worn it only once. Typical. Still, it is one of my favourite shades ever. I remember buying like 3 dupes or something like that, thinking I must have this shade no matter what. Only to realise back home I have it already. I kept the Color Club one because it is perfect all around.

Two coats, wonderful application, great formula. I like Color Club, I don't know why I don't have more shades made by them. I need to wear this baby soon.

What is your favourite Fall colour?

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!

Hits ~ Hera

Hey guys! Today's beautiful day called for a holografic polish! And since I had this gorgeous deep teal holo waiting in my small group of untrieds, I gave it a go. Hera is a part of Speciallita Hits no Olimpo Holographic collection and is utterly gorgeous. My lemming for DV8 is finally dead.

The sun washes off a bit of teal base colour, this is in fact a gorgeous deep teal holo and a very strong holo effect it has as well! I needed only two coats, the brush was good as well. A very cool polish indeed. Thanks, Eveline!

What do you think? Getting sick of holo effect? :)

Thank you for reading!

Jade Holografico ~ Energy

Oh yes, it's a beautiful sunny day here in Ljubljana! I feel much better just with having some sunlight, even if I have a lot of work to do, looking through the window makes me cheerful today. :) When I got up I also got serious craving to wear a holographic, possibly because I was able to photograph it in all its beauty. And, I mean, I have Brazilian holos just sitting there on the table, waiting for brighter days, that's kinda heretic, isn't it? I picked Jade Holografico named Energy. Please bear in mind this is in fact bluish teal, not bright blue.

And a video, because there is no way to properly show you the intense holografic effect Energy has on photos.

Energy is my first Jade to every try out and I am really impressed by their application. There was no trouble whatsoever with it, formula is really nice and the brush is great. I needed three coats for full opacity, you know I don't like VNL, but it went really fast due to the great application. The holo effect is amazing. It looks so great, plus it does not need a lot of light to be nicely visible. Naturally it goes insane on direct sunlight. The base colour is teal on the blue side, but I don't think I captured that properly, add a drop of green to the colour in the photos. Anyway, a lovely surprise from Brazil. I didn't even pick one Jade polish, but Eveline said I need it in my life. She was right. :)

Do you have Jade polish, do you like it? Are you still crazy about holo effect or has the hype calmed down a bit? :)

Thank you for reading, have a wonderful Sunday!

Wednesday is day for Hard Rock in school

Wow, what a silly title. But I wanted to combine the names of gorgeous polishes I have on my nails. Zoya Wednesday and Essie School of Hard Rocks. I finally had some time to do a decent accent mani and I really like how this turned out. I did the stripes with help of striping tapes Born Pretty Store sent me for a review, I love how thin and sharp-edged they are! The code you see on the right side of your monitor is still active for 10% discount! :) Here's my today's creation.

Three coats for Wednesday, but today I have a bad day for polishing my nails, I did tons of mistakes, so it could be a two coater. It's a part of Zoya Beach Collection for Summer 2012 and is also the only one I got from this part of Summer collection (and got all but one from the shimmery side). 

I really like how this turned out. They managed to put the dusty factor in turquoise shade of Wednesday, which makes it a gorgeous colour indeed. School of Hard Rocks fits wonderfully with it.

Do you like it?

Thank you for reading!

Ludurana ~ Show

Heya people! How are you doing on this lazy Sunday? 

As you can imagine, my fingertips were itching to try a multichrome with all Luduranas lying around. I'm a huge fan of duo/multichrome finish, it could be my favourite, next to glass-flecks. And yes, multichromes beat holos any day on my book. 

I had no idea which one to try on first, then I decided to go with Show, the teal shift intrigued me. Naturally, this is a polish that is very hard to capture with my little ol' camera. The teal shift became too blue (except on one photo) and the multichrome is so intense on this baby, it is hard to capture it as a whole. A tried to do a video and failed. So I give you all the photos that came out good and still, can't do this baby justice. Ludurana Show is a part of Aurora Boreal Collection. I have no idea when these came out, but nail polish world has been loving them. Show is a dupe (or is insanely close to it) of Ozotic 505. Before I craved Ozotics, but they were impossible to get and expensive as hell. With Ludurana I am a happy hobbit. 

One coat of Ludurana Show over one coat of Essie Bobbing for Baubles. Which makes it a super fast mani as well, double points! This is such an amazing polish. Nihrida made fantastic photos of it, in case you haven't seen them yet, I recommend her photos, they are gorgeous. Can't wait to play with others as well!

Do you have any Ludurana polish? Which one is your favourite?

Thank you for reading, have a great week!

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!

Essence - In Style

Hello! I have a few minutes to show you next Essence colour while I have my standard cup of coffee after lunch. In Style is quite close to Catrice After Eight, only that the latter is a tad bit more green, so I regretted a bit not getting After Eight instead of In Style. Still, it's a lovely teal colour. My lightbox pictures show it a lot more brush-stroky than it really was, that's why I put a natural, gloomy light picture in the post too. 

Three coats, I couldn't even it up with two, but still, a great formula, great brush and lovely shade. I liked it a lot.

In Style or After Eight or both? :)

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!