New in January (again) ~ Haul, an USA one

Hello, my dear readers! I am still in (at the moment) freezing Bratislava, with a small piece of USA in my room. :) When I posted my haul post of January about two weeks ago, I thought that was really it for January, I spent a lot of money on the cosmetics and didn't feel like shopping for anything else. How was I supposed to know my flatmate would return from the USA with an entire suitcase of stuff just for me?? Well, ok, not entire suitcase, but, really, I was flabbergasted when she started pulling out all the gifts for me. USA is the paradise for shopping, seriously. Even as I browsed through her cosmetics, all from Lancome to Shisheido and asked her about the prices, I was shocked, the prices in USA for the high end brands are ... laughable comparing to the European ones. But that you already know, don't you? How about I show you all I've gotten?

Group photo! Everything from nail polish, make up, hair, facial and body cosmetics. Oh, and a cosmetics bag from Estee Lauder. You know why she got the bag? They put the testers in it. Yes. The bag just for the testers. I laughed out loud, really. Here you are lucky if you get testers at all. Or bag for that matter. Even if you do, it is the regular plastic one, that I have no use for. This one is actually great, I need more cosmetic bags.

Nail polish first, right? China Glaze Champagne Bubbles, this one is from 2011 holiday collection, one of my favourites from china glaze, as they gave us Tinsel Town, Glittering Garland AND Twinkle Lights in that collection. Orly mini called Conduit. If you search for swatches, you shan't find Orly one, but SpaRitual one. Did you know Orly and SpaRitual are sister companies? I sure didn't. But Conduit is a GORGEOUS copper gold, I cannot wait to try it! And a set of minis Orly Secret Society. I cannot wait to play with these, they flew under my radar completely, so it will be a complete surprise, trying them. I like Orly, so I do not think I'll be disappointed. 

We proceed with The Body Shop set.

 The set is for brown smokey eyes and it is utterly gorgeous (although the picture below does not do them justice). Plus, I like how I accidentaly took a picture of my Iron Maiden T-shirt in the mirror, so I left it uncropped. :D

I was crazy about The Body Shop a couple of years ago, I wanted everything from them. Then I kinda realised they are not worth the price for me. I mean, their products smell ah-mazing and they are good, but the price tag is too much for me, at least now. Still, I like their shower gels and body butters and I have an eyeshadow that is amazing ... yeah, I would buy more of it, if their price wasn't too much. The Body Shop Sugar Body Scrubs are Karite and Chocolate and they smell divine. The 4-step Smokey Eyes Set looks awesome and the brushes actually look useful, another win! The palette seems like the perfect set for quick brown smokey eyes, I will try them asap.

The Lancome set.

Ok, girls, get this. These are all testers! All of them! And the tubes contain 15 ml of product. Is it just me or we don't get that in EU?? And if we do, can you please tell me where? Ok, I am not going to retype the names of the products, just in short: the silver tubes are a serum for under moisturiser, the purple one is a daily cream with SPF 15 (really happy about that), the pot is an eye creme. The teal bag is Advanced Skin Correction (Visionnaire), also for pores - and if this baby works, I just might sell my kidney for it, or something. The black bag is Youth Activating Concentrate, whatever that means. If you want to know more, please let me know. :)

And the rest, a mixture:

The Blue Spa Shea Cashmere Hand Cream smells utterly divine. Quite strong smell, but I love it. The hands are incredibly soft after applying, it absorbs really fast and just works great on your skin and cuticles. I love it. As I am running low on my hand creme here (was already looking for replacements in drugstores), it is a perfect gift.

Maybelline Baby Lips Dr. Rescue is menthol scented "medicated" lip balm. I love the feeling of menthol on my lips (I liked the Blistex one that everyone around me hated, too) and it is not too strong, plus it feels amazing on the lips.

Aussie 3 minute miracle conditioner, at last! Yay! This one is purple, not white as the ones I saw in DM in Bratislava, I am not sure, if it is different or is it just the package, either way, I am supper happy that I have it! 

I also got Crabtree & Evelyn Lily bath and shower gel, travel sized gorgeously smelling goodie. I love the smell.

I also got a Yankee candle, jogging pants, T-shirt and two bras. At that point I was standing in the middle of the room, speechless, having the first world problem of not being able to hold all my presents and making two rounds of taking them into my room. Yeah. My flatmate seriously rocks (thanks, dear!). I need to go on a shopping spree in the USA! 

Have you tried any of these stuff? Any nail polish you would like to see first?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

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!

Miss Sporty ~ Metal Flip ~ Fiery Blaze (040)

Hey people! So I bought the Miss Sporty duochromes a while ago and wore them too, but waited with publishing in want of better pictures. As that never happened, I will publish those that I have, at least of the two shades I'm OK with how pictures turned out. I have a feeling these babies kinda flew under the radar of nail polish fanatics, although you can see some pretty awesome swatches on some of the blogs. Admittedly, I am not a fan of Miss Sporty in general. I haven't had a single polish by them, until now. And even in the bottle, Metal Flip looked by far too metallic and brush strokey to me, that is why I searched for swatches before I bought them. Luckily, they are really great nail polish, and for 1.80€ too. 

First I tried is Fiery Blaze. Sadly my bottle doesn't have the name on it, I found it online. It is a neat one, shifts from this rich bronze gold/green to the main shift of dark purple. Looks fantastic on the nails.

This was two coats, as far as I can remember. I am impressed by the brush, it is very nice for such a low-budget nail polish, not to mention brush strokes are non-existent. Major plus, as that can be the only thing to really turn me off when it comes to metallic duochromes. Lasted on my nails for good 5 or 6 days as well, but they were short, as you can see.

It is a very nice duochrome for a very nice price. Nothing groundbreaking, but I at least cannot get sick of the duochromes. Ever. :) 

Still on board with duochromes? Any Miss Sporty nail polish you would recommend me? Have you seen these in your drugstores, bought any of the collection?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

Caitlin in black lace (a review)

Hey everyone! Today I have for you a review I am awfully late with posting. Lace nail art was always one of my favourite ones, because I love love love lace and well ... lace on the nails, why not? But again, I am a nail art noob, so stickers with lace pattern sounded pretty darn awesome to me! Born Pretty Store offers the stickers for under 2 dollars and well, I was more than tempted to try them out! 

A lot of people try it on nude nails and I absolutely adore the end result, but alas I haven't brought any nude polish with me. Still, I wanted something classy, and Zoya Caitlin seemed perfect for the job. Lovely shade of purple that isn't too dark. And now I want a dress with similar pattern!

Blurry one to show the glitter the stickers contain.

And the sheet itself, with different patterns. The one I used is already missing.

I picked the pattern HL210, as it is obvious from the last photo, but these Lace Style 3D stickers (item ID is 7381) come in 12 different patterns and in both black and white! So you can have your pick, and for 1.99$ a piece you can knock yourself out shopping. :) Here is also my code for your 10% discount:

So yeah, I love the effect, but the stickers reacted badly with my topcoat (Essence fast drying one), they wrinkled a bit. That didn't ruin the effect, but consequently stickers came off the in chunks in couple of hours, as they got stuck to everything (especially my hair) and got pulled off. Too bad, I  need to try them with another TC. Just a fair warning for all Essence TC users. :) I did love the combo with Caitlin so much, I'll do it again, just with another TC. :)

Do you like the lace nail art on the nails?

Thank you for reading and commenting!

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