Monday, October 31, 2011

Hello Kitty ~ Pink


Hello Kitty Nail polish
A pink crème

Here I am again
:)

It’s time to try the Hello Kitty nail polish that I bought when I was in Sweden.
I don’t own many pinks, and especially not pink crèmes, but I’m a huge Hello Kitty fan, so I bought it anyway. I decided that if I didn’t like it, I would use it to make frankenpolishes out of, plus I really liked the bottle.

I applied two coats, and it took what seemed like forever before each layer was dry. It was very easy to apply though, no streaks or bald spots whatsoever.

This is definitely a colour that could grow on me. It reminds me of candy and bubblegum, and it’s not at all boring.


The pic shows 2 coats, no topcoat. Nice, eh?

Anyway - moving right on to the stamping part. Since stamping is new to me, there’s no way I can leave a crème like it is – it *has* to have some kind of decoration! I chose an all-nail design with flowers from Konad's M73 plate.






It doesn’t actually cover the entire thumbnail, which is weird. I don’t have particularly long or big nails, so I wonder what girls with longer nails do to cover it all.

Anyway – this design reminds me a bit of china – you know, the porcelain stuff :)



Hello Kitty:
Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 7.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Nfu Oh and where not to shop

Nfu Oh. I am told that it's pronounced "En foo oh". :)

I've been fascinated by the brand for a long time. I've seen such beautiful swatches of the various colours and effects it comes in, and the bottle alone is stunning! I knew that I needed a couple of Nfu Oh's in my collection. 

Trouble is, that Denmark is not the best country to live in when it comes to nail polishes. What we have is *very* expensive (compared to what I see you pay for polishes in other countries), and the range of brands is limited. So most of my nail polish shopping is done on online. Next problem is import taxes. If I want to avoid big taxes then I have to shop from a country within the EU. I see what you guys can buy from US sites, and I tell you that I am envious! :D

Enough about that, I actually managed to find Nfu Oh on a German site, and I decided not to limit myself. I just bought the ones I found pretty, and here's the stash: 


The bottles are just gorgeous. I love the way they're shaped. So elegant and pretty. And the colours are stunning! I'm totally in love! <3

A bad thing happened though. When I opened number 61, it was all lumpy and thick and the holo effect was non existent. It was obviously a bad or old bottle of polish. Totally unusable. I took pictures of it - take a look: 



 It's easy to see that it's unusable! :/



I sent the pics to the website owner and asked if they wanted me to return the bottle, or if they would just send me a new one. Imagine my surprise when they refused to send me a replacement one, or any refund. They said that the reason why the bottle of polish was reduced in price was because it wasn't the same quality as Nfu Oh usually are, and that they specifically had been writing that on their website. 

I must admit that I hadn't seen that on their website. Whether it's because it wasn't there when I shopped or because I just didn't notice is irrelevant to me. Fact is that I received a nail polish that is unusable. Reduced quality (or whatever we call it) can possibly be OK, but totally unusable is definitely not OK.

So I won't bother trying any more to get them to send a new bottle of polish or a refund, despite the fact that I'm pretty sure that they would ultimately have to, according to consumer protection laws. I'll just send them a link to this blogpost, and then warn you all against shopping for anything at all on this site: www.glamournails24.de. It seems unlikely that you will get what you pay for, if you do. And no one likes to be cheated, right?

Thanks for your time.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

H & M ~ Cherry

Hi again girls. :)

I am still in stamping mood. I am so fascinated by this technique, because it's so easy to apply that little "extra" that lifts a nail polish up to a higher level. 

This time I applied a cheap nail polish from H&M, namely "Cherry". It's a deep, dark red creme, and to me it's a true winter polish. The colour is so good with my skin tone. I'm naturally pale, and dusty, golden tones are just not my colours, however pretty they may be on others.

I applied the polish, and I must admit I was surprised over how pretty it is, and how easy it was to apply. It's a relatively thick polish, and had I been more precise in applying it, I could have been able to go with one coat only. I applied two, and was very happy with it.


The durability isn't the best - I had my first chip the day after applying, which is a pain. But I look at it from the bright side: It allows me to try some other stamping designs sooner. :)

Anyway - moving right on to the stamping part. 

I chose a design with four little stars from Konad's M3 plate. I am still trying to learn how to place the designs in the same spot on each nail, but until I'm good at that, I allow uneven-ness on my nails. :D


I really like this design! It's simple and cute.

I need a piece of advice though: How do you avoid that the designs streak when you apply the top coat? I waited for a long time before applying the top coat, and the brush still pulled on the design. :/


Tuesday, October 25, 2011

China Glaze ~ In the Lime Light


China Glaze ~ In the Lime Light
Bright neon green polish with a touch of blue shimmer

"In the lime light" is from the China Glaze 2008 INK collection. I bought mine just recently, so it’s still possible to find it online.

This is another one of the China Glaze polishes I was excited to try. Green is not my favourite colour in nail polish as such, however I do like colours that stand out from the crowd. And this seemed to be a good choice for that purpose.

Applying the lacquer was somewhat on the tricky side. It’s quite sheer and very difficult to apply. I kept getting bald spots and streaks. I applied three coats and it dried with a matte finish, like many neon colours do. 

 

I had decided to apply China Glaze’s crackle “Black Mesh” over it, so I stopped after three layers of the green. Had the green been on its own, I would have needed to add a fourth coat for full opaqueness.

Anyway – as I said, the polish dried to a matte finish. I applied Seche Vite top coat over nine of the nails and let it dry. I left my left little finger without top coat because I wanted to see how the crackle would react to that. 


“Black Mesh” did crackle well, also on the nail without the top coat, but it didn’t crackle as much as on the 9 other nails. The pic shows a nail with top coat under the crackle on the left, and the nail without top coat on the right. The difference is quite obvious, isn’t it.


All in all I was very satisfied indeed with this look. It would be great for Halloween, perhaps with a bright orange colour on every other nail.



Opacity: 4/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7.25/10
Buy again: Yes

Sunday, October 23, 2011

MISA & Halloween

Hi girls :)

I’m following quite a lot of nail blogs, and that means I see lots of various colours and nail designs every day. One thing that really fascinates me is stamping. I've been meaning to try it myself for a while now, but Denmark is far behind when it comes to buying nail art stuff. The only solution is to order the "tools" online, and recently I finally got to order a collection of stamping plates and stamping polish from an online site.

I was very exited when the parcel finally arrived, and was determined to try stamping right away. Since we're close to Halloween, I went for an orange base, namely MISA's "Ready, set, sunshine". It's a neon orange creme, which is very easy to apply. The pic shows two coats, next time I promise to be more patient and do three. That way I reach full opacity.



Moving on to the stamping : There are lots of flower and butterfly designs, but it has to be more "rough" for Halloween, so I went for spiders on four nails and a skull on the thumbnail, in black. Both motifs are on Konad's M28.

I have been watching some Youtube vids in order to see how to do it, and I had no problems with making it look the way I wanted it. The hardest part is to place the motifs evenly on the nails. 



A layer of top coat (an old one from Revlon this time), and I was ready to go.
I think it's beautiful, and I wish I had ordered some stamping plates before.

And! A girl stopped me and asked me if she could have a closer look at my nails, and then wanted to know where I had got it made! That was cool!:D 


MISA "Ready, Set, Sunshine" score:
Opacity: 6/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 6/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 6.5/10
Buy again: No


PS. I have been wearing polishes with glitter and shimmer for so long that I was simply amazed over how easy MISA's polish was to remove! :D 

Friday, October 21, 2011

Flexbrush glitter


Flexbrush
Nail Art Multiglitter

It wasn’t my intention for Flexbrush to have a post of its own, but it acted so differently to the way I expected, I feel I have to give it the spotlight and write it up.

After applying the MISA polish “Wink, Blink, Let’s get a drink” (as you can see in the previous post), I decided to spice it up a bit with some glitter. I found this nail art polish from Flexbrush, a lovely multi-coloured glitter, which I thought would look fantastic over the fuchsia.

I applied the glitter in stripes – three vertical stripes lengthwise on each nail and I thought it looked really good. It took longer to dry than expected, but I didn’t really see that as a problem at the time. 




I’m not sure why, but I didn’t apply a top coat over the glitter. Little did I know that I should have done exactly that. And so should you, if you use this product :)

After a couple of hours I happened to wash my hands, and imagine my surprise to see that *all* the glitter washed off! None left on my nails whatsoever. Not one solitary little sparkle!

Have you ever experienced anything like that??

I did apply the stripes again, and coated it with two coats of Sally Hansen Diamond Shine top coat, and that sealed it properly. But seriously, I’ve never before experienced a nail polish product that washed off with soap and water! 

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

MISA ~ Wink, Blink, Let's get a drink


MISA ~ Wink, blink, let’s get a drink
A shimmery, dark fuchsia

‘Wink, blink, let’s get a drink’ is from MISA’s “Spark My Interest” winter 2010/2011 collection.

I do like it when nail polish manufacturers come up with interesting and creative names for their polishes instead of just calling them numbers, but this is the longest name I’ve come across so far.

This particular polish has been sitting in my drawer for quite a while now, waiting to be applied. Had I known how much prettier on the nails it is than it looks in the bottle, I would have tried it on earlier.

 
The picture shows two coats and a layer of my new top coat from Poshé.  

The colour has so much more depth when applied than shows in the bottle. It’s a shimmery dark fuchsia - and very elegant in a cool way.

Here’s what MISA wrote when they introduced this particular polish:
Skip the awkward getting-to-know-you phase and get right to the flirting! This glimmering deep fuchsia will let him know you’re interested from across a crowded room—and will have his eyes glued to you all night as you work your charm. It won’t be long before he leans in and asks, “Another round?”

It may be taking it a bit too far, but seriously: I find this nail polish very flirty and sexy. So yeah, let’s get a drink. :D


Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Monday, October 17, 2011

Nubar ~ Purple Beach


Nubar ~ Purple Beach
A purple/green duochrome

I must admit that I was a bit sceptical before applying this nail polish. This is my second attempt at a duochrome, and I was hugely disappointed with the first one, Color Club’s “Alias” – see review here.

So, I was prepared to be disappointed again, and ready to just wipe the nail polish off, should the desired effect not materialize.

I held my breath while I applied the first coat. I twisted my fingers a bit to see if the effect was coming out, and it was! It materialized right before my very eyes. First it was purple, a soft, almost greyish purple, and then, with a twist of the fingers, it was suddenly ashy green. I was stunned.


A second coat only enhanced the effect. I’m so pleased it worked, and worked so well!

Applying it was easy, this is perhaps one of the easiest formulas I’ve ever worked with. No streaks or bald spots, and it was opaque in two coats. If this is the standard quality for Nubar, I’m certainly looking forward to trying the others of this brand that I’ve got.  

The reason for the relatively low score in “colour, prettiness” is because these particular ashy shades of purple and green are not colours I’d usually go for, cool though the effect is. Next time I’ll try to find a duochrome with stronger or brighter colours, if that’s chromatically possible.



Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 5/10
Durability: 7/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 6.75/10
Buy again: No

Saturday, October 15, 2011

A couple of newbies


Hi again!

I just wanted to show you the result of spending an hour in a Swedish mall. It must have been *the* most boring mall I've ever seen, but they did have a huge Hennes & Mauritz store in there, and I was very lucky that they actually had nail polish on special. O Happy Day!! :D

Here's what I bought:

 Three of H&M's own brand. 

From left to right: 
Black: "Manhunter", Blue: "Moody Model" and Magenta: "Soaked in Purple". 
All cremes, and nice looking colours, too. I've been reading lots of good stuff about H&M's own brand in nail polish, so I'm looking very much forward to trying these on.



  From left to right: 
Hello Kitty: "Pink Summer", H&M: "Sea Pearl" and Daisy Duck: "Daisy".

I'm not really into white or greyish colours, so I'll be using those two for frankening, which will be fun! 

Nice little stash, right? :)

Friday, October 14, 2011

China Glaze ~ Ruby Pumps

China Glaze ~ Ruby Pumps
A red jelly base with bright shimmery red glitter

This has turned out to be my favourite China Glaze nail polish so far. It looks very pretty in the bottle, and I certainly wasn’t disappointed with how it looks on my nails.

I ‘ve seen lots of photos of “Ruby Pumps” and read lots of positive reviews about it, but I wasn’t aware that the glittery colour has a rich complexity that just doesn’t translate well into photographs. Yes, it looks very pretty in the pictures, but it’s absolutely nothing compared to how fab it looks in real life!

It reminds me somewhat of Color Club’s “Ruby Slippers” (which is my favourite of all), but it’s not quite as glittery as that.

The picture shows 2 coats and a layer of Seche Vite top coat. If you wear three coats of polish, you’ll certainly add some extra depth to your colour.


If you like red and shimmer, you should really buy yourself a bottle of this gorgeous colour.



Opacity: 7/10
Colour, prettiness: 10/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8.25/10
Buy again: Yes

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Color Club ~ Wish Upon a Rock Star

Color Club ~ Wish upon a rock star
Multicoloured glitter

This polish is from the brand new Backstage Pass collection, of which I have bought four out of six. I’ll be reviewing the other three as I get to try them on. I have very high expectations of them all!

I thought this polish would be opaque enough to be on its own, but when I saw the first layer, I immediately changed my mind, and decided that the polish needed a base colour. I removed the glitter from the one finger I’d put in on, and started over again with a coloured base coat.

I chose to use a green one from NYX, namely Boho, which is a pale shimmery emerald green, that I would never wear on its own. But it’s cool for nail art or as a base for something like this.


So I gave it two layers of that, before applying the “real deal”: The glitter. Just a tip: If you want to use NYX Boho on its own, I’d suggest at least three coats, as it’s pretty sheer in itself. But anyway – back to what this post is really about.


I applied two layers of “Wish upon a rock star”, and wow! The glitter is simply amazing! It’s a rainbow of colours with larger pink hex glitters. It looks as if someone had a party on my nails, leaving confetti everywhere. And it’s amazingly shiny too! It’s so shiny that when I’m in direct sunlight it looks as
though it’s made of foil.

It’ll be fun to see if it looks just as good with a different colour as a base. I imagine black, purple and pink would look fantastic too.


Opacity: 3/10
Colour, prettiness: 6/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 9/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: No

You might wonder why I have decided that this is a “not buy again”-polish, when I’m so positive in my review. It’s because the colours are a bit “too much” – there is just a bit too much going on all at the same time. But it’s really a cool lacquer!


Monday, October 10, 2011

Lamis ~ Glitter

Hey there girls :)

This post is just to show you how a cheap bottle of nail polish glitter can make a cool nail polish even cooler. I bought this Lamis Glitter online a long while ago. I don't remember exactly what I paid for it, but I do remember it was very cheap. 

It's basically glitter in a clear base. The glitter is multicoloured and comes in various sizes and hexagons. 

I applied it over China Glaze's "Flying Dragon" (see previous post), and it's definitely not the last time I've done that. Take a look and judge for yourself! 


What do you think? Cool, right? :)

Sunday, October 9, 2011

China Glaze ~ Flying Dragon


China Glaze ~ Flying Dragon
Deep Purple with blue and red micro glitter

This polish is from the the China Glaze 2008 INK collection. Not one of the new kids on the block, but all China Glazes are new to me, so that’s not holding me back. I don’t mind if it’s from a previous years’ collection, just as long as the colour is pretty.

I fell for both the colour and for the name, and was very excited to try it on. I loved the vibrant deep purple, and all the blue glitter, that was visible in the bottle.

I hadn’t read any reviews about this polish, so I was surprised to see how matte the finish was, even after the first layer. It was a bit on the tricky side to apply, but I managed. I gave it a second layer, and after that, a third layer. It could possibly have done with only two layers, but some colours just deserve that little extra that another coat adds. It dried very fast, so even though I’m not the most patient person in the world, it wasn’t really an issue to wait for the third layer to dry. 


The picture shows three layers of Flying Dragon on each finger, with the left finger having an additional coat of Seche Vite, which I hope also shows off the matte finish, kinda ‘before and after’.

I have read that it’s the neon in combination with the glitter that gives the rough finish. Two generous coats of Seche Vite Top Coat solves that problem though. People who like matte nail polishes could easily do without any top coat at all.


It’s a cool colour, but I must admit that looks cooler in the bottle than it does on the nails. The glitter is quite a lot less visible on the nails than you’d expect and that’s the downside for me. It’s still a pretty colour though, just not quite as expected.  So – slightly disappointed with the effect but nonetheless pleased with the colour. :)


Opacity: 9/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Buy again: Yes

Friday, October 7, 2011

Orly ~ Star Spangled

Orly ~ Star Spangled
A red jelly with red microglitter

This is from Orly’s “In The Navy Collection” from summer 2010.

I actually have only good things to say about this nail polish. It has just about everything I like: A pretty colour and a nice glitter, which both combine to make a polish with depths that are almost indescribable.

It’s also very easy it is to apply, which in itself is a very good thing.

I applied two coats and was very happy with that, until I saw the photos I took for this blog. Then I realized that it could have used a third coat.
:| 
But never mind. Next time I think I’ll try and use a red as a base coat to see if it makes the colour look even more vibrant. I hope so. :)


 
The photo shows two coats and a layer of Seche Vite top coat.

I actually bought two of these by accident. I had forgotten that I’d already ordered it, and while the first stash was on its way, I re-found it, thought it was a very pretty colour, and ordered it again! So it’s a very good thing that I’m so happy with it!




Opacity: 5/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 7/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: Yes

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Color Club ~ Alias

Color Club ~ Alias
A purple/green duochrome

Alias is from the Color Club Spring 2011 “Alter Ego” collection. I’m a huge Color Club fan, and I am sorry to say that this is the first time I feel that Color Club has let me down. 


I only applied two layers of Alias, and perhaps that is part of the thing that went wrong, because I didn’t see any duochrome effect whatsoever. It was a very sparkly purple, perhaps the sparkliest I’ve ever seen, but no matter how much I twisted and turned my fingers, I didn’t see any green at all. That was very disappointing. I took a picture of the bottle, where the greenish colour actually does show itself, but there is simply no green visible on my nails.

Another thing that surprised me was the formula. The polish was kind of runny and sheerer than any other Color Club I’ve got. So perhaps I should have gone for 3 or maybe even 4 layers. I’ll try that next time and will report back here. 


 
The last bad thing I’ll mention is about the formula also. This took much longer to dry than I’m used to, and it didn’t last as long as the other colours I’ve got either. I must admit, I’m not particularly happy with this product.

The most positive thing I can say about this polish is that it has a nice colour. The purple is really pretty, and as mentioned before, very shiny and shimmery. But, that’s not what I was looking for. I have shiny and shimmery already, you know?

Next duochrome up is from Nubar. I hope I have more luck with that.



Opacity: 5/10
Colour, prettiness: 6/10
Durability: 3/10
Value for money: 4/10
Overall: 4.5/10
Buy again: No

Monday, October 3, 2011

OPI ~ Red Shatter

OPI ~ Red Shatter
A red shatter creme

If you’ve read my previous posts, you’ll realize that I love glitter. But after only a day or two with Color Club’s Magic Attraction, I found myself thinking that it wasn’t dark enough for me. Please don’t get me wrong – I think the glitter was really stunningly pretty, but for some reason I just got bored with it after a couple of days. So I decided to try and spice it up with OPI’s red shatter.

And WOW, that was just an amazing effect. The red itself would have been very ordinary (and thus kind of boring by itself), but with the sparkly glitter underneath, it was simply stunning! 


 
I gave it a nice thick layer of Seche Vite Top Coat, and was very happy with that. - At least for a day. The day after, it decided to chip. And not just small chips, but big chips, a quarter of the fingernail sized chips! Not at all acceptable, and so that joy didn’t last very long. But yes, it was fantastic and very pretty indeed, for a whole day. :)


Opacity: 9/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 2/10
Value for money: 5/10
Overall: 6/10
Buy again: No.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Color Club ~ Magic Attraction

Color Club ~ Magic Attraction
Holographic glitter

There’s no reason for trying to hide it: I am a glitter girl. The more glittery, the better. So it was like a dream coming true when I saw this pretty glitter from Color Club. I mean – glitter is one thing, but holographic glitter is just amazing!

I was very excited and eager to try it on. Would it be difficult to apply nicely? Would it need a coloured basecoat to show opaque? Would it be able to live up to my expectations? There was only one way to find out: Paint it on.

After applying just the first coat I was already stunned! It covered perfectly, no bald spots whatsoever and the glitter was just beautiful. I gave it a second coat, and it was perfect. It lived up to all my expectations, and then some! I felt like I had little disco balls on my nails! :D



The first layer of Seche Vite Top Coat soaked right in, but the second layer left the surface wonderfully smooth and very shiny. Perfect.

The only drawback about this nail polish is that it’s damn hard to remove. Harder than any other glitter polish I’ve ever owned. But without a doubt it’s totally worth it!

If you love glitter as much as I do, this is a must have!!


Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 9/10
Value for money: 9/10
Overall: 9.25/10
Buy again: Yes