Darling Diva ~ Tis the Season

Darling Diva ~ Tis the Season

Grass green packed with green microglitter, added iridescent glitter

Here’s another special polish for you. It’s special because it hasn’t actually been up for sale in Darling Diva’s shop. Tis the Season was added to the orders that were shipped out just before Christmas. Score!! I didn’t do any shopping around that time, so I got my bottle from a dear friend who did shop for Darling Divas around Christmas. Fortunately for me she doesn’t really wear green polish, so she let me buy it. Double score! Thank you so much ♥

The formula is great and covers easily in two coats. Drying time is good. There aren’t many glitters in the bottle so I didn’t bother fishing for them. I did get some glitter up anyway.

Here’s what two coats and a layer of topcoat looks like in low lights:

Here’s a flash picture to show off the pretty shimmer.

Yet another flash picture. Isn’t this just gorgeous?

I stamped on it (no surprise there, then). Even though this is a Christmas polish it made me long for spring. Grass green and flowers and sunshine! I found my flowery motif on Moyou London’s Pro Collection-14 and I stamped with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Whirlwind White. I dotted orange in the middle of the flowers, and I used Julie G’s Tangerine Dream mixed with a white crème for better opacity for that purpose. Another layer of topcoat completed my mani:

I love this! It makes me long even more for spring!

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Shimmer with iridescent glitter
Overall impression: Awesome green

Buy again: Yes

Glam Polish ~ Incurably Romantic

Glam Polish ~ Incurably Romantic

Deep magenta holo with flecks and microglitter

Incurably Romantic is my other polish from the Diamonds are a girl’s best friend collection from summer 2014. The collection is a tribute to Marilyn Monroe, and I love her to bits!

The formula is good and easy to work with. I used two coats for full opacity and the drying time is good.

Here’s what two coats plus a layer of topcoat look like:

The holo is quite subtle but I love the glitter and the colour.

It’s even prettier if I turn the flash off. Amazing, right?

I made a line of dots across each nail. The blue holo is from Chaos & Crocodiles and is called “LH05”. The soft sky blue holo is from Ellagee and is called “Chase the Clouds Away”. I topped it with another layer of topcoat before I took my pictures.

Here’s a flash picture:

And here’s a low light picture.

Here are the three pretty polishes I used:

Yes, I love this!

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Holo with flecks and microglitter

Overall impression: I love this polish

Buy again: Yes

Glam Polish ~ Bye Bye Baby

Glam Polish ~ Bye Bye Baby

Bright blue holo with flecks and microglitter

Bye Bye Baby is from the Diamonds are a girl’s best friend collection, from summer 2014. The collection is a tribute to Marilyn Monroe, who I adore!

Bye Bye Baby is blue – I’m not sure why that is, I haven’t been able to find anything that relates the song to blue, but never mind, it’s a lovely blue. The formula is good and I used two coats to make it opaque. You might want to use three coats if you’ve got longer nails than me. Drying time is good.

On my thumb and my ring finger I used a shimmery white from H&M called Snow White.

Here’s my final mani:

I stamped stars on the blue, because Marilyn was indeed a true star. I found the star motifs on stamping plate QA45. The lips are from stamping plate KD16, and the two hearts are from an old Essence plate – I love that heart design and have used it a lot of times.  It’s double stamped btw.

Here’s a low light picture – I still love the colours!

The two pretties:

I bought another polish from this particular collection, so stay tuned for that!

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Holo with flecks and microglitter

Overall impression: This is a really nice polish!

Buy again: Yes

A2Z Challenge: P is for Pale

I am a pale person myself – and I’m not just talking ordinary pale. I’m white – almost literally. My legs look as if I put chalk on them! Perhaps my own paleness does that I don’t want pale on my nails too. I knew for sure that I didn’t want to do ordinary pastel nails for this “pale”-challenge.

So I sat down and thought: What’s pale, besides myself. I though of many pale things: Casper the friendly ghost, Dracula, vampires… And then it struck me! Geishas! Geishas are really pale – and beautiful too.

I let this picture inspire me:

I found the picture of the Geisha here: http://geishaworld.wikia.com/wiki/File:Geisha_redux_ii_by_redsun.jpg

And here’s what my nails ended up looking like:

The pinkie is the umbrella, the ring finger is the pattern on the umbrella. The middle finger is obviously the red lips and the index finger is the flowers in her hair.

Now that’s the kind of pale that I like!

Here’s the gradient alone. It’s made of NailNation3000’s White and H&M Berry Love, which is a bright red crème. The red turned pink when I mixed it into the white, but oh well.

Here are the four polishes I used: 

NailNation 3000: White, H&M: Berry Love, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri: Rapid Red (for the stamped lips), Moyou: Pink (also for stamping).

The challenge next week is Quirky. I don’t even really know what it means, so let’s see what I can come up with.

You should also check out what these super cool girls did – I can’t wait to see it myself:

An InLinkz Link-up

Stamping plate BP-42

Stamping plate BP-42

 BP-42 is round and has four different kinds of motifs on it. It looks like this:

I chose to stamp with the design on the top right. I stamped on top of two layers of Fresh Paint “Steampunk”. It isn’t really my colour but I think it fits the design just perfectly. Take a look:

I have relatively small and short nails, so I was able to get different designs on each nail. I like that a lot!

How do you like this?

The verdict:

Pros:

Four big designs on each plate

It’s possible to get different designs on each nail from the same pattern

Perfectly edged

Cons:

I can’t think of any

LynBDesigns ~ Seize the Day, Boys

LynBDesigns ~ Seize the Day, Boys

Blue toned green linear holo

Seize the Day, Boys is from the Spark of Madness collection. I love teals, and the title must be from the movie “The Dead Poets’ Society”, which is a brilliant movie! So yes please, come and join my stash, little polish!

I used two coats for this mani, but I’m pretty sure you need three coats if you got longer nails than I have. I decided to let two coats be enough. Drying time is good. I had no problems with the formula.

Here’s two coats and no topcoat, picture is taken with flash:

I love the rainbows in this polish!

Here’s a low light picture. The rainbows still want to pop, and here you can see the golden shimmer too.

I fucked it up, obviously. I don’t know why I can’t do leopard print, it’s so annoying. Other girls make it look ridiculously easy, but fact is that I can’t make it look good, grrrr!

But anyway, I post my fails too, as you know. So you’ll see for yourself in a moment. I used Ellagee’s “Shake a Poor Sinner’s Hand” for the spot and just a black striper from Claire’s to “surround” them. I topped the whole thing with topcoat and here’s my final mani taken with flash:

And here’s a low light picture:

The pretty bottles:

I know this is nowhere near perfect, but never mind, they can’t all be. This is a learning curve for me, and perhaps some day I’ll get to nail the leopard print technique too! Wish me luck! :D

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Pretty good

Finish: Linear holo with flecks and shimmer
Overall impression: I love the name, the colour and the rainbows! It would have been even cooler without the golden touch, but that’s just because I’m not that much into golden looking polishes

Buy again: Yes

Mentality ~ Vexare

Mentality ~ Vexare

Blackened multichrome with fleck shifting between blue, violet, red and orange

 Vexara is also listed as a tetrachrome, and I’m still not sure what that means, but never mind. Like its sister “Velle”, it’s packed full with flecks, and it’s a colour shifter too.

The formula of Vexare is a little bit thick, but to me that’s perfect. It’s a polish that’s really easy to work with, it almost applies itself! The drying time is good, no issues to report there either.

I applied two coats on each nail, except on my ring finger, where I applied two layers of black – to test out if it’s true that Vexare is good for stamping as well.

Here is what Vexara looks like:

The Colour shift ifn Vexare is stronger and visible in all light settings. It’s even obvious in the stamp too.

I only saw orange in the bottle though, but I love a good purple/blue shift, so this is perfect for me.

One last picture of it, just because I want to :D

Verdict:

Vexare is a seriously cool polish. I love the colours, the colour shift, the formula and the fact that it stamps so well. 

EDIT: I don't use Mentality's polishes any more after all the fuss about the polish that made other girls' nails lift off the nailbeds!

Number of coats: 2 – and it works perfectly for stamping too
Drying time: Good

Finish: colour shifting flecks
Overall impression: Love it!

Buy again: Yes!

Dance Legend ~ Matte #631 and Rio #4

Dance Legend ~ Matte #631 and Rio #4

Red with stars and stripes

Today I’m going to show you two of my Dance Legends. It has quickly become a favourite brand, they make fabulous holos but they also do basic polishes and glitters.

See what I did with two of them:

 

The red base colour is #631 from the matte collection. It’s a classic red with shimmer, and it dries up matte. Two coats is what it takes and the drying time is really good. You can literally see paint dry! :D

This next picture is taken with flash so you can see the pretty shimmer.

On my ring finger and my index finger I’ve got one coat of Rio #4. It’s a clear base with neon pink glitters, hexes, squares and stars. I didn’t fish for the stars of course, as always it’s just one dip in the bottle per nail here. The drying time is on the slow side, but a fast dry topcoat fixes that little challenge.

On my pinkie and my middle finger I made some stripes with a shocking pink striper and black. There’s a layer of topcoat to finish the mani too.

Here’s what Matte #631 looks like on its own. It’s two coats. I imagined it darker when I bought it, but I’m really happy with this colour! Finally a red without golden shimmer :D

Here are the two polishes and the two stripers I used:

Do you like my stars and stripes?

Number of coats: 2 layers of the matte, 1 of the glitter
Drying time: pretty good for the matte, slow for the glitter

Finish: Matte / Glitter
Overall impression: I love both polishes!

Buy again: Yes to both

Mentality ~ Velle

Mentality ~ Velle

Blackened multichrome with fleck shifting between yellow, green and blue

Here’s a polish from Mentality. It’s listed as a tetrachrome. I’m not sure what that means exactly, but I do know that it’s packed full with flecks, which I love. And you know that I love polishes that can actually do something right? Well, this one is both a colour shifter and works for stamping. How great is that!

The formula is a little bit on the thick side, but I actually prefer that. It’s still really easy to work with, self-levelling, and very forgiving if you need to run a brush over a specific area of the nail more than once. Drying time is good too. I applied two coats and a layer of topcoat, and I thought I might as well test its stamping qualities at the same time. So I painted the nail on my ring finger black and stamped with Velle over that. And that works just perfectly. Take a look at my final mani here:

The colour shift isn’t amazing in this one, but it’s definitely there. I’m not sure I can see the yellow, but perhaps it’s just because it’s so close to the green that my eye can’t detect it.

On this picture you can see the shift from green to blue.

I will definitely be using this for stamping again! It stamps great!

Verdict:

Mentality just got an extra point in my book for making colour shifting fleck polishes that actually stamp. It’s so cool to have polishes that you can use in various ways depending on what mood you’re in. The quality of the polish is good, so yes, Velle gets a polished thumbs up from me! 


EDIT: I don't use Mentality's polishes any more after all the fuss about the polish that made other girls' nails lift off the nailbeds!

Number of coats: 2 – and it works perfectly for stamping too
Drying time: Good

Finish: colour shifting flecks
Overall impression: Wow, this is an impressive polish!

Buy again: Yes

Darling Diva ~ The Grand Rite

Darling Diva ~ The Grand Rite

Deep red linear holo

The Grand Rite is from the Salem collection. It’s described as deep red, but my bottle is more burgundy than deep red to be honest. Fortunately I don’t mind burgundy as long as it’s not gravy brown, and this one isn’t.

I paired it with a texture silver/holo glitter from Sephora’s Formula X collection called Freaky Like Freud – and let me show you the final mani first:

  

It’s two coats of both The Grand Rite and Freaky Like Freud. They are both great polishes that covers really well. The drying time is good too.

I dotted the silver glitter onto the burgundy and then, made stripes over the glitter with the burgundy. Freaky Like Freud is really topcoat hungry, so I applied a layer of topcoat and shortly after it was textured again. I like that!

This picture is taken in low lights. The Grand Rite still likes to flash some rainbows but the Freaky Like Freud gets a little bit muted.

Here’s what the look like without dots and stripes:

I love these two together. Freaky Like Freud is so cool, I love it to bits!

Here are the mandatory bottle shot:

I like this. How about you?

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Linear holo/glitter texture
Overall impression: I love both these polishes

Buy again: Yes to both