Layering Avon, Dona Mirelle and Golden Rose

Just another layering experience

I was in the mood for another layering experience with some of the polishes from my infamous box of untrieds.

I started out with Avon’s “Night Violet” which is a deep purple-based burgundy with blue shimmer. A gorgeous vampy polish for sure. The fomula is a bit thin but it still only took two coats to make it opaque, which was cool. Drying time is average.

Here’s what Night Violet looks like without topcoat:

Check out the shimmer – isn’t she just pretty as?

I added a coat of Dona Mirelle’s L10. It might also have a number, but all the text on the back side of the polish is in Russian, so I can’t read it. Anyway, it’s a silver/holo microglitter. It’s not really a topper, but I used it as such, ‘cause that’s the kinda girl I am. It does cover quite a deal of the original polish underneath it. Take a look:

I like the holo effect it added and also that it toned the darkness of the Avon down. That sounded better in my head, but you know what I mean.

Time for gliddah! I found a purple glitter from Golden Rose’s Carnival collection. It’s number 08, and it’s purple, and it’s glitter in various sizes & shapes, including shreds and bar glitter. Interesting mix for sure. I added one coat over my existing mani, and here’s the final result for today:

I quite like the mix!

Do you ever layer just for the sheer heck of it? :)

Avon ~ Starburst, Galaxy, Celestial & Eclipse

Avon ~ Starburst, Galaxy, Celestial & Eclipse

A scattered holographic skittle

Today I want to show you no less than four polishes I received in a swap, namely four of Avon’s scattered holos.

Starburst is magenta, Galaxy is blue, Celestial is light green and Eclipse is black. And that’s the order I’m showing them in here.

The formula is good for all of them. I had a little trouble with the black one, which didn’t quite work like I wanted it to. It became a bit “lumpy” and hard to put on evenly. Perhaps it was because it dried relatively fast, and the first brush stroke had dried a little when I ran over with the brush again to even things out. But it was only Eclipse (the black one) I had that little problem with, the others went on effortlessly.

The coverage is fine too, two coats is what it takes, and neither of the coats need an aqua basecoat for underwear. I just used my regular basecoat and that worked fine. Right then. No more talk, here they are without a topcoat:

Starburst, Galaxy, Celestial & Eclipse

 The pictures are all taken in direct sunlight, and even though I usually prefer linear holos to scattered, I love the way these shine!

Starburst, Galaxy, Celestial & Eclipse

I put Starburst, the magenta one, on my thumb. The magenta is my favourite of the bunch, it’s so pretty – also out of the sunlight! Galaxy, the blue one, comes in second.

Starburst, Galaxy, Celestial & Eclipse

When I saw the bottles I thought I wouldn’t like the green – it looked too pastel for my taste. But seriously: I even like that one on me!  Holy Smokes!

Starburst, Galaxy, Celestial & Eclipse

A bonus shot of the thumbnail. Oooh la la, I like it!

And here are the bottles posing in the sunshine:

  

There’s my Avon holo skittle for you, girls. I’m impressed with pretty much everything about them. I love the formula, the drying time and the way they look both in and out of the sun. That means I can actually also wear them in the winter or when we have less sun here.

Please tell me what you think of this! I like – but what about you?
Have you maybe even got them yourself?

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

Back from vacation + Turkish swap

I've been on vacation - that's why I haven't posted for a week! I was in London, England, and I enjoyed every single moment of it! I obviously bought a lot of polish too, but I haven't finished unpacking yet, so you'll have to wait with that haul! Instead I'll show you something else: 


Do you know the feeling of receiving something that you really want? That's the way I felt just before I went on vacation! Aylin and I decided to swap again, and I had some really cool polishes on my wish list, so I was looking forward to receiving the package!

It varies a lot how long it takes for our packages to arrive. Turkish postal services aren't the fastest, and nor are the Danish customs. But I was really lucky. It only took 3 days for my package to arrive; I was surprised that it's even possible! 

Enough of the talking, here's what she sent:

Doesn't that just look amazing? Let us take a closer look at the pretty polishes.

Golden Rose:

Golden Rose #307, 327, 343, 311 and 71

 I'm looking so much forward to trying these on. I've become a huge fan of Goden Rose's shimmer polishes!

Pastel's New Year Glitter:

Pastel #316, 317 and 315

 That's my first Pastel glitters, and they look so cool. I love the little Christmas tree on the cap too!

Catherine Arley polishes! :

Catherine Arley #946, 805, 804 and 637

 Oooh... and there's more:

Catherine Arley #673, 666, 677 and 800

Most of these are holos, so all I can say is "Whoa!" 

And here's the last lot of pretties: 

Flormar Matte M08 and M11, Avon Cosmic Blue, Rimmel Metal Rush,
and Golden Rose Jolly Jewels #106

Don't they all just look so cool?! I mean, how can I ever choose which one to try on first???

Thank you so much Aylin, for doing this swap with me. I hope you like your polishes just as much! ♥

Valentine's Day part II

Valentine’s Day, part II

Avon, Golden Rose, Sally Hansen and NYX

We don’t really celebrate Valentine’s Day in Denmark, even though the florists and candy stores really want us to. I guess that means that some are beginning to take this American holiday seriously, but not me.

But since I know that I have got readers from all over the world, I decided to take this opportunity to nail some of the pinks in my stash of untrieds. First one up is Avon’s “Viva Pink”, that I received via a swap with lovely Anastasia from Little World of Coloured Nails.

This is what I’d describe as a Barbie pink crème, it applies easily and covers well in two coats. Drying time is a bit on the slow side, so I added a few drops of Sally Hansen Dry Kwik to speed things up.

Here’s a pic of it. It’s not colour accurate. The pic shows a coral tone, that the polish doesn’t actually have. I don’t know why this particular pink made my cam go crazy (and illustrates why it’s not possible for me to totally trust other people’s swatches online – I know that what you see isn’t necessarily what you get in the bottle):

Then I added a layer of glitter from Golden Rose. It’s called 165, and is a mix of small glitters, hexagons and bar glitter, in magenta, silver and holographic. It’s also a polish that Anastasia sent me! My intention was to just put glitter on half the nails, but this is definitely a topper, so the contrast wasn’t big enough for my likings. So: I ended up applying glitter to all of the nails. When I made the pics ready for this post, I realized that I hadn’t taken any pics of this particular step…

Then I stamped on my ring finger, my middle finger and my thumb, using a stamping plate from Bundlemonster: BM02 and Sally Hansen Insta-Dry “Wined up”, which is a lovely, deep red, shimmery polish.

I painted stripes on the remaining nails, using a striper polish from NYX Ink called “Deep Red”. It’s a perfect name for it, because it’s exactly what it is, LOL!

I think this is a quite nice mani for Valentines Day! :)

Here is a picture of three of the four polishes I used. The Golden Rose must really have felt left out!

So here’s a picture of it on its own. I’m usually not a bar glitter fan, but I like this polish!

That’s it. My second take on a Vday mani! :)

Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day where you live?

From Russia - with Love

Yesterday when I got home, I had nail mail waiting for me. It was all the way from Russia, and it was from very sweet Anastacia from Little World of Coloured Nails. I didn't know exactly what was in the package, and man, was I in for a surprise. There were so many pretties in it, that it was difficult to stay calm.

Let me show you what I'm talking about:

JA-DE: 210, 225 and 355 Celestial

 Duochrome, shimmer and glitter!

Dance Legend: 12, 14 and 52

 2 holos and a very pretty multichrome!

Divage: Cosmic 9805 and 9806 and Precious 1222

 Shimmers! And a duochrome!

Pupa: 136 and 051, Eva 061 and Divage Chic 1714

Pupa polishes - I have been wanting to try Pupa polishes forever. And that Eva looks really interesting!

Severina 3D: 310 and Chameleon:  615. Chatte Noire 709

A holo, a duochrome and a multichrome. That Chatte Noire is probably the most spectacular multichrome I have! 

Golden Rose Paris: 131 and Golden Rose Care and Strong: 165
Avon Viva Pink, Max Factor Nailfinity Lilac Haze

 Golden Rose is a really great brand that I like a lot. And the two others were the two polishes that started this swap to begin with :)

And I also got deliciously smelling hand cream, a home made lip gloss (or two, in a box) :) and oil for my lashes.

Am I being pampered here, or what? 

Thank you so much for this swap, Anastacia, I appreciate it all! ♥

Avon Matte ~ Violetta

Avon Matte ~ Violetta  

Dark matte purple

Avon is a new and not so easy to obtain brand for me. That means I haven’t seen it at my regular online nail polish shops. I bought this matte purple in a blog sale. I didn’t buy it because it’s a matte, because I really like shiny things. I bought it because I really liked the colour, and I know that the top coat does the shiny trick.

The application was a challenge, but that’s obviously because I’m a newcomer when it comes to matte polishes. It dried so fast that it was really unforgiving. Every thin spot showed up mercilessly. The brush was a dream to work with though – nice and wide, without being unmanageable. The second layer went better, now that I knew what to expect, so I got everything nicely smoothed out.

This polish is so thick and pigmented that it is a perfect stamping polish too! Yay for that. 

Here is how it ended up looking, two coats, but no top coat:

It looks a little bit like silk – and it feels like it too! And the pic is pretty colour accurate.

But! As I said: I like it shiny, so I decided to stamp on this. I used Barry M’s “Lilac foil”, and the stamping plate BM206 from Bundlemonster.

Here’s what it looked like after a generous coat of Seche Vite:

 I must admit that I’m not 100 % satisfied with this mani. Seche smudged the stamp too much, and I haven’t stamped as evenly as I’d like to. Having said that, I must say that it looks much better in real life. I guess that’s what matters, really.

What do you think? Would you use this matte polish on its own? Should I have?

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 9/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9.5/10
Buy again: Yes