NYC, Divage and B. O.

Shimmer, duochrome, flakies and glitter in harmony

I grabbed a few polishes today, for another layering experience.

I started out with NYC’s “Midnight Amethyst” which is a lovely deep purple with microshimmer. The formula is ok I guess. The first layer was a bit patchy but the second coat evened out most of that. I wasn’t quite satisfied though, also because I know that the camera enhance the irregularities, so I applied a third coat, and then I was happy. The drying time between the coats is really good so happily it wasn’t a big deal with the three coats.

Here’s a picture of the first step, the picture is taken in the evening sun:

Isn’t that just pretty? I think it’s an amazing purple!

I grabbed Divage #4908 from the special effect collection. It’s a microflecked polish with a slight duochromatic effect too. I applied a layer over my already purple nails, and here’s what that looked like:

Did you see the blue to purple effect? If I switch the lighting you can see that it almost flashes red as well. Pretty!

Last step was glitter! I used a Chinese polish from B. O., I think it’s number 66 (it could also be number 99 :D ). It’s a clear base with red  and silver holo glitters in various sizes. I brushed a bit of it on the fingertips and let it dry, and my mani was done. I have to say that I don’t like the smell of this glitter (appropriate that it’s by B. O. then ;) ) and it doesn’t have a very good drying time either, but I do like the way it fits with the rest of the mani. Here’s the final result:

That was my little layering experiment for today. I hope you like it as much as I do! :)

Glittering Elements ~ Rain Dancer

Glittering Elements  ~ Rain Dancer

Peacock blue holo, with blue micro sparks!

First one up in this round of Glittering Elements is Rain Dancer. I just love this shade of blue, it’s sooo vibrant and beautiful. The formula is great and so is the opacity. In fact, it was opaque after the first coat but I applied a second one to make sure that the camera wouldn’t show you irregularities that I can’t see myself :D Drying time between the coats is good too, no worries in that department.

Okay, are you ready to see awesomeness? Yes? Here’s two coats, no topcoat, and the pic is taken with flash:

Isn’t that just pretty? I love it. The colour is SO me!

Mmm… and the holo… just gorgeous!

And the best thing? Rain Dancer also looks great in lower lights. Have a look for yourself:

I didn’t want to do much with it to be honest. So I just dapped a bit of microglitter and a star on each nail. The polish I used is number 68 from B. O. I applied a layer of Poshé topcat and here’s the final mani taken with flash:

A low light picture also reveals the microglitter.

Verdict:

Impressive is the best word I can come up with. I just love this polish: the colour, the formula, the finish and the drying time. It’s definitely a winner! Great job, Casey! ♥

Magnetic ~ Spect Stone

Magnetic ~ Spect Stone  

Dark burgundy with scattered holo

I started with two coats of B.O. “Original Nail Envy”. It’s a Chinese polish, it’s pink with silver shimmer and it smells horrible! :D The formula is great though, it applies easily. However, it does dry relatively slowly.

Now let’s move on to the polish this polish is really about: Magnetic “Spect Stone”. Don’t let the name fool you – it’s not a magnetic polish at all. It’s a scattered holo and it’s beautiful.

I taped my nails diagonally across and painted the bottom half of them with Spect Stone. It only took one coat to make it opaque! Then I dotted over the “line” where the two polishes met.

After that I sealed it all up with a coat of Seche Vite, and here’s the final result:

This isn’t as pretty as I hoped for. I must be getting colour blind or something, because the two colours weren’t as good together as they were in my head. I didn’t really love this mani – but that was definitely not the Magnetic’s fault. I’ll give it another go a day where the sun shines, that’s for sure.

 

 

What do you think? Is this a go or a no go? Am I really colour blind, or do these colours go together ok?

BeYu ~ 475 meets Color Club ~ Cold Metal

BeYu ~ 475  

Shimmery turqouise

When I bought this polish I thought it was a duochrome. It looks like one in the bottle. But that’s an optical illusion, because there only one colour in the bottle. It’s a good thing that it’s a nice colour! ;)

I applied two easy coats of BeYu, and behold! The sun had put his hat on, and was out, all ready to play - so here’s a nice sunshine-y pic:

And an indoor pic:

I really like this colour. I think I’ve got a few of them in my stash, so at some point I think I’ll go through it all and see if there’s something I don’t need as much as the others. This one is a keeper, though!

I let it dry and then I taped my nails diagonally across and painted the lower half with Color Club’s “Cold Metal” from the Foiled collection from autumn 2011. This collection of foil polishes is a total win, if you ask me. They are one coaters, which make them perfect for purposes like this. So, one coat on the bottom half of the nails, and I achieved a look like this:

Indoor pic:

I wanted to separate the two colours, and I did that with a silver striping pen from Claire’s. I need to work on getting a steadier hand – I find it very difficult to freehand even simple stripes. I’m not going to stop trying though, and I hope it’s true that practice makes perfect, or at least makes me better. 

Indoor pic:

Last thing up is a glitter from B.O. called 65. It’s a clear base with various sizes of blue glitter in it. There is lots of glitter, so you don’t have to go fishing for it, but you do need to help placing it around on the nail. Sometimes the glitter just want to stay on the brush! :D

Here’s the final result – topped with a layer of Seche Vite top coat:

And the indoor pic:

How do you like the final result?

BeYu 475

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

Misa turns into "My Bonnie is over the Ocean"

My Bonnie is over the ocean

- Or: Misa meets B.O. and Sinful Colors

This day, I was in the mood for layering! I had this beautiful Misa polish “Like it like that” sitting in my stash of untrieds, and I wanted to try it on. It’s a bright metallic green with blue duochrome.

The formula is great, like all the other Misa polishes I own. It took two easy coats to reach full opacity, and I must say that I could easily fall in love with this green! Drying time is on the fast side, and I didn’t have any problems with streaks or bald spots.

Here it is – without top coat:

Isn’t it just lovely?

Now for the second layer: I chose a clear base packed with silver glitter in various sizes. It requires a bit of fishing to arrange the biggest chunks of glitter on the nails, but it’s totally worth the effort if you ask me. The thing that puzzles me the most about this glitter is the smell of it. It smells like weird glue! :D

Here’s that step, still no top coat:

Now for the final step – a Sinful Colors polish called “Green Ocean”. It’s a light green jelly base packed with green and light blue glitter and flakes. The formula is on the thick side, but it’s easy to apply nonetheless. When it gets a bit older it might need a little thinning, but right now it’s manageable.

After a generous layer of Seche Vite top coat, my mani was finished.

Let me introduce to you: My Bonnie is over the ocean:

Here’s a close up to show you what’s going on on my nails:

And here’s the picture of the polishes I used:

So, do you like this layering? How well do you think the blue and the green go together? Is it alright to actually name your manis?

Sponging with Barielle

Hi girls,

Do you know the feeling of having this fantastic idea for a great manicure in your head and also knowing exactly how to make it; but when you actually do it, the mani just doesn’t turn out the way you wanted and imagined it to be?

That’s how it was with this mani. I wanted to sponge silvery grey onto an electric blue and create a line of silver diagonally in the blue. This time I taped my fingers, because I do remember the horrible work of clean up last time I sponged.

I chose two Barielle polishes: Granite Glitter (which has got nothing to do with glitter) and Sky’s the Limit, which is a shimmery blue.

The line didn’t get as prominent as I wanted it to. Here’s how it looked:

Cleanup was easier, but still pretty difficult. The blue didn’t seem to want to let go of the corners of my nails and cuticles. Grrr!

Next step up was to add some stars and some extra shine. I used B. O. number 68 for that. I love that glitter because there’s so many stars in it and so much glitter. It’s *so* me!

Here’s how the final mani ended up looking. There’s one coat of Seche Vite on:

And here’s a pic of the bottles I used:

This was so not what I expected it to be! And I dented two nails pretty badly shortly after, so this didn’t stay on for very long.  

What do you think of this? Do you think it works? 

Stars and Stripes

Wonder Woman

- or "Happy Memorial Day"

I’ve had this idea for a while now, and decided it was time to try it out. I wanted to create a mini stars and stripes flag on my finger nails, but not the traditional way by using stripers and stamps.

When I saw how it all ended up, I decided to name this mani “Wonder Woman”. Take a look and see if you can figure out why! :D

Here are the polishes I used.

Models Own: Snow White, OPI: Red Shatter, Color Club: Trippie Hippie, B. O. : 68

Here’s a mini tutorial showing how I did.

First I applied one coat of white. I used Model’s Own’s Snow White. It isn’t a perfect one coater, but it doesn’t have to be perfect – it’s going to be covered up anyway.

I let that dry for a long time, to be sure it was completely dry. Then I taped half my nail in a diagonal line, and applied OPI’s “red shatter” on the top half of the nail. I removed the tape immediately after application on each nail.

I gave that half of the nail a thin layer of Seche Vite top coat. After some more waiting time, I freehanded the blue on the lower half of the nail. I used Color Club’s “Trippie Hippie” for that step. It’s a very vibrant, almost metallic blue, which I love.

When that was dry it was time for the stars. I used B. O. 68, which is such a great star topper. No fishing necessary. I actually had to scrape some stars off the brush because they were all so eager to land on the nails. I only painted over the blue part of the nail with that polish.

After a generous coat of Seche Vite top coat, the mani was done, and I am *very* happy with it!

 

Please let me know what you think of this in the comments below :)

Catrice ~ Alluring Night

Catrice ~ Alluring Night

Dark teal/blue with microshimmer

and

B. O. ~ 68

Clear base packed with silver glitter and stars

Alluring Night is from the ‘Welcome To Las Vegas’ limited edition. It’s a very dark blue with microshimmer and it looks absolutely beautiful in the bottle.

The formula was a dream – not too runny, not too thick – and the polish went on effortlessly. No streaks or bald spots and it was almost opaque after the first coat. I gave it two coats anyway, to give the polish the best conditions to impress.

It dried up a bit on the matte side. Here’s how it looks without top coat:

Pretty, no?

But a night needs stars to be alluring for real. So I grabbed a bottle of B. O., which is a clear base packed with glitter and stars, and got ready to do some fishing. Little did I know that fishing wasn’t necessary.  There were stars on the brush every time I pulled it up. In fact, I sometimes had to push some stars off the brush, wanting only two stars on each nail.

The polish smells pretty weird. Not bad, just weird, and drying time is definitely on the slow side. Thank god it only needed one layer of glitters/stars.

Here’s the result, all sealed up with a layer of Color Club’s top coat.

Do you like it? I must admit that I am absolutely in love with the B.O. polish!!

Catrice ~ Alluring Night

Opacity: 9/10
Colour, prettiness: 5/10
Durability: 6/10
Value for money: 6/10
Overall: 6.5/10
Buy again: No

B. O.  ~ 68

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

Sinful Colors ~ Sugar Sugar

Sinful Colors ~ Sugar Sugar

Candy cane red with shimmer

There are lots of brands you can’t buy in my part of the world – so I am very grateful for internet shopping. I bought this red polish from Sinful Colors online, and even with the price being doubled because of the postage, it’s still cheap compared to how much a good nail polish costs here.

Sugar Sugar is from the Holiday 2011 Wish collection and it’s a gorgeous shimmery red. It isn’t quite as shimmery as the bottle implies though, but I don’t have a problem with that. I have my own ways of adding bling to a mani!

The formula was good and easy to work with. I was pleasantly satisfied with how it looked after two coats.

Moving on to the bling!

I chose a silver glitter from B. O. called 71. The silver bits are in various sizes, so I was curious to find out how much fishing I would have to do to get the big chunks moving.

As it happens, they came out pretty easily. The problem was actually to get them to leave the brush. There was a lot of pushing around with the brush before they actually ended on the nail. That could quite easily have been annoying.

Here’s how it ended up looking, with a layer of Poshé top coat:

I’ll definitely recommend a layer of top coat between the base colour and the silver chunks, to protect the colour from the pushing around and smearing with the brush.

What do you think? Is it a winner or not? Do you like silver on red?

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

March Nail Mail

I promised myself not to buy polishes during March. 

I couldn't keep that promise... :/ But I got some great polishes. You wanna see? 

Here's a couple that I actually ordered in the beginning of February, that only arrived 5 weeks later. They obviously don't count!!

B.O. 71 and 68

Here's a back shot so you can see what they're about:

B. O. 71 and 68

Silver glitter in many sizes and silver stars in small glitter. Nice, eh?

Next ones up were also ordered in February, and do therefore not count ;)

Jordana Red of Hearts and Green Glitz

L. A. Colors Color Craze: Glistening Purple and Treasure Island

L. A. Girl Glitter Addict: Eutopia, Animate and Nostalgic

 Glitter addict sounds just like my kind of polish!!

Golden Dragon and Suzi skis in the Pyrenees

The Gosh looks so pretty and was on special, and Suzi skis in the Pyrenees is a very dark matte purple that I also ordered in February!

So that was February's polishes. What ruined my promise to myself to begin with was my supermarket having Revlon polishes on special. They don't usually retail Revlon, so I had to just check them out, right?

Beach, Ocean Breeze, Passion Fruit and Emerald city

The three first ones are scented and the last dark green one is a matte.

Belle, Slipper and Star

Glitters! You know I can't do without them!!

Metallic Blue, Metallic Blue, Spark me up, Pink Road, U must have this, Canberra

Five polishes from H&M and one from Herôme. It was Alice Snow who nudged me to go to H&M and check out the polishes on special. The last one is a gift from my boyfriend.So none of these count! :D


To be continued.....

Amour ~ Silver Glitter

Amour ~ Silver Glitter
Polish packed with silver glitter

This is the third time I use a polish from Amour, and each time it’s just getting better.
This silver is so dense that it’s like recycled Pepsi cans. As with the others the formula is excellent, with no streaking or bald spots, and I received full opacity with only two coats.

Here it is, two coats, no top coat: 

Silver can be a bit bland on its own, and I wanted some extra colour. I chose B. O. number 63 – it’s a glitter from BornPrettyStore.com. It’s a clear base with pink holographic glitters in various sizes. I wanted some of the biggest glitters on each of my nails, and that was a bit of a challenge. I had to make sure there was at least one on the brush and then push it around to arrange it on the nail.

Here’s one coat: 

I decided that that wasn’t enough, so I went fishing in the bottle once more and found some more big glitters, and then I was satisfied.
Here’s two coats: 

I think this mani is very festive and extremely beautiful, and I did receive compliments for it. :)

Amour ~ Silver Glitter
Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 10/10
Durability: 6/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8/10
Buy again: Yes