Essence ~ 01 Hello Holo

Essence ~ 01 Hello Holo

Holographic silver microglitter

Hello Holo is the first polish in the Holo Rainbow Collection from Autumn 2017. There are five polishes in the collection and I bought all five of them. Glitter and holo – it’s right up my alley.

I wasn’t quite sure whether these polishes were toppers or not, but I was ready to take the chance. And the good news is that they aren’t toppers.

I used two easy coats for full coverage. The drying time is a bit faster than average.

The rose stamp is from the stamping plate “Celebrate BPX-L014” and I stamped with a Max Factor polish my boyfriend bought for me a couple of years ago: “Burgundy Crush”.

Here’s the final manicure, including one layer of topcoat. The photo is taken in a rare beam of sunlight.

Here’s the same thing in my lightbox so you can see that the stamp is actually roses.

And here’s Hello Holo on its own. Two coats and no topcoat involved yet.

This is the stuff I used for my manicure.

Hello Holo loves topcoat. I ended up with two layers of topcoat but my nails still weren’t smooth. I don’t mind, I just wonder how many coats it would actually take to make the glitter flat.

  

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Holographic microglitter
Overall impression: This is so blingy! I love it!

Buy again: Yes

Icing, Max Factor and Savina watermarble

Icing, Max Factor and Savina watermarble

Today was apparently a very bad day for water marbling! I had such problems with it that I would have given up if it wasn’t for the fact that I am really stubborn.

I tried everything and nothing worked. I tried different polishes, different water, different cup, even different order of the polishes. Nothing worked. The polishes refused to spread or they dried too fast on the water surface.

I intended to do a burgundy/white/black water marble, but neither the white or the black wanted to spread on the water. So after 15 attempts and literally one million cotton buds later I finally got something to work just a little bit.

This here is Max Factor’s Burgundy Crush, Icing’s Teal for Real and Savina’s Fantasy Files, topped with El Corazón’s 421h/25:

I simply don’t know what went wrong today. Perhaps it’s the temperature or the humidity. It’s weird, that’s what it is.

And this pattern is completely different than what I had in mind, but I had to work fast and dunk those nails into the water when I had something that just vaguely resembled a water marble.

Here are the polishes I used:

Icing: Teal for Real, Max Factor: Burgundy Crush, Savina: Fantasy Files, El Corazón 421h/25

 

 Phew. I’m just glad I got something on my nails!

Nail Mail from Russia again - and with love ♥

Once again I've swapped with my dear friend from Russia, Anastasia from Little World of ColouredNails.  The waiting time wasn't as long this time as it has been before. I think it took about 5 weeks this time. So yes, I was thrilled when the mailman arrived with my Russian goodies!!


Here's one half of the polishes: 

And here's the other half: 

 Let's take a closer look at them, shall we. 
First three up are Dance Legends. Lots of glitter, yay!

Dance Legend: 917, Aztec 8 and 920

Two more Dance Legends. I love the brand so I was happy to see five of them in this swap! These two are colour shifters - the left one is textured, and the right one is a flakie! 

Dance Legend: Sahara Crystal 15, and 529

Then there's a couple of brands I also recognize, Pupa and Jeanmishel. Pretty shimmers both of them: 

Pupa 726 and JeanMishel (name is in Russian :) )

Here's a pretty couple too, Eva and Bell. Eva is pink hologlitter and Bell is a blue/purple glittertopper: 

Eva 085 and Bell Glam Night sparkle 03

Then there's a brand I've been wanting to try for a while: El Corazón. This is a pretty pink with black "dots" that look like tiny poppy seeds. And Seventeen - a beautiful duochrome called 539

El Corazón Dotty Girl and Seventeen 539

Divage is a brand I've received from Anastasia before. They're so pretty, so I welcome another member of that family. It's a blue/red/purple/golden duochrome. Aurelia is new to me, but wow! She's absolutely gorgeous. I love the colour shift in her! 

Divage Special effects 4908 and Aurelia 405

Holo and glitter is always welcome. Dona Mirella is a silver holographic glitter. I can't see the name of the Max Factor, but it's black with silver shimmer.

Dona Mirelle 010 (I think) and Max Factor unnamed

The last polish of them all is very special to me already. It's a multicoloured glitter leaning green. And the best of it is that it's a frankenglitter made especially for me. I'm thrilled! ♥

Frankenglitter

 I also received a new handcream - perfect timing, because the one I got last time we swapped is almost empty. Then there's nail wraps and what I believe is a lip balm with cherry. It's something with cherry anyway :D

Handcream, nail wraps and maybe lipbalm

Anastasia also sent me a necklace with a cute pendant. 

There was also candy, but I didn't get to photograph that, sorry! 

That's my great Russian swap. Thank you so much, Anastasia for making this a great one! ♥

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! ♥

Music Challenge 10: Ray of Light (Madonna)

Music Challenge 10: Ray of Light (Madonna)

I’m not a hardcore Madonna fan, although I like some of her music. I like this song, but it’s not my favourite of her songs and I’m not particularly crazy about the video. There’s way too much going on in it, in my opinion.

Anyway – I started out with two coats of Gina Tricot Beauty Nails’ “Cabaret”. It’s a purple with pink, purple and blue microglitters in it. It’s almost a one coater, but I gave it two, to get the maximum beauty out of it. The formula was good, the polish applied easily. Drying time was OK, although tending to be on the slow side.

No top coat:

Here’s a pic from another angle, where the microglitter really shows itself. I’ve got a couple of other polishes from this brand, and I have to say that I’m a little bit impressed. They’re cheap, and yet the quality is exceedingly good for such a cheap polish. I like that!

I added my rays using a striper polish from Flexbrush. It hasn’t got a name, but it’s a dense silver glitter. I added three rays on each nail, except for the thumb that got four.

Here’s that step:

You can see that the brush is relatively thick for a striper, so this polish is almost impossible to apply in thin lines. This works for me though:

Then I added some depths to it. I used Essence Dance top coat “Waking up in Vegas”, which is a pretty flakie. I applied that on my ring finger and my thumb. And then I applied Max Factor’s “Fantasy Fire” on the remaining nails. Both polishes worked amazingly well for the purpose.

Here’s the final mani – after having applied one coat of Seche Vite top coat:

And from another angle to show you both shimmer and flakies:

Here's a bottle shot: 

 

This mani really works for me, and I’m happy with how it turned out. What do you girls think?

Last challenge up is in three days, and we’re going to see be “Born to be Wild”! I hope to come up with something really cool!

Check out the other girls’ blogs to see how they interpreted “Ray of Light”.

Aylin: http://poshnailart.blogspot.com

Mette and Lisa: http://neglerier.blogspot.dk

Anne Mette: http://amnegle.blogspot.dk/

Brianna: http://welcometobriannasworld.blogspot.com

Celia: http://neglegejl.blogspot.dk/

Astrid: http://polish-life.blogspot.com

Bonus link to Madonna’s Ray of Light:

Max Factor Glossfinity ~ Amethyst

Max Factor Glossfinity ~ Amethyst  

Dark purple crème

Max Factor only started selling Glossfinity full size polishes here recently. They’re not cheap, normal price is 79DKK/13.85US$/10.6EUR, but I was lucky to find these at “special introduction price” (50DKK/8.75US$/6.75EUR), so I bought three. Amethyst is the first one I try on.

The formula is quite good, it’s thick without being gloopy, and it’s easy to apply. It takes two coats to reach opacity.

Here’s an indoor shot – the sun didn’t want to come out and play! 

It says “for up to 7 days” on the bottle. I can’t remember if I have ever actually worn a polish for that many days in a row! But perhaps I’ll test it at some point, just to see if it’s all about marketing!

Time to sparkle it up! I applied one coat of Catrice “Return of space cowboys” from the “Million Styles” collection. It’s such a lovely topper, which makes the purple almost duochromatic! And if that wasn’t a word before, it is now! :D

Here it is, without any additional top coat:

Sparkly and cool, isn’t it?

Now, onto the stamping. I picked a Konad stamping plate, M83, and used Barry M’s Instant Nail Effects Foil in the colour Purple.

Here’s the final result, sealed up with a layer of Poshe top coat:

Do you like it? Man, I absolutely love that Catrice topper!

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 9/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 7.75/10
Buy again: Yes

Max Factor ~ Dazzling Blue

Max Factor ~ Dazzling Blue  

Light blue/green/purple multichrome

I bought this because I thought it was sea green. Little did I know that I’d got my hands on a multichrome that flashes more blue than green.

The formula is ok to work with. I was positively surprised by the brush – I had expected a very thin brush, but this one actually normal in size and good to work with. It took three coats to reach opacity. Normally it would have annoyed me to wait in between coats, but the drying time was fast so it wasn’t a chore to sit and wait.

Here’s what three coats without top coat looks like.

You can see that it flashes blueish green and purple. It’s a very special colour combo IMO. The colour is a bit pale, and I’ve stepped a little outside my comfort zone here. That’s why I chose to stamp on it, to darken it a bit.

I chose an all nail design from a stamping plate called A28 and I used a Spoiled polish called “The Parking Meteor has expired”, which is a blackened teal that looks absolutely gorgeous in the bottle. The shimmer looks amazing. That didn’t transfer onto the nail unfortunately, but the stamping worked.

Here’s how it ended up looking like:

I like that. But there’s still something missing, isn’t there? Glitter, of course! So I used my Jesse’s Girl “Opal Glitter”, which is a clear base with iridescent glitter. I wanted to spice up the “scales” of the snake skin.

And here’s the final mani. There’s no top coat involved at this point.

I call it “The Chameleon”! :)

And here’s a shot of the bottle. Look at that multichrome!

 Have you ever been expecting one colour from a polish, and then experienced something completely different? Do you prefer this mani with or without the glitter?

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