No 7 ~ Milan with Jordana Glitter ~ Lunar Lights

No 7 ~ Milan with Jordana Glitter ~ Lunar Lights

A very girly Hello Kitty-mani

Here’s a super short and very girly post.

I swear I get diabetes if it ever gets sweeter than this! :D

Base colour is from No 7 – a polish I bought in London last year. It’s a two coater, and the drying time between the coats is pretty average. The glitter is a Jordana glitter called Lunar Lights. It’s basically a clear base with iridescent glitter.

The Hello Kitty nail stickers are bought in Claire’s. They aren’t fantastic though. They are so stiff and that makes them stick out from my curvy nails and it takes a truckload of topcoat to solve that problem!

Here’s what the two polishes look like:

Are you into girly manis like this? Or do you prefer something a bit more edgy?

No. 7 ~ Betty Blues with Color Club ~ Over the Moon

No. 7 ~ Betty Blues

Deep dark blue with shimmer

I was in the mood for something dark today, and I’ve been having this super dark blue sitting in my box of untrieds since I was in London in April. So, Betty Blues’ time to move into the promised land called Helmer has come :)

The formula is good and the brush is wide, so the polish is really easy to apply. The coverage is good too, which is not a surprise when the polish is as dark as this. It took two easy coats to make this completely opaque.

Let me show you what it looks like. Here’s a pic of two coats, no topcoat:

The polish is so dark that it almost looks black. It’s actually almost too dark for me.

Fortunately there are ways to work around that! I had stamping in mind. I used my XL stamping plate A and I stamped with Color Club’s “Over the moon” from the Halo Hues collection. It’s an amazingly strong holographic blue, which stamps perfectly. If you don’t believe me you can take a look for yourself:

This is much better than the blue on its own. I like the way the lighter shade of holo breaks the larger almost black surface

I like the pattern as well, although I need to practice more with the squishy XL stamper. I seem to tend to stretch the patterns a bit when I stamp. I think I’m the one who notices it the most though.

The brand No. 7 seems to be a pretty good brand, but the range of colours is rather limited, and this is a tad too dark for me, really. This mani only works because of the stamping, imo.

Please don’t hesitate to share your thoughts about this in the comments below.

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 4/10
Durability: 7/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 6.5/10
Buy again: No

Orly ~ Sparkling Garbage and No. 7 ~ Totally Teal

Orly ~ Sparkling Garbage (with No. 7 ~ Totally Teal)

Green jelly base packed with holo glitter

Sparkling Garbage is from Orly’s Mash Up collection from summer 2013. I have seen that it can be totally opaque on its own, but I was in the mood for layering! I started out with two coats of No. 7’s Totally Teal which is a lovely dark teal crème. The formula is great for crème, and so it the drying time. And I love the shine of this polish. Here it is without topcoat:

Isn’t that just a lovely crème and a perfect underwear for the Sparkling Garbage? I think it is!

So, I applied one coat of Orly. The glitter spread out easily and evenly without much effort at all. It dried pretty fast and I sealed the whole thing up with a layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine topcoat. And here’s what my mani ended up looking like:

I think that “Totally Teal” is the perfect underwear for the glitter!

The pictures are all taken in the sunshine – look at that holographic glitter – it’s amazingly pretty!

Here are the sisters in crime:

I was thrilled to find out that Sparkling Garbage is more than a topper – and also to see that it’s really pretty with some darker underwear.

About Orly’s new bottle design: I like the new top, the ridges in the rubbery finish gives a really good grip to the brush. I’m not crazy about the new Logo. I think it looks cheap compared the the previous classic “O” on the bottle.

How do you feel about the new bottle design? Is is a win or a fail or don’t you really care at all?  :)

No7 ~ Vivid Violet & China Glaze ~ Bad Kitty

No7 ~ Vivid Violet

Purple red-toned shimmer

&

China Glaze ~ Bad Kitty

Iridescent glitter in a pale pink jelly base

I bought No7 on my vacation in London. I haven’t tried the brand before, but the purple looked really cool, so I wanted to give it a try.

The formula is really good. It applies easily and it took two coats to reach desired opacity. Drying time is pretty average, which is ok.

Here’s what two coats look like. There’s no top coat involved just yet: 

Isn’t that shine just looking great?

I think this is a fine purple!

Now for the glitter. “Bad Kitty” is a birthday gift from one of the girls I’m in a birthday group with, namely Maria. I was very pleased to unwrap it, because it’s been on my wish list for a while now :)

Anyway, one coat of Bad Kitty and here’s what that looks like:

The glitter is denser than I though it would be, but I really like the look of it.

Stamping time! I used my new stamping plate Apipila01 and I stamped with Kiko 616 Silver from their Mirror collection. I sealed it all up with a layer of Poshé top coat, and here’s the final mani: 
 

I must admit that the glitter underneath overwhelms the heart design a bit, but I like it anyway!

Here are the polishes I used:

So there you have it: Three new polishes used in one single mani :)

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

London haul

I spent a week in London recently, and I enjoyed every minute of it. I visited a lot of different sights, saw a lot of things and did also get time to do a bit of shopping. I was asked to show my London haul, but it has taken a bit of time to get the polishes I bought sorted out, since I also bought polishes for swaps and for a couple of friends. 

But - here's the haul that I think I'm going to keep: 

The haul

There's a lot, isn't there?! Let me show you a bunch of them up close.

First there's four Fashionista polishes. It's a brand that's new to me, and I loved these four colours:

Fashionista: Ruby Slippers, Laila, Jet Set & Mystical Dragon

Invogue is another brand I haven't tried before. This is a series of suedes, and I've seen beautiful swatches of these on other blogs.

Invogue: Hot Gossip, Sophisticated & Emerald Dust

Kiko! These five are from their collection of mirror-polishes. They're highly pigmented and no less than perfect for stamping.

Kiko Mirrors: 616, 618, 621, 622 & 625

Kiko Sugar Matt! I bought all the shimmery ones except for the pink one. I regret now that I didn't buy that as well! :/

Kiko Sugar Mat: 643, 644, 645, 646

And three more Kikos. These three are from their Celebration LE series. Again, these are the shimmery ones from the collection.

Kiko Celebration: 621, 623, 624

Nail Pop. I have never even heard of this brand before, but look at how pretty they are! There's a blue and a orange/green flakie on top of the row, and the other four are glitters.

Nail Pop: Top row: Pearl Effect, Sequin Effect
Bottom row: Catsuit, Dazzle, Glamrock, Dorothy

Two holos from Topshop and a green flakie from Inglot. I already have holos in pink and blue, but can a girl really have too many holos? I think not!

Topshop: Wistful & Moondance. Inglot: 203

The last miscellaneous polishes. Two from No7, which is a brand I haven't tried before, but I've heard that it should be good, so I couldn't leave the purple and the burgundy shimmer alone. And three polishes from Miss Sporty - two glitters and a metallic-ish polish.

Misc No7 and Miss Sporty

That's the polishes that I decided to give you a closer look at. Do you see anything you like? Do you think it's a nice haul? :)

Have a great Sunday, everybody! ♥