Flormar ~ GS12 Tile

Flormar ~ GS12 Tile

Red with golden shimmer

I bought this beauty when I was in Turkey, but only on the third time I was in the Flormar shop! :D Why? Because it looks really lovely but it contains golden shimmer, and I’m usually more into silvery shimmers! But in the end I had to give in and take it home with me.

The formula is great and easy to work with. I applied two coats for the mani and the drying time is good. It dries up to a satin matte finish (hence the “Satin Matte” on the bottle, probably).

Here’s what two coats and no topcoat looks like in the sun.

I applied silver glitter. I used “Confetti Kisses” from H&M. The bottle has got Mickey and Minnie Mouse on it, it’s sooo cute.

Here’s what it looks like in my lightbox:

And then I stamped on it. I found a giraffe-ish pattern motif on stamping plate DRK-A. I stamped with Black from NailNation 3000.

Here’s my final mani:

I’m glad I ended up buying this, I think it’s really pretty.

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Satin matte shimmer
Overall impression: Good polish to a really good price

Buy again: Yes

Smitten ~ Peppermint Patty

Smitten ~ Peppermint Patty

Pale mint green jelly with silver holo microglitter

Today I’m going to show you a mani that pushed me a little bit outside my comfort zone. Peppermint Patty is a store exclusive for Rainbow Connection in the UK. I don’t usually wear mints, but hey, today is that day.

The formula is really good and easy to work with. I was surprised that it covered in two coats and the drying time was fast.

Here’s two coats and a thin layer of topcoat in the sunshine:

Here’s a picture taken with flash in my lightbox:

Here’s the mandatory low light picture.

So, I stamped and dotted on it. First I stamped my pinkie and my pointer with white dots. Then I dotted the bigger white dots with another Smitten polish: Penny Dreadful.

I stamped the other three nails with another motif from the same stamping plate, which is DRK-A. I sealed the whole thing up with another layer of topcoat, and here’s my final mani:

I love how this intentionally blurred picture shows off the blinginess of the polishes!

See? I told you that these colours were outside my comfort zone.

Number of coats: 2
Drying time: Good

Finish: Jelly with microglitter

Overall impression: I love the bling.  

Buy again: Yes, but mostly because it’s a store exclusive, haha

Chaos & Crocodiles ~ Echoes

Chaos & Crocodiles ~ Echoes

Magenta jelly with holo pigments and micro glitters

Today I’m going to show you a pretty polish from Chaos & Crocodiles. It’s magenta and it has got holo glitter in it.

The formula is really good for a jelly. I often struggle with jellies, but this one just behaved perfectly. It took two easy coats to achieve desired opacity and the drying time between the coats is good.

Here’s what two coats and no topcoat looks like in the lightbox:

 

I loooove the holo microglitter, it’s absolutely gorgeous!

I stamped on it. I found a floral motif on the stamping plate DRK-A and I stamped with NailNation 3000’s Black. Great name for a plain black polish, isn’t it! :D

Here’s my final design before I topcoated it:

I did take some flash pictures too, but I couldn’t get them to be colour accurate, so I’m not going to bother posting them even though the holo looks amazing on them. As you know, we don’t like pictures that lie (because that makes us liers) – so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Number of coats: 2

Drying time: Pretty good

Finish: Jelly with microglitter
Overall impression: Great quality polish with sweet holo microglitter

Buy again: Yes

I bought my Chaos & Crocodiles Echoes from norwaynails.com.

You can find more info on NorwayNail’s Facebook page, link here.

Norway Nails have kindly offered my readers a 10% discount code. Just use the code RAINBOWIFYME10 at checkout, and you'll be getting 10% off your purchase.

Misslyn ~ 85 Royal Blue

Misslyn ~ 85 Royal Blue

Royal blue texture with shimmer

Here’s a textured polish I bought last time I was in Germany. Misslyn is originally an Italian brand, but is sold in quite a lot of countries by now – and they do sell really well in Germany.

The formula is great, I’ve never experienced anything else with a Misslyn product. The polish applies easily, dries quick and has a good pigmentation too. It was practically opaque after the first coat, but I applied another one to make sure I gave the polish the best opportunities to shine. This is all good.

Let me show you what two coats and no topcoat looks like:

I love the colour and the shimmer that’s added to the polish! I do love textured polishes, but they definitely need shimmer or glitter to work for me :)

Royal Blue looks a little bit duochromatic in the bottle; at least I can see purple when I flick the bottle in certain angles. This didn’t transfer to my nails though, no matter how much I twisted and turned my fingers! So I decided to help it a little bit. I grabbed a bottle of Pupa glitter, it’s either called N250 or 824, depending on where you look at the bottle. It’s a blue and violet glitter in a blue jelly base. I dabbed a bit of glitter on each nail with a sponge. I didn’t want the glitter to take over, I just wanted to add a little extra. Here’s how that presented itself:

Can you see how well I controlled myself with the glitter? It’s so easy to go overboard in it, and that was not my intention! :D

Then I finished the whole thing off by stamping on it. I used stamping plate DRK-A, and I stamped with Essie’s “Nothing else metals”, which is a great polish for stamping! I didn’t apply a topcoat. Here’s the final mani:

And one last shot of it:  

  

I bought the Misslyn polishes I’ve got when I shopped in Karstadt, and I’ll definitely be checking them out next time I’m going to Germany. Hopefully it won’t be too long before that happens.

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

Alix Avien ~ 400 with stars

Alix Avien ~ 400

Pale blue crème

W.I.P. by Urban Outfitters ~ Twinkle  

Clear base with glitter and pink and blue stars

Here’s just a short post for you today, featuring another polish from my friend Aylin from Posh Nail Art.

Alix Avien #400 is a pale blue, almost lavender crème. The formula was good, and it took two coats to get it opaque. I’m glad that this polish is self levelling, because I wasn’t that good applying it today :D

Here’s how two coats and no top coat looks like:

I stamped on three of the fingers with a no name polish called “Suzi skis in the Pyrenees” and used stamping plate DRK-A. I stamped purple stars. On the other fingers I applied a coat of a W.I.P. polish called “Twinkle”. That’s a clear base with glitter and blue and pink stars in it.

I had to fish a lot to get the stars out. There are lots of them in the polish, but it was as if they didn’t want to stick to the brush. So it took quite a while to get two little stars on each nail, but I managed!

After that struggle I applied a layer of Poshé top coat, and my mani was done:

Here are the polishes I used:

As you can see, the “Suzi skis in the Pyrenees” isn’t an OPI. It’s a cheap Chinese copy of it – it’s so cheap that they didn’t even bother to find out what the OPI bottle looks like :D

What do you think guys and girls? Do you like stars as much as I do? :)

Pastel ~ 11

Pastel ~ 11

Dusty denim blue with sparse microglitter

This polish is also one my dear friend Aylin from Posh Nail Art sent to me in a swap! I was surprised to see the fine shimmer, and I think that it gives the polish that little extra that any polish should have :)

Application was really easy, and the pigmentation was great. Another Turkish one coater, yay! I applied two coats to give the polish the best conditions to show off.

Here’s that step:

See that shimmer in the bottle? It also shows on the nails, just not as much, but enough to meet the eye!

 
I sat for a while a tried to decide what to do with it. I decided to enhance the shimmer, and applied a layer of a great topper from Catrice, namely the now discontinued “Godfather of Pearl”. It’s a shimmery topper, that adds a fantastic shimmer to any other polish. It made Pastel #11 flash both blue and purple; not bad at all! Here’s that step:

Isn’t that just pretty. I like that a lot!

I stamped on it, using my DRK-A stamping plate, and stamped with Essie’s “Nothing Else Metals”, which is a really good polish for stamping. And here’s the result of that:

Skulls with little bows – how cute is that?!

I am not sure that I stamped with the right colour here, perhaps a silver would have worked a bit better. But hey – this whole blogging experience is also a learning experience for me. I am so glad you’re taking this journey with me! :)

Pastel ~ 11

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

Pupa ~ 051 stamped with Sally Hansen ~ Lightning

Pupa ~ 051  

Berry coloured crème

I’ve been dying to try Pupa polishes for ages, so I was thrilled to receive this polish from Anastasia who lives in the Little World of Coloured Nails.

It’s a berry coloured crème, and the colour is right up my alley. I applied two coats, and the polish applies easily. If I should wear this polish on its own, I’d probably add a third coat to cover up imperfections. But you know that I am not going to leave a crème polish on its own, don’t you! ;)

The colour is a gorgeous autumn colour; I really like this. Here’s a pic of two coats, without top coat:

And from another angle:

Isn’t this just a great colour?!

Then I stamped on it. I used my XL stamping plate DRK-A, and stamped with Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri “Lightening”, which is a great yellow crème. I like using the Insta-Dri polishes for stamping, because they generally stamp pretty well!

Then I applied a layer of Orly’s “Shine on Crazy Diamond”, which is a topper: Clear base with holographic glitter. I love the glitter, that can spice up almost every mani!  

 

Et voilá! The mani is done!

I’m glad that there were two Pupa polishes in the swap, so I have one more to try. I’m sure it’s just as nice as this one.

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

Happy new year to all of you, 

and thanks for being the coolest followers ever! ♥

Barry M ~ Denim

Barry M ~ Denim  

Denim blue that dries up to a silky finish

Denim has been on my wish list for a little while now, and I was happy to finally enrol it into my stash. It’ll be interesting to see if it actually lives up to my expectations!

The formula is really good. It could have been a one coater if I had been more careful with application. I had a couple of thin spots though, so I applied two. Drying time between the layers is good, which is a huge plus for me. The polish dries up semi matte, and with a very interesting finish. But enough of the talking, let’s look at the polish.

Two coats, no top coat:

The polish actually looks darker on my nails than it looks in the bottle. I wasn’t quite sure if I liked that or not to begin with. But after having taken all the pics, I decided that yes, I do like it :)

On this pic you can see that the polish still shines even though it’s also semi matte. Like I said – an interesting finish :

From this angle the finish shows well. I really like the effect of polishes that are both shiny and velvet-y at the same time!

It’s stamping time! I used the big stamping plate DRK-A and Essie’s “Nothing Else Metals”. I topped my design with a layer of Poshé top coat, and my mani was done:

I was thinking of stamping with white, but I like the result of this. The softness of Nothing Else Metals goes well with the blue denim! 

 That's it. Do you like it?

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

Golden Rose Matte Velvet ~ 107

Golden Rose Matte Velvet ~ 107

Deep reddish purple with shimmer and a silky finish

This post features the last Golden Rose Matte Velvet polish I received in the previous swap with lovely Aylin from Posh Nail Art, namely the purple one.

This polish is just as impressive as the two others I’ve tried – the green and the red. You can see them by clicking here and here. The formula is perfect, the pigmentation is great - I simply can’t come up with anything bad about this polish.

Here is a pic of two coats – no top coat.

I’m totally in love with this. I think it’s amazing that you can make a semi matte polish that actually has shimmer in it!

Then I tried something that’s new to me: Double stamping! First I stamped the design that looks like a gradient from Bundlemonster’s plate BM-301, and I used Sally Hansen InstaDri “Whirlwind White” as my stamping polish. I didn’t take a pic of that step.

I went directly to stamping number two. I used stamping plate DRK-A, and the same Golden Rose polish that I also used as my base colour. The design is an all nail design with hearts in a lattice, but since I stamped with the same colour as my base, it only shows up in the white.

I topped it with a generous coat of Poshé top coat, and my mani was done: 

And here is a pic from another angle.

I love this! I *have* to try this technique with other colours and other designs. What do you say – isn’t this cool?

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