MISA ~ Hot people like you

MISA ~ Hot people like you

A neon pink crème

and

Klean Color ~ My Valentine

A clear jelly with purple glitter and larger multicoloured hexagons

MISA ought to be a bigger and more well known brand than they appear to be, in my opinion. They make a good product.

I haven’t tried a MISA that didn’t apply smoothly, and “Hot people like you” is no exception. Here’s two coats:

I had already decided to apply some glitter to it, and I went with Klean Color’s “My Valentine”, mostly because of the purple glitter in it, which I though would go very well with the neon pink.

I was wrong though: 

The glitter actually disturbed the scene, and made it look messy to me. I was not pleased with the result at all.

To the rescue with a crackle – I added a coat of Burst Crackle’s “Violet Flame”. I like it a little bit better, but it’s definitely not a manicure I’ll do again. :D

Bear with me, please. I promise that my next mani will be better! :D

MISA ~ Hot people like you

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

Klean Color ~ My Valentine

Opacity: 2/10
Colour, prettiness: 6/10
Durability: 6/10
Value for money: 4/10
Overall: 4.5/10
Buy again: No

Color Club ~ Rule Breaker

Color Club ~ Rule Breaker

A deep teal green with shimmer

Rule Breaker is from Color Club’s Wild at Heart collection from Autumn of 2009. I only bought it recently so it’s still available - at least online.

Color Club is one of my favourite brands, and this polish didn’t let me down. I applied one coat, ONE, and I was satisfied.

Take a look, one coat, no top coat:

I had stamping in mind for this baby – I need to practice to get better at this.

I chose a skull from Konad’s M13, and decided to try and use Color Club’s Lumin-icecent as the stamping polish. I’ve tried Konad’s silver stamping polish, but to be honest I don’t think it shows itself very well on the darker polishes.

Here’s the magic that Color Club did:

It’s subtle but I quite like it. And I was satisfied with my own stamping technique this time. :D

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

New Swedish polishes

Hi girls!

I went to Sweden to shop some Christmas presents recently, and obviously I had to buy a bit of nail polish too, now that I was there. 

I bought two Isadoras and three Viva la Divas. They're both Swedish brands. 

From left to right: Black Galaxy, Beetle Green, 121, 72 and 70.

Here are the three Viva la Divas. The picture is blurry because then it's easier to see the colours and the glitter. I don't know why they give them numbers instead of names, I think that's really silly. I prefer names to numbers. However, nr.121 is a very shimmery deep purple, 72 is a silver holographic glitter, and 70 is a clear base with turquoise and green glitter.

Number 121, 72 and 70.

Here's a close up of the Isadoras. Black galaxy to the left is a black base with all colours of holographic glitter, and beetle green is exactly what the name implies, a dark green with a foil finish.

Black Galaxy and Beetle Green

I also picked up a couple of Maybellines. Here's number 753, a shimmery light green with a tint of gold, and number 152A, a midnight blue with shimmer. 

MNY: 753 and 152A

The last one I bought was an OPI. I'm not usually a big fan, but "Meep meep meep" from the Muppets collection was simply too gorgeous to miss. She's wine red and packed with shimmer. 

OPI: Meep meep meep

That's it for this time. I did visit Make Up Store and eyed their polishes, but my Visa was overheated at that point. :D

Model’s Own ~ Disco Mix

Model’s Own ~ Disco Mix

Pink and blue glitters in a clear base

When I saw this polish I just knew I had to have it. I am definitely a glitter girl, and this product looks fantastic with its mix of pink and blue glitters. I was a little nervous that it couldn’t live up to my expectations though: Would the glitter apply just as beautifully on the nails as it looked in the bottle.

It took three coats to reach opacity, and it was very easy to apply. It dried quickly too, although not surprisingly, it dried up gritty and needed two coats of Seche Vite top coat to smooth out the surface.

It’s really hard to capture this polish in photos though – it’s actually a lot nicer to the eyes than it looks here. The winter darkness doesn’t really help me at all, so I’m planning on making my own little light box soon in order to snap some better pictures of my manicures.

Disco Mix definitely lived up to my expectations, and I got myself a brand new favourite nail polish! :D

Opacity: 7/10
Colour, prettiness: 10/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9.25/10
Buy again: Yes!

HOT Makeup ~ Petrol Blue

HOT Makeup ~ Petrol Blue

A petrel blue crème

and

Klean Color ~ City never sleeps

A clear jelly packed with teal glitter and larger pink and gold hexagons

HOT Makeup is a very cheap brand here, not very common, but sometimes available in the larger supermarkets. They usually have a lot of (to me) uninteresting colours, but I fell for this petrel blue (and yes, it’s called Petrol Blue).. I thought it was a great colour, and if the formula wasn’t much good, I imagined I might be able to use it for stamping.

I wanted to test it out, so I applied one coat, and it covered perfectly, and I mean *perfectly*. The appropriate word here is ‘impressed’. The formula is a bit on the thick side, but it was *so* easy to work with and covered the nail without streaks or bald spots.

Here is one coat. One!

Had I wanted to stamp on it, I might have added a second coat, just to smooth out the surface perfectly, but I had other plans for this baby: Klean Color’s “City never sleeps”. 

This glitter is in a very thick jelly, which I imagine will be on the tricky side to work with after a little while as the polish get older. But for a fresh bottle of polish it was great. The glitter spread out evenly without any problems whatsoever.

The only con is that it leaves the surface very bumpy, so it needed two generous coats of Poshé top coat to even it out nicely.

I’m pleased with this. Very pleased indeed.

HOT Makeup ~ Petrol Blue

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 9.25/10
Buy again: Yes

Klean Color ~ City never sleeps

Opacity: 2/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 10/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: Yes

Nubar ~ Fire Sparkle

Nubar ~ Fire Sparkle

A Christmas red with micro and medium sized red glitter

This reminds in many ways of “Ring in the Red” is from China Glaze. It’s Christmas red, it’s glittery and it’s sparkly. But there are differences, though.

The Nubar is a more “delicious” polish to apply. It’s smooth, both when you apply it and when it’s actually on the nail. Much smoother than China Glaze.

Here’s three coats and a layer of Poshé top coat: 

It’s not as “wild” as Ring in the Red, it’s more sophisticated in a way. I can’t describe it any other way than that. It’s beautiful! Although having said that,

I don’t really prefer one over the other. They’re both good polishes!

I was up for something more, so I stamped the nails with the heart design from Bundle Monster’s BM03. 

I stamped with Sally Hansen’s Insta-Dri in the dark green “Jumpin’ Jade”. That turned out looking black on the red glitter (I probably should have guessed), but I quite like it anyway.

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 9/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Orly ~ Fowl Play

Orly ~ Fowl Play

A deep purple jelly base with magenta/pink and purple flakies

This polish is from Orly’s 2011 “Birds of a Feather” collection.

Fowl Play is probably the oddest polish I’ve ever worked with. The jelly is quite thick, so I sometimes had to dip the brush in the bottle several times to get enough polish on it for an entire nail. I didn’t have any problems with the flakies though,  they spread out evenly without problems at all.

It looked pretty good after two coats, but I applied a third coat to see how that would change the appearance. I honestly could have easily gotten away with only two coats, but here it is, in all its glory. Three coats and one layer of Orly’s Top coat:

It’s really pretty. A deep, vampy colour with a lot of pretty flakies. Too bad it’s winter here and not much brightness in the daylight. I can’t wait to try this in the summer, so all the flakies reflects the sun!

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

H & M ~ Love and Kisses

H & M ~ Love and Kisses

A bright crème red, a shimmery charcoal and a multi sized silver glitter, in a clear base

I have a luxury problem these days. When I change my manicures I have so many different untried nail polishes that it’s very difficult for me to make a decision. Today I decided to use three untrieds at a time, in order to minimize the number of polishes awaiting their turn onstage.

I went for the cute H & M collection I bought recently; the red “Berry Love”, the charcoal “Kiss Goodnight” and the silver glitter “Confetti Kisses”. I started with the red as a base, and I was simply amazed by how well it covered. If I’m ever in a hurry, this can go on as a one coater. I added a second coat though, to make it look the best.

Here it is: 

After that, I masked the nails with tape – not in the middle, but about two thirds across. I painted the unmasked nail with the charcoal, and like the red, it covered nicely. I think this one would be good for stamping. I removed the tape and let it dry.

My idea was to paint a glittery line of silver where the red and charcoal meet, but this particular glitter wasn’t dense enough to do the job. I fetched my nail art glitter, the Flexbrush, and painted a silver stripe where the two colours meet instead. Here’s what that looked like:  

It wasn’t quite what I had hoped for – but I guess you all know what it’s like to be your own worst critic. It’s nice to try more than one polish at a time though, and also nice to sometimes wear something a little bit different instead of just a one colour manicure.

The H & M polishes:

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

Klean Color ~ Holo Chrome

Klean Color ~ Holo Chrome

Blue-ish purple packed with multi colored holographic glitter

There are polishes that look great in the bottle and not so great on the nails. It’s not very often the other way around. Klean Color’s Holo Chrome is an exception to that rule. It looks pretty ordinary in the bottle, but applied onto the nails, it’s simply “wow”!

Applying was easy. The formula is quite thick and jelly-ish, so I was impressed even after the first coat. Drying time between the coats was pretty average with this lacquer, so I applied two more coats. I think I would have been able to get away with two, but some polishes just deserve the best conditions, you know?

Here it is, with a layer of Poshé top coat:

I don’t know what it is with purples, but they are sooo hard to capture on photographs. They almost always turn out looking more blue than they actually are. Hmfr.

I corrected the colours so it shows the true colour of the polish. It made my fingers a weird colour! :D

Anyway – I simply love this nail polish. It’s pretty, shiny, glittery, eye catching.

Everything I like.

Opacity: 8/10
Colour, prettiness: 8/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 10/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

Color Club ~ Ulterior Motive

Color Club ~ Ulterior Motive

Fuchsia with lots of teal and pink micro glitter

This polish is from Color Club’s Alter Ego collection, and is one of these colours that are kind of hard to describe. It’s a shimmery jelly, somewhere between pink and purple, and is packed with micro glitters in pink and blue.

Applying was easy. It needed three coats to reach this opacity, and it was totally worth the effort. Color Club is ranking pretty high on my list of good polishes, and the formula of Ulterior Motive didn’t let me down. No streaks or bald spots. :)

Here it is, no top coat:

 

I wanted to have a little more fun going on with my nails though. I wasn’t in the mood for stamping, so I decided to do some dots. I used Model’s Own “Snow White” and a relatively large dotting tool and made three dots diagonally on each nail. On top of that I used a smaller dotting tool to apply a deep purple dot, this time from Color Club "Electonica". The purple was so deep that in these small amounts it might just as well have been black.

Here’s the result, after finishing it all with a coat of Poshé top coat.

I quite like it!

Opacity: 6/10
Colour, prettiness: 7/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 7/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: Probably