Dare to Wear ~ Night at the Cinema

Dare to Wear ~ Night at the Cinema

Blackened base packed with purple glitter

I’ve had a soft spot for Dare to Wear-polishes since I bought my first one, and recently I was so lucky to get my hands on a new bunch of them. It took me a while to decided which one to try on first, but eventually I chose “Night at the Cinema”, which is from their Vintage Hollywood collection.

The polish has a blackened base, and is really easy to apply. The pigmentation is good – I got full opacity after the first coat. I did another one to make sure I gave this polish the best conditions, but it wasn’t really necessary. Drying time is good too. I sealed it up with a layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine topcoat, and here’s how that looked:

It came out a little bit darker than I expected it to, but I still like it. 

I chose stamping for today’s nail art. I stamped with Essie’s “Nothing else Metals” and used stamping plate BM-311 from Bundlemonster. I applied a layer of Poshé top coat, and my mani was done:

I have become really fond of that Essie as a stamping polish, it works better than a plain silver polish on so many levels. A total win – I’m glad I bought that!

Here’s a close up of the bottle. You might understand why I thought the mani would come out less dark now :)

Dare to Wear’s polishes seem to work really nice with my chemistry. I’ve never had a Dare to Wear chipping on me, and they wear really well. And when they come out with pretty polishes like this one, well, then you can count me in! :D

What do you think? Do you like polishes with blackened bases?

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

Nubar ~ Treasure

Nubar ~ Treasure

Violet scattered holographic

  

Let me tell you right away that I love Nubar polishes. I have got several of them, and there’s not one of them that I have a difficult relationship with. Treasure is no exception. 

I used my regular base coat, Treasure doesn’t need the special Aqua base coat to behave. The formula is great, and the polish applies really easily. The picture here shows two coats:

It wasn’t easy to catch the rainbows in the polish, but they are definitely there. It’s like it’s filled with tiny rainbow glitters that pop up as I twist and turn my fingers.

See how pretty it is? Treasure is such a great name for it!

Here’s the obligatory blurry pic, where all the rainbows present themselves. So pretty!

I decided to try one of my new Apipila stamping plates out, namely Apipila 02 (old). I used “Suzi skis in the Pyrenees”, a cheap Chinese copy of an OPI polish as my stamping polish, and I chose a Hello Kitty stamp with hearts.

I sealed it all up with a layer of Poshé top coat, which is my all time favourite top coat!

Here’s the final result:

And another picture, because I really liked how this turned out!

The stamp is actually a half-nail design, but since the design is so big and my nails aren’t very big, it fitted on the entire nail. I love the design so I don’t mind that at all!

Here’s what Nubar writes about Treasure:

Light violet with fine rainbow holographic glitter is filled with holographic glitter reflecting every color of the rainbow, with base colors just as varied, ranging from subtle neutrals to vivid pink to pale blue. Going a step beyond holographic nail lacquers, nubar’s Prism Collection is a celebration of color and light.

The short version of the verdict is “yes”. Treasure is another winner from Nubar. I love the formula, the colour, the effect and the drying time.

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

Joss ~ Alternate Dimension

Joss ~ Alternate Dimension

Warm orange linear holo with a coral tone

I wanted to test if this polish needed an aqua base coat or not, so I just used my regular base coat. And application was easy. I didn’t experience any dragging or pulling on the polish, so this can easily do without the aqua base coat. It took two coats to achieve this look:

Joss calls this “a warm holo with a golden sunset tinge”, and that’s a pretty good description. There’s a tint of coral in it, which I usually don’t like much. But I am not kidding when I say that this the only time I’ve actually liked wearing a coral-toned polish! Amazing. No less than amazing!
More pics for you: 

The colour reminds me of a really delicious dessert or something.

I just couldn’t stop taking picture of this beauty!

And the holo also pops in lower light, which I really like.

I decided to make my nail art really simple, in order not to overwhelm the polish. I made a swirl out of dots. I used a red Astor polish called 025 for the dots. It’s a dark red with golden shimmer, which I thought would be perfect for the sunset-y holo.

I think the orange and the red fit each other perfectly.

Here’s a pic taken in low light so you can see that the holo still “works” :)

The verdict is a thumb up from me. I’m impressed by the quality of the polish and the holographic effect. And I had my breath taken away by the colour, which was a total surprise for me.

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

Manglaze ~ Fatty’s got more blood

Manglaze  ~ Fatty’s got more blood

Blood red matte polish

Fatty’s got more blood has been on my wish list for a while now, and I was eager to see if it would live up to my high expectations!

I love the look of Manglaze’s polishes. Their labels are so cool and I really like the most of the names they come up with.

The formula of Fatty’s got more blood is good. The polish applies really easy and it’s opaque in one single coat. I applied two anyway, mostly for the camera. Drying time is fantastic, and it’s almost like magic to sit and watch it dry, since it goes from all shiny to completely matte over a very short period of time. It would be fun to try and make a video of it!

Anyway – Here’s Fatty in all its glory:

One more from a different angle:

Please do notice the morbid label of the bottle. It’s so cool!

And there’s a little extra gift in the package: A guitar plectrum! Totally awesome!!

Here’s what Manglaze write about Fatty’s got more blood:

Named after a very rare Buttsteak album that you'll likely never find or have the pleasure of being offended by. This fat matte red is wrapped in a scene by artist Joe Simko that depicts two sexy vamps taking down the slowest of the herd.

I wanted to see this polish shiny as well, and with a bit of nail art on it. So I taped my nails diagonally across and added a layer of Dare to Wear’s “40 days in Rio” from their Carnival collection.

On this pic I added a layer of top coat on my little finger and my ring finger, to show you the difference it makes on this matte polish!

Here’s the final mani, with top coat on all the nails.

One last shot, that’s how much I like it.

You can see on this shot, that the polish contains quite a lot of shimmer. I like that in a matte.

Have you got any Manglazes? Or are there any of them on your wish list?

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

Literary Lacquers ~ Greatest Treasures

Literary Lacquers ~ Greatest Treasures

Coral red linear holographic

The sun has finally found its way to Denmark, so it’s time to dig out those holos!

Today I’ve got a polish from Literary Lacquers’ holiday collection from last year, namely Greatest Treasures.

In the description of the polish, she suggests putting Greatest Treasures over a red crème to get a strong red holographic effect. I was eager to get rid of the coral tone, so I picked a dark red from Amour called “Yonkers Maroon”.

Let me show you how one coat of Yonkers Maroon and one coat of Greatest Treasures look like in the sunshine:

It’s stunning, isn’t it?

Here’s another pic for you to enjoy:

And here are the polishes taking a very short sunbath while being photographed:

This next picture will show you why I’m not over the moon with this polish. It’s a picture taken in the lightbox:

When Greatest Treasures isn’t in the sun, she shows her true colours, which are autumn colours – and my skintone goes awfully bad with autumn colours. I didn’t take a picture, but when my fingers weren’t in the sun, the polish looked dull, dusty and boring and not at all like the stunner it was in the sunlight. And since I spend way more time out of the sun than in the sun, well, then my polishes have to look good both in and out of the sunlight.

So unfortunately I’m not thrilled over this.

She is pretty in the sunlight though, don’t you think?

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

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! ♥

Milani ~ Purple Gleam - in pyjamas

Milani ~ Purple Gleam

Blackened base packed with purple glitter

I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of glitter; at least I hope I won’t. So. Let me show you my latest glittery mani!

Milani’s Purple Gleam is another polish that promises that it’s a one coat glitter. It’s true that it gets opaque after one single coat, but if you want this baby to really shine and show its depth, then you should go for two coats. That’s what I did. The formula is good and the glitter spreads out evenly and easily. The drying time is pretty average, which, OK,  I’m satisfied with.

I applied a coat of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine topcoat to make the glitter come to life. Here’s what that looks like:

On this picture it shows that this glitter has a blackened base to float around in:

I love this glitter, even though it’s pretty top coat thirsty:

Then I made stripes on it. I used a striping polish from L. A. Colors, namely Art Deco “Quirky Turquoise”. It’s a lovely green polish – I may be colour blind, but I can’t see this as turquoise.

Anyway, I made my stripes, added another layer of top coat, and my mani was done:

I’d like pyjamas in these colours! :D

It’s as if the glitter also brings the green to life!  

Here are the two sisters in crime:

I like this, but I must say that the glitter is very hungry for top coat. Next time it may be a good idea to use some kind of glitter tamer first, or an older topcoat that has gone thicker in the consistency. Two coats of Catrice top coat wasn’t enough, it could easily have eaten another coat or two! :D

 

Oh, by the way, and just for the record: I bought this polish from an online store, so I was very surprised and somewhat disappointed to see that it had been opened and used before. The top of the bottle had dried polish smeared all over the place and in the screwthread, so this is definitely not a new, unopened bottle. It surprised me a lot, since I’ve never experienced that before. I mean, one thing is to buy polish from other girls that’s been carelessly tested or swatched, but you do expect to get a new, unopened bottle when you shop in an online store, don’t you? I haven’t bothered with contacting the company. First of all it’s a relatively cheap polish, and second of all, I didn’t buy it just recently. It’s been sitting in my stash of untrieds for a little bit. So never mind – I just thought I’d mention it. Has this happened to anyone else?

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

Color Club ~ Eternal Beauty

Color Club ~ Eternal Beauty

Strong linear holographic purple

Eternal Beauty is from the second Halo Hues collection from spring 2013.

The formula is simply fantastic. I used my regular base coat, and the polish applied like butter; no pulling or streaking at all. It was opaque after just one coat – I was amazed! I applied two anyway, to give this polish the best conditions!

I will let the pictures do the talking today, because there aren’t words that quite describe how amazing this polish is!

Here is what two coats of Eternal Beauty looks like, with one layer of Catrice Quick Dry & High Shine over it:

I think Eternal Beauty is the perfect name for this!

I mean: Look at it!!

One last shot, because I seriously love this polish!

And the proof of how much I like it: I didn’t apply any sort of nail art to it. That’s right – you heard me - none at all! I just wore it just like that!

Amazing, huh? ;)

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