My NOTDs of the week

I had a week off - vacation - and dreamt for the last two weeks before my break from doing lots and lots of swatching and testing and playing with nail polish - but every so often things turn out differently and I was scurrying busily through that week of mine tending so many "to do's" that somehow always seem to amass in the background. But got them all down and I could tick off the majority of them - YAYYY! Still there was time to do some fun stuff with nail polish.

I discovered happily that I had quite some reward points collected with Llarowe - I haven't used any of them for months, and it provided me with three new Hare Polishes. Melissa from Lacquer Reverie certainly has done her best to get me on to the latest releases but first up Dancing Bird of Paradise. This is a sheer pink base filled with golden and pink hex and square glitters in various sizes. Now to get it properly opaque I certainly would have had to apply three coats at least - eeeeks chunky, bulky nails - no way.

I applied one coat of Hare Polish Dancing Bird of Paradise over one coat of Colorama Garoto Verao. I put Dancing Bird of Paradise sometime upside down before application to get all those glitters spilling out of the bottle once you start painting!!! The glitter lays nice and flat on the nail and distributes evenly onto the nails. I just had to dab one or two bald spots. Given the density of the multisized glitter it does dry bumpy so I applied one coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food first and sealed the whole melange with Essence Better Than Gel Nails Fast Dry Top Sealer.

Colorama Garoto Verao is an orange leaning bright red that applies evenly and nicely. If worn on its own I certainly would go for a second coat to achieve even more saturation and vivacity.

On Tuesday I met my sister and my five year old niece for a nice girls afternoon. Knowing my niece I thought I better bring some polish along since the little one is mesmerized by anything nail polish and make-up. Indeed the second my butt hit the chair she was all over me begging to paint her nails. Being only five her hands are tiny and her nails minuscule - just right for the brushes of the Opi mini-bottles. I came with bare nails too and between the two of us we decided on a Skittelette with some dots. After watching us for a while my sister wanted to have her nails done too - I ended up painting nails there FOREVER - not to mention that my little nephew also wanted to get some polish onto his nails (I think that was for the sake of belonging to the pack - haha). Unfortunately none of them wanted their hands photographed and published in the net so you have to bear with my own hands:

Pinkie, index and thumb: two coats of Essie Naughty Nautical
Ring: two coats of Opi My Buff is Vampire and dots in Essie Naughty Nautical and Sunday Funday
Middle: two coats of Essie Funday Sunday

The next mani happened sort of accidentally: I wanted to do swatches of Butter London Pistol Pink, a berry colored, shimmer loaded beauty. Yun from the Polish Hyde-out has posted about it earlier this week - this is the link to her post - and looking at her pictures I started to wonder how Pistol Pink would compare to Butter London Victoriana. Well in case you wonder too, here is the comparison:

I applied two coats of each polish over Essence XXL Nail Thickener. Now a couple of words to the formula of Pistol Pink - as with Giddy Kipper the formula is sheerer than what we are used from Butter London and frankly the application is not as flawless as we came to be used by Butter London either. Comparing the two bottles the shimmer seems quite prominent in both of them, once on the nail the difference though becomes rather evident. While Victoriana (now that is a dream of a formula) has very prominent silver shimmer Pistol Pink let's its shimmer work in the back. It illuminates the base color beautifully and twinkles and sparks up in sunlight.

In two of my posts of this week I introduced my two new NCLA cream polishes. Up to now I only knew their Nail Wraps. One of their new sets is called … and holds xxx nail wraps in different sizes and varying patterns. I love to implement them into Skittelettes and right after getting them I had this Skittelette firmly implanted in my mind:

Recipe:

Pinkie, middle and thumb two coats of Nail Inc Leather Effect Noho

Ring: NCLA Nail Wrap from the xxx set, applied over Base Coat and sealed with Top Coat

Index: two coats of Butter London Giddy Kipper

And since all those nail wraps look different this is what my left hand looked like:

What a week - phew!!!! Thank you for bearing with me ;-)

I look forward to reading your comments - thanks for visiting!!!
Christine

Nails Inc Chester Square and pals - Shop le Stash Part 1

The four polishes I showed you so far this week are the only creams I bought for fall. While I loved the collections of China Glaze et al, I haven't come across much I haven't felt I already own. And a couple of weeks back I started a swatch book. To compile this book helps me to meet old PPs (Polish Pals) and eventually should help to prevent me from buying too many dupes or twins. So before diving into a buying spree I descended into my nail polish vault to see if I can find some polishes fitting the current trends - here are my finds part 1:

Of course a vampy red is CORE this Season with all those shades popping up in Opi's San Francisco Collection and what I have seen from their Holiday Mariah Carey Collection. This is Nails Inc Chester Square. Your true classic dark (brown leaning) red jelly. The first picture shows Chester Square at three coats, the second picture at two coats. The formula is a perfect jelly: sheer and thin but easy to control and wonderfully flowing onto your nails. Chester Square dries in normal time to the above high shine (yep once more no topper here).

I have read a lot of gushing over those navy blues out there which are dark yet look blue in any light. Anyone remembers China Glaze First Mate? This beauty was released in the Anchors Away Collection for Spring 2011.  I applied two coats of First Mate over Essence XXL Nail Thickener. Flawless application - tick, quick dry time - tick, very glossy on its own - tick!!! I honestly don't think I could have found a better navy blue polish in the current collections and gladly will go for First Mate this season.

This slightly muted mid-tone blue (with some teal in it) clearly is a personal favorite of mine for the upcoming fall season and I haven't seen anything of this shade in any of the collections of the main stream brands. Still to me those blues are a safe bet year around shade that I wouldn't want to miss. To represent this color I choose Depend 254. I applied two easy coats of it over Essence XXL Nail Thickener. I think Opi Suzi says Feng Shui might be related to Depend 254.

We are at the end of Part 1 of my Shop le Stash spree - Part 2 will follow tomorrow!!!

I look forward to reading your comments and will try to reply to all of you timely - thanks for visiting!!!

Christine

Nubbins week: Saturday Skittelette featuring Depend Forget Me Not

Now doing a proper Skittelette with nubs has some restrictions as well. Dots and studs look out of place, for taping there is not enough space. At least I cannot manage the space available ;-P. That's when I usually fall back to simply combine a set of different colors. This week I went for a completely textured Skittelette:

The ingredients from left:
Opi Solitaire, Depend Forget Me Not, Nails Inc Leather Effect Noho

The above pictures are taken indoors in daylight, the below photos outdoors, the first in the sun, the second in the shade

last but not least a photo in artificial light:

Recipe
Pinkie, index and thumb: two coats of Nails Inc Leather Effect Noho
Ring: two coats of Opi Solitaire
Middle: two coats of Depend Forget Me Not

The formula of all of them is equally excellent and application easy as cake.

Final Thoughts: This is not only simple in execution but also fast. All of the above textured polishes dried very quickly (Solitaire a tad slower) and giving the grace of saved Top Coat one is ready to leave the house "pronto".

I look forward to reading your comments - thanks for visiting!!!
Christine

My NOTDs of the week

Another week of glamorous nails - YEAH!!!! I simply seem to be unable to wear anything without bling, glitter, sparkle or shimmer right now.

I tried Enchanted Polish Ola Rio previously over various dark shades from green, brown and blue and did not like it on any of them. This leaves black (and of course Enchanted Polish I am the Walrus but I save this one for a separate post ;-))

These are two coats of Enchanted Polish Ola Rio over one coat of A England Camelot. I used A England the Knight as Base Coat and Butter London Hardwear as Top Coat.

I could not resist adding a second photo here, I blurred it intentionally to show off the pink sparkle:

On Monday I received another epic nailmail from my sister in polish from Brazil containing ALL of the Jade Diamond collection. They are AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dear sis - Thank you again one million times for this beauty!!!! First to be worn is Jade Diamond Scarlet. Wonderful Vicky from Boombastic Nails has also posted about it just this week - have a look!!

... and another photo from incredible Jade Diamond Scarlet in daylight:

These are three thin effortlessly applied coats. It looks like Caramel Apple - yummie!!! I used Essence XXL Nail Thickener as Base Coat and A England The Shield Top Coat.

One of my lovely readers recently teased me if I would also own "normal" polish (LOL) - to her credit I  include a photo of my base color Nails Inc Belgrave Place:

But that does not mean I left it on its own. I added one layer of Nfu oh 51. Now I should have either used another base color or another effect top coat (I think holographic here) because these two while not really hating each other fight for attention. Unfortunately the gorgeous flakies don't come alive on this already pulsing base. I wore this anyhow, it was already late and I was not in the mood to start from scratch again. My own rating for this mani: meh ;-)

Lastly I wore Contrary Polish Anna Maria from The Island Collection. Truth be told: I yet have to come across a polish from Contrary Polish that I do not like. The polishes are all having "the little something" that sets them apart from the masses out there. I am currently saving up for another shopping spree with Llarowe ;-)

I applied three thin coats of Contrary Polish Anna Maria. The formula is on the thin side and the first  coat applied sheer. Either you could apply only one thicker second coat or do two thin coats to achieve full opacity. I used Essence XXL Nail Thickener as Base Coat - now be aware, my dear readers, this Base Coat may cause shrinkage of your color polish - wrapping your tips prevents any disappointment. Essie Good to Go was my Top Coat.

Looking at my NOTD's of this week I am quite pleased with the variety of them. The one that blew my mind though was the Jade Diamond Scrarlet. Tell me - have you already tried any of them? 

You can order Enchanted Polish with Llarowe, Harlow & Co and Pshiiit Boutique. I just read a tweet by Katie from Harlow & Co that they expect a re-stock from Enchanted Polish sometime next week. I order my Nfu Oh Polishes with Pshiiit Boutique and my Contrary Polishes with Llarowe.

A note to my dear American readers: I remain shocked at the violence you had to experience this week. My thoughts and my heart reach out to all people who suffered from unspeakable loss caused by insane and random violence - it does not bear thinking....

I look forward to reading my comments - thanks for visiting!!!

Christine

Allez les Bleus - a comparison

Let's get this out of the way first: blue is the most prominent colour in my stash!! This inevitably leads to owning some polishes that require hardcore arguments to justify owning all of them - or being a true blue-addict like me. Today I compare a couple of brights, none of them to be considered a wallflower:

From left to right:
China Glaze Ride the Waves
Yves St Laurent Bleu Majorelle
Nails Inc Baker Street
Illamasqua Force
Deborah Lippmann I know what Boys like

I applied them as follows:

Pinkie: Deborah Lippmann I know what Boys like: the thinnest of the bunch and as you can see in the picture (if you look hard ;-)) the darkest. While the formula is thin, application was easy and not runny at all. I used 3 coats in this picture to achieve opacity.

Ring finger: Illamasqua Force. Also a dusty blue that leans purple compared to the "clean" blues on my middle and index finger. Formula is very creamy and fast drying. This is 2 Coats.

Middle finger: the famous Nails Inc Baker Street. It is the clearest and most vibrant blue of the bunch. 2 easy coats. Kiko 336 looks to be a close enough dupe at a reasonable price for Nails Inc Baker Street but I do not own that (yet).  

Index: the incredible Yves Saint Laurent Bleu Majorelle. While a tad darker than Baker Street and a tiny bit less vibrant though as saturated it looks like Baker Street's sophisticated sister. This is 2 coats. What is not to love with this polish? I cannot stop staring at this blue. AND it is not limited edition and will therefore be around for a long time.... I hope!!!

Thumb: China Glaze Ride the Waves. OK I added this for good measure but to be honest I am not happy with this purchase. Formula is weird - thick but not very pigmented. It is not self levelling and takes its own sweet time to dry. This is 4 coats - oh my this felt like glue on my nail in the end. What a pity, because by looking at the picture I really like the colour......

I guess you know by now which cult colour is missing in my stash: it is Rescue Beauty Lounge IBK012 (you will be missed forever!!!). I was too slow when the Fan Collection became available - sigh - polish regret forever......

Am I missing any in this bunch? What are you're favoured vibrant blues? I look forward to reading your ideas and suggestions in the comments!!!

Thanks for reading

Christine