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

Manis for busy bodies: Colorama Vinho Fashion and China Glaze Adventure Red-y

I love a classy sophisticated red on any day. And going with classic red is to me as going with a neutral: it fits all dress style and is day and/or evening appropriate. For this post I selected a blue toned red - Colorama Vinho Fashion and a classic deep red China Glaze Adventure Red-y from their Safari Collection.

I applied one coat of Colorama Vinho Fashion over Essence XXL Nail Thickener. No Top Coat. The polish is very shiny all on its own. This will not take longer than 20 minutes starting from applying Base Coat to putting on your coat and grab your bag!!!

These are two coats of China Glaze Adventure Red-y. Now if applied carefully you certainly can get away with one coat but if I am really pressed for time and have to do my nails quickly I usually don't manage to work carefully enough. Again I used no top coat. It took me 30 minutes to apply this mani.

I would advise to not pass on Base Coat when applying red polish - being pressed for time or not. Dealing with stained nails afterwards is way more annoying and time consuming. I get moderately clean nails in such cases by simply washing my hands very well with normal soap right after removal. It does not always work but at least the worst will get washed away.

Todays' question for you is very simple: what is your go-to red?

Colorama Vinho Fashion was a gift from my dear sister in polish and I ordered China Glaze Adventure Red-y with Transdesign.

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

Let's go Blue: Colorama Africa Vista Horizonte Azul and Sea Lore Aquata

Of course I could not ignore my stash of Brazilian nail polishes - I own a wonderful periwinkle blue by Colorama called Africa Vista Horizonte Azul. While these colors usually get released in spring or summer, I like to wear it year around. I have to mention though, that I don't adhere to colors of the season, whether dress or make-up wise. I would wear a summer dress "warmed-up" with a thick cardigan and heavy boots also in winter and for summer? Well, we usually have such cold and unpleasant days and weeks in June and July that you never store away all of your warm clothes :-S.

The formula is thin but just so easy to apply, no streakiness or bald spots (Essie Lapis of Luxury and China Glaze Secret Peri-win-kle - you hear me?). I applied two thin coats over Essence XXL Nail Thickener and it dried to exactly this opaque and shiny finish!! Dry time was fast. Awesome - you agree? 

 

Since this weeks' posts are about blue polish with a little extra, I applied one layer of Sea Lore Aquata over Colorama Africa Vista Horizonte Azul.

Sea Lore Aquata is a very sheer periwinkle blue base with glass flecks and small turqoise glitter particles (??? I hope I finally managed all those different kinds like flecks, flakies, etc. - if not - please apologize and bear with me ;-)). Side note: isn't the bottle adorable??? The formula is rather thin (thankfully) which facilitates an even application. I deliberately skipped the top coat to underline the effect of the flecks and the glitter. The surface of the nail was not gritty or bumpy.

 

I received Colorama Africa Vista Horizonte Azul from my wonderful friend in Brazil. I ordered Sea Lore Aquata with Llarowe .

 

What is your favorite periwinkle blue (given that you are into blues)? In case you are into Indie polishes - have you tried Sea Lore?

 

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

 

Christine

 

 

Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo

Aaargh my holo-loving me is suffering from this murky dull November weather each and every time I ogle my holo beauties that sit neglected in my Helmer. On the other hand it would be such a waste to use them before the weather gets any better. But relief is in sight - we usually get a fair share of bright and sunny days in winter too!!!!

Ludurana Aurora Boeal Supremo hopped into my shopping basket when I was trawling Llarowe's website - oh man, so hard to go there for a sneak peek only....

I have applied Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo on two nails on its own and used Colorama Africa a Vista Noite Africana as base colour on the two other nails.

Isn't this holo-icious?  Pinkie and index are three coats of Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo on its own. For middle and index I applied one coat of Colorama Africa a Vista Noite Africana and two coats of Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo. I used Essence XXL Nail Thickener as Base Coat - this worked actually very well for the application of this holographic polish. I used no Top Coat.

And then I played with some filters over the original photo as I desperately wanted to create the illusion of sunshine. I would not know if I succeeded because there was no sun near or far when I swatched this one but this is the photo:

To me it gives at least an idea what this beauty could look like on a sunny day....

I ordered Ludurana Aurora Boreal Supremo through Llarowe. Colorama Africa a Vista Noite Africana was sent to me by my wonderful sister in polish from Brazil (thanks again sis for this beauty - it's awesome)

Do you know Brazilian nail polish brands? Which one would be your favorite?

I look forward to reading your comments!!!

Thanks for reading!!

Christine

Colorama Vinho Fashion

Don't we all know the hair-raiser of any polish addict: we are due to leave the house in 20 minutes and our nails stare back at us all bare? I was in that exact situation the other day and was close to considering gloves at 24 degrees Celsius outdoors when I remembered: I had Colorama Vinho Fashion in my stash - alas rescue was granted.

In one of her epic nail mail, my sister in polish from Brazil added a bottle of Colorama Vinho Fashion with a sticky note: opaque in one coat!! (I cannot thank you enough for introducing me to this polish, my dear). Application is smooth and easy to control, no clean-up needed.

Photo taken outdoors:

This is ONE coat - and what a classy result! The bonus on that one is that it dries incredibly fast. I applied the single coat over Essence xxL Nail Thickener and used Essie Good to Go to top it off. 

What is your favourite last minute polish? I look forward to reading your experiences in the comments!!!

Thanks for reading!!

Christine