Top Ten Favourite Summer Nail Polishes

From Left to Right:

Orly Rage - An amazing metallic rose gold. I love metallic nails in summer as they really catch the sunshine. This is equally pretty at Christmastime.

OPI Dim Sum Plum - I love this deep pink shade for toes in particular.

Orly Fancy Fuchsia - This is more vibrant in person than it looks in photos. Texture is a bit goopy but I really love the colour. It's a gorgeous Barbie pink.

Barry M Lemon Ice Cream - I did a post about this one a while back. It's a nice cheery yellow (:

CND Guava - A lovely peach. It's quite a soft colour so it's a good option for something which is still bright but not fluorescent or over the top. CND polishes are great quality too.

Revlon Tropical Temptation - I think this is the perfect coral shade. It doesn't have too much red, pink or orange in it - just the perfect balance!

Rimmel Coralicious - This is more of a red coral. I like this one on my toes especially with Tropical Temptation on my fingers.

Barry M Blueberry Ice Cream - A gorgeous sky blue!

Essie Coat Azure - This is a medium blue with a slight bit of shimmer. It definitely reminds me of the sea!

Rimmel Sky High - A nice medium turquoise colour.


Hope you like my picks for summer!

Glam Slam

Well, I was so excited about getting Black Shatter in the mail, that I decided to try another manicure.

I read in a blog that this shatter polish is not supposed to be applied over top coat, and I realized I was wearing a glossy top coat underneath. Well, time to get rid of the old manicure and see Black Shatter work the way it was intended to work.

Another thing you should know: DO NOT apply over wet or semi-dry polish. Your base polish should be completely dry before you apply the shatter.

"Simply smashing" is a yellow-green metallic almost foil like polish, it looks different that what I had imagined, I thought it was more green. Truth is I wouldn't wear Simply Smashing by itself. It's just not my kind of shade. I had to go for 3 coats, because at 2 you could still see my nail through it.

Now, Simply Smashing + Black Shatter… WOW! See for yourself!

Shatter!

I know I'm kind of late with this post, there's been Black Shatter reviews all over the net for quite some time now, but I could barely get my hands on this puppy. This polish is HARD to get! I felt like I was trying to score some weird designer drug, seriously.  I ended up going on Amazon.com and buying OPI's Glam Slam, which is a nail polish duo by Serena Williams, very cool combo, I can't wait to try the other polish (can't remember the name).

If you don't know about OPI's Black Shatter, it is a "crackle" polish. This means, you use it over another shade, and as soon as it starts drying, the nail polish starts cracking open, and you get a very cool effect. Cover Girl first came out with a crackle polish back in the 90s but it really didn't look as cool as the new ones.

I hear China Glaze is working on a "crackle" nail polish collection, with 6 different shades. Can't wait for that one! I love China Glaze and I love their prices and availability even more. 

Anyways, a few days ago I was all over town trying to score some Black Shatter from the Katy Perry collection, but no such luck.  I ended up buying The one that got away and Not like the movies, both shades are amazing.

Now, this is my first time using a "crackle" polish, so from personal experience, my advice is to apply over a completely dry shade of your choice, and then go light with the crackle polish. If you apply it too thick, or if it takes you a long time to do it, it will not shatter.  So, light and quick is the way to go.  It works very quick! Also, it dries matte, so don't forget your top coat! 

Well, here are the nails, The one that got away with Black Shatter on top.

What's new in my stash

Hey there! I just wanted to share the polishes that I've bought lately and haven't used yet. 

Konad Special Polishes in Green and Dark Purple.
They are much darker IRL

OPI in Tease-y does it and Simmer & Shimmer,
from their new Burlesque collection

SH Xtreme Wear in Red Carpet and Emerald City. SH nail art pen in White.
I wish you could see the tiny glitter on RC, it's beautiful!

Icing- Sparkle me Happy, Icing-Bedazzled, Unnamed Orange Glitter from Hot Topic,
CG Boundless Color - Amethyst Mist and NYC In a New York Color Minute - East Village 

I saved the best for last… China Glaze - Party Hearty from their Holiday 2010 collection

I would love to hear about your recent buys or favorite picks.

A sea of purple

This look was a little bit more complicated than what I usualy do but I will explain it step by step.

I used Sally Hansen's Deep Purple from their Xtreme Wear collection as a base.  Like most of their polishes, it was very easy to apply, smooth, and opaque in 2 coats.

We are going to apply a tape diagonally to each finger and then use our base color to paint the nail.

Then, we are going to stamp our nail with a swirly design from image plate bm19 and a Silver Foil Nail Polish (Finger Paints Easel come, easel go).  Remove the tape carefully and slowly to protect your design.

Apply silver glitter to the line that divides your design and your naked nail with a fine brush.  I used Kiss Nail Art Paint in Silver Glitter.  If you are shaky like me, you need to do this slowly so you can get a straight line.  Finish it with a nice and glossy top coat, like Seche Vite.

After removing the tape

Apply a thin line of silver glitter and voila! 

Nail Polishes that I used from start to finish!

Pink Before You Leap swatch

As you guys know, my nails are currently unavailable for new polish, as I am trying out the Incoco nail appliqués (see post below), but I borrowed my sister's hand to swatch this for you guys.

She wanted a "date night" mani, she really liked the way it looked on the bottle, and we are both OPI suckers, so she went for this one.  This is from the Brights collection, and it's a shimmery, nudish pink.  Looks gorgeous on the bottle, however, it looks slightly different on the nail, because it is very sheer.  It took 3 coats to look like this!

On the positive side, it is a very forgiving shade so I suppose you can wear this for the longest time because the little chips will go unnoticed. Very flattering to all skin tones as well.

This picture above was taken with flash, the one below with natural light.

How do you guys like it? How would you wear it?

Antwerp haul

A while ago I went shopping in Antwerp with my friend Magali.

I always say I don't like shopping, but I actually do unless it's for clothes, and only if its not too busy.

So here are the things I bought. Not just makeup, I got some jewelry too.

 I'll go over each item quickly. If you'd like me to do a seperate review, let me know.

I had been wanting to Hoola bronzer from Benefit. I like using it with my Sigma SS to contour and I really like it so far. Its not too dark and easy to blend. Also like how the colour looks on my skin tone.

 

At Kruidvat (drugstore in Belgium and the Netherlands) I saw the Dream creamy foundation, which is called Dream smooth mousse foundation in the US and possibly the UK. I got it in the lightest shade which was 08 Light beige. I haven't really tried this product yet but it does feel really smooth.

 

 We each picked up one of the Bourjois Smokey eyes trios. They were buy one get one free so we split the price of one. Really good deal.

I got the trio in . I think the pigmentation is really nice and I like using these colours for a quick neurtal eye.



 

I also got 2 of the Catrice lipsticks. I already had 2 colours and I like the texture of them so I wanted to get some more. Plus they're really cheap. I personally never really wear lipstick cause my lips are really dry and it just doesn't look nice. So I mainly got this for when I do makeup on other people.

 

 

I also got the kohl from catrice cause I needed a black kohl pencil. Had this one before and I think it's really nice especially for the price.

 

 

At Instant Spa, I bought Extravagance by OPI. It's one of the colours from the Designer Series and it is gorgeous. I've always wanted to try OPI polishes but they're really expensive here. When I saw this one, I just had to have it lol. I'll probably look for OPI polishes online in the future tho.

 

Next: jewelry.

I got two pairs of earrings from New Look. I'd seen the leopard ones before but wasn't sure if I wanted  them or not. Seeing them a second time really made me want to get them, do I did :).

Also thought the little fairies looked really cute.

 

Then we went in to a store called I Am, which I hadn't seen before. They had lots and lots of nice accesoires. I picked out these gold butterflies. Until then I always stayed away from gold earrings cause for some reason I didn't think they looked good on me. But Magali convinced me to get them and I'm glad she did.

 

We also stopped at the River Island store which opened not too long ago. On our way to the accessories section, Magali spotted this really cool ring that looked alot like the leopard earrings I had bought earlier. Only problem was that it was too small for me. So we went looking for a larger size, but couldn't find one. Even asked one of the girls from the store if and when they were gonna come back in stock. She said they were gonna get them back in stock but she didn't know when. So I was like ok, I'll just have to come back every day to check if they're back. Then, on our way out, Magali found another one, and it was a bigger one, yay! She then decided to get it too lol.

That's all for now.
Up next: Venomous Villains haul!!

Have a nice weekend.

x

Tanja

OPI DS Extravagance: Awesome Holo Goodness

Ahem ahem *clears throat and looks awkward* Before I show off the awesome holo-ness on my nails, could you guys do me a teensy favour and vote for me? (I bet you knew that was coming..) It's a simple two-step (or one, even) process: Go HERE, and look for the girl called "Grace". Looks familiar? Umm well that's because that's me! So if you've enjoyed my blog and would love to see me swatch/review more stuff, be nice to me and click on the "Vote" button. :) You can do it once a day, but I don't imagine anyone's going to do that LOL, so I'd be happy if you just voted a couple of times. If you're really lazy, CLICKING HERE leads you directly to the voting form for me :D All you need to do is enter your email address, and you can uncheck the box if you don't want Stila's spam :P

Today's NOTD is one of my favourite holos of all time. There are some holos that are awesome because of the way they totally bring out the holo rainbow on your nails (like GOSH Holographic, from THIS POST) and there are some which have a more diffused holographic glitter - you get holo glitter bits, but not the entire holo rainbow. I usually don't fancy these types of holos, but OPI DS Extravagance is one I make an exception for.

Although the holo is a little more diffused in this one, I still love it nonetheless, and I can't quite say why. Maybe its because of its holographic sparkliness, maybe its the rich pinky-plum jewel tone that really feels extravagant (like the polish name, haha) and makes me feel like I've got little gems on my fingertips everytime I wear it, maybe it's the way it glints and winks in the sunlight. Whatever it is, I love this baby. And summertime is the perfect time to wear holos - the extra daylight just makes them so much more glitzy.

Here's two coats in natural sunlight:



Application on this one was good, as good as OPI's usually get. Not streaky, opaque in two coats, and generally trouble-free. I'm personally a huge fan of OPI's Pro-Wide brush, so I love the huge brush size because it lets me do my man-hands in fewer strokes, but girls with slimmer proper ladylike hands might not fancy it so much.

Like all holographic polishes, this one was a little high maintanence and chippy. It chipped after a couple of days, which is not unusual for a holo polish. I really love this one, and it's a pity the entire DS series was limited edition. I really wanted DS Original too, but I never got to lay my greedy paws on it before it wasn't sold anymore.

Nail Polish Haul: OPI, Essie, China Glaze, and Orly!

Awhile back, to reward myself for getting through a particularly stressful period of school (believe it or not, despite all my professors' assumptions about the "copious free time" we have, us grad students are actually a relatively busy bunch), I decided it was time to place an order of my lemmings. Hey, don't judge me - my groupmate bought himself a camera, so I figured it was perfectly reasonable for me to buy nail polish. And so I did. And these babies arrived all the way from the great USA, the land of cheap Chinaglaze, etailers of nail polish, and buy-1-get-1-free drugstore makeup promotions. Oh, just thinking about it makes me so jealous!

Anyway here is my amazing haul. Please pardon the crappy pictures, they were taken at night under my yellow lamplight, and I suck at using photo-editing software:



Ooh, China Glaze Khromes! I've been wanting these FOREVER for konading purposes! I got China Glaze Sci Fi, Robotika, Millenium, and 2030, in that order from left to right. I'm going crazy just imagining the konading possibilities! Oh, I also got Essie Chinchilly. Mmmmm, grey. But this is not any ordinary grey. This is grey with the slightest green tinge, so chic and unique.



Ooh holos! And duochromes! And my favourite nudey greige mushroomy colour! In order it was Orly Golden Halo (this one is supposed to be sheer though, darn), Orly Country Club Khaki (my favourite! I know I have enough greige nudes, but I can't help it...I need to collect them ALL), and OPI DS Signature and DS Extravagance. I kind of prefer Extravagance, because it has that jewelled quality to it in the base colour, but DS Signature shows more of the holographic "rainbow" in the bottle. I can't wait to try these on my nails - I just KNOW they'll be amazing!

So that's my stress-induced haul. I know I can't be the only one hauling during times of stress, and hey, I figure at least getting a few more pretties is a better way of coping with stress than smoking pot, gambling or drinking :P Yeah, yeah, I know I'm full of excuses...But I can't help it, they're all so pretty!

OPI Jade is the New Black Dupe? Asos Paints by Ciate Pixie

Of course, we've all been looking at pictures of OPI's upcoming Hong Kong collection that will be released in Spring, and while I was browsing the gorgeous pictures of many a beautiful finger, a thought suddenly struck me - Jade is the New Black looked hauntingly familiar. In fact, it kind of looked like something I already had in my stash, and that was released in Winter!

Ooh. Just goes to show you that these types of emerald-jade slightly dustied jewel greens are awesome and chic year round, be it Winter, Spring, Summer or Fall. Anyway, regular readers of this blog will probably be able to guess what I was talking about, because awhile back, I posted bottle pics of potential-dupe-in-question here. But of course bottle pictures are inconclusive. And as it so happens, I've actually used it for a mani since then!

Behold, a potential dupe-or-not for OPI's Jade is the New Black. Maybe it's not a dupe, but it's definitely in the same family, or if not, a close neighbour. From what I could tell based on other bloggers' swatches, the main difference is that Pixie is a little more blue-toned, while the OPI is more yellow-based. I do think they are close though. I only wish I had the actual OPI colour so I could do a side-by-side comparison. But anyways, this maybe-it's-a-dupe-maybe-it's-not isn't too shabby either. It's cheaper (for the UK ladies, that is), it's beautiful and creamy, it covers in one coat (although I used two out of habit) and it's none other than Pixie, from the Asos Paints by Ciate Winter Collection!

Observe it's beauty, in natural light:



And here it is indoors:



Of course, I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I had to pair it with $OPI's Run With It, a beautiful, albeit streaky and sheer, silvery grey, and I konaded over the ring finger with Pixie, using Konad plate M57 (I think. I'm bad at remembering which plates I used).

Anyway, can I just sing the praises of Pixie again? Oh Asos and Ciate, you have done it again. Beautiful, pigmented, creamy, good texture, and very smooth creme. Unfortunately, it's let down by a brush that likes to skip and make application not as great as it could be. Which is really unfortunate, because the formulation of this was near perfect, and it was a shame that it was let down by the brush.

I also really liked Pixie, because it is something of a chameleon, colour-wise. Indoors it leans a little blue, and sometimes I swore it looked rather teal on my fingers. But outdoors, it looks most mostly green. And this isn't a wimpy mint-jade green (haven't we had enough of those already?) but it's a much sexier, much more sophisticated, much more chic older sister of those green wannabes. It's deep, but not too deep, and it's a mix of emerald and jade colours, and is bright but still a little dusty, making it eyecatching but still very wearable. And of course it likes to tease me by being bluish and teal sometimes.

So OPI, don't say I didn't warn ya, but you have competition! I only wish I could get my hands on OPI Jade is the New Black to do a side-by-side comparison!

NOTD: OPI Lincoln Park After Dark Suede

Today's NOTD is OPI's Lincoln Park After Dark Suede. I really love this colour, and the OPI Suede line in general - it really does matte without being flat. It's also incredibly fast drying, as in REALLY fast drying, although I guess you already knew that. It's also increibly chiptastic - I got a chip the very same day. Argh.

I really love the Suedes though. They're great for when I'm in a hurry.

These were with a basecoat underneath - I know people say you shouldn't use them, but I think as long as you let the basecoat dry completely before putting on the nail polish, there isn't a problem.

Color Club Fashion Addict and OPI Lincoln Park After Dark: KOTD

Hey guys! I'm back from X'Mas break and crazy laptop hard drive issues!

Today's KOTD is Color Club's Fashion Addict as the base with OPI's timeless LPAD for the flowers. Plate is M34 I believe.

Once again, excuse the frazzles, the pre-clean-up pics, and the general sloppiness of application - I'm so not a pro. I so suck at nails, but I promise I'm getting better. Slowly. Sort of.



I liked this, but it's not the most creative or the best KOTD/NOTD ever. I don't mind it though, This was 2 coats of Fashion Addict. Unfortunately the holo effect is rather weak on me - I don't know how other bloggers get their awesome holos to show on photograph, but this was under natural light in my room beside the window, and it doesn't look holo at all! I'm utterly crushed. Maybe I got a dud. Sigh.

I tried getting other pictures of this KOTD in other lighting, to see if I could get the holo to show up - warm light, white light, natural light, a mix of lights - and this was the best I could get:



Don't you just hate it when holos aren't holo enough?

Comparison Swatches: Nude/Beige Nail Polishes

So I've finally decided to do a comparison of the various nude/beige nail polishes I have. So far I have 7 of them.



L - R: Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, Nails Inc Basil Street, OPI Tickle My Francey, Rimmel Beige Style, Misa High Waist Hue, OPI Barefoot in Barcelona, Rimmel Euphoria

OK OK so I know Nails Inc Elizabeth Street isn't really a beige nude..But I'm putting it in there anyway.

Here's the first four of the nail polishes, swatched. Each of these were 3 coats, although most only needed two.



Index to Pinky (that's R - L): Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, Nails Inc Basil Street, OPI Tickle My Francey, Rimmel Beige Style

Nails Inc Elizabeth Street was a bit disappointing. First of all, it was streaky and uneven and sheer, and required 3 coats to be opaque, and even then it didn't really look that good :( This was why I had to use 3 coats for all the swatches - I figured since I had used 3 coats for Elizabeth Street, for comparison's sake I might as well use 3 coats of the rest, although they weren't nowhere as sheer. It's a pale milky baby pink type of colour, a creme finish. I don't mind this colour, I just wish the quality was better.

Nails Inc Basil Street...I've talked about this before haven't I? Creamy, smooth, and opaque in two coats. I really love this, and I really LOVE Nails Inc, so I have no complaints about this one. It has a little pink in it, but it's pretty beige for the most part.

OPI Tickle My Francey needs no introduction, with it's now-famous pink-grey-nude hue. I like this one a lot. The grey tinge gives it an edge and makes it more unusual. This requires two to three coats, depending on how thin or thick the coats are, to acheive full opacity.

Rimmel Beige Style also was a 2-3 coater. Unlike the other colours, which were all creams, this one has a slight shimmer. It's more pink than Basil Street, but less pink than Tickle My Francey. I really like this one, I imagine it'd be pretty much universally flattering on most people because it has a nice balance of pink and beige.


Here's the last three, along with OPI TMF again for consistency:




Index to Pinky (that's R - L): OPI Tickle My Francey, Misa High Waist Hue, OPI Barefoot in Barcelona, Rimmel Euphoria

Wow. These all look so different on the nail.

Sadly, Misa High Waist Hue and OPI Barefoot in Barcelona seem to veer very warm on me - and I have no idea why. Barefoot in Barcelona looks positively orange, and Misa High Waist Hue looks like it has a slight peach tinge to it. Unfortunately I don't really like how they look. The OPI was nicely opaque in 2 coats, while the Misa required a little more, 3 to be perfectly even.

The last one, Rimmel Euphoria, is a pinky nude that seems to have a little bit of taupe thrown in - maybe its the shimmer. I really like this one, and I think it's a rather interesting colour. It applies a bit unevenly, but nothing nightmarish.

I guess out of the entire lot, my favourites are Nails Inc Basil Street, Rimmel Euphoria and of course, OPI Tickle My Francey. But of course, a good nude is so dependent on skintone that it's hard for me to say who would look good in which nude. I just hope these pictures and my ramblings have helped someone.