Dear RUS LAD538

In this photo, it's warm on the index finger, normal on others. compare how the tips look very different!

I have not worn this polish for a few months since I got it, but I finally decided to give it a ago and to try some nail art with it! My nails are far too long for a Konad stamp to cover them all, so I tried to leave some space at the base of the nail. This polish is the same in finish and formula as the other Dear RUS polishes: LAD560, LAD556 and LAD554.

This one is a grey shimmer which turns to a much darker grey when cold. I like that it's also very cool-toned, almost greenish in its color. The darker tips look fantastic and I ended up really loving this under the stamp!

Sorbet Swirl

This one sounded like a good idea, but I messed up on the stamping a little. It looks okay from a distance though! The polishes I used were Sally Hansen Instadri Snappy Sorbet and Lightning stamped over it. Very opaque cremes, I keep acquiring these strictly for the stamping most of the time because let's face it - Konad special polishes cost a lot and some are not opaque at all (I'm looking at YOU, special gold). I did like the color of Snappy Sorbet though, it's an incredible mango-peach and the name really fits because it's really neither. It's just orange enough to be bright and a little pink to separate it from oranges in my book. The pinkiness keeps it looking surprisingly nice on my skin tone and this is a big plus that China Glaze - Peachy Keen does not have. I think layering some shimmer effects polishes over this polish might be a good idea. 

What are your thoughts on peachy polish? Did you find one that works with your skin tone?

Glassy Pink and laces

I've been eyeing Sinfuls for a while but was always a little apprehensive about purchasing them.

 I chose Glassy Pink for its glass fleck finish, it's very sheer and shimmery and the formula is easy to work with. Since it's a sheer polish, it took about 4 coats to get this opacity.  The nail line is still visible, but it isn't apparent. It didn't smell horrible, the texture was pleasing and this made my nails look really long, since it's a nude/light color. I'm really happy with this polish! It's not chunky, was pretty cheap, looks very airy and fresh. Only downside is it's less pink than I wanted, but the beautiful gold shimmer really makes this one stand out for me. Beautiful polish, I bet this would look smashing in sunlight!

Have you ever tried a glass fleck polish? Do you have a favourite one?

Nail art - Konad and neons!

It's been a dreary spring and an even colder, rainier summer. This sort of situation calls for a neon... but which one? Why not all of them? I used SH Xtreme wear Blue Me Away, Illamasqua Collide, Jo'Mina and Rare from index to pinky. I love the Illa neons, they are so creamy and opaque and don't need underwear! After that, Konad plates and topcoat. Funny enogh, I can never get the designs to go full length of the nail... I have issues stamping because my c curve is very pronounced, so they either end up covering a half of the nail or smudging. However, it does get better with practice, so that's always encouraging. 

Come on, summer! Show me the sun! I want to wear holographics~

What are some of your favorite rainy day polishes?

Dotty nail art with Illamasqua Rare

I'm usually terrified of full nail designs for Konad, especially with fine details such as gradiated dots, but I decided to take the plunge and practice. Illamasqua Rare is a wonderful neon, but it was a little too much by itself, so I added dots. For the accent finger, I immediately realized my mistake... while black is solid enough to stamp on yellow, yellow is not solid enough to stamp on black. I had to do it manually with a dotting tool, but it came out better than I expected. I had a good experience with this stamp and hope to try using it again sometime soon.

What do you think of a bright mani like this? Would you try wearing it?

Illamasqua Jo'mina leopard gradient

I'm not usually big on animal print, but my favorite Konad plate (m57) contains a GREAT Leopard print stamp which always works and I wanted to try a Leopard print gradient, but with better colors this time. My last attempt was all over the place and I picked terrible colours to gradient.

Learning from my mistakes, I faded 2 cool toned colors (in this case Illamasqua Jo'Mina and OPI Pink Friday) which creates a nicer gradient, since the colors don't blow each other out. 

Pink Friday is a very cool light pink and it fades perfectly from a bright lilac like Jo'Mina.

The leopard print looks a LOT better over this and I really loved the way it came out. I was even considering redoing the same mani but with all fingers jazzed up instead of just accents. Expect to see more Leopard print in the future, now that I've finally found my favorite Konad plate M57.

What do you think about animal print on nails? Cute or kitsch?

OPI Pink Friday - fairy nails

As I'm writing this, I've just hit 400 followers! Oh my gosh 0_0 thank you all so much for following my blog! Let me know if you'd like to be added to the blogroll ☺

Now on to nails...

I wanted to do some holographic stamping and try out the shimmer I got at Daiso as well.

I used OPI Pink Friday as a base and the stars are stamped with Konad and OPI DS Original. You can see the difference between shimmer or no shimmer by my inde finger - it does not have the Daiso shimmer over it.

They're a bit too subtle but the rainbow still comes through. I really like the shimmer from Daiso, it can give a bit of kick to any creme! I really need to try his over OPI Dutch' Ya Love OPI? due to its minimal shimmer, might work~ Anyone else like stamping with holographic polishes? What are your favorite holos to stamp with?

HITS Olympo Zeus holographic

HITS is a Brazilian company that produced nail polish and their contribution to the nail polish world over the last year has been TREMENDOUS. They have released a full range of holographic polishes with Spectraflair in the Olympo collection, a ton of duo/multichrome polishes from Mari Moon and the Mundo De Dancas flakie collection, which contains flakie topcoats and polishes with flakies in them. Today, I will be showing you a black holographic polish called Zeus, from the HITS Olympo; a charcoal holographic and a slayer of longtime wants. 

One of my first really-want-but-impossible-to-find polishes was OPI - My Private Jet (original holographic version) which was a black holo and it was STUNNING. I've been looking around for it in dusties but never found it... and finally, my wishes for a black holographic came true when I got my hands on Zeus.

Mmm that rainbow!

It's a little more charcoal than black, but it still lights up a rainbow. I haven't gotten sun to show you its full rainbow glory, but once I do...

It's a little thin with 4 coats to full opacity and a little jellylike. I layered this over black for maximum colour payoff and did some stamping, with Out The Door topcoat.

I can't wait to see this in the sunlight! It's so beautiful!

OPI - Dutch' Ya Just Love OPI? Holland 2012

OPI - Dutch' Ya Just Love is a part of this spring's Holland 2012 collection, it is a cool grape creme with hidden orangey-gold shimmer, which REALLY reminds me of tulips. The purple is slightly dusty and the shimmer warms it up, which makes it different from other purples I own. Unusually enough, I am loving this color even though purples aren't my thing...it just looks so rich and satisfying, like a heavy dessert. The application was awesome, 2 coats and it was solid. However, my only gripe comes from the shimmer being too secret! Without a topcoat, the shimmer is almost impossible to see. With a topcoat, it comes out a little bit more, but still not as much as I'd like. I tried to capture the shimmer in the bottle and nails in the first photo, but that's as bright as the shimmer goes. Otherwise, I like this purple for being a slightly dusty Tulip-like purple which looks great with my skin.

Navy Butterfly nail art - SH Thinking of Blue and Konad

This was actually my Valentine day's mani! I completely forgot it was coming, so I ended up having somewhat dark nails on Vday but that's alright...these came out better than I expected. The base color is Sally Hansen Thinking of Blue, which is my very first (gasp) navy creme. I really like this color actually, it's solid in 2 coats and wears well. It's not pure navy, as it has a little bit of grey in it, so it seems to be the color of denim to me. 

The butterflies are stamped with SH Instadry Blue Away; dots done with dotting tools, using ORLY Luxe. I haven't done butterflies in forever, I was loving this when I had it on. Thinking of Blue is a ridiculously pleasant color and it looks nice with my skintone, I'm looking forward to wearing it again!

What are your though on this color? How about the color combo?

Dear RUS - 554 mood polish with Konad

I wanted to wear Dear Rus polish again... my nails are short so the color shift isn't as apparent, but I do love it so. I stamped flowers on it with ORLY Luxe and took a few photos of it changing colour! Keep in mind, this polish is matte, but I am wearing a topcoat over it. I want to wear this again when my nails are longer...

Without further ado, I present...mood polish spam!

Neutral

Cold

Hot

And for some reason, with a handful of Nerds candy!

I want more of these, maybe something pink and maybe grey! 

What do you think of mood polishes in general? Like em or are they too gimmicky?

Sparitual - it's raining men and black roses

Sparitual - it's raining men is a beautiful dusty blue duochrome to pale gold and light pink - very pretty! In the photos it looks more gray than blue and in real life this is also true. The yellow evens out the blue into a greyish tone and it ends up looking very interesting...It's not as bright as I would've liked but it's very subtle.
 I was disappointed with the formula...it was runny, the the worst part was the bubbles and chunks! I rolled it in my hands for a while, didn't see any bubbles in the bottle, put it on...chunky bubbletime. For 12 dollars? No thanks!

blue shows up better with a flash!

I was a little upset at that but once I put the roses on I had a very different opinion...they came out beautifully and the color grew on me. I'd give this a thumbs up, especially as a base for nail art.Maybe my bottle was old...I'm not willing to dismiss such a pretty color on its formula alone.

BTW: what do you think of my photos lately? I'm working on a laptop so the colors don't look right to me and I have to guess...do they look too pink or too dark to you? Please let me know, I really need feedback!

Thanks <3

OPI - no room for the blues and Konad

OPI No Room For the Blues is something I picked up in a little travel set duo along with A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find, which came with a passport holder, pictured here:

The color is a nice, toned down non-offensive blue. It's a little bit less saturated than SH XW Blue Me Away, even though they are fairly similar in the bottle. BMA also seems to be a TINY bit more green than NRFTB, even though it is a perfect sky blue. It took me 3 coats for full opacity. It's not too streaky and dries pretty shiny. I'm happy that it's more of a denim colour, I do like its slight dustiness, yes it still looks stark and bright. I'm pretty happy with this blue! What a yummy addition to my collection.

Sexy Bomb s37 and Konad

This is a konad-icure from this summer with the awesomest hot pink foil ever! Sexy Bomb s37 I reviewed here,
I liked the way it came out, even though the thumb smudged a little bit. I'm a big fan of black on pink...what do you think about it?

Missha HGR01 and Konad

Missha HGR01 is one of my favourite duochromes, even if I don't  really like green. This polish is cool toned green to blue, with hints of gold. This polish hits close to home, since it reminds me of my favourite insect - the green beetle (Cetonia Aurata). It's a two-coater and smells like roses! The topcoat diminishes the smell or it goes away after a day or so, but I find it super nice and girly. Formula is great. Not thick but still opaque, its extremely finely milled metallic shimmer is beautiful. It does not show streaks and doesn't chip very easily. The brush is HUGE but it helps cover the entire nail, which is useful for longer nails. The big cap is a little hard to hold but I didn't mind too much. HGR01 is somewhat similar to Chanel Peridot, but it's more green-blue as opposed to green-yellow duochrome Peridot has.

Absolutely beautiful color, it's even better in person...My most favourite green!

Lace Princess Konad mani

This is another older mani, this one made with OPI Feelin hot hot hot (notice I use this one a lot? haha) and Konad stamps, plus a bit of gold on a tooth pick near the bows. I feel so fancy with lacey fingers, I hope to do more lace stamping in the future. Mmm, princess nails!

SH Xtreme wear - Blue me away with Konad

This is an older mani from a while back before I started the blog. Blue Me Away is one of my favorite blues and it's just so happy and stark, I can't describe it ,so I will let the picture speak for itself.. Blue Me Away is a glossy creme that is opaque in two coats and applies like a dream. The color is the perfect sky blue. I stamped clouds with Konad and it turned out just peachy! I'm really happy with this polish, it lasts a while and doesn't wear down easily, as well as the low cost and great formula make this one a keeper. 

What is your favourite blue creme?

ELF Dark Navy polish and Konad!

Dark Navy is just that - a very blackened navy creme with fine silver shimmer. The shimmer is so barely seen, it looks almost black most of the time. I really like this color, it's, again, a one-coater from ELF and dries well. I have not had it chip but I did see evidence of tip wear after 1 day. It left my fingers lightly stained, but otherwise removed easily.

I stamped silver stars over it, something about Dark Navy that just makes me feel sophisticated...

Sally Hansen - Lacey Lilac

SH - lacey lilac is a part of their xtreme wear line and it shows! I've worn this for 5 days and no chips! The creams in xtreme wear are FANTASTIC. Most of them look opaque in 2 coats, feels like I'm putting liquid coloured rubber on my nails, dry quick and look really glossy (although I do use a top coat).

Here I also used OPI Ink to stamp with, as well as Sephora by OPI Queen of Everything.

When I got this, I almost regretted it since I already own OPI - Done Out in Deco and they looked similar in the bottle. However, DOID is a dusty lilac, it looks a lot more gray and neutral next to LL; where as LL makes me think of words like "radiant" and "refreshing".

In conclusion, this is a wonderful creamy lilac that dries fast and looks great!