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Sunday, September 29, 2013

China Glaze - Howl You Doin shiny and mattified, Monsters Ball 2013 Halloween Collection

I bought 2 polishes from the China Glaze Monsters Ball Halloween Collection: Fang Tastic (the glitter I showed you already) and Howl You Doin.
HYD is a hard to describe polish, its dark raisin coloured with dark purple microglitters and orange flackies (I sometimes think I see a hot fuschia glitter in there as well, it might be wishful thinking though). The consistency of this polish is HORRIBLE; it is thick, gluey and streaky it feels like smearing Tipp-Ex on your nails and the result is the same bumpy streaky mess!

I first did two layers with one coat of Essie Matte About You (it seemed to me this polish was meant to be matte).
China Glaze Howl You Doin
China Glaze - Howl You Doin

China Glaze Howl You Doin

China Glaze Howl You Doin
With Essie - Matte About You.
In daylight it looks quite OK, last evening in low light it was ugleeeey! Next time I will try three coats and then the matte top coat.
Today I thinned HYD with 7 drops of thinner, slapped on one coat more and topped it off with Seche Vite.
China Glaze Howl You Doin
In sun light.

China Glaze Howl You Doin
In diffused light.

China Glaze Howl You Doin
Three coats is much better and the thinner helped a lot! As you can see even with a thick coat of Seche it is still bumpy and I like it best mattefied.
I'm not too sure about this polish..it is a bit to dark to let the glitter and flackies shine (not jelly enough) and the formula is terrible (even with thinner it is still iffy). I kind of see what they were going for but the result is not perfect.



OPI - Embarca-dare Ya! teamed up with China Glaze Fang Tastic (Monsters Ball Halloween Collection)

Something went completly wrong here....I painted my nails with the lovely deep magenta with gold/silver shimmer from the OPI San Francisco Collection Ambarca-dare Ya! Next I slapped some NYX GCS on waited a few hours and went to bed. Next morning I had three BIG dents in my pointerfinger >buh<
My solution: China Glaze Fang Tastic from the most recent Monsters Ball Halloween Collection. Fang Tastic is a red, green and larger blue glitters in a clear base.

The result:

OPI Embarca-dare Ya
OPI - Embarca-dare Ya! & China Glaze - Fang Tastic

OPI Embarca-dare Ya
In diffused light.

OPI Embarca-dare Ya

OPI Embarca-dare Ya
In sun light.
I was a bit disappointed that I didn't get to enjoy Embarca-dare Ya on it's own BUT I really like the combination with Fang Tastic....it is festive, warm and fun!.
For the OPI I used two easy layers and the China Glaze went on with just one. The glitter pay off was great, with three coats you can wear this on it's own I guess. Perhaps it is me not living in the US or something but I do not get this glitter being in a Halloween collection? Shouldn't there be some pumpkin orange in there or candycorn yellow, spider black, slimy green, or blood red (oh there is)......?
Well, Halloween issues aside, I like Fang Tastic and I like Embarca-dare Ya and the combination is lovely as well!

Saturday, September 28, 2013

Last three China Glaze - Autumn Nights 2013 polishes with comparison!

This post has been waiting and waiting.....my nails looked like sh*t after the holidays, then the light was bad, then the polish did not speak to me: it just was not going to happen, until now.
I have three foils from the China Glaze Autumn Nights Collection; Gossip Over Gimlets, Strike Up A Cosmo and Rendezvous With You.
First up is Gossip Over Gimlets, a dens silver foil with gold flecks:

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

I compared Gossip Over Gimlets with Annie Never Can Say Goodbye and OPI Designer De Better. GOG was the most foil like of the three polishes and the most harsh looking.
NCSG has pink metallic flecks and has much finer silver metallic flecks. DDB is less dens, finer and has these bronze coloured flecks which gives a much warmer feel to the colour. I like the OPI best!

Next up is the rosy metallic, Strike Up A Cosmo:

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights
Stike Up A Cosmo is also a grainy metallic foil with gold and silver flecks in there. I compared it with Zoya Faye. You can see it is in the same colour family but Faye is lighter (more pink) and has more golden flecks and no silver. SUAC covers almost in 1 coat and with Faye you need at least 2! Perhaps Faye is more spring and SUAC is more autumn.......

The last one of the Autumn Nights series that I have is Rendezvous With You:
China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights


China Glaze Autumn Nights

China Glaze Autumn Nights
Rendezvous with you has a little finer in structure then the other two and it also lacks the gold flecks (only silver here). It is a nice, very saturated, brownish purple colour; very autumn appropriate.
I compared it with Zoya Daul but as you can see there are no similarities between the two.

Over all I find these three metallics a bit too grainy and to harsh looking for my taste. I missed the little extra umpfh, like a nice colour shift or tiny extra colour twinkle (like some tiny little red micro glitters in RWY).

Ninja Polish - Glamorous

As promissed last time this blogpost is about Ninja Polish Glamorous.
Glamorous is said to be a dupe for the big time lemming OPI ds Glamour. I don't own the OPI so I can not do a comparison. I just can tell you Glamorous is a gorgeous, deep cornflower blue with a strong linear holografic effect.  I used NYX Grand Central Station as a top coat: it does not dry as quickly as Poshé and is not as shiny but I have the feeling that the tipwear is less and there are way less chips...... The downside is that when you polish late in the evening and you go to bed too soon after......you get sheet marks...and I did....
So ignore the sheets and just look at that gorgeous blue with that dazzeling holo effect!
Ninja Polish Glamorous
Ninja Polish - Glamorous

Ninja Polish Glamorous
In sun light


Ninja Polish Glamorous
In halogen light
This was two easy layers and I wore it for a good three days!
Love this polish....it's a must have in my humble opinion :-)

You can buy it at Ninja Polish

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Dance Legend - 48 Multi shifting Shining Rainbow and Kiko Quick Dry 817

A few weeks ago (I was just back from the holiday) I was just cruising the Ninja Polish website and found this stunning duo chrome with holografic effect polish by Dance Legend...I just needed to try it (I also bought the Ninja Polish Glamorous which will be my next post in a few days time).
The Dance Legend nr. 48 is very cool. It is this taupe/braunish colour which shifts from pink to gold and some times turquoise and the added bonus is are the holografic particles: stunning, mesmerizing, dreamy...soo cool!
On it's own it is quite translucent so I used 1 layer of Kiko Quick Dry 817 as base colour and added just 1 layer of Dance Legend to get an opaque result.

I tried to capture it's beauty and failed.
This is what I got on camera:
Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817
Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817
Diffused light

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817
In sun light

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817
Holo goodness

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817
Gold shimmer under halogen light

Dance Legend 48 and Kiko Quick Dry 817
YES: finally in the evening I got some pink shimmer!
The pink shimmer was playing hide and seek and the hint of blue proved even more difficult to capture.
In real life this is a even more gorgeous polish and very work appropriate if that is something to be careful about.
I wore this for four whole days and I had no chips, no extreme tipwear whatsoever (I used NYC Grand Central Station as topcoat) so absolutely perfect for a holo polish.

The big conclusion: love it a lot and I can recommand it wholeheartedly, it is a gorgeous, mesmerizing polish :-)

Friday, September 13, 2013

Holiday Haul !!! (warning: long and pic heavy)

Oh dear....it has been a while!
Our holiday ruined my nails and cuticles so I need some recovery time...
We went away to France and Spain for the summer holidays and we had the most wonderful time (no antibiotics necessary this time!).
First we went to Orleans, on a camping with a little stream running trough it:
 Next we went "en route" to Béziers in the south of France:
Then we made the jump to Spain:

We had loads of fun at the beach as well:
After happy and sunny Spain we went to France again.....Montpellier! Old grandeur and nonchalant chique at the mediterranean sea....or so we thought....
We went to this camping called "Montpellier Plage" which sounds OK, right? Well the big fat security guards at the gate and the cameras hanging all over the camping should have told us otherwise!

It was hell and then some... First thing was that everybody on the camping looked at us like we were a bunch of aliens (yes, we are not French....but definately human!), next up were our charming, somewhat stoned looking neighbours with the bottle of vodka next to their tent, (I do not mention the dirty medieval toilets and showers). The first night was OK, I did not dare go to the toilets and there was some noise but it was manageable. The next day we went to Montpellier (as long as possible so we had to spend as little time as possible on the camping):

We came home late.....and then it began: music, drinking, drugs, peeing and pooping on our tent (!), screaming, car lights full on, telephone calls of angry girlfriends/wifes, cooking (at 3 o'clock at night?!) etc. it went on the whole night long. We did not sleep for a minute and we were constantly scared that these lunatics would come trashing our tent. Those big security guards came by twice but were too scared to say or do anything to these guys.....

At six in the morning (it finally was quiet, I think they were comatose) we had had enough and this is how we found our neighbouring plot a "situation exceptionelle" as they like to describe it on their website:
It seemed like a hurricane had hit it or something: clothes, food, booze bottles everywhere!
At half past seven we escaped and went to look for more peaceful surroundings:

We found our spot in Ronnet near Montluçon!
Heaven :-)
Then it was almost over but we had still two days of beautiful Orleans as dessert:
It was a lovely, lovely holiday (forget about Camping Montpellier Plage) and I loved every bit of it!
I did some polish shopping as well....>naturally<
Here it goes:
Kiko Nailpolish
 Kiko Sugar Mat nr.: 632 (bright red), 633 (fuchsia), 638, 637 and 644
Kiko Nailpolish

Kiko Nailpolish
 Kiko Laser nr.: 434 (bright blue with pink flash ) and 435 (dark grey with turquoise and fuchsia flash)
Kiko Nailpolish

Kiko Nailpolish
 Kiki Sun Pearl nr.: 427 (chartreuse with golden pearl) and 429 (blue with silver pearl)
Kiko Nailpolish
 Kiko Quick Dry nr.: 817 (taupe) and 818 (grey)
Kiko Nailpolish
 Kiko nr.: 381 (dark grey creme)
Revlon Royal Nailpolish

Revlon Royal Nailpolish
 Oh YES there it is...Revlon Royal: finally obtained!
Flomar polish
 Flomar: Matte M09, 394, Glitter GL04, Supershine 50, Glitter GL10 and 399 (grey/black microshimmer)
Flomar polish

Flomar polish

Reserve Naturelle Polish

Reserve Naturelle Polish
 Reserve Naturelle: L3112 (like OPI Germanicure) and L1913 (grey blue with blue shimmer)
Maybelline Forever Strong Polish

Maybelline Forever Strong Polish
 Maybelline Forever Strong: 735 Gold All Night and 645 Viva Blue Violet (dusty blue with violet shimmer)
Ess Trendy Colours Polish

Ess Trendy Colours Polish
Ess Trendy Colours: Midnight Blue and Stars In The Eyes.

That's it! >pfwwww<
I do not know where to start swatching so if you want to see a particular polish: just let me know.
My swatching nails are almost recovered so in the next days I will post some new mani's again!

Hope I didn't bore you with my holiday adventures :-)