Merry Christmas with China Glaze - Tongue and Chic and stamping

Merry Christmas!

For the occasion I have embellished China Glaze Tongue and Chic with a bronze christmas wrapping paper stamping!

China Glaze - Tongue and Chic and stamping

I used Born Pretty plate 50 and Mundo de Uñas 19 bronze.

OPI - Got the Blues for Red & Fashion a Bow & I Sing in Color gradient

Even though it is 14 Celsius over here...I made a effort to get into the holiday spirit and made this red gradient with stardust! Base colour is OPI Fashion a Bow (one of the greatest reds e v e r), the gradient was made with OPI Got the Blues for Red and I Sing in Color and I finished it all of with China Glaze Fairy Dust. It's all kind of Christmassy right?!

OPI - Got the Blues for Red & Fashion a Bow & I Sing in Color gradient

A-England - Captive Goddess (Rossetti's Goddess 2015)

Wow, this is a complicated shade of ...what exactly? A-England describes it as a complex holographic blend of cerulean blue, aquamarine green and muted purple veiled by a silver grey shadow. The base is a grey with a hint of petrol/steel blue, there is a hard flash of cerulean blue, a soft shimmer of lilac and some faint green shimmer at the edges and to top it of there is the soft holo dusting. The colour reminds me of a labradorite stone, I have earrings with that stone so I made a picture with it for comparison.
The formula is lovely, this a two buttery coats.

A-England - Captive Goddess

Cirque Colors - Josephine (fall 2014 Burlesque collection)

Dark green is what I need these days! So naturally when I spotted Cirque Colors Josephine I totally caved and had te have it. It is a retired shade so if you need it, you have to do some web searching; I found my bottle at thenailistashop.com
Josephine is a dark forest green with a strong linear holo. In low light it looks a bit muted somehow...like moss. Lovely formula, just two easy coats of evergreen yumminess.

Cirque Colors - Josephine

Essie - East Hampton Cottage

It is still dark and rainy over here....so the pictures are murky again.....
I was in need of a neutral polish this time and I reached for Essie's East Hampton Cottage. EHC is described as a pale pearly warm pink....but my bottle is a pale pearly beige. Thank god it is not an in your face pearly pearl but a more subtle non streaking kind (more of a soft shimmer..?).
I needed three coats to get it even and opaque. It is a very nice neutral but nothing really special, the formula is OK but not fabulous, the colour we all have seen before and the finish is very neutral as well.
Take a look for yourself:

Essie - East Hampton Cottage

China Glaze - S'more Fun (The Great Outdoors Collection, fall 2015) stamped with Mundo de Uñas

I just needed S'more Fun in my life: it's a dirty greenish yellow and I am a fool for those kind of colours (and I have a perfect yellow obsession...). This time I wanted to do some stamping (still learning though), I used MoYou plate nr 07 from the Mother Nature Collection, I stamped with Mundo de Uñas Pastel Blue and Taupe. I was very happy with the result although I still have not figured out how to get rid of the air bubbles in my stamping.......as I said: it's a learning proces :-)
Sorry for the bad pictures: it was such an awful, rainy and dark day that it dulled the colours considerably.

China Glaze - S'more Fun

Essie - Haute Tub (Virgin Snow Collection, winter 2015)

Essie Haute Tub (bizarre name, by the way), has a sort of duochrome shimmer to give it a bit of umph. The base colour is a very dark blackened aubergine (but I swear it is dark green in some lights....). Essie calls it a indulgent jet black with amethyst fire; well...OK, the shimmer gives the jet black an aubergine look I guess and there might be green in de black base (that would explain the hint of green I keep seeing)....but I see no fire. Nothing burning here ;-)
This was two layers (the first a bit streaky and prone to bald spots). The shimmer is there, not in your face but still there... Wear time was not great, but with dark colours I tend to be more iffy: a bit of tip wear on dark colours looks way worse then on light colours!

Essie - Haute Tub

NICOLE by OPI - Blue-Berry Sweet on You (Gumdrops, 2013)

Ahhh, liquid sand....or gumdrops in this case: I still like these gritty polishes!

Today I have Nicole bij OPI Blue-Berry Sweet on You. It is a jeans blue, slightly metallic sand with a hint of purple flash hidden somewhere inside. It is hard to describe but in certain lights it is definitely showing a purple hue!

BBSoY is fairly transparent, so you need two thick layers or three normal ones to have a opaque result on your nails.

Nicole bij OPI - Blue-Berry Sweet on You

Essie - Color Binge (Leggy Legend, fall 2015)

Essie Color Binge is a fruity orange red: it is definitely a red with a large helping of orange.
The formula was OK, but not splendid. It was kind of opaque in two coats, but not very convincingly...
The color is lovely and I really wanted to love the polish but the formula just lets it down too much to make it a favorite.

Essie - Color Binge

OPI - Super Star Status (Holiday Starlight Collection 2015)

After a few days I had some tip wear with my OPI Umpires Come Out At Night so I decided to add some festive tip covering glitter to solve the problem. I used OPI Super Star Status from the Holiday Collection.
To achieve these shapes I used some french nail tip guides from the Born Petty Store.
Super Star Status is a very dense glitter: the base is transparent with tiny silver glitter and there is a liberal helping of bigger pale gold glitters in the mix as well.
This is just one coat: I can totally see this covering the nails completely in two coats, so it is very wearable on it's own!

OPI - Super Star Status

OPI - Umpires Come Out At Night (MLB Collection 2014)

OPI Umpires Come Out At Night is a lovely navy blue that stays navy in almost all lights.
The formula is a but runny but workable and it covers in two coats.
The smell of this one is a bit strange though, although some blue polishes have this problem or so I'm told...
It is very, very shiny!!

OPI - Umpires Come Out At Night

Essence Colour of the Year - My Love Diary #48

As everybody probably knows "marsala" is the Pantone colour of the year. Essence made a nail polish in this theme: My Love Diary. I would have expected a name with a marsala/wine twist or something, but well, what's in a name..? The colour is not spot on marsala, it's more a rose wine type of colour; perhaps even a bit granny-ish but on the good side of grandma that is!
This is two coats, that dried very, very fast, so fast forward is here the motto.
I used the Essence The Gel top and base coat and I had no major issues for at least four days.

Essence - My Love Diary

Chanel Le Vernis- 665 Vibrato (Blue Rhythm Collection 2015)

The Blue Rhythm Collection, which is inspired by the spirit of jazz and celebrates the boldness of blue as Chanel states. 665 Vibrato is indeed a very bold (yet classy) and crisp blue creme: I love it!
This is three buttery coats of Vibrato and that is because I was wearing it for three or four days already (Zoya Anchor and Armor) so there was some slight tip wear.....and I had not taken any pictures of this gorgeous blue yet.....
So I slapped on an extra coat, topped it off with Hema fast drying top coat and there you go: crazy glossy!
Nothing more to say about this one, it's utter perfection <3

Chanel - Vibrato

p.s. In the bottle Chanel Vibrato is very, very close to Cirque NYFW from the Metropolis Collection...but I haven't compared them on the nails yet.

Halloween nails: China Glaze - Cackle If You Want To (Ghouls' Night Out Halloween Collection 2015)

I had the right Halloween spirit this year for my nails!
China Glaze Cackle If You Want To is such a nice glitter topper, how could I not get inspired?!
It is a matte striped (!) purple (4 sizes) and black (3 sizes) glitter mix in a clear base.
It was the only polish I got from the collection, the orange (Lady and The Vamp) and the green one (Drink Up Witches) were sold out.....
For this mani I used China Glaze Cackle If You Want to (glitter topper), DURI Piranha (green), OPI Rumple's Wiggin (pale lilac), OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm?, OPI My Vampire Is Buff (light creme), OPI You're So Vain-illa (vanilla creme) and Essie Licorice (black).

Halloween mani 2015

Thumbie The Mummy

p.s. The water marbled mummy thumb on my right hand is better looking than his left handed brother!