Chanel le Vernis - Fortissimo (Blue Rhythm Collection 2015)

Oh la la, let's be posh today!

I plucked Chanel's Fortissimo from the drawer; it was lurking there in the dark and evading me for months already. It is the dark blue from the Blue Rhythm Collection by Chanel last year.
It looks like a fairly common dark blue with shimmer in the bottle BUT it is not so much so. Fortissimo is a crelly (more a jelly then a creme) with lit-from-within-shimmer! The first coat is not very pigmented and weirdly siropy, the second coat makes all the difference. The result is a glasslike dark blue with the blue shimmer.

The formula is very strange and like a siropy glue, you have to paint very slowly and allow drytime in between layers otherwise you'll end up with loads of bubbles........

Chanel le Vernis - Fortissimo

OPI - Embrace the Gray, OPI - Fly & OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window

As I said in my previous post: Embrace the Gray is a nice canvas for nailart......the proof is in the pudding!
I combined it here with OPI Uh-oh Roll Down the Window (Touring America Collection Fall 2011)
and OPI Fly (Nicki Minaj Collection 2012) in a kind of waterfall brushstroke art thing. In real life it was a bit more outspoken but not by much: I like the muted tones even though Fly is fairly bright. It was a nice and quick tip wear cover up ;-)

OPI - Embrace the Gray & OPI - Fly & OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window

OPI - Embrace the Gray (OPI Fifty Shades of Grey Collection 2015)

The Fifty Shades of Grey Collection wasn't a very memorable one for me: there was the obligatory red creme, the these days unavoidable silver and a bunch of greys >duh<
Embrace the Gray was the one that spoke most to me, so that was the one I bought.
It is a medium grey, not too dark, not too light and neutral in tone.
Very wearable and probably lovely as a canvas for some glitter or stamping!

OPI - Embrace the Gray

Essie - Cocoa Karma dotticure (Suite Retreat, Resort Collection 2015)

A dotticure again, this time with the complete Resort Collection 2015 from Essie.
The base is Cocoa Karma with dots of Suite Retreat (filled in with Cocoa Karma) and Stones 'n Roses filled with Time for Me Time. The result is a bit bumpy because of the dots-in-dots, the pink in pink dots look a bit like *zits* in retrospect.....but.....all in all I really like dots :-)

Essie Cocoa Karma with dots of Suite Retreat, Stones 'n Roses & Time for Me Time

OPI - Just Lanai-ing Around (Hawaii, Spring/Summer Collection 2015) & Super Bass Shatter (Nicki Minaj Collection 2012)

Slowly working my way through all the pictures a made the last few months!
Today I found this one in the archives: it's OPI Just Lanai-ing Around topped with OPI Super Bass Shatter. I know I had some tip wear on the JLA but was not in the mood to change the whole mani so I added the shatter. I kinda like the result, although I don't love shatters very much....

OPI Just Lanai-ing Around & Super Bass Shatter

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

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

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

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.