Blog about nails, manicures, nail polishes, stamping, etc., but also about other things that make my life rich

April 29, 2011

This is it! My first giveaway! :)

I finally got 100 followers! I'm so excited!

I prepared 8 polishes that I think you will like. As I am a great green lover, there are two green polishes, of course, but I tried to pick different colors so everyone would find something for themselves.

Here's the prize:





1. Milani Neon Fresh Teal
2. Milani Jewel FX Gold
3. Milani One Coat Glitter Red Sparkle


4. Catrice LE Glamourama Times Square at Midnight (that's actually dark purple, not blue as it looks in the photo)
5. Catrice Sold Out For Ever


6. Essence Where is the Party?
7. Revlon Perplex
8. Smart girls get more 95 (Black Holo)


I hope you like the choice, now on to the rules:

As I am a big fan of giveaways I invite everyone to join, and welcome new followers. You must be a public follower of this blog, and there is just one extra entry if you put my blog on your blogroll.
The only condition is that you own a blog yourself, since I've heard from a lot of my friend bloggers of people who create a GFC account just to hunt giveaways. Of course it doesn't have to be only nails blog, but if your blog is created just for giveaways I will not accept your entry.

As I appreciate the effort you girls give into your blogs, I want to dedicate this giveaway to all the small, yet undiscovered blogs out there.
I have to add that the giveaway isn't sponsored, I bought all the polishes myself.
Giveaway will be closed on 15th of May.

The entry form is linked below, please fill the form, and good luck!

:)

Bye
Stickers

Please click on the link to see the form.


GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED!!!

April 28, 2011

Essence Chacalaca + Glisten up

One old, one new, one borrowed... :)

Chacalaca, the new one, I showed you just few weeks ago, is from the recent Whoom Boom collection. I used it as a base for an amazing Essence's polish, named Glisten up. That's the old one, since Essence chose to discontinue it. I'm sure all of us, familiar with it, wonder why. We all love flakies and glitter, and this polish is exactly that, perhaps sheer, but excellent for layering.

I saw many manicures with Glisten up over plain black polish, so I knew how it looks, that's why I wanted to try it over dark blue base.
Maybe I should have chosen even darker blue, but I like it like this, too.

It looks like a starry night. The true color is a bit darker, since most of the time it's not that sunny outside, as it was when I was taking the picture (sun-hunting, I'm sure you all know how it feels...).






I love the way flakies come to life with every move that I make. This is my first, but surely not last flakie polish. Nfu.Oh's are on my wishlist since I started this blog, but they are too expensive to get here in Croatia, so I'm waiting for a miracle, lottery  or a giveaway winning to get them. Sigh...!

On to the great news: I'm three followers away from my first giveaway!!!

I have prepared about 7 polishes for my small giveaway, but who knows what'll come of it in the very moment that I see: 100 followers on my screen...

:) :) :)

I really love giveaways, not only for a chance of winning, but as a way for new, small blogs like mine to be heard of. There are many blogs on my blogroll that ended there because of a giveaway, and remained there because they were so good.

I don't like to follow someone's blog just for the sake of giveaways if I don't like the blog itself, and there are many blogs with 1000 or more followers that have giveaways very often, but I'm not a follower for few reasons.

First, if you're going to have a blog, you should care for your nails, paint them neatly and keep them well shaped and designed. It's not just owning thousands of polishes and all new collections.
Second, I don't like blurry, small or low quality photos. Not all of us have light boxes or expensive cameras (I own a small, old camera, but I try to get as much from it as I can), but if you have a blog your photos should look good.

I would like to express my special admiration for the following blogs, since they really try and keep posting great manicures that I enjoy seeing every day.
I 'tag':
Let them have polish
Chloe's nails
Fashion polish
Nihrida
All you desire
Alizarine claws
Vettens blog
Ivana
Das Experiment
Did someone say nail polish?
Nails for fun
Acetone and old lacquer
Scrangie

So, what's the point of my little speech?
I would like to welcome all my new followers that will join me because they like my blog, but if you don't like it, don't follow just for a chance of winning few polishes.

Love to you all!

Bye
Stickers

April 26, 2011

Catrice Dirty Berry + Essence stamping plate

I was very pleased to see how many comments I got for this polish so I decided to improve it a bit!

Enjoy:




This is stamped with new Essence stamping plate. I must say I'm very satisfied with it. Images are big (almost double the size of BM plates) and interesting. Essence should only work on making more patterns, since these few already bored me.

I know, I get bored easy :)

Bye
Stickers

April 25, 2011

Catrice Dirty Berry

Hello everyone!

I've been at my parents for Easter holidays and I haven't got the internet there so I must make up now for not posting for five days :)

Today I have for you another Catrice polish: Dirty Berry. It's from new collection that has just arrived in Croatia. From the swatches in different blogs, I thought the finish was glitter, suede, or something else. I didn't expect this: pale holo effect. Altough it's not really holo, I kind of like the finish.

I did, never the less, try to catch the holo effect. Have I managed to?






I just got overexcited about this polish, and I simply cannot reduce the number of photos :)

I love the color: cold blue undertoned purple with tons of holo particles.

I planned to do an Easter mani (check this out, it's super cool: Easter), but time somehow slipped through my finger and the weekend was over before I could notice...
Oh, well... Next year. This year I got to do Valentine mani, winter and spring mani... :)

What do you think of Dirty Berry? In my opinion, it looks way better on nails than it does in the bottle, so give it a try, is my advice.

Bye
Stickers

April 20, 2011

Catrice Sweets for my sweets + BM + Basic Beauty 43.

This is my first Barbie-pink polish and I was in love with the polish in the bottle. However, it takes him about three layers to achieve minimum opacity. Four coats would have been better, but I had no more time so I settled for three, hence the Bundle monster pattern, to cover any bald spots that were left.

As I am spoiled by now with all the polishes I got that are fully opaque in two layers, especially Catrice's polishes, I have to say I'm not really impressed with this one. It's pretty watery and I have no patience waiting between layers so I don't get bubbles.

I added a top coat of my new layering polish with pink micro shimmer. The brand is called Basic Beauty, color is 43. (again, without a name) and I love how it 'smoothens' the BM pattern and adds extra glow to this mani.
Yes, the color is pretty and sweet, and I love the way it looks on my nails. But that's it. I'm still in search of my 'it' pink polish. Any reccomendations?





 I started to post extra large photos since I love to see details in manicures that I see in the other blogs. I hope my manis aren't that bad anymore and that I don't have to hide small details, altough you're definitelly find some flaws. I just hope you won't mind them.  :)
What do you think about larger photos?
Yes or no?

And here's one extra photos of another spring sight that inspired me for this girly color and made my day: wild apple in my backyard.



Enjoy your day, excuse me for not writing more often, but my college has gone wild again so, at the moment, this is the best I can do.

Bye
Stickers

April 17, 2011

Essence Where's the party?

I bought this polish without really knowing why, maybe it was the hype about promo pictures (where it looks way better than in reality) or the mass hysteria when new Essence collection came to drugstores and I-have-to-buy-them-all complex...

But after all, and seeing it on my nails, I'm not that crazy about this color.
Yes,it has some pretty duochrome effect: purple with green, but most of the time it looks somewhere between those colors, read: filthy purple leaning to gray-ish smog color.

Here it is, the Smog:







That's it for today, short post because I can't put my thoughts in words, some connection in my brain must have broke yesterday thanks to my B-day party that lasted 12 hours :)

Bye
Stickers

April 13, 2011

Yolizul 187 + Orly Gumdrop

Here's another Yolizul polish that I promised to swatch.

Today's a bit colder outside, but yesterday, when I did this mani, it was really warm and sunny so another spring idea came to me.

I used Yolizul 187, pale pastel yellow that reminds me of Illamasqua Load, and for tips Orly Gumdrop. The first photo is most color accurable.




I love this color, but unfortunatelly, I don't like how it looks on me. I have a darker skin color and my fingers look a bit dirty with this polish, as seen on the photo below :(



Spring! I'm sayin this few times a day for two weeks now and I'm not done yet :)

Bonus photo of my lovely dog Timmy. (Yes, named after Famous Five...)
She's 17 years old, and like all old ladies, enjoys when the sun warms up her old bones...


Bye
Stickers

April 12, 2011

Yolizul 189 & Essence Black Cracking top coat

I'm not really fond of crackle mania that caught my fellow nail polish lovers, but I simply could not resist this new Essence crackling top coat that came to stores few weeks ago. First, it was because of the price, which is several times lower than OPI's or China Glaze's Crackles, and second: I had to have at least one cracking polish to make myself sure I don't dig it.

And I don't.
But I hope you will! :)

Left hand:




And the right hand:


Yolizul is some cheap new brand that I tried recently, and I must say I'm thrilled!

For 1$ (approximately) you get very good creme polish, coverable in two coats, and in beautiful colors!
This one reminds me of Orly's Gumdrop or Maybelline Minty, and application was o.k., too, not streaky.

The other colors I got (and will show to you soon) are pale yellow (similar to Illamasqua Load) and pale blue. All spring colors, pastel and creme.

I love spring :)

So, what do you think of my Crackling top coat?

April 11, 2011

Essence Whoom Boom: Chacalaca

I love the name of this polish! Makes you wanna dance, doesn't it? :)

I couldn't resist Chacalaca and You've got the art from the latest Essence collection, Whoom Boom,  that just came to drugstores in Croatia.
Chacalaca, swatched here, is really interesting color, I don't own any color similar to it: it's dark ink-ish blue with purple undertone. Not really undertone, since polish looks just purple in some angles, and just blue in others, also depending on light.
The finish is not really matt, but not creamy either, I would describe it as plastic: similar to Orly Plastix collection's finish.

Here's the amazing color:





It's really unique color to me. What do you think?

April 8, 2011

Misa Dreamy Purple + my new haul

Yesterday I had a small nervous breakdown, since I did about thirty photos of this polish, but my camera didn't like it so it made the polish look blue, which is usually the case with 'blurple' polishes.

Misa Dreamy purple is dark purple with blue under tone, but definitelly more purple than blue, so imagine my swatches more purple-ish; with incredible purple and pink shimmer.
The polish looks so 'high class' and it made even my super short nails (don't know what to do with them lately they break all the time) look longer and more attractive.

Here's the polish:






The third picture looks the most accurate to real color,but  it's taken indoors with flash so it's a bit blurry...

And now my new haul, which I plan to show you for two weeks now. Someone said that new Essence polish You belong to me looks like Catrice's Sold out forever, but according to this photo you can see they're not even close, SOF is more green while YBTM is pale blue with just a hint of green.

I love all those minty greenish-blue colors so I can't decide which one I preffer.

Here's my haul:


From left to right:
 Catrice: Clay-ton, my hero
              Sold out forever
              London's weather forecast
              From dusk till dawn
              Sweets for my sweets
Essence: Chuck
              You belong to me
              Where's the party?

This is my first Barbie-pink polish and I can't wait to try it on, but I'm waiting for my nails to be just a little bit longer for that.


Bye
Stickers

April 5, 2011

Sally Hansen Teal Takeoff + Essence stamping plate

Just a short post, I'm supposed to be studying, I have exam at 9.30, but I took a little break.
Teal Takeoff lasted so long on my nails that it bored me. But the color was so beautiful that I didn't have the heart to remove it so I tried new Essence stamping plate and this is what turned out:




I love this design, it draws attention, everybody notices this pattern. It's a little psihodelic, don't you think?

Bye
Stickers

April 4, 2011

Sally Hansen Teal Takeoff

This is my first Sally's Insta Dri polish, and I can see I'll be buying more of those! :)

When I saw how wide the brush is I thought it was too wide for my small nails, but the thing is that the pressure determines how wide the brush will paint the nail: the more you press, wider the surface of polished nail is. Very easy to apply, in one move.
Drying time is also great,one minute is enough to make it ready for second layer which will also dry in few minutes. Durability is excellent, this is the third day of wearing it and still no tipwear, and most polishes last one or two days on me because the surface of my nail is really greasy no mather how well I clean it or buffer it.

Here's the beauty:





I think I managed to get real color of the polish. Most swatches I've seen on the internet are too blue, while this is more emerald polish. It's much bluer than Color Club Rule Breaker and Essence All Accesss, but it has a lot of green in it, too.

I'm in love with this color!

Bye
Stickers