Pretty Polish Tag

I've seen a couple of people do this fun tag on YouTube and when my friend Marianne (Nailpolishsleuth) did this tag in blog form and tagged everybody, including me, I couldn't help but smile. I love tags and especially nail polish tags!

This one has 10 questions, so let's get started!

1. When it comes to colors, are you conservative or hot mama?

Well, I'm not conservative, so I guess I'm a hot mama. I like all types of colors, but do tend to go for dark, vampy colors paired with an over the top hysterical glitter.

2. Are you a drug store junkie or high end diva?

Like everybody who did this tag, I'm right in the middle. I love Deborah Lippmann, Chanel, Dior, etc. but I like to get those as a present or as a special treat for myself. I do have some drug store polishes, but I only have access to Essence and Catrice. I do like Essence and have quite a few, but I can't stand Catrice polishes. They are just to thick and goopy, I've had the brush come off the handle so many times, I gave up on their polishes. I love the rest of their make-up, but I will never again buy the polishes. Anyway, I digress...

The majority of my stash consists of middle of the road polishes, like China Glaze, Essie, OPI and indie polishes. I absolutely love indie's and that part of my stash has been growing steadily in the last year or so.

 

3. What's your all-time favorite polish to date?

I don't think it's fair to make a polishhoarder like myself answer this question! I can't do it, I love so many polishes! And to be honest, my favorite polish changes every time, depending on the season, weather, my mood, my clothes, etc.

I do have a few polishes that always seem to make it in my top 10, for different reasons.

China Glaze 108 Degrees

OPI Smitten with Mittens

Essie Butler Please

And this is one of my new loves: Zoya Carter

4. What's the most you've ever paid for a polish? Least?

I paid the most for my Dior LE Minuit, € 26, but just look at it, totally worth it!

The least is a bit harder... I think it might have to be one of the polishes I bought from a friend of mine.She was destashing and I picked up a few polishes for 50 cents. I just can't remember which ones I picked up, as it was a long time ago....

5. Would you consider yourself a pro painter or just an amateur?

I'm by no means a pro, but I don't think I can call myself an amateur either. Something in between :D

6. What's your biggest polish pet peeve?

Oh, I have so many! But my biggest pet peeve is when people paint there nails, but don't take the time to make it look nice. I've seen so many pictures with polish on the cuticles, scabs, dry cuticles, peeling, bald spots in the polish (how hard is it to add that second coat of polish?), etc. I just can't deal with that!

7. What's more important...top coat or base coat?

I think they're both equally important. A base coat protects your natural nail and a top coat protects your manicure. In my case, I need a fast drying top coat, as I'm incredibly good at messing up my manicure by bumping my hand into walls.

8. Nail art- love it or leave it?

Love it! I just wish I was better at it, but practice makes perfect, so I just keep trying!
And people like to read about my failures anyway, so win win!

9. If you could design a polish, what would you name it and what would it look like?

I would love to create a duo: a black cream or jelly base with red chunky glitter and a red cream or jelly base with black chunky glitter. I'd call the black base Dark and the red base Twisty.

10. Share your best tip for the perfect manicure.

Clean up! Even if you're no expert at painting your nails, it's always easy to do a little clean up with a brush and acetone or you can use a nailpolishremoverpen. It will make your manicure look so much better!

I really liked doing this tag and I tag everybody who wants to do this tag, with a few people in particular:

Mijnkleinegeheimpjes (Yv)
Polishorurban
Lacqueredlori
Allaboutthepolish (Lu)
Thepolishedbutterfly (Jaime)

Can't wait to read your answers!

X

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OPI Mermaid's Tears

I was browsing around my stash, looking for a polish to paint, when I saw this beauty. I've wanted this for a long time, finally got it and never painted it on my nails. I needed to change that, so on it went!

OPI Mermaid's Tears is a gorgeous dusty, seafoam green cream. It was released with the 2011 Pirates of the Caribbean collection and has sadly been discontinued, but you should be able to find it online.

The formula was nice, a little patchy on the first coat, but it evened out nicely on the second. I did have to add a third coat to get it opaque on all my nails, but it dried fast enough that I didn't mind having to do 3 coats. These pictures are without topcoat, this polish is this shiny all on its own!

I love these kind of colors and this one has the perfect undertone to suit my skintone. I think it's really flattering and it's just dusty enough so it can be worn to every occasion. I had my eye on another polish from this collection, Skull and Glossbones, but I haven't picked that one up, because I'm afraid that will clash with my skintone. But I love this one!

What's your favorite dusty green polish?

X

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China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea

It's supposed to be winter... in some places of the world, it's been snowing up a storm and winter has definitely shown his face, but here... nothing... It has dipped below zero a couple of times, but that's about it. I'm looking out my window right now and it's actually sunny. My parents live about 2,5 hours north of me and they did have snow. I feel a little torn about it, because I love snow! It looks so cosy and I love taking walks with my husband when everything is white. It makes me feel incredibly serene. But I hate driving in the snow and since I have to get to work 5 days a week, I like the fact that I don't have to deal with the mess.

I love wearing cooltoned icy colors in winter, especially when it's snowing, but I deceided not to wait for snow to put this polish on. China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea is a very cooltoned icy blue glass fleck polish. It's so shimmery that it almost looks like a foil on the nail.

The formula is on the thin side, so be carefull when applying, because this can flood your cuticles. It's opaque in 3 thin coats and dries fast. Because of all the shimmer, it shines of the nail all on its own.

I like it, but it's just a little to much like a foil for me. I only tend to pull this out when it's really cold outside or snowing. It just seems to go with snow so well. This is the epitome of winter in a bottle to me.

What's your favorite icy colored polish?

X

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OPI 4 in the morning

OPI is the brand know for coming up with new types of finishes.They came out with suede finish, crackle, spotted and the Liquid Sand finish first (as far as I know). Now, they have come up with yet another relatively new finish: Satin. It's a mat-but-not-quite, kind of finish. It's still a little shiny somehow and very glossy looking.

OPI 4 in the Morning has this satin finish. It's a very dark gunmetal grey cream in the bottle, but it dries to a gorgeous semi matte or socalled satin. I really like it, it's such a nice change from the regular shiny finish.

The formula was absolutely perfect! It applied like a dream and was opaque in almost 1 coat, but I did 2 thin ones. If you do your coats a little thicker, 1 you can definitely get away with just 1. It dried really fast and, as I've said several times allready, semi matte.

This polish came out with OPI's most recent collection, the Gwen Stefani collaberation. I love that collection, it has some really nice unique colors, like this one and some classic shades like the gorgeous Over and Over a-Gwen red (stay tuned for a full review of that polish later). This is one of my favorites though, because of the finish. It gives this polish something extra and makes it stand out on my nails. I love it and this will be a stable for me during fall and winter (and, let's be honest, I probably will rock it in spring and summer too)!

Did you pick up any of the Gwen Stefani polishes and which one is your favorite?

X

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Mani Monday's: Chinese New Year

Happy Monday everybody! Did you have a good weekend? I didn't do anything special, went to the gym, had diner with  my husband and finally watched Catching Fire. I just can't wait for the last 2 instalments of The Hunger Games!

When I saw today's theme, I automatically thought about the gorgeous, colorfull paper dragons you see everywhere on Chinese New Year. I really wanted to paint one of those on my nails, but I also instantly knew that was going to be a problem with my limited skills. So, on to YouTube I went!

I found a tutorial for a dragon that still looked quite complicated, but I wanted to give it a go anyway. I have to say, I ended up not hating my result and I'm actually quite proud of my little dragen! Am I 100% happy and is my dragon perfect? No, absolutely not, but for a free hand dragon, I think he's looking quite good!

I decided to add a little glitter for the cherry blossom instead of painting on all the leaves, because glitter makes every mani better and, let's face it, I wasn't going to be able to paint all those tiny leaves without messing up completely.

What do you think of when you think of Chinese New Year?

X

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Essie Fiji

Being a polish hoarder sometimes means buying a polish, because it has been talked about by bloggers, youtubers and other polishlovers so much, you just want to see for yourself what all the fuss is about.

For me, this is one of those polishes. I have walked past it so many times and I just didn't get it. I mean, Essie Fiji is a ridiculously pale baby pink polish and Essie is not known for their great formula when it comes to the lighter polishes.

But when I saw this at my local drugstore about 5 months ago with a 50% off sticker slapped on it, I ended up taking it home with me to see for myself.

It's nice, but... well... if you've been reading my blog for a while, you know how I feel about baby pink polishes. Or light pastel colors in general for that matter. I don't like them. They don't look flattering on my skin tone and I tend to just skip them.

So no wonder this sat in my stash, untried for so long. But yesterday I had to cut my nails because they were just getting way to long and I always like a nice cool cream color on shorter nails. Somehow I really felt like having white nails, without them actually being white, so Fiji seemed like a perfect fit!

The formula for this polish is... I'm not going to lie, pretty bad. But not as bad as other whites (or nearly whites) I've tried. It was extremely patchy on the first coat, but ik evened out nicely on the second, but it definitely needed a third to become fully opaque. Luckily, it dried fast enough.

I actually really like it! A baby pink I can pull off! I showed this to my husband, who happens to think polish is supposed to be red, otherwise it just isn't polish according to him and he said it looked posh. I have to agree with him, it's a nice sophisticated color and appropriate for every occasion.

An unexpected treasure!

What's your favorite nearly white polish?

X

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Zoya Blaze

This is one of my forgotten polishes. I bought this a while ago, put it in my stash and totally forgot about it! That is, untill a friend of mine send me a picture and said she really wanted this polish, because it's just gorgeous. I looked at the picture... wrinkled my forehead, deep in thought and realized I actually owned it!

So of to the Helmer I went to dig it up and slap it on my nails :D

Zoya Blaze is a deep raspberry red polish with a crapton of holo micro glitter in it. For the people who know me: yes, I said holo and I still love it! Little weird fact about me... I'm not the biggest fan of holographic polishes. I know, shocker! I think it often takes away from the great base color of a polish, especially if it has a strong linear holo. But this scattered holo glitter I like!

The formula was bang on! It flows on the nail with easy and is opaque in almost 1 coat, but 2 is better. It dries really fast and shiny and that scattered holo is amazing! It was a little hard to capture that in a picture though...

Blaze was part of the 2012 Winter Ornate collection, but is still widely available. I would definitely suggest picking this up if you haven't allready.



Am I the only one with no love for strong linear holo's?

 

X

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OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ

I have a couple of polishes in my stash that I treasure for various reasons. This is one of them, not because it's a unique color, because it's not, but when I first saw swatches of this polish, I did love the color and then I heard its name... To me, this is one of the funniest names ever. Every time I hear it (or say it), I can't help but giggle a little.

OPI Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ was part of the 2005 Chicago collection, so it's an older polish, but it's still available on sites like ebay and amazon. The reason this name makes me laugh, is that Mrs. O'Leary is the woman who was responsible for the Great Chicago Fire in 1871. So to call this polish Mrs. O'Leary's BBQ... well... I think its absolutely briljant!

The polish is a deep, brownish maroon cream, the color of, well, barbequesaus actually. So not only is the name devilishly funny, it's also perfect for this color!

The formula was nice, but a little patchy. I needed 3 coats to even it out and get it fully opaque. It did dry reasonably fast and incredibly shiny, so I had no problems with 3 coats.

Yes, I did wear this with Ornament as an accent. I think they compliment eachother nicely and I'm obsessed with that glitter. I just can't seem to stop wearing it...

I love these types of colors, especially in the fall and winter and this is one of my go to  polishes. It lasts a good amount of time on my nails and I think it goes well with any outfit. If you can get your hands on it, I'd say pick it up!

What's your favorite fall or winter polish?

X

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Ciate Twilight

This is one of those polishes that I've had in my hands so many times, but just never picked up because the swatches on internet didn't look that great to me. Or maybe that's not the right way to put it, they just looked dissapointing after looking at the polish in the bottle.

But Saturday I got lucky. I was shopping with a friend and she had naked nails, so I immediatly slapped this on and was blown away!

Ciate Twilight is a black polish with an abundance of golden tiny glass flecks in it, which almost turn this polish into a deep, dark olive green. The bottle is almost as nice as the color, so sophisticated and classy.

The formula was so so nice, 2 coats to get opaque and it dried really fast and glossy. The brush is nice and because of the long handle, very easy to handle. I love it and will definitely be buying more of these polishes. The only problem I had with it, is getting my fingers wrapped around it in such a way that I could take a picture and have the polish still look the way it does in person...

Do you own any Ciate polishes and what are your recommendations?

X

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Mani Monday's: Big fat foil fail

Happy Monday everybody! Did you all have a great weekend?
Today's theme is foil and I had no clue what to do with this theme. I don't own any nice foil finish polishes and I don't own any nail foils. So I took to the internet and discovered that you can actually do a nice mani with aluminum foil. I saw gorgeous pictures of smooth, mirror like mani's and decided to give it a go.

I mean, just look at this:

Source: myfashioncents.com

I want that on my nails, yes please! So I took out my foil, searched on youtube for a how to tutorial and got to work.

I think every picture that looks like the one I just showed you is misleading though, it has to be, because my final result didn't look anything like the picture above, not even close! It was crinkled and just plain ugly. I don't even want to show it to you and I've shown you some ugly nail art before! But this one... nope... not going to happen!

By the time I did my last nail (pinky), I started to get the hang of it, well, kind of, but it still wasn't anywhere near as nice as the pictures I saw. I threw in the towel and gave up...

On to next week!
What's your biggest nail art fail?

X

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OPI Malaga Wine

Today I have a classic polish for you. This has been available for a while, but I never picked it up, untill just a few weeks ago. I don't understand why, because it's a red polish and we all know my obsession with red nails, lol.

OPI Malaga Wine is a deep, sultry maroon red and I absolutely love it! There is something about this cream polish that makes it just so sophisticated. This was actually my mani for Christmas day, so of course I had to have some kind of sparkle to go with it and as I'm totally obsessed with My favorite ornament, the choice wasn't hard.

Somehow my pictures don't quite do it justice, it's a little darker, more vampy in real life.

The formula was nice. Opaque in 2 coats, it dried fast enough and it is incredibly glossy. If you are in the market for a classy deep red, I would definitely recommend this shade. It's part of the OPI core line, so it should be available at all the OPI selling points.

What's your favorite red?

X

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China Glaze Golden Enchantment

Everybody is probably familiar with a great little China Glaze glitter topper called Fairy Dust. In the polish loving world "Every thing looks better with a bit of Fairy Dust" is a well known phrase. But did you know this silver holographic stunner has a golden sister?

China Glaze Golden Enchantment is a very finely milled gold glitter in a clear base with some holographic particals. It came out in a set called the Fashion Fairy collection in 2005, so it's a fairly old polish, but it's still widely available. The set consisted of this polish and Fairy Dust.

The formula is perfect. It glides on the nails and dries really fast. Because it's a very fine glitter in a clear base, there's no way you could ever get this opaque on its own and I don't think anybody would want that. It's gorgeous as a topper though and gives any manicure that little bit extra.
To show the different looks, I layered it over red, white and black for my pictures.

Did you know about these sisters and what's your favorite color to layer it over?

X

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