OPI Viking in a Vinter Vonderland

Friday!!! I'm so ready for my weekend! I'm going out for diner with some friends tomorrow, all of whom I met because we all share a love for nail polish, so I'm looking forward to talking about all the new and not so new polishes while stuffing my face with sushi. My idea of a perfect Saturday evening, lol.

I was planning on wearing this next polish for just that occasion, but when this landed on my doorstep, I couldn't wait for this to be on my nails. Patient is not a word you'd use to describe me...

OPI Viking in a Vinter Vonderland is a deep, dark, vampy eggplant purple cream. It was released as part of the 2014 Nordic collection for fall.

The formula is really nice, it flows on the nail with ease, dries really fast and super shiny. It's opaque in about 2 coats, I did see a bald spot here and there, so depending on how thick you make your coats, you might need to add a third, but if you're careful while painting this, 2 is all you'll need.

This is another one of those dark, almost black looking colors like Lincoln Park after Dark and Christmas gone plaid, but this never looks black, you can always tell it's purple.

I absolutely love this color! I'm a huge dark and vampy polish lover and this is right up my alley. It looks very feminine and flattering on every skin tone and I didn't want to take this off my nails, so I rocked it for an entire week.

Are you as big a fan of the darker polishes as I am or do you prefer your mani a little on the lighter side?

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Loaded Lacquer Tornado in a trailer park

I was in the mood for an over the top, hysterical, it hurts my eyes, but it's so pretty kind of glitter. I had a browse through my stash and this just jumped out at me! I don't think I own anything quite as hysterical (in a very good way) as this!

Loaded Lacquer Tornado in a trailer park is a clear based polish, packed with every single shape, size and color glitter you can imagine. It's got circles, hearts, squares, triangles, butterflies, bars... you name it, it's in there!

Why is this so jampacked with every imaginable glitter you ask? Well, that's because Heather (the owner and creator of Loaded Lacquer) throws all the left over glitter from all of her polishes in this mix. So every time she releases a new polish, new glitter is added to the Tornado mix, which means you could potentially buy this polish over and over again and get a different polish every time.

The formula is really nice for such a packed polish. The glitter comes out easily, but if you want every single shape on your nail, you might need to do a tiny bit of fishing. I personally just paint 1 -2 coats and see what I end up with. It dries really fast and shiny, but adding a top coat to smooth it out is a very good idea.

If you love a nice, over the top glitter, you'll absolutely love this polish! If not, well... my advise would be to stay far far away from this one :D

 

Loaded Lacquer is available on the website, check out the restock page to see when this polish will be available again.

Are you a glitter lover like me or do you prefer more subtle polishes?

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Zoya Dream

I was looking through my stash last weekend and was surprised and a little embarrassed to see all the polishes I have that I really wanted, but never actually wore on my nails. I decided I'd change that, picked them all out of my helmers and set them aside to be worn in the next few months. Today's polish is one of those polishes and it has to be the one I wanted the most, but couldn't get my hands on, until my friend Holly send it to me.

Zoya Dream is a gorgeous deep blue base, packed with a scattered holographic glitter. It was first released as part of the 2013 Zenith collection, but luckily it should still be available at the normal Zoya retail places.

The formula is really nice, it flows on the nail without any problems, is opaque in 2 thin, easy coats and it dries fast and shiny.

This polish stood in my stash for... oh, I don't know how long, but it must be close to a year now, without ever making it onto my nails. Shame on me... Just look at that color! Why I never painted it before, I'll never know, because it's just stunning!

I love a blue nail and this is no exception. It looks very flattering with my skintone and the scattered holographic gives it a lot of depth and makes it sparkle on the nail. I absolutely love it!

Do you have a lot of untried polishes or do you wear every single one of them straight away?

X

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OPI Christmas gone plaid

I know Christmas is over, but I always tend to go a little crazy for the holiday collections and there's just not enough time around Christmas to show all the beautiful polishes I add to my collection, so you'll see a few of them popping up during the rest of the year. And let's be honest, this gorgeous polish is not only perfect for the holidays, but all year round!

OPI Christmas gone plaid is a gorgeous deep, vampy green cream and was released as part of the Gwen Stefani Holiday 2014 collection.

The formula is absolutely perfect! It glides on the nail like butter, is opaque in 2 smooth and thin coats and it dries fast and really shiny. The only bad thing about this polish is that it stained my nails pretty bad, but let's be honest, I love the color so much, I really didn't care!

It's such a gorgeous, deep green shade, that you'd expect it to look black, but somehow it never does. You can always tell it's green, even in very dim lighting. I love these types of shades, Lincoln Park after dark is one of my all time favorite OPI's and this gorgeous green is right up there.

This polish was released as part of a Limited Edition holiday collection, but you should still be able to find it everywhere and let's just hope they'll make this part of the permanent collection, because it's a classic, stunning shade.

What's your favorite dark polish?

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piCture pOlish Instinct

Am I the only one who sometimes wishes she has her own, personal black light at home? Just to play around with all the fun stuff that has come out that only glows under a black light. Today is one of those days, but sadly, I'll have to wait until I'm at the gym before I can fully appreciate the polish I have to show today.

Picture Polish Instinct is a gorgeous ocean blue cream, created in collaboration with Tam, OhMyGoshPolish on Instagram. If you want to see this polish glow, Lacquertude has awesome swatches!

The formula is very nice, it flows on the nail with ease, is opaque in just 2 thin coats and dries fast and shiny.

It's such a pretty color, but I wasn't sure at first if I liked it on my skin tone. I usually stay away from this type of color, but when I was ordering from the site, I just had to add this to my cart, because it glows under black light! How fun is that?

Luckily, I do really like this on my nails, but it did take me a day or 2 to get used to my nails in this color. If you, like me, don't own a black light, I think you'll still enjoy this polish, because it's a gorgeous cream.

Picture Polish is fast becoming on of my favorite brands and, lucky me, I just added 17 to me stash, so you'll be seeing a lot more of this brand on my blog!

You can order Picture Polish online at their site, they ship to a lot of countries, but also have a list of international stockists listed on their site.

What's your favorite Picture Polish?

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Dollish Polish Yo-ho Yo-ho a pirates life for me

Another Monday, another new week! Did you all have a nice weekend? I had a nice and quite couple of days at home with my hubbie. We went out to lunch, did some chores around the house and just spend some quality time together. I have to say, it's one of my favorite ways to spend my weekend.

Today I have a gorgeous polish to show you, Dollish Polish Yo-ho Yo-ho a pirates life for me is a red jelly base, packed with blue, gold, red and magenta micro glitter as far as I can tell. This polish was inspired by the Pirates of the Caribbean movies and it's of course based on the famous pirate song.

The formula is really nice for such a dense glitter. It's easy to paint and opaque in 2 thin coats. The glitter comes out easily, without overloading the nail and it dries fast and shiny.

As you know I love my reds and this gorgeous glitter is no exception. I love the deep red base, paired with the multi colored glitter. It gives it a lot of depth and makes this a really fun polish to wear.

The fact that I keep think of Orlando Bloom and Johnny Depp in their pirate outfits... well, that's just an added bonus!

Unfortunately this polish was discontinued, but did you know Dollish Polish has an Etsy store where she sells discounted polishes? This can be discontinued polishes or newer ones, she did have this one for sale a few weeks ago and she does regular restocks. If you want to check what she has to offer right now, click here!

Are you a Pirates of the Caribbean fan like me, or did you skip the movies?

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Loaded Lacquer Claus-trophobic

Today I have a polish to show you I'd never thought I would own. It was part of the Holiday collection for 2013 and sadly, it has been discontinued. But I kept looking at it on the Loaded Lacquer website's discontinued page and when I mentioned on Instagram that I was sad I couldn't get it, Heather replied that she happened to have a bottle left and was more than willing to sell it to me. Hurray for Heather!!!

Loaded Lacquer Claus-trophobic is a gorgeous black jelly base packed with green and copper micro glitter. I had a hard time figuring out if this had a black or a deep brown base, but I think it's black and the copper glitter just makes it look brown.

The formula is so nice for this polish. It flows on the nail hassle free, is opaque in 2 -3 coats, depending on how thick you make your coats. It dries really fast and reasonably shiny, but I would recommend adding a nice, glossy topcoat to smooth out the glitter and give it even more shine.

I did 2 coats with HK girl topcoat and that was more than enough for me. I love this polish so much! It's such a gorgeous warm base color and the micro glitters give it a nice little kick. I keep staring at my nails in different lighting, because it looks different every time. I'm so happy Heather had a bottle left so I could add this beauty to my ever growing Loaded Lacquer stash.

Unfortunately, you can't get this particular polish any more, unless Heather brings it back for a while. She tends to do that and I love her for it, because she has a few discontinued polishes left I'd like to get my hands on!

There are some other gorgeous polishes available on the Loaded Lacquer site though, so definitely worth checking out!

What's your favorite Loaded Lacquer?

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Zoya Wendy

I had a bit of a technical problem yesterday, so unfortunately I wasn't able to post anything. I got a new phone over the weekend and although I'm in love with it, I totally forgot that all my swatch pictures were still on my old phone... Not a big problem, I just had to connect my old phone to my laptop, get the pictures and save them on my laptop. Well... first my usb cable kinda broke, so it didn't connect to my phone or my laptop and when I fixed that problem and uploaded all my pictures to my laptop, my laptop died. Yup, who saw that one coming?

So, I have to do all my swatches all over again. Not a big deal, but because of the gray and gloomy weather, it did mean I didn't have any pictures yesterday and I only have a couple to show you today. But this is such a gorgeous polish, I just had to show you.

Zoya Wendy is a gorgeous pinktoned coral cream and was released as part of the Summer Tickled collection in 2014.

The formula is a bit patchy and a bit on the thicker side. It dries really fast and super shiny, but I did have to do 3 coats to get it opaque and even on my nails.

But just look at that color! Isn't that pretty? Ok, it's not really appropriate for this time of year, but I'm so over Winter, I needed some sunshine on my nails.

I usually get my Zoya polishes from Color4Nails, but if you live in the states, you can get it from the Zoya website. I think they just started shipping to Canada as well, so fingers crossed they'll start shipping to Europe soon!

Are you still rocking the darks or are you over Winter too and ready for something a little more colorful?

X

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2014 Favorite 14!

I've been sitting in front of my Helmers for hours, I've looked through all my posts, Instagram pictures and swatch wheels in order to find the polishes I really loved in 2014 so I could do this post. I pulled out a lot of them, but I just couldn't do a post with 50 polishes, so I had to put just a few away again until I was left with just 14, the best of the best, the ones I truly loved this past year and kept going back to.

Here are the 14 that made the cut, in no particular order, because deciding which one was my absolute favorite... well, I just couldn't do it!

So, here we go!
If you want to read more about one of the polishes, just click on the name.

1. Zoya Veruschka

I hunted, I coveted, I rejoiced when I finally owned this at the beginning of 2014 and than didn't paint it until December... But around Christmas I pulled it out wore it in back to back mani's, because it's just so stunning!

2. Girly Bits Gravedigger

I love a nice dark jelly base with a crapton of glitter in it and this is absolutely gorgeous!

3. Pahlish La Belle Endormie

Such a shifter! Is it red? Is it purple? It's both!

4. Kaleidoscope by El Corazon First Snowdrop

Clean, stunning with a hint of glitter and a perfect formula!

5. Picture Polish Vampire

I think this is me in a bottle... Dark, twisty, simply stunning!
And the text on the bottle could've come from me :D
This particular polish is actually my most liked swatch on Instagram, so a lot of you seemed to like it as well :D

6. Pipe Dream Polish Graffiti Tag

This polish started my love affair with white bases filled with neon glitter.

7. Colors by Llarowe Conny, you saucy minx

Just look at it, need I say more?

8. OPI Sorry I'm fizzy today

Not my usual color, pink, but because it's almost neon, it really pops. This particular polish works so well with my skin tone, this was my go to summer polish.

9. China Glaze neon gradient

Ok, so this is not a polish, but a polish combination I was obsessed with during the Summer. I think I wore this particular mani at least 4 times, I just couldn't get enough!

10. OPI My boyfriend scales walls

Just a simple off white cream, but I love how clean this looks on the nail and it's the perfect base for nail art. I love this so much, I actually just repurchased this polish, because I completely used up my first bottle.

11. China Glaze Lotus Begin

I'd never thought I'd add a pastel purple to my favorite polishes, but here it is! I wore the heck out of this polish, on it's own, in nail art, as an accent, with an accent, you name it, I wore it.

12. China Glaze Grass is Lime Greener

Crappy formula, but so so worth it! I made all my friends buy this polish, because it's just stunning!

13. Loaded Lacquer Cuts like a knife

2014 was the year I discovered Loaded lacquer and fell in love with this brand. And when I say fell in love I mean L O V E! I own a lot and have a lot of favorites, I could've done a 2014 favorite 14 Loaded Lacquer polishes easily, because I love them all! But this particular one made my heart flutter the first time I painted this on my nails. Red, glitter, with a bit of oomph to it. Be still my heart!

14. Zoya Tomoko

This has to be my favorite Pixie Dust, at least it's my most worn by far! This polish is my gateway polish into metallic colors, because I used to not like gold, silver, or any metallic shade at all! Now I'm kinda addicted to white golden polish and I just purchased a few silver ones.

And because I can't help myself, I snuck in a sneaky extra! I absolutely love this polish, but I love the cherries even more. I think this might be my favorite nail art of 2014 and it's just so simple.

15. Picture Polish Chillax

That's it, all 14 (and a sneaky extra) of my favorite, most worn polishes for 2014! I can't wait to see what indie and mainstream brands come out with in 2015, I've already seen some amazing new collections.

What's your favorite polish for 2014?

X

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Loaded Lacquer Freezing my baguettes off

Winter has hit, well, as much of a winter as we get, which means my hands are starting to look like old lady hands again. I keep applying hand cream and cuticle butter or oil, but they're still dry and somehow extremely wrinkly. Not fun...

The polish I have to show you today is fun though! It's from one of my favorite indie brands and although it's not my normal type of color, I do really like it.

Loaded Lacquer Freezing my baguettes off is a white jelly base packed with pink and rose metallic hex, square, circle and micro glitters. It also has some iridescent glitter in there to give it a little more depth.

The formula is really nice, like I've come to expect from this brand. You can get this opaque on its own in about 3 coats, but I like it better layered over a white or, like I did in these pictures, a very light pink polish. The glitter comes out easily, no need to fish and I like that you don't get an overload of glitter with each coat, so you can do a few coats without getting to much glitter on the nail.

I layered 2 coats of Freezing my baguettes off over a single coat of China Glaze Friends forever, right? and I think this makes for the perfect, girly combination. I don't wear baby pink often, as it's just a bit to sweet for me, but add some glitter and I'm all in!

This polish is part of the 2014 Ha Ha Holiday collection and I love the fact that Heather stayed away from the normal holiday reds and gave us a different kind of Holiday collection. If you haven't tried any Loaded Lacquer polishes before, you really should give them a go, they're awesome!

You can get these gorgeous polishes on the Loaded Lacquer website, but it's currently closed until the end of January, so check back than.

What do you think of this polish? Do you like the white jelly based glitters or do you stay away from them as far as you can get?

X

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