The sun is out and I feel like eating fruit

Hi there,

I know, I know, I haven't posted in quite a few days. Got stuck with a huge amount of work to do. I spend all my time in my books and writing and I'm fed up of being glued to my desk. That doesn't mean I neglect my nails, although my cuticles feel a bit left out (Loodie will surely kill me if she sees them!).

Since the sun has been shining quite a bit the past few days and I haven't really had a chance to be outside and take advantage of this nice weather, I decided I was in desperate need of a bright and shiny polish. My choice: China Glaze's Watermelon rind.

Gosh I love this polish in all of it's shimmery green-blue splendor. I'm wearing two coats of it in the pictures.

Check it out, it's gorgeous:

The first two pictures were taken indoors.

Picture taken outdoors, in the shade.

No Pantone reference for this one as it's too shimmery... sorry :)

What's on your nails now?

Thanks for reading.

Sunshine at my fingertips

Hello lovelies,

In the midst of winter I felt the urge to feel warm and see the sun indoors as I've been stuck in my books preparing an exam since me return from Cuba.

What better polish to fulfill this need than China Glaze's Happy Go Lucky?

I've tried a few yellow polishes but think this is one of the best. It's opaque in two coats and doesn't leave any streaks, bubbles or bald patches.

The color is absolutely gorgeous but I must admit it's distracting me a bit from my work... Anyways, I'm pretty sure it's boosting my serotonin level!

Thanks for reading!

Oh I've been bad! + OPI's Tasmanian devil made me do it.

Hi dears,

I've been bad and bought quite a few polishes yesterday :)

Check them out!

From left to right:  
Play the peonies, Mimosas for Mr & Mrs, The "it" color, Hot & spicy, Tasmanian devil made me do it.

Lemon fizz, Four leaf clover, Mom's chiffon, High hopes

Oxygen, Knotty, Gelato

I don't know what went wrong today but I must have been under some kind of Friday the 13th polish curse... Yeah right! (giggles)

I had to do my nails 4 times because I messed my polish up 3 times! That never happens to me, I don't know what went wrong. It made me nuts! Grrr + eyeroll :)

I changed color each time to eradicate the curse and here is the end result using OPI's Tasmanian devil made me do it.

The formula was excellent: 2 coats that glided on so easily and were absolutely opaque (you might have noticed but I really dislike visible nail line and will do pretty much any necessary number of layers to eliminate that problem).

The color is very bright and in my imagination reflects what a shrimp under extasy would look like!

Have you tried this beauty?

Thanks for reading and have a nice Friday.

Essie's Brooch the subject & China Glaze Golden enchantment

Hello lacquer lovers,

Quick post today: a nice sparkly nude mani using Essie's Brooch the Subject & China Glaze's Golden Enchantment.

Brooch the Subject is a slightly pink based nude creme polish that applies very nicely and is gives an opaque coverage in 2 thin coats.

I really like nude mani's but like them even more topped with some glitter or a flakie polish, so I decided to spice Brooch the Subject up with Golden Enchantment which is a gold rainbow glitter polish in a clear base. It's the golden equivalent as Fairy Dust that many of you use.

Brooch the Subject (alone).

Brooch the Subject & Golden Enchantment.

All pictures were taken in artificial lighting (natural light lightbulb) without flash.

Thanks for reading and Merry Christmas!

China Glaze Peachy Keen

Hi,

Since the weather here has been rainy and cold, I felt like wearing a polish full of sunshine. As I was frantically looking through my helmer in order to fulfill my sunny aspiration, I stumbled upon China Glaze's Peachy Keen and thought it would be perfect for the occasion.

I applied two coats followed by Fast Forward topcoat.

Don't you just love this color?!:)

Thanks for reading!

Daylight.

Daylight.

Artificial lighting.

China Glaze's Ruby pumps

Well hello my dears!

How are you all doing? Having a nice Saturday I hope.

I woke up this morning with the intense desire to paint my nails with Ruby pumps, a gorgeous deep red glitter polish I've had for a while but hadn't tried yet...shame on me!

I'm pretty sure you all know this one already, but I felt like sharing how beautiful it is anyhow.

Two coats covered my nails completely but I felt like adding a third to add more depth and glitter gorgeousness. For my topcoat I used China Glaze's Fast Forward, my new topcoatbestfriend :)

This will surely be a bummer to remove but I'll do the trusty foil trick.

Thanks for reading and have a nice Sunday!

All pictures were taken in artificial lighting (natural light lightbulb)

OPI's Cuckoo For This Color

Hello lacquer lovers!

As a good Swiss, I had to show you at least one of the polishes from OPI's Swiss collection (Autumn/Winter 2010). I chose Cuckoo For This Color, a beautiful shimmery dark teal-ish turquoise. My camera didn't capture the shade of this polish too well so I guess you are going to have to use your imagination a bit here!

I must say, it bears it's name very well: I'm already cuckoo for this color!

The formula was fine, just a little streaky and each layer took a while to dry... To have an extra smooth finish, I applied 3 coats.

Since I'm kind of breaking up with Sèche Vite (too much shrinkage; too thick even when I use thinner etc.), I used China Glaze's Fast Forward topcoat instead to speed up the drying time. I much prefer it to Sèche Vite because it doesn't cause any shrinkage, at least not with the polishes I've tried it with so far. It even has a nice smell (well let's agree here, no polishes actually have a nice odor whilst they are wet, but Fast Forward's smell is much better than Sèche Vite's). It doesn't dry lacqer quite as swiftly as Sèche Vite, but the end result is the same because it also smoothes all the little imperfections you can get with certain polishes.

Do you like/own this Swiss beauty?

Thanks for reading!

Kiss from freezing cold Geneva.

All pictures were taken in artificial lighting.

National Feral Cat Day: Teal tips for kitties

Hello again,

You might have read Scrangie's post about this, but tomorrow is National Feral Cat Day. If you haven't read her post, you can read it here

Quoting Scrangie:

"The Teal Cat Project is asking people to wear teal nails to show their support. For more information on how to help or to find an event near you, please visit The Teal Cat Project (also on Twitter and Facebook) and Alley Cat Allies."

So please wear teal on your tips to support this important cause.

To support this cause I did this special teal moon mani using Dior's Nirvana as a base and China Glaze's For Audrey for the dots.

Thanks for reading!

Emilie

Revlon's Minted + China Glaze's Hey Sailor polka dots

Hi!

Just a quick post using 2 of my favourite polishes.

I felt like doing a very simple polka dot design over Revlon's Minted.  Unfortunately I didn't wait long enough for the polka dots to dry before applying my topcoat (Sèche Vite) as you can notice on my thumb... I'll do better next time :)

Enjoy!

Picture taken in artificial lighting.

Night sky mani

Hello lovelies!

Sorry I haven't been posting so much these days. I got carried away by work but am glad to be back!

For my NOTD I tried to create a night sky effect by layering 2 China Glaze polishes: First mate (a navy creme from the 2011 Anchors away coll) and the infamous Fairy dust (very fine silver holo glitter in a gel base).

I used 2 coats of First mate and only 1 of Fairy dust because I didn't want a star overload. Less is more, no?!

I'm pretty happy with the result. What do you think of my mani?

All 4 pictures were taken in articial lighting, the last one with flash.

China Glaze's Below Deck (#954) + In the City (#990)

Hi!

I hope you all had a nice week. Mine was very busy; so busy that I caught a cold... I hate being sick and having a fever. 

For my NOTD, I used two polishes by China Glaze: Below Deck from the Anchors Away collection and In the City from the recently released Fall 2011 Metro collection. I thought these polishes would like nice together as they both have similar tones.

Below Deck is a muted taupish purple with warm gray undertones. The formula was a bit thick but dried evenly with 2 coats. I really like this color and have seen many swatches of it, but it seems to look different on everyone. On me it's more purple than gray and you can't really notice the taupe.

In the City is a clear based fine glitter polish. The glitters are silvery purple and copper but the purple ones are dominant (you can't even notice the copper glitter in the photos). In the City is pretty opaque. I only applied one coat and it pretty much covered the base color. You could probably get an opaque coverage without VNL in 2 coats. I haven't tried this polish on it's own as I layered it over Below Deck on my ring fingers but I'll post a picture of it when I don't wear it over another polish. 

To speed up the drying time I used China Glaze's Fast Forward topcoat. It works the same way as Sèche Vite but is thinner and doesn't cause any shrinkage (Yay!). I really dislike it when I spend time doing my nails and end up with the tips of my natural nails showing...

Thanks for reading :)

Photo 1:   Daylight (mid PM), no flash.

Photo 2:   Daylight (mid PM), no flash.

Photo 3:   Daylight (mid PM), no flash.

Photo 4:   Artificial lighting, no flash.

Photo 5:   Daylight (mid PM), no flash.

Essie's Smooth Sailing (#756)

Hi!

For my NOTD I used Essie's Smooth Sailing, a periwinkle blue with light silver, blue and magenta micro shimmer.
The silver shimmer is the most obvious but isn't very visible on the photos, whereas the electric blue and magenta shimmers are barely noticeable as they are so fine. You need to look really close in order to see them, so get your magnifying glasses out!

Shimmers apart, this color is very similar to China Glaze's Secrect Peri-wink-Le as you can judge by the photo.

The formula was a bit streaky and left some bald patches for the first 2 layers so I applied a third coat followed by Sèche Vite to even the polish out.

Thanks for reading!

All photos were taken in natural daylight (late PM).