Aquatic glittersandwich

Hello my dears,

I like my first glitter sandwich so much that I decided to try another one! Instead of using a sheer white polish as my base and topcoat, I chose a grey one: OPI's My pointe exactly (2 coats as a base + 1 coat over the glitter). For the filling I used Essence's Glorious aquarius (1 coat).
I love how the aqua glitter seems to be floating in between two waters.

Do you have any favorite glittersandwich mani combinations?

Thanks for reading!

Emilie

White and sparkly

The sun is shining, the weather is great, I'm on vacation... what more could I ask for? A fresh and bright manicure please, featuring 2 great OPI polishes: My boyfriend scales walls & Pirouette my whistle .

(Sorry for the bad phone picture)

My boyfriend scales walls (Spiderman collection) is an opaque in 2 coats white leaning grey creme lacquer. Very smooth and opaque and not quite as stark as pure white. I love it.

Pirouette my whistle (NYC Ballet collection) consists in variously shaped and sized matte silver glitters in a clear base. It looks great over pretty much everything.

Voilà! Back to the park I go.

Thanks for reading :)

Greetings from Winterfell

Hello my dears,

It's freezing cold here and the wind has been howling like crazy for the past few days. If you've seen European weather forecasts you will know what I mean.

I haven't been out in 2 days and feel like I'm trapped in Winterfell! Ahh this cold! I envy my boyfriend who has sunny weather and 23°C in Luxor, but not the mosquito bites he's suffering daily!

The positive side is I have plenty of time not only to prepare my final Coptic examen that's planned for the 14th but also to write my dissertation on Egyptian magic and magicians.

To keep focused on my research I decided to wear a polish that wouldn't distract me too much; well I thought it wouldn't distract me when I chose it but it's so gorgeous that I catch myself staring at my nails in between 2 papyri!

Enough blabbering and on to the polish. I'm wearing 2 coats of Essie's Master plan. You surely know this polish already but I felt like sharing it with you anyway.
The formula was great; nothing negative to say about it. I think this is going to be one of my favorites.

Pictures taken in daylight and -13°C!

Indoor pictures taken in artificial lighting and 18°C!

What's on your nails now?

Thanks for reading

Essie's Over the Edge

Hi,

How have you guys been? I haven't been posting much recently but have many new gorgeous polishes to show you in the coming days.

Essie's retail line finally hit the racks in France and I'm so happy about that. So the other day I went a bit crazy and purchased some gorgeous polishes.
Although I live in Switzerland, the border is only a few minutes away. If you look at a map, you'll notice that Geneva is surrounded by France.

Let's begin with Over the Edge. I had been eyeballing this polish for months but just couldn't resolve ordering it on the net because I've had too many bad surprises and didn't want to spend my pennies on a polish I'd only wear once.
You might be familiar with Over the Edge, one of the many gunmetal gray polishes you can find on the market. It looks a bit like the color of a black pearl but doesn't have as many green undertones as Chanel's version (Black pearl). I have that one as well and will soon post a picture to compare.

Over the Edge's formula was great: 2 coats for complete opacity and no streaks, bubbles or bald patches. For my topcoat I used Revlon's Quick Dry Topcoat, one of the best TC I've tried, but you surely already know that as I've written about it before and many bloggers rave about it.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more Essie delights!

First four pictures taken in daylight.

Last two pictures taken in artificial lighting (natural light lightbulb), without flash.

Essie's Sand Tropez

Hello there!

I've heard a lot about the polish I'm showing you today and wasn't sure I liked it in swatches seen on internet, but I finally picked it up and am so glad I did.

I present you: Sand Tropez.

What a silly name. For having been to St Tropez many times, I can assure you the sand's color over there is by far very different than what Essie supposes... It may look like sand on some of the Caribbean beaches, I'm thinking Barbuda, Antigua of Petit St Vincent, but in no means are the sandy beaches of France this color!

Anyway, I really like this polish and will wear it again soon.

Have you tried it?

Thanks for reading!

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

OPI's Suzi Takes The Wheel + Rainbow Connection

Hello dear readers,

How are you doing?

I finally got my hands on the Muppets collection polishes! Yay! Most of them ended up in my cart at my local beauty supply shop, except for 4 of the glitters (the red, purple, blue and green ones), they just seemed too ordinary and not worth it.

Rainbow Connection was the first one to scream "try me try me Emilie"so I decided to layer it over a beautiful dusty green-ish grey creme from the Touring America collection: Suzi Takes The Wheel.

I don't know why I let this gorgeous cement green pass me by for so long. I picked it up the other day and really love it.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I'm crazy about Rainbow Connection. It's pretty but a bit too "has been" in my opinion and looks so much like Essence's Circus Confetti you can see here, here  and here again. The only difference is that Rainbow Connection has hexagon glitters instead of the round ones found in Circus Confetti.

As I like my glitter manis mattified, I used Essie's great Matte About You topcoat.

Which are your preferred polishes from the Touring America and Muppets collections?

Thanks for reading!

Suzi takes the wheel (artificial lighting, natural light bulb, no flash).

Suzi takes the wheel + Rainbow connection (artificial lighting, natural light bulb, no flash).

Suzi takes the wheel + Rainbow connection (artificial lighting, natural light bulb, no flash)

Essence's Skyscraper (#02) from the Urban Messages collection

Hello lovelies!

Here is another Essence polish I got the other day. I really like Essence polishes because they are very pigmented, long lasting and inexpensive. 

The one I chose to show you today is Skyscraper, a gorgeous light grey with blue, silver, gold and green micro shimmers. My camera didn't really pick the shimmers up well but believe me they are there!

Have a nice Friday :)

Both pictures were taken in artificial lighting, without flash.

OPI's Skull and Glossbones + Spark de triomphe

Hi!

I hope you are all doing well and having a nice Saturday. It was really hot where I live today and tomorrow it's supposed to be even hotter and sunnier! Yay! Summer is not over!

For my NOTD I wanted something clean with a dash of glitter and sparkle. I chose OPI's Skull and glossbones for my base, a beautiful light gray creme from the Pirates collection. The formula is great, no streaks or bubbles and the 2 coats I applied dried quickly to an opaque finish without any VNL.

I absolutely adore this color and collection. In my opinion, it's one of OPI's nicest collections. Didn't use to be so much of a pastel fan but these are just the nicest: not too girly, a bit dusty and murky. Just perfect!

For the extra sparkle on my ring fingers, I used 2 coats of Spark de Triomphe, a gold/silver glitter polish. This color looks different on everyone. It can seem more gold or silver depending on your skintone. On me I'd say it's a perfect electrum color. I love electrum which is a natural alloy of gold and silver that the Ancient Egyptiens used profusely. Many temple and palace doors were used covered in plates of this alloy. Temple furniture, ritual vases and royal insignia were also often made of electrum.

I'm not a huge fan of gold or silver polishes which are often too yellow, copper or gray,  so this is a good alternative because it's a perfect mix of both.

I used a  topcoat (Sèche Vite) but not on my ring fingers. 

About Sèche vite (pronounced Sesh Veet. Trust me, I'm Swiss and French is my everyday language!!!), I noticed it caused some polishes to shrink, just like China Glaze's Fast Forward topcoat. None of that happened with today's mani. 

Shrinkage really annoys me. I mean you take your time to paint your nails neatly and then everything gets ruined by the shrinkage. ARRGGGHHHHH!

I'm thinking about making and posting a list of polishes that shrink with Sèche Vite. Might be usefull for all of us polish lovers!

Have a nice weekend!

Picture taken in artificial lighting.

OPI Pirates collection

I know you guys surely already know/own this great OPI collection, but I love it so much and just wanted to share some of my preferred colors with you. Note the matte topcoat (Essence) on Sparrow me the drama and Skull and Glossbones.

Photo 1:   Skull and Glossbones with a matte topcoat (Essence), a beigey grey.

Photo 2:   Sparrow me the drama (a dusty bubblegum pink with lavendar undertones) with a coat of China Glaze's Fairy dust (fine holographic glitter) on my ring finger + matte topcoat

Photo 3:   Stranger tides, a murky light imperial jade green + China Glaze's Fairy dust on ring finger

Photo 4:    Steady as she rose (a light rosy and dusty lavandar with greyish undertones) + OPI Teenage dream (pink metallic base with multicolored and holographic glitter) from the Katy Perry collection.

Photo 5:   Mermaid's tears, a gorgeous turquoisy dusty green with bluish undertones. 

Enjoy!