A beauty from the past

Hello!

Today is a special day because I was lucky enough to get my hands on the sadly disontinued and hard to find Parlez-vous OPI!! Hip hip hurray!

I immediately had to wear this dusty purple beauty!

Artificial light

Atificial light

Artificial light

Daylight

Daylight

Considering how old this polish is, I was impressed by it's flawless formula and application. As you can see in some of the pictures, there are a couple of bald spots here and there, but nothing unusual. Oh how I wish this polish was part of the permanent line, I'd wear it more often but since I only have 1 bottle, I'm going to have to keep it for special occasions.

What do you think of this polish? Do you have it or have you ever tried it?

See you next week! (I'm going to the mountains until Friday. Yay vacay!)

OPI Zurich Surprise

Hello my lovely readers,

Today I have a gorgeous vampy polish to show you: OPI's Zurich Surprise, a dark almost black plummy burgundy.

This classic beauty was made exclusively for Switzerland and I must admit, I feel very special wearing it!

I was really surprised by the formula, because normally with this type of color, the consistency is thick, goopy and uneasy to work with. On the contrary, Zurich surprise was a dream, spread like butter and dried in a pinch. Must be the Swiss quality :)

Pictured here are 2 coats and a layer of topcoat.

As I'm off to NY tomorrow and haven't scheduled any posts (didn't have time, sorry) as I did when I went to Cuba, you will have to wait for my return to see my little fingers and more gorgeous polishes :)

Thanks for reading.

An un-planked treasure

I never really used to like purple nail polish, unless it was über dark, but have felt the urge to wear it in the past few months. I started off with pastels but am now also attracted to medium toned purples.

As much as I loved OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection, I remember that the only polish I refused to wear was Planks a lot, the dusty purple one. I used it on some friends and they really loved it but I kept it as far away as possible from my hands as I could. You must be thinking "why on earth did you buy it?", question to which I'd answer "it came in a quatro pack and I really wanted the other three polishes".

This poor lacquer has been sitting in the back of one or my Helmer's drawers for too long and I owe it an apology. It is gorgeous and I felt like I had unearthed a long lost treasure when I dug it out the other day.
Never again shall I abandon you my dear.

The formula was great: opaque in 2 coats, not streaks, bubbles or problems of any kind.

Have you ever fallen in love with a polish you used to dislike?

Isadora's Ashes To Ashes

Hi lacquered ladies,

Having a nice weekend? I hope so :)

Today I have an Isadora polish to show you: Ashes to ashes, a dusty medium gray-ish purple.

I know my pictures make this polish look über gray, but believe me, it's purple based. I posted a couple of pictures comparing it to 2 other purple polishes and a gray t-shirt so you can judge for yourself.

Isadora is a Sweedish company that makes some pretty awesome polishes. I don't know if you will be able to find them outside of Europe, so I'm sorry if I get you drooling here if you can't find them in the States or Canada.

As much as I love the color of this polish, I hate it's name; so morbid and gloomy it almost gives me shivers.

The formula was a bit thick. I needed to add thinner before application; I hate it when that happens.

I applied this polish twice today because on my first attempt I used Sèche Vite and experienced massive shrinkage. Thanks Sèche...

The second time I used INM's Out The Door and had no problems.

Two coats were needed to reach full opacity.

What do you think of this dusty antique purple?

Thanks for reading and have a lovely Sunday :)

From left to right: Ashes to Ashes, Planks a lot, Bangle Jangle.

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

Blurple toned matte skittle mani

Hi!

I wasn't going to do my nails until tomorrrow or the day after because I loved Graphite so much, but I got carried away with customizing it and ended up with a horrible mess on my nails! Too much sparkle kills the sparkle!!

As I can't stand seeing my nails covered in a thick and ugly mess of lacquer, I removed the polish and decided to do a skittle/ombre mani. At first I thought of using warm tones, then greens, but ended up opting for blues and purples (a mix of warm an cool tones). 

I also thought it would look nice with a matte topcoat and am really happy with the end result. 

These are the polishes I used:

• Thumb:   Nars - Night Flight (Blue shimmer in an almost black navy blue creme base) - 2 coats.
• Index:     China Glaze - First mate (Navy creme) - 2 coats.
• Middle:   China Glaze - Secrect Peri-Wink-Le (periwinkle creme) - 2 coats.
• Ring:      OPI - Planks a lot (Dusty lilac creme) - 2 coats.
• Pinky:    China Glaze - Light as air (Milky lavendar creme) - 2 coats.

The matte topcoat is Essie's Matte About You (1 coat).

I really like skittle manis and even wore a few to work. My students loved them! 

Do you ever do skittle manis? 

Artificial lighting, no flash.