Essie's Dive Bar

Hello my dears,

As promised, here is another of the Essie polishes I picked up the other day: Dive Bar.

I was really eager to try this polish as it's color reminded me of a scarab and I love those little beetles. 

I was hoping the teal/purple duochrome effect would be as amazing on my nails as it was in the bottle, but was a bit disappointed... Nevertheless, the color is gorgeous and I don't regret my purchase.

As you can see, Dive Bar is a very dark, almost black shimmery teal polish. 

Only two coats were needed to reach full opacity as the formula was great. No streaks, bubbles or bald patches whatsoever.

For my topcoat I used Essie's Out The Door, but I'm not crazy about it as it doesn't seem to be self leveling...

Have you tried Dive Bar? 

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

Isadora Moroccan Blue

Hello ladies and gents,

As I am still in my dusty polish phase I thought I'd show you this gorgeous blue Isadora polish I got the other day: Moroccan blue.

Not much to say about this beauty apart from the fact that it's formula is great and I really like it's color, a muted dusty teal-ish blue.

I applied two coats and no topcoat.

Up until yesterday I was using my trusty Sony Ericsson phone to take all the pictures posted on my blog. Alas my phone died and I got an iphone 4 to replace it but I'm not too happy about the pictures it takes: too dark and not color accurate... I need to find a better solution.


Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)

Natural light lightbulb, no flash.

Natural light lightbulb, with flash.

Natural light lightbulb, no flash.

Natural light lightbulb, no flash.

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

China Glaze's Rodeo Fanatic (#666) + Atlantis (#813) on ring finger

Hi!

I'm back from Paris! Had a great time but am really tired from the non stop walking and drinking in all the culture I could. 

Summer is starting to fade over here and work starts again tomorrow. I'm happy to see my students and colleagues but would love to still be on vacation a bit longer!! Teachers get long holidays and a lot of people are envious of that, but that time is not all fun and sun; we need those extra weeks off to prepare our classes, read, perfect our knowledge etc. My summer was really productive. I needed to prepare for two new classes I'm going to teach. In addition to my chemistry and biology classes, one of the new courses I'm going to teach is science to 5th and 6th graders. I usually only work with High school students so this is going to be very new to me!

For my back to school mani, I chose something a bit dark but needed to get my nails used to Autumn! I used two China Glaze polishes: Rodeo Fanatic and Atlantis.

Rodeo Fanatic is a shimmery metallic dark blue with teal undertones. I love this color. It seems extremely dark from some angles but is in no way one of those almost black polishes. The blue shimmer lightens this color up and makes it incredibly shiny and almost metallic. I used this color as the base polish on all of my nails then added Atlantis on my ring fingers.

Rodeo Fanatic's formula was good. It wasn't streaky or goopy and went on smoothly. The two coats I applied dried quickly to a very shiny finish. 

Atlantis is a sheer teal polish with silver holo glitter. It's very very sheer. You would need at least four coats for an opaque coverage. I prefer more opaque glitter polishes (I'm thinking OPI's Teenage Dream, Spark de Triomphe etc.) but do not detest the sheerer ones that look nice layered over an opaque base color. You cannot see Atlantis' color over Rodeo Fanatic. I just looks as though I had applied a clear holo glitter polish over top. 

The topcoat I used (China Glaze's Fast Forward topcoat) is new to me and I'm pretty happy with it. It wasn't too thick, applied evenly, didn't cause any polish shrinkage and dried quickly to a high gloss finish.

What is your back to school/work mani?

Photo 1:   Artificial lighting, no flash.

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

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

Photo 4:   Artificial lighting, no flash.

Photo 5:   Artificial lighting, no flash.