Step Right Up!

Today is a BIG day for me because I am starting to work for the BIG4. Those who know what it is about will also know that from now on my free time is gonna reduce drastically. Hopefully, it will not influence the blog, but if the posts will be rare or irregullar - I'm sorry in advance : {

Now, to signify such a day I will show you my "lucky" polish - OPI Step Right Up! Why lucky? Because I was wearing it for 2 job interviews and both times I got the job :D Last time I even jumped over one selection step (right up!), but hopefully that happened due to my brains and skills, not because of the polish :) 

Step Right Up is a light ivory jelly, quite difficult to deal with - to tell the whole truth. The formula is just weird, streaks and bold spots appear all over the place. This time I was lucky to layer it in 3 coats, whereas normally I apply 4. Sorry to say that this polish probably won't be any good for French manicures. Oh, the thing doesn't dry either. 

However, every time I tolerate it all because the end result is actually great. The nails have that "porcelain" effect - not quite nude, but still very elegant. 

Do you have "lucky" polishes? :)

Oh Baby Pink

Who's up for a good old pink creme? I mean, what can be simpler than that..? A baby pink is a shade that every girl has, if she at all has polishes. However, this is not "a" baby pink, it's Oh Baby Pink by Nubar :) Lovely name, isn't it?

Application is not that lovely though, 3 coats are definitely needed to cover all those endless bald spots.. The positive aspects are the texture (not goopy, not runny) and the drying time. You better use top coat to even out the surface or in case you have built up that damn "step" next to the cuticles.

The photos are taken in the natural light (no sun) and my hands are tanned, yeeeey! Summer, I miss you already :{

As for upgrading the manicure, I had a lot of ideas for such a clean pink base palette, but unfortunately not so much time. So I just quickly glitterised it :) 

Index and pinkie have OPI Pirouette My Whistle on top, and middle and ring fingers - BK Deluxe polish. Very weird animal, the latter one. You can see the bottle in my hand on the pic above. I only can say that I once bought it in C&A (!) for 2EUR once, and it's actually pretty, but stinks like a sulphur swamp.

A kind of ballerina manicure I got in the end, right? Still looks pretty to me though :)

Malibu Pirouette

*planned post; me discovering Athens*

Ever since I got OPI Pirouette My Whistle I was wondering which background colour to use when I will be trying it for the first time. In my head I listed all the possible combinations: over black, dark blue, lilac, and even yellow... Do you know that if you google the pics of Pirouette, you will mostly see it layered over grey? :) I really wonder why so... Anyways, I was almost ready to paint my nails black when I spotted that polish I had put out for pedicure... the teal. 

American Apparel Malibu Green - to be precise. I just looked at it and thought "hmm, Pirouette over teal... interesting". I tried to google such a combination, but I didn't find anything worthy. So here it is, over teal.  

By itself, OPI Pirouette My Whistle is small silver and larger hexagonal glitter in a transparent base. Perfect topping for many colours. The application was good as well, you just need to make sure that the hexagons are spread evenly, the small silver glitter self-evens by itself.  

Without even expecting it, I loved both the Pirouette polish and the combination! You know, if it was not for those numerous swatches on the web, I would probably never grab a bottle of Pirouette My Whistle. Also, I'm planning to try it over all kinds of different colours! Maybe you could advise me, which colour would look great as a base for the Pirouette? 

Me all ears! :)   

Feng Shui Clouds

...or whatever this pattern is - but I definitely see air masses :) To be honest, I missed stamping, so I decided to share one of my latest konadicures!

The base colour is OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui, a dusty blue creme which I keep failing to swatch separately although I own it for a long time.. The stamping pattern is BM-312 from Bundle Monster plates, stamped with Konad white polish. 

To be honest, it was difficult to combine this manicure with suitable clothes, but I liked it a lot and I was wearing it for some days. Hopefully, you'll like it too! :)

Flower-To-Flower

Since in the latest two posts I was referring to abundant silver shimmer and flowers, now I decided to combine the two things together and to show you one of the "hard-to-find" items of my polish stash: OPI Flower-To-Flower from 2010 Summer Flutter Collection. The rest 3 shades of the collection were totally not my thing, but Flower-To-Flower enchanted me from the first sight!

Now it's not so easy to find this polish, and I think I know why: it's a very pretty Barbie pink with abundant silver shimmer. Seriously, I can't think of any dupes right now - tell me if you know any! :)

Application was fine, although the polish was a bit runny, it's quite opaque, you'll need 1-2 coats. Some bold spots are possible after 1 coat, so I layered 2 to cover them. Drying time is good, you won't have problems with that.

Here you can clearly see the shimmer (everything clickable), in real life it's always visible too:

As the polish has such a nice name, and because I happened to have some flowers at home, I decided to make a little Flower-To-Flower with flowers photo session :) The polish is just made for spring days, and spring flowers too!

Do you have Flower-To-Flower? Or any other polishes from Summer Flutter Collection?

Sheer Your Toys!

After all the holiday turmoil I realised that I'm craving for soft calm shades, and most of all - for grey. In my stash there are only a few grey polishes, and today I'll show one of them. OPI "Sheer" Your Toys! is however not a simple plain grey, but a shade "with a twist" : )

Besides being a middle grey shade with a touch (!) of pearly finish, OPI "Sheer" Your Toys! also contains copper colour particles. Those are not really visible in reality, but they do turn this polish into something special, at least for me. The application is smooth, 2 easy and thin coats. Even the wide brush (which I hate in OPI polishes) couldn't spoil it.

Some macroshots to show this copper microshimmer. I did my best, I'm not that good in taking macro pictures, neither is my camera.

And finally, I like to combine grey with white. Otherwise simply grey with grey, as I wear a lot of grey clothes.

And I still keep craving for OPI You're A Doll from the same collection. The secret copper shimmer is something that totally attracts me : )

Sparkle-icious

Well.. it's such a pity than I only have ONE (and not the best one) photo of OPI Sparkle-icious, because this beauty deserves many more.. but I'm also glad that I randomly took this pic, because in the turmoil of the Xmas days I had zero time for proper swatching. Next year I'll reswatch it properly, I promise : )

At least this photo shows the real essence of the polish: OPI Sparkle-icious consists of blue, purple and gold glitter particles. The glitter is not so dense as in other Burlesque Collection glitters, so on average 3 coats are needed for full opacity. Sometimes two. Sometimes four : ) Removal process with blood and swords you can imagine yourselves... Otherwise it's a very cool festive glitter! It looked weird when I was wearing it in early autumn, but now in holiday time it suited just perfectly.

Show It And Glow It!

How about A LOT of glitter? : ) Sorry glitter-haters (hm, are there any?), but Christmas time is glitter time for me, so be ready to see it in my following posts too. In this one I'm showing one of the prettiest glitter polishes of my stash - OPI Show It And Glow It! from Burlesque Collection. Generally, I find Burlesque glitters very cool, but unfortunately very hard to find, too : {

As I said, the polish is enchanting: it consists of a plenty glitter particles. Predominantly purple, a lot of silver too, but also gold, green and other colours. The glitter is dense, 2 coats is enough for opacity. Removal.. ugh, let's skip this part : )

Although the polish is very festive, I was wearing it in early autumn, that's why my hands are tanned and the swatches are sunny. Oh, about the sun - it shines and sparkles like crazy under the sun light!

And here are some close-ups so that you see the texture better: