Flowers'n'Gems

Long time no see from... water decals. Although they are such an easy upgrade to a manicure, I haven't been using them for ages. That's why I was happy when I got my package from Born Pretty Store with a sheet of cute white flower decals to try. Immediately I thought: what a delicate spring pattern - and did a simple manicure with them.

But hey, hold on :) I can't omit a couple of words about the base colour - Kiko #340. Oh, sorry, Kiko Celeste. But who cares, noone knows Kiko polishes by names except for the creators anyways.   

Kiko #340 is a bright blue creme with a glossy finish. The texture is pleasant to work with, opaque yet not goopy. The application was easy as hell, 2 coats and I didn't even apply a top coat - there was no need in it.

Sorry for the photo spam, but the shade is pretty (I reckon) and it was so easy to photograph. Couldn't stop. And it's not even a holo.

And now finally - on to the decals from Born Pretty Store. They arrived in a pink hard paper and with a protection film on top. Very easy to unpack and prepare for using. There was even a "user guide" printed on the back of the pink carton, but hey, who of us doesn't know how to use water decals.. :P

So, what I did was just applying the flower pattern on 2 nails and placing rhinestones on the other 3. As simple as that.

I should say that the water decals were so easy and pleasant to use that even my 7yo niece would cope with them! And the quality was great, they slid gently from the paper back, they didn't tear or fall apart during the application. Also, after I applied the final layer of a top coat the decals looked like I hand painted the flowers. People were really asking if I did!

You can find the water decals shown in this post here - they retail for 2.86$. As usual, the prices of BPS are very customer-friendly :) 

Moreover: here's a coupon for 10% discount at Born Pretty Store. Check their site, apart from stamping plates they have a whole huge variety of different decorations, nail art tools and supplements and other nice stuff for nails! 

*The stamping plate was kindly provided by Born Pretty Store PR team for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Kiko #339

Hey guys! 

Sorry for being absent for a while, some foreign guests came to me and I was running around the city like crazy for the last week! And although I had no time to blog, I did shoot some nice swatches of my oldies-goodies which I wanted to show you. This Kiko #339, for example: 

Kiko Fiordaliso (yep, Kikos have names..) is a sky blue creme with periwinkle hue, very glossy and of middle opacity. I got away with 2 coats, but there were some tiny bold spots left, not even visible on the pics. What I liked about the polish is that it dries very fast and basically doesn't require any top coat. No top coat = less time spent for a mani, haha. 

Oh, and the shade is very pretty - is that really necessary to say?

A kind of "I wore it out" pic. Now with a new phone I get nice phonopics :) 

P.S. When I was about to click "publish", I realised that I showed this polish in my blog already.. The more pics the merrier, so feel free to check my "old style" swatches too :)

Fashionista On The Beach

Happy spring everyone!! 

I don't know about you, but I'm desperately awaiting the warm sunny days, I'm so sick of all this gloominess and absence of light... Maybe I just need to move to a small Southern country? :) Anyways, I decided to start this spring with a bright mani - below you see the swatches of El Corazón Fashionista On The Beach. 

Fashionista On The Beach is a bright baby blue jelly full of white hexagonal glitter of various sizes. The application is fine, except you will need 3 coats to even out the bold spots, but it's a jelly after all! And the drying time is a bit suspicious, but I applied a top coat - it's quite useful for adding gloss and creating additional "water" effect anyway.

I'm actually very happy for Fashionista, who is on the beach right now, because I would give a lot to be on a beach too : { However, in my opinion this polish is good for any time of the year: me personally was wearing it 2 times by now: in summer and in winter. Either way, a bright refreshing colour.

Actually, this polish reminds me of a pond rather than of a beach, because part of the glitter is "drawn" and the other half is on the surface - I love this effect! By the way, I have 2 other polishes from the same collection: lilac and pink. 

What do you plan to wear this spring? Pastels? 
*The nail polish was kindly provided by El Corazón company for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Jeansy Blue

The shade I will never be bored of is jeans blue. I have around 5 polishes of this type in my stash and something tells me some more will appear in the future :) So, what you see today is one of them, the jeansy Pupa #726:

Pupa #726 is a middle blue shade with abundant blue shimmer, which makes the polish look like jeans denim. Application was pleasant, 2 easy coats and a very nice consistency - not goopy, not runny. Pupa polishes generally apply nicely, I find. Also, I recommend using a top coat for extra gloss.

Surprisingly, there are not so many swatches of this polish published in the internet, although the shade is really nice - so is the quality. I don't know if my camera did the justice to the polish, but it's the best I could shoot in the damn full absence of the day light. What I also like about all these jeansy polishes is that they look good in any time of the year.

Actually, this bottle was a present from my friend who doesn't have much idea of all the polish variety in the world, but she knows I like special shades. That's why it was a big pleasant surprise for me, because she just managed to hit the mark regarding my taste :) 

Fenechka

Introducing you a nice Russian word "fenechka", which stands for a handmade bracelet which you give to a close person as a symbol of friendship. "Friendship bracelet" it's called, isn't it? In any case, both of those words sound better that "Freundschaftsband" lol Now why I am saying all that is because El Corazón has a collection called "Fenechka" and today I'll show one of the polishes from this collection - El Corazón #423/130.

El Corazón #423/130 is a periwinkle crelly base with black and white hexagonal glitter swimming in it. The idea is nice, so is the implementation: the polish is pleasant to deal with, 2 easy coats and you have bright periwinkle nails :) I'd recommend to use the top coat for smoothness and gloss.

Generally I like the combination of black and white glitter + colourful base in polishes, so I got pretty excited about the Fenechka collection - you can see the other colours here, for example. I'm thinking of getting a couple of other shades from this collection actually :)

Once again I am reminding you that ordering El Corazón polishes is very easy: just write an email listing your order and you'll get a response containing prices and shipping details. El Corazón ships worldwide.

*The nail polish was kindly provided by El Corazón company for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Is It Blue or Green?

Right after the baby pink follows the baby blue! Or wait, is it? Maybe rather mint? I'm confused actually... :) The source of my confusion is El Corazón #423/58, from the "Jelly" collection. Some posts ago I showed the white shade from this collection, and now comes this one below! 

El Corazon Jelly #423/58 is aa... em. I have difficulties here. Let's say - a very pale baby blue creme shade with a touch of mint. How does that sound, credible I hope? :) 

Oh, and that was not a mistake - it's a creme, not a jelly. Crelly if you wish. Its white brother was a jelly, but this one is too opaque for that, although the texture is generous on bald spots, that's why I needed 3 coats, but it's possible to get away with 2, I guess. Dries quickly, and overall the application process was pleasant.

The pictures are taken under the natural day light, but I have to make a footnote here that my hands are very tanned - swatches were shot right after the summer beach holidays.

Ok, let's say we figured out that the texture is not a jelly, but how about the shade? For the purpose of defining the mysterious sub-colour, I am posting pictures both with the blue...

...and with the greenish. It conforms, doesn't it??

What do you see? Rather green or blue? Let me know! :)
*The nail polish was kindly provided by El Corazón company for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Princess

Finally it's time to proudly demonstrate you one of my craziest lemmings ever - Revlon Princess. Two years after its launch date (and it was a LE! - called Edgy Elegance) I completely lost hope of ever finding it - if it was not for Caroline ;) Now I'm the happy owner!

It was love at half site, really. Being a blue foil texture lover, I have a couple of very similar polishes, but this one is an absolute princess - if you allow - among those! The dusty shade of blue makes me think of moonlight, or moon reflected in water, something like that.

Application was a fairytale, it's actually very opaque in 1 coat already, but I think I did 2 just for it to last longer. Of course, I didn't spoil it with any top coats.

Above are the close-ups. Don't know what's the thing between me and blue foils, but I get carried away looking at this one, really!