What's wrong with me and the coral colour? I don't know, honestly. When I was a kid, my mom told me that I should not wear salad green and bright coral shades, because the colours don't suit me at all. I never questioned that, until recently - we went shopping (with mom), and I wanted to try on a bright coral top just for fun - suddenly it suited me so well, the damn colour! My mom said we should grab that top immediately, and when I reminded her of the words she told me years ago, she laughed and said she never remembered that. Parents... they say random stuff and we have child traumas ;)
So the top was exactly the colour that I'll be showing today - a bright coral shade of Avon Coral Reef. Reminding you, my official supplier of Avon polishes is Antallex, to whom I'm very grateful! :)
Coral Reef is a neony (not fully neon though) coral polish with a tiny tad of white, very glossy and quite in-your-face. I was wearing it in winter and the colour therapy worked perfectly :)
No problems with application at all, 2 coats and fast-drying. No staining, no chipping.
For those who wonder if they really need another coral - here's a comparison of Avon Coral Reef vs. Essie Cute As A Button vs. Orly Pixy Stix. Coral Reef is the brightest of all, Essie is just a little more muted, and Pixy Stix is the most whitened.
As for me, you don't need all 3 polishes, maybe only you are a frantic coral-addict :) Are you? :)
It's been a while that I haven't shown any cute pink polishes and manicures.. Especially taking into account that I really like them! And I normally wear pinks all year round, there is no right or wrong season for this colour. That's why I was happy when I remembered that I have a nice pink pastel in the box of untrieds: Avon Pastel Pink, which I got thanks to lovely Antallex : ) And dots and bows, they neither need any special season or weather to wear!
But first a couple of words about the base colour.. Avon Pastel Pink is a pale pink creme with a strong touch of white - exactly what we call "baby pink". However, this baby pink doesn't tend to have a baby easy application: it's a 2-coater, but one has to struggle not to leave bald spots on nails. In the "best" traditions of opaque pastel cremes that is.. Impossible is nothing though : )
Because I have so many pastel pinks in my stash, and because Antallex asked me to, I made a comparison of pale pinks. The closest I got to Avon Pastel Pink is AA Coney Island, Pupa #202 is only close colour-wise, although it has a totally different jelly texture.
And now is the time for excessive cuteness : ) I added white dots with a dotting tool, and stamped the bow with m59 plate. Pink rhinestone to make it all even cuter : )
After quite a while I did another spontaneous swap. Lovely Sarah from Netherlands contacted me about one polish we had here in Germany, and in exchange she offered something I couldn't resist :) Here's what she sent me:
Left to right:
- Hugo Boss Nuit parfume (I loooved it!)
- W.I.C. by Herome Bogota
- China Glaze Stone Cold
- Lush Lacquer Party Rockin
So, I got my first W.I.C. by Herome nail polish, first indie brand polish, Stone Cold which I was chasing mainly for stamping, a bunch of nice sweets and a cool perfume. How pleasant is that! : )
Traditionally, I'm showing swatches of one of the received polishes, although I tried all of them already. But for this time, it's W.I.C. by Herome Bogota:
I was craving Bogota since I saw some random swatches long ago. Moreover, I so much liked the concept of W.I.C. (by the way W.I.C. means World Inspired Colours) - naming the polishes by cities/countries! Before recently I had not a single connection with Bogota as a city, until my bf went there for a couple weeks for his work and brought a bunch of interesting pictures and stories. I think I urgently need "Frankfurt" too :)
Bogota has a muted dusty greyish-blueish jelly base complemented by golden shimmer. The texture is semi-sheer and light, the coverage in 2 coats gives a decent opacity though. If you don't want the 'tip wear effect' which is so common for jelly polishes, you have to polish your nail tips well, also from the ridges.
The closest shade to Bogota that I had in my stash was Orly Pixie Dust, so I couldn't but post a lil comparison. The difference is that Pixie Dust is greyer, and has silver half-flakies half-shimmer, and Bogota is bluer with golden shimmer. Because I love such texture so much, I'll keep both in my stash.
And, although I won't post swatches of China Glaze Stone Cold today, I'll show how it stamps instead. It was exactly the reason why I wanted this polish - a graphite shade for stamping. And I was right, it does work well, with one only condition: you have to be fast. By fast I mean lightning fast. Otherwise it dries on the stamper and never transfers to a nail. With some efforts to understand its character, here is the result I got:
Oh, and I can't wait to show Stone Cold alone! It's such an enchanting matte graphite polish.. And Lush Lacquer is great too. So stay tuned : )
Recently I feel like sharing my experience and discussing what's best for hand&nail care. So today I'll tell you about the base coats I've tried, since for many of us they are an inevitable part of the manicure process.
Before I switch to the base coats themselves, I'd like to share some details. My nails are: fast growing, thick, splittering and stain easily. So, from a top coat I expect 2 things: to prolong my manicure and to prevent staining. I don't really need any fortifying effect, as I achieve it by other means.
In search of my first base coat I explored the whole internet and read thousands of feedbacks and comments before I choose which could work best for me. So I bought Nail Tek Foundation II.
Generally, I was very satisfied. Nail Tek Foundation II did everything what it promised plus I felt that my nails became even harder. To put it in a perceivable form, the "+" are:
~ it dries very fast and becomes somewhat matte when it's dry, so you can see it;
~ prevents staining. With especially 'suspicious' colours I use 2 coats and it works fine;
~ strengthens the nails and makes them grow faster - that was my impression.
The only "-" feature I noticed is that when you use 1 coat of polish, the 'thready' formula of the base coat will be visible underneath. But oh well, I rarely layer just 1 coat, even if the polish is completely opaque.
The next base I bought was Nail Tek Foundation III. Obviously, because I liked Foundation II, but I noticed that the product description of the IIId suits my nails better. By effect, II and III are similar, only maybe II makes nails grow faster, but they both fortify the nails pretty well. So, I equally liked Nail Tek Foundation II and III.
One more base coat of a similar type that I've tried is Essie Fill The Gap. Also a ridgefiller, also dries pretty fast and matte. I didn't really notice any effect on nails, otherwise this base coat is almost a dupe of Nail Teks.
A completely different base coat - CND Stickey - I bought it after reading many positive reviews and also because one of the nail bloggers I read recommended it very much. So, its name describes it exactly as it is: it's green and sticky. My impression of it... is pretty mixed. The fact that it's sticky makes it hard to apply the first layer of nail polish over it - so I felt at least. Otherwise this base coat had no additional super effects. Dries ok, but remains sticky, so you are always confused if it dried or not...
One more product I use as a base now and then is Essence Pro White Effect. Actually it's something else than a base, but I can't think of any other application. Despite the name on the sticker, it does not whiten anything. As a base coat it also sucks: after some days you can just peel it off together with the polish. Hm. But hey, works perfect for glitters, just like a peel-off base coat :D
Last, but not the least, is P2 Ridgefiller, which I bought because all above-listed ones simply finished. It's a nice product which you can find in any drug store in Germany, it works similar to Nail Teks, maybe it dries a bit more slowly and doesn't harden your nails that much. Overall: good one.
To add some illustrative effect for this post, I compiled a simple comparative table. I hope it will be useful.
Nail Tek II
Nail Tek III
Essie Fill The Gap
CND Stickey
Essence Pro White Effect
P2 Ridgefiller
Dries Fast
5/5
5/5
4/5
3/5
3/5
4/5
Prevents Staining
5/5
5/5
4/5
not really
not really
4/5
Fortifies Nails
yes!
yes
a bit
-
-
a bit, I think
Prolongs Manicure
not sure
no! on the contrary
Overall Comments:
Nice one!
Same here: nice one!
Also not bad. Works well with Essie polishes.
Hmm.. I don't think I'll buy it again.
Seriously weird stuff. Never again.
Nice one and really affordable.
That's pretty much my experience with base coats. Not extensive, I know, but I'm planning to try more new ones. "Short list candidates" are Zoya Anchor, INM Milky Bond and CND Toughen Up. I also crave for Essie Protein Base, but I think it's discontinued... :( If you have any nice base coat in mind, I'll be glad to hear your recommendations :)
What about you, girls? What's your favourite base coat so far? Which one would you never ever recommend? I'm very curious ;)
Proceeding with the taupe theme. I rarely do comparisons because.. I don't know why. Maybe because I believe they are of no value, as everything was already compared and cross-compared by other bloggers?.. But this time I was curious myself how the taupes I have compare to each other. And no free nail wheels : )
So, here are the guinea pigs:
And having applied all of them on the nails we have the following result:
All applied in 2 coats, moreover, by formula and quality they are pretty similar (=equally good!), except maybe China Glaze Below Deck, which is a 1-coater. OPI Parlez-Vous OPI? I just added to have some purpleness there, I wouldn't call it a taupe otherwise. And I'm glad to see I have no dupes, Manhattan and CC look very similar, but the first one is less brownish.
Which one do you like the most? Maybe you have some other taupes you like? Tell me : )
Guess what? I have swapped again :) This time I the swap pack went further than Europe - to US, to a lovely blogger Emily from Squared Nails. Swapping shortens our wishlists, and this time mine was shortened significantly. Look at the amazing polishes I got:
Left to right:
OPI Do You Lilac It?
OPI Dim Sum Plum
Zoya Caitlin
Zoya Jules
Zoya Marley
Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure (!!!)
Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast
China Glaze Midnight Kiss
If not this swap, I seriously don't know where I would get some of these polishes... Yes, most of them are on ebay anyway, but the price... That's why I'm so grateful to Emily :)
Imagine, she put Barielle as an extra!!!! And I couldn't but wear it first:
No idea why, but I'm in love with purple foils.. which Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast is. With quite visible pink (!) shimmer. To show you two other purple foils I have, I did a quick comparison between BarielleJess' Champagne Toast, Nubar Vaso and Essence Fairy Berry from Fairytale LE:
To my relief, they turned out to be all different (Barielle has a blue undertone, and Essence is the most intense purple). Great, cuz I don't want to collect dupes in my stash.
What about you, my dear readers? Do you like foil finish?
P.S. In case you wonder where's the post about Swap №3 - there was nothing special, I just exchanged this mthfk@&%#@ for Essie Merino Cool :)
