Day Light vs Lamp

Some days ago I painted my nails in the evening and realised I won't have the chance to swatch them. I work during the day time when there's the right light to swatch, and in some days I'll have a new manicure already. So I did what I have never done before - swatched it under the lamp *sigh*. 

The thing is - ALL of my previous nail pics are taken under the natural day light, with maybe 1-2 exceptions. And my opinion is that it must be so, as the artificial light distorts the real colours. On the other hand, swatching under the lamp is really convenient - if you have a good camera. My oldie just can't set the white balance right.

As for the manicure itself, I'm wearing Milani Gems over Essie Angora Cardi. The transparent (in the past) base of Gems got some weird mauvish tint, and now I can only wear it over red, mauve or dark polishes. Gotta find a substitute for Gems.. : ( 

So, what do you think about the artificial light swatches? They look weird to me, but still.. publishable. Is it ok if I'll be posting "lamp pics" every now and then? : {

Suspiro

These swatches have been lying around since early summer, but although my hands looks a bit more tanned than they should, I think that publishing the pics of this polish is also ok in winter. Polishes, actually, as this is a layering combo. No one cares about the base colour (although it's a pretty periwinkle - Essence Forget-Me-Not - swatched here), the eyecather is the glitter top - Hits Speciallità Suspiro from Mari Moon collection. 

Hits Speciallità Suspiro consists of 2 colours and 3 sizes glitter: pink and blue; smaller, medium and larger hexagons. The base colour is light lavender, and I'm not sure if it is opaque enough to cover VNL in 2-3 coats by itself - I should try once. As I said, I was using Suspiro as a layering top, and I liked it that way. The application was pleasant, the glitter particles are easy to spread on the nails. 

For me, a glitter top is always the easiest way to prolong the manicure life, or even to hide the worn off tips. 5 minutes and you don't have to repaint your nails, so easy :)

And of course I'm especially happy to own this polish because it's very hard to get in Europe.. many thanks to one of my readers, Mauni, for sending me this beauty from Brasil!

GG = Greece Grab

Every time I go abroad, I try to allocate some time for investigating the local nail polish assortment and eventually buying a couple of polishes from a foreign country. For example, last time I went to Italy I brought back 14 new polishes :) Now, although I was in Greece for nearly a month, I bought only... one bottle. But quite an interesting one - it's called GG Line #12, and there is no single mentioning about this brand on the web (!!!), despite a rich colour palette in the shops.. 

GG Line #12 is a blue jelly with tricolour hexagonal glitter: gold, blue and purple. After the 1st coat it was so sheer that I thought it will never hide the VNL, but it did, right after the 2d coat! Drying time was quick, and I applied a thin layer of top coat before photographing.

The bottle shape reminds me of MIYO polishes, the brush was quite wide. I dislike wide brushes, but it was not so disturbing this time.

As you see, this brand is new for me and a mystery in general. I only know that it's produced in Greece (Thessaloniki), costs around 2€ and has pretty colours. And this number 12.. I just dug it out from a huge nail polish shelf in Hondos Center. I still regret about not taking a neon green of Erre Due *sigh* Hopefully, I'll come back for it! :)

Fake Tattoos ~ Review

*planned post; me partying on Ios*

We, polish addicts, have various stuff in our stashes to decorate the nails: loose glitters, stamping devices, stickers and water decals... but have you ever heard of nail tattoos? :) Here you are, three different manicures using a product called Fake Tattoos: 

Fake Tattoos come in a happy pink package, that was a first positive surprise :) 

The envelope contained 6 sheets (5x7,5 cm) with patterns of all kinds, the variety was a second nice surprise! :)

And the greatest surprise was the easiness of the tattoos application. Below is the detailed instruction, but basically all you have to do is: cut -> press -> go! As easy as that.

Here is the detailed view of the tattoo designs:

As for the manicures, I'll just give some details on each of them. For the first one, I used 2 coats of Essence I Like, ice cream tattoos from the 1st sheet, some rhinestones and a top coat.

Second one is made with the help of Ciate Cookies and Cream (2 coats), bird tattoos from the 3rd sheet and a top coat.

And the last manicure has the most colours: Nubar Oh Baby Pink (index), Essence I Like (middle), Essence My Yellow Fellow (ring) and Essence Bloom-A-Loom (pinkie). The bow tattoos are from the 6th sheet, and the top coat, of course. 

Fake Tattoos is a Swedish brand that retails body and nail tattoos on their web-site. You can even design your own tattoos if you wish! My opinion is that they are super easy to use, and the designs are very cute, so I can totally recommend them :) 

Have you already heard of Fake Tattoos? Which designs do you like most? 

*The nail tattoos were kindly provided by Fake Tattoos company for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the products.

Amsterdã

*planned post; me camping on Chalkidiki*

"Too much glitter?" No, never heard such thing ; ) That's why today I will be showing you... glitter on glitter : ) And very special one, because it's hard to find in this part of the world where I live. So I only own it due to lovely Mauni, who was so kind to send it to me in a swap from Brazil! Crazy amounts of glitter you see below is Hits Speciallità Amsterdã layered over Dare To Wear Ready For My Close-Up (swatched here).

Amsterdã is a multicolour glitter of various sizes, including silver, gold, blue and green larger hexagonal particles as well as smaller colourful glitterinis. I should say that this polish matches much more with the city it was named after, than, say, Cairo.

Application did not cause any problems: the glitter is a bit dense, but there is nothing impossible in layering it properly. I think I'll try a dark blue glitter base next time :) 

The more I try Glitters of The World unite by Hits Speciallità, the more I like them! They are fun to play around with, to seek for cool combinations of base colour + glitter topper. Now it feels pity that the bottles are not big enough, so I even might be able to [ohoh!] finish a couple of them, who knows :) 

More Flossy Tops! (#144 and #146)

After showing one of my Dance Legend Flossy Tops in the last post, I cannot but show the other 2 that I own. Just to remind you: I bought the Dance Legend Flossy Tops at Nevskiye Berega 2013 Beauty Expo, and I chose just 3 shades (although it was damn difficult!) out of 14 existing. Firstly, here is a group photo of my Flossy picks:

You have already seen #151 here already, and the one below is Dance Legend Flossy Top #146 - a combination of larger pink hexagonal glitter, smaller white hex. particles, and even smaller black "sand" glitterinis. The base is transparent, so I layered this top over 2 coats of OPI Malaga Wine.

Some more colour combination possibilities:

The last but not the least is Dance Legend Flossy Top #144 - is just 2 colours: red larger hexagonal particles and same lil black sand glitter like in #146. Clear base as well, on the pics you see it layered over Revlon Pink Ice.

Now is the time when I wanted to say a couple of words about the application: you do need some attention while layering all these glitter particles over your nails, but it's not rocket science. Drying time is ok (I read complaints that these tops dry slowly!), I was not using any top coat.

Reminds me of strawberry something... don't know what! :)

And two more colour combinations on a nail wheel.. any other background ideas? You girls were so helpful last time!! :)

Dance Legend Flossy Tops are fun, I reckon, you can think of and create a lot of cool colour combinations, these tops are great for layering fantasy development :) Usually I call these tops "the life of microbs" :) What do you think? Do you like Flossy tops? Do you have any?

Below Deck + Flossy Top

In my stash there are certain polishes which I know I will immediately repurchase once (if ever) they finish. China Glaze Below Deck is one of such shades, and I like it so much that I hope that it either never comes to an end, or it will be forever available at the stores!

China Glaze Below Deck is a dusty mixture of purple and grey. Greige? Taupe? Mauve already? Go figure. Besides, on the background of various skin tones, and under different types of light it will look differently. I am just showing how it looks on my hands, and I kindly ask you not to perceive these swatches as an ultimately true colour representation.

By the way, here is the comparison with some other popular taupe/mauve shades, I hope you'll find it useful! 

A couple of words about the formula: it's awesome!!! One-coater (!), applies like butter, dries fast. Tipwear can be disturbing, but not for those who change their polishes once per 2-3 days - like I do ; )

After wearing CG Below Deck for a day, I decided to decorate it somehow - instead of removing it :) Last time I did the golden net stamping (warning: old pics!!!), now I opted for glitter. For a very cool glitter, I should say - Depend Flossy Top #151.  

Depend Flossy Top #151 consists of a clear base and middle-sized hexagonal glitter of 4 colours: pink, red, green and blue. Simple combination, yet looking so cool!

And I decided to experiment with other background colours for Dance Legend #151. Forgot the light green base, argh! Maybe you have some other combination ideas?.. : )