Swap №10: Little Exception

With all my Italian posts I totally forgot to post about a swap I recently did. Some of you know, that I was not swapping for a long time, mostly because I had so many untrieds and I didn't want to receive even more, however attractive they might seem. But when Akuma Kanji contacted me, I just couldn't refuse: she is my constant swap buddy, this is the 3rd exchange that we're doing. Besides, they have so many pretty polishes there in Portugal which are almost impossible to find anywhere else, so I couldn't say "no". Which I never regreted afterwards : ) Look what she sent me:

Left to right:

• Andreia #93: golden glitter!! I'm super excited!!

• Cliché Sonho

• Andreia #96: recently I have a big crush on purples.. 

Left to right:
• DERMExcellence #55
• DERMExcellence #39: totally unknown polishes for me, but I love trying new brands.
• Inocos Dançar from Noites de Verão Collection: I'm telling you, this one is gorgeous!!
• Inocos Maria Bonita from As Marias de Portugal Collection: very nice shade, right inbetween blue and lilac.

Left to right
• Carlos Santos
• Yes Love #Y74
• Yes Love #504
• MIYO Blueberry

... and a HUGE pack of Portuguese sweets : ) I have never tried anything similar before, but they were so tasty, that I ate the whole package at once : )

Yes, the whole big nail mail full of nice stuff.
Thank you so much, dear Akuma Kanji!!!

Traditionally, I am also posting a swatch of a polish from the swap pack. The very first one I tried was Inocos Dancar, but I was on the run and didn't take pictures of it :( So, I'm posting the second "try": Andreia #96 (you can see the bottle on the first picture). 

The colour is deep dark eggplant purple with an awesome texture inbetween creme and jelly. Probably I mentioned before that such a texture is very characteristic for Andreia polishes, together with a crazy gloss - there is NO top coat on the pictures!! As usual, I'm very pleased with Andreia, and I recommend all of you to get some and to see yourself how great they are. If they are not sold around, you might try to find a Portuguese swap buddy : )

Hunger Games, you said? Not even close! : )

Remember, in the previous post I asked you what these colours remind you of?

Yeah, I have to admit - it was a trick. What you've seen on my nails had no relation to China Glaze Hunger Games collection, not even any to CG itself. What I did - I just used&mixed some of my polishes (see below), and got similar colours.

Index: Risque Energia = Dress Me Up. Not very similar, I know, Dress Me Up is more brown.

Middle: [b] Basic Sol Brillante = Electrify. Very close, I'm so glad I got this one for 1€ : )

Ring: Florence 01 over Zoya Pasha = Fast Track. 

Pinkie: 17 Toasted Almond over Yes Love 205 = Hook and Line.

And why I did this: I was browsing the swatches of Hunger Games collection and at some point I wanted to write some of them down to my wish list. But suddenly, I was like "stop! I'm sure I had something similar already?". So I digged my stash a bit and that's what came out. After that I always think twice before putting a polish to a wish list and buying it in order to swear myself later for breeding dupes. That's the story behind : )

My Most Worn & Used Polishes - Top 10+10

Some time ago lovely Ulmiel tagged me in a post about her most worn polishes, and recently I also saw Miss Jones and Danny and others telling us about theirs. So I decided to do the same and to show you the emptiest bottles of my stash. Believe me, with 200+ polishes emptying the bottles becomes a difficult challenge : ) 

Shall we start? So, the first picture tells you a lot about me: I'm an office worker : ) The dress code is not that strict, but I still try to stick to commonly accepted norms. Sometimes I fail and my boss keeps staring at my aqua blue nails, but you all heard this story : )

Here we go, office appropriate pinks - most used:

Left to right:

Color Club Vintage Couture

Nubar Oh Baby Pink

Orly Super Natural

Zoya Zanna

China Glaze Fifth Avenue

(clicking on the name of the polish leads you to my swatches of them, sometimes old ones with funny nail length and shape :) )

Still, although calm pink is a popular colour, it does not mean that all 200+ bottles I have are pink shades : ) 

Here are non-pink winners:

OPI Hey! Get In Lime! I actually wore it once, but in 5 (!!!) coats. No wonder the bottle is that empty. Real m****ker of my stash.
Essence My Yellow Fellow
Studio M Tru Passion did you know I like glitters? ^^
China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea my first CG ever!! For some unexplainable reason I adore this polish, although it's not any popular..
Wet'n'Wild Caribbean Frost this is sooo not my colour.. green pearl, yuck!! But I use it as a base for Atlantis and Party Hearty

These were my officially top 10 worn polishes. But this is not the end, and apart from them I want to show you some more. Here, below, you see the polishes I do not use for normal manicures, but rather for stamping or as layering polishes: 

Stargazer 232

Milani Gold

Milani Gems

China Glaze 2030

China Glaze Pixie Dust

And lastly, the oldies. These I have for several years, and they neither ever finish nor I can dispose of them (I tried several times, but I cannot throw away a polish unless a bottle is completely empty).

Lady Rose Latino 592

Yves Rocher Nature de Peau

Yver Rocher Mauve Leger

Victoria Shu 16

Sally Hansen Purple Potion

Somehow, for me "the most worn polishes" does not equal "my favourite polishes".. Those that I adore most - I try to save every drop of them, hehe.

Now, I'm waiting to see your posts about most used polishes :) If you posted already, you can leave a link in the comments, I'd be glad!

Finito!

Showing you the result of a couple of weekends work : )

133 out of 150 tips painted, predominantly cremes.
I had a lot of fun, revised my stash, and amazingly didn't discover almost any dupes : )
Although I realised that I have too many mint greens, taupes and pinks.
Conclusion: I strongly recommend this activity to every nail polish addict!!! : )

Old Weirdos R.I.P.

I wanted to do it for a long time already: to show you my polish stash before my nail maniacism began. The number of polishes I owned was actually always high: 2 years ago (i.e. 1 year before blogging) I had 42 beauties, 2/3 of which I had to throw away or give out because I was moving to another country. Now my stash is around 200 polishes. Uff. The bad thing is it's very tiring to carry them around, and as you know I change places of residence kinda often. So, here's the oldies, some of them nonames, of my collection:

1. Sally Hansen Cherry Charisma: my perfect red for some time in the past. Not too bright, not too dark. Love.

2. Yves Rocher Violine: deep violet, very intense and rich colour. Love.

3. Victoria Shu 16: purple shimmer with silver sparkles. Love.

4. Stefani 176: nothing-special-purple-shimmer.

5. Yves Rocher Luminelle Rose Etincelant: pale pink with silver shimmer. Quite a beautiful colour.

6. Franken Pink Ballerina: got it when I purchased some polishes from a blogger. Don't remember who it was.

7. Stefani 126: same as 176, but way more sheer.

8. Cary Mayson 25: was using it for french mani sometimes. Here as well, I think. My first post, haha.

9. Yves Rocher Mauve Léger: perfect lilac for some time. Love. 

10. Yves Rocher Luminelle Mauve Captivante: don't remember.

11. Yves Rocher Luminelle Ciel Bleu: don't remember. 

12. Lady Rose Latino 592: bought in delirium tremens (obviously). Never painted my nails with it, it's just toooo much for me. But perfect for pedicure!

13. BeYu 107: great colour, awful application. Finished.

And on the wheel, in the same order [sun]:

[under the lamp]

So now, why am I posting this? Firstly, to share my 'unconscious' (i.e. when you JUST pick up a colour in a shop) colour preferences, and secondly, who knows, maybe some very committed ppl are searching for the swatches of these weirdos. You never know.  

Why on the wheel? Because many of them are almost finished, so it was impossible to do a full mani.

Why R.I.P.? Because I threw them away. Ehh. 

Swap №8 / Skyscraper

So glad to tell you that I swapped again : ) It's been a while since the latest swap, and I really missed this feeling of unwrapping the bubbles..  and in this particular case unwrapping the bubbles and being surprised, because we only agreed on the number of polishes without specificifying the shades. This pleasure I had by swapping with lovely stamping queen Carolina, whom I'm sure you all know anyways for her perfect swatches. Now.. now I can't wait to boast what she sent me!! 

 Left to right:

Orly Opal Hope

Orly Ancient Jade 

China Glaze Something Sweet

China Glaze Skyscraper 

China Glaze Light As Air

Orly Pixie Dust 

Orly Porcelain 

Left to right:

Essie Smooth Sailing

Revlon Pink Ice 

Finger Paints Artist's Sapphire

Finger Paints Private Collection

Amour Blue Glitter 

Eyeko Vintage Polish 

Some lovely extras:

Nail Art Tatoos (hmm.. never tried anything similar)

Elf Nourishing Cuticle Pen with Avocado and Almond Oils

(tried this one, it's great! Not greasy, no smell, perfect for express moisturizing: before swatching, at work, in trips etc.)

Nuance Salma Hayek Firming Body Creme (very curious about this one)

¡MUCHÍSIMAS GRACIAS, CAROLINA! For getting me polishes I'd otherwise never have, for killing like half of my wish list and for just being the nicest person ever! : ) 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After jumping around these beauties for half an hour, a very dificult moment came when I had to decide which polish to try first. I changed my mind twice lol. And finally stopped on China Glaze Skyscraper:

Skyscraper is a dark dusty blue glitter polish, nice formula, 2 coater. Seriously, when I look at it, it reminds me the night view on a big city full of lights. Definitely goes to my top polish list, especially during winter time. Looks good on the sun too though:

And I just couldn't miss the chance to take this shot :) Please meet the one and the only skyscraper king of our city!

Thanks for watching!

Kiko Sneak Preview

Walking in one city where I went for a short excursion I stumbled upon a whole Kiko cosmetics shop. It obviously just opened, because it's not even on Google yet. Anyway, it was a great surprise for me.. I spent there half an hour trying not to buy half of the polishes, because they all looked sooo pretty and tempting and cheap.. With a big effort I chose four:

From L to R:

KIKO 339 Fiordaliso

KIKO 340 Celeste

KIKO 288 Rosa Fenicottero

KIKO 338 Lavanda Chiaro

That was a week ago. Yesterday (weekend wohoo) I painted my nails with KIKO 339 Fiordaliso and went shopping. I ended up buying a blouse matching the colour of my nails (otherwise I wouldn't even probably look at this blouse) - yes, I am THAT addicted : ) Here they are altogether:

I'll be showing the full mani next days, now it's only a sneak peak :)

Does anyone else buy clothes to match thenail polish or it's only me being so weird?

UPD: KIKO polishes actually DO have names!!! It's just they are not written on the bottles, but you can check them on KIKO website.

Alessandros (I)

In my stash there are 3 little cuties waiting for the magic moment to be taken to the seaside with me. No idea if I manage to go to any kind of beach this summer, but if I do I'll definitely include them in my luggage :) 

After seeing so many ladies wearing baby blue (manis of Miss Jones, Mrsrexy, Nailbamboo and Hermetic were my inspiration :) I had a strong wish to do the same. Actually I only have only one shade of this kind in my collection and I'll be showing it today - Alessandro Pale Blue Lagoon:

Generally I loved the quality of the polish (these are my first Alessandros), although I needed 3 coats it dried extrafast and I was wearing it for 4 days with no chipping BUT I do think these babies are fuckin overpriced!! Come on, 5 euros for 5ml polish bottle?? Is it with golden particles or what? Of course I'd never pay that price. The three I have I bought on sale per 1 euro each : )

And with some Chinese (is it?) upgrading: 

My Australian Mates (part I)

Although my stash is not so huge, it includes polishes from many different countries: up to Scandinavia and ... down to Australia :) Yep, even from there. Recently I got two new maties from there, piCture pOlish Sparkle and Ozotic Pro 621:

piCture pOlish Sparkle consists of white/silver perlmut base and tiny multicolour glitter particles. Pretty unique shade I'd say, I haven't seen any similar polishes. The formula is nice, number of coats depends on one's taste: it looks nice already with 2 coats, but VNL haters should rather use 3. Drying time is alright, the brush is also convenient, at least for me.

What I love about this shade is that it's so subtle and interesting at the same time. I couldn't stop staring at my nails, constantly watching at these multicolour particles :)

In my opinion this polish looks extremely nice with light-blue jeans clothes:

I should say, so far I have only positive impressions from this brand. Of course, I'd like to try more piCture pOlishes, so as soon as I have a couple of spare euros, I'll definitely order a pair of other shades.

If you are interested, you can see the whole assortiment of the brand at piCture pOlish official site, they have a lot of interesting colours!

Do you have any polishes from Australia? Share your experience :)

*These polishes were kindly provided to me by piCture pOlish for free, however, this didn't influence my opinion.

Swap №6

Yes, again :) 

If you see Andreia and Yes Love polishes, you might easily guess that this swap pack came from Portugal. Namely, from a lovely nail blogger Akuma Kanji, with whom I had already a pleasure to swap before :) Check her blog, she's doing great manis and she's currently having a giveaway!

Thank you so much, dear Akuma Kanji!!! I enjoy everything you sent me and I'll be posting the swatches in the nearest future! Starting today :)

Left to right:

Andreia 63

H&M Peppermint Fusion

H&M Daisy

H&M Hunt Me Down

Yes Love 39

For me most of these are rather autumn colours, but well, what to do if I like such shades.. :)

The first polish I tried was Andreia 63 because it looked really interesting in the bottle. Moreover I wanted to have it for a long time.

This is a cool and kinda unique shade. Does it remind you anything? I would say that one could get this tone if s/he mixed Essie Merino Cool and Essie Demure Vixen.

And this is my failed attempt to show how I was wearing it :)

So far, I adore the polishes I have from Portugal. You know why? They have a very special texture, something like half-jelly, it makes them look volumetric (oh what a word! :) and highlights the beauty of the shades! You guys in Portugal are lucky because I'd say this is a feature that Essence polishes lack sometimes..

Do you have any experience with Andreia/Yes Love/Risque/Cliche or other "Southern" polishes? I'm sure some of you do - please share your opinion!