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! :)   

Dance Legend Malta #89

As I am now on a business trip to Russia, I thought it would be a good idea to show some local specialities, i.e. Russian nail polish brands. Dance Legend is one of the most famous ones, and lately they are really progressing with enormous steps. DL's latest collections were simply mind blowing: sand polishes, glitters swimming in milky bases, mood polishes, sun-changing colours and what not! 

The Malta Collection was released some time ago (you can see all the swatches here, for example), and it attracted my attention for two reasons: 1) all the shades contain my beloved golden shimmer; and 2) I like Malta a lot as a country, so it increases my warm feelings about the collection even more :) So today I'm showing one of Malta shades - Dance Legend #89.

This is a light teal shade enriched (yes, that's exactly the word I want to use) with the abundant golden shimmer. Application was smooth and pleasant in 2 coats, and even the presence of wide DL brush couldn't spoil it this time, although I still get shivers when I think back of applying Dance Legend #170 : )

The cross is real Maltese by the way, I brought it from a trip to this wonderful sunny country many years ago :)

And a close-up to let you see the gorgeous golden shimmer.. : )

Oh, and a giant thanks goes to Antallex, who kindly sent me this amazing shade, somehow she knows for sure how to please me :)

Now a question to non-Russian readers: have you heard of Dance Legend brand? I'm just curious how far in the world it is known, if at all : )

Custom Stars

Shame on me, but I have gigabytes of swatches and photos of manicures that I never posted.. It's time to catch up and change this bad habbit of stocking pics and not showing them. Today - a manicure that I was wearing about a year (!!!) ago, therefore a bit 'unusual' photos maybe. I really see how my way of photographing nails changes over time.. Do you? :) 

What you see above is China Glaze Custom Kicks stamped with CG 2030 and Shirley's plates. The base colour is a very pretty teal with rich, but barely visible IRL gold shimmer. Very opaque coverage, 1 coat is enough. Below the photos of the polish alone.

Seriously, I have to stop swatching and start posting :)

Fresh Teal

Before writing this post, I was choosing which polish to show for like half an hour : ) The problem is that I have >1 giga of swatched polishes and manicures, so I was really confused what to pick. In the end I thought that it's been a while since I posted a teal colour, so here we go, and not just teal, but Fresh Teal by Milani.

The tricky thing you should know about this polish and the whole neon line of Milani is that they are NOT the same colour with the bottle. You can see it on all the pictures, and you better google some swatches before buying these polishes. In case of Fresh Teal it didn't disturb me, I like both the colour of the bottle and the real colour on my nails. 

Otherwise, Fresh Teal is a gorgeous creme inbetween blue and green, depending on the light and your skin tone you will see more blue or more green on your nails. The formula is great too, on all the photos there's only 1 coat applied, no top coat. I won this polish in a giveaway of Stickers, so I'm now using the chance to say thanks to her : )

And an epic stamping fail. I should have been more careful with the black stamping polish:

Do you have your favourite teal? : ) I'm still in search of mine..

Dotted Peacock

My camera has no idea about the existence of teal colour. Seriously. Poor American Apparel Peacock was so perverted in its reflection that I was shocked when I saw the swatches on my laptop. Good old Canon made it a deep royal blue (and my hands almost crimson). I had to spend some time photoshopping it back to reality. Butthead, teal is such a beautiful colour!

I know, I know, it's in no way a summer shade, but during the last days we have a gloomy cool weather with no sun, so it kinda feels like autumn here => great chance to open some darker untried shades.

Sorry guys, the swatches are a bit distorted in terms of colour balance but I was struggling to reach as realistic polish shade as possible. The application however was great, again a one-coater polish. I'm totally in love with AA brushes, they are thin and easily controllable.

Some weeks ago I received my dotters purchased on ebay (in order to get them I had to go to our city's airport to the customs service, but this is another funny story) so I couldn't but play around with them : ) Poor Peacock got dotted with CG For Audrey: 

Go, Katie!

Royal Wedding? St'arxidia mou! (do I have Greek readers? lol) What I want is just to show a sign of support to Katie. Imagine: you live your life, go to uni, fall in love with a guy - and he turns out to be a prince. Pain in the ass, no? Now for the last months poor Katie, instead of peacefully planning her wedding and chat with her mom what dinner napkins to choose, probably cannot make a step without bumping into a paparazzi. My sympathy, I wouldn't like to be at her place. 

Now to the polish: this one is the most British and the most expensive in my whole stash, however it's worth every cent, or rather penny, that I've paid for it: Butter London Victoriana. 

Colour, formula, application (I loved the brush) - everything is just top quality. Pity that Victoriana's "sister", All Hail McQueen, didn't arrive from evil lookfantastic because it was out of stock :( I bought both from sale, and that doubles my disappointment.

Now two question to my dear readers: do you have Butters? and will you watch the wedding ceremony? :)