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? :)

Ruby Pumps

No words needed.

- CG Ruby Pumps, 2 coats

- photos taken under daylight

- last photo - with topcoat

Easter Mani

Today I guess the whole blogosphere will be full of posts & pics of  "Easter manis". Actually, for me an Easter manicure is not any different from an average one, because I love pastel shades and own a lot of them. It just coincided so, that I was trying out a new lovely Orly Gumdrop polish, which I got from my swap with Annie. Here it is:

Lovely shade (pastel turquoise, one of my favs), pleasant application and nice formula (2 coats on the photo). Pastel Orlys are really great in this respect, so I'm tending to collect most of them in my stash!

Unfortunately, I cannot draw bunnies, so after wearing this polish for a day I just added some simple dotting and rhinestones: 

~ Happy Easter to all of you, my dear readers! ~ 

Cirque du Glitter

Howdy, my dear readers :) Currently I keep on trying out the freshly arrived polishes from my latest swap, and so far I have only positive impressions. Right after the awesome Khaki I decided to turn to calm colours again and polished my nails with a nude which was nicely included in a swap as an extra. Very nice extra, I should say! :)

I should confess that before the swap I had only nude (beige nude I mean) polish in my stash - Color Club Who Are You Wearing, with which I have very complicated relationship. By itself it's a nice colour, but it make my hands look like a manikin and the application in 4 coats is just driving me insane. On the contrary, Yes Love 629 (they should come up with names, not numbers grrr) which I've received recently passes my skintone much better and the application is easy and pleasant! Thus I wore it for a day enjoying the colour and then decided to play around with still untried Milani Gems:

(Used products: Yes Love 629 - 2 coats + Milani Gems - 1 coat)

I did a mistake not to swatch the polish alone, but I liked it really much so I'm definitely gonna wear it again :) 

What concerns the glitter: I'd say these "Gems" are rather a circus in a bottle.. No doubt they are weird and funny and most of my friends were starring at my nails these days, but I just can't get used to them :) 

What would you say? Too colourful? Do you have Gems or their sisters (Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday, Wet'n'Wild Party of Five Glitters etc.)?

Swap №2

Remember I told you about my first experience in swapping? Well, I did one more exchange, this time direction South :) Probably some of you already know Akuma Kanji, a blogger who won my first giveaway.. After we've arranged the sending of the prize, word by word we agreed on a swap, and it was totally worth doing!! Look at my cute Portuguese newbies:

Left to right:

Andreia 3

Andreia 75

Cliché Khaki

Cliché Flash

Cliché Oliva

Yes Love 205 (what a brand name and what a bottle!!!)

Yes Love 629

Risqué Energia

What I liked is that all these colours are unique in my collection. In addition to this, my package was full of sweets, I think their aggregate volume even exceeded the volume of polishes :) :) The pack arrived yesterday morning, and it indeed made my day happy and sweet. Thank you so much, Akuma Kanji! :)

Of course the first thing I did after I read the note and ate a couple of sweets - I rushed to try out the cuties. Unfortunately, I encountered a problem: I seriously couldn't choose which to start with... After some time I made my mind. Ladies and gentlemen (are there any lol), let me introduce you Cliché Khaki:

Resume: this polish is amazing AMAZING AMAZING!!! Last autumn I was dying to have Chanel Khaki Vert, but I was never ready to pay the crazy amount it costed. Now I don't know how close would it be with Cliché Khaki and I don't care - the latter is more than enough for me!! No need to mention good application (I loved the brush) in 2 coats and a nice formula that makes this polish look NOT flat, otherwise it would kill all its beauty. I really hope all other polishes from this swap will make an equally good impression to me. Once again, BIG thanks to Akuma Kanji :) Swap, people, it's fun!! :)

Let's Get Serious

Now it was time that I take a lil break from green and blue nails. This week I had a couple of seminars with a very serious and old professor (he's on Wikipedia lol), and the last thing I wanted was my nails to grab any attention. As I still don't have my ideal nude (although as you remember I've found my ideal red woohoo), I had to pick smth among my pinks. Not neon. Not bright. Not even noticeable enough. 

The polish is Essie Flawless. More or less it justifies its name - almost flawless in application. Pls forgive my dry hands, riding bike at +5 definitely has an impact on them :(

After a day of wearing dull pink I added some rhinestones to spice up the mani:

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Some other positive news: for the first time in my life I have won a giveaway!!! The last thing I won was a bottle of champagne in the night club a year ago hehe. So I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw the post announcing my name! I got the whole pack of Manhattan beauties which were kindly delivered at 7 in the morning:

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Pls share with me: what polishes do you wear when you want your hands to be neat but invisible? Pinks? Nudes? Other?

Blue Chai Matte

Do you know Chai Latte? Or is it an exclusively German cafes' thing? Anyway, today I decided to play around with China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea, my first CG polish ever bought. Despite it is a totally winter colour for me, I just felt like wearing it now but also to make it a lil matte. Actually, because it has a lot of silver shimmer, it turned out to be something close to suede finish, nevertheless I love the effect so much!

When I saw the result, I came up with an idea to do some matte experiment with one more similar polish I have, a purple one. Also I decided to add some accent nails stamping to bring in some attractiveness to the mani:

(Used products: China Glaze Blue Island Iced Tea covered with Essie Matte About You 

and stamped with Stargazer Chrome + SdP B18 image plate)

What do you think? Do you like "suedes"? Do you know any other than those of OPI?

Ideal Red

Guys, I think I've found my ideal red polish (which I'm sure every woman has, and especially every lacoholic woman). During some time it was Sally Hansen Cherry Charisma, but it's almost finished and being now spoilt with professional brands, I've been recently irritated with its formula. So now the honourable status of my ideal red belongs to Essie Limited Addiction. Of course, with the colour on the first place and great formula and application (2-coater) as a nice addition to it. Look at this beauty: 

And what I love most about it is the colour metamorphose in the day/sun light and in the shade. Inside it becomes a little more vampy:

A tiny bonus to show you is my new home for polishes. I've been searching for such a box for months, I wanted it to be relatively cheap, big enough (although my stash includes only around 100 polishes) and to suit the overall colour pallette of my room:

Upper small box is for nail care (treatments, nail files, konad etc.), and the lower is obviously a polish treasure  box. However, it's almost full, and I'm already keeping my eye on other boxes in the shops. And yeah, I'm not a great fan of Helmers yet.

Now, very important: which is your ideal red (if you have it)? Or maybe you are still searching for one? Pls tell me!

Banana Kitty

Again and again I'm being convinced that the name for my blog was chosen so accurately. More than half of my posts could start with the words "for the first time in my life...", and so can this one. Yes, yellow. Yes, never before. The only one in my collection so far, but what a pretty one!  

You remember the "Hello Kitty plate" promotion of Born Pretty Store that other bloggers and me were writing about? Well, I finally got it a couple of days ago and decided to try it out: 

Regarding the polish: it's Essence My Yellow Fellow from LE Blossoms etc... I couldn't help buying the whole collection, because these are my favourite creme pastels. So far I don't regret, but I must confess that at least this yellow is kinda capricious in application: all the swatchers said "2 coats", but I needed 3. And then  after the night I had scratches and linen traces (you can see on pic above) or however they are called. But I still like it, maybe because it's unique in my stash :)

Swap №1

Recently the time has come for me to try out one more nail polish world popular experience - a swap. Actually, I was someday contacted by lovely Annie from Polish This!, whom many of you probably know already, and proposed to swap. I agreed immediately and never regreted about it - the whole process was fun and exciting! All this searching, choosing, packing, communicating etc etc etc- it was worth it from the very first moment untill unwrapping the package. Wanna see what I got?

Left to right:

Depend 221

Depend 228

Orly Gumdrop (look at this cute lipgloss!!)

Depend 218

Depend 227

Lumene Windblown

Annie also included some yummy Finnish sweets, but they didn't make it until the photoshooting :)
Right after openeing the pack I couldn't help trying the newbies out:

On the pics above you see Depend 218, and although I used to have 1 Depend polish ages ago (it has already finished), I still was very excited again with formula and application + it's a 1 coater! Can't wait to try other ones now!

At the moment I'm in the process of organizing one more swap, and of course as soon as I receive it I'll write a post. I should say once again that swapping is a fun, and I recommend it to everyone who hasn't done it yet :) Have you?

Green Party

Tadaaaaaaaa!! Historic moment. For the first time in my lacoholic life (which is actually equal to my human life by duration) I'm wearing green. I mean SUCH kind of green - not pale pastel or smooth mint/Tiffany colour. Now a prehistory: some time ago I fell in love with China Glaze Atlantis, later I bought it, but never dared to try. Untill a moment when I got Wet N Wild Caribbean Frost polish as a freebie and thought that it would be a perfect base for Atlantis, cuz the last one is pretty sheer. How damn right I was!!! Look at this beauty: 

Never in my life would I think that green would suit me so much and that I would adore it to a such extent! I'm positively surprised :) I've mentioned already that I'm to the joy of my wallet not very excited about holo polishes, but I am megaexcited about hologlitter! And of course, Atlantis is very close from getting into my top 10 polishes list. This nail polish is indeed a green party. When I was wearing it together with same coloured top, scarf, bracelet (on the photos) and earrings, my bf was joking that I can go directly to Die Grünen and they'd accept me as a member with no questions :) :)

So, what do you think about Atlantis? Do you have it? How do you generally treat green polishes?