Victoria Shu

One of my blog policies is: each and every polish I own must be swatched and shown to my readers. Even if it's immemorially old, discontinued or impossible to find - I just tend to show everything I wear. The polish of today's post falls exactly under all of these categories: old as dirt and not sold anymore. Victoria Shu #16 was purchased like 7 years ago, and nowadays the Internet history does not contain any mentioning about this line, although the brand remains. But has nothing to do with Barcelona, I'm afraid. 

The colour is quite pretty though: a purple shade with more red than blue tint in the mix, full of silver shimmer. Application was pleasant for such a dark shade, in fact it's a 1-coater and it stamps perfectly too! :)

After wearing it for a day I came up with a thought that such a texture should look nice mattified. Not bad, indeed :)

And then I added some top coat again and stamped over the base colour with BM-316. As you can see, I was really enjoying all kinds of variations with this polish :) 

It seems that even then, 7 years ago, I managed to pick a nice interesting shade. By the way, if you can remember any dupes or similar shades - please let me know!! This polish is simply finishing and I can't repurchase it, but I'd love to own a similar shade again.. 

Confetti Del Corazón

Today I'm happy to introduce you to a nail polish brand I've never shown before in my blog - it's called El Corazón. Despite the Spanish name, the brand comes from Russia, and I can say that during the last couple of years El Corazón launched a series of mind-blowing collections, which made it one of the top Russian nail brands nowadays. The polish I am showing in this post is a part of the Confetti collection, a real colour glitter explosion! Since I'm a glitter girl, it's a great fun for me to wear this one - El Corazón Confetti 529a.

First of all, have a look at the bottle! I really like the design: flat but curved. Pretty convenient to use and to store. 

El Corazón Confetti 529a is a dark blue glitter in a purple (!) base, yet the glitter particles are so many that the base colour is barely visible. Although sometimes it gives the polish a purple hue, especially indoors. 

Application did not cause any problems, the glitter is very opaque, in fact it's a one-coater (!), you see 2 coats + top coat on the pics though. The brush is of a medium size, so I could paint a nice cuticle curve. The glitter is not "top coat hungry", i.e. it doesn't absorb the top coat after the application. One medium layer of top coat is enough for nice gloss. Removal was... foily :) you know yourself :)

And of course, this kind of glitter deserves some macro shots!

And finally, some good news: El Corazón ships worldwide, so if you want to get some of their lovely bottles, you can visit their web-site or just write an e-mail listing your order. Very customer friendly :) *The nail polish was kindly provided by El Corazón company for my consideration. In this post I expressed my honest and unbiased opinion about the product.

Winter Duo

As much as I love wearing duo manicures, I hate photographing them. Duos are all about showing both hands, and this is quite hard to do without additional help. Help option number one aka bf was not available, so I resorted to the option #2 - a newly bought tripod. Tripod is really a helping hand (or better, a helping leg) for a nail blogger, but when the day is gloomy and dark - so will be the photos. 

Anyway, you got it: the pics are far from perfection and they are few. Now to the polishes: for this duo I used two shades of Miss Cop - Bleu Délavé from Les Blues Jeans collection and Anis Étoilé from Les Pearls & Pop. Yes, they have collections and even names! Pretty cool for 2€ brand :)

Both shades - light dusty blue and mint - are packed with silver shimmer, which is THE reason I love this brand. Airy texture is another reason, but it has a downside of quasi tip wear effect even right after the application. Oh, and the application by itself is pretty easy - I layered 2 coats of each polish.

So, what's your attitude to duo manis? :)

Strawberry...?

Since in the last post I mentioned Avon polish, I realised I still have swatches of this brand to show. So why not to break the gloominess of these days with a blazing shade of Avon Strawberry? :) 

As it was the case with Barielle Grape Escape, the colour of Avon Strawberry doesn't have to do much with the real fruit colour. Nevertheless, it's a pretty magenta creme, very glossy and quite pleasant in application. Actually, it's a 1-coater, but most probably you see 2 coats on the picture - I often do so to prolong the polish wear.

What I liked about the shade is that it's bright enough to attract attention, yet neither neon nor vulgar. Surely I'll give it a try during the sunny summer days :)

Later I stamped my nails with BM-315 and got a somewhat mediocre result, but okay, I promised myself to post in this blog everything which is not a total epic fail. And yes - one of the rarest times when I was shooting the pictures under the indoor light. Winter doesn't provide us with too much day time to swatch, unfortunately.

Swap #13: Hits!

Saying that I'm a crazy glitter lover is nothing new. For this very reason you can imagine how much happiness tumbled upon me when I got this swap package! Eight fun glitters...

...with fancy stars on the caps...

...are called Hits Speciallità and arrived from as far as Brasil :) For sure it was the most long distance swap I've ever made, and one of the most pleasant ones, because my swap partner, Mauni from Brasil, is a great person and also very talented in foreign languages, which I adore in people ;) Although she doesn't have a blog, she promised to start one some day - Mauni, we're waiting! :D :D 

Now to the swap content: eight gorgeous shades from Hits Speciallità, six of them from breathtaking Glitters of the World collection, and two shades from Mari Moon. Glitters of the World are named after world biggest cities, I got Cairo, Atenas, Amsterdã, Londres, Pequim and Dubai. Actually I've been to the first three of them, three more to go! :)

Upper row, left to right: Cairo, Suspiro, Atenas, Londres

Lower row, left to right: Amsterdã, Pequim, Dubai, Cupcake

Left to right: Cairo, Suspiro, Atenas, Londres

Left to right: Amsterdã, Pequim, Dubai, Cupcake

Left to right: Cairo, Atenas, Londres, Suspiro, Amsterdã, Pequim, Cupcake, Dubai

Although I was equally overexcited about each of the shades, I didn't hesitate which one to pick first. Since I have a very special sympathy towards Greece and the Greeks, Atenas landed on my nails over Avon Sea Breeze :)

Atenas consists of a clear base with large hexagonal white glitter and small golden glitter particles. Very much represents the city itself, at least its central part :) Not sure what to write about application, since this polish is meant to be used for layering.. a bit of attention is needed while spreading the glitter over the nails, otherwise a nice formula and a great polish generally!

And as usual - some close-ups:

Again, thank you very much, Mauni!!! This swap was a great pleasure! :D

Preppy Pink

Following the strict line of nail polish blogging logic, after a huge post about a beauty expo next comes a post with the swatches of the recent haul. For some unknown reason, I picked China Glaze Preppy Pink first, although I got much more interesting shades too. Maybe because I was lemming Preppy Pink for so long (couple of years for sure), and now...

...and now to be honest I'm not sure if I'm happy to have it. Preppy Pink is a pale coral pink jelly base stuffed with opalescent glitter. Applies nicely in 2 coats and has a gritty surface. On the photos you see it without any top coat.

Preppy Pink didn't fulfil at least 3 of my expectations: 1) it's less pink and much more coral than I thought; 2) it's much more opaque than I expected; and 3) it doesn't match my skin tone, which I hoped will not happen. One pro vs. two cons. Hm. Could they have changed the formula? Because seriously, what I got is totally different from what I saw on the swatches : {

Close-ups of the glitter:

But you know what? I'll give it a second chance someday. Next time I will surely layer it over pink and cover with a top coat. As for now, enough of it.