Holiday Nails

Back. Depressed. After a month in +35 got into +15. People in swimwear changed to people in jackets and coats. Just to cheer up, I'm posting some random pics of my summer manicures. Disregard the quality of application and photos, it was holidays after all :)

Bright turquoise, almost the colour of Cycladic islands waters - Depend #227:

Golden foil China Glaze Midnight Kiss.. I wanted to wear golden nails so much this summer!

Pupa #715, my ever favourite blue:

And two pedicures, although I don't usually post feet pics. Someone was waiting for me in Santorini so much, that he even wrote my initials on the ground :) :)

And this gateway plate... I just liked it :)

One observation: I guess now I know why there are so few nail bloggers from Greece: it's soo hard to paint the nails there in summer. My polishes were freaking out, being goopy, leaving streaks, so did the top and the base coat!! Bubbles everywhere, every time.. 

And finally, this is the place that totally won my heart... Santorini:

Depend & Dance!

After all my work part of the trip was finished, I immediately wanted to have something bright on my nails, so I painted them with Depend #228. The weather was warm and sunny, and my mood was up all the time, so this sky blue bright shade just passed the situation perfecly! Even without it, isn't it just gorgeous?

What I like about this polish, is that it's packed with silver shimmer! Not to mention the formula and application - 2 very fast-drying coats at the photos. Actually I have the whole Depend series with this gorgeous shimmer: 221, 218, 227, and 243. Thanks to Annie and Miss Jones for helping me getting them!

Here you can see some funny crappy old swatches of mine :)

Approximately at the same time I bought Dance Legend Top Domino Mix, and I had to try it on. So Depend #228 just happened to be a perfectly suitable base :)

Domino Top Mix is black and white glitters swimming in a clear base, and as simple the idea is - it's a-ma-zing :) The first days I was walking around with this polish and trying on everything and everyone :) I wrote already, that the Russian bloggers call it "response to Lynderella", but I still think that Lynderella is more creative and productive than the whole Dance Legend brand, but it´s a nice try for Russian nail polish industry anyway :)

Depends on Depends

For those who are tired of crazy stamping, glitter and variety of colours from my latest posts - today I'm showing one_single_plain_polish_even_not_stamped : ) Simply because it's beautiful and self-sufficient on its own. All the fuss is about Depend 221, one of my Depend stash department.

(On top: Depend 221

Down, left to right: Depend 218, 227, 243, 228)

To be honest, I have no idea how to describe the colour, it's exactly inbetween blue and green. Turquoise? Aqua? Greenish blue? Blueish green? You decide.

All the photos show 2 coats of polish and no top coat. Application was great, it's the same great quality for all Depend polishes I have.

Below I tried to capture the texture: it's amazing! The polish is stuffed with silver shimmer, which is small enough to become chunky flakes, but big enough to be seen on nails. Looks like it's a sister polish of Butter London Victoriana, which is one of my favourites ever.

So far, I love all Depend polishes I have - and you? Any opinion on Depend?

Cozy Purple

Quickly showing you one lovely thing today: Depend 243, which I got from an equally lovely fellow blogger Miss Jones. By the way, she also was showing it and after seeing her swatches I was sure I'll like this polish a lot. So it happened : ) You know why? 

Maybe because it's a wonderful calm purple with clearly visible silver shimmer, maybe because it matched so well the weather outside and to my mood or maybe just because this shade looked pretty unique to me (I don't have anything similar in my stash). The formula was ok (2 coats), however it took me some time to figure out how to properly layer it. 

Although generally I respect Depend as a brand (ok prices, good quality, small bottles, nice brushes), I have some things to rant about: a) these polishes chip fast; b) they discontinue the coolest shades (I've been chasing Depend 170 for a year now!); c) they are not sold in Germany (why in Slovenia, for example, but not in Germany/Austria/Switzerland?? Unfair!). Uff. 

What do you think about Depend, ladies? Is it sold in your country? 

Green + Gold

...combination is one of my favorite ones ever. More than that I only love dark blue + gold, it's such a royal couple - I'll show it some other time, now we'll get back to green and gold. After I tried Deborah Lippmann Boom Boom Pow, I firmly decided to buy it's cheaper dupe - Essence Make It Gold. As it is a gold glitter topper, I couldn't show it alone, so I took little green baby Depend 249. 

What do you think?

Looks interesting to me, especially after long weeks of boring office colours. By the way it's the reason why it's so quiet in my blog. I'm all sunk in work, moreover I'm travelling. So, excuse me for that and greetings from Cairo :) 

Gypsy Nails

This summer for me will definitely be painted green and turquoise! It's like a drug: once you painted your nails with these colours, you can't stop. Me at least, I cannot : ) But that's not all, I also feel the need to have something kitschy on my nails. (Today is a day of HUGE pictures :))) sorry those who dislike it)

I'm wearing Depend 227 (2 coats) topped with Milani Gold (1 coat). Great combination - exactly as bright and kitschy as I wanted : ) I got the awesome Milani topper together with a bunch of other polishes from the giveaway of Stickers, you can check her blog to see her lovely manicures. 

In case you wonder how the base colour looks like - here it is:

I got this turquoise-green shimmery beauty in my very first swap with Annie. It was waiting for its hour for half a year :) 

What's your colour for this summer? Let me know! :) 

Stars On My Shimmer

Summer has finaly started to influence my mind when I'm picking a polish to paint my nails. Recently I'm leaning towards bright summer shades, although it was difficult to abstain from dusty purples and taupes which I adore so much. Anyway, now I'm into brights and one of them is Depend 228 which I got in my first swap with Annie. Why haven't I tried it before?? It's such a beautiful blue shade packed with silver shimmer.. I guess this polish was just waiting for its time and now it has come:

Then I did some magic to the accent finger: sponged OPI Shimmer&Simmer, striped with a liner and put some stars. As simple as that. Looks much better in reality, plus I should have made the line thinner. 

And my favourite picture of the bunch:

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?