Halo

Spontaneous polish purchases are something that I don't do that often any more - for stash control purposes. Swatches of every shade are thoroughly scrutinised by me in an attempt to conclude whether I really want this polish or not. All the above did not refer to Orly Halo which I bought simply because I liked it on a nail wheel in a store. Oh, and it was on discount, too ;)

Orly Halo is a transparent base full of golden glitter and bigger silver hexagones. It took me some time to realize that they are actually silver - and this is where the secret of this polish is hidden. Silver counterplays with gold, and all the thing glimmering - a nice effect is created overall. Now I can justify my spontaneous purchase - the shade was interesting enough to be in my stash :)

The application was ok, it's just the polish is quite transparent, so I needed 3 coats. I also covered it with a top coat, and it became even more shiny. Never seen halos, but they definitely could look like that :) 

And my attempts to make the close-up shots. Uff I need a better camera... but just to describe it in 3 words: glitter, glitter, glitter. Me happy :)

I have a weird but persistent idea to mattify it.. it either will kill all the beauty or will make it look different but cool. What do you think?

Party Rockin' Cashmere Cardigan

For a long time, starting even from pre-blogging period of my life, I've been craving Orly Cashmere Cardigan. Somehow I was sure that I will not find any dupes, and even if, I still wanted the original. After 2 years craving, I almost gave up hoping: none of the online shops had it, none of the fellow bloggers could find it. And suddenly, in the best traditions of Bollywood, it appears on German ebay and I win the auction with 3 euros. Happiness : ) 

Cashmere Cardigan is a [stunning] muted periwinkle creme, with a perfect 2-coat application. Generally Orly polishes work great for me, so I don't have any single complaint.

After wearing Casmere Cardigan solo for a day, I decided that it's also a great base colour for Lush Lacquer Party Rockin' - the only indie polish I have in my stash (thanks to a swap with Sarah) : ) Party Rockin' is a mixture of multicolour and multishape glitter. Just click on the pics below to have a closer look of what's included in this mix : ) In any case, it's very party and very rocking : )

Swap №11: First WIC & Indie!

After quite a while I did another spontaneous swap. Lovely Sarah from Netherlands contacted me about one polish we had here in Germany, and in exchange she offered something I couldn't resist :) Here's what she sent me: 

Left to right:

- Hugo Boss Nuit parfume (I loooved it!)

- W.I.C. by Herome Bogota

- China Glaze Stone Cold

- Lush Lacquer Party Rockin

So, I got my first W.I.C. by Herome nail polish, first indie brand polish, Stone Cold which I was chasing mainly for stamping, a bunch of nice sweets and a cool perfume. How pleasant is that! : )

Traditionally, I'm showing swatches of one of the received polishes, although I tried all of them already. But for this time, it's W.I.C. by Herome Bogota:

I was craving Bogota since I saw some random swatches long ago. Moreover, I so much liked the concept of W.I.C. (by the way W.I.C. means World Inspired Colours) - naming the polishes by cities/countries! Before recently I had not a single connection with Bogota as a city, until my bf went there for a couple weeks for his work and brought a bunch of interesting pictures and stories. I think I urgently need "Frankfurt" too :)

Bogota has a muted dusty greyish-blueish jelly base complemented by golden shimmer. The texture is semi-sheer and light, the coverage in 2 coats gives a decent opacity though. If you don't want the 'tip wear effect' which is so common for jelly polishes, you have to polish your nail tips well, also from the ridges.

The closest shade to Bogota that I had in my stash was Orly Pixie Dust, so I couldn't but post a lil comparison. The difference is that Pixie Dust is greyer, and has silver half-flakies half-shimmer, and Bogota is bluer with golden shimmer. Because I love such texture so much, I'll keep both in my stash.

And, although I won't post swatches of China Glaze Stone Cold today, I'll show how it stamps instead. It was exactly the reason why I wanted this polish - a graphite shade for stamping. And I was right, it does work well, with one only condition: you have to be fast. By fast I mean lightning fast. Otherwise it dries on the stamper and never transfers to a nail. With some efforts to understand its character, here is the result I got: 

Oh, and I can't wait to show Stone Cold alone! It's such an enchanting matte graphite polish.. And Lush Lacquer is great too. So stay tuned : ) 

March of 8

On this in a way special day I'm wearing a soft shade spring colours manicure:

Products used:

Base polish: Orly Bon Bon (3 coats)

Konad image plate: m73

Stamping polish: Catrice Plum Play With Me

HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S DAY!

Pixie Dust

Totally not sure if I chose the right time to wear this polish, I rather envisage it on my nails during a rainy spring day.. but I just couldn't look at this untried beauty anymore: Orly Pixie Dust.

I even added some snowy topping:

The polish by itself is just wonderful: dusty light grey packed with silver shimmer with a nice texture (2 coats on all pictures). But all 3 days that I was wearing it I was hanging around at Christmas market with my friends guzzling down Glühwein and having fun. I mean, grey polish and an atmosphere like this:

Next time I'll be more careful with matching events/mood/surrounding and a polish *went to find CG Ruby Pumps*. I'll certainly give Pixie Dust another chance in spring though : )

Autumn Go Away

Most of the blogs/posts are full of calm dusty autumn colours, but I just cannot get enough of summer. On my nails as well. And the polish I'm showing today is pure summer in a bottle - Orly Pixy Stix. 

No complaints about anything - colour, formula, quality - everything is just great (standard 2 coats + TC). I was shocked how great it suited my skin tone - I was sure I'm gonna complain about that, but no.. Veeery positive baby =)

And to make it even more summery and positive I tried some dotting on the accent fingers:

What about you girls? Is it totally autumn on your nails already or you still feel like wearing smth bright and shiny? :)

Office Office

Sorry to bore you with the office theme again, but after showing a polish called Office which is (in my opinion) a totally unsuitable name regarding its colour, today I'm posting about real office-friendly polish. 

Now that's the king (or queen) of aaaall office polishes ever known: Orly Super Natural. Just look: light pink, frosty, almost invisible on nails. All that together with great quality (2 coats, fast drying, long lasting). Only one big dislike: brush strokes!! Beh, hate them.

Still too boring colour for me. Looks much better with some noname (Florence 01) pretty topper-layer:

*camera freaking out with red/green balance*

Super Natural was bought in pre-blogging period or at a very early already blogging stage. Mainly because of the price of 3 Euros on ebay : ) My thoughts then: "Orly = great quality. Colour doesn't really matter."

By the way, my next post will be about polishes which I was wearing long before my nail mania broke out. So be ready to see some weird brands and colours!