Ninja Giveaway Win + Swap #14

Lately I am being quite lucky in winning things *knock knock knock*. Actually, I win different stuff intermittently, couple of times per year or so. However, this time my winning of a giveaway on Good Lack, Nail! blog came as a total surprise. I was all in work and suddenly baaam, an e-mail "hey, you won a giveaway"... what could be nicer? :) 

After a couple of mails from the owner of Good Lack, Nail!, Caroline (check her manicures and especially "how I wore it" posts!!), we decided to turn it all into a swap ;) Unbelievable, how many lemmings of mine she killed with one parcel! Let's have a look:

Ninja polishes: my giveaway win! :D
Left to right:

Ninja Polish Ambrosia

Ninja Polish Shillelagh

Ninja Polish Divinity

And all the rest is already the "swap" part!
Left to right:

BB Couture Love Bug

China Glaze Angel Wings

OPI Dutch Tulips

Left to right:

Zoya Rory

Love&Beauty Gold

Essie Watermelon

                                                      Revlon Princess               Caroline's Franken called Kaffeeklatsch

As always, when I receive a huge nail mail I get lost and choose for hours which polish to wear first. Especially in this case, when I got like half of my wish list in one pack... but I decided to try Caroline's creation as as my first choice, so meet the pink Kaffeeklatsch!

Kaffeeklatsch is a bright pearly pink with pink shimmer and hexagonal glitters, I also saw a couple of heart-shaped glitters there. You know that I'm not a fan of frosty finish, but when I applied Kaffeklatsch onto my nails, I liked how it looked! Somehow it was not streaky, and all in all looked so.. merry! :)

By the way, Kaffeeklatsch means gathering together for a coffee and chatting - in case you were wondering :) Nice and unusual name for a franken, I reckon. All these "blue my mind" and "mellow/yellow/fellow" drive me crazy already lol 

Besides that I'm truly madly happy with what I received, I want to say a huge THANK YOU to Caroline!!! I really enjoy what I got! :)

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

Swap №12: Light Shades Only!

During the Christmas time I received some packs: expected, unexpected and expected but with unknown contents : ) Today I'll show you one of them: a swap package that arrived from Portugal (by far my most popular swap destination lol). In this pack lovely Zelinda from Unhas Fofas da Z sent me two Ludurana lemmings, a Cliché polish I wanted so much, and a lot of nice extras!

Polishes, left to right: 

Purple Professional #49 

Cliché Espuma

Ludurana Perlato

Ludurana Arabesco

Cliché Areia

Above: Cliché nail polish thinner with banana smell

and two Avon lipstick testers and a happy nail file :)

The polishes close up:

Thank you so much, Zelinda!!!

And of course, I'll show the swatches of one of the polishes I received. Somehow I grabbed Cliché Espuma first! 

Cliché Espuma is a wonderful white jelly - something I've never had in my stash before. Although the colour is pure, it's a bit muted, so not in-your-face white. The nails therefore look like porcelain. My bf told me after careful observation that depending on the light he sees some either pinkish or slight beige tinges - well, let's believe him.

Now you're probably thinking how difficult Espuma is in terms of application..? : ) Well, not that much. I needed 3 layers, but the polish dries fast so I didn't have problems. 

Another detail: this polish gives the nails a thick, "gel look", but neat at the same time. I did like this effect : ) 

Do you have a pure white jelly in your stash?

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 : ) 

Swap №10: Little Exception

With all my Italian posts I totally forgot to post about a swap I recently did. Some of you know, that I was not swapping for a long time, mostly because I had so many untrieds and I didn't want to receive even more, however attractive they might seem. But when Akuma Kanji contacted me, I just couldn't refuse: she is my constant swap buddy, this is the 3rd exchange that we're doing. Besides, they have so many pretty polishes there in Portugal which are almost impossible to find anywhere else, so I couldn't say "no". Which I never regreted afterwards : ) Look what she sent me:

Left to right:

• Andreia #93: golden glitter!! I'm super excited!!

• Cliché Sonho

• Andreia #96: recently I have a big crush on purples.. 

Left to right:
• DERMExcellence #55
• DERMExcellence #39: totally unknown polishes for me, but I love trying new brands.
• Inocos Dançar from Noites de Verão Collection: I'm telling you, this one is gorgeous!!
• Inocos Maria Bonita from As Marias de Portugal Collection: very nice shade, right inbetween blue and lilac.

Left to right
• Carlos Santos
• Yes Love #Y74
• Yes Love #504
• MIYO Blueberry

... and a HUGE pack of Portuguese sweets : ) I have never tried anything similar before, but they were so tasty, that I ate the whole package at once : )

Yes, the whole big nail mail full of nice stuff.
Thank you so much, dear Akuma Kanji!!!

Traditionally, I am also posting a swatch of a polish from the swap pack. The very first one I tried was Inocos Dancar, but I was on the run and didn't take pictures of it :( So, I'm posting the second "try": Andreia #96 (you can see the bottle on the first picture). 

The colour is deep dark eggplant purple with an awesome texture inbetween creme and jelly. Probably I mentioned before that such a texture is very characteristic for Andreia polishes, together with a crazy gloss - there is NO top coat on the pictures!! As usual, I'm very pleased with Andreia, and I recommend all of you to get some and to see yourself how great they are. If they are not sold around, you might try to find a Portuguese swap buddy : )