Lavender Time

It's been some time that I haven't worn lilac or lavender polishes, and I must say I've missed this colour on my nails. Now I had a suitable occasion to do it as I keep on testing the beauties I got from a previous swap, but as I got two lilac shades, I had to choose between OPI Do You Lilac It? and Zoya Marley, and I picked the latter. 

Here it is, this subtle pastel beauty. It has a slight pearly finish that makes it stand out from other similar shades of my stash. Speaking of which: 

Meet my sweet lilacs: Zoya Marley, China Glaze Agent Lavender and Essie Lilacism. I love them all :)

After wearing Marley for a day, I stamped the accent fingers. Lately I'm sooo lazy to stamp the full designs..

Generally speaking, Zoya Intimate collection is one of the rare cases when I wouldn't refuse to have all of the released shades, although I'm always very picky with my polishes. What about you, do you have any? 

Swap №4

Guess what? I have swapped again :) This time I the swap pack went further than Europe - to US, to a lovely blogger Emily from Squared Nails. Swapping shortens our wishlists, and this time mine was shortened significantly. Look at the amazing polishes I got: 

Left to right:

                            OPI Do You Lilac It?

OPI Dim Sum Plum

                                            Zoya Caitlin

Zoya Jules

Zoya Marley

   Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure (!!!)

Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast

China Glaze Midnight Kiss

If not this swap, I seriously don't know where I would get some of these polishes... Yes, most of them are on ebay anyway, but the price... That's why I'm so grateful to Emily :) 

Imagine, she put Barielle as an extra!!!! And I couldn't but wear it first:

No idea why, but I'm in love with purple foils.. which Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast is. With quite visible pink (!) shimmer. To show you two other purple foils I have, I did a quick comparison between Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast, Nubar Vaso and Essence Fairy Berry from Fairytale LE:

To my relief, they turned out to be all different (Barielle has a blue undertone, and Essence is the most intense purple). Great, cuz I don't want to collect dupes in my stash.

What about you, my dear readers? Do you like foil finish?

P.S. In case you wonder where's the post about Swap №3 - there was nothing special, I just exchanged this mthfk@&%#@ for Essie Merino Cool :) 

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!