Donnerstag, 31. März 2011

Nfu.Oh 65 and Siw

Edit: I've added a little poll on the left side for my german speaking readers, please vote if you're intrested :) (It's about a german translation of my forthcoming posts)

You might remember my little army of Nfu.Oh's I posted a few months back. I finally wore number 65 and am loving them more and more.
Make Up Store Siw is a light blue holo I got as an extra in a swap from a really sweet and generous swapper who lives in Sweden. Both the Nfu.Oh and Siw look really similar in the bottle so I decided to alternate the two. They are also apply practically the same over the Nfu.Oh Aqua Base (which I would strongly suggest if you want to keep your sanity while applying holographic polishes)

both are two coats with a coat of the Nfu.Oh Aqua Base
See a difference? I don't and if I haven't noted which finger I paitned with which polish, I wouldn't know it either.  Wanna know which finger I painted with which polish? Scroll down a bit :)































Montag, 28. März 2011

Alessandro 263 and CND Teal Sparkle

Don't you dislike it when a company just lables their polishes with numbers? I do and Alessandro is one amongst them. Anyway, Alessandro #263 is a gorgeous black-in-low-lightning navy blue. It's hard to see the actual color in any other lights than direct sunlight because it's so dark. So I decided to layer an accent nail wiht CND's Teal Sparkle. #263 was opaque with 2 thicker coats and was ok to work with- nothing to exciting or difficult.
Teal Sparkle was a tad thicker formula-wise but that's not really an issue when you paint your nails with it.
You can actually see the blue tint in this flash picture:
and here's one with Teal sparkle

Donnerstag, 24. März 2011

Happy Birthday vs. Circus Confetti

I've already shown you Happy Birthday in my last post. And when I spotted the new Essence display, I also bought one of their new Nail Art Special Effect Topper, which has multicolored hex-glitters in it. So here's a quick swatch on a nailwheel to compare these two:

Circus Confetti on the left, Happy Birthday on the right
Now, to the differences:
Circus Confetti
  • the brush of CC is wider and "thicker" which makes it a tad harder to apply because the hex-glitter gets caught between the brush bristles
  • formula-wise it's thicker than its (expensive) sibling
  • there's less glitter in CC and the little sized glitter is smaller and sparser than HB
  • "middle" sized hex glitter- there are few, sparse glitter which are neither as big as the big hex-glitter, nor as big as the small sized one
  • there is more magenta hex- glitter but less silver
Happy Birthday
  • there's more square-sized glitter
To be honest, I really like both but if you are in one of the many countries which carry Essence, I would probably pass on the Lippmann because it's 10 times the price (~2€ compared to 20€, that's how much the Lippmann cost here).

Mittwoch, 23. März 2011

Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday

You know I love hex-glitter, right? Well, this one's another winner. Happy Birthday is a fun hex-glitter wich are silver, green, blue, gold and pink colored. It really is a "party in a bottle" and I love how it looks over a white creme.

Montag, 21. März 2011

There's a Jungle in that Enchanted Forest

Who would've thought a local drug store would release such stunning green? b.pretty recently came out with a bunch of new shades for spring and Jungle is amongst them. One of my readers, Jenna asked if I could swatch a few of those so here they are :)
And here's a picture of the display (you can click on the picture)


Jungle has a vibe of Nars' Zulu but I sadly don't have that to compare it with. Altough from what I can compare from the swatches I've seen, it looks like Zulu is more of a jelly, is a bit darker and needs more coats to be opaque whereas Jungle is a dark emerald green but not too dark that it's black in low lightning.
Back to the polishes: Orly's Enchanted forest is- as the name implides- a forest green with a grey undertone that is only more visible in some lights/ direct sunlight.

I painted two coats each of both polishes and didn't had any problems with either of them.

Freitag, 18. März 2011

Party Palace Blue with a La Playa and a Star

These three "babies" were from polishes I got from swaps from two wonderful ladies. Orly La playa is a gorgeous blue creme with a hint of purple whereas Confetti Party Palace Blue is a sheer blue iridescent glitter which are similar to Sally Hansen Strobe Light or Sinful Colors Hottie. Revlon Star is a glitter polish with silver hex-glitter in a clear base
For la Playa I used two coat till it was opaque and it looked quite boring on its own so I pulled out PPB and Revlon Star from my untried-stash.
A picture of La Playe on its own:
and here layered with a coat  of PPB and Star:
two more pictures to show the different colored glitter:

Mittwoch, 16. März 2011

How about a DIY scented topcoat?

Do you love scented polishes as much as I do? Then this post is surely something for you. I read on makeupalley a while ago how to do your own scented polish. (click here if you'd like to read more about it).
The idea was originally from theasiangirl.


I did it and love how it turned out. The recipe is simple: take a perfume/ your favourite perfume (eau de toilette or eau de perfume*), spray it into an empty polish bottle, add some polish (I like to use a topcoat), add some balls and shake it well. I used approx. 15-20 pumps in this little 8ml bottle, depending how strong you want the it to be.The perfume I used in this picture is the Vanilla Bourbon perfume from Yves Rocher, I love it and have this bottle almost 6,7 years and still haven't used it up because I seldomly use perfume .

You can also use cheap disposable plastic pipettes like these click if you can unscrew the perfume bottle (and it won't be a big mess). 
Don't worry if the result may look a bit goopy at first- it'll go away if you shake it well. And you can see that the perfume itself is a bit colored which also causes the polish to be colored too- unless you're bothered by that, you may want to stick to colorless perfumes. Another thing is that I don't know how well it will work with non-B3F polishes (i.e. Seche Vite).

*not sure how well it would work with an eau de perfume because I don't have an eau de perfume to test. Oil-based perfumes are not ideal because they would ruin your polish.


Edit: I am by no means a scientist and cannot guarantee that the results you imagined would be exactly the same. It may backfire or be just as good, and the results may vary from the topcoat/clear nail polish you use. Also I have not used this with an non B3F topcoat like Seche Vite, so cannot say how these two will react.

Dienstag, 15. März 2011

Maybelline Matte Sapphire

I got quite a few oldschool Maybelline polishes through really awesome swap-partners and this one's another little gem.
Matte Sapphire is a gorgeous blurple with light blue glitter- it's a bit similar to the OPI Suede, only that instead of the silver-y finish, it's blue (does that even make sense?).
It needed two coats to be opaque and it was a tad to thick- but nothing a thinner couldn't fix.

Sonntag, 13. März 2011

Zoya Veruschka aka how a nail wrap can change the color

Veruschka is one of the polishes where I first thought "meh" when I saw swatches of it. But when I slowly began to be into greens, I was finally sold when I saw the swatches from Scrangie. I finally got my bottle from an sale at an internet forum and loved it from the moment I saw it in person.
Zoya Veruschka is a green matte polish, the finish is similar to OPI's Suede polishes. I mostly topcoat my matte polishes, I prefer it( the matte finish) only as an accent nail or some kind of pattern. Anyway, Veruschka was opaque with two coats and dried incredibly fast, like most matte polishes.

Here's a picture with a topcoat:

A few days later while I was on my way to a class I noticed a (quite big) difference on the nails where I had a silk/nail wrap (I'm sorry about the crappy picture quality, it was made while I was in the tram and didn't had a better opportunity to make a better one and I'm sorry about my pointer, I smudged it while it was drying and didn't want to repaint it).

(top to bottom: silk wrap(SW), no SW, SW, no SW)
I was really suprised to see how drastic the difference can be between the nails with or without a silkwrap. Did something similar happened to you too?

Donnerstag, 10. März 2011

Look what I found


The picture explains everything, right? :)

Montag, 7. März 2011

The new Catrice display, an Essence LE and a blast from the past

I found the new Catrice display today and was really excited to see the new things they've released. They've re-arranged their whole display and to me it looks more well arranged than it was.

I heard that there were different versions of their polish called Run Forest Run!, so I found these two
Yeah, the two different versions of RFR!- on the left, the old version, the new one on the right. I get it that some batches might have very slight differences, but turning a dark green into a light green (which now looks a lot like Sold Out Forever now)
And while I was at the store who also has the bigger Essence display, I saw their new LE
I only got the blue/blurple polish and the lighter color changing lipgloss, the rest was kinda meh to me.
They also had part of the new nail-art-stickers

And lastly, here's a little blast from the past. While I was cleaning out my stash  for my blog sale (btw. there's still plenty left ;)) I found this:

These are the "silk" wraps before they've actually released the ones made out of fabric. The nail repair pads are made out of plastic and have a lot in common with clear labelling stickers. I'm not sure when exactly I got them, it was around 2006, but I'm not completly sure.
The instructions
I can still remember trying 3 or 4 of these and thinking that these were a complete waste of money because they are wrinkle-city and can be peeled off in a few hours after applying them.
And here's the actuall wraps- it's hard to photograph, but I think you get the idea.

Sally Hansen Garnet Lapis ♥

This is another kickass polish from my swap with mrsrexy. Garnet Lapis was part of the Sally Hansen Nail Prisms - it contained a bunch of duochromes and holo polishes. It's quite sheer and I've only used one coat over a random black creme. The base color is a blurple and shifts magenta, green and yellow with a hint of gold depending on the angle you are looking at it. 
Prepared for some picspam?





Freitag, 4. März 2011

Omg, I've been featured

If you follow me on Twitter, you might've seen that I've been featured in an (local drugstore) magazine called BC Mag. I finally got my copy and can show it to you. The feature is about the seven Beauty-Blogs they enjoy reading. Well, their research might not be the best (i.e. they wrote that MacKarrie is from Germany but is a Viennese too- huh?), I'm still flattered that they mentioned my little blog. The other bloggers, mostly German/Austrian, who were also featured are: beauty addict, Chamy's Diary, Give the Bitch her Chocolate, Les Belles Affaires, Karla Sugar, MacKarrie and me.

Here's the whole page:


a closeup- (I'm wearing Cult Nails Living Water btw)
click on me to read me properly!
And my (loose) translation, for those of you who don't know german:

AUSTRIA The anonymous Viennese is addicted to nail polish and uses every bottle she could get her hands on. You can see the outcome in countless pictures. She bloggs since September 2009 in English.

Donnerstag, 3. März 2011

Etude House WH004

I got this stunning Etude House polish a couple of months ago in a swap over at mua. Etude House polishes have the cutest bottle designs and I love them even more for that. I read somewhere that this might be a possible dupe of OPI's Unripped, but I think the shimmer in Edtude House's is more pronounced.
It only needs two coats to be opaque and I didn't had any issues with either the formula or the brush- the brush spreaded nicely and was easy to paint with. The color is a blackened teal with green and purple shimmer.



Dienstag, 1. März 2011

Layering fun with Glisten Up and Manhattan

First up, Glisten Up. This one is going to be discontinued this last month, so grab a (backup) bottle if you haven't already (maybe it's going to be available a bit longer in the US because it may take a little longer till the new things are going to be displayed). I used layered one coat over a random black creme. In the bottle it is a sheer blue with blue flakies but layered over a black base, it transforms into a green.
Next up, Manhattan AG1401 (what a lovely name *rolls eyes*)
It looks like a dull nude color with a light duochrome effect. layered over a black creme, it transforms into a foil-ish middletoned blue. You can see it'll be a bit brushstrok-y.