Picture Polish ~ Orbit

Picture Polish ~ Orbit

Purple toned blue with tons of silver microglitter

Here’s yet another pretty Picture Polish, namely Orbit. I got this from my friend Stinna for my birthday.

Orbit’s formula is thick, but manageable. The brush was a little bit wonky which made it a bit difficult to apply the polish neatly, but I was satisfied with how I did. The polish covers really well – I made one coat and was actually satisfied. I gave it a second coat to see if it made a difference, but it didn’t. Drying time is really fast, by the way. I love that! There’s one layer of Catrice “Quick Dry & High Shine” top coat on to make it shine even more!

No more words, just enjoy the prettiness:

And again: 

I stamped on this, because I wanted to try my new Kiko polishes. I bought a bunch from their Mirror collection because I heard they should be great for stamping. I wanted to test that myself. I used stamping plate GA34 from Gals Fairy set of plates. I stamped with Kiko 618, Orchid Pink.

And man, does that work! I am totally blown away over how well that stamps!

Let me show you:

And another shot, to convince you: 

How about that? Is that amazing or what?

I have to say that I am not utterly pleased with my Fairy set of stamping plates. I have to double stamp my thumb, which is ridiculous, because as you can see, I don’t even have long nails! It’s the same problem with the Princess set, so I’m not totally convinced that I’ll keep them, but we’ll see.

Anyway, here’s the pretty couple of polishes:

Have you tried Kiko’s Mirror collection for stamping? If yes, did it work out just as good for you?

Opacity: 10/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 8/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 8.5/10
Buy again: Yes

China Glaze ~ Water you Waiting for

China Glaze ~ Water you Waiting for

Blue glitter with a splash of green

‘Water you waiting for’ is from China Glaze’s Cirque du Soleil: World’s Away collection from winter 2012. I got it from my dear friend Maria; she and I are in a birthday group together.

The formula is a bit on the thick side, but I don’t mind that at all. Drying time is amazingly quick, which is a huge plus. And the polish is opaque in two coats. The green glitters that are hiding in all the blue makes this polish come alive!

Here are two coats, with one coat of BK top coat over it:

I’m really impressed with this, so it took me a while to figure out what to do with it. I ended up with stamping. I used Essie’s Nothing else Metals to stamp with and stamping plate GA35 from Gals’ princess set. I sealed my mani up with a layer of Poshé top coat, and here’s the result:

I wasn’t quite sure about the lavender stamping to begin with, but as the evening progressed I liked it more and more!

China Glaze is a great brand in my opinion – I love pretty much every bottle I’ve got. Water you Waiting for chipped on me after less than 24 hours though – that’s not any kind of behaviour that I’m used to from a China Glaze! Let’s hope it was just an accident! ;)

Please tell me what you think? Does the lavender stamping actually work on this blue glitter? If not, which colour would you have stamped with?

Opacity: 7/10
Colour, prettiness: 9/10
Durability: 4/10
Value for money: 8/10
Overall: 7/10
Buy again: Yes

POP Beauty ~ Midnight Minx, with L'Oreal and Barry M

Color Changing polishes

Today I’m going to show you a mani I made with three of my untrieds; and two of them are special polishes: One of them can change colour itself, and the other one can change other polishes’ colours. Let’s see how that went, shall we?

I started out with a dark purple, very vampy polish, namely Pop Beauty Nail Glam: Midnight Minx. It’s a polish that flashes some shimmer in the bottle, but not so much on the nails. The formula was okay as long as I worked fast. If I worked a bit slower, the polish started to act gooey and weird. But anyway – second coat evened out almost all irregularities for me.

Here’s that first step:

Now for the first special polish, which is a shimmer from L’Oreal called Crystalissime. I found it at Christmas time, and apparently it’s a limited edition polish. I would probably have bought two of them if I had known that back then. But never mind! I want to show you that this polish actually manages to change the underlaying colour. I’ve applied one coat on my little finger and my ring finger, and nothing on the other two. Take a look for yourself:

Do you see how the shimmer almost removes the blue, leaving a gorgeous purple shimmer?

On this pic I’ve applied Crystalissime on all the nails. I love this shimmer!!

Now for the next colour changing polish. It’s a Barry M called Chameleon Pink, which changes colour when a top coat is applied. I didn’t buy it for that effect though, but solely because I’ve heard it should be fantastic for stamping.

So – I used Gals stamping plate GA23 from the Princess set and stamped with the Barry M. It looked nice without the top coat, but I don’t wear my manis without topcoat. So I did the same thing: Top coated my little finger and my ring finger, and left the others alone. And here’s the result:

The top coat definitely makes the shimmer pop more, but it doesn’t change the actual colour of the Barry M much. 

Here’s a fully top coated mani:

And the three polishes I used:

I was curious about the Barry M, so I painted a layer of it on a nail wheel so see how much it actually changes colour when you don’t just use it for stamping. When it was dry, I topcoated half of it, and behold, it really does change colour:

 

That’s it. Three untrieds nailed! :D

Do you like effect polishes? Do you use any?

Divage Chic and Ja-De - From Russia

Divage Chic ~ 1714  

Deep burgundy crème

Ja-De ~ 355 Celestial  

Iridescent glitter in a pink base

Today I’m going to show you two polishes I received in my first swap with sweet Anastasia from Little World of Coloured Nails. They’ve been sitting in my box of untrieds for too long already – so now it’s time for them to shine!

I started out with two coats of Divage Chic 1714, which is a rich and very delicious burgundy. The formula was great and very easy to work with, and the drying time was fast. I like that a lot in a polish.

Two coats, no top coat:

It leans a bit towards brown, so I decided to spice it up with a bit of iridescent glitter. I used Ja-De 355 Celestial, which is also from Russia (with love, obviously :D). The glitter applies easily; no need to dab the brush around to spread it. The drying time was a bit slower than the Divage, but still on the normal side. I only applied one coat of the glitter:

Here’s a shot from a different angle to show you all the colours this glitter flashes:

I enjoyed the look of this for a little while, as I trying to figure out what to do with it. I ended up with stamping, because I have got a lot of stamping plates from Gals that I haven’t tried yet. I settled for GA30 from the Fairy set, and I used a white no name stamping polish. And I sealed the whole thing up with my faithful Poshé top coat.

This design is much more tribal than it looked on the actual stamping plate, but I like it. I also like that the design is only on half the nail.

Here are my pretties:

So, the burgundy crème is another win from Divage, and this time with the bonus of drying super fast. The Ja-De is indispensable for all glitter lovers, it can spice up any manicure in a rush. So a double Russian win today, don’t you think?