The Nail Nerd

I had been lemming this for soo long, after I had given up on ever finding Chanel Jade anyway.
Thanks to the lovely Ange-Marie over at Scandalously Polished I own this beauty, thank you so much girl! Also got a bunch of other polishes in the swap with her, which I'll show you at a later point. Anyway here's Dream Catcher!

Claire's Dream Catcher

This is a perfect spring colour, it's green, colourful but soft and easy to wear at the same time. I LOVE IT and I already want to wear it again! The picture is showing it to be slightly paler than it really is, but it was the best picture I got of it. Application was good, this is three coats and the formula was really nice to work with. Can definitely see myself breaking my rule with this one, not wearing a polish for a second time before I've gone through all my untrieds.

Hope you all are doing great, I know some of you have wondered where I had gone to and things have been really hectic lately and doing my nails have felt like a chore rather than something fun and enjoyable. But things are starting to slow down I think, and hopefully nails and blogging will feel fun again :)

Today I have a blue(?) beauty for you guys, looks more lilac in my eyes but her name is Beth's Blue and she comes from Models Own. Maybe Beth is color blind? Or maybe I am, judge for yourselves!

I'm almost embarrased to post this picture, look at my cuticles they're in dire need of some TLC but this colour was great and I had to show it to the world. It's a gorgeous and light colour, very wearable. The best thing about this polish though, it was a one coater and the formula was great, thick but still easy to work with.

I've gotten loads of new polishes while I was MIA which I will show to you soon, it's too much for me to photograph and post in one day. Please bear with me!

I wore this beauty for 3 days and I didn't want to take it off! This colour made me truly happy, it's so bright, pretty and cheerful, LOVE IT!

H&M Bella's Choice

This is a super pretty and bright turquoise creme, it's leaning a tiny bit more to the green side than I managed to capture on camera but still pretty close to reality. The application was pretty bad, it was streaky, the brush bristles were kind of hard but after 3 coats and a thick coat of Poshé it looked smooth and even. This colour is totally worth it though, I already feel like wearing it again cause it made me so happy. That's all I had for you today! :)

On my way home from work yesterday I stopped by H&M and I found this beauty, and I just had to have it! It the most perfect mint green I own, it's one tone lighter than in the picture. Lighter than Claire's Dream Catcher and definitely more green than Essie Mint Candy Apple and Eyeko Vintage. It's just lovely!

This gorgeous mint green seem to be a part of the Isadora spring collection, I normally don't buy Isadora cause I think their colours are boring, normally a bunch of reds and pinks, and you get very little polish for the money, 6ml for roughly $11, but I couldn't pass this one up! Definitely a must have for me, especially after being a little dissapointed in all the blue toned mint "greens". This is three thin coats and the application was interesting. First coat was streaky but it got better and smoother with more coats, what was interesting though is their brush. It says Wide Brush on the bottle and they weren't kidding! Imagine OPI's Pro Wide Brush and add 50% to that. It's wide, kind of long and thick and full! I could easily cover a whole nail in one stroak but the way the brush was shaped made it a little hard to get a nice curve around the cuticles. I also ended up fanning the brush a bit too much sometimes and got polish outside of the nail. Took a little clean up after I was done, but maybe with practice I'll learn to use their brush. Overall I'm happy with the polish, and the colour was a nice surprise for an Isadora!

Today I'm wearing this beatuy from China Glaze. A gorgeous medium purple that looks lit from within and super shiny on the nails. Love it!

It took 3 super thing coats to get it opaque. I tried doing thicker coats but as the formula is really runny I got a lot of polish pooling around my cuticles, other than that the formula is nice and pigmented. It's a warmer purple than the picture shows, you all know how cameras tend to hate purple and won't photograph it correctly.

I have a question for you readers. I did my first attempt with nail foils earlier this week, and it was a disaster! A real foil fail! I had no issues applying them at all, and they looked great at first then after a while they started to go a bit matte so I slapped on some Poshé on 2 nails to get the shine back and the foil started cracking and lost all of the holo effect it was supposed to have. I then decided to leave the rest of the nails as they were without topcoat. In just a matter of hours they looked worn, I had MASSIVE tipwear and they just looked horrible, almost like the foil had turned sticky and was peeling off. I followed the instructions that came with the foils and it didn't say anything about topcoat or what to do after applying the foils.

Any ideas? Does a regular slow drying topcoat work better with foils than a fast drying? Or is there a trick on how to apply and wear foils without topcoat?

I was really dissapointed cause the foils look great and I keep seeing great foil mani's on other blogs. Would love some help from someone with more foil experience :)

Today I have a lovely blue-green duo chrome for you guys, Rodeo Fanatic by China Glaze. I bought this bottle AGES ago but I haven't worn it and I don't know why. Once I had applied it I just LOVED the colour!

This is a blue shimmer with a slight green duochrome, I tried to capture it in the picture but I don't know if I was all that successful. The purple flash you see in the bottle is just not there in reality, not on the nail nor in the bottle. This colour makes me think of scarabs, I wish I owned a real scarab coloured duochrome polish, but this is the closest I get with whats in my collection. It applied like a dream, took 2 coats for it to be opaque and it wasn't as runny as blue shimmers tend to be. I took the picture pre-cleanup but I can tell you that clean up also was easier than normal for a blue polish, no smurf fingers!

As you might have noticed the rate of my posting have dropped lately and it's cause of multiple reasons. Some personal reasons but also I'm working on a new blog/website, as I'm planning on moving to my own domain sometime in the near future. There's only so many hours in a day and I try my best to get the everyday things done, work on the new site and still do my nails and blog here. Just bear with me and hopefully I'll get back to my normal posting once the new website is up and running.

Hey guys!
Hope you all had a great weekend, I've been sick with a fever again! I've been too tired to do my nails so I was rocking No Way Jose for a few days, but yesterday I wanted to do something for valentines. But after paiting the base colour I wasn't feeling the hearts and cute stuff at all so I went with a zebra print instead!

This is 2 coats of Essence Most Wanted with Konad m57 and Konad Princess polish in Black. Most Wanted is a bit darker in reality, but I just couldn't get a good shot of it. The formula is great, was almost opaque in one coat!

My 200 followers/valentines giveaway is now closed! And I hope to bring you the winner tomorrow! Good luck everyone!

I finally got around to wearing the 2nd polish that I am giving away here. This is version 2 of China Glazes popular and discontinued shade No way Jose. It's more pink toned than the original, but has the same pretty glass fleck shimmer. I'm normally not a pink fan unless they're hot or neons but I actually like this one, a lot, it compliments my skin tone and it's just pretty to look at.

This is three coats and it applied smoothly, no application problems what so ever. Only downside with the formula is that it dries kind of slow, even with quick dry topcoat, almost 2 hours after applying it I managed to dent my right pinky nail a bit. It was hard to get it colour accurate in the pictures, it wanted to come out more bright than it really is. It's a bit more muted or dusty but the actual base colour looks pretty accurate to me. Anywho, it's really pretty. Wish I owned the original but I'm happy I got my hands on this version anyway!

Siw is the first Make Up Store polish I ever bought, I've picked up a couple more after painting this on. This is the best holo in my collection, there's no contest. It doesn't look like much in the bottle but I decided to give it a chance anyway. Painted it on, still nothing. Waited a few minutes until it was fully dried and was shocked. Super mega holo goodness! Like superhero holo! These pictures don't do it justice, and I guess the holo extraordinaire freaked my camera out so it didn't pick up much of the base colour, which is a icy blue.

Make Up Store Siw
Overcast daylight

Make Up Store Siw
Flash on lowest setting (mimics sunlight or lamplight)

This is three coats with base and top coat, application wasn't exactly anything to rave about. As you can see I still have some bald spots on my ring and pinky, the only trick to apply this is to have plenty of polish on the brush and work FAST. Never do more than 3 strokes on the nail then let it dry properly before next coat. I didn't have enough patience and got bald spots anyway, but thankfully you can't really see them in person cause of all the holoness going on. Another con is the price, at $16 a bottle I didnt't exactly go shopping crazy even though they had many colours I found pretty. Is it worth the price? For the holo's I'd say yes but I'm a real holo lover and I'm always on the look out for new ones. But for the rest of the collection I'd expect them to apply themselves for $16, you can probably find a much cheaper dupe or atleast a good enough substitute. I did pick up one creme to see what the formula is like, will it apply itself or not? I have yet to find out!

As promised here's a nail picture of the first of the two colours that you can win in my 200 followers giveaway, the discontinued 100 Proof Pink from China Glaze.

China Glaze 100 Proof Pink

This is three coats of this pretty hot pink colour with silver glass fleck shimmer. This is a colour that makes me happy and feels like a real spring shade. The formula is great, had no application problems at all and it was really easy to control the polish with the brush. Note that this is the old China Glaze formula and it is NOT 3-free as their new polishes are. This isn't anything that bothers me personally but figured it was worth pointing out anyway. I'm really tempted to do some cute nailart on this polish, maybe something fitting for Valentines but I've had no inspiration lately, hope that changes soon!

Hello everyone!
Hope you all had a great weekend! Today I'm showing you this beauty, Lincoln Park After Dark from OPI's suede collection.

Lincoln Park After Dark Suede - with topcoat

I love these suede polishes, they have this superpretty silver microglitter in them which makes them different and special. I prefer to wear them with topcoat because I love the shine and dimension it gives. It also helps a great deal on the durability of these polishes. This was 2 coats and application is good if you work somewhat fast, they dry really fast so if you don't cover your whole nail fast enough you might get dragging, streaks etc. but OPI's wide brush really helps with that. I don't own the original LPAD but as far as I know this looks nothing like it, imo they should have named it something new. It's really gorgeous, almost like a slightly blackened purple basecolour, in most lights the egdes look really dark and the middle is purple and the silver glitter brightens it some and makes it interesting to look at.

Coming up: My Viva La Diva giveaway has come to an end, I will draw and post the winners later today and soon I will announce my new 200 followers giveaway!

Here's the other holo polish that I recived from Kerry at Glitter Gal. A gorgeous dark purple with chunky holo glitter.

Glitter Gal 3D Dark Purple
Excuse my ghastly pale hands, they're not this bad in reality but for some reason they looked like that in the only colour accurate picture I got

I took the picture using flash on a low setting as it was late and dark, but it looks pretty accurate to how it looks in sunlight and lamplight. It's super pretty and I love how dark it is compared to other purple holo's I own. I had a little application issues with this, it was like it wanted to grab and drag itself and I had some bald spots after the first coat but I waited for a little longer than normal for it to dry before applying 2nd coat and that smoothed it all out and made it perfect. Maybe I should let my basecoat dry for a little longer before using this next time.

Today I'm wearing Copper from Glitter Gals 3D collection and it's gorgeous. The finish is definitely compareable to China Glazes OMG collection, which is pretty much as good as a holo can get in my book!

Glitter Gal 3D Copper

As all holo's this one is much more impressive in reality than in pictures but I did my best to catch the effect and get it colour accurate at the same time. This is three coats and application was flawless, I love how there's a full size brush in that little bottle. The colour makes me think salmon pink, not copper. It does look more like copper in the bottle though so it might be my skintone that is changing the colour, but that's only a good thing as I think this colour is much more flattering on me than any copper would be. As usual when wearing Glitter Gals products I feel the need to go shop for more. I'm a sucker for holo's and they have a big range of colours to chose from. Me likey!

Every time I post GG NOTD's I always get asked where to buy them so I figured I'd add it to the post instead :) Glitter Gal polishes can be purchased directly from their website http://www.glittergal.com.au/. They ship worldwide!

This beauty had been sitting in my untrieds for way too long! Haven't really been in a glitter mood, but decided to wear this one anyway and I'm glad I did! It's gorgeous!

China Glaze Dorothy Who?

China Glaze Dorothy Who?
Blurry to show the glitter

China Glaze Dorothy Who? bottle

This is a blue jelly'ish base packed full with blue and silver glitter. Absolutely gorgeous, no pictures do this polish justice. It took 3 coats to get it opaque which isn't bad at all compared to other glitters I own. I could rave about how pretty this is for hours, but other than that there isn't much to say about it. If you like blue glitters you NEED this!

Hi guys!
This weekend has been super hectic, and I didn't manage to get anything done which means no Orly swatches yet =( But I've got tomorrow off work so I'm gonna try and get all of them done in the morning. Today I'm wearing an "old classic", kind of, Octa Gone Wild from China Glaze's Kaleidoscope collection. The only colour I own from that collection, and I regret not buying the rest. Think a few colours are still available at some e-tailers though.

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild -low light

China Glaze Octa Gone Wild - Bottle

This is the holographic collection that came out before China Glaze's OMG collection, if you compare the two Kaleidoscope has bigger holographic particles versus OMG who is much more fine. They both have that real holographic finish though, it's not just holo glitter or shimmer in a coloured base. It is super interesting to look at, you can see the holo effect even in low light but it's in sunlight or direct light this polish really pops. It applied smoothly and I didn't have any problem with dragging when appyling multiple coats, like some have experienced with holo polishes. By the time I got to the last nail on the hand the first one was already dry enough to apply next coat. After 2 coats some nails were opaque while others weren't so I did 3 coats on all. Would probably have been enough with 2 if I had applying more even coats. I topped it off with Poshé as I always do, some say topcoat lessen the holo effect but that isn't anything I have noticed. At first when you apply the topcat it will lessen, but as soon as it's fully dry all that holo goodness is back again and I need topcoat or I'd have all nails chipped within 15minutes at work :P

Hi guys!
The Orly colours will have to wait until the weekend when I'll have more daylight hours to swatch on. Today I'm wearing a polish from the Viva la Diva collection I'm giving away here. Of course I had to pick the only colour not in the contest, but #5 is a very close relative to this one. I wanted to add some Konad and it took 5 (yes, five!) tries to get the little bow straight, don't know what was up with me when I was trying to do this. Didn't clean up the old stamps enough either so after adding topcoat I saw the whole nail had a thin coat of silver shimmer. It would look nice, if it was on all nails!

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #4

Viva la Diva Fall 2008 #4 Bottle

I've said it before but it's worth saying again, I really like this collection! The colours are nice and dusty, wearable almost all year around and they are opaque in one to two coats, I did 2 coats for this manicure. This purple is super pretty, I would call it a dusty grape. It's slightly more dusty than it shows in the picture, looks closer to the bottle picture. I was pretty uninspired with the Konad, but I really wanted some decoration so I used China Glaze Sci-Fi and m56 on the ring fingers and finished off by placing a little rhinestone in the center of the bow. That's all I had today, have a nice thursday everyone!

Wanted something brighter today and went with this pretty electric blue colour with holographic glitter from glitter Gal. I wouldn't call this a real holographic polish as the glitter isn't as dense as in China Glaze's OMG collection for example, but it's pretty none the less and the blue colour makes me happy!

Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue

Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue with flash

Glitter Gal 3D Electric Blue bottle

This polish looks on the nail as it does in the bottle in the bottom picture, the holographic glitter is much more visible than I was able to capture in the pictures of my nails, the electric blue colour is accurate though. It went on smoothly and was almost opaque in one coat, had a few spots that weren't so I did two coats to even it out. This polish is really fun, bright and pretty and the Glitter Gal formula is very good. I'm really taking a liking to their polishes, even though I've only worn 2 so far, when my budget allows it I need to buy a few more I think!

Just a quick post to show you guys I'm still alive. I've had alot going on this weekend and now I'm feeling ill, sore throat and fever'ish :( Decided to paint my nails today to cheer myself up and I grabbed this pretty from my untrieds box. P2 Glory, a colour I can't really decide if it's green or gold. Antique gold maybe? It looks almost olive green in some lights, it makes me think of one of my major lemmings China Glaze Out on Safari, wish I owned that so I could do a comparison. It's a friggin' awesome colour anyway!

P2 Glory

P2 Glory

P2 Glory Bottle

This beauty was almost opaque in one coat, but I did two anyway to even it out. It was a tiny bit thick but still very easy to apply, probably thanks to the P2 brush shape which is a bit wider than regular brushes and spreads more polish on the nail and makes it easier to control. I liked this polish in the bottle, I LOVED it on the nail! Don't own another colour like this but have a handful on my lemming list so I have a feeling this will be used alot! Wish P2 was sold in Sweden, so far I have really liked their colours, brushes and formulas.

Today I'm wearing Happily Ever After, a dark berry pink creme from Orly's 2009 fall collection, Once Upon a Time. I call it a creme even though it has a slight shimmer, in most lights it isn't visible so it's like a creme with a little surprise. This is a colour I've changed my mind about a million times, especially during application. Do I like or is it just not for me?

Orly Happily Ever After
Note that it is darker in real life than in the pictures. For some reason my index finger nail looks darker than the rest, that is closer to reality

Orly Happily Ever After with flash
See the tiny ammount of shimmer? It definitely shows more in the bottle
than on the nail

Orly Happily Ever After bottle

I just can't stop looking at my nails! As you know I recieved some Nfu-Oh's recently in a swap with Kirsten, but I hadn't tried them out on my nails yet. Experimented some on fake nail tips to figure out nice combinations for layering, this was one of them. But it's just so much better on the nails, check it!

Nfu-Oh #52 over Essie Midnight Cami

Nfu-Oh #52 over Essie Midnight Cami with flash

The happy couple! L to R: Essie Midnight Cami and Nfu-Oh #52

This is 2 coats of Essie Midnight Cami with one coat of Nfu-Oh #52. It's absolutely stunning, it's like a flakey duochrome. It shifts between blue and green depending on the lighting and I think I've seen some purple flash by a few times, and it has shimmer and flakies. All that mashed up in to one manicure is just awesome overload! The top picture shows how it looks in daylight, can really see the green and blue flakies pop on the blue bottom. The flash picture is how it looks right now in lamp light, it's just packed with green shimmer, looks like an emerald green shimmer fest! I keep moving my hands around to see how it changes in different lights, the pictures just don't do this manicure justice. It's impossible to capture everything that is going on with this polish, I need a friggin' video blog or something! As for application, the Essie is an Essie, never had any problems with them. It might have been a tiny bit runny but that seems to be common with dark blue colours and I'm always a little extra careful when applying them, it took 2 coats to get opaque. I had expected the Nfu-Oh to be more sheer but one coat was enough to get that shimmer and flakie madness going on. I need to try this beauty on it's own, it's real base colour is purple so it can't be anything else than fabulous! I definitely need to get my hands on a few more Nfu-Oh's when my budget allows it.

Happy hump day everyone!