Zoya - Phoebe + first time tape!

New collections from Zoya always get me very excited, for this summer the brand came out with three (!) new collections (Sunshine, Summertime & Mod Matte). Right now I'm wearing a polish from the Mod Matte collection, Phoebe. This is how Zoya describes this nail polish: 

Bright azure with fine electric blue and violet shimmer with a velvety matte finish. The matte finish amplifies the bright color; this is a matte that positively glows.

I have a hard time finding the violet shimmer, but other than that: perfect description.  Phoebe reminds me of the sea - oh, I mean the Caribbean Sea, the sea around here has an awful colour. It's a very pretty polish, matte polishes can look dull, but not Phoebe, I love the velvety finish. The first picture shows how it looks shiny and matte (ring fingernail).

The formula wasn't that great, thick, gloopy and not very pigmented. So you have to be careful (to avoid streaks) and fast (it dries very quickly because it's a matte) at the same time when you're applying Phoebe. I got the most even result with thicker layers, I used three coats I believe.

As you can see I also had some fun with tape. :) I used two China Glaze polishes, Kiwi Cool-Ada and Millennium. These colours are awesome together, but I think it looks better without the silver stripes, they cover to much of that gorgeous neon green. But it was fun to do and I like the neat result you get with tape! What do you think?

Thanks for watching!

Teeez - Smooth

Today I'm showing you Smooth, the third (and sadly also the last) prismatic nail polish from the brand Teeez. A pink-fuchsia coloured polish with prismatic particles. It looks fantastic in bright light, but indoors it's a pretty too! Let me think... do I have something similar? I guess I don't. And that's cool, 'cause it's a fabulous shade. And hey, everything that has something rainbow-y going on is a total win for me! The formula was very nice, I could've stopped after applying two coats, but after three coats the colour looked more intense, which I like, so you're looking at three coats without a top coat.

You like? In case you've missed it, I'm giving away Smooth's purty purple sister and her blowing-you-away blue brother (among others), so if you want to enter my giveaway click → here ←!

Thanks for watching. :)

China Glaze - Kiwi Cool-Ada

Aah, I can't believe how nice the weather is here, flip flop weather, I like! I love to wear neons right now, so I could of course show you Flip Flop Fantasy from China Glaze, matching the flip flops and all, but that's for another post. Today I'm showing you Kiwi Cool-Ada, from the same China Glaze collection. What a crazy colour, it's freakin' awesome! My pictures don't show all the awesomeness, in real life the colour is more intense and darker, but also brighter! This glowy green reminds me of kryptonite. You just have to see this nail polish in person, it'll knock your socks off. :D 

Kiwi Cool-Ada is a neon, so it dries up matte. I wanted to see how it looks shiny so I added a layer of top coat, but I actually like it better with the matte finish. The application was not the easiest, this is three coats and four on some nails to get rid of bald spots. As you can see I also added some stamping, I used an image from imageplate M64 and China Glaze - Millennium as the stamping polish.

Thanks for watching and have a great Easter weekend!

*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Essence: Romeo and Circus Confetti

Yesterday I went to the nearest Kruidvat (a Dutch drugstore) to see if they added the new Catrice and Essence products. And yay, the new shelfs were fi-nal-ly there! The Catrice shelf looked like a tornado had passed though, all the fun stuff was already gone *sigh*. But I got myself some new Essence nail polishes, so I wasn't too sad about it. The first polish I tried out was one half of the Essence Nail Art Twins, Romeo, a grey creme (nice formula, two coats). I guess Essence made a new version of Romeo, because the swatches I find on the web show a silver metallic polish. The other half of the set, Romeo's beloved Julia, was missing, so I decided to cheer him up with one of the new special effect toppers from Essence, Circus Confetti (one coat). 

I have to state first that I háte chunky glitter polishes, so buying this one is a true milestone for me.. And I have to say: Love. It. What a fun look, Circus Confetti is really awesome. I can't wait to try it on top of other nail polishes, the possibilities are endless. Imagine how it'll look on a red creme, or a turquoise, an orange one! The only downside is that the clear base is a tad yellowish, so it can change the base colour a little. 

Thanks for watching!

Sparkly Blue Curaçao

Today I'm showing you another brand new Catrice nail polish, Blue Cara Ciao. That name totally reminds me of Blue Curaçao, a blue coloured liqueur from the caribbean island Curaçao, yum! Aah, that brings back so much memories.. I lived on Curaçao for thirteen years and I still miss it everyday. I don't know if I want to live there again, but the island will always have a special place in my heart. Oh no, am I getting a bit emotional now? :$

Uhm yeah, the nails. I used two coats of Blue Cara Ciao, a fabulous medium blue, almost azure coloured, creme nail polish. In real life the colour looks more intense with a drop of yellow in it. Colours like these can be very difficult to photograph. If you ever tried photographing Custom Kicks from China Glaze, you know exactly what I mean, hehe. It's an awesome nail polish, per-fect for summer! I see myself wearing this a lot. The formula is nice and pigmented, this is two coats. Then I grabbed a sponge and my bottle of Charla (Zoya) to sponge the tips. Isn't this hot and beachy? I dedicate this mani to Curaçao! 8)

Thanks for watching!

p.s. Have you already entered my giveaway?

Giveaway Time! *This Giveaway Is Closed!*

*This giveaway has ended. Thanks to all who entered! I will announce the winner asap.*

I promised you guys a giveaway when I would reach the 500 follower mark and this morning the 500th person (welcome Vermilion Art! \o/) hit the follow button, woah! I want to thank you all so much for visiting my humble blog. I blog about nail polish because I love doing that, but hey.. it's extra fun when other people notice and like the things I place here. And all those sweet comments and emails... I love to read them all!

You guys are the best! *muah* :D

Onto the prize, what am I giving away? The prize includes the following nail polishes (from left to right): Catrice - Absolutely Chinchilly!, Teeez - Free (08), Teeez - Outta Control (01), Teeez - Cool (02), Teeez - Femme Fatale (06) and Catrice - Hip Queens Wear Blue Jeans!

Since a lot of you can't get their hands on the Teeez polishes I showed recently, I decided to include some of those pretties. Fun, right? Oh, I'm so excited! ..I just can't hide it.. :tone 

You can enter this giveaway only by filling out the Giveaway Form below. Entering with a comment does not count!

• You have to be a public follower of my blog. You can follow me by hitting the Google Friend Connect 'Follow' button you see in the right sidebar;
• Optional: you can earn one extra entry by reposting this giveaway on your blog (feel free to use my picture) or tweet about it;
• The giveaway is open internationally;
• You can enter till the 18th of May, 11.59 pm CET;
• The winner will be notified via email. If the winner doesn't respond within 48 hours a new winner will be chosen.

If you have a question you can always email me at thepolishedperfectionist (at) gmail (dot) com

It only remains for me to say: Good luck!!

China Glaze - Chiaroscuro

Mysterious name, right? Chiaroscuro. I looked it up, the french term for it is clair-obscur. Hey, that does ring a bell, I'm sure I had to read about this technique for my art lessons. 

"Chiaroscuro ("light-dark") in art is characterized by strong contrasts between light and dark, usually bold contrasts affecting a whole composition. It is also a technical term used by artists and art historians for using contrasts of light to achieve a sense of volume in modeling three-dimensional objects such as the human body." source

I don't know what the link is with this particular nail polish, maybe there's no link at all.. ah well. Chiaroscuro, the nail polish: a rosy peach with a beautiful golden green flash. It reminds me of those gorgeous seashells with the glossy peachy pink insides! When I saw the bottle I wasn't too excited, though. It's more something my Mom would wear, she likes soft colours on her nails. Well, never judge a nail polish by its appearance in the bottle, lol. On the nail it's not as boring as I thought, it looks feminine and chic! The greenish side of the fine shimmer (pretty!) was quite hard to catch on camera, it's definitely not just a golden shimmer. If you look at the 3rd picture you can see a glimpse of the green in the bottle, that green is clearly visible on the nail too. 

Chiaroscuro has a pearl finish, we all know what that means, right? Hello brushstrokes! I tried to apply it as careful as possible, with a light hand, and the result actually isn't that bad. The nail polish is on the sheer side, with three coats the nail line is still visible at some angles, but I don't mind. I think it will be great as a french manicure topper, have to try that some time!

Have you ever heard of Chiaroscuro? The technique or the polish? :O

Thanks for watching!

*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes. 

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Catrice - Dirty Berry

I don't know what's so berry about this polish, but this is Dirty Berry from Catrice. I would describe the colour as a muted bleuish lavender (in normal daylight the colour looks a bit more muted than the above pictures show). Dirty Berry contains a lot of tiny silver glitters with a little surprise, because in bright light they show a very, very weak scattered prismatic effect (if you're looking for a full on rainbow, skip this one). I love the colour and I actually like the subtle prismatic look it has in the sunlight, those little pops of colour made me smile! I can't believe I said that, maybe I have to go on a hunt for one of the Tronica polishes from China Glaze then. :O

Dirty Berry applied well, two easy coats, no topcoat.

Thanks for watching!

Comparison: Teeez - Outta Control & Color Club - Wild At Heart

I was wondering how the pretty purple prismatic Teeez nail polish, Outta Control, would look like next to another purple pretty we all love and cherish, Wild At Heart from Color Club. So here's my comparison. Just like I thought: Outta Control is lighter and more blue toned than Wild At Heart. Another difference lies in the colours I see when I hold my nails in bright light, the prismatic particles in Outta Control show more green, blue and pink, whereas the particles in Wild At Heart show a lot more orange and magenta.

I think the prismatic effect is equally strong in both polishes, but the bigger contrast between the rainbow-y particles and the darker base colour of Wild At Heart can sometimes give the illusion of a stronger prismatic effect in the Color Club one. 

They applied well, two easy coats and you're done. Wild At Heart is a little more pigmented though, you could even get away with one coat. For this comparison I didn't apply a topcoat, because I wanted you to see them on their own.

Which one do I prefer? Can't choose, really. They're so beautiful, as a purple prismatic polish lover I'm drooling over both!

Which one do you prefer? :)

Thanks for watching!

Teeez - Outta Control and a Teeez Teaser

Oh, Teeez, how I love you. Today I'm showing you another stunner from Teeez, Outta Control (01). A gorgeous purple polish with an even prettier prismatic effect. Indoors it's beautiful, but when you add sunlight: bam! It's like magic. Needless to say, I love-love-lóve this! I'll never get enough of purple prismatic polishes, they're hawt.

The application was good, this is two coats plus a layer of topcoat. So far, Teeez doesn't dissapoint at all. Awesome colours, great application... I couldn't ask for more.

Besides showing some Teeez magic I'm going to tease you guys a little, ha! To thank my lovely followers I want to share the magic by giving a bottle of Outta Control (together with other awesome pretties) away when I reach the 500 follower mark. Sounds great, no? :)

Thanks for watching!

Bee Happy

It was time for some nail art, don't you think? :) And I wanted to show you a(nother) yummylicious cake! Below you can see one of my birthday cakes I made a couple of months ago. I am a sucker for chocolate and m&m's, so it wasn't too hard to decide what I wanted on my cake. Oh, it was delish! The cake inspired me (again) to do some nail art, so I ended up with a bee on my ring finger nail. The brownish taupe colour I used is OPI - You Don't Know Jacques, for the yellow bee body I used Don't Feed The Birds from Catrice. I added some wings with China Glaze - Millennium and two silver rhinestones for the eyes.

Accent nails are so much fun, I don't think I would've liked it as much with all my nails transformed into bees. What do you think?

Thanks for watching!

Catrice - Iron Mermaiden

Today I'm showing you one of the new polishes from Catrice, Iron Mermaiden (love that name!). A mysterious nail polish with different faces. This is amazing, I love the iridescent look it has. As for most duochrome/multichrome polishes it shows more colours in the bottle than on the nail, but on the nail it's also pretty great! When I look at my nails at different angles I see a grey, a rosy purple (see it on the pictures? No? That's because my camera hates it. The purple you see on the pics is more pink toned in real life) and a blueish green. If you're a duochrome/multichrome lover, Iron Mermaiden is definitely one to try out!

The application was fine, the result is a tad brushstroke-y, but not in an awful way. It is quite sheer though, I used three coats and it's still not opaque.

Now I hear some of you think: doesn't it look a lot like Purple Beach from Nubar? I did a quick comparison (no pics, I was in a hurry) and I can tell you: no dupes. Iron Mermaiden is lighter than Purple Beach and more cool toned. For example: Iron Mermaiden has a blueish green side, whereas Purple Beach has a more golden green look at some angles.

Thanks for watching!

Surprise Haul: Catrice

What is better than buying nail polishes yourself? Nail polishes bought by a loved one, in this case my husband! I had a rough couple of days (a migraine is bad, a depression is worse and the combination of these two is very unpleasant, yuk!) and then my husband surprised me with six gorgeous nail polishes. He sure knows how to cheer me up! :L And he sure knows my kind of colours, he-he.

From left to right: Dirty Berry, Forget-Me-Not!, Purplelized, Just Berried!, Iron Mermaiden & Sir! Yes, Sir!

On to the nail polish, these are some of the new polishes from the brand Catrice. A year ago or so Catrice got a makeover which they started with a new range of polishes. One of the new ones then was Sold Out Forever, a beautiful mint green. Oh man, I remember I was on a serious hunt to get that one! And now I have it for a long, long time and it's still one of my untrieds. It's just sad, lol. Uhm, where was I ..? The makeover continued, Catrice started to sell new eyeshadows, lip glosses, etc. and more important: they designed around 18 (!) new nail polishes to add to the range that came out last year. Yay! for that. I know a lot of Dutch girls are on a hunt for these new polishes, so was I. The nearest drugstore that sells Catrice is always slow with new products, so you can understand how happy I am with these!

How awesome is that duo/multichrome?

Thanks for watching!

Comparison: Teeez - Femme Fatale & China Glaze - Ruby Pumps

I told you earlier I was wondering how Teeez - Femme Fatale would look like next to one of the masterpieces from China Glaze, Ruby Pumps. First I want to point out that both colours look darker, deeper and more blue toned  in real life, with the first picture being the most colour accurate of the two.

Ok, let's compare these pretty reds: the base colour is very much alike, they apply well and are opaque in three coats. The biggest difference is what's floating in the base. Ruby Pumps is packed with rounded silver and red glitter, whereas Femme Fatale has little irregular shaped multicoloured flecks/flakes in it. What I really like about Femme Fatale is the violet flecks, they add a nice touch to the polish. But Ruby Pumps is more sparkly, love that too! 

What can I say..? It's nice to find a nail polish that can compete with Ruby Pumps, I'm happy to have both. :)

I also want to use this post to thank my readers, all those sweet comments and emails give me a warm feeling and make me really happy. I can't believe I have so much followers, where do you all come from? :O How about a thank you giveaway when I hit the 500 mark..? Stay tuned!

Oh, and I added a FAQ page, check it out if you want. 

Thanks for watching!

Teeez - Femme Fatale

How hot is this?! Today I'm showing you Femme Fatale from the Teeez Diva's Darkness collection. Femme Fatale is a juicy red with golden and violet flecks floating in it. In real life it looks a bit more profound, the second picture is the most colour accurate. I can't believe how pretty it is! I definitely have to wear reds more often, they make me feel sexy *rawrr* :$. I wonder how this one will look next to Ruby Pumps from China Glaze. The formula was great. Two coats were fine, but you never know with the macro setting... So I applied three and a topcoat.

Thanks for watching!

Zoya - Caitlin & CND - Sapphire Sparkle

Today is a beautiful day to be outside so I'll be short. I'm wearing Caitlin from Zoya, this is what Zoya says about Caitlin:

Smoky purple-tinged medium gray with smooth, opaque creme finish. Sultry, mysterious and impossibly chic, a shade that will have everyone intrigued.

I have nothing to add to that! It's a beauty. The application was fine, the formula was a little on the thick side, but nothing I can't handle. After a day of wear I wanted to add a little something something, so I applied two coats of CND - Sapphire Sparkle. So pretty, I love it!

Thanks for watching!