Models Own - Purple Ash

Today I have a Models Own polish for you, Purple Ash, which I bought as a part of the 'Autumn/Winter Collection'-set (it's the 3rd one from the right). The lovely Ulmiel asked for a swatch and a comparison with other polishes, well, it's all here, enjoy! :O

Purple Ash is a muted red toned purple creme, but describing it as a dark dusty rose seems fitting too. It looks like Models Own also put a drop of brown in it.. It's a gorgeous, unique colour. I have nothing like it! The application was very good, it was opaque in two coats. I also used a topcoat.

I was searching through my stash for polishes that are close to Purple Ash and these are the ones I found (I told you I had nothing like it, lol). As you can see Purple Ash is more red toned than the other two, but I think they dó look nice next to each other, don't they? :) I totally forgot I had P2 Gracious, it's so pretty with its subtle shimmer (which isn't visible in this picture). I should definitely make a special post on that one! And China Glaze's Channelesque... well, it's Channelesque. :L (I just noticed I misspelled it in the picture, #fail).

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Nfu Oh #62

I finally tried one of the prismatic/holographic polishes from Nfu Oh, this is #62! I would describe it as a light almond coloured polish with a hint of pink and a smooth, silky finish if that makes sense... Very chique! The polish contains very small particles that cause an in-your-face rainbow on the nail in bright light. Even in normal daylight there's still a subtle rainbow visible at some angles. Some prismatic polishes become dull in low light, but with this one: never a dull moment. 8) It's an incredibly awesome polish!

I applied it over one coat of Nfu Oh's Aqua Base, a great basecoat for lineair prismatic polishes like this one (and I heard it's also great as a base for matte polishes, I have to try that soon!). This is two coats of #62, no topcoat.

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Comparison: OPI - Glacier Bay Blues & China Glaze - Rodeo Fanatic

Yesterday I made a quick comparison with China Glaze - Rodeo Fanatic and OPI - Glacier Bay Blues. When you hold the bottles next to each other they both show more than one colour; in both is a blue green visible and also a beautiful purple. So I was wondering how they would look next to each other on the nail. And why not share my findings? :) 

Glacier Bay Blues is a true duochrome (look at the bottle in the 2nd picture, wow!), showing different colours at different angles. It's a dark blue polish that can look dark green sometimes and does show the blurple and purple you see in the bottle, whereas Rodeo Fanatic shows blue green most of the time with a hint of dark blue at some angles, but definitely no purple. GBB is obviously darker and more frosty than shimmery; you can see subtle brushstrokes after applying it. So.. different polishes for different moments I'd say. :O

I applied three coats of both and a topcoat. Rodeo Fanatic dries way faster, I always experience drying problems when I use GBB (bummer, cause it's a stunning polish!).

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Rodeo Fanatic + Konad

Today I pimped Rodeo Fanatic a bit with some stamping. I used China Glaze - Adore as the stamping polish and a beautiful flower image from imageplate M20. Then I added some half pearls which I received from Born Pretty Store, I think they're cute!

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.

China Glaze - Rodeo Fanatic

Today I have another beautiful polish to show you, Rodeo Fanatic from China Glaze. Rodeo Fanatic is one of the polishes from the Rodeo Diva Collection, one of my favourite collections from China Glaze (Branding Iron, Cowgirl Up, Gussied-Up Green, Wagon Trail.. need I say more? *drools*).

Rodeo Fanatic is a shimmery, almost frosty polish with different faces. I wouldn't call it a true duochrome, but there's definitely more than one colour there, making it one of those polishes that are hard to photograph. Most of the time you'll see a gorgeous blue green (best visible in the 2nd picture, which is the most colour accurate picture by the way), but at some angles you'll also see dark blue on the sides of the nail (1st picture). In the bottle there's purple visible, sadly it doesn't show up on the nail. But still.. what an awesome polish! 

The pictures are taken after two days of wear, fantastic right? The application was good, the polish was a little on the thin side, but nothing I can't handle. ;) This is three coats with topcoat.

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Honey, does this polish make my nails look fat?

The answer is: "Yes, it does". Do I care? No. Look at this fiery beauty! It's #59, one of Nfu Oh's opal polishes. Sooo droolworthy... :L #59 is a dark red jelly with tons of opal flakes in it. In the bottle it looks very dark, but as you can see it's much lighter on the nail. The flakes look like a reddish amber most of the time, but at some angles you'll see gold and green. It's like those flakies are floating on top of my nails, mesmerizing! I'm not the kind of person who tells people what to do, but I think everybody needs to try a polish like this, really.

Like the other opal polishes from Nfu Oh, this one is thick and gloopy, making it kinda hard to apply. It's way better for layering, but I just wanted to try it on its own. I used three coats and because of the bumpy look the flakes can give I used a thick layer of topcoat. It does take a while to dry completely, even with a quickdrying topcoat. 

I bought my bottle at viis.ee for $9.90. For that price you get a 17 ml bottle, enough for a while I guess. :O

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Cute Kitty (& Doggy)

Yesterday I showed you the fimo canes I got from Born Pretty Store (a webshop with tons of awesome nail art products). These canes are so.. SO cute! And there are so many of them... I had a hard time deciding which one I'd use first! As you can see I chose a cute pink kitty. On my ringfingers and thumbs I'm wearing Trind - CC117 and on the rest of my nails Wife Goes On from Essie. They're both awesome polishes, really pigmented too, this is two coats with topcoat (and an extra layer of topcoat to seal the fimo slices). The Essie one reminds me a lot of nice sunny days, because I wore it a lot last summer. And as it is really sunny today, I thought it would be a good time to use it again!

Applying the slices of the kitty fimo cane wasn't the easiest thing to do. You have to cut very thin slices, otherwise the fimo won't follow the curve of your nail and make your nail look and feel very bumpy (the surface of your nail will always look/feel a bit bumpy with fimo, unless you're ok with using half a bottle of topcoat of course ^^ ). And I think it's better to use a drop of nail glue instead of topcoat to apply the fimo and make it stay on longer. Ah well, I think these fimo canes are adorable! :L

Our dog is also enjoying the sun today, lol!

She can look a bit less dumb too... ^_^

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.

Goodies from Born Pretty Store

I guess most of you heard of the webshop Born Pretty Store. This webshop offers a lot (and with that I mean: a lot!) of lovely nail art products like rhinestones, stickers, dotting tools and striping tape, but they also have makeup brushes, false eyelashes and even contact lenses. Jessica from Born Pretty Store asked me if I would like to review some products.. Well, of course! I love to try out new nail products. :) She was kind enough to send me two polishes, a wheel with coloured half pearls and a lot of fimo canes. I'm so excited about those fimo canes, aren't they cute? I can't wait to try them, especially the fruit designs! 

But first I want to show you swatches of the two glitter polishes I got ($3,51 for 8 ml). The brand name is BO Nail Lacquer (the font on the bottle has a striking resemblance to the font on OPI bottles, don't know what to think about that). When I was looking for a name or a number I found a strange sticker at the bottom of the bottle which says Original Nail Envy. I doubt that these bottles contain OPI's Nail Envy, so what's up with that? Ah well.. No names or numbers then. EDIT: the sticker of the left one says B34 and the right one would be B02, but they don't look the same as the corresponding numbers on the website. So I don't know if the stickers on my bottles are right. 

Enough about the bottles, let's talk about the polishes! I received two glitter polishes, one sheer pink with silver mini glitter and one sheer lilac/mauve with the same silver glitter. They are very very sparkly, love that! They contain so much glitter, the effect is almost metallic. The application was good, but these polishes are both very sheer. Even after applying three coats the smile line of my nail is still visible. I think I'll try layering them in the future.

Sparkly, right? :D I'm happy to tell you I received a code you guys can use to get a 10% discount at www.bornprettystore.com. The code is AMYGK31 and you can use it till March 31st.

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.

Cake Love

*Pfew*, the last couple of days I've been really busy baking cakes (which means: 'naked' nails, so I don't have polished nails to show you right now). But I thought you wouldn't mind me showing you another cake.. And if you do, let me know! ;)

Today I made a small simple cake for my husband. We don't celebrate Valentine's Day, but today we're seven years a couple (we didn't celebrate Valentine's Day then either, it just happened, lol) so that is something to celebrate, right? :O

If you dó celebrate Valentine's Day I wish you a Happy Valentine's Day! 

Thanks for watching! 

...I can't wait till the HB is home from work, I want a piece now! *nomnomnom*

Comparison: Catherine Arley #677 & OPI DS Extravagance

I know these Catherine Arley polishes aren't so easy to get (intact that is.. :brow), so I like to show you comparisons with other polishes to see if they're really worth getting. This time I made a comparison with #677 and OPI DS Extravagance. As you can see DS Extravagance is darker and more a purply berry  than  cranberry coloured like #677. Both polishes have a scattered prismatic effect. DS Extravagance seems to have prismatic particles of different sizes, which makes it (for me) more interesting to look at, even in low light. 

The application of both is good, they're both pigmented so I applied two coats, no topcoat.

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Catherine Arley #677

I can't believe I ordered so much Catherine Arley polishes, when will it end? :o ;)

This is #677 (and I just have to say it: I'm hating these polishes for having a stupid number instead of a fancy name.. ). I would describe it as a berry red polish with - no surprise - prismatic particles in it. This one has a subtle scattered prismatic effect. It's very sparkly and I love the colour! #677 applied  like butter and is nice and pigmented, this is two coats without topcoat. I had to be careful to not cut myself with this bottle, it was the only damaged one from my order. :|

I'll make a comparison post with OPI DS Extravagance! 

Thanks for watching! :h

China Glaze - Stroll

Today I'm showing you guys China Glaze - Stroll, a burgundy jelly/sheer polish. And what else did China Glaze put in the bottle? A whole bucket of awesomesauce: golden glitter or actually some kind of golden mini flakes. It's so gorgeous and yummy, my nails look like mashed cherries (that sounds crazy, I know :$). I like it so much, I just removed Napa Valley Red (BB Couture) from my wishlist. I'm aware of them not being dupes or something, but Stroll definitely killed one of my lemmings*! And I'm mad at myself for not using it earlier.

The application was something else. I tried it on a nail wheel first so I knew it would be sheer, but it wouldn't apply evenly on the nail (frustrating!). I was done with it after the 3rd coat and thankfully it looks ok, even on camera. :)

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*lemming: 

    1. refers to a purchase/wished-for-item which results from reading an enthusiastic post about a (new) fabulous product. Overcome by compulsion, readers follow like lemmings diving off a cliff.  
   2. A small, short-tailed rodent which lives in the tundra. It is said that large groups of these animals come together every so often to jump off of a cliff. On the contrary, they fall off quite by accident. (source)

Comparison: Catherine Arley #673 & OPI DS - Original

Here we have my promised comparison between Catherine Arley #673 and one of the OPI Designer Series polishes, Original. Looking at the bottles side by side they were quite similar to me, apart from the prismatic effect (which is way more visible in DS Original) and #673 being a bit darker. On the nail the differences between these two are more apparent. 

OPI DS Original is lighter and I'd call it more lavender than lilac. To be more precise: DS Original is more blue toned than #673. But the biggest difference lies in the prismatic effect! Under bright light (last picture) the Catherine Arley polish has no chance, becoming almost boring next to DS Original. For me the latter one is definitely winning this battle, because let's face it.. there aren't much polishes strong enough to beat DS Original, right? :i But if you're in the mood for a more subtle prismatic polish, you could give the pretty #673 a try. 

The application of both polishes is very nice, with #673 being the more pigmented one, I needed only two coats against three coats for DS Original.

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Catherine Arley #673

And I'm back with another Catherine Arley today, #673. It's a lilac polish with a subtle, scattered prismatic effect (which is most visible in bright light of course :)). It was a dream to apply, this is two coats (no topcoat). I think it's truly gorgeous. A comparison with OPI DS Original is coming up!

Thanks for watching!

Cherry Blossom Love

A couple of weeks ago we were celebrating my Mom's birthday. I decided to make a sweet cake for my even sweeter Mom, in cherry blossom style! Isn't it adorable? I'm so proud of it. :)

Why am I showing you this yummy cake? Well, apparently my cakes inspire me to do nail art :O (remember the ladybug?). So I painted cherry blossom on my ring finger nails and it was so much fun to do!

The pastel pink I used as a base for all nails, except the ring finger nail, is Mod About You from OPI. The base colour for my ring finger is Flower to Flower, also from OPI. I painted the branches with You Don't Know Jacques (OPI, again) and for the blossom I also used Mod About You. With Millennium from China Glaze I made some silver dots in the flowers. And after a good long wait (seriously, you don't want smudged flowers!) I applied a thick layer of topcoat.

The cake tasted a lot better. ;) Thank you so much for watching!