China Glaze Awakening Collection

Hey everyone! Sweet Karrie got me the China Glaze Awakening set, their collection for Halloween 2010. I'm a little late to the party but I still want to show you guys because overall I think it's a fun collection. Besides, we have one month to go before it's Halloween! :-) This Halloween, China Glaze brings us three 'ghoulish glitters' and this set also includes the China Glaze Fast Forward Top Coat. All swatches are three coats and topped off with the Fast Forward top coat.


Mummy May I, fuchsia glitter in a dark purple jelly base. It reminded me of Wet n Wild Night Prowl but that base is black. Mummy May I's base looks black but it really is a little softer. It's not unique but it's definitely fun to have!


I immediately knew I would love Zombie Zest. It's a swampy green jelly with gold, blue and green glitter. The glitter is very fine and dense, creating a great effect when you're wearing this pretty. This is a dupe for one of my favourite polishes of all time, SpaRitual Optical Illusion, and Orly It's Not Rocket Science.


This is Ick-A-Bod-Y, a dark green jelly packed with loads of orange glitter. I was really excited for this shade because of the combination - green base with orange glitter - and even though my expectations weren't reached, I'm definitely not disappointed! You can see the green base peeking through the glitters - awesome! - but I'd love to see a little more base. I'm too picky, sorry.

Application wasn't great, the polishes were a little droopy and Ick-A-Bod-Y was too thick for my taste. It isn't unmanageable but you want to be in a 'zen' mode when applying. Zombie Zest is the only one with finer glitter, for the other ones I'd really use a thicker top coat. Speaking of top coat, I am very satisfied with the Fast Forward. It gives me a smooth finish and dries fast, very nice!

Do you own these and how do you feel about them?
Michelle

Sally Hansen - Hidden Treasure

Hi all! It's Saturday, time to relax and enjoy the first day of the weekend. Yesterday I received my first (early) birthday present from my parents, they gave me a bunch of new polishes and I'm hoping I can show you one tomorrow because I know I can't resist playing with them today!

For today I want to show you a polish that I own for a little while and got it in a swap. I was very happy when this one arrived because it really was a 'hidden treasure' for some of us!


This is Hidden Treasure over Diamond Cosmetics I'm Raven About You. I used two coats of Hidden Treasure because I wanted this to look really in your face and I think that is a succes! ;-) Hidden Treasure is a clear base with orange, gold and green duochrome flakies. Application is okay, I really don't know how to feel about the brush because it's big and wide. Working with it isn't hard but it looks so... strange? Probably some kind of pet peeve.

I love it, the colours give me a really great autumn feel. It's great how the flakies shift colours! I've also mattified it and this is how it looks:


Pretty neat eh! Looks a bit like burning coals and even better, the duochrome effect isn't gone! Hidden Treasure is very pretty and if you can't find this one, there are plenty of other polishes that are dupes or really darn close, f.e. Gosh Rainbow, Nubar 2010 and Kinetics Daisies and Paislies.

How do you feel about these kind of flakies? Like or not?
Michelle

Glitter Puke

Hey everyone! I really like glitter polish but sometimes I don't want to wear a full mani with glitters so I always try to find something for it. Sometimes I do a glitter french or a moon manicure but last time I tried something different.


It's like someone puked glitters over my nails!

I like it when glitters pop out and have a contrasting colour underneath so when I was picking out colours I decided to go for a black background and silver glitter. The black I used is Diamond Cosmetics I'm Raven About You, one of my favourite blacks because it's not watery, it's opaque and even in two coats.


After applying the base colour I used the Essence Silver striper and started to create stripes from the tip of my nail towards the cuticle. All these stripes variate in length. When that was done I used Essie Silver Bullions and applied this pretty over all the stripes. You can use a striper for this but Silver Bullions is not that dense so I used the brush.

When done with that the next glitter that I applied was from China Glaze, Spellbound. I love this one and the orange glitters that are in it make this polish for me a special one. And last, but certainly not least, all this was topped with Misa Confection Section. There you have it, glitter puke.


I expected this to be all bumpy but that wasn't the case after I topped it with China Glaze Fast Forward top coat. Nice! This is a manicure I'm looking forward creating in different colours, I absolutely love it!

Thanks for stopping by! :-)
Michelle

Catrice - Oriental Orange

Hi everyone! Today the second polish of the Catrice Caramé collection. I really like the idea of this collection - it's based on an evening stroll on the bazaar - and I think they've come up with great colours. Especially the bronzes in this collection got my attention but after trying out Oriental Orange I'm glad I didn't missed this one!

Oriental Orange isn't a true orange, it's more of an orange toned red jelly. Yes: jelly! I love jelly finishes and this is no exception, it's really glossy. I wanted to build this one and see if I could get it opaque but after four coats I still had a visible nail line. But who cares, that's a common fact when wearing jellies and it doesn't disturb me at all. Application was smooth and the Catrice brush is one of my favourites.

Conclusion? Worth buying! Just think of this: great price tag (€2,49), cute bottle, limited edition and it's a jelly. WIN.

Go Dutchies!

Hi all! Today is another match for the Netherlands in the World Cup. Now I know that they already reached the 1/8 finals but since I didn't post a World Cup mani last time, here's one now.

I'm wearing Essence Date Me from the Cute as Hell collection and my middle finger has different coloured rhinestones on it, of course in the colours of our flag!

Enjoy the match and have a nice day!

Fiiiire!

Hi dear reader!
After a long couple of days without any inspiration I found myself listening to Johnny Cash and creating a fire mani. I used Orly - Poison Candy apple as my base colour and I mattified it with China Glaze - Matte Magic. For the flames I used CG - Lemon Fizz, Essence - Bad Girl and OPI - Magnifico Mexico. I used CG's Snow Globe to spice it up a little.

There's not much to tell really, except I feel like having a polish block. :') I'm trying to do some ruffians today but I keep failing or they're not the way I want them to be. And the sun is gone which sucks!

I hope you do have a sunny day! ;)
Thanks for visiting!
Michelle

Essence Cute as Hell Collection

Hi dear reader!
Today I received two packages: one from Models Own, and one I've been dying to get my hands on: the Essence Cute as Hell collection! This collection isn't available in the Netherlands, but is in Germany, so Jeannette of the Swatchaholic was so sweet and send me these! Thank you so much! Of course I had to swatch these immediatly after getting them.



First up is Bad Girl. This is a soft orange, the picture makes it look too bright because it isn't. It's very pretty but I don't think I'll wear this too often since orange isn't my favourite colour. ;)



Then we have Naughty but Nice. It's a pastel yellow and I don't think there's anything naughty about it, it's just a very sweet spring colour. I think it looks like China Glaze Lemon Fizz (that I will receive very soon) and it looks a little like Models Own Lemon Meringue (see Michèle's blog: Lacquerized). I might so some comparing later.



Here you see Not Just Cute, my second favourite polish of the collection. I almost never wear pinks, they're not my colour of choice, but this one is so sweet!



And last, but not least: Date Me! I'm so crazy about purples and this lavender colour makes my mouth water! I know, it looks a bit blue in the picture, but it's really a tad darker and a little more purple toned.

Overall I'm very happy with this collection, I'm all in the pastel trend, love it. I've applied three coats of each (except for Date Me!) and I must say: they apply very nicely. Too bad Essence is only selling this in Germany!

How do you feel about pastels?
Thanks for visiting!
Michelle