Category: Brands

China Glaze – Bermuda Breakaway

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And here’s another polish from the China Glaze Bahama Blues collection, Bermuda Breakaway. This is a gorgeous blue creme polish with a hint of purple. Absolutely stunning shade. I didn’t expect it to be this nice on my nails based on what it looks like in the bottle, but it sure is. It is so nice to be positively surprised sometimes :)

Bermuda Breakaway was quite thin in the bottle and applied oh so smoothly. Opaque in two coats. I only tested this polish to swatch it so I have nothing to say on drying time or how long it goes without chipping. I’ll do a full mani with this soon and I’ll edit the post later to let you know how it works out. So on this photo there’s only two coats of polish with no base or topcoat. It was photographed wet.

Once again my picture don’t do justice to the polish and I think IRL you can see the hint of purple much better than on my photo. My camera refuses to photograph shades like this correctly. I really need a new cam :(

 

Lumene Natural Code – 9 Live It Up

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This was my New Years mani, a mini nail polish from a Finnish brand Lumene Natural Code shade 9 Live It Up. Beautiful turquoise-light blue polish with a lot of silver micro-glitter. Perfect shade for a cold and sunny winter day. I think I’m gonna wear this a few more times this winter, such a nice and fresh color.

Live It Up is quite sheer and even after three coats I still had a visible nail line. Application was pretty good and it dried fast. Removal was a bit slow cos of the micro-glitter but not nearly as bad as glitter polishes usually are. In this mani I used: OPI Nail Envy Soft & Thin x1, Live It Up x3 and Seche Vite on top.

Since this is a Finnish brand I have no idea if you can buy this outside of Finland.

 

China Glaze – Pink Underground

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This is China Glaze Pink Underground from Operation: Colour collection. Lovely Barbie pink is muted enough to not look tacky on this dark time of the year here in Finland. This polish has a fine pink shimmer that is only noticeable in sunlight or under a very bright light. You could even mistake this shade for a creme polish.

This is a perfect pink shade for a year-round use. I haven’t been a big fan of pinks before and this is a good shade to encourage me to try out brighter pinks much more often that I’ve done lately.

Pink Underground was quite thick in the bottle but the application wasn’t that bad. This manicure is two coats of color polish but I think it could’ve used three. This mani stayed perfect for three days. I used: Nail Tek Intensive Therapy II x2, Pink Underground x2 and Seche Vite dry fast top coat.

I have decided to add a watermark on my photos from now on. As far as I know, my photos haven’t been used without permission yet, but I’d like to do what I can to prevent this from happening in the future. I hope it doesn’t bother you guys too much :)

 

China Glaze – Blue Paradise

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My hands felt so nekkid after the last, almost nude manicure that I decided to use a darker polish once again. This is one of my Christmas gifts, Blue Paradise from China Glaze Bahama Blues collection.

It’s a very shiny and shimmery blue. Very pretty but nothing too spectacular or unique. Either way it’s colorful and shiny enough to work as an accessory so I will be using it again in the future, no doubt about that.

Blue Paradise was a bit on the thick side. It was fully opaque with two coats, even one coat might have been enough but I prefer to use at least two either way. In this manicure I used Nail Tek II x2 as a basecoat, Blue Paradise x2 and the topcoat is Seche Vite once again.

 

NOTD

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Lately my manicures have been dark or quite colorful and this time I felt like having an almost nude manicure. Today I chose to use Sally Hansen Diamond Strength No Chip Nail Color nail polish shade 02 Fairy Tale Ivory. Beautiful peachy-beige nail polish with a lot of silvery micro-glitter, in bright sunlight the glitter can also look multi-colored. This is a very shiny polish and the fine glitter gives an elegant feeling to it (my photo doesn’t do justice to this beautiful nail polish).

This is a very sheer nail polish and instead of color it only gives a sparkly glow to your nails. As beautiful as this nail polish is it still left my hands feeling and looking naked. From now on I’m only going to use this as a topcoat on top of darker polishes. This one gives dark polishes wonderful sparkle and instantly revives your old mani.

Fairy Tale Ivory is quite thin, applies well and dries fast. In this mani I used: OPI Nail Envy Soft & Thin x2 as a basecoat, Fairy Tale Ivory x2 and topcoat is Seche Vite.

 

China Glaze – Revolution

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Here we go with the red again. I just love red nail polish and this one is going to help me find my lost Holidays mood. This polish is Revolution and it’s also from China Glaze Operation: Colour collection.

Lovely, bright red creme polish is perfect for one of my Christmas manicures. Looking at the bottle I expected this one to be even brighter red, but like Code Orange this seems to be a little muted too. Perfect for the season and actually quite sophisticated looking red. I added two rhinestones on the ring fingers to add a little more festive feeling to this mani.

Revolution was quite thin and applied like butter. Was also almost opaque with two coats, some might want to add a third one though. This one also dried pretty quickly using Seche Vite. Rhinestones are from Kiss Rhinestone Accents package that holds 70 stones.

Update to my nail tear drama. The nail is still in one piece and I haven’t added the gel on top of it yet. I went to get some nail glue and applied that to the tear. It’s been holding on for about 24 hours now and I hope to be able to go on this way for a while to grow out the tear. The LCN Nail Repair Film i tried first was completely useless in this case.

 

China Glaze – Code Orange

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This is China Glaze Code Orange from their Operation: Colour collection.

Not a very Holiday Season color (unless it’s Halloween or Thanksgiving), but I needed something to sheer myself up a little bit. I’m having a slight nail breakage tragedy going on here. My right hand’s index finger nail has started to tear and is about to break off completely. I went to buy some Nail Repair Film (LCN), but I don’t know if it’s gonna help any at this point. If the situation gets worse I’m probably gonna pay my friend a visit at her Nail salon and have her put a gel on it to keep it from breaking more.

And let’s get to the point… Code Orange is a lovely muted orange with pink shimmer. I love love love this color! I find it very unique and I think it’s one of those colors you either love or hate from the bottom of your heart.

Application wasn’t the smoothest possible but not the worst either. Dried quickly with Seche Vite and two coats was enough for opaque result. In the photo: Nail Tek II x2, Code Orange x2 ja Seche Vite.

To get back to the horror that is my nail breaking, you guys wouldn’t happen to have any great tips on how to fix a tear on your nail?

 

NOTD

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This is Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine Nail Color 02 Luminous. Beautiful spicy red that I bought from Walgreens (USA) earlier this year cos it was a perfect match for my red satin pumps ;) I was feeling a little Christmassy and wanted to try something that would be perfect for the season and Luminous sure did the job for me.

This was quite thin and the application was smooth. Dried pretty quickly with a little help from Seche Vite. I really love this vibrant red shade. Perfect red nail polish!

In the pic: Nail Tek II x2, Luminous x2 and Seche Vite on top. Fully opaque with two coats.

 

L’Oréal Star Magnet – Magnetic Silver – Part II

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I will write this one in English also cos I know many of you come here to see pictures of this Magnetic nail polish. This is the same Magnetic Silver shade as in my older post. When I posted that I promised to take better pics later on and here goes.

 

In this manicure I used two coats of Magnetic Silver on top of the base coat (I used two coats of Nail Tek II Intensive Therapy as a base coat). I applied one very thin coat of the magnetic polish and let it dry completely. After that I applied the second coat one nail at a time and used the magnet to form the star. This is very easy to do and doesn’t take much time. After I got the second coat and the star on every nail done, I applied Seche Vite to dry the manicure. Even with Seche Vite this polish takes a while to dry.

So in this manicure I used: Nail Tek II x2, Magnetic Silver x2 and Seche Vite. Unfortunately Seche Vite is so shiny that it made the stars hard to photograph.

 

Color of this polish is very beautiful even without the stars and I wanted to photograph that for you too. I did this on top of manicure on the first pic so I just applied one layer of polish to cover the stars and used the magnet to get a new and fresh looking star on my ring finger. Personally I like this style more. It shows the beautiful shade better and looks more pleasing to my eye.

Which style do you prefer?