Pupa Lasting Color Gel 054 review

By now you all know about Pupa's special offer: become a fan of them on fb and download a coupon to get a Lasting Color Gel polish for just 1 euro. If you invite a friend you can also get a Vamp product for 5 euros, but I wans't interested in that, so I sticked to the polish. I had also received bad reviews of a polish of this line, so I was quite glad of this occasion to get one, since I would've never bought one at full price.

The color is great, a cobalt blue with a hint of indigo: it's like the polish version of Sephora's Azur Blue pencil. The finish is a nice, shiny creme, with a nice glass effect as advertised.
It has a big brush that makes application easier and less streaky (still wasn't very easy, but with a small brush it would have been a mess). I wish Pupa used such a brush in all its polishes.
I don't care about it that much, but keep in mind that it smells badly when you apply it (dried it has no smell).
I've worn it for a day, so I can't tell you much about duration yet.
I can however tell that so far I like it, I'm going to add some nail art soon.

Would I recommend it? Not at full price, the color range is nothing to die for. Otherwise, go for it.

Autumn supplies

It's raining! Looks like autumn finally is here! And I'm taking this chance to show you some new nice things, and celebrate the end of my exams!

I always carry with me a notebook to write ideas for my script and stories, and my old one is more than finished. I am really a pain in the neck when it comes to my personal notebook, I have to "feel" that it's the right one. This one passed the test! At Feltrinelli there's an entire official collection of products (notebooks, planners...) with Alphonse Mucha's prints. This one, the Zodiac, as always been one of my favourite.
The peacock glass bowl comes from Zara Home. I'm using it for my single eyeshadows so far, and it's incredibly beautiful.

Now, to the lipsticks! Artificial light makes the color a bit different, 'm sorry.
The first one is from the Rimmel By Kate line, the shade is 111 The Kiss of Life. It's a classic matte red with cold undertones ( a bit à la Lady Danger). A great color, very exaggerate. Dries the lips a bit.
The second one is actually a dark plum color (thanks flash and artificial light *facepalm*) from Deborah, part of the 24 Hours Power extreme long lasting lipstick series, shade 10.The finish is advertised as demi-matte, but on the lips it seems full matte: it's just a bit more metallic. The positive thing? it dries the lips significantly less. It's also very buildable, so if you're not a bold lipstick person, this could be a good choice, since its intensity varies a lot according to the number of layers.
P.S. Yeah, I'm in a lipstick mood... and I had those two for cheap, the first one for little more than 2 euros thanks to a 5 euro discount coupon and the second one for 3 euro in a Deborah brand store in the sales section.

Rainbow Challenge day 2, Orange nails

And today, orange nails! Kiko 356 is the orange, Pupa 209 the black and 203 Kiko the white. Over them, a cot of Essence's matte top coat.
The inspiration for this is the flag of the fictional land of Cresezia, created by my boyfriend. Plus, I love those colors and the geometry they create. It's simple yet stunning. And I love matte nails, I can't help.

Pupa 620 Lucky Red

Instead of showing you what i bought with the Pupa promotion (my 1 euro polish), or of doing my rainbow challenge organge nails...I'll show you this old polish, from the old China Doll LE.
I was going to do the orange nails, but I had forgotten one of the colors I needed at home.
So I put on my favourite red nail polish evah: Pupa 620 Lucky Red. Excuse the tipwear, I had been wearing this for 3 days, and no topcoat.
Here it seems almost christmas red, but the red is more...neutral irl, not too cold, not too warm. I think it looks great on every skintone. Let's face it, it's a great shade of red, that really is reminiscent of China: you know, those varnished little boxes...the dresses...

This is my femme fatale red,  the most seducing red I own. I still remember the happiness of the moment when I first tried it..

Pupa Iridescent Nail Polish 001 & 002- Cosmic Beauty LE review

I picked those two beauties at La Gardenia, where they offer a 40% discount on the second product you buy of the same or lower price. Also, those polishes cost 3.50 euros each, so I ended up paying little more than 5 euros for two polishes: not bad, if you consider that the recommended retail price for those is 5.95 euros on the Pupa website..

I was sure I was going to love 002 Iridescent Blue, but I ended up loving 001 Iridescent Silver more.

002 is surely beautiful: a duochrome that goes from blue to violet/purple. The color is intense, really reminiscent of galaxies. 001, however, is stunning: a multichrome with a silver base that shifts from light oilive green to purple. If you look at it very closely it looks like it has micro-holographic particles or something like that (002 has them, but they're less visible). This is Catrice's Iron Mermaiden as it should have been. It's going to make a great F/W polish. It can also be an office-friendly ladylike shade. So if you should buy just one, I'd say buy 001, and this is really weird from me, because peacock-like colors like 002 are usually a must have for me.

Now, to the problems: application is meh. Used to the flawless application and formula of last year's fall LE (remember, the China Doll one?) polishes, I was a bit disappointed by those. 002, especially: the formula is thick and dense, and the brush seemed unable to carry enough color to cover the nail fully, resulting in a streaky effect and zones of your nails where the color didn't apply just right. I was using a basecoat, my trusty Essence one. Make sure you file your nails and hide the lines on them, those colors make them super visible.
The coverage could be better, I was expecting them to be one coaters, but they're not. Still better than Catrice's Iron Mermaiden.
The formula of 001 is slightly better than 002. I wonder if I had an unlucky bottle (that had been opened before) or that's the standard for the line.
I can't wait to try stamping on/with them.

Would I recommend them?
001 for sure, 002 I'm not sure. It really saddens me to say so, because they look very pretty in the bottles and really have a galaxy/cyber effect. This depends on you, wheter if you are ready to forgive a not so great application for a pretty color. If you can get them for a lower price than 5 euros, they're worth a try.

Wjcon Sugar Effect 804

One thing has to be said about Wjcon: they took the sand effect trend very seriously. They sand-ified everything, from glittery to neon colors. The one that caught my eye is this black/gunmetal with light blue microglitter. In the bottle the glitters shifted from blue form purple, but sadly the purple is almost invisible on the nail (under artificial light is slightly more visible).
It's a really great color, I've never seen anything like this before. Three coats and very fast drying.
Very stunning, the effect is gritty and urban-like. The blue glitters are very visible.
I can't stop staring at my nails!

Vote: A- (if it had had duochrome glitters as in the bottle it would have been epic.)

Rainbow Challenge day 1, red nails: Pizza nails!

I decided to do the rainbow challenge, since I wanted a quick challenge that might be fun. I'll try to post this as regular as I can..I already have some nice ideas.

And monday evening, eating pizza for the second time in 2 days I thought of something really beautiful that also happens to be red. Pizza!
This was ridiculously fun to make. The red is Deborah 13, the white is Kiko 203, the green is Kiko 296.
Let me know what you think!

Nymphaea Nail Art

A few days ago I was at the park looking at the lake: I had seen something on the surface of the water and thought there were nymphaeas, but alas, they were only dead leaves.
I also thought that a nymphaea nail art would have been fun and easy, so I tried! It looked way better in my mind but who cares, it's still eye-catching and funny.

 I used Essence Life is a Freeride as base color, did the leaves with Kiko 296 and the flowers with Kiko 356, 375 and 203. The top coat is Essence Quick Dry top coat.

Astra Holographic Nail Lacquer 707

Today I was at the market and found a display with Astra nail polishes. I asked for the holos, and found them! There was a pink, a grass green, an emerald green and a violet. I bought the emerald green one and the pink one.
The formula is great, and so is the brush. It dries very quickly too. The holo effect is more visible under direct light, and it's very beautiful, and so is the color. Definitely recommended.

Vote: A

Strawberry, vanilla & chocolate nails

You caught me: when I don't post nail art for a while it's because I'm not 100% satisfied with the results. This one isn't a masterpiece either, but I still find it cute.

You can either imagine it as chocolate dripped over vanilla or strawberry cream, or vice versa.
I used Max Factor Mellow Yellow (urgh, what a bad formula), Essence Very Cherry, Essence Tip Painter in pink (the one from the Tribal Summer LE) and an old unnamed brown I had at home. All covered in Essence's matte top coat. Actually the pink flakies on Very Cherry are above the top coat, as if on cake icing.

Kiko Infinity Eyeshadow Clics System Swatches

I went to a Kiko store and tried some of the new Infinity Eyeshadows for the Clics System.
I mostly tried a few mattes and a couple of the glittery ones (and in order not to forget the numbers, I wrote them with a kajal tester.. excuse the horrible writing, I wrote with my left hand and I'm righthanded...). The colors are much more pigmented irl.

So, from the left:
207 Papaya Orange: a matte orange with cold undertones, colder than Neve Cosmetic's Magma, but still pretty. Almost blood-like.
262 Green & 263 Forest Green: You can see the 263 barely because I swatched it just to compare it with 262, a much warmer green. 263 is identical to 109 of the standard line.
275 Electric Blue: A nice matte blue, way more electric and pigmented irl. Not as strong as I'd love.
273 Sky Blue: Literally the color of the sky, very nice.

408 Light blue: A peacock blue, I swatched it because it was almost a duochrome.
403 Pink: a duochrome with cold, violet/light blue hues. 
This line of special glittery eyeshadow is so much better irl! If you can, go and give a look at them! Unfortunately I think they will have a great fallout, you'd need to wear them wet.

Overall they are nicely pigmented and the quality seems good. The color assortments is very pretty to see in the stores, the website doesn't do justice to it. I like the fact that they included a lot of matte colors, but
the prices seem a bit high if you count that they're not lipsafe. The prices are similar to Neve Cosmetics single eyeshadows, but the Neve ones are at least lipsafe. The empty palettes seem quite useful.