Corset nails

I have two holo polishes to try, an Essence glitter topper from the february collection and the famous Fantasy Fire by Max Factor (found it quite easily and cheap, I had no idea it was so rare)... and yet I had to try this design I had in mind for a while. It reminds me of a corset I saw on Dita Von Teese once.
It would probably be nicer with stamping, but I only have two stamping plates by essence and neither of them had the right design for this, so I drew the flowers freehanded with my faithful Kiko nail art brush.
The base color is Kiko 226, I would have liked a lighter color but I don't have many reds (4 of them, and no one of them was the right shade, first world problems) It's a beautiful polish, I kinda regret I didn't take photos before applying matte top coat because it's simple yet perfect.
After the matte top coat I drew the flowers with kiko 704 (black). On the ring finger i also used Nude Dude from H&M for the skin and tried to recreate laces, not easy.
It' hard to capture the effect of this mani on photo. If I had a matte polish (that I don't have, I always thought "what's the point, with the topcoat I can mattify everything") I would have left the base polish shiny and added details in matte black. The more you know!

Holo haul

Surprise! Another post! I did some shopping at Kiko.
 If you say that you can resist sales, you're lying!

 I went to Kiko with my sister and bought the Sensuous Burgundy eyeshadow palette from the fall collection, that you see in the lower pic and my first holo polish, the 399, a beautiful taupe. My sister tried it and decided she wanted the darker one, a sort of dark grey /gunmetal shade. This morning I went back to Kiko..and bought one for myself too! There were just 2 left, that's a sign of destiny! I can't wait to try them... but I sorta want to keep the taupe one for Valentine's day.

And look at the palette isn't it pretty? Those are my daily colors... can't wait to try this one.

Matte and more

How about a double post? Let's start with kiko 320 with pupa 810 on the moons (plus one accent nail). I was in the right mood for matte and really like the final effect. Relaxing and nice, almost art deco-ish.

And, bonus pic! I already showed you H&M's peacock green on the new year's eve skittle mani, but I wanted to have it on all my nails, because it's such an amazing color! I'm very happy of it, definitely recommended.

Anomaly Nails + mini haul

I missed the time when I did something more than just apply nail polish on my nails, so I decided to try something more elaborate. My inspiration comes from a videogame, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadow of Chernobyl, set in the Chernobyl exclusion zone with radioactivity, monsters and misterious artifacts. The game takes inspiration from one of my favourite novels, Roadside Picnic, and from the movie Stalker.
But, onwards to the nails, or I could just talk about this for ages.
The radiation symbol needs no explanation, and the biohazard one was done as a challenge to see if I could draw something so intricate without my favourite nail art brush on my smallest nail, and I'm quite satisfied of the result. The ring finger hosts a caviar mani: it was a weird feeling to have those really small beads on the nail, but not bad. Unfortunately it's not much long lasting, after 2 or 3 days the beads were all gone. Perhaps I should have pressed them on the fresh coat of polish more, who knows, I'll try it again sometime.
I wasn't much happy of the black polish that came with the caviar mani kit because of the brush, that imho was a bit too small... but the brush of the yellow polish by Essence was really big and perfect (also a good polish, one coat would have been enough).

Products used: Pupa Bubbles Manicure kit in black, Essence 118 Little Miss Sunshine, Super Red by H&M, Kiko Rock Top 612 (you can barely see it, sigh), Essence nail art soft touch (matte top coat), Essence quick dry topcoat.

 I've read good reviews of the Limoni store brand polishes, but never tried them. So yesterday I was in front of a Limoni store and decided to see if there was something interesting. And so it was! There is a special offer, 3 polishes for 4.99 (one polish is 3.99) so I realized it was sign of destiny and I had to try them. The first one I noticed is the shimmery blue one, that according to the light varies greatly, and you can see its violet hues under the right light... I'm trying this today for a gradient mani!
The other ones are a very light shimmer silver and a beautiful shade of red.. I've already planned something for those two...

Review: Take a Ride on Pegasus by Essence

I interrupt the holiday gifts posts to show you Essence's Take a Ride on Pegasus from the Fantasia collection. I went to the store to buy a yellow polish, but in the end I had to buy this too. The color, a sort of of coral pink/burgundy, and the blue and greenish shades were familiar, and I later realized they were the same of a very old eyeshadow pencil I had when I was a teenager and used to color drawings on black paper.

When I tried this polish I was at my parents' and without basecoat and standard topcoat, so I used a coat of Prismatic Effects topcoat by Catrice, that enhanced the blue shade but hid the green ones a bit, which is a pity. Although the shade of this polish is nice, I am a bit disappointed by his duration. Three coats without basecoat and topcoat and on the second day, well, look at my index. And that's when I tried to repair the damage and put the aforementioned top coat. I wonder how it would look with a matte top coat.

Vote: between B and C. Buy it only if you like the shade and use lots of topcoat.

Christmas gifts review part 2

This is actually a double review!
The second nail polish I received for Christmas was OPI The Living Daylights, from the James Bond special collection. It's also my first OPI polish!
The glitters are copper, gold, green and silver, and they're very big. The brush catches lots of glitters, this is just one coat. I wanted to see how it looked on different colors so I did this skittle mani with a nice nail polish set purchased at H&M.
The H&M polishes are Golden Days, Nude Dude, Peacock Green and Purple Potion. The black you see it's actually a beautiful gunmetal shade from Kiko, the 382.
The Living Daylights looks amazing on gunmetal, grey and, surprisingly, on purple. Ok, fine, it looks nice on every color. I can't say the same for the H&M polishes, their colors are great (I'm in love with Peacock Green) but they aren't really long lasting, after a couple of days, well you can see what happened on the Nude Dude finger. And that's a pity because it's a beautiful nude.
In the H&M set there were two more glitter polishes that I haven't tried yet.

So, the OPI polish isn't what I'd call a must have but it's fun, and it made a perfect New Year's Eve mani. Unfortunately, as many glitter polishes, it's a pain in the neck to remove.
The H&M polishes make a good gift (the packaging, man, a beauiful but simple golden box with a peacock, who's not to love that) and the color are very well selected. Plus, it's cheap,  around 7 euros for 6 polishes. I wish they lasted for more days but, alas, you can't have everything.