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.