NYC - Greenwich Goddess

Hi guys! Today I have for you an interesting nailpolish that I bought when I was shopping by myself one day. I hadn't planned on buying any polish that day, but I randomly came across this one and it caught my eye. I ended up liking it a lot more than I originally anticipated, which is always a nice surprise!

I'm talking about Greenwich Goddess by NYC. They don't sell this brand at the drugstore in my town anymore, which is a real shame, because they have some really great polishes in their product line. Their black creme, for example, is amazing and I've used up three bottles of it so far, and still have two bottles of it in my collection.

This nail polish is a white creme with black hexagonal glitter in two sizes. There were a number of similar ones (one was light blue with black glitter, for example) but the white was my favourite. And it really is quite nice. Look how pretty it is!

The formula is really great! I used two coats that applied on very smoothly. I had to dab my brush on my nails a few times to get a more even glitter placement, but that is pretty normal for polishes with big glitter, and it didn't cause any problems. I really, really liked how this looked on me so I actually ended up wearing it for 5 days before taking it off. By then, I only had a few minor chips at the tips, which is very good for such a cheap nail polish. I love it, and I will definitely be wearing it more often.

OPI - Midnight In Moscow... I'm back!

Hellooo everyone! It has been a while, hasn't it? It's been almost two years since I silently left, and I'm sorry for that. Life got in the way, and things happened that made me very demotivated to paint my nails or blog about it. Sure, I would wear nail polish, but I'd just slap a colour on and not care about it any further than that. But a few months ago, I started slowly regaining interest, and after lurking around on other nail polish blogs I decided that maybe it was time to come back. So here I am!

I'm not going to bore you with a wall of text any further, I will just go straight to showing you one of my favourite new nail polishes. :) A while ago, a local drug store me had an awesome deal: OPI polishes for only €6,- each! I couldn't let this offer pass. I don't have a lot of money to spend, so OPI nail polishes are kind of a luxury for me. I owned a few before this, so I knew they were pretty awesome.

I ended up buying three colours - mostly because they only had 5 different ones (really?) - and today I will be showing you my favourite one.

This is Midnight In Moscow, which is a perfect vampy nail polish. It has a very dark brown base and it's full of red shimmer. From a distance it looks like dark brown, sometimes even black. But in the right lighting the beautiful shimmer is visible, so you can see the depth it has. Very pretty! I love colours like this, I don't think I'll ever have enough vampy colours in my collection. This polish in particular looked very nice with my skin tone.

I used two coats to make it opaque and the application was very smooth, so no comments there. I'm not sure how great the wear is, though; I wore it for two days without chips and then I took it off. If it's anything like my other OPI nail polishes, it can probably last a while longer than that.

Hope you enjoyed this blog post. I'm excited to start posting again, I hope you are too!

Essence Sparkle Sand Effect - Hey, Nude!

Hey guys!

A while ago I posted about Essence's attempt at a 'rough' polish. I thought it was going to be a textured polish like the Liquid Sands we all know but I was slightly disappointed when I found out that wasn't the case. I've been dying to try out a textured polish but I haven't been able to get my hands on one yet.

Well, Essence recently came with actual textured polishes! I was very excited to try them so I picked them up. They come in three different colours and today I'll be showing you the nude variant.

Essence Hey, Nude! Is the Sparkle Sand Effect in an elegant nude colour. The base is a very light pink with silver shimmer and a few different sizes of silver glitter in it. As you can see, there is some VNL. It didn't bother me on my short nails so it's up to you if you like it or not. 

In the picture I'm wearing three layers, and let me tell you... if you are in a hurry and have to do your nails quickly, this is possibly the WORST polish to pick at that moment.My first attempt at swatching this polish failed horribly because every coat takes ages to dry. I probably waited 15~20 minutes for each coat to dry, and even then it stayed squishy on my nails and I got dents everywhere. :( It may just be this colour though, because I tried one of the other Sparkle Sands and it was absolutely fine.

If you have all the time in the world and don't mind having to wait a long time for your nails to try... this is a very pretty polish to have. I think it looked very elegant on my little nubs. I can't say anything about the wear though, because I took it off after a few hours... very, very disappointing.

Delia Coral Prosilk 411

Has anyone of you heard of the brand Delia before? I know I hadn't heard of it anywhere until my mom brought some of these polishes home for me one day. Last week, I finally decided to try out one of them.

This is Delia Coral Prosilk 411. All three of the colours I have by this brand are matte cremes, and this is the red one. In my pictures it almost looks neon. While it is a very bright red with an orange tint, it's definitely not that! I'm always a bit hesitant with unknown brands because I don't know what to expect from the quality. So, how is it?

Pretty good, actually. I'm wearing two coats for full opacity, and the formula was a bit on the thick side but it wasn't hard to apply. Only minimal cleanup was needed.

This is a really cool colour! I liked the way it looked on my nails. It stayed on for three days without chipping, which I thought was pretty impressive as well.

Since I didn't buy these myself, I don't know where these are normally sold. But if you ever run into them, judging from this colour's quality, I'd say it wouldn't hurt to try it out. Would you guys be interested in seeing the other two colours as well?

Essence - Mashed Berries

Hey guys! Today I have a really awesome nail polish to show you that reminds me of summer and smoothies. It was actually part of a collection from last year, but that doesn't make me love it any less now.

This is Essence Mashed Berries, which was obtainable from their Fruity collection from last year. There were three different polishes that looked similar to this one, but this is my favourite. They unfortunately have no names on the bottles, but I do know that this one is named Mashed Berries.

It's a very sweet pink creme with purple glitter in it. Because the glitter is tiny and dark, the polish totally resembles a smoothie. It looks delicious! It's not that noticable in my pictures, but the glitter does sparkle, you just need to be looking at it from the right angle. 

I used three thin coats for full opacity and I had no problems applying it. I'm very happy with this polish. It makes me want to eat my nails. :D

Essence Floral Grunge - Black To The Roots

Hey everyone! I already showed you Madly Purpled, the matte polish of Essence's Floral Grunge collection, and today I'll be showing you the other polish I got.

This is Black To The Roots. It is called 'The Rough' one of this collection which is why I was very curious about it. With all the hype around textured polishes nowadays I thought that this might be Essence's version of the trend.

And it is. Sort of! Black To The Roots is a dark gray base with gritty silver glitter in it. This is definitely not a textured polish like the Liquid Sand collection for example. But there is texture in it, as you can see in the pictures. The base dries up with a sort of matte, almost rubbery finish, while the glitter leaves a gritty texture. I'm not sure if I like it or not, but it is definitely interesting.

The application was pretty bad. The formula is kind of weird and streaky, making it difficult to paint even coats. I used two coats for full opacity and no top coat to show off the grittiness. I definitely like Madly Purpled a lot more!

What do you think of this polish?

Wet 'n Wild - Back Alley Deals

Today's polish is one of my overall personal favourites. This was actually the first one I ever ordered off the internet - I just HAD to have it after seeing swatches from All You Desire a long time ago.

I mean, just look at it, because it screams 'me'. Purple, pink, AND glitter? That's definitely a Tess-polish. I love it. :')

This is Wet 'n Wild Back Alley Deals. An absolutely gorgeous glitter polish. It has a clear base that is packed with very small purple glitter, and slightly larger round pink glitter.

The glitter is very dense and it could be worn on it's own. But if you have this polish, please don't, because it looks even better if layered over a dark creme. Plus, you use less polish, so you can wear it more often. ;) Here I have one coat layered over Revlon Plum Night, a simple dark purple.

It does dry up rather gritty and dull. Even though that works really well for this polish, I prefer to use two layers of topcoat to make it shiny and sparkly. The formula for this polish is great! Even now it's starting to thicken a bit it was very easy to apply, and because the glitter is so dense you generally get an even amount of purple and pink everywhere.

For reference - this is a picture without topcoat. Still very pretty! Sometimes I wear it like this as well.

Essence Floral Grunge - Madly Purpled

 Hey guys! Today I have a nail polish from the Essence Floral Grunge collection. I bought two polishes from this collection, a matte and a 'textured' one. I'll be writing about the matte today.

This is Madly Purpled. It's decribed as 'the matt'. Matt? I've never seen it spelled like that. Maybe it was an intentional mistake? Stuff like that bothers me! :P Anyway, this polish is quite pretty. It's a pretty dark and gray-ish lavender which makes it, in my opinion, a very classy colour. I really liked the way it looked with my skin tone. It also has a nice subtle silver shimmer.

As you can see however, it can't really be classified as a 'true' matte nail polish. I'd say it dries up to more of a suede finish. If you don't like that, you can slap a topcoat on top of it and you'll have a pretty shiny lavender with noticable shimmer. I actually liked it like this.

The formula was good too. I used two coats and I had no problems applying it!

What do you think of this polish? 

Art De Lautrec 04B

Guys, it has happened again. I fell in love with another nail polish.

Today's polish is one by a brand that seems to be fairly unknown! I had heard of the name Art De Lautrec before and I was pretty curious about their nail polishes. So when I found them for sale at a Christmas Fair I visited back in december I got myself this one.

This beauty is 04B (I wish they had nice names!). It has a blackened base that is absolutely packed with gorgeous and very sparkly holo glitter. How pretty is that? I keep looking at my nails! 

I have painted one coat of it over Essence Black Is Back. It's apparently possible to wear it on it's own, but I haven't done that for reasons listed below.

So, I have one problem with this polish. My bottle has a very weird formula. It feels really gloopy and thick even though it's not that hard to apply. It is, however, impossible to paint thin layers with this one which is why I decided to layer it over a black creme. I do think this is just my bottle, so if you ever want to try it out, no worries! I probably just got unlucky. :)

It dries up a bit dull, but one coat of topcoat was enough to make it super sparkly. And despite the thick coat I had to use, it dried up very fast and looks very smooth and shiny!

I have never seen Zoya Storm with my own eyes, but if I look at the swatches of it, 04B looks like it could be a dupe.

What do you think of this polish? And are you familar with Art De Lautrec?

Teeez - Gutsy 04

Today I have swatches of a polish by a brand that I am very unfamiliar with. The brand Teeez is sold by several places around here but the price is a bit higher than I'm comfortable with. A long time ago I decided to buy one of their polishes and it turned out to be quite nice.

This is Gutsy 04. It's pretty hard to describe this colour, but I'll give it a shot. I think of this as a dark base with multicoloured shimmer. It seems to have red, copper, and silver, giving this polish a very metallic and 'rusty' look. It's unique in my collection, that's for sure. I personally like it a lot!

The bottle reminds me a lot of Catrice, apart from the cap, which has a snake print on it. Awesome.

The formula was a bit thick, but I'm guessing that's because I've had this polish for quite a long time now. Apart from that I had no problems applying it and it needed two coats for full coverage.

Are you familiar with this brand?

Essence - Miss Universe

Hey everyone! Geez, it's may already. Time is going so fast. Today I'm showing you another nail polish by Essence and I believe this one has been pretty popular recently. I also got it as a gift from my boyfriend, so I thought today would be a good day to post this, since it's his birthday today!

Miss Universe is gorgeous! It has a dark base, full with blue and green shimmer. The blue is much more noticable, however. In the bottle it looks like a duochrome, but don't let that fool you - it really isn't. That doesn't make it any less pretty though... look at that depth!They picked out a good name for this one, because it's like staring into space and seeing pretty tiny stars everywhere.

And the formula? Well, they could have done better. I was surprised at how sheer this polish was, and I was worried when I painted on my first coat. It needed three coats to be opaque and I wasn't a big fan of the formula in combination with the wide brush Essence uses nowadays. Despite that, I love it very much and I am very glad to have it in my stash.

Essie - Escapades with a simple accent

The weather here has been very nice recently! It's finally warming up and I'm really enjoying it. Time to wear bright nail polish! Today I have an awesome bright red by Essie to show you guys.

I love this colour! Escapades is a very pretty red creme that is not quite as bright as the above picture, but it's a great shade for summer that really pops. I chose to wear this colour because I wanted to do something with some nail glitter I got as a gift a few months ago, specifically the hollowed out silver hearts, because I figured it would go well together.

And I think it came out cute! I originally planned to use just one heart, but then I found some smaller pieces hidden in between the heart glitter and I like this much better. The glitter stayed on my nails surprisingly well, though I did add an extra layer of top coat.

I also had no problems applying Escapades. The formula is a bit thin but it's easy to control and I only needed two coats for full opacity. It stayed on my nails for about 4/5 days before it started chipping, which is great. :) All in all, a lovely polish and a nice addition to my stash.

Essence - Modern Romance

Hello there! So, my computer stopped working for a few days which completely threw me off my posting schedule for a short while. Sorry about that! Though, my new gametime for World of Warcraft is also partially to blame... um... oops. :)

Anyway, today I am showing you another Essence polish from their Colour & Go line!

Modern Romance is a really cutesy peachy nude colour. I'll say it right away - the pictures show the colour much brighter than it is. I couldn't get it right for some reason! It's a pretty soft colour that shows a subtle pink shimmer in the bottle. Unfortunately, this does not translate to the nail very much, which was slightly disappointing for me.

I'm also not happy with the formula. It was very hard to paint neat, thin layers with it and even after three coats I was still seeing bald spots on my nails. :( The colour is very nice, but bald spots bother me so much! I'm honestly quite disappointed by this polish, which is a shame because I do really like the colour.

I have said this before, but Essence's nail polishes are often a hit or a miss. While I love the brand, this one was a miss for me.

Essence - Grey-t To Be Here

Hi guys!

Enjoying your weekend? I am! Today's post will be rather short but I am showing you an Essence polish from their Colour & Go line that I like very much.

Grey-t To Be Here is a light gray polish with a subtle but noticable pink shimmer in it. I am not one to wear gray polishes, but the shimmer in this is a really great touch, and makes this a really pretty polish. I'm very glad I bought this!

I'm not sure how well it works with my skintone, but I like how neutral it is.

The formula of this polish is fine. It covered in two coats and I did not have any issues with the application, so all in all I am quite happy with this polish and it's a perfect shade to wear for when I don't feel like doing anything flashy with my nails.

Nino Mont - 154

A while back I showed you one of the two Nino Mont polishes my boyfriend got me on his holiday to Spain.  Today I'm finally going to show you the other one!

While 142 is my favourite out of the two, this is a beauty as well. I love royal blue polishes, because it's such a great colour, but also because I love anything 'TARDIS blue'. The Doctor Who fan in me definitely approves of this nail polish. 154 is a royal blue polish with gorgeous shimmer. I keep finding myself looking at my nails when wearing it.

I also think it works with my skin tone! Don't you?

Applying 154 was a breeze. I must say the formula is pretty much perfect to me. It covered in two coats and because it was so easy to apply neatly, I barely needed any cleanup. No comments there, other than that it's amazing, and a lot better than some of the better known brands out there.

If the durability is anything like 142, I will be able to wear this for at least 4 days without chips. I can't say anything about that yet, though! I'll have to try it out.

What do you think of this nail polish? Have you ever heard of Nino Mont, and/or do you own any polishes by them? I personally wish I had more.

Essence - Boho Chic

Say there's a nail polish you have been having doubts about, but you buy it anyway, and you end up loving it? Isn't that a great feeling? I love it when it happens to me, and I wish had happened with the polish I'm showing you today. :(

Boho Chic is a very interesting shade that attracted me because of the flakies in it. I've never seen a polish quite like it before, and on the swatched I'd seen it looked very pretty. But when I stood in the drug store with the bottle in my hand I had my doubts about it. This is not the type of colour I would usually wear, so I put it back in it's place. Several weeks later it was for sale with a big discount, so... why not?

It's a peachy orange colour, and a special nail polish because of the orange/golden shimmer and flakies in it. uit looks very interesting, and I love flakies, but I just didn't like the look of these. Plus, the orange tone is not  very flattering for my skin tone. Too bad!

As for application, there is nothing wrong with this polish. It applied nicely, so no comments there. I used two coats for the pictures, but it could have used another thin coat to get rid of VNL. Maybe I'll end up giving this polish away to someone who would appreciate it more, because I doubt I'll be wearing it again.

Catrice - Steel My Heart

Hello again, followers! If you have been following me for a while you might know I have shown you one of the Catrice Brushed Metal Effects before: Steel My Soul, the lighter shade. Today I will be showing swatches of the darker shade, which turned out to be my favourite.

I'll admit it. I'm not a fan of matte or satin polishes, and while it can look very pretty, it's just not for me. I was hesitan about buying these, but they looked pretty in the bottle and I figured they'd look nice with a top coat. Well, when I put Steel My Heart on my nails I was instantly in love. It's unlike anything else I have in my stash.

It's a very dark brown/purple taupe colour with a lot of tiny, multicoloured sparkles that make it a very unique polish to me.

A close up shot. The blue sparkles are so pretty!

As for the formula, it was a bit thick but it was very easy to apply and I had no issues with it. It needed two coats to be opaque, and since I enjoyed the matte/satin finish a lot I did not add a topcoat.

Essie - Mod Squad

Hello everyone! Since it has been ages since my last nail post, I thought it would be a good idea to start off with a polish of my favourite brand. Today I'll be showing you one of my favourite pinks in my collection. I have shown it before, but I decided it was worthy of its own blog post.

Mod Squad is a perfect bubblegum pink creme with a cool undertone. A colour like this is a must have for polish fanatics! I simply love polishes like this, and I personally like to wear this one when I'm in the mood for something simple but pretty. 

As (pretty much) always with Essie, the quality and formula of this polish was great, and I don't have much else to say about it. It applied smooth like butter and I only needed two coats for full opacity. I also wore it for several days without even a minor chip. I'm very happy with this polish and I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking for a pink shade like this one.

Essie - Leading Lady

So, I still haven't been painting my nails very often! It's not that I don't have the time to, I just don't really feel like it. However, my nails do look much better now - they're not as stained anymore, so that's a plus. :)

Anyway, I do have some pictures to show you from a few weeks back from an amazing polish by my favourite brand - Essie!

This nail polish is Leading Lady by Essie, from their winter collection of this year! If you visit a lot of nail blogs you've probably seen this one a few times already. I know I have! So when I saw it in store, I was really excited. I wanted to use gift vouchers I have to get it, but I wasn't able to use them in the store it was sold, and I couldn't afford it by myself... so then my boyfriend secretly grabbed it and got it for me! I have trained him well- I mean, he's a sweetheart. :D 

However, he told me I had to make a blog post about it, so here it is!

Leading Lady is a polish with a dark red jelly base full of gorgeous red glitter. Despite being so glittery, it has a very easy and smooth application. I needed two coats for full coverage. It dries up rather gritty, however, so to really bring out the sparkle I added a generous coat of topcoat.

The result is really squishy and sparkly nails, and I love it. There's so much depth in this one! I had a hard time choosing which pictures to use, because the polish is just so pretty there weren't any bad pictures, haha.

And here is a picture of it in a different light, to show you just how much glitter it has. I am in love. As for removing it... I'm not sure how difficult it is, as I personaly used my peel off basecoat. But I'm sure it's nothing the foil method can't handle!

HEMA 826 - Super cheap holo!

I'm really excited for the polish I'm going to show you guys today! This was a completely unexpected find for me. A few days ago I was doing some gift shopping with my mom when we entered the HEMA to get some skin care products. I noticed they had a bunch of new polishes so ofcourse I went to take a look... wait, what is that? IS THAT A HOLO? Oh my gosh, it is!

Okay, it's subtle. But it's holographic! HEMA 826 is a gorgeous deep berry colour with a very subtle but still noticable scattered holo, and I am in love with it. And please understand my excitement, haha. In the two years I've been a nail polish addict, I've always been in love with them, but I have only found a total of three holographic polishes in drug stores around here. They aren't really that common to me. I'd order them off the internet, but most of the holos I want have ridiculous prices, which I can't afford. I found this one in the HEMA for the cheap price of €2,50.

The holo is more noticable in this picture. I love subtle ones - they are definitely my favourite kind of holo. This is two coats without a top coat. The formula is great, the polish is easy to apply neatly. It's not gloopy or thin, it's just right. I also really enjoyed the brush of this polish. I didn't need any cleanup. :) It dries up fast with a nice shiny finish.

Yep, this polish has made it into my top favourites, and I'm going to be wearing it a lot more often! I feel so classy wearing this on my nails. If you live in Europe and have access to a HEMA anywhere, I definitely recommend you take a look for this polish.