'Flormar' haul

The first part of my Turkish nail polish haul features this fabulous brand: Flormar. A few minutes ago, I just became aware of their HUGE nail polish collection! What has stopped me from buying more when I was in Turkey?  I want to go back... (T.T)

Flormar started in Milan, Italy in 1970. The production then moved to Istanbul, Turkey in 1986. On the Flormar website, you can see that they launched various nail polish lines:

• Flormar Nail Enamel: 'It has a very wide pastel and nacreous color options'
• Crystal Shine: 'It creates brilliant nails with nacle granules'
• Ultra Lasting: 'It is more lasting than the classical nail polishes'
• Quartz: 'It has vivid and brilliant colors as well as it maintains nails'
• Supermatte: 'Longest wear with maximum comfort and creaminess'
• Supershine: 'It provides longest wear with maximum comfort and ultra shimmering effect. This group has a sophisticated brush that enables easy application and longest wears on nails desired'
• True Color: 'It is a more brilliant and lasting result comparison with classsical nail polishes'
• Selection: 'It creates brilliant nails with its nacreous colors'
• Neon: 'Unique and improved formula with pure and amazing pigments'
• Nail Art: 'Fine and thin brush makes it easy to control and draw precise designs and lines'

Apart from the various Nail Enamels, Flormar also provides nail care products in the Flormar Nail Care and Flormar Nail Therapy lines. (Source: Flormar)

Index: No. 075 from the Quartz line. This is a beautiful plum and my first plum polish. Really like this kind of colour, can't believe I haven't add them to my stash earlier.

Middle: No. 323 is a vampy red wine colour. It looks almost dark brown/black from afar.

Ring: No. 372 is a peachy nude colour. What surprises me is that it only needed 2 coats to make the VNL disappear.

Pinkie: No. 395; Don't be deceived by the glitter combination, since they appear to be a greenish base colour with green glitters. In fact, it is a transparent base with gold and silver glitters. It is quite interesting that this combination can turn out like this.

The application was easy for all 4 colours and they only needed 2 coats to become opaque, except for No. 395.

What do you think of Flormar's Nail Enamels?

Have a nice one!!!

Catrice Urban Baroque: PC & BC

The newest LE of Catrice is the Urban Baroque collection.

"Inspired by baroque and boudoir as well as the delicate pastel shades of winter, URBAN BAROQUE by Catrice unites a feminine, romantic nostalgia with a modern, urban look."

This collection has 4 beautiful nail polishes: Pearls & Chains, Barock & Rock, Princess & Ballerina and Biscuits & Cupcakes. My lovely sister managed to buy only those with a cute name, while I was on holiday in Turkey.

C01 Pearls & Chains is milky white with tiny silver glitters, which are unfortunately only visible in the bottle. The application was good, but the finish is very sheer. In the pictures, I have layered 4 coats of each colour. As you can see, 4 coats of Pearls & Chains were not enough to cover the nail line. But I do like this milky white finish and it is very suitable for a french mani.

C04 Biscuits & Cupcakes is an old peachy pink with tiny silver glitters too. Just like PC, these glitters disappear when they are layered on the nails. However, when you compare PC and BC, the tiny glitters are more visible on the nails with PC. BC was already opaque with 3 coats. I had some trouble with the brush during the application, which caused some strokes. But when the polish dried, these strokes were gone.

What do you think of this collection?

Have a wonderful one!!!

Alix Avien Blue Crackle

My first Turkish brand nail polish, which I hunted down during my short stay there: Alix Avien!

I did some research before I went on vacation and it was not all about the sightseeing stuff...also a little about what polishes were sold in Turkey. Luckily, I found several drugstores where they sell nail polishes of different Turkish brands.

Alix Avien Nail Deco comes in 4 colours: white, black, blue and pink. This navy blue one got my attention, since I already have a black crackle polish of Barry M. During that time, China Glaze had already announched their Crackle Glaze collection, otherwise, I would have bought Alix Avien crackle polish in white and pink too.

As base colour, I used Pa Nail Color A30, which is a nice champagne goldish polish. Two coats of A30 and one layer of Alix Avien blue crackle polish. The picture was taken on the second day of wear, but I think it still looks okay. It didn't chip that much even without topcoat and survived one day at work.

More 'travel hauls' will follow...

Have a great one!

Essence TE I Love Berlin

There is no better way to start the new year than with a Trend Edition of Essence. This time, the theme is called: 'I Love Berlin'. The collection consists of 5 nail polishes, 2 matt tip painters and 2 studio fashion nail stickers (and other eye and lip make-up).

Out of the total 5 colours, I only picked number 03 Green Grass, which is a beautiful teal. The application was smooth, but Green Grass is thicker than the Essence polishes I've came across. On the other hand, it made it possible to be opaque with just one coat. However, it does not dry as glossy as described on the Essence website, but that can be fixed with a topcoat.

I also got myself the matt tip painter in black: 01 Berlin Story (4ml). Like you already know, I am not good at nail art. So I came up with the most simple nail art like shown above. In the end, it was not simple at all!!! It was a battle against time. The polish was already dry before I could complete the star on my ring finger. I find it hard to use Berlin Story as a nail art painter, but I would definitely use it for a matt french mani.

What do you think of the 'I Love Berlin' collection?

Have a great one!!!

MNY No. 145

Although it's quite late, but I do wish everyone:

~*~ A Happy 2011!!! ~*~

I hope you all had a great time during the holidays. For me, it was non-stop eating delicious food ^^ I began the year with a vacation to Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey. It's a beautiful place with very friendly residents and delicious food and sweets. The most interesting part is that you can travel from Europe to Asia within 15 minutes with a ferry and still be in the same country. How cool is that?

 

At the end of the year 2010, I came across a new display of Maybelline New York in the local drugstore. It has a different package and the price is lower than the usual line of Maybelline. Of course, the first thing that caught my attention were the nail polishes. I picked MNY No. 145 (7ml) which is a milky white base with fuchia shimmers and flakies. Do look at the close-up picture, since I'm not good at describing things.

In the picture above, I layered MNY 145 over 2 coats of Catrice C01 Pearls & Chains from the LE Urban Baroque collection. I will come back to this sweet collection in another post.

Have a wonderful one!!!