TE Crystalliced

Essence's first trend edition of the year 2012 features five beautiful winter colours. The name is therefore well chosen: Crystalliced. The design of the bottles is very beautiful; it has snowflakes on the etiquette and the bottle holder. I only got these four:

from left to right
01 It's A Snow-Woman's World
05 Frosted Champaign
03 Iced Age Reloaded
04 Ice Eyes Baby

The first one is 01 It’s A Snow-Woman’s World. IASWW is a grayish lavender with pink and purple shimmer. Unfortunately, these shimmers don’t translate onto the nails, so you’ll just get a creme finish as final look. Here is IASWW with 3 coats:

There is something that makes this polish stand out from the other four I got: it contains carmine. With one eyebrow lifted, I searched what carmine is. When I found out, my other eyebrow lifted too and my eyes were like O.O Carmine is described as a bright red pigment and as a deep red colour, so I’m thinking it’s the pink shimmer.

What is more fascinating is the way it is obtained. I’m not sure you want to hear the details but in short, it comes from scale insects, meaning that IASWW is not considered as a vegan cosmetic product. I still need some time to progress this information, it won’t be the same anymore the next time I swatch It's A Snow-Woman's World...

Have a great weekend!

Brand New Start...

Happy 2012 Everyone!!!

Hope you all had a wonderful time during the holidays!

A great way to kick off the first blog post of 2012: a brand I've not yet tried before =] American Apparel.

 

Here follows some pictures taken in sunlight and ones in the shade, which are actually more colour accurate. American Apparel nail polishes are 4Free, which means that its formula does NOT contain formaldehyde, DBP and toluene and it is never tested on animals. I did not pay much attention to this matter before, but if these formulations do exist, why not choose them. While I was searching for the 4Free definition, I found that there are also nail polish brands with 5Free formulation! So, if you want a more environmental healthy and responsible nail polish, do check it out this list.

Back to the swatches, American Apparel Rouge is a dark raspberry crème. You can get away with just one coat, but I layered two in the pictures. This is the first American Apparel nail polish I’ve tried and I must say that it made a good impression. The formula was great, it applied so easy and the brush worked fine.

The black lace design was from a water decal sheet that I bought from Born Pretty Store a while back. The accent nail has a French tip of OPI Warm & Fozzie. The water decals are quite handy compared to the lace designs of Konad, if you haven’t mastered the art of stamping yet. I find it hard to place the Konad design on the spot where I want it to be. With these water decals, I can easily place and move it to the right place without having to redo the mani. But I’ll practice with the Konad ones more often, the water decals are for the lazy moments.

Have a wonderful one!!!

First Try-Out Zoya Kristen

This is just the first try-out of Zoya Kristen from the Feel collection. I couldn't make any pictures during the day since it was gloomy the past few days. So this is the best one I've got:

Kristen is a light blue-grey creme, which is a beautiful wintery colour. Now I understand what other nail polish bloggers mean by 'it applies like butter'. I can't believe I waited so long to try Zoya polishes, but it's not too late right? The application was indeed nice and easy. Two coats were layered and I added the BM 219 french tip design with Konad special stamping polish in white.

I should practice more with the french tip designs, because I still have trouble with stamping them on the right place on the nails. And this design didn't like me at all, it smudged like crazy. The design smudged already when I picked it up from the plate, any suggestions for this problem?

Have a great one!

Mid-December Haul

Oh my, it's just mid-December and I'm already spending so much on these beauties. I blame the wonderful holiday-discounts =] Well, thanks to them, I could haul some pretty bottles and my first ZOYA!!!

I can't wait to swatch them all. Which one should I pick first?
  

China Glaze ~ Jolly Holly
OPI ~ Warm & Fozzie



OPI ~ Skulls & Glossbones
OPI ~ Malaysian Mist

 

Zoya ~ Dove
Zoya ~ Kristen

Zoya Dove is a light grey creme from The Intimate Collection. Kristen is from the latest Feel Collection and is a light grey/blue creme.

Essence ~ My Sparkling Acrobat
Essence ~ Applause Applause

The newest Trend Edition from Essence: Circus Circus. I love the two-end bottle design. My Sparkling Acrobat is a black creme with golden glitters. Applause Applause is a red creme with red glitters.

I hope you enjoyed watching this haul as I did and I will swatch each of them soon. Happy December shopping!

Have a wonderful one!

Kiss You Goodnight...

Here is a collaboration of Disney and H&M. They bring us a polish that is suitable for festive occasions (and any other random day of course). The cover of this lovely bottle catches a popular couple kissing eachother. It contains 0.5 fl.oz. or 14ml, which is the same as an OPI bottle.

Kiss Goodnight is a dark grey (charcoal)/ black polish filled with silver shimmer and green and purple microglitters. The formula was easy to work with and two coats were needed to reach opacity. The amazing green/purple microglitters add something extra to the charcoal + silver shimmer combination. I hoped they would come out more but unfortunately they are only noticeable under sunlight or spotlights =]

Here are some close-ups, the one on the right shows the awesome green and purple mircoglitters.

Have a great one!

The Love For Vampires Continues...

The second polish that I want to show you from the latest Essence Trend Edition 'Vampire's Love'  is 01 Gold Old Buffy. This really brings back memories when I was addicted to the TV serie.

Gold Old Buffy is a sheer black polish packed with golden flecks/shimmer. This is quite a mysterious one, because the colour changes from black to olive green in different lighting. The formula was a bit thick, so the first coat was a terrible sight. I ended up with three without topcoat.

It didn't felt right to leave Gold Old Buffy 'unstamped', so I used BM plate 214 and China Glaze Passion for the stamping. These pictures were taken in the shade, I apologize for the bad quality.

Have a great one!

The Love For Vampires...

The latest Trend Edition of Essence has a well chosen theme: Vampires! This TE has probably no connection with the newest Twilight movie, but the timing is good and it sure reminds us of those attractive creatures. Vampire's Love is the name of this TE and it comes with 5 beautiful colours with glitters and glass flecks.

The first one I like to share is nr. 02 Into The Dark, which is a blue polish with lots of micro silver glitters. There are two coats without topcoat. Into The Dark dries a bit darker on the nails compared to the bottle colour.

The formula was great and Into The Dark is definitely a one-coater! Another plus is that all the Vampire's Love polishes come in 10ml bottles! It doesn't happen often that I like all the polishes of a limited edition collection. Well, this time I do, guess Vampire's Love is hypnotic =]

Have a great one!