Rimmel London – Aqua Cool & Hot List
I went on a little shopping trip today, and I did not get anything major, but I do have to share with you the polish I got my hands on. There’s a new player in town you see, and it’s called Lycra! We’ve of course already worn it as a fabric for years and now it has found its way to our nailpolish in the Rimmel London Lycra Pro Professional Finish collection. And it does exactly what it says on the bottle: “Long lasting, chip resistant and anti-fade color system.” This excites me because I’ve tried it, and it is really true!
The text on the bottles boasts about lasting up to ten days. I honestly can’t say anything about that because I get bored with my polish quite quickly. The longest I’ve worn “Hot List” was five days, without any chipping (Of course with proper base and topcoat use where you also paint the free edges of your nails.) so I guess they do hold up for a long time. If you run your finger over the dried polish, it even feels different, I can’t even describe it. Less plastic-like like the other polishes on the market, more meshed with your fingernail. And this is going to sound weird it almost feels like it’s a bit greasy, which it of course is not. I know what you must be thinking (she’s lost her mind!), but you should feel it for yourself, I’m sure you’d agree.
The sticker on the cap mentions the MAXI brush, which is a flat wide brush instead of the normal round one that you’re probably used to. If you have narrow fingernails it still should work nicely for you, though I think you might have to use it sideways to paint your pinkie, but really it shouldn’t be too much of a problem for anyone to use. I personally think it’s a nice brush and it helps you put on the polish in a smooth manner and in less strokes than usual.
Now let’s move on to the two colors I own…
The “Hot List” one on the right in the picture I should name first as I purchased it a little while ago during a polish sale at one of our drugstores. I think I got it for about €5 (which is currently about $7) and I just couldn’t resist it, the color is an exact dupe of Chanel’s “Paradoxal” so hey for €5 that is a pretty great buy don’t you think? It is a beautiful dusty mauve with purple shimmer and it covers the nail in two coats. I’ve been told that “Paradoxal” already does this in one coat but it’s to be expected for a €20 (over $28!) polish I feel. And honestly wouldn’t you rather use two coats of the cheaper polish to get coverage?
The other color, the beautiful soft blue on the left of the picture called “Aqua Cool” is the polish that came home with me this morning. This time I paid the full price for it, €7! Which of course for a quality nail polish still isn’t a lot of money. This color is lovely but I do have to say that it took me about 3 coats before I had a nice even coverage so be aware of that. Other than that I have no complaints really, it’s a beautiful baby blue, something you might have seen a lot of Youtube make-up & nail guru’s wear already this spring. It’s not as pale and bright as most of them I must warn you, but it is still very lovely and worth the buy.
I will of course soon do a little wearing test where I shall attempt to show you one of these polishes before and after ten days of wear, so keep your eye on this space or follow me on bloglovin to get notified of a new post.
Now I’m curious, what is your polish pick of the moment, and why?
Dashica Beauty and Boozyshop haul.
Both packages that I mentioned in an earlier post have finally arrived and I couldn’t be happier! They both contained an extra gift and the things I have ordered came in a perfect state due to careful wrapping.
The first one to arrive this week was my Dashica Beauty Shop order, which consisted of 5 big image plates (and by big they mean big, as in -42 images on a single plate- big!) as well as a double sided white stamper + a scraper.
Shirley, the webshop owner, was also sweet enough to add a set of water decals as a small gift for ordering with them. I will have to try those out soon. It is my first set of water decals ever and I’ve been very curious about them so yay! Thank you so much Shirley & Dashica Beauty Shop!
The other package came a day later, it wouldn’t have been this late if it wasn’t for a slight mishap.
You see, the “Nails for Males” that I previously have written about was out of stock and sadly probably not returning to the shop. The lovely Maaike of Boozyshop contacted me through email and asked me if I’d like my money back or if I’d like to pick another Orly nail care product. I promptly picked “Nailtrition” which is a fabulous strengthening & growth treatment by Orly. I already own it, but it’s already almost a quarter empty and she told me I’d get the package the next day. And there it was, this morning, with an extra bottle of Diamond Cosmetics nail polish in the shade ‘Desert Rose’ for all the trouble, isn’t that sweet? So thank you as well Boozyshop, you didn’t have to make up for it, but you certainly made my day by doing that!
I am already playing around with the image plates and will probably try out my beautyblender for the first time tomorrow morning. I will, of course, keep you all posted about my experiences with every product mentioned.
Have you bought from this shops before? If yes, what is the last thing you got? If no, what would you like to buy there if you did?
Posted in Beauty, Beautyblender, Cream, Diamond Cosmetics, Gifts, Haul, Links, Nail care, Nailpolish, Orly, Pink, Red, Shopping, Stamping, Stamping system, Water Decal, Webshop | 
8 CommentsNail of the week – Leopard style!
In my previous post about packages you might have seen me mention the amazing SdP big Image Plates designed and sold by Dashica Beauty Shop. Yesterday morning they arrived and I’ve never been happier! Thank you again Shirley for the wonderful service by allowing me to pre-order the plates!
They are of amazing quality and the images are slightly bigger than the ones on the Konad plates so they even fit my slightly longer nails beautifully.
I decided to try them out right away and this is what I came up with!I’ve used the following things to achieve this look:I started with a base of very soft yellow. The polish used for that is by Essence and called “Mellow Yellow”. I needed two layers for it to be the color that I wanted.
Over that I sponged a brighter yellow which is by O.P.I and is called “Need Sunglasses”. This helps give the colors a more intense look.
By the way, if you have not experimented with sponging on your nail polish before I can only encourage you to give it try. It’s an easy and pretty way to make your nails look special with as little as two colors used. All you do is dab some nail polish onto a make up sponge and use some scrap paper to dab it on a few times to get rid of the excess and then take the sponge to your nail and use it where you want to add the color. It’s as easy as that.
To achieve the full yellow to orange gradient, I used the same sponge technique as I mentioned above to apply a light layer of Herôme’s “Zagora.” It’s a lovely smooth creamy orange color.After letting it all dry, I prepared my stamping set by cleaning the stamp and the plate with acetone. This is to clean off any residue that may have gotten on it before use. Grease especially stops the stamping equipment from working right so make sure it is all clean before you use it. I used O.P.I.’s Lady in Black to stamp on the lovely leopard print.
Because I wanted a bit of extra oomph I topcoated it all with a beautiful Nfu Oh scale effect polish. This one, alas, doesn’t have a name; just a number: 49.
In daylight these flakies have an orange glow and are beautifully see through so it is as if your nails have a little light inside them. And as I type this up on the computer right now the screen makes the flakies light up in a golden green fashion. It’s very pretty and the picture on the right doesn’t really do it justice. Click the picture to see it a bit bigger and check out what I mean about these flakies.
That’s it for the nails this week, please excuse my dry looking hands, I hadn’t moisturized yet because I was waiting for the polish to be completely dry. I hope you enjoyed this set and I will now leave you with a picture of the polishes used:
Posted in Animal Print, Beauty, Cream, Essence, Flakies, Glitter, Haul, Herôme, Nailpolish, Nails, Nails of the week, Nfu Oh, O.P.I., Opaque, Orange, Shimmer, Stamping system, Yellow | 8 CommentsBoy, do I hate waiting for goodies…
I especially hate waiting for the mail when I just know there are two fabulous packages on the way!
This week I am expecting my first Beautyblender, I know it’s been taking the beauty scene by storm for a while now and that I’m very late in getting one. Really, I’m not exaggerating when I say that it took me several months before I finally decided on ordering it when I am normally quite the impulse buyer.
You see, I rarely use foundation, but when you combine this product with your cream foundation, it gives you a beautiful airbrush finish. This was really the selling point for me and I can’t wait to give it a try on the days that my skin is letting me down.
Besides the Beautyblender I’m also getting Orly’s “Nails for Males” which is a matte finish nail hardener. Now, I don’t know if it’s a coincidence but I’ve noticed that if I use a matte topcoat as a basecoat under my nailpolish that the polish seems to stay on a little better. I’m guessing this is because the polish has a ‘more rough and possibly porous’ surface to grab onto.
I normally use “Nailtricion” by the same brand under my regular polish. This has already made my nails a lot stronger so I am excited to try Nails for Males to see if this is an even better product for me to use. I will keep you posted on the results!
Both of these items are products that I have ordered from Boozyshop.
This is a website that I haven’t ordered from before, but I have heard so many good things about it. Therefore, I couldn’t resist giving it a go. It was hard for me just to order these two things to be honest as Boozyshop has so many fantastic brands to choose from, they have Essie, China Glaze, Seche Vite, all the brands us nailistas know and love. So if you ever feel like you want to spend a bit of money shopping online for beauty products, check out this site for sure. The site is available in Dutch and English and is not yet ready for orders out side of Belgium or the Netherlands. That does not mean you cannot order if you happen to live in a different country. All you need to do is send them an email and they’ll make it happen for you. How is that for fabulous customer service?
June holds my birthday month and as a present, my parents bought me 5 of the SdP Big Image Plates & a white double sided stamper from Dashica Beautyshop. I am very excited about these because I am very into complete coverage nail stamping products. You just can’t go wrong with those really. This is another package that should arrive this week as well and I am looking forward to doing a more in depth post on these plates!
By they way, this was also the first time for me ordering from this particular webshop and so far it has been such a pleasant one. Shirley, the owner of the shop has been in contact with me through email and has been really helpful trying to get the plates to me as soon as possible as I had pre-ordered them. You should certainly have a look at her webshop yourself and see what you think.
I’ll review the products of course when I have them and have gotten the chance to try them out.
Also, I believe I should say that I have not been in any way sponsored or asked to do this post by the aforementioned shops. I just chose to give them a shout out in case you would like to order something I mentioned and because they’ve given me great service.
Posted in Beauty, Beautyblender, China Glaze, Essie, Haul, Links, Matte, Nailpolish, Nails, Seche Vite, Shopping, Stamping system, Webshop | Leave a commentJack Sparrow and the grey bottle of disappointment.
It’s called “Skull and Glossbones” and I thought it looked very interesting. I also loved the name, but that’s usually a given with O.P.I. polishes isn’t it? You might have heard of the color as this set has been widely hyped and reviewed already. The color is hard to describe, it’s sort of an off white, but also has a bit of beige and grey going on. Anyway, it was something I thought would look nice on my nails as it’s not as harsh and bright – having that ‘white out’ look – as most white nail polish on your nails.
Boy was I wrong… For the first time in my life, my nail color actually bothered me. I thought it looked exactly like cheap recycled toilet paper and it also somehow managed to make my skin look sickly. You see, I am quite pale, and when I happen to be in the sun for a while I don’t tan really, I just turn red like a lobster, so I like to avoid the sun like the plague. And that’s why the color just will not go with my skin tone.
I hate ruining a good manicure even if the color doesn’t work for me so I eventually added a lovely coat of Navy Crackle, also by O.P.I, but that didn’t help. In the end, I had to take it off again the same night. Sadly, the O.P.I. Skull and Crossbones is a don’t for me. It isn’t because of the quality – as always O.P.I. put together a quality polish that covers well and goes on beautifully. It’s simply because of how the color looked on me.
For me it’s not completely ruined as it might make a nice stamping polish for my Konad kit, or for adding detail to nailart, but I will never wear it on it’s own, it just did not suit me at all. Which is sad because it’s an expensive and good brand of polish.
Don’t be discouraged though as I do believe it will be different for all you tanned and darker skinned goddesses out there, but you should check that out for yourself I think. Just don’t make the mistake I made by purchasing the full sized bottle and get the little miniature set which comes with the following colors:
- Planks a Lot (A nice creamy lilac color.)
- Skull & Glossbones (A light beige grey.)
- Sparrow me the drama (a sweet opaque creamy pink.)
- Stranger tides (A sister of Skull & Glossbones but instead of grey this has a greenish tint.)
How about you? Are there any colors you just will not wear again? Or were there any buys you regret?
Posted in Beige, Cream, Grey, Miniature, Nailpolish, O.P.I., Opaque, Pirates of the Caribbean, Rambling, Review, Set | 8 CommentsAddicted.
You go through phases in life, everyone knows this, and I thought this nail polish thing was just another phase. Really, why wouldn’t it be right?
One day I found myself ordering a wall shelf from Enchantra that holds 90 polishes and I knew I was addicted. Not because of that one amazing shelving unit that displayed the polishes beautifully, oh no, it was because I needed another one for the rest of my polishes, and still didn’t think I had enough colors…
A little while ago, for the very first time, someone asked me why. And I was a bit overwhelmed because I honestly didn’t have an answer right away. I’ve been thinking about it since though, and I think I have the answer now.
I think it’s because there are so many different colors and kinds that you can wear to compliment or to even be the direct opposite of what you’re wearing. Plus I love pendants and earrings but I never wear rings or bracelets because they bother me too much. I just jazz up the nails instead.
I love the polish oddballs the most I guess… You know, those are the ones that not many people have or even like. Like the moodpolishes that change colors with temperatures, the mattes, the UV sensitive polishes that change color in sunlight and turn back to the regular color once you’re inside. The holographics & polishes with flakies that still seem to be quite rare. Even the crackle polishes that seem to be all the rage again.
I also have a weakness for the regular kinds, the creams, the sheers, the metallics and the jellies, all of them are welcome here.
Still, I don’t think that’s the complete reason. You see, I like my nails, but without any coat on them I don’t think they’re very pretty. They’re not all the same shape no matter how much I file them. And the ones on my middle fingers seem to fan out at the top quite a bit, my pinky nails are a bit bent because I hit the keys sideways while typing and who knows what happened to my index fingers for my nails to be that crooked when they grow longer.
However putting a nice opaque polish on them makes them look a lot better and my fingers even look a lot slimmer so I don’t think I’ll ever walk around with ‘naked’ nails again. (And I don’t think I will have to with as many polishes that I own ;))
Yep, this is the life of a nail polish dependent girl, I don’t think I’ll ever grow out of that. And to be quite honest; I don’t want to. I like it too much to give up.
First youtube video is live!
Hi everybody! Welcome to my blog! I’m so excited to finally start this! *Does a little dance*
For a while now I’ve been thinking about doing something like this, especially because lately nailart and nail polish has really become a bit of an obsession.
I know it’s not much right now and I’m just testing this out at the moment trying to get my bearings here using wordpress, but there will be more uploaded later, I promise ;) for now I leave you with my first video that I posted on youtube.
Now if you have been to Japan, you must have seen a Kokeshi doll. They’re an adorable small wooden doll, originally made by turn at hot spring resorts in Tohoku (northeastern Japan) as a toy for girls.
I’ve always been fascinated by these little dolls and have decided to create some nail art with one of those dolls as an example.
I hope you like it!
Music used in this video is Mars & Stars by Dan-O @ Danosongs.com
Coming soon… More nailart videos & tutorials!
Click to learn more
Follow me:
Where I buy:
International and Indie brands
at GREAT prices!
Dutch webshop that sells Orly and other lovely brands.
Dutch webshop that sells Cult Nails, Butter London, China Glaze etc.
Dutch stockist that also sells to the general public.
Dutch Webshop that sells China Glaze, Glitter Gal and a lot more good stuff.
