a england - Princess Sabra

"Alluringly feline golden olive bronzite, the sacrificial Princess constantly shifts with her elusive, myriad hues." 

I'm so happy the sun is out today! Now I can finally show you another stunner from a england's The Legend collection: Princess Sabra (pet name: Tristam Eyes). Golden olive bronzite... That is a perfect description if you ask me. What a magnificent nail polish! The formula was excellent, I used two coats (no top coat). 

Princess Sabra is part of The Legend collection. This collection is available now on the a england website.

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*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Essie - School of Hard Rocks & CND Effects - Crimson Sparkle

The two nail polishes I used here were part of my last Transdesign order and I just couldn't wait to wear them. I'm not sure if this is the best combination, but I do know both polishes are a-ma-zing. Essie - School of Hard Rocks is a dusty greenish teal creme. A difficult colour to photograph, so it's obviously the perfect choice to wear when you're learning to work with a new camera. :|| SoHR looks more greyed out/dustier in real life, it's a beautiful shade that appeals to me a lot! Formula was great, I applied two coats. Then I added one coat of Crimson Sparkle from the CND Effects range. I'm telling you nothing new, but the Effects polishes from CND really are the bomb!

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a england - Ascalon

"Forged by magic and guided by our hero's sainted hand, the steely grey of his spire is alive with a swirling heart of lavender fire."

Today I'm showing you a england - Ascalon, another nail polish from The Legend collection. I think Ascalon is an incredibly cool nail polish, I already wore it twice in two weeks. Now that says something, believe me! Ascalon is a steel grey coloured polish with a good amount of prismatic particles. It also has a subtle duochrome effect; I mostly see a purple flash, but at certain angles there's a golden green colour visible. It's hard to photograph, but the green is definitely there! The formula was excellent, I used two coats. 

The Legend nail polishes are available now on the a england website (£9.00 for 13 ml).

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*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Precious, Precious, Silver and Gold

Today I'm showing you the silver and gold polish from Speciallità's Hits No Olimpo collection. The silver one's called Artemis. Artemis has a metallic finish and is filled with fine prismatic particles. The prismatic effect is amazing! I'm probably saying that about all the Hits No Olimpo polishes. ;)

The gold one's called Hermes. This one also has a metallic finish and a gorgeous prismatic effect. I wish the sun wasn't so shy today so I could show you how awesome the prismatic effect of these really is. Maybe another time! I rarely wear silver or gold nail polish, but I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked these two on me. It looks like Artemis and Hermes totally won me over.

edit: Ahh, this looks more like it. Look at those sparklies! Thank you, sun. ^_^

The formula was good, two easy coats for both, no top coat. 

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*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Teeez Boudoir Secrets Collection

Today I'm showing you a couple of nail polishes from the new Boudoir Secrets collection from Teeez.

"This elegant make-up collection is decorated with unique vintage charms that makes each product a treasure on its own, disguising the bold secrets inside. Because underneath the abundance hides a rebellious diva, like the 18th century queen of France Marie Antionette, who was passionate for the pleasures in life."

Teeez - Cool (04) is a light blue shade with a subtle silver shimmer. I really like the colour, but it was difficult to apply due to the thick formula. I swatched it twice 'cause it looked awful the first time (and I think every polish deserves a decent swatch), but I'm still not happy with how it looks on my nails, bummer! This is three coats.

Teeez - Gutsy (05) is a peachy nude coloured polish with gold shimmer. I can't say I'm a fan of this colour, but it applied much easier than Cool. Two coats.

Teeez - Femme Fatale (09) is a berry creme. Ahh, saved the best for last! This one is gorgeous and it applied like butter in two coats. 

To be honest, I'm not blown away by these nail polishes. Next to the unique shades Teeez made in the past, these three don't look so special. The packaging is cute though. :) Oh, but what's up with the names? I already own shades from Teeez called Cool and Femme Fatale. This can be somewhat confusing, I wish they gave them new names and not just a different number. 

Teeez nail polishes cost €4,90 for 8,5 ml. They're Big 3 Free. You can find more information on their website.

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*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Green, White & Red

Recently I posted this red, white & blue mani with arches on the tips. I loved it so much I wanted to recreate it with different colours. Holly-Day was still looking good, so I kept this beautiful green as the base colour. With a random white and Poinsettia from China Glaze I added the arches on the tip of my ring finger nail. For the dots I used China Glaze - 2030. Last time I made these arches on all nails, but I lacked in time, so I did just some accent nails. It looks rather Christmassy don't you think? :)

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Ashes & Fire

Yesterday I went to a Ryan Adams concert with my hubby. Even though Ryan had food poisoning (tweet after the show: 'Harmonica part on firecracker = almost puked' :~ ) he managed to give a fantastic show. I enjoyed every minute of it! The name and look of his new album Ashes & Fire inspired me to do this mani. The base colour is Iron Butterfly from Orly and I used Zoya - Rica and Gosh - Rainbow to create 'fiery' tips.

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Balloons in the Sky

My husband's words when he saw my nails: "Cool! It looks like balloons flying in the blue sky" (lol, I just love his comments!). I started with applying two coats of Blue Cara Ciao from Catrice - this colour is hard to photograph, it's actually more of a blue-green. After it dried a little, I dabbed different glitter polishes on the base of the nail. I used Essence - Circus Confetti and a bit of Sultry Diva (gold) and Object of Envy (green) from Color Club. A layer of top coat over it and tadaa.. festive nails!

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Black & Gold

There are many ways to spice up black nails; this time I decided to add some stamping. I used China Glaze - 2030 and a floral design from Konad plate M73. I wondered how it would look matte, so I also applied one coat of Essence's matte top coat. I like this mani so much! The matte finish makes it look so, uhm.. interesting? ;)

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Sultry Blue

I was in the mood for blue so I dug out this gorgeous blue creme from China Glaze, Bermuda Breakaway. I also wanted to use a glitter polish, but without covering the whole nail. You know how much I love sparkly tips, well, this time I wanted the sparkles at the base of the nail. The gold glitter I used is Sultry Diva from Color Club. I'm a fan, what a nice glitter polish and combined with this blue? Love. Don't get me started on the clean up though. All those glitters around the cuticle.. they drove me nuts! Ah well, it was definitely worth the extra effort. ^_^

Thanks for watching!

*The product(s) in this post was/were sent to me for reviewing purposes.

For more information, check out my Disclosure Policy.

Orly - Meet Me Under The Mistletoe

Today I would like to show you an amazing polish, without a doubt one of the prettiest greens I own: Meet Me Under The Mistletoe from Orly. I wanted to wear green on my nails, because green is the colour for Depression Awareness Month (Scrangie wrote a great post about it, check it out!). I'm struggling with depression (dysthymia, to be precise) for a while now and I think it's a good thing to raise awareness for this awful illness. 

A little more info about this Orly polish: love, love, love it! Those gorgeous little duochrome flakes, I catch myself staring at them all day. I had no application problems, this is three coats, no top coat.

And a little more close up... ♥

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I'm back with Zoya - Apple

                                                                                                                                                                                              Playa Kenepa

That's right, I'm ba-hack! And I'm happy to tell you I had an amazing vacation on Curaçao; relaxing, swimming, snorkeling, sailing, shopping, mountain climbing... we did it all and more! Of course I painted my nails while I was there, but believe it or not, I painted them just once. o_O I guess my nails needed some time off too, lol. The nail polish I used that one time was a great one: sparkly green Apple from Zoya. A fun and cheery colour ánd it matched perfectly with my green bikini! I believe this was three coats, it applied nicely.

Ahh, it feels really great to be blogging again, I missed it and of course I missed my dear readers. ^_^ I hope you're all doing ok!

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Zoya - Midori

This green nail polish was sitting in a dark corner of my Helmer for a long time, but today is her time to shine! Midori from Zoya is a yellow-toned green, not my favourite type of green, so I was afraid I wouldn't like it that much. Boy, was I wrong! What a beautiful polish, that gold shimmer is ah-ma-zing, it definitely makes my heart beat a little faster. Sadly I can't admire and photograph this beauty in sunlight, we're dealing with rain and lots of it. But even without sunlight... Midori's hot! The formula was nice, it applied evenly. I used three coats, no top coat.

Thanks for watching! :h

Orly - Androgynie. Let's Get The Holidays Started! ;-)

Today finally feels a bit like summer, I love feeling the warmth of the sun on my skin. Ironically I'm wearing a nail polish from Orly's upcoming holiday collection (Holiday Soiree). A couple of days ago I saw that my sweet blogging friend Miranda already got her hands on two nail polishes from this collection, what a nice surprise! Of course I went on a search and I found them in a Dutch webshop, yay! It was hard to choose, but I ended up buying the one I was most excited about: Androgynie. It looked so spectacular in the bottle I wanted to try it on my nails immediately, summer day or not. 

Androgynie is a black jelly with large multi-coloured hexagons, finer prismatic glitter and really fine gold flecks. A perfect party polish, it's SO pretty! The formula was good, it applied easily and dries fairly quick. It is a bit on the sheer side, so I used three coats (plus top coat). I have to say I was a bit disappointed by the amount of hexagons showing up on the nail, most of them are sticked to the side of the bottle and difficult to get out. I gave the bottle a real good shake, but apparently it wasn't good enough. :/

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p.s. the bottle comes with a tiny lace nail file, how cute is that? Useless, but cute. ♥

The Most Special Day Of The Year

August 31st is a very special day for me. Not only are my husband and I celebrating our fourth wedding anniversary today (♥), I'm also celebrating one year of blogging, yay! :party 

I almost can't believe it... This blog, one year old. I guess it's safe to say that I really love doing this! I've been struggling with dysthymia (chronic depression, for more info: try Google!) for years and it turns out the blogging thing is a welcome distraction. I want to thank my lovely readers for visiting my blog and leaving such sweet comments. Without you it wouldn't be half as fun! *muah*

This morning I decided to wear the nail polish I wore exactly one year ago: Orly - Space Cadet. That time I used four coats, so I wanted to see how it looked layered over another polish. This is two coats of Space Cadet over one coat of p2 - Dangerous. It's so blingy, love it.

Oh, and a party ain't a party without delicious noms, right? So go ahead... have a taste! ^_^

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Dangerous Duochrome

When I was applying Metallic Green from peripera for the first time I knew it would be great for stamping. I like how metallic stamping looks over a creme nail polish, so I applied two coats of P2 - Dangerous and I used the feathery/leafy design from plate BM-210. Great base colour, check; beautiful stamping design, check; awesome duochrome stamping, check! I am bedazzled... ♥

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Peripera - Metallic Green

If Kaz says you need a polish, you need it. That's right, you nééd it. Kaz has a massive nail polish stash, so I trust her. :O So when I saw this fabulous shade on her blog I immediately ran to ebay and bought it. I'm talking about Metallic Green, a gorgeous green duochrome from the brand Peripera. This nail polish is made of pure awesome, I don't know what else to say... just look at the pictures!

In sunlight it looks even prettier...

Metallic Green is easy to apply and very pigmented, you could get away with one coat, but out of habit I did two. It'll be great for stamping, don't you think? Some things you need to know about this nail polish: 1. it has a BIG flat brush, 2. visible brush strokes on the nail are inevitable with this nail polish finish. I'm not a big fan of brushstroke-y nail polishes, but with Metallic Green I don't care, 'cause it's too FABULOUS.

Peripera is a Korean brand with the cutest packaging, the brush handle of this nail polish is shaped like a cat!

source

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LOVE: Nfu Oh 51

I have to agree with Michèle, Nfu Oh 51 can't get too much attention. I need to wear it more often and if you have it: so do you! I could not have the heart to remove the pretty Lady of the Lake from a england (still looking good after almost six days of wear!), so I used it as a base for Nfu Oh 51. The lady doesn't mind, she loves it. :)

I applied one coat of 51 and a top coat. This layering combination is very photogenic, I took a million pictures. It was hard to make a selection for this post, I hope you guys like it!

Look how the flakies glow in sunlight... ♥

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Catrice - Enter The Undergrowth + Konad M66

After swatching and wearing a lot of neons last week I wanted something totally different on my nails. So I applied one of the nail polishes from the Catrice Papagena collection, a muted green creme called Enter The Undergrowth. Beautiful colour. Reminds me very much of Sew Psyched from Essie, but without the silver shimmer. I can't have enough of these dusty greens! The formula of Enter The Undergrowth was great, two coats will give you an even and opaque result. After two days (hence the tip wear) I decided to add some extra growth (lol) with the bamboo design from Konad plate m66. I used China Glaze - 2030 as the stamping polish. I can't believe I haven't used this bamboo design for so long, I love it! And I also love this subtle konadicure, what about you? :)

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Zoya - Faye (mattified)

This is how Faye looks after applying a layer of matte topcoat (from Diamond Cosmetics). Mattified sparkly and glittery nail polishes can look so soft and interesting and Faye is no exception. But don't you miss the gorgeous sparkle? That's the thing I like the most about this polish, so I prefer my Faye glossy. :) 

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