OPI - Fifty Shades of Grey Collection 2015

The collection Fifty Shades of Grey by OPI*, inspired by the book and the movie, consists of three actual shades of grey, two silvers plus one red and will be released on the 19th of January 2015. I'm going to refrain from speaking out on the inspiration, but I have to admit that I was thrilled to see a collection composed mainly of grey nail polish, especially by OPI. Maybe it was all of those red and golden Christmas shades, but I'm definitely ready to switch to cold grey and silver. OPI Swiss was so kind to send me three of the colors and I was a tiny bit disappointed that I didn't get the three grey shades. Because from what I've seen and read Cement the Deal and Embrace the Gray would have been exactly my cup of tea. But I did get my (assumed) favorite from the collection: Dark Side of the Mood, which turned out to be a bit of a letdown for me. Nonetheless it was nice to get back into swatching some nail polish after Christmas. I do hope you had a great time and got a ton of snow! 

*PR Sample

OPI - Dark Side of the Mood

This brooding, stormy charcoal is dangerously gorgeous.

I knew I would love this one and I do love the color. But the formula is quite thin and runny, so it took me three coats for an opaque finish. This is disappointing for such a dark shade and not the quality I'm expecting from OPI. I'm wearing no base or top coat.

OPI - My Silk Tie

This silky, gleaming silver has got me all tied up.

Haha, that play on words. Not. Two streaky coats of silver. Yawn. No base or top coat. 

OPI - Shine on Me

This shimmering silver with subtle blue sparkle really turns me on!

That's better! I like it! Not my usual go-to color, but it is intriguing. I used two coats without a base or top coat and the result was opaque enough for me, although you can still see the nails a little bit. The blue glitter makes it really interesting to look at and I don't think I have anything similar in my collection yet. Definitely my favorite of the three.

Textured Stamping feat. Layla Cosmetics Mirror Effect

I hope you're not tired of textured stamping? Because I still love it! This one was a bit of a different approach, even though it's still the MoYou London Christmas plate #04 that I used for the stamping image. I think it's more of a NYE design than one for Christmas, because there's a lot of silver going on here! As my textured base I used two coats of Manhattan - Give me Sparkle (Visions of Me LE) and as my stamping color I used Layla Cosmetics Mirror Effect - Metal Chrome. So for now I'm off to the usual Christmas trip but I have prepared two more posts to keep you entertained. Also I will obviously be on Instagram where I might show off my nails and cats under the Christmas tree. :) 

Ruffian Nails / OPI Nordic / Gwen Stefani Holiday 2014

Today's nail design combines two of the newest OPI shades in a fancy sideways Ruffian. I used My Dogsled is a Hybrid* from the OPI Nordic collection  as my base color with two coats. Then I added some very old french nail stickers from essence onto the dried base and created the Ruffian effect with Unfrost my Heart* from the OPI - Gwen Stefani Holiday collection. On top is one coat of Sally Hansen - Insta-Dri.

* PR Sample

This blog gives me the awesome opportunity to try a lot of new products and I decided I want to give something back to you ladies, because you're a big part of this blog! I'd love to make two of you very happy by giving away two new and unused OPI sets. Set Gwen Stefani consists of Unfrost my Heart, Rollin' in Cashmere and So Elegant. Set Nordic consists of  Can't aFjörd Not To, Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm? and OPI With A Nice Finn-Ish. This is open internationally and you have until the 30th of November 2014 midnight (Swiss time) to drop me an e-mail with the subject: "OPI is awesome". Please also let me know which set you would like to win and try to convince me that you're not some bot looking for free stuff (for example, say Hi and use my name, send me your blog link to look at or a picture of the nail design you've done! I'd love that :) ) I will draw two winners and contact you by e-mail for your address. Also obviously one entry per person, since duh. Thank you! You're awesome! 

EDIT: Ihr könnt mir natürlich auch auf Deutsch schreiben! Viel Glück!

Set Gwen Stefani: 

Set Nordic:

China Glaze Glitter Gradient: Midnight Mission, Cheers To You, Tinsel Town

Since I don't have a lot of time to do my nails lately, this is a design from a few weeks ago already. I guess I felt a bit Christmassy and I chose three of my favorites from China Glaze. As my base color I used Midnight Mission with two coats. Then I dabbed on a bit of Cheers To You and Tinsel Town on top with a sponge. Because matte glitter is awesome, I added Essie - Matte About You after my regular top coat. I love my Cheers To You memories, it's one of those bottles that made me fall in love with nail polish. (You need proof? My first blog post ever and there it is!) It's three years old but still as good as new. Cheers to China Glaze for that! 

Exurbe Cosmetics - Wrecking Ball & Uptown Girl

I had the opportunity to try some nail polishes of a rather new Swiss company called exurbe cosmetics. They're based in Zurich, Switzerland and offer a range of 50 nail polishes, which are sold in a few selected stores and in a "members only" online shop. The polishes are 5-free, cruelty free and vegan. 11ml are sold for CHF 21.- each which is quite expensive in my opinion. Then again they're based in Switzerland and I wasn't too surprised. What is pretty cool though is that they ship very fast (within a work day) and for free! At the moment they ship to Switzerland and Liechtenstein only. If you're interested in becoming a member, you can use this invitation link (this is not a paid link). 

I tried two quite ordinary colors. There's Wrecking Ball, a dark grey silver and Uptown Girl a classic raspberry pink. They're all named after songs, thumbs up for that! I used two coats for each picture and they dried fast, even without a top coat. I also did some striping tape nail art which you can find at the end of this post. 

Uptown Girl

(the color in the bottle picture above and the nail art pictures is actually more accurate than in these two) 

Wrecking Ball

Dance Legend: Wow Prism - #15 Quiet Riot

Around this time last year I reviewed a lot of fancy polishes from the Russian brand Dance Legend. I love this brand a lot for their never-ending creativity! They have thermo polishes with three colors and just a few days ago I learned about their Sahara top coat which turns normal polishes into textured ones. That's an awesome idea! You can find the review on this one over at Nailderella. I have one of these as well, but it will take a while until I can actually try it myself. So Dance Legend has sent me a lot of their polishes again and I'm very excited about all of them. I have swatched the first four polishes for this week, they're from their Wow Prism collection. 

Wow Prism is a collection of scattered holos and each bottle is sold for 13$, which is probably the only reason I don't own all of these already. For me the holographic effect was a bit difficult to photograph and I couldn't swatch all of them in the sun. I will start with #15 Quiet Riot because that's the one I'm wearing right now and I was able to take some pictures of the holographic effect on the way. Quiet Riot has a dark grey to black base with a lot of silver holographic particles, which result in a pretty pastel rainbow. It needs two coats to look its best and it dries quite fast. The formula was a bit runny though but it's not too bad. I didn't use a base or top coat. I'm wearing Quiet Riot for 3 days now (with top coat) and it still looks lovely. You can buy Dance Legend in their online shop or in their partner shops, shipping is 10$ or free if you buy more than ten polishes.

Layla Mirror Effect - 01 Metal Chrome

Layla Cosmetics is an Italian brand, I'd say mainly famous for their awesome Mirror Effect collection. Now, this isn't the newest trend but somehow there were a lot of mirror/chrome effect polishes going around lately (probably because of OPI - Push and Shove from the Gwen Stefani Collection!). Of course I was impressed and I decided to treat myself with a Layla polish. I bought it on Ebay which seems to be the cheapest option, but there are other retailers as well. The one I got is called Metal Chrome and it's beautiful! I tried it over a few base coats but it looked best using two coats without a base coat at all. Of course this shows every bump on your nail, so you might want to buff your nails first and do it more thoroughly than I did (see closeup). Also I didn't use a top coat and it dried super fast. Lovely! 

Sally Hansen: Satin Glam - Crystalline, Go Gold & Silk Onyx

I received three shades of the new Sally Hansen collection called Satin Glam and swatched them right away. This collection is available from January on, each bottle contains 10 ml and is sold for € 7.99. The bottles are a bit smaller than usual (14.7 ml) and this was actually the one thing I didn't like about the collection. Since the bottles are slimmer, they are more likely to fall over and make a mess. Apart from that and apart from my first thought ("Oh no, pearly!") I really like all three polishes because of their special finish. They have a mat satin finish which looks beautiful combined with the shimmer. For the pictures I used two coats each without a base or top coat. Find out more about Sally Hansen DE on their Facebook page.

Sally Hansen - Crystalline

Sally Hansen - Go Gold 

Sally Hansen - Silk Onyx

Silver Snowflakes with MoYou London Christmas Collection 02

Another design stamped with the MoYou London Christmas Collection plate #02 before Christmas is over! I used one coat of H&M - Manhunter and then stamped some snowflakes on top with a silver chrome nail polish. On top is one coat of Essie - Matte About You. 

Essie - Mint Candy Apple & OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

As planned I tried my OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat over a mint base color and which mint nail polish would be more obvious than Essie - Mint Candy Apple? I was wearing this combination last week and really liked it, even if the flakie top coat kind of changed the color of my base to a more yellowish mint color. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN High Gloss. 

Incoco: Real Nail Polish Strips - Ikat Catwalk

This is the second review for Incoco Real Nail Polish Strips and this time I tried a design from their fall collection called Ikat Catwalk. This design is sold for $8.99. I tried a different application technique, because I wasn't too happy with the filing part of their suggested application. I don't have any acetone so I tried to remove the overlaying strip with nail polish remover that contains a bit of acetone. This didn't really work and it took me a long time to even try to remove it. After a few nails I gave up and used the file because it was much faster. Also I rushed the application a bit which lead to some wrinkles at the tip of my nails and I wasn't very happy with the end result. Again I didn't use a top coat because my first design lasted very long without applying any. My advice here is to take your time to apply the strips, even if it is supposed to be a fast technique. You will be way happier with the result and they will last longer if you take your time for each nail. One thing that I didn't like about these strips is the removal. You're supposed to remove these with nail polish remover since pulling them off would probably be bad for the nails. But removing them with nail polish remover was so annoying and it took me forever with both designs! Even if these are made out of real nail polish, there is still some glue involved and removing the glue was quite difficult. I used a lot of cotton pads and even after using water and soap there was some glue left. I guess you could just put up with that after a week of wearing a cool design, but I think I will stick with real nail polish in the future. ;)

Incoco - Bone Rattling

OPI Mariah Carey Christmas Collection 2013: In My Santa Suit, My Favorite Ornament & Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

I got some really cool press samples from OPI's new Christmas Collection and decided to review them for today. The Christmas Collection 2013 will launch tomorrow, the 28th of October in Switzerland and each nail polish is sold for CHF 23.90, except for the Pure 18K Top Coat which is sold for CHF 49.90. There are 19 polishes alltogether and their names are inspired by Mariah Carey. The collection includes 10 regular finishes, 8 liquid sand polishes and the super fancy White Gold & Silver Top Coat. To state the obvious: the price for the top coat is hilarious, considering you can easily DIY (as seen at Demelza's World last week). But since I had the opportunity to try it, I was of course very curious! In addition to the top coat I got a liquid sand and a regular polish. Alright, let's do this! 

OPI - In My Santa Suit

This generously pigmented red is worth staying on the "nice" list. 

Indeed, nice list it is! It's a pretty metallic, shimmery red with a perfect formula. I used two coats without base and top coat. I think this could also be nice as a stamping polish, I will have to try that!

Natural light

Lightbox

OPI - Pure 18K White Gold & Silver Top Coat

The Top Coat consists of real white gold and silver leaves in a clear base and yes I do absoutely love it! I added it over In My Santa Suit and I think it looks adorable. OPI recommends to add this over darker colors, but I think it would look great over any color, even maybe on top of a beautiful mint? The bottle is really cool as well and besides the price I have nothing to complain about.

*drum roll* 

OPI - My Favorite Ornament

Make this champagne glitter your new personal favorite.

I love how they read my mind. THIS ONE! I'm so in love! It's like Essie - Beyond Cozy in textured. I used two coats and nothing else and decided that this will be my favorite holiday polish from now on. For good. Love it.

OPI Swiss

OPI Swiss on Facebook

I bet this post gave you Christmas feelings. A little? 

Have a beautiful Sunday <3 

Manhattan - Bonnie Strange Colour Collection

Sorry for being a lazy blogger these days! I'm super busy (and now I have a cold as well). So all I have to show you today is the (more or less) new Manhattan Bonnie Strange Colour Collection with six colors that I received to review. More or less because the collection is already available since mid-September, but it will be available for about 4 more months. Each bottle contains 7 ml and is sold for 2.99 € or CHF 5.90. I used two coats each with no base or top coat, in case you just want to scroll through the pictures. My favorite is #6 The Wow-Show! which you can find at the end of this post! 

001 Berlin Bling

A nice classic silver which looks quite alright with two coats. It was a bit streaky, but I think that could be fixed by adding the second coat with a sponge. 

002 Kreuzberg Darling

A pale pink with a tiny bit of blue shimmer, which is really really not my thing. Also it was quite streaky and three coats would probably be needed here.

003 Very Veggie

Two coats and not opaque at all, very thin and streaky. This was a disappointment.

004 Black Trash

Blackish silver glitter which is perfectly opaque with two coats. Nothing to complain about (except for its name). 

005 Überlover

A nice Christmassy gold which is also showing the brush strokes a bit. Again, a sponge could fix that. Not too impressed by the color though. 

006 The Wow-Show!

Yeah, the name says it. This is my favorite, a beautiful purple with orange glitter which only looks yellow in the bottle. I added a picture from the lightbox with top coat to show all its beauty. I wore this for 7 days with a matte top coat and loved it (but then again I didn't have time to change it anyway). 

Manhattan DE

Manhattan DE Facebook