Catrice - Hollywood's Fabulous 40ties: The Nude Scene & Doris' Darling

I felt like swatching today, so I have two new colors from the Catrice Limited Edition called Hollywood's Fabulous 40ties. I chose the nude and the purple polish out of this Limited Edition.

First one is called Doris' Darling and it's the purple one. You see two coats and one coat of Essence BTGN Top Sealer. It is a very dark purple, almost black. Which is a pity because I was looking for purple only. It is pretty but it's too close to Essie's Velvet Voyeur for me. VV is just a tiny bit more reddish than DD. Drying time is good as usual. 

The second polish is a nude one called The Nude Scene. I hoped for this to be more lilac toned but it is just full on nude on the nails. Nothing bad if you like nude, it is definitely a good one. It is slightly brighter in real and you are looking at two coats plus one coat of BTGN Top Sealer. 

I will be posting some more nail art later on, stay tuned! 

Best White Nail Polish - The Comparison!

I am still on the lookout and I have tried a lot of them up to today. I chose four white nail polishes out of my collection to see them in direct comparison. What is important for me in a white nail polish is opacity with one or two coats and fast drying time. This is especially important for me because I often use white nail polish as a base for nail art, which means there are going to be more layers of polish on top.

So I chose the following bottles:

Ebalay - White Matte

Essie - Blanc

Catrice - Snow Motion

NYX - Matte White

My first white nail polish was actually Snow Motion and the fact that I have a lot more of them now, tells you that I was not too happy with Catrice. But I came to realise that my expectations in a white nail polish are far too high. Because even if I was happy with one bottle, the formula got worse over time and by the time it was half empty, I could not use it anymore. 

Here you can see my four choices with one coat each. You can see that they do not really differ in opacity. They are all quite opaque with one coat but not as opaque as I would need them to be for a base. Ebalay might be the best one in regard to opacity and you might get it right with one coat only. But then again there is the drying time.

With two coats all of them are opaque and do cover the nail. Although you have to be careful with application because each stroke of the brush could ruin the first coat. 

So what is left when all of them are opaque? Exactly, drying time. So I waited about five to ten minutes and pressed my finger on each nail. Following my awesome freehanded arrows you can tell that 3 out of 4 were not dry yet. The only one that did not show a sign of my fingerprints was Essie - Blanc.

That is actually a good result and Blanc is in fact my favorite white nail polish at this time. But keep in mind the following: I bought this bottle about four weeks ago. Catrice is 3 to 4 years old now and Ebalay and NYX are about 4 months old. I can not reassure you that Blanc will not have a similar formula in a few months. 

What is your experience with white nail polish? Do you have a favorite? Or maybe even a half empty bottle of Blanc which you had to throw away? 

H&M - Check Me Out / H&M - Peach Me Soon

I picked up two new colors at H&M last week and I really like them both. My favorite is Check Me Out. I bought Peach Me Soon because I need an alternative for Catrice - Apropos Apricot which has an awful formula. Problem solved!

H&M - Peach Me Soon

3 coats and still not completely opaque if you look closely. This is not something anyone else would notice though. And drying time is a little longer than an H&M average but still a lot better than Apropos Apricot. One coat of BTGN Top Sealer on top.

H&M - Check Me Out

A lovely coral-neon pink which is new to my collection. I adjusted this picture with GIMP since the color really didn't show right. It's still a little darker in reality. 3 coats as well and it dried a little bit faster than Peach Me Soon. One coat of BTGN Top Sealer on top.

This is how my cam showed the color, quite far away from reality.

Essence Crazy Good Times LE: Princessorize / Confetteria / Glitterastic

Finally I got my hands on the new Essence Limited Edition called Crazy Good Times. There are 6 different nail polishes and I bought three of them. 

Princessorize - Confetteria - Glitterastic

Essence - Confetteria

An amazing dark blue with small blue, green and bronze glitters and bigger blue sequins. I used two coats for an opaque result and added one coat of Essie GTG. Confetteria has a quite thick formula and therefore doesn't dry very fast. 

Essence - Glitterastic

This one is a clear base with a lot of tiny silver glitters and bigger silver sequins. I  used three coats for an opaque result and added one coat of Essie GTG on top. I'd recommend a silver base coat for this one (such as China Glaze Cheers To You) since the formula is similar to Confetteria and it takes some time to be completely dry. 

Essence - Princessorize

(Flash)

An amazing neon Barbie pink with tiny blue and purple glitters in it (which sadly don't really appear on the nail). Three coats for an almost opaque result and one coat of Essie GTG. Same here, formula is very thick and not fast-drying. 

I really like this collection, apart from the drying time. Crazy Good Times is available in February 2012.

Besides the nail polishes there are some quite fancy nail stickers called "bling style". I really wanted to try these since I've read Audrey's post on My Mirror World and I think they look amazing. But as I had a look at them in the store I realised I would not get these on my nails. So tiny! I really wish they would make these bigger!