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.

Essie Dress To Kilt (Fall 2014) - The Perfect Cover Up

1 coat of Essie - The Perfect Cover Up from the Dress To Kilt Fall collection

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

Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her / Matte / Nail Art

Two coats of Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her plus some ornaments with acrylic paint. On top is one coat of Essie - Matte About You. I also added some studs and a shiny top coat later on, but I do prefer the matte version, don't you? 

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.

Tribal Nails for Fall

I recreated my H&M inspired Tribal Nails from spring but this time with a pop of color, using my current favorites. I'm so in love with fall and all its colors! I used two coats of Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her as my base color. With a nail art brush I added very small strokes to create the tribal pattern with Sally Hansen - Night Watch and Essie - Bahama Mama. And somehow unconsciously I matched my nails with my outfit today, it's awesome when that happens! On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

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The New Black - Ombré Shades: Graffiti

In the review package that I received from The New Black, there were two Ombré Shades sets and today I will review the black one called Graffiti for you. If you read my last review, you know that I was a bit disappointed by their Typography set, mainly because of the price. And again, the Ombré set is sold for 29.95 Euro which is quite expensive since their bottles are tiny. In the Graffiti set there are 5 polishes which are supposed to be "carefully selected for perfectly gradated tones". Well, I think that is up for discussion: There is a plain black one, a black with silver glitter, a grey with blue shimmer, a chrome silver and finally a silver glitter in a clear base. I like all of these shades and the formula is great. I used two coats for each color, except for the silver glitter which looked better with three coats. If you follow me on my Instagram you might have seen the picture of the brush, which I added at the end of this post as well. The hair stuck out from the brush, I pulled it with tweezers and this is what happened. I've seen cheaper nail polish with better brushes! Of course this could just be "a lemon", the brushes in the Typography set were fine. The midi ring in the pictures is by H&M and (sadly) not included in the set ;) 

PS: I added a mouseover Pinterest button to my blog, now you can pin pictures by hovering over them and clicking the Pin Button, yay! 

The New Black - Typography 'Times Late Edition' - Newspaper Nails

The New Black sent me a package with a lot of their nail polish sets to review. One of them caught my attention because it is a technique that I haven't tried yet, although I really like the look. It is nothing new though, because I'm talking about newspaper nails. The New Black created three Typography sets which contain all the stuff you need to create these nails: a base color, a transfer solution, a top coat and of course the newspaper. I tried the set with the grey base color which is called Times Late Edition. First of all: I wouldn't personally buy this set, because it's too expensive for me. The price is 24.95 Euro for three tiny bottles and some newspaper (12 sheets, two designs). I'm not a big fan of putting something easy in a box and selling it for a lot of money. You can easily create newspaper nails with rubbing alcohol, a grey nail polish and well, newspaper. Or you can even print your own design with a laser printer and put it on your nails - almost for free. The lovely Karine from Nailderella made a tutorial for this technique a while ago. Nonetheless I do actually like the Typography set! The base color fits perfectly and is of good quality, the transfer solution does what it is supposed to do and the newspaper print is mirror-inverted so you can actually read the text on the nails. They text isn't really my thing though, it says love, hope, laugh and yadayadayada. I'd prefer MURDER, ROBBERY, CRISIS... kidding. As with every nail art technique, this needs a bit of practice as well, but I do actually like the incomplete look. I had problems with one nail where the paper stuck to the nail polish, but I just painted over it with top coat. The top coat is clear by the way, it just looks pink in the bottle. Oooh Shinies! did a review today on one of the other sets called Weekly Journal and she wasn't too happy with the quality.

So how do you like newspaper nails? Yesterday's news or still wearable?  

Cheeky Jumbo Plate 1 - Viva Mexico!

It's been a while! The last few days I was wearing plain black nails on a camping site here in Switzerland and I really started to miss nail art or changing my nail polish for that matter. Good thing something awesome arrived in the mail today! I ordered the Cheeky Jumbo Plate 1 Viva Mexico three weeks ago and I love it so much! I haven't done stamping designs for a while now and I'm actually not that big of a fan of this technique (because I suck at it, ha!), but I just had to have this particular plate. If you are a longtime reader, you might know why ;) Of course I couldn't decide which design to use first, because basically all of the full designs are gorgeous! So I chose four colors and five different full designs. The colors used are: Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her & p2 - Night Out and Anny - Latina & Anny - Soul Sister. On top as always is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer.

Grey & Neon Pink Splatter Nails

I tried again and came up with another color scheme for Splatter Nails. I did these for the Splatter Nails Competition over at My Awesome Beauty, which will end tomorrow. I chose a grey splattered base color with Essence - Got A Secret, Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her and Essie - Licorice. And the neon pink cherry on top is once again China Glaze - Pool Party. I used my DIY Decals technique this time, to avoid a big mess. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer. 

Sandy Ruffian Nails feat. Dance Legend - White Noise & Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her

Ever since I used White Noise by Dance Legend I wanted to combine it in some kind of nail art design. I started small with a simple ruffian using pale color shades. As my base coat I used two coats of Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her (Madison Ave-hue  2013). Because a top coat would ruin the sandy look, I just used one coat after the grey base and then added White Noise on top. At first I planned to add some studs, but then I decided against more details. I think a thin neon pink outline of the ruffian could look cool.. maybe tomorrow! 

Essie - Madison Ave-hue Collection 2013 + Watercolor Nails

Essie sent me the complete Madison Ave-hue collection and I will show you two pictures for each shade. I used two coats for each color except for Hip-anema which only needed one coat to be opaque. The formula was alright for all of them, except for Go Ginza which was a bit thicker. But it is a very light color, so I'm used to pastel colors being difficult to work with. On top is one coat of Essence - BTGN Top Sealer for each color. I used my favorite colors in this collection to do some watercolor nails and included the pictures at the end of this post. Enjoy!

Essie - Avenue Maintain

Essie - Bond With Whomever

Essie - Go Ginza

Essie - Hip-anema

(1 coat)

Essie - Madison Ave-hue

Essie - Maximillian Strasse Her

Watercolor Nails 

Go Ginza, Avenue Maintain, Bond With Whomever & Maximillian Strasse Her