Monday Blues: Royal Blue

Hello my lovelies! Hope your Monday isn't too busy or cold. I have lots of stuff to do this week but I'm trying to stay on top of things and not get stressed out. To put us all in a better mood, I have a manicure with an old classic to show you. It was inspired by Ohmygoshpolish, although it's quite a bit different than her original manicure because I used a blue base instead of a black one and a different image for the stamping. I did, however, keep the main idea of stamping with light blue over a dark jelly. Here's my result.

Monday Blues: Creepy Eyes

Hello my lovelies! Happy Halloween! I don't usually celebrate this holiday since there's no real tradition for it in my country. Nobody goes trick-or-treating here, so there's no point in Halloween without candy. But I was in the mood to do some themed nails this year because I haven't done any in ages. I then realized that I have very few Halloween stamping plates, so I didn't have many options. I finally got inspired by the immensely talented Ohmygoshpolish to freehand some creepy eyes. Of course mine aren't as cool as her's because she used a magnetic polish but I still think they came out ok.

Monday Blues: Dreamy Waterfall

Hello my lovelies! I'm pretty excited that today is a holiday so I didn't have to go to work. I'm not sure how many countries have a holiday today, but for those of you who have to work I have some dreamy blue nails to take your Monday Blues away. I am not even joking, I actually had a dream about this polish a couple of nights ago. It's pretty weird because I haven't used this in years, probably since I first got it. And I think it's been mine for about four years. I don't know how it came to that, but I remember that I was looking for it in my Helmer. So naturally I had to use it in a manicure. I paired it with some waterfall nail art that goes well with how delicate this polish is.

Monday Blues: Reverse Flowers

Hello my lovelies! Today is extremely busy for me and the fact that I didn't prepare this post in advance is not helping at all. So this post is gonna be short and on point. The manicure I'm showing you today is not something I'm particularly in love with. I do like how it looks on my hands but the pictures don't do it justice at all. I really wanted to use a polish that my good friend Kinga gave me to try out. It seemed great for stamping but in fact it was too thin for that, so I had to use it as a base instead. This is the result.

Monday Blues: The Diamond as Big as the Ritz

Hello my lovelies! Can you believe it's Monday again? I sure can't! With all this daylight savings time nonsense I feel more tired than ever today. But Monday is always full of optimism for me because it's a fresh start and the weekend was great so I'm in a good mood today. If you are an F. Scott Fitzgerald fan you may have noticed the reference in the title. This manicure reminded me of this short story and since he's one of my favorite writers I had to mention him.

Monday Blues: Royal Sandwich and Born Pretty Store Nail Shields

Hello my lovelies! The best thing about Mondays is the Monday Blues post and this week's is no exception. I have a yummy jelly sandwich to show you, plus something extra on top. Some of you might remember that less than a year ago I got my hands on a bottle (or two) of the famous blue jelly that is Revlon Royal. I did a Monday Blues post back then with swatches and a sandwich, but looking back on the result it wasn't the greatest there could be. That's because I used some large round glitters that didn't quite fit in the sandwich. So considering it's been a while since that post, I decided to revisit it and hope you won't mind to look at another gorgeous jelly sandwich. If you wish to see the original post you can find it here.

Revlon Rain Forest

Hello my lovelies! It's the middle of the week and I have a little treat for you: a polish that is absolutely beautiful. This jewel was sent to me by the amazing Julie from Turtlechick's Nails N Tales as a surprise along with Zoya Dream. It brought a big smile on my face when I saw it because of many reasons: the surprise, the fact that I've been wanting to try the Colorstay polishes for ages and they aren't available here, and the fact that it's gorgeous. So here it is! 

Revlon Rain Forest indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Revlon Surf

Hello my lovelies! I can't believe it's Monday again. It's been a busy week for me, hence the lack of posts in the last days. But I'm happy to be able to show you another beautiful blue today, one that is pretty special to me. This polish was a gift from a lovely lady I met via Instagram. She lives in my city and her name is Kinga (@kinganak on Instagram). I met her and Andrea (@funandi) a couple of weeks ago and it was a blast. Of course none of us showed up empty handed, so I got spoiled with beautiful gifts. Kinga knows I'm obsessed with blue so she made sure to include a few blue polishes for me. Long story short, Revlon Surf is one of them. Thank you, Kinga!

Revlon Surf indoors, artificial light

Revlon Popular

Hello my lovelies! Now that the untried challenge is over, I can finally do a Pink Wednesday post. I haven't done one of these in a very long time so I'm excited. The one I'm showing you today is something that I don't  wear very often but it was on my wishlist since forever because it's so pretty. Take a look! 

Revlon Popular indoors, artificial light

Monday Blues: Revlon Royal

Hello my lovelies! Can you believe it's Monday again? I sure can't! But since we have to go back to work I should at least show you an amazing blue. I'm so happy to post the one from today. It's been on top of my wishlist since forever and I had lost all hope to ever own it like I've told you in this post. But then I had the immense luck to find it on a discount website called Fragrance Direct. I couldn't believe my eyes! One week later and it was all mine. 

Revlon Royal indoors, artificial light

Revlon Radiant

Hello my lovelies! It's Wednesday so as usual I am showing you an untried. For today's challenge we had to use our oldest untried and for me it's a blue glitter from Revlon. The reason this remained in my untrieds for so long is a mistery. I definitely needed to try this blue glitter a long time ago.

Revlon Radiant indoors, artificial light

Valentine's Glitter

Hello my lovelies! Happy Valentine's Day! Whether you are celebrating or not, I still wanted to show you my manicure for the occasion. This will also be the last Valentine's themed post of this year. If you missed the other ones just click on these links: pink water marble, purple hearts and studded nails. The one I'm showing you today is less girly and more "me" than the other ones. 

NYX Dorothy and Revlon Facets of Fuchsia indoors, artificial light

I had NYX Dorothy in my untrieds for about a year now and couldn't find the perfect moment to use it. But I think it's great as a vampy take on the Valentine's Day theme. Since I'm not a girly girl I always prefer red instead of pink. Red goes great with black and I think these nails turned out very sexy, don't you agree? 

NYX Dorothy and Revlon Facets of Fuchsia indoors, artificial light

I used one coat of China Glaze Liquid Leather as underwear for this manicure so I wouldn't worry about opacity. On most of my nails I used 2 coats of NYX Dorothy and on my accent nail I used 2 coats of Revlon Facets of Fuchsia (also known as Scandalous). Both of these polishes have a pretty sheer black base, so I'm not sure how many coats it would take for them to reach opacity. They are pretty much the same think, only Dorothy has red glitter and Facets of Fuchsia has fuchsia glitter. Dorothy is on the thicker side though and the glitter is pretty dense. You do have to move it around a bit to make it even, but there's a decent amount on the brush so no fishing is needed. Facets of Fuchsia has a thinner consistency, with a tendency to pool at the cuticles, and the glitter is less dense so it's harder to obtain a decent amount on the nail. The larger hex pieces were also harder to fish out of the bottle. I do love this polish a lot though, as it's one of my favorite glitters of all time. 

NYX Dorothy and Revlon Facets of Fuchsia indoors, artificial light

To finish off this manicure, I added a coat of Color Club Matte-ified. I really like the look of matte glitter polish because it makes the glitter pieces stand out and glow. Here's how it looks matte. 

NYX Dorothy and Revlon Facets of Fuchsia matte indoors, artificial light

Ok, that's all for today. I'm off to get ready for tonight. What are your plans for Valentine's Day? Please share in the comment section! 

Winter Holiday Challenge: Snowflakes and Snowfall

Hello lovely followers! I hope you are all doing well today. I have kind of a busy week because of school and I'm also recovering from a cold. Today I'm starting a new winter challenge and I'm very excited about it. Truth is, I really wanted to do a winter/holiday themed challenge this year, but I was so busy that I almost gave up. I still don't have any of the other manis ready, so I hope I can manage to keep up. Nevertheless, I'm still very happy to be posting the first nail art today. The Facebook group Crumpet's Nail Tarts is famous for the great challenges they create. I usually look at the pictures the ladies post in there and I'm floored by so much talent. I was sad that I didn't have time to do the Halloween one, so this challenge was mandatory. Here are the themes. 

These are all so fun! I really hope I can do them all! The first theme is so appropriate because today we saw the first snowflakes in my town too. It's supposed to snow more later and there are some places in the country where it's already snowing heavily. Here's my mani to go with the occasion. 

I did some very simple nail art for this one and here's why. I was very close to giving up on this challenge because I didn't have the time and energy to do these nails. But then I decided to stamp over a base I already had on. I did some multiple stamping and it all looked great. But then, as I top coated it, one of the polishes completely melted. This has never happened to me before. I've had nail art smudged by top coat, but this one literally melted and the image became all blurry. The polish I used was one from Kleancolor and the top coat was Seche Vite. After this happened, I was really frustrated and had no will to start from scratch. Then I decided to do something simple and pretty instead. 

I used Revlon Blue Lagoon as a base because I think the little silver flecks look exactly like snow. You can imagine this as a sky full of tiny little snowflakes. I posted about this polish before over here, so I won't go into detail. Then I just stamped the snowflake from fauxnad m59 with a-england Excalibur and that's it. Simple and pretty. I hope you won't mind. 

Thank you for stopping by! Here are the other ladies participating in this challenge. 

Where In The World Challenge: Australia

Hello lovelies! Hope your week is going great! Today is the start of a new adventure. Some of you might have noticed that my sidebar now has 2 challenge banners. One is the Girly Girl banner and the other one is the Where In The World  challenge banner. I won't go into detail about the rules of this challenge, for that you can click here. This challenge was started by Gosia of Life in Color! and Jin of Superficially Colorful. Each manicure has a certain country as a theme. The beauty is in the fact that it's not mandatory to post at a certain time and you can go at your own pace. You only have to follow the order of the list and you can join at any time! I will try to post at least one of these a week, but my goal is to do 2 per week if possible. The first country and the one we will be talking about today is Australia.

If you don't understand what those are, well, they are koalas. Everybody thinks of the kangaroo as the symbol of Australian wildlife, but in fact there are many marsupials that live there. Every time I do one of these challenges, I will also talk about something I've learned while I was doing them. And here's the thing about koalas. Many people refer to them as koala "bears" and that's wrong. They have nothing in common with bears, except for the similar appearance, which made settlers call them bears when they first arrived there. They are nocturnal marsupials and eat eucalypt leaves. These are actually indigestible and toxic for most species, but the koala takes care of that by sleeping for 16 to 18 hours every day. Another interesting fact is that they have opposable thumbs. If you want to find out more about koalas check out this wikipedia article.

The base color for this mani is Revlon Smoky Canvas. I painted the koalas using a thin nail art brush and several polishes. I also used some dotting tools for the eyes. I had a lot of mishaps with this manicure. I tried using the Konad top coat and it bubbled terribly. After that I realized I forgot to make the pupils so I made them on top and then did another coat of Seche Vite. This smudged some of the pupils and made my koalas look weird in the end. I know it's not a neat design, but I still think they are cute. 

I hope the next challenge will come out better! Here's a list of all the countries in the challenge. Don't forget you can join us at any time! 

Here are the links to all the ladies participating in this challenge. Check them out to see what they have come up with! 

Thank you for reading! 

Monday Blues: Revlon Blue Lagoon

Hello loves! It's Monday again. I have no idea where the weekend went because it went terribly fast. Today's post is about a Revlon beauty that's meant to make you forget about September. The name of it is strategically chosen for that. So let me take you to the lagoon! 

Revlon Blue Lagoon indoors, artificial light

My story with this polish started a couple of months ago. I saw it in a shop and was instantly amazed by the beauty of the silver flakes in the bottle. Sadly, Revlon polishes are kinda expensive here, namely around 10-11 $. But I just couldn't resist and less than a week later I went back and got it. This was back when my nails were very very short from a bad break. I immediately put it on but didn't like my pictures, so I decided to swatch it again some other time. Which brings us to the present date. 

Revlon Blue Lagoon indoors, artificial light

Blue Lagoon is a light sky blue polish with tiny silver flecks in it. The flecks are very evident in the bottle and you can still see them on the nail pretty well, especially in the sun. That's what makes this polish so special and sets it apart from other sky blues. 

Revlon Blues Lagoon in the sun

Regarding formula, I must say that this polish is very controversial. I've checked a few blogs and some complain of it being thick, some of it being thin, while others (like ALU) say it has a good formula. Well I wasn't that lucky. Mine is on the very thin side. I didn't like the brush either because I found it quite uneven. I did 3 coats and the result was kinda streaky. But the biggest problem is that because of the flecks, the finish is grainy since the polish is so thin. Top coat is mandatory to level it out. It actually reminds me of the formula of Essie To Buy Or Not To Buy with a little more pigmentation. The difference is that while I'm not willing to accept such issues with a lilac polish, I can do it for a blue. It's just too beautiful!

Revlon Blue Lagoon indoors, artificial direct light

I hope you enjoyed my post. Please stop by the other blogs to see what these ladies have come up with for Monday Blues: 

Gosia from Life in Color!

Mandy from Chameleon Stampede

Marisa from Polish Obsession
Joanna from The Treasure Chest

Have a great week!

Revlon Whimsical

Hello my dears! How excited are you about the weekend? I don't know how it is where you live, but spring finally kicked in today over here! I can officially retire my winter coat because I was dying with it on today. Yay! This is my favorite time of the year! I also have something really amazing to show you in this post. Drum roll please!

Revlon Whimsical over China Glaze Kinetic Candy, indoors, artificial light

How lucky was I to be able to get this! I believe it is only available in the US. But with the help of an amazing polish fairy, it landed on my doorstep. I was wearing this manicure exactly a week ago, the day I broke my precious nails. So this makes me even more nostalgic. Because it's sheer, this is a definite layering polish. I used China Glaze Kinetic Candy as a base. Look at those two! They were made for each other!   

they are actually closer in reality but they photographed a bit differently

My hand is not big enough to hold these two properly. The base color in Whimsical is very similar to Kinetic Candy. So I did 2 coats of the China Glaze and then two coats of Whimsical over it. I was in a hurry and didn't take pictures of Kinetic Candy by itself, but I promise I will the next time I use it. It's such a gorgeous pastel blue!

Revlon Whimsical is made out of large blue and pink hex glitter and small blue glitter suspended in a sheer blue milky base. The glitter pieces can look darker but that's mainly because of the way they are suspended in the polish layers and the way light hits them. This is said to be a dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air. I don't have that one but according to the comparisons online they are pretty close. 

Application is not very easy on this one. The glitter pieces come off from the brush when you wipe it on the bottle. If you don't wipe it properly you will get a lot of the milky base on the nail and that's not good either. It's totally worth it though because this is so dreamy and gorgeous! I've used one coat of China Glaze Fast Forward but it might have used two for it to be totally shiny. I can't wait to layer this over different polishes and see how it looks! 

Revlon Smoky Canvas

Hello my lovelies! Today is finally a sunny day around here, after many days of ugly clouds. I thought I would show you the second polish I won in a giveaway on the wonderful blog Fab Fingertips: Revlon Smoky Canvas. 

Revlon Smoky Canvas, artificial light

 I've been thinking a lot about what to tell you about this polish and the truth is, I was lacking the patience to properly apply it. First of all, Smoky Canvas is a greige creme. It looks more grey in bright light and starts leaning towards beige in dimmed light. It's the perfect neutral shade for fall, but not at all boring. I truly love this color and could see myself wearing it a lot. 

I started applying this without any previous research and made a terrible job. I then read Esther's post on Fab Fingertips here, but it was too late. The polish is more on the thinner side but still very pigmented. You will need 2 coats for opacity though. The thing is that it dries very very fast and that makes it hard to work with. I found myself making thicker and thicker coats when trying to level it out. The result of this were a series of bubbles on some of my fingers. 

you can see some of the bubbles on my middle finger

Considering the awful job I did with my application, I couldn't leave it on for very long, so I can't tell you anything about wear time. All in all, I think this is a great color that is a little harder to work with but I sure will know how to handle it the next time. I already have some ideas of looks I can do with this so be sure it will be back!

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

Where to start? I won this polish in a giveaway hosted by the lovely Esther of Fab Fingertips. I’ve mentioned several times that I wanted this polish very bad and had no chance of getting it around here. You have probably seen it swatched on many blogs and forums, but for those of you that are new to it, let me introduce you to the most beautifull polish in the world: Revlon Facets of Fuchsia.

Artificial light (sorry but we have no sun over here). All photos are click-able

 FoF is a glitter in a pretty sheer black base. There are two types of fuchsia glitter in it: one is small and round, the other one is large and hexagonal. The polish requires several coats to achieve opacity, so in order to save it and not waste this beauty, I’ve layered 2 coats over one coat of black. Application is very easy, the polish having a perfect formula, which leads to a short drying time.

FoF was almost impossible to photograph. My camera literally freaked out when it saw this polish, and a lot of the photos came out blurry. The ones I posted here are the decent ones. They are a lame excuse for pictures, but it’s the best I could do.

None of the pictures I’ve found on the internet do this polish justice. You can’t capture its depth, nor the way the glitter reflects the light. The best thing to do is to see it in person. If you have the chance to get your hands on this polish, don’t hesitate. You won’t be sorry, trust me!