Polish Olympics

Hello my lovelies! It's time for another Polish Days post. It's the second time I'm participating and if you missed my previous Sandwich Day post and don't know what Polish Days is, it's basically a day once every month when several nail bloggers do a post with a certain theme. This month's theme is the Olympics and there are also prizes involved, just like in the Olympic Games: gold, silver and bronze. 

This theme required some nail art, of course. I could have taken the easy road and do some Olympic themed stamping, sponging or whatever, but I didn't. I chose free hand nail art and I'm not very pleased with the result. It was very frustrating because it sure didn't come out as good as I envisioned it in my head. I didn't even want to post it but then I thought that participating is still important. So here goes! Sorry for the weird hand poses but my hand just doesn't have the joints necessary to fit all 5 fingers in the shot.

Since my nail art brushes have failed me miserably lately, I decided to do this using toothpicks, since they are very precise (at least in theory). Just to explain a bit, the one on my pointer was supposed to be a discus thrower and the one on the ring finger is a runner. Of course the discus thrower wouldn't come out by no means. I painted it once, then wiped it, then painted it again. By that time I was so annoyed that I just had to leave it like that. Yeah, patience is not my strongest point! The base color is Orly Au Champagne (my go to white) and most of this was done using acrylic paints. Only the torch was done using polishes: a-england Excalibur (silver), Essie Orange, It's Obvious! and China Glaze Sunshine Pop (yellow). 

Here are the links for the other Polish Olympics participants: 

• 
  A Lacquered Affair
• 
  Alena - Why Hello Nails
• 
  Alexis - Glitter Tips
• 
  Ariane - The Frenzied Polisher
• 
  Chiro - Nail of this Week
• 
  Cuti-CLUE-les
• 
  Deborah - Love Varnish
• 
  Hannah - Polly Polish
• 
  Heidi - Pretty Painted Nails
• 
  Inky - Inky Polisholicious
• 
  Ishah - Ishah X Beauty
• 
  Jen - The Nail Polish Project
• 
  Jenny - Beauty by Jenny
• 
  Jessica H - Sparkles & Shine Nails
• 
  Joanna - The Treasure Chest
• 
  Joanne - Northern Nails
• 
  Karine - Karineaoa
• 
  Kat - Hooked on Polish
• 
  Kate - Polish CART
• 
  Keisha - Refined & Polished
• 
  Lani - Nail Photos by Lani
• 
  Maria - So Marvellous
• 
  Melissa - The Crimson Petal
• 
  Mihaela - Lacquer Buzz
• 
  My Nail Polish Online
• 
  Nail Tart
• 
  Nicole - Nearly Nailed
• 
  Polish Obsession
• 
  Pris - Pris Nails
• 
  Sabine - My Polish Stash
• 
  Samantha - Polished Art
• 
  Sammy - The Nailasaurus
• 
  Sophia - Unhas a Trois
• 
  Stephanie - Sincerely Stephanie
• 
  Wendy - Wendy's Delights

Thank you so much for looking and please be gentle!

Dots of fun

Hello again my lovelies! This is my second post for the day because I'm taking part in this contest on Marta's blog and the entries were posted today. The theme of the contest was "dots of fun" and we had to create a dotted manicure and take a picture with a unusual and creative object. Here's my entry! 

The object in the picture is my dad's old Russian camera dated circa the 80s. I though the neon dots really reminded me of the 80s and I looked for something from that period to take the picture with. I will tell you, posing with this was not an easy task. It's really heavy and somewhat big, so it's hard to hold with one hand. It wouldn't fit in my light box and my camera kept focusing on the lens instead of my nails. That's why the position is kinda weird but this was the best shot I got. 

I created this manicure using the H&M Nude I posted a few days ago as a base. The dots were done with Flormar 49 and a Rapsodi neon coral (312) that I have yet to swatch. I used different sized dotting tools to create the dots. I really like the combo of nude and neon and I think it's quite fashionable at the moment, so I really enjoyed this manicure. 

So if you like my mani or the object I posed with, please go here and vote for me. My entry is number 19. There's two separate categories for the nail art and for the object. I would really appreciate it if you could give me your vote! Thank you! 

Monday Blues: MI-NY I Love London

Hello my lovelies! It's Monday again and that means blue! I have a new brand to introduce to you today and I also have another post coming later so stay tuned! But first let's get to the blue. MI-NY is an Italian brand that is fairly new to the nail polish world. I was surprised to see that they opened a store in one of the malls in our city, even though they only have 3 stores in Italy. They also have an online store here, but I believe they only ship to Italy at the moment. The brand is solely dedicated to nails. They have a wide variety of nail polishes and finishes, including glitters, flakies, croc crackle and neons, plus nail care products and tools, nail art supplies and more. They are also free of Toluene, Formaldehyde, DBP and Camphor. As my first purchase I chose a flakie named I Love London.

MI-NY I Love London over OPI No Room For The Blues, indoors, artificial light

I Love London is definitely a layering polish. The base looks light blue in the bottle, but it's so sheer that it barely alters the color you layer it over. I would say that the base is similar to the one in Revlon Whimsical, without it being so milky. There are two elements in this base, namely flakies and shimmer. The flakies are similar to the ones in Nubar 2010. They shift from gold/copper to green, although the green is rarely seen. There's also an indigo shimmer in this polish, that makes it unique enough to be set apart from other flakie polishes. 

MI-NY I Love London over OPI No Room For The Blues, indoors, artificial direct light

You can see the shimmer in the picture above. This post is picture heavy because I wanted to capture all the aspects of this polish. There is only one swatch of this online and it shows it completely different than what it really is. I was completely undecided about the base color I would use and tried a bunch of combinations on a nail wheel. I wanted to use blue first because its base is blue and I wanted something that could show the shimmer well. I finally chose OPI No Room For The Blues because it's lighter than the shimmer and creates a nice contrast to the flakies. I still think it could be better shown, so I'm going to continue to experiment with it. 

MI-NY I Love London over OPI No Room For The Blues, indoors, artificial direct light

I applied this polish over 2 coats of OPI NRFTB that were still pretty wet and almost created a mess. Everything resulted in a very bump-prone surface. So this needs quick dry top coat badly! Maybe you could get away with it if you apply it over an already dry manicure, but this way it won't dry. 

MI-NY I Love London over OPI No Room For The Blues in the sun

The sun pictures show the green shift a little better, especially the second one. Overall, I'm glad I got this polish and I can't wait to try more from them. They have more than 15 blue shades so prepare yourself because some of them will be coming you way! 

MI-NY I Love London over OPI No Room For The Blues in the sun

If you made it this far on this long post, don't forget to check out what the other Monday Blues lovely ladies have come up with: 

Gosia from Life in Color!

Mandy from Chameleon Stampede

Marisa from Polish Obsession

Have a great week!

H&M Nude

Hello loves! You don't know how happy I am that it's finally Saturday! This week has been very long and tiring for me with waking up early and going to sleep late because of the Olympics. I'm behind again on reading posts so I hope my fellow bloggers will forgive me for not commenting. The polish I'm showing today is more of a palate cleanser after the last colorful posts. There's also some nail art to follow with this as a base, but I wanted to do an individual post to properly review it since there's no info about it online. 

H&M Nude indoors, artificial light

This came in a set of 3 mini's along with a gold glitter and a copper shimmer. It is literally called Nude so I'm not sure if it also comes as a full size or if it has a different name as a full size. Our H&M stores don't carry cosmetics and these were gifted to me by a friend who recently returned from Italy. I have mixed feelings about the H&M polishes. They have some nice colors but the formula is mostly thick. I was very impressed with this mini actually and wanted to share my thoughts on it. 

H&M Nude in the sun

I would say this is the perfect nude shade for me because it's slightly darker than my skin, so it doesn't appear as if my nails were completely naked, but it still makes them look longer. It's more tan rather than peachy and I like the fact that despite it's warmth, it doesn't clash with my skin tone. The bottle is a mini and only holds 4.4 ml (0.14 fl oz.). I don't like buying mini's because I'm afraid I will run out of the polish too soon, but after one mani there's not a lot missing from the bottle and since I don't wear such a color too often, I don't think I will run out. 

the bottle after 1 mani

I really like the formula of this polish. With 3 coats, it still shows a bit of visible nail line in the photo, but that is not evident in real life. It goes on very smooth and is not thick at all. Despite the small bottle, the brush has a decent size (similar to the Essie brush) and is very easy to work with. The square lid comes off to reveal a round cap with ridges, which makes for a better hold. It dries to a high shine and wouldn't need a top coat. I applied some to make it dry faster. 

As I've said before, I'm very impressed with this polish and I think this is a great trio of neutrals. I've only swatched the others on a nail wheel and the copper shimmer seems to be a one coater. There's also another H&M polish I need to review, so stay tuned! 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard

Hello my lovelies! It's August! Can't believe that July went by so fast! I've told you last month that July will be better than June and I see now that I posted 19 times. I think I did pretty well and I hope that August will be just as good. I'm working on my thesis these days so I'm pretty tired when I get home, but I still wanted to do this neon post today. After all, summer is not over and we need some bright colors in our lives! 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard indoors, artificial light

I love this bright, lime green polish! It was one of my picks from the Summer Neons collection because I love green and also because of this post on Let them have Polish! There's nothing better for a blogger than knowing they've inspired a lemming. There are some bloggers out there that make any polish look amazing and Cristina is one of them. Her swatches of the Summer Neons are literally glowing! 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard in the sun

The formula of this polish is a little tricky. It is by no means one of those sheer neons that need white underwear to be opaque, but it does need 3 coats. The first coat goes on smoother than the next ones, probably because it dries to a matte finish, which makes coats 2 and 3 go on a less smoother surface. In the end I didn't find it hard to manage. The streaks are less visible in reality compared to my pictures. Of course all pictures are with top coat. This dries rather slow, so a fast drying one like Seche Vite is recommended. 

China Glaze I'm With The Lifeguard in direct artificial light

I wore this for one day and then decided to do some sponging over it. I love the contrast between black and neons and after doing this mani and liking it a lot, I recreated the look using China Glaze Liquid Leather and a sponge tip makeup applicator. Again, this is not a gradient but a sponging of a much darker color. The new Bundle Monster set has an image very similar to this one and it's good to know that it can be created by using a simple sponge. 

I'm a big fan of this look so I think this is not the last time you will see it on my blog. It can be created with so many color combinations! What do you think?