IsaDora will no longer be featured at alizarine

It has come to my attention that Swedish cosmetic company Invima, owner of brand IsaDora, uses questionable business practices - to say the least. Just take a look at this facsimile from the internet edition of daily Sydsvenskan:

Google translate may not have been kind on the tricksy Swedish language, but I hope it still comes out clear: Invima treats their employees like shit. In an attempt to avoid regulated employer responsibility, they fired the vast majority of their factory workers, and brought in a staffing company. This company in turn, threatens its employees both verbally and physically.

I think it's obvious: for me as a union woman this is unacceptable. Therefore I will no longer feature IsaDora on this blog. Neither will I buy any of their products. This will last until there is proof that Invima act according to Swedish laws and applicable collective agreements.

I'm also fully aware that this once great blog has diminished quite massively, but I hope to be able to spread the word enough for others to pick up and pay it forward - after all, this is about basic human rights: to be able to go to work and earn your living without fear of threats and retaliation, and their possible realization. It's a call to arms for workers' rights.

Until further notice, the boycott is on.

To read the source article in Swedish, click here.
To read the source article in poorly translated English, click here.
To read the follow up statement from the employer, in Swedish, click here.
To read the follow up statement from the employer, in really badly translated English, click here.

Go Green

So many polishes go by this name, and of course, when a Swedish brand tries to come up with product names they fall for all the clichés. Go Green, one of IsaDora's summer colors, looked so promising in the bottle that I, despite the ridiculously hefty price tag, eventually fell for it. Usually when I get home, I try my new finds on a nail wheel, and when trying Go Green I was on the verge of disappointment. So sheer?!

This is two coats. What seemed like a badly pigmented average medium green, turned out to be a nice, smooth well pigmented bright grass green jelly. And you know me, I usually do three coats, but two was enough here (though I'm one of those who doesn't mind some visible nail line). If you do your coats really thin you'll need a third, but I've become sloppy with time, I just splash the whole thing on as quickly as possible - with varied resLuts.

I wish I had a good picture of this thing in the shade, but I don't, so you'll just have to take my word on it: this is worth owning. At least if you're into either greens or jellies - or both.

Swedish word of the day:
gräs -noun grass
Water keeps it green.

Somewhere out in space

Attempting to break the silence with a massive glitter bomb! I haven't been proud of my nails lately, which partly explains the lack of new blog posts, and also why there are gigantic paw marks all over one of my nails in the photos below - let's just say there was an accident at work, involving a tumble dryer and, well, my nail.



The stubby ring finger nail in all its glory.

This is two coats of one of IsaDora's christmas offerings, Black Galaxy, topped off by two coats of a reasonably thick topcoat. It's absolutely gorgeous, but of course rather gritty. Especially apparent in the second photo, close to the cuticles, where the glitter tended to end up during application. I don't mind though, because it's not that bad on the rest of the nail, and the glitter makes it pretty forgivable. And sure we fancy us some holographic glitter in black!

If you're the least hesitant about my love for this type of glitter, see my space in a bottle comparison here. IsaDora's space bottle is the most reminiscent of China Glaze's Cosmic, but not at all as lumpy. I'm a fan of the IsaDora formula, and even if the wide brush was a tad more difficult to handle with all the glitter, I still like it more than I know some others do. As I'm writing this, I have worn the manicure above for about 48 hours, and I still don't have a single chip, just some slight tip wear on one of my thumb nails. This is good for an IsaDora polish on me. Still, I guess it's going off later tonight. Or tomorrow. Maybe.

Swedish word of the day:
Vintergatan -noun Milky Way
from
vinter -noun winter
and
gata -noun street
I like the Swedish name for our galaxy better, actually.

Vast Forest

I vaguely remember someone wanting to see one of IsaDora's fall offers, Forest - perhaps it was Ulmiel..? Regardless, here it is, on terribly long nails, as it has been in the vault for a couple of weeks now (sorry).




Can you spell w o w? To some it may not look like much, but this is a color in my favourite color group, the golden greens. And it has great fleck shimmer. As usual with IsaDora the formula was nice (and the bottle teeny tiny), and though I know some don't, I really like the brush. Too bad it's been so long since I applied it that I can no longer recall how many coats it was, but I very seldom need more than two coats with IsaDora polishes.

Do you remember this..?

It was originally in my OPI The Muppets part I post. One coat of Warm & Fozzie over Forest. This is love.

Forest also makes me think of this song:

Swedish word of the day:
skog -noun forest
We've got plenty of 'em in Sweden.

H&M news and more...

According to the ongoing poll at the top of my right sidebar →, more than 80 % of you like haul posts. 7 % don't, so if you're one of them, you may just skip this post!

I thought I should take the opportunity to show you what I got at my local H&M the other day, as I found a whole bunch of sets and other news in the polish department - new to me that is, maybe not to some of you. I got two sets and two others:

The four in the upper left is yet another one of those seasonal mini sets, Summer Nails. There were two sets last year as well, and there is another one this year that I didn't get, consisting of pastels. We had a couple during the spring too. The other set is the five polishes to the top right. Mostly generic colors, but also one that I really had to have:

Mustard!

And these were the ones that looked decent in the Summer Nails set:

As usual with H&M bulk polishes, intriguingly named Yellow, and get ready for this: Metallic Blue. Metallic Blue is of course not metallic at all, but a sheer aqua glassfleck sorta thing.

The other two are Dazzling Jade in the mini bottle, which is very similar to another one in the set containing Mustard: Petrol, and Naughty N'Nice (Swedes involved again?), which is a pretty generic metallic steel grey that looked much more interesting in the fluorescent lights in the store than it does in natural light...

And a few more I got during the weekend:

Estée Lauder Metallic Sage - you realise I couldn't resist this one, right? IsaDora Forest, one of three fall polishes from this continuously improving Swedish brand, and MNY 143A (sic), which looks awesome in the bottle but not so much swatched, as it's a sheer purple base with silver glitter. Might get interesting with excessive coating though! The glitter that has some base color over it looks blue.

Hope you enjoyed this haul spam!

Swedish word of the night:
flaskor -noun pl. bottles
They're so many.

City greyness

What better to post on a grey day than a grey polish? This is City Khaki from IsaDora.




Grey creme base with two types of shimmer - light and dark. Like concrete. Cool, indeed. Reminds a bit of the classic BB Couture Opposites Attract, but I think I actually like this one even better.

Very moderate sun the day I took these photos. The top one is in "evening sun", meaning a teeny ray slipping through the massive clouds. This is two coats. As usual with modern IsaDora polishes, the pigmentation and application is great, the wear... Not as great, but definitely defendable.

However, I also used this one for layering. Remember those sheer glassfleck Viva La Diva summer polishes? This is two coats of Amnesia over City Khaki.





Doesn't it look a whole lot better than it did alone? Swimming pool water over grey sand. Or perhaps cement.

Swedish word of the day:
syrén -noun lilac
I have an entire hedge blooming outside my window.

In a revolutionary mood

You know, H&M only gets better and better, nail polish wise. They may sometimes be late, but a lot of the time, they're extremely fast and accurate when picking out nail trends. More on this some day soon, but for now, check out their latest release of a khaki green creme, Hunt Me Down.


Two coats, and the formula was fantastic. Extremely pigmented, this polish still wasn't thick, which has previously been characteristic for the H&M cremes. In the dim light I did this manicure in, the first coat looked great. So if you're better than me when it comes to painting, or if you sport nubs, you could get away with one coat only. I have nothing but praise for this one, it was love at first sight. Usually good looks doesn't necessarily mean great content, but this polish is like the love of your life - beautiful all the way to the core!

As I was wearing it, the thought crossed my mind: "Hmm... I wonder how this one compares to that khaki green Chanel...". Of course, I don't own it, so I'm in no position to provide you with a comparison, though, as I was scrolling through my twitter feed just hours later, I noticed that the fantastic Negellakkmani had the same idea - and had done it! Great minds do think alike.

However, I had another new polish that I wanted to try, and Hunt Me Down seemed to be the perfect base for it. Check out my camouflage nails with IsaDora's new All City Brown Graffiti Nails crackle polish.


I know many of you are extemely tired of all the crackles floating around at the moment, but a brown one - I just couldn't resist picking it up. I realised it would be very useful, and except for camo nails, also started imagining layering it over a different brown tone to mimic tree stems - or crackled poo, whatever floats your boat. If I had a grey crackle, I'd layer it on top of this to make it even more camouflage-y!

Certainly suits my extra revolutionary mind these days. Now the Arab world - tomorrow the western world.

Swedish word of the day:
frihet -noun freedom
We deserve it.

Spanking sparkling insanity

Hell, it's Friday, let's have some blingy ...weirdness. I present to you: IsaDora Graffiti Nails in Spraycan Blue, over Funky Fingers Bella's Boy.



How insane is that? I just felt like doing something less expected one day. And this was it. Originally inspired by the weird combination of polishes in OPI's Katy Perry collection. I thought I could do even cooler.

And if you'd like to see what Bella's Boy looks like alone, this is it:

A rather sheer glitter, but it makes up for it by being iridescent, which is, as you might know by now, a favourite of mine. This is three generous coats, still the glitter is rather sparse.

Why I'm showing you a poor photo shot in equally poor lighting? Let's look what this sucker is like under bright light, namely with the flash on (I did this manicure late at night):

Like a disease! Not necessarily a bad thing, if you're like me, though I realize it is less tempting to some of you. But the way it looks in low light is the absolute win of this polish. So hot.

Swedish word of the day:
skum -adjective I dim, dark II weird
This post has it all.

In the army

I do not in any way encourage enrolling, but that doesn't keep me from loving my camo greens! This is IsaDora In the Army. You have seen it a million times already, but hey.


Sorry about the lack of shine, but these photos were shot on the second day of wear.

However. To quote the fantastic Tori Amos: I believe in peace, bitch.

Swedish word of the day:
krig -noun war
Yeah...

I'm jaded...

Another one from Swedish brand IsaDora. Yes, they finally have done something about their image! From a terrible range of pinks and champagnes with the occational summer wackiness, to including some more edgy colors in fall and spring collections. I couldn't be happier. This is Jaded.


Another hard to capture green, can you believe it? Not my favourite green, but not my least favourite one either. And just because IsaDora is at least trying to reinvent themselves, I'll forgive them for naming yet another polish Jaded... How many "jaded" polishes do you own?! Me, I have at least three or four...

The formula is nice and easy to work with, even though I find IsaDora's wide brush much less good than the famous one from OPI. While the OPI brush easily yields perfectly, IsaDora's is not only wide, but also thick, making it a bit clumsy and less flexible. Think that super fat Sally Hansen brush.

I just want to address another matter when it comes to the IsaDora polishes: the size of the bottle, in relation to the price tag. It was brought to my attention the other day when I was drooling all over Sminkan's blog (love it!), that IsaDora still sell polish, new polish, like this season's shades, in their old bottle, known as the Perfect Nail Polish line, which contains 12 ml. The thing is, most stores sell the Wonder Nail line, which only contains half the amount, 6 ml, but at a higher price. I have been slightly annoyed over the fact that IsaDora did cut the bottle sizes and raised their prices at the same time, and now that I realised they put out both simultaneously, I feel that is completely unjust and is only done to rip people off. Not only is 69 SEK (~$10) for 6 ml (0.2 fl oz) fucking robbery, selling the very same color in bottles of 0.4 fl oz for less the price (~$8.50) is fraud! That is more than double the price for the same product, folks! So, anyone slightly in charge over at Invima cosmetics, who makes IsaDora polishes, should look themself in the mirror and ask if they love fucking people over. And no, the wide brush does NOT make us want to pay more than double. We buy nail colors, not primarily brushes, or even formulas.

Swedish word of the day:
missnöje -noun discontent, dissatisfaction
Yeah, I'm in that mood today...

Tagged in black

So, this is what happens pretty much immediately when you're gifted one of the IsaDora Graffiti top coats: you just slap it on, fast as hell! My lovely and caring friend Anne brought me this one (among others + cookies - always the cookies!), and it just happened that I was already wearing a creme made by the same manufacturer... So this is a solid IsaDora manicure (well, if you do not count base and top coats, of course).



Black Tag over Combat Khaki.

I also felt that this manicure went really well together with my super chic LOLmart t-shirt, Dr Tinycat checking EEEKAYGEE!

Or maybe not. I don't really care. It's still cute.

Come to think of it, Combat Khaki does remind a tiny tad of really washed out surgical scrubs...

Dr Turk is wearing such.

However, Cammi posted about this particular top coat a while back, please check out her post as well! Or any of the other IsaDora Graffiti posts we've done lately.

Swedish word of the day:
arbetsuniform -noun work uniform
How hard was that?!

Time for combat!

Did you miss me? I'm sure you didn't, but if you were at least wondering where I went, let me just say I didn't go anywhere. And I mean that literally. It's really, really fall now, and the entire me is feeling it in every little cell damnit. Inspiration has been lost, and so has the sun.

It's creme season again. Creme with made up shimmer, shimmer which is really just ISO noise grain.

Being in a creme state isn't necessarily bad, though. I love a good creme! And here is one. Swedish brand IsaDora's Combat Khaki, from the fall collection.



Just have to show you another thing. How many of you are suffering from this?

Compare this photo to the one above. It appears as if I've lost corners all over, but the only difference is that the first photo was shot when I was fresh out of the shower, and the second when my nails are dried up. They curl like crazy! I have a feeling that this mostly happens to those of us who have been gifted with rather thin and weak nails...

Swedish word of the day:
strid -noun combat
I do not believe in military ones.

Glitter Crackles

One of my best friends got me the white Isadora Graffiti Nail Top when she heard I was in desperate need, lucky me! Since I've already seen it over various pastels I decided to try it over one of my many white glitters. Since ChG Snow Globe, my polish of choice, looked to be really sheer I layered it over OPI Alpine Snow. I'm not so sure about this manicure, it gives my a Tipp-ex feeling... What do you think?

Swedish word of the day:
städdag -noun house-cleaning day
Because today is one.

I'm on crack(le)

This one isn't new, but I wanted to post it anyway, since it's basically made of awesomeness. This is Yellow Crew, the yellow crackle polish, from IsaDora's Graffiti Nails collection.




How wicked. The base is this manicure, except the ring finger, which was also lucky enough to get to try one of the new H&M polishes, Envy Me, that I'll have to show you some day.

I have ended up liking these crackle polishes way more than I initially believed I would. I have to admit, that one of of the pros is how much attention they get. Usually, I'm a modest girl who shy away from compliments, but when it comes to my nails... You know I like to talk about nail polish, right? Also, my significant other is very intrigued wih these, and although I don't really care what he thinks, it is a whole lot of fun when he thinks my nails are! And these are fun. Period.

Also, if you missed out on Cammi's post, check it out!

Swedish word of the day:
spricka -noun crack
See?