Little neon studs for summer

I'm still alive! Yes, once again I feel compelled to let you know that by stating the obvious. 

Summer should mean lots of time to do one's nails, but, as it turns out, it's just too darn hot and humid. So I'm just gonna go ahead and leave these old sucktastic photos of manis with neon studs in 'em. 

Here in modest amounts on a nude - CND Vinylux Powder My Nose.

And here in random distributions over a hot pink - OPI Hey Baby.

Honestly, I've made better looking manicures with studs after these, but these were my first attempts. They're fairly easy to use, so I don't mind putting them on every now and then. Personally, I'm partial to the square studs, but the round ones are nice too.

These in particular are from Born Pretty Store, and were sent to me for review.

OPI Muppets Most Wanted quickie

Time for another new collection, and it's the annual soft shades collection from OPI, called Muppets Most Wanted. The last couple of years, the soft shades collection haven't been as soft as they used to be, and this year is no exception.

Eight shades, of which three are classic soft shades, two are more or less duochrome definite not-softs, and three topping glitters:

Clockwise from top left: Miss Piggy's Big number (blue metallic with the tiniest shift), I Love Applause (pastel pink creme), Int'l Crime Caper (sheer white with pink flash and light blue flecks), Chillin' Like A Villain (peach pastel creme), Gaining Mole-mentum (pink and gold glitter shards), Let's Do Anything We Want! (white and pink glitters with small and large white square glitter), Muppets World Tour (white and gold glitter, silver micro glitter, with larger magenta, blue and champagne pink hex glitters), Kermit Me To Speak (purple to golden green duochrome shimmer).

Believe it or not, the first one to get tried out was Int'l Crime Caper, because it's interesting enough for a sheer. Below is three coats:

It's a shitty photo, but imagine the pink flash stronger, and the blue flecks a little more vivid and reflective. There's still visible nail line enough to scare those of you who dread it, for which I'd suggest some undies. I'd say this is the nicest conservative sheer I have, so don't miss out on it if you're into that kind of thing.

Quick note on the duochrome Kermit Me To Speak: personally I own more than a handful of polishes with this pigment, from OPI's very own catalogue Amethyst Abyss comes to mind, so if you have that (chances getting smaller for each day since it's ooold), or perhaps Nubar Purple Beach, maybe your need for this one isn't as huge as you'd first think. Though, perhaps Kermit Me To Speak is a tad less green and run more between purple and gold, predominantly. If you'd like a comparison, let me know and I could probably manage.

OPI Brazil in dots

So the new OPI collections landed in Swedish press hands the other day, and who am I to keep myself from wearing them? I have already tried out a bunch from the Brazil spring and summer collection, by doing the little dotted skitlettes I love wearing so much. As per usual, light has now partially escaped Sweden, and shooting in low autumnal lighting conditions isn't exactly favorable, but better than nothing, right?

Let's first look at the manicure I'm wearing today. I have I Just Can't Cope-acabana and Live, Love, Carnaval on.

I Just Can't Cope-acabana is a taxi cab yellow creme, and Live, Love, Carnaval is a reddish coral creme - my camera hates red hues and here it looks more orange than it is in reality.


And here's a monstrosity of topcoat bleeding: Red Hot Rio, Don't Bossa Nova Me Around and Taupe-less Beach.

Red Hot Rio is a warm red jelly-ish creme - this is three coats. Don't Bossa Nova Me Around is a beige-pink creme, slightly chalky. OPI describes it as a nude, but I can't really see who this is going to look nude-ish on. Taupe-less Beach is ...well, a taupe creme. And yes, the Re Hot Rio dots bled lots when topcoating, like reds tend to do. It looked better in reality though, just not very macro photogenique.

There, five colors from the Brazil collection in two photos. And now for some quick notes on the collection as a whole, despite not being presented in this post. There's mainly one reason for my choices of usage, namely that this collection is like many OPI collections have been recently: a bunch of colors that match together, but just aren't that interesting separately. I did the same with the Euro Centrale collection, though the colors in that one were a wee bit better individually. There are little color groups that match very nicely like this, using dots that blend them, but I would probably die from boredom if I wore for example Taupe-less Beach by itself. Mostly because there's nothing really new about them. And, only one shade in this collection is a shimmer, the rest are cremes. Taupe cremes, brown cremes, yellow, coral, orange... Summer staples mixed with subdued basic colors. But nothing revolutionary.

This aside, I'll probably use most. So stay tuned for more.

Re-re-re-insta!

These are the last ones - promise. Well, at least for now...

Finger Paints Twisted over Orly Glow.

Depend 387. Love this finish!

Kill it with fire, pt II: China Glaze Bend Over Backwards with the orange-yellow-green flakie gradient over (I've forgotten which one of all those I used this particular time).

Smitten Polish Electric Lime. Best (neon) green holo ever.

Last days of summer: Essie Boom Boom Room.

Beware of continuations to this type of posts in the future.

Re-insta OPI

Let's have yet another bulk of manicures that only ended up on instagram... This time all OPI.

OPI All I Want For Christmas (is OPI), with black and OPI All Sparkly and Gold leopard spots (there were some on the thumbs as well). Both OPI shades from the Mariah Carey holiday collection.

More leopard spots: OPI In the Cable Car-Pool Lane with OPI Goldeneye, black, and own mix of coral pink spots.

OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke! with OPI Black Spotted.

OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke! on its own.

Strawberry meringue water marble as requested by the boyfriend. ("Can you please pick my nail color?" -"Do those meringues with pink strokes in 'em." -*...*) The marbling was hell and I'll never do it again. Colors used  were OPI My Vampire is Buff, I Theodora You and Don't Touch My Tutu!.

Sorta skittles with dotted details, with OPI colors Goldeneye, Suzi's Hungary Again! and OPI... Eurso Euro.

And the well known sh*it disaster OPI It's All San Andreas's Fault. But actually it's way better looking when it's completely dry and not on photo. I think I wore it for three days!


Stay tuned for more of my terrible insta photos!

OPI Oz - the Great and Powerful

It's the Soft Shades time of year again! This year, OPI gives us a truly mixed collection, called Oz - the Great and Powerful, after the movie that goes by the same name and will premiere on the International Women's Day on March 8th.

Clockwise from top right: I Theodora You, Don't Burst My Bubble, and Glints of Glinda.

Clockwise from bottom left: When Monkeys Fly!, Lights of Emerald City, and Which is Witch?.

Don't Burst My Bubble, three coats. Very pale, slightly warm toned pastel pink crelly.

Glints of Glinda, three coats. Peach leaning beige pastel jelly.

I Theodora You, three coats. Slightly translucent light bubblegum pink creme.

Lights of Emerald City, one coat over Don't Burst My Bubble. Larger white square glitter mixed with smaller iridescent squares in the red to gold to green spectrum, in transparent base.

When Monkeys Fly!, one coat over Glints of Glinda. Small and medium hexagonal, holographic silver glitters, and large gold hexes in transparent base.

Which is Witch?, one coat over I Theodora You. Micro and medium sized holographic silver hex glitter along with smaller holographic silver strings in transparent base.


In this collection you will also find a Liquid Sand polish in an antique golden bronzy shade, called What Wizardry is This?.

Topping last year's fantastic Soft Shades collection New York City Ballet of course wasn't an easy task for the OPI peeps, but to at least attempt it, they gathered a diverse bunch of lacquers in all sorts of finishes, where the three mandatory Soft Shades pastels have been accompanied by equally many glitters. The latter seem to have been made after glancing at what the independent brands have done lately. That means that these glitters are more brave than OPI ever dared to be before, and that the concept for the Soft Shades collection of the last couple of years, with one topper polish to accompany the pastels have already been overthrown. If you take the Liquid Sand polish into account, a supposedly new and daring finish of a color which isn't a classic Soft Shade in itself, the typical pastels are in minority. I applaud OPI for going outside their ladylike comfort zone, but was it really all that successful..?

Let's skip discussion of the pastel shades - they're pastels, nothing spectacular either in color or finish - and move straight to the glitter portion of the collection. I'm just going to get this overwith: When Monkeys Fly! is a disaster. While OPI really tried with the large hexes and all, they failed. The gold hexagons are a curly mess, which is very obvious in the photos above. Let's hope for a correction of this in future batches, but the batch my bottle is from had to endure being mixed with a glitter that obviously hasn't been tested for use in solvents over time. Try again, and try harder, OPI! And after this massive failure, I am happy to say I was happy to see OPI had made a glitter with iridescent particles. And squares! I love that. One may argue that most iridescent glitters look weird over lighter shades, and that perhaps the particle distribution is a little uneven and sometimes too abundant, but here OPI gets an A+ for effort. Which is Witch? is the one that will probably sell insanely well, especially in these times of string glitter deification - and come on, all the glitters in this baby are holographic! No tween can resist that. Perhaps their mothers can't either.

Worth mentioning à propos the pastels, is that the reason why we loved last year's New York City Ballet so much, which was the fantastic jelly finishes, is mostly gone this year. Don't Burst My Bubble has the classic annoying pastel formula with streakiness and patchiness and overall application hell, Glints of Glinda is the one that is the most jelly like, but it doesn't quite reach to the same translucency standards as the Ballets, and surprisingly, due to a breezy (for a pastel, that is...) application and not too shabby pink color, I Theodora You brings home the winner trophy in this round.

Oh, and I didn't hate the names! No, until I have seen the movie, I will stay indifferent towards them. Except when it comes to I Theodora You, because despite not having a clue who Theodora is, that is the cutest name Suzi has come up with in a long, long time. I Theodora it.

These products were sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
mäktig -adjective powerful
A pastel seldom is.

OPI in Euro Centrale - bottles and quick swatches

On OPI's journey around the world, the next stop is in central Europe to celebrate spring, with Euro Centrale. With that dreamy lede, I'd like to show you the bottles and quick wheel swatches.

Counter-clockwise from left: Vant to Bite My Neck?, Polka.com, You're Such a Budapest.

Counter-clockwise from top left: OPI... Eurso Euro, Can't Find My Czechbook, I Saw... U Saw... We Saw... Warsaw.

Counter-clockwise from top left: Hands Off My Kielbasa!, My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours!, Suzi's Hungary Again!.

Clockwise from bottom left: A Woman's Prague-ative, Oy - Another Polish Joke!, My Vampire is Buff.

And the wheel swatches:

Polka.com (small blue and magenta glitters, and larger blue, magenta and turquoise hex glitters in clear base), Vant to Bite My Neck? (vampy grape purple creme), OPI... Eurso Euro (saturated yet dark indigo blue creme).

I Saw... U Saw... We Saw... Warsaw (dark Prussian blue creme), Can't Find My Czechbook (turquoise-blue creme), You're Such a Budapest (lilac creme with subtle silver shimmer).

Suzi's Hungary Again! (bright pink-coral creme with fine silver shimmer), My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours! (bright warm red with fine silver shimmer), Hands Off My Kielbasa! (tan beige with fine coppery pink shimmer).

A Woman's Prague-ative (golden copper shimmer), Oy - Another Polish Joke! (yellow-golden shimmer), My Vampire is Buff (light beige creme).


Are you feeling the Eastern European vibe here? This surely is a collection full of stereotypes and simplification. Let's see... Two vampire jokes, three food and eating related names, three silly jokes with the pretention that local names have English meaning ...and, you know, the list goes on, in the usual OPI manner. We've learned to live with it, but sometimes it's bordering ridicule and exotism, which, by some more prone to analysis, could be perceived negatively. While Prague-ative is a less terrible play with words and names, the OPI team already used it once before, for It's My Prague-ative! (European Collection, 2002). The drained imaginations circulating the OPI offices are painfully obvious.

If we manage to forget the names for a while, they are actually plastered onto polish colors. Many good, some great, some less intriguing. The cool-toned half of the collection is bound to be the favourite of the less conservative youth, with the most outstanding member in the deep but vibrant indigo blue OPI... Eurso Euro. Can't Find My Czechbook is a very nice shade as well, though I think many lacqueristas will find that they have a bunch of similar colors already -that doesn't remove the fact that it is bright and tempting. The grape purple vampy Vant to Bite My Neck? is pretty standard, but the name alone will make some  people less hesitant, while the soft yet bright lilac subtle shimmery creme You're Such a Budapest is described by OPI as a periwinkle shade that I cannot see personally will lure many into its exquisit twinkle. Polka.com is an improvement in the glitter section compared to other recent OPI glitters with its two sizes of glitters, and for OPI a whopping three colors.

The warm-toned half of the collection holds the few more conservative colors, but that doesn't mean they are boring or suitable for your granny (unless she's utterly cool, of course). Except for the almost-but-still-not-really-nude My Vampire is Buff (the nicest and most ambiguous name of the collection), and perhaps the rather conservative Hands Off My Kielbasa!, this part has the super sizzling colors, like Suzi's Hungary Again! and My Paprika is Hotter Than Yours!, which are both exclamation colors despite their classic color families respectively. Unfortunately, they are struck with a fine silver shimmer that renders them slightly pearlescent - personally I would have preferred them as cremes. For those who like bronze and copper tones, A Woman's Prague-ative is a given; a gorgeous gold shimmer suspended in a sheer, brick red base. Last but not least, Oy - Another Polish Joke! was a surprise to me, as it's not just the yellowish golden shimmer apparent in the bottle, but also dries a little rough, which makes the shimmer reflect different colors and actually ...look kinda cool. Skipping the topcoat on this one could be beneficial for achieving a nice effect.

I found the formulas to be a wee bit different in this collection. While I'm used to a rather thin and easily spreadable product from OPI, some of these are a little on the chalky and/or gluey side. Nothing most of us can't handle, of course, but still a bit different. The shades with fine shimmer may require a more careful approach, lest we want visible brush strokes.

All in all, I like this collection, up to a like +. It's a nice palette of spring colors, ranging from cool to warm, from dark to light via bright. Although no one can love them all, everyone can like something. Note that this collection lacks a green shade - and I still like it. That is, if I disregard the silly names.


Any colors in particular that you wish to see full swatches of?

All products were sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
Centraleuropa -noun Central Europe
We love putting words together into one long.

Nervous butterflies

Here's another one from OPI's Mariah Carey collaboration collection that I've tried out: A Butterfly Moment.

Three coats. Definitely not my usual style, but I decided to try it out for a night at work, since it's sonewhat appropriate for that. Unfortunately I disliked it the whole time. The finish is a little too close to a frost, and the formula is a bit chalky, making the polish prone to patchiness - hence the third layer.

No winner for someone who's always been into the greens and vampies, but for someone a little more conservative, it's probably perfect.

This product was sent for review.

Swedish expression of the day:
fjärilar i magen butterflies in the stomach, slight [positive] nervousness
Bound to happen.

Fast Track ...to the bin

How about a palate cleanser on a Friday night? Well, let's get it out of the way. I disliked this polish. It was so pretty in theory, such a fail in reality: China Glaze Fast Track.

Three coats. Looks good? Yes. But seriously. I didn't like the base color at all. I was very drawn to a nude with all this spectacular gold foil shimmer, but it was just so wrong. The wrong shade of nude. I would much have preferred a moe beige, taupe leaning base. This was just unflattering.

Swedish word of the day:
naken -adjective naked, nude
Not always a good idea.

Orly Fired Up fall 2012 - quick bottles and wheel

I don't know what it's like where you live, but here in the surroundings of Stockholm, Sweden, you can almost feel the fall lurking in the air. Coincidently, we're served fall collections. I'm starting to grab for 'em vampy bottles - do you?

The Swedish representatives of Orly kindly provided me with their fall collection Fired Up for review, and here are some hasty photos for a first look.

Six shades of sultry fall femininity. Wheel swatches below are all at three coats each.

From left to right: Glow (nude beige creme), Flare (gold metallic shimmer), Flicker (orange metallic shimmer).

Ignite (cool toned cherry red jelly), Smolder (red metallic shimmer in plum purple base), Rapture (blackened brown creme).

A little low on light already at 8 PM here in August, so let's have a flashlit wheel photo as well (you may magnify if you're daring):

There you have it. Six vampy and glamorous shades. Three metallic shimmers, three in the creme division - of which one is actually a jelly, our beloved maraschino cherry red, this time named Ignite. If you're missing one, picking this one up might be a great idea. As a lover of red, I have quite a few members in this color family, but I can't say the same for oranges or golds, and when it comes to those I have very little to compare qualities with. But a gold is a gold, right? Could be a good staple as well. Nudes and blackened browns we have also seen before, but these areopaque and nice. Actually, all of these are nicely pigmented. Stated above is I did three coats of all - but only two of them needed the third: Flare and Flicker. The others are good in two coats.

I left one color out in the above paragraph, didn't I? Of course, because it's the star of the show. We may call her Smolder. Had these pictures been any better, you would have been able to see her glory. But don't despair, I'm wearing her right now. That means decent full swatch photos any day now.

It seems most of our beloved big nail brands are digging down those thrift find pockets for classic, vampy shades this fall. I won't complain, I dig vampies. A lover of vampies can never have too many - or can (s)he? Maybe when the shades look familiar. And I'm not just nodding towards long forgotten eras, but also contemporary compeditors. However, while there are striking similarities between these shades and some offered by the other big brand that starts with an O, there are also differences. I will be returning to this subject sometime within this week.

And all in all, as a collection, these go well together and present a sophisticated and mature unit. If that's what you want, Fired Up is full of win.

Swedish word of the day:
mogen -adjective I ripe II mature
This fall may have both.