Enjoy the silence

The silence has been so long, that I'm just going to leave this post here to announce that I'm still alive.

It's one of those posts where I'll just puke out a series of photos that didn't get their own posts, mostly due to lack of decent photos - sometimes only one good comes out of an entire session.

Hare Polish Ancient Affairs.

Polish Revolution Coffeeshop Politics over Kiko 336.

Orly Elation Generation - yes, that is actually holographic glitter.

Darling Diva Polish Pendragon over OPI Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow Suede. Pendragon is in turn mattified with such a topcoat.

Smitten Polish Pink Goes Good With Green!

Essence Princessorize.

Gina Tricot Python Green.

Hope you enjoyed. Promise to be back with somewhat decent posts soon-ish - I have plenty of material!

Swedish word of the day:
tystnad -noun silence
Lots of it lately.

Take a Walk on the Wild Side

One of my friends gave me abundant gifts for Christmas, after one of her visits to her favourite town of Berlin, and one of them was this one: Walk on the Wild Side, from Essence's Colour & Go line.

Two coats, if my memory serves me right. While none of my shady photos survived my critical eye, these sunny ones certainly makes it clear why this is a fabulous polish. Not only does it have a fabulous dark pine green creme base, it also has a generous sprinkling of a lighter green shimmer. How could I not fall head over heels for that?!

While I absolutely despise the new brush in these polishes, the hassle of doing application with it is totally worth it. So thank you, Emilie!

This product was a personal gift.

Swedish word of the day:
vild -adjective wild
The great outdoors is perhaps furious.

The Essence of Alice's vision

It's almost February already, so let me show you one of my christmas presents. Sofia arrived at my place a week before christmas eve with a lovely smile on her face, and this: Alice Had a Vision, from Essence.

I have forgotten how many coats I did, but knowing me, it was likely three. The formula was a bit thick and jellyish, a very dark, vampy purple with these fabulous green and magenta flecks - the magenta ones shift into gold.

Some (no names) think what I did next was a damn shame, but I couldn't resist...

I added the typical green to blue opalescent flakes. This particular one is one of the Finger Paints, namely Flecked.

What do you think, do the flakes ruin it all?

All products were personal gifts.

Swedish word of the day:
julklapp -noun christmas present
Only eleven months 'til next time!

Dotted flowers

Do you remember my Midsummer manicure? It was bound to happen again. My friend Malin (one of them Malins) came by for a new manicure before she left for two weeks in Provence, and we decided on something feminine, yet not too overly sweet. Dotted flowers on something other than pink. More on that later.

First, what happened after she left. It's not unusual - I just want to do my own nails like I did hers. In this case, dotted flowers. I had been planning for a while to do a dotted manicure in a greyscale with red accents, and this is what happened.

It's not terribly well executed if you look to closely, but on a fair distance (say working with your hands), it looked awesome. The flowers are too far apart and weirdly placed in relation to each other, but the colors and different finishes together were amazing. The base I used here is two coats of Essence Movie Star, black flowers are some limited edition H&M from last X-mas, called Kiss Goodnight (but any shimmery black will do of course), the white is my beloved Essie Marshmallow, the red glitter is one of the typical Color Club X-mas minis, I think this particular one was called Yule Love This (it's basically Ruby Slippers), and the silver and holographic glitter bits are China Glaze Nova. With some improvement this is insanely glamorous.

What do you think of it?

But last, I promised to return to Malin's nails. This is how they ended up:

Two coats of China Glaze For Audrey, Essie Marshmallow flower petals, and China Glaze Nova for the center accent. In some places a little sloppy execution - we were in a hurry since Malin had to catch the train - but from a normal distance this is ridiculously cute too (and Malin has the cutest little nails!).

Swedish name of the day:
Frankrike France
A European country.

Underwater gold

First of all, I want to thank everyone who commented on my last post for all the heartwarming words! It, of course, helps a lot knowing that there is a bunch of people who reads and actually enjoys this blog. Sometimes us humans truly are our own worst enemies, and I'm definitely no exception - I can be downright cruel to myself. And as some of you pointed out: the lack of sun may have taken its toll, and though the winter has (so far) been shorter this year than the previous two, it still feels like it's been going on forever. Well, the sun is shining outside my window now, and I still have a few unpublished manicures to show, so let it happen!

Here's one I was much excited about, as it was gifted to me from one of my European friends: Essence Underwater, the newer version.

I think this was two coats. Coverage is great with this one! Really subtle shimmer specks that almost never shines through. Unfortunately. I love the idea and it looks fabulous in the bottle, but I wanted the bits and pieces to show more, though I like that they're sparse. Sparse particles in polishes are definitely underrated.

Then, I had a couple of beers and went all in, so to speak. I don't know...

Colors show up a little crazy here, some photos have been color corrected, perhaps too much. The Essie As Gold as it Gets half-moons are freehand. Yes, it's true! For alcohol induced nailart, it's rather OK, don't you think? Maybe I was walking the fine line between the typical self-esteem boost and total drunkenness. I also added one coat of the CND Sapphire Sparkle effect, which is of course fuckin' a, as I, which you know by now, love duochrome and blue and purple. I also love blue and gold together, not so much because I'm Swedish, but because it somehow makes me think of sinful Arabic nights. You know. One Thousand and One Nights.

So... Anyway. That's it for today.

Swedish word of the day:
februarisol -noun February sun
It's very nice, actually.

The best of the best in 2011

Where did she go, you ask? I got the flu, then I worked some (simultaneously, of course), stayed sick and worked yet some more. I don't like the feeling of neglecting the blog, but I'll try to be a better writer and photographer in 2012!

Here's the post that I intended to post on new year's eve, but I forgot before I ran off to tuck my old ladies in - the three manicures I think I did best in 2011!

Jelly sandwich with New York Summer Phsyo with Essence Edward beneath the final coat of Phsyo. Original post, with more photos, here.

Kill it with fire! Flakie gradient with Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure over OPI Vodka & Caviar. Very hard one to be separated from once it wasn't all that fresh anymore. Original post here.

Buckled. Foil sandwich! The oxidized silver foil Your Royal Shine-ness from OPI, and beneath the thin top layer, a good coating of the large silver hexagonal glitter in Milani's Jewel FX Silver. Original post here.

I'll possibly be back with more yearly summaries soon.

Swedish word of the day:
bäst -adjective best
Yet another simple word with that weird umlaut.

In denial

No, it's not fall, not fall, not just yet... Or is it? *holds hands over ears, singing loudly* Sha-la-la-laaa... Okay, it's fall. Late fall, even. Sweden sucks right now. It's dark and gloomy all day. If I'm lucky, I see one single beam of sun every now and then, but not likely, as I often sleep during all the light hours - I wake up after dark and go to work, then walk home at dawn and go to sleep.

I however still paint my nails regularly. I just don't have any decent light to photograph them. But some days, I have time off! Like today. And here's what I had to do: put on something really bright and... Well, spring like.




Ta-daa! This is first two coats of New York Summer Phsyo, a highlighter yellow neon jelly (second and third photos show the color less inaccurate), then one thin coat of Essence Edward, which was gifted to me by my dear friend Saša, then another thin coat of Phsyo. There is some holo glitter in Edward, and using it for a jelly sandwich of course kills some of it - but not all!

This combination may not be for the faint of heart, but I love crazy manicures like this one. And shockingly, it actually did dry after some time, despite the massive layering and yellow pigments - meanwhile, I watched an episode of the new Swedish criminal drama Anno 1790, that I missed out on while working last Monday. (I could write some about this series, but let's just say it's a tiny bit ridiculous, but I like that it shows the real dirt and disease of the era - no larger cities were clean or fluffy back then.)

Oh well. You'll be surprised to know I do have a few posts piled up, and the week off, so last week's silence won't repeat itself!

Swedish word of the day:
smuts -noun dirt
It's all over.

Going Gaga

Gagalectric, where have you been all my life?!


Three coats of this half-sheer, magnificent, violet blue duochrome from Essence's Holografics line. To fully comprehend its beauty, let my DSLR guide you:


Do you see that?! Okay, maybe not everyone loves it like I do, but I do. It's glowing.

This is the perfect me replacement for China Glaze Afterglow, which was too sheer and too peachy to justify my ownership - I gave it away. Gagalectric will stay.

Swedish word of the day:
elektrisk -adjective electric
Maybe?

Fish scale disaster and crackle win

The other day I got a brilliant idea for a manicure. Brilliant! However, not so much on the nails:

My brilliant idea was to create a fish scale looking manicure, with the luscious Kiko 270 I got from Roze recently - thanks to one of my Italian readers I now know to look on the Kiko website for the actual names of the polishes, and this one is called Paillette Acqua Sparkle. Anyway, I first did one coat of Essence Prism@tic White (yes, again! that's how much I liked it), then I did a gradient of three coats of the Kiko. You can see the result. Not too opaque. Of course it doesn't help that these glitters are semi-transparent, and because they're also iridescent, which I love, the camera can't catch them decently. Apparently my cameras work completely different frequencies than my eyes do.

Well, this couldn't stand... This aggression, maaan! (Extra points for anyone who catches the reference here.) So I brought out the white crackle, I mean, White Shatter, from OPI, that the Swedish distributor recently sent me for review. And suddenly: #WIN.



I figured out a way to get the iridescence and the teal flash of the Essence to stick somewhat to the camera lens, by shooting in dreary weather and using a different camera setting. How hot is that?!

You may also consider this post the first part of my reviews of the OPI Shatters that I know you've seen a million times already. I have given up on doing interesting and semi-fast swatches to put in one single post, so I'll try to spread them a little, preferably using them in some a little more innovative combinations. The White Shatter is very basic, cracks well and is no problem- It's ...white.

Also, for my own OCD peace of mind I had to go through what crackle polishes I actually have, and make a wheel. I thought it would be fun to show you. Before I show the wheel, I just have to show you this:

This is a black crackle polish from Kelier. It took forever to dry and crack, and when it finally did, this is what happened. Most just fall off. But it's a neat picture.

On to the actual wheel. Because some crackle polishes do not crack on plastic, I did one coat of Diamont before applying the crackles, then I topcoated them all as well. The Kelier is of course still disastrous. You may magnify this photo to get a detailed view - it's rather big.

1. Kelier Crack Polish in black
2. IsaDora Graffiti Nails Black Tag
3. OPI Black Shatter
4. China Glaze Crackle Glaze Cracked Concrete
5. OPI Silver Shatter
6. OPI White Shatter
7. China Glaze Crackle Glaze Lightning Bolt
8. OPI Navy Shatter
9. IsaDora Graffiti Nails Spraycan Blue
10. Depend Cracked Effect 5002
11. OPI Blue Shatter
12. OPI Turquoise Shatter
13. IsaDora Graffiti Nails Subway Green
14. IsaDora Graffiti Nails Yellow Crew
15. Depend Cracked Effect 5004
16. OPI Red Shatter
17. IsaDora Graffiti Nails All City Brown

I don't really like all of these, and most of all, for some reason I don't like shimmery crackles. They look too busy to my eyes. I could use another green crackle, a teal one and maybe, maybe a pink one, but after that, I think I'm done with these.

I know many of you are sick of crackles now, and in some aspects I am too. But I keep pushing myself to find them useful for slightly different combinations. Navy over white and turquoise over blue... I'm tired of those combinations. And you?

Swedish word of the day:
tvångssyndrom -noun obsessive compulsive disorder
I really shouldn't joke about this.

Non-prismatic white

Dark and grey weather in Stockholm today. That leaves one with two options for manicures: creme or duochrome. Yes! Because duochromes photograph better away from the sun. So of course, now that I had the chance, I picked one. Also, because I'm heading to work for another shift tomorrow and needed something slightly feminine. Though, of course, what's feminine or not is open for debate. Anyway, here's another Essence Holografic, the non-holographic, non-prismatic, but duochrome Prism@tic White.


Uh-oh... Out of focus.

Three coats. Light teal to pink shimmer in sheer white base. Prone to bubbling, so be easy on the coating! My DSLR handles the colors a whole lot better though:



Purrteh. Better in reality. Thank you for this one as well, Roze! [heart]

Swedish word of the day:
vit -adjective white
So simple.

Rays of Blue - two by two?

Here's a gorgeous one from Essence, that I got from my beloved friend Roze, who lives in the Netherlands - Blue Ray. It's part of the Holografics collection (the one that isn't at all holographic, but duo- and multichrome), and, dare I say, maybe the most tempting one of them. Of course my pictures turned out shitty, but here they are anyway.





I believe this is three coats, like so often when I hold the brush. I tried what I always do, to find the actual base color, but it's sometimes so hard to tell with a rich duochrome without using a microscope! Though, I believe the base is close to blue, and the multichrome shimmer flashes from teal via blue to purple, but of course my camera didn't pick up on that.

Still, a very satisfying one, this. If you get the chance - pick it up.

Swedish word of the day:
videobandspelare -noun video cassette recorder
Pretty far from Blu Ray.