OPI Sheer Tints

I love jellies and sheer colored polishes for layering. Remember the Sorbet part of the Texas collection? The colors weren't all that daring, but they became staples for many fans of so called sandwiches, layered manicures with glitter somewhere in the middle.

Now OPI has given us Sheer Tints, and yes, they're sheer. They are colored topcoats, resembling the finish that some of us refer to as water, but thicker in consistency, and they only hint the pigmentation in one coat.  They build up though, and below you can see how they develop from coats one to four.

The shades are a bit more diverse than those of the Sorbet collection, with the teal I Can Teal You Like Me, and the yellow toned I'm Never Amberrassed as the slightly less conventional addition to the purple Don't Violet Me Down, and the pink Be Magentale With Me.

The latter got tried out in the manicure below.

This is If You Moust, You Moust fom the Minnie Mouse collection of 2012, and Crown Me Already! from Miss Universe 2011, with Be Magentale With Me over the pink, in a center-linear gradient. I initially tried the same design over the glitter, but couldn't get it even enough to look good. It worked better for me applied over the creme, but it could just have been my own lack of patience.

Here's a closeup of one of my thumbs, that shows the gradient more.

The downside to these, in my opinion, is that the consistency is too thick, even for a topcoat. In the formula I received, bubbles easily occur (which is fairly obvious judging from my sticks a couple of photos up from here). However, this can of course be fixed with some thinner, once there's space enough in the bottle.

I have some playing left to do here, but overall I like polishes like these.

Int'l Women's Day reinsta statement nails

Guess what... Since I'm lazy, I'm starting a new series of instagram reposts, so that all of you get a chance to see all the grainy iphone camera pics of what I've been wearing lately. Well, over the course of the last three or so months, as it turns out.

 I still have about 8 minutes, Central European time, to show you some decent feminist statement manicures during one of the most important days of the year - International Women's Day. Check it out.

Feminist warrior manicure with camouflage, leopard spots, and of course the Venus sign.

Olympic games versus Pride, french skittles.

Feminist fire!

Red and white camouflage, leopard spots (yes, again), and V.

And the manicure I actually wore today (and still am wearing): pink and red with red and coral leopard spots, and some neon studs.

Hope you're celebrating accordingly!

New collection quickie: Depend Rough Sweet

For those of you who aren't yet tired of texture polishes, or pastel polishes for that matter, Depend releases a twelve piece collection of such shades, called Rough Sweet.

Though disputable whether all of these colors are really pastels, they are kind of soft in tone. At least the ones I tried quick stick swatches of. Here are my picks from the collection, clockwise from top:

2100 Sweet Candy (lilac with very subtle pearlescent shimmer), 2098 Sweet Mint (pale minty green), 2097 Sweet Jelly (spring green with small iridescent glitters), 2094 Sweet Sour (pale yellow with small iridescent glitters), 2095 Sweet Bubble (pale, cool pink), and 2093 Sweet Sugar (white with very subtle pearlescent shimmer).

Three from this collection have the little iridescent glitters to keep them interesting, and apart from the above two, it's also present in a caramel colored shade that I would probably never wear even at gunpoint. Except for these, all have some sort of shimmer that isn't really apparent because of the texture. They're soft and sweet, but not necessarily interesting in themselves.

As usual when Depend releases specialty collections, these come with a bigger price tag than the standard spring and fall collections. At SEK 39:-, these 5 ml per bottle have a high unit price. But if you're really into this sorta thing...

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.

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.

Peasant style dots

In time for the weekend, may I tempt you with yet another dotticure?

As usual when I'm involved, the execution is rather sloppy, but from a distance this was a very pretty color splash. The base is two coats of the well pigmented black with holo shimmer A-England Bidal Veil, and the dots are made from three colors from China Glaze's Summer Neons collection of last year:  I'm With the Lifeguard, Sunkissed, and Flirty Tankini. Using neons over a black base surely makes the dotticure pop.

Are you still feeling dotticures?

I'm With the Lifeguard, Sunkissed, and Flirty Tankini were purchased with own funds.

Bridal Veil was sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
allmoge -noun I peasant population, II art style
A friend dubbed this manicure allmoge style.

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.

Depend spring 2013 bottles and more...

A quickie today to show you the coming spring colors from Swedish Depend Cosmetics - quite a colorful collection!

Pinks, peaches and oranges... 346, 347, 348, 349 and 350.

Turquoise, blue, purple and lilac... 351, 352, 353, 354.

...and green and yellow! 355, 356 and 357.

No wheel swatches this time, as Sweden proved to be too gloomy for any decent photography sessions. However, there is an interesting theme in this collection: several of the lacquers have a very fine green shimmer, mixed with sparse glass flecks. I wish the green shimmer was more prominent, but I love the idea, and for one of those recurring finishes throughout a collection that Depend seems to specialise in, it is a fun one. The orangey red 350, the turquoise 351, the lilac 354, the yellow 356 and the lime green 357 all have this combination of particles, while the sheer peach 349 is a more classic glassfleck. Then the cremes of course... Although not all of these are totally breathtaking and inventive, it's quite a cheerful bunch, which is something I like in a spring collection. Thumbs up from me this time.

The Depend peeps also sent a bunch of releases for Christmas, and among them were a few samples of a collection of chromes, foils or possibly metallics that go by the name Mirror.

A dark and gloomy wheel - this is 2048 Java Dusk, 2039 Pixie Pink, and 2041 Frosty Lilac.

Metallic? Sure. Foil? Perhaps, in some cases. Mirror like finish? Definitely not. But perhaps the name of the collection is not to be taken literally. There are also green and blue hues, among others, in this collection, but I haven't seen those - I wish I had, though. These few examples don't really tickle my fancy, but I'll always find use and the appropriate time for a good gunmetal shade, so I'm sure 2048 will be satisfactory to wear a good day.

All products were sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
spegel -noun mirror
To be loved or feared...

Depend fall 2012 - bottles and wheel

And now for something entirely different. An ordinary fall collection! And it contains very little (or small) glitter. Let's have a look at what Swedish brand Depend has to offer this season.

318 - mint green with frosty shimmer, 319 - nude creme in the pink spectrum, 320 - berry creme.

321 - dusty mauve-ish purple, 322 - strongly green tinged grey creme (or very greyed out green creme), 323 - berry shimmer.

324 - an ultramarine sorta blue creme, 325 - dark green with blue shimmer, 326 - teal green creme.

328 - sheer yellow jelly with yellow glitter, 330 - warm red jelly with dark pink glitter, 331 - sheer blue jelly with blue and purple glitter.

334 - candy cane like glitter, a warm white base with pink and unidentifiable glitters, 335 - small holographic glitters with a few small holographic hex glitters in clear base - the numbers in this photo have been mixed up! (sorry)

And directly to the wheel - for some reason these photos have a weird yellow tint despite using a correct white balance setting, but I've tried to color correct them back to reality, or at least as close to it as possible. All are three coats, no matter if they needed it or not (more on that later).

318, 319, and 320

321, 322, and 323

324, 325, and 326

328, 330, and 331 - for your convenience, I have topcoated this

group of swatches, but they are still rather gritty

334 and 335 - 334 is also topcoated, and not this yellow

All over the place, this fall collection as usually provides a little something for everyone, from the color fearing to the color embracing person. Thrown in, a bunch of hard-to-describe glitters - what are they supposed to be? This isn't all that clear. So let's begin by scrutinizing those (god knows I have been). At first glance, upon receiving these bottles, they caught my interest - what are they, really?! - and as I painted them on the wheel, I was more and more puzzled. I tried them as topping glitters over some of the other colors, I examined them in one coat, two coats, three coats... Fairly gritty, I was staring to wonder if they were meant to be. They sure aren't pretty, so perhaps they are meant for some new, weird, über-cool effect? I still don't know, all I know is I think the yellow 328 is absolutely terrible, 330 just doesn't work the way it's formulated, and 331 is worth a try on actual nails. As for 334, which seems to have a more opaque base, it still really catches my eye. A candy cane (Swedish polkagris) colored glitter?! I will have to try it, despite the doubts I have towards it's formulation and provided type of glitter. (335 is not worth more than a parenthesis - it's an unattractive variety of holographic glitter with very few slightly larger hexagonal glitters thrown in. In three coats I managed to fish up two of the hexes, barely noticeable in the swatch above because they ended up on the sides. There are far better options out there, just leave this one on its shelf.)

Let's move on to what is the more conventional parts of the collection, which is in part well done. There are plenty of repeats and bland colors, such as the two berry ones (320, 323), and the purple mauve 321. Then there are the ones that makes us think of what the huge brands are putting out, such as the grey balancing on green 322, and pink nude kind of color in 319, and then there are the completely uncomprehensible choice of putting the frosty mint 318 in this collection.

What does this leave us with? The blue creme 324, the green and blue shimmer 325, and the teal creme 326. I guess it wasn't that farfetched, reading this particular blog, was it? 324 may not be that original, but I always fall for those vivid blues - this one perhaps not the most vivid I've ever seen. Depend describes it as a cornflower blue, but I disagree and would like to call it an ultramarine blue. It's nice, but like too many shades in this collection it has an opacity problem. A three coater creme is not what I expect from Depend, and keeping in mind that these bottles are minis containing only 5 ml, that's basically a two-manicure bottle. 325 is a gorgeous shimmer if you happen to be a lover of greens, blues and teals. It is like the less fabulous sister of a Korean lacquer I was lusting over a long time, namely Skin Food Cucumber. If you can't get a hold of Korean products, but Scandinavian, pick this one up instead. A teal creme may not be that special, but 326 is a nice shade. I know all the subcultural teenage girls here will pick it up. It also has a pigmentation problem, but that renders it a little more squishy than your average one coater creme.

Another wordy review of a Depend collection. In large, this collection gets a pass from me, but just barely. The truly weird glitters kind of ruin the overall impression of it, which drags it down a notch or two. As usual, I'm sure everyone will find something to their liking here, which is still Depend's forte.

As a side note, though not required in Sweden, I have decided to start stating when products have been bought with my own money or when they were gifts for review by the manufacturer or a PR representative. I know many trust my honesty, and I refuse to change in my honest ways, but clarification could always be desirable, especially for residents of countries where stating acquirations is mandatory when blogging. You will find this note at the bottom of every post - I'll try to edit past posts to reflect this, to the best of my abilities, as well.

These products were provided by the manufacturer or PR representative for reviewing purposes.

Swedish word of the day:
spretig -adjective straggle
Best way to describe Depend collections - good or bad?

Depend summer 2012 + giveaway

Finally, some bottle photos and quick wheel swatches of the new Depend summer collection!

This little bunch is a rather cute set of tutti frutti like shimmers. 305 is a warm bubblegum pink with fine green shimmer that dries semi matte, 306 is a yellow, fine shimmer on the cooler side with a green cast, 307 an orange with gold shimmer, and 308 a red with gold shimmer. Sorry about the rather dark photo here.

309 is a red with fine, somewhat frosty shimmer, 317 a sheer pink with a pearly violet or pink shimmer, 311 is your average semi bright raspberry pink creme, and 316 a lilac creme with green shimmer.

314 comes out wonky in photos, but is really a bright green creme in a sort of cross between apple and warm mint kind of shade, if that sounds weird it's just because I haven't had enough coffee yet. 310 is a blue foil with particles on the more coarse side, 312 is a taupe creme with green shimmer, 313 a blurple with green shimmer, and 315 is a peacy nude with green shimmer.

Let's take a closer look at 313:

Rather nice!

And now the wheel - this is with flash, polishes in number order:

Close up shots of some of my favourites:

312 and 313.

305-308. It's not that they are so damn unique, but they look so cute together.

So, what's cool about this collection? It's got green shimmer all over, in different sizes. That makes some of the colors one would expect to be more standard, just a little less standard. I've also been trying to figure out if that shimmer could have any duochrome properties, but I can't really tell, which means that if it does, it's not that obvious anyway. Still, I rather like a bunch of these shades. It's definitely a huge step up from the spring collection, which was infinitely boring. Some of these I don't think I would wear myself, but I can see why people will buy them. For instance 307 and 308, which are cute, but not my personal style. I have tried to figure if those also has the same green shimmer the rest of the shimmers do, but if it does, it's eaten up by the base colors.

My favourites are of course the collection standout 313, and also, perhaps a little unexpected, the taupe 312. It's not just another taupe - it has green shimmer dammit! Lately, as I'm accepting this aging thing going on with me, I've grown more fond of neutral and classic colors with the small, sometimes unexpected twist. These shades sort of allow me to be the obstinate me I've always been, but with less noticeable nails. The edge is there, but only if you look closely. And sometimes knowing is enough.

Also, I would like to add that the pale lilac 316 at a distance looks a whole lot like Essie To Buy Or Not to Buy, though the shimmer is different. This is even more so because it has the same general problem the Essie does: the shimmer pretty much drowns in the creme base. It's just not that visible. But if you're in an area where Depend polishes are sold, and you wanted to get the Essie, you could do with this one instead.

For Depend polishes, these are sheerer than usual. Many of these will require three coats if you're like me, but maybe only two if you're more normal. The typical Depend one coaters aren't found, except for perhaps the blue foil 310.

Definitely one of the better collections from Depend in quite a while. I can see 313 becoming a classic, and I think most of these shades will sell well for summer. Some are pretty bland and less interesting, but adding the little extra to classic and neutral colors is great.

And now for the twist: Depend accidentally sent me two packages with this collection, so we decided together that the extra set would be a great offer to my readers. If you would like to receive AAALL the above colors at once, just leave a comment on this post with your email address. Open to all, until Sunday evening, June 3rd, 8 PM CET (GMT +1, summertime).

Swedish word of the day:
färglada -adjective pl. colorful
Summer collections should be.