Christmas is just around the Corner

Helloooo my dear fellow addicts!

Christmas is nothing more but a breath away, I am looking forward to spend time with my husband and family. Sunday, december 27th, i will be taking off to Los Angeles (yup someone has to earn the money for all those christmas presents LOL) and I will be back just in time for New Years Eve. I hope I will be sucessful and bring back some interesting and new polishes, yay!
So unfortunately, I will have to take a week off from my blog *sobbsobb*


So, for my last post this year a did some funny Christmas Nails for you guys, hope you like it!

The colors I used were:
OPI DS Coronation
OPI Dear Santa
NYX Las Vegas

I did the colorings all free handed, so they are a bit sloppy, so my apologies!

















So that's it for 2009! See you all in 2010! XOXO Charis

Frankenpolish for Christmas

Hello my fellow addicts!

It's the season to be jolly...and to be gifted with beautiful nail polish! I got this beautiful Frankenpolish as a gift from my dear Forum Friend black_diamond, it actually is a part of 4 different fairytale Frankenpolishes, which I will all post here when I have time...

So, off we go with the first one! It has the beautiful name "Cinderella's lost slipper"



Now how beautiful is this? a Light purple-pink base, which contains mainly gold glitter, but if you look at it in sunlight, the glitter is not only golden, but appears multi-colored! Yay, glitter for me!



even though it does contain tons of glitter, it applies very smoothly and is not one of those dreaded topcoat killers, I need two light coats of topcoat, which is fine



sooooooo pretty...I must have been a very good girl this year to deserve beautiful presents like this one :-)


I try to get the other three polishes swatched for you guys this afternoon!

Urban Decay Apocalyptic Nail Polish Set

Hello my dear addicts!
Today I would like to review one of my early christmas presents :-)








and with Flash





The Urban Decay Apocalyptic Set contains 7 different Mini sized nail polishes, which come in a pretty purple case. Colorwise, i would say, they are pretty typical for the Urban Decay color scheme.




with Flash






The formula of these was not fantastic, but not bad either. Neither runny nor extremely thick. Absolutely average I would say. I did like that none of them applied streaky. I used 2 coats with all of them, White Widow could have used three, Apocalypse would also be fine with one even coat. I do apologize for the bad quality of the pics, but it was dark and snowing all day, so I couldn't even get a bit of decent lighting. Sorry!

Now on to the colors!



White Widow

Now this one is a nice twist from the typical whites you see. I would call it a "a bit dirty" white since it does have hints of grey, maybe even a superpale lilac in it. It also has some micro silver shimmer in it! It was one of the few colors though that could have done with a third coat. I like it, since I got a bit tired of all the "snow whites" out there, so on with the "White Widow"! *grin*






Gunmetal
Now this one turned out to be nothing like the name. When I think metal, I think of grey, silver...nowit does contain the same micro silver shimmer as White Widow, but the base is a dark, chocolaty brown. Oh well. I like it. I will call it Bronzed Gunmetal instead, hehe




Apocalypse
Holy Moley, this one is a vamp in a bottle! A dark, rich creme base with the darkest of purple added to it. Wonderful! If you manage to apply one thin coat, you get the benefits if seing the purple parts of the polish. The More coats you add, the darker, blacker your polish will get and only with light reflections the purple will show, how cool ist that? I added a pic with flash to show you guys what I mean...god this one is so gorgeous!









Grunge
This was the one I was lemming for the most...Blue Shimmer in a metal like teal base. I like it, but I don't love it, I honestly thought the blue shimmer would stand out more. The dark teal base is very pretty though.

Meltdown

Wow, this is an absolute fantastic full purple shimmer! It pulls off full coverage with just 2 coats of polish. Try looking at it in full sunlight, you will be delighted!

Big Bang

Yup, this one is nothing but a Big Bang of Pink Shimmer. Name says it all.

FBomb
Darn...this is the kind of red nail polish "the other woman" would wear. Rich red creme in a shade of red that is worthy of the big Hollywood godesses of the 50ies. Love it!







I believe the set is available for 26USD and contains 7 mini bottles of 5ml. It is available at the UD website or Sephora. For all you poor addicts who can't order there (like me) try ebay or hqhair if they might be getting it in.

China Glaze Glitters "Atlantis"

Hello my dear addicts!

Today I would like to review one of my favorite Glitters from China Glaze, China Glaze Atlantis:





To me, Atlantis is perfection in a bottle, I just love, loooooove it! The Color is a medium teal, which is very opaque with only one coat and shows full color with about 3 coats. Added to the color, is tons, tons and tons of medium sized glitter particles. I can just sit in front of the bottle and stare at it all day long, I bet you guys this polish must have hypnotizing powers, at least with me *chuckle*





The base of this is sort of jelly like, not quite as jelly as Ruby Pumps though. Despite all the glitter, it does apply evenly and smooth, which I like a lot





I always add a thick coat of topcoat though, to make it all smooth on the surface. Taking the polish off though can be quite challenging. What really helped my out, is a peace of felt. I was using the felt instead of the cotton wad and it worked soooo much better, since the cotton wad kept dissolving and parts of it kept sticking to my nail, yuck! If you can't get your hands on felt, try soaking your fingers in polish remover for a couple of minutes, this helps to dissolve the glitter coat. Just remember to use a biiiiiiiiig potion of hand lotion afterwards, as this methos dries out your skin like hell!





I also combined Atlantis with a matte topcoat, here I used Essie's matte about you





Doesn't that look like lovely frosted goodness? The Glitters seem to work quite well with matte top coats, i have to do some further experiments *winks*

Christmas Candy Cane Design

Hello my fellow addicts!

Yes, it's cold outside and Christmas is less than a week away! Reasons enough to try out some Christmas inspired Nail Designs. Since I am not a very good nail artist, I decided to just combine 2 different colors, that's how I came up with the candy cane idea. To make it more festive, I added some gold glitter.
The polishes I used were:

Color Club "Russian Lilac" (white)
OPI "Smitten with Mittens" (red)
China Glaze Medallion (gold glitter)

First, I applied two coats of the Color Club polish. It turned out to be quite streaky however, so I had to add a third coat. Somehow, I wasn't too happy with the formula of this polish, but after the thrid coat it was okay. Then I let my nails dry thoroughly, before I added the red streaks with the OPI Polish. Instead of a Top Coat, I just used the China Glaze Glitter.
It does look quite festive, don't you think?

Classics Revisited - OPI Midnight in Moscow

Hello my dear addicts!

While I was all busy doing my layering experiments with China Glaze's Ruby Pumps and Emerald Sparkle, I fell completely all over in love again with OPI Midnight in Moscow. It originally came out as part of OPI's Russian Collection in 2007.
Looking at the bottle, it seems like any other light black polish, but if you take a closer look you will see millions of the smalles little red sparkles you could think of. This polish is not done justice if you look at it indoors, it needs direct sunlight to really shine. And shine it does! can you think of a deep black base with sparkling red micro glitter? Think no more, go and get a bottle of Midnight in Moscow LOL

When it comes to applying, it definitely is a minimum 2 coater. If you only add one coat, it looks streaky and you don't really get the sparkle effect. So go for 2, or even three :-)






The next pics I took with flash, since no sun was available in wintery, cold Munich





That's it for now, my fiends, hope you enjoyed this!

China Glaze Emerald Sparkle

Hello my dear addicts!
As you know, I just did some layering experiments with China Glaze Ruby Pumps. Well, guess what, since Emerald Sparkle has the same fantastic jelly base as Ruby Pumps, you can layer it just as well! Again, I think dark bases are best, but go out, have some fun and try what you like!


Here I have some pics for you of Emerlad Sparkle in combination with OPI Midnight in Moscow, Enjoy!













So, which combinations would you like to try out? Which ideas do you guys have? I am curious, let me know!

China Glaze Ruby Pumps or layering is fun

Hello Dear Nail Polish Fiends!

I thought the honor of first pic in my blog should go to a polish that I absolutely love, love, love, looooove, okay I have to stop, I am starting to drool *rollseyes*
China Glaze Ruby Pumps is an extremely versatile, gorgeous red glitter polish. It first got released as part of the China Glaze Wizard of ooh Ahz Collection (which is being re-released just now, yay!) and now it has become part of the regular China Glaze Collection.
Since Ruby Pumps is a perfect jelly polish, it just screams to be layered over other colors, the darker, the better in my opinion.


On to the candidates...



From Left to Right, indoor light:
China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Nars Tokkaido Express, OPI Midnight in Moscow, OPI My Private Jet (Non-Holo Version)



With Flash



From Left to Right, indoor light:
China Glaze Emerald Sparkles, OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow, OPI DS Coronation, OPI I Love Mummy


With Flash

and here come the Nail Pics :-)


From Left to Right, China Glaze Ruby Pumps over
OPI My Private Jet, OPI Midnight in Moscow, Nars Tokkaido Express, China Glaze Ruby Pumps


With Flash

I think out of this Selection, Ruby Pumps works best with OPI Midnight in Moscow. The barely there red glimmer in Midnight in Moscow gets total oooooomph with Ruby Pumps. The Nars polish just shows with a really teeny tiny sutle glow, I thought it would push more through, oh well. Private Jet works nicely as well, it does have more glimmer than Midnight in Moscow, but it doesn't shine through as much. Overall, I am satisfied with all of them.

On to the next ones!


From left to Right, China Glaze Ruby Pumps over
OPI I Love Mummy, OPI DS Coronation, OPI Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow, on the Pinkie I just wear 2 Coats of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle



With Flash

With I Love Mummy (this can be easily duped by OPI's Alpine Snow btw), Ruby Pumps gets really pink, I should have added another layer, so it's not looking so streaky. The DS Coronation and Ruby Pumps is a fabulous combination, as you get a glitter, glitter and even more glitter effect (yay for glitter! LOL). The Here Today, Aragon Tomorrow looks nice, but again, I do prefer the Midnight in Moscow combination. And Emerald Sparkle is just soooo beautiful on it's own, hurry to get it, as long as the China Glaze Christmas Polishes are still around!


Another Favorite of mine, which I discover earlier, is China Glaze Ruby Pumps in Combination with OPI Sahara Sapphire







I am just falling off my Chair, that's how amazed I am with this. The OPI Sahara Sapphire gives Ruby Pumps just this slight tinge of purple which makes me go OMG. I mean, don't you think this is absolutely stunning?

That's it for now, my dear fiends, hope you liked it!