Hong Kong Loot Part 2

Here we go again my fellow fiends!

Not much talking, let's get straight to where we left off yesterday, shall we? :-)

So I am moving on to the 2 Creative polishes, they seem to be from the old style collection, meaning, they contain all those bad big 3 meanies, too bad *yikes*



Creative #310 Flannels, a beautiful bright magenta with pink shimmer, it just screams "hey look at me!" it took only 2 coats to be completely opaque



The only downside with this polish was the smell, it is really chemical...good enough reason for Creative to reformulate their polishes to Big-3 Free now



Still, I don't own many polishes that are as bold as this one, I guess I will be hunting for a dupe in Creatives new polishes hehehe...


So next up is Creative #411 Turquoise Tint



Dear Lord, I had to slather on 4 coats of this little sucker for it to be seen...it reminds me so much of the swatches i have seen from the new Creative Effects polishes. Unfortunately, I can't really do a comparison since I don't own any (going back to the wish list)



Worn just by istself, Turquoise Tint gives you a nice opalescent shimmer



Darn, this polish was meant for layering! Check it out over China Glazes "For Audrey"! Finally this is the color the bottle promises, but only bolder!



Some more layering, this time I tried it over Essie's "Aruba Blue" Don't you just love the opalescent effect?



On we go with the layering fun!

Next, I present Essie's "Aruba Blue"



Isn't this just a divine blue metallic/shimmer? Perfectly opaque in two coats and the formula is smooth and just perfect!



I keep trying to think of a similar blue...Misa "a sin worth committing"maybe?



Anyhoo, this baby is too beautiful to go sleep in my polish stash until summer...I will think of something nice to layer this beauty with lol


Phew, so much for today, stay tuned for the final part tomorrow and hold your breath for some Holo-Goodness!!!

Read you tomorrow!

Hong Kong Loot Part 1

Hello my fellow fiends!

Hope you all had a great weekend! I spent most of my Sunday swatching, picture making and watermarking LOL

Hong Kong is such a breathtaking city, I can't wait to go back! I just love the people, the food, the bars...But I guess I am sort of off-topic here, last time I checked, this is a nail polish blog and not a travel log *grin*

So here goes, my Hong Kong Loot:


I got:

Essie Aruba Blue, China Glaze Drinking my Blues away, Organic Farm N09, Creative Turqoise Tint and Flannels, Fake NfuOh 11 and 07





Here are the 2 Creative polishes, I can't tell if they are real or not, since I don't own (as of to date) any Creative polishes. They are the old design, with all the bad stuff in it, nevertheless they are absolute beautiful, I just adore the metallic magenta!





Two gorgeous polishes, unfortunately in fake NfuOh bottles. Actually, the bottles look like a love child of a NfuOh bottle and an OPI DS bottle with the silver handle, look at the next picture to see what I mean:



funny, huh?



Organic Farm Glitter Polish, this one was my least favorite, since the light teal base color didn't show at all.



Last but not least, my two blue beauties, Essie Aruba Blue and China Glaze Drinking my Blues away. Simply breathtaking!

So let's start the in depth review, shall we?

I will go by my personal ranking, starting with the polish I liked least:



Organic Farm 09, Glitter Nail Polish





As mentioned, the light teal base unfortunately doesn't show at all. Bummer. The Glitter is quite nice, reminds me a lot of China Glazes Fairy Dust. Which actually then gave me the idea of using it as a topcoat. I used a couple of different colors to check for the effect:







I really liked this a lot. Not an outstanding glitter topcoat, but decent.







It definitely looks nice on the magenta base!







Personally, I like it best on the darker bases, the blue-violett base I put on my pinkie looks fabulous with the glitter on it!





Another big, BIG plus: This glitter was easy-breezy to remove, I had no problems at all!

So my fellow fiends, that's it for now, Part II of my Loot is up for review tomorrow, so stay tuned for more!

China Glaze "Raggae to Riches" and a little Konad Magic

Hello my dear fiends!

Finally made it back from Hong Kong! What a busy week I had! Hong Kong is such a cool city, I just wish I've had more time to spend there. Well I guess I just need to go back there soon, hehe
I did make some cool polish finds there as well, which I of course will show to you guys in one of my next postings, so stay tuned for those!

For today, I picked out China Glaze "Raggae to Riches" which is a polish that doesn't stand out because it's glittery, duochrome or has some kind of special finish. Nope, none of that, I simply think it's a beautiful color, caught somewhere in between a dark pink and bursting purple. The formula is the regular China Glaze one and you can get this beauty any time since it is part of there standart collection. Neat huh? :-)

But on to the important things, the pics!







After doing my nails, I had to rearrange a couple of orchids that I brought back from Hong Kong into different vases. That is when I noticed, that the CG's Raggae to Riches would be a beautiful base color for an orchid inspired stamping, so I went ahead and grabbed a fitting Konad template and Sephora by OPI's "Queen of Everything" a silvery gold metallic color. Here is the result:











So that's it for now, my dear fiends, I will be busy for the rest of the day swatching all the loot I brought back from my trip, so just wait for some interesting stuff! Have a great sunday and read you soon!

It's Dupe Time Again!

Hello my fellow fiends!

Just a quick Monday morning post :-)

I am flying out to HongKong tonight and won't be back till Sunday. I am kinda excited, as I might just have enough time to do some shopping...gosh I am pretty predictable huh?

Anyway, for today I picked something really pretty for you, P2 "Gorgeous" and the polish is definitely true to it's name. It's a rich dark purple with silver shimmer effects. The formula is perfect, nice rich and thick, it even manages to be opaque with just one coat. The finish reminded me A LOT of the OPI Suedes when you put TopCoat on them, so I went searching through my polish stash and found OPI INK Suede. Wow, I thought OPI INK might be more on the bluish side, but in my book, this is a pretty darn close match.

P2 "Gorgeous", on the Pinky I applied OPI Ink Suede with Topcoat

Same with Flash

I personally can't make out a big difference. The HUGE advantage of the P2 polish is it's durability. The Suedes were really prone to chipping and looked worn after just 1 day. The P2 polish stays on like glue, I had this Mani on for 4 days and not the slightest sign of chipping. Way to go!

Here's a comparison of the two bottles. The bottles do look really different, the OPI one is really blue tinged compared to the P2. I was really surprised when I applied the polishes, funny how the color developed. Again, this is a case were just can't judge a color by it's bottle *winkwink*

So that's it for now my dear fiends, I will miss you this week but I do have to return next week with some new loot. Take Care!

New Loot and Duochrome Madness

Hello my dear fiends!

I had so much fun swatching my newest additions, the only turn off was the beyond crappy weather *yikes* Especially the last couple of pictures are really dark, sorry for that!
Well, what did Auntie Charis pick up this time?



I picked up 4 Scherer Chameleon polishes, Sinful Colors "Merlot" a really pretty bordeaux red and Essie's "Nude Beach" a pale pink with opal shimmer

OMG those Chameleon polishes made me almost faint when I laid my eyes on them! They are 4 wonderful shades and all, I repeat, ALL of them are DUOCHROMES!!! Can i get any more goodness for only 2,99$ per bottle? I guess not!
I am just really sad that I had no sunlight at all (all grey, dark and rainy here in Munich), because those babies show their real beauty only in sunlight. So from my swatches, you can only guess how beautiful they really are. As soon as the weather will be decent, I will re-swatch them, promise!
All the swatches are 2 coats, on my bare, naked, short and stumpy nails, no TopCoat. The Formula of these is RUNNY, I mean really liquidy. I like thicker polish, but hey, that's personal preference. The first coat was a bit streaky, but fortunately the polish evens out when you apply the second coat. The brush was beyond crappy, it lost it's hair faster than I was able to apply the polish...darn. But I just used another brush, fine by me, I can live with it for the price.

But now on with the pics...

Scherer Chameleon "Dreams"





This is a beautiful, pale pink with opal duochrome shimmer. It makes me think of light pink pearl necklace in the sunlight. The first coat was pretty iridescent, so I might do some layering experiments with this polish


Scherer Chameleon "Blue Frost"







Lovely, light frosted blue with pearl pink duochrome shimmer. Makes me think of ice crystals.


Scherer Chameleon "Calypso"





Metallic lilac with rainbow colored duochrome shimmer. Absolutely awesome in my book, only turn down is that the lilac has a good portion of a dusty rose color in it, which is too warm toned for my skin. But hey so what, the polish is awesome.


Scherer Chameleon "Blue Sky"





My personal winner. A dark, lilac-blueish base again with rainbow colored duochrome shimmer. It makes me think of Nubar's "Peacock Feathers" polish.


Again, I feel kinda sad that none of the pictures I show here do the colors full justice. But I promised to re-swatch them as soon as the dun decides to return to Munich. So see you back soon!

Classic Cremes OPI Brights Collection 2009 Mini Kit

Hello my dear fiends, I am back!

New York was awesome, as usual! But alas, lots of work, not really any time to play. I did manage to sneak out for a quick drugstore haul though ;-) I will present ym loot in one of my next posts to you. For today, I picked out a fun OPI Mini Kit that I really like. I like the Mini Kits in general, I think the value you get for the money is okay and often I don't really need the big bottle of some colors. So today, I am presenting the OPI Brights 2009 Mini Kit. The Kit features 3 colors from the OPI Brights Collection (which had in total 6 different shades) plus the OPI Rapidry Topcoat which is included in all of OPI's Mini Kits.
I really like the formula of these, here we got cremes that apply all smooth and silky, no streaking or gloopyness here. The Pink and the Purple were both three coaters to be totally opaque, the Orange was two.
I also found these colors work fantastic if you do Konad stamping with them. I have heard, there are quite some Dupes out there for the Brights Collection, but honestly, I don't think the is a true Dupe for the orange shade, but then again, that's just my humble personal opinion. But now on to the PicSpam!


Group shot of the Kit :-)



On the same Paige - in my opinion, this is not orange, but a gorgeous rich orange-red shade, one of the few oranges that actually works with my cool tones skin, I just love this!




Shorts Story - hot pink, no more comment. This is a fantastic bright cool toned pink bubblegum shade. I guess I don't own a single bright pink polish that is not a shimmer, glitter or duochrome...yup this is definitely the only pink creme I own. Shame on me.




A Grape Fit - nice rich lilac. That's about it. To me, this is the only color that is dort of "blah" for me. There are quite some dupes for it out there in the polish world, try OPI's do you lilac it? for instance. But still, this is nice.



So that's it for now my dear fiends. Oh, I forgot to mention, as you might be able to tell, poor Auntie Charis broke two nails during the trip. Boo Hoo!!! So I am back to sporting shorties *sigh*