Flakie Galore - Nfu Oh 051 over RBL Bruised

Hi all!

Today I have the manicure that I wore on the day that I celebrated my birthday. I decided that it was a reason to get my beloved 051 out of her basket and put her on :)

Nfu Oh 051, two coats over one coat of RBL Bruised. *whistles* oooh so pretty! 051 is a gorgeous purple based flakie polish that flashes blue, burgundy, green and gold. Not only the flakies change color, the polish itself does so too! I took this picture in daylight, but a little bit later I snapped this pic in the same lighting conditions:

Weird, right? It's awesome to look at. Most of the time, my nails looked like the first picture with a really strong golden flash and golden flakies in it, but sometimes it looked like this :D

Application was good! I used RBL Bruised as a base. I needed one coat to get an even base, though it was not completely opaque. I didn't need opacity since I was layering 051 on top.. The brush of Nfu Oh works pretty well for me. I had no issues with the polish whatsoever so I was a happy birthday gal!

What do you think of 051? Worth the hype? I snatched it at the end of last year, when 051 wasn't easy to come by and I'm ever so glad I did.

Orly Cosmic FX Stunner: Space Cadet

Hi all!

So here it is, the stunner of the Orly Cosmic FX Collection; Space Cadet. I took a gazillion pictures of this beauty, so hold on to your seats!

Orly Space Cadet, three coats in daylight and sunlight. This is AWESOME! I've never been this thrilled about a duochrome! Space Cadet is a mauve-ish brown-ish base filled with tons of glass flecks that make an awesome duochrome effect together. My nails flash brown, mauve, pink, purple, greenish yellow, copper, gold and green when I move my nails. It's so awesome. I can't tell you how amazing this is. My pictures don't even capture all the color shifting properly, so it's even better in real life!!

Application is good, the polish is a bit thin but that's what I'm used to with these kind of glass flecked polishes. I needed three coats for opacity, which is pretty normal for the glass flecked finish. The polish was easy to work with and dried in a couple of minutes without topcoat.

Do you think Space Cadet is the stunner of the collection? Or do you think I'm being overexcited? ;)

Comparison Time

Hi all!

It's time for some comparisons again! There are three comparisons again this time, so let's get started.

A little roundup

First up is a comparison between Chanel Nouvelle Vague and Orly Gumdrop.

Left Orly Gumdrop, right Chanel Nouvelle Vague. As you can see, they are dupes! The only difference is the really subtle shimmer that Nouvelle Vague holds and Gumdrop is a teeeeenie bit more blue, but the difference is barely visible. Gumdrop is easier to get your hands on and it's a budget friendly alternative if you want Chanel Nouvelle Vague.

Next up: a coincidental dupe! I bought Kinetics Shall We Dance? at Alice and Jo's havesentials and found out it looked really close to GOSH Purple Heart.

Left GOSH Purple Heart, Kinetics Shall We Dance? on the right. The only difference is the way the light hits these polishes. These polishes are identical. They're both evenly duochrome-y (which I couldn't really capture on the wheel) and have the same smokey dark purple, mossy green colors. These are dupes.

Last but not least of this comparison post, I have two periwinkle cremes for you; China Glaze Secret Peri-winkle and Orly Cashmere Cardigan.

Secret Peri-Winkle on the left, Cashmere Cardigan on the right. Please imagine this is more periwinkle (a tad bit of purple), because the color freaked out my camera. These are not dupes. Secret Peri-Winkle is lighter and a bit dustier than Cashmere Cardigan, while Cashmere Cardigan leans more towards purple. The difference is big enough to justify you owning both ;) These are not dupes.

And of course, to round it all up.. A little summary in the form of a shot of the nailwheel;



These were the comparisons I had for you, dear reader! If you have requests for more comparisons, feel free to ask me!

Thanks for stopping by!

Playdate Pics! And OPI Over The Taupe

Hi all!

If you're following me on Twitter, you probably know that it was playdate time yesterday! I met up with Michèle from Lacquerized, Karin from Romika's Nails, Michelle from The Lacquer Files and Natasja. We all brought a ton of polishes (though this wasn't nearly everything we own!) and were dazed with the amount of polish on the table. This is what a playdate with five lacquer ladies looks like:


And from a different angle:

Michèle and Karin actually had their polishes in their Helmers, so they are not even all visible in these pics! Woah! Can you imagine us just staring at all the bottles, not knowing which polish to pick?

We all picked a polish to paint our nails with and since this is my nail blog, what would this post be without a pic of our hands and nails?

Clockwise, starting from the top: Michèle - wearing purple H&M Hello Kitty with Sally Hansen Garnet Lapis, Karin - wearing Milani Hi-Tech, Michelle - wearing Hard Candy Mr Wrong with Hard Candy Breakup on top, Natasja - wearing Orly Cashmere Cardigan and me - wearing OPI Over the Taupe.

I'm wearing OPI Over the Taupe as a NOTD (which I borrowed from Michelle - thanks dearie!! <3 ), but I spiced it up a little with some flowery stickers. I actually have some weird kind of bubbeling in my polish, not regular bubbles but very teeny tiny wobbly parts that look like they lay under the polish. Michèle told me she has the same thing. I have no clue what caused this bubbeling.. Anyway, here are some pics of today's manicure!

OPI Over the Taupe, three coats with one coat of Nubar Diamont and flowery stickers. Over the Taupe is a gorgeous taupe creme. I really like this color! I took advantage of all the bottles on the table and it's no dupe of Eyeko's Taupe Polish, Catrice Lost in Mud or Catrice From Dusk To Dawn. Application was good. The polish was a little watery at first, but it all went well in the end.

A little closeup of my ring finger:

It's just the accent to make the color pop! I really like these stickers. I got them as a freebie with an order at Veelnagels/Veelsieraden, a Dutch etailer.

Dear Michèle, Karin, Michelle and Natasja; I had a great time yesterday and I hope you did too! I'm looking forward to the next playdate (Michèle, hurry up with your date picker! ;) )

Thanks for stopping by!

Nubar Iris Dust

Hi all!

How are you all doing? Surviving the week so far? I'm so damn tired since we have summertime (last sunday). My whole biological clock is screwed up! So I'll make it a relatively short post again, sorry about that. I have Nubar Iris Dust for you today. I have had her for quite a while now and I've worn her before, but I had serious shrinkage with Seche Vite before I could take pics. So here she is!

Nubar Iris Dust, four coats in daylight. Iris Dust is a quite sheer, but very pretty duochrome that flashes between dark, faded pink and bronze. I'd say you can best layer this over another color, since I still have VNL with those four coats. I think I would have liked her even more if the bronze was darker, but that's just me :)

The polish structure is quite thin, making it sheer. Drying time is quite long, but this is caused by the many layers I put on my nails before taking these pics. I didn't have issues with application whatsoever though.

What do you think of Iris Dust? Do you like duochromes as much as I do? It's just fascinating to see the colors change on my nails. What's your favorite duochrome?

Thanks for stopping by!

LA Girl Rockstar Punk

Hi all!

How are you all doing today? I've had a long day due to public transport, but I'm as happy as a 5 year old in a candy store. Why? Because I got my own dot com! You can visit my blog now through www.nailswatches.com. I'm so happy!

Today I have a polish for you that has been in my Helmer since forever. I bought these because I loooooved the swatches I saw, but didn't feel like putting them on. What a shame! So this week I pulled LA Girl Rockstar Punk out of my Helmer.

Note: I broke a nail last weekend, so I filed them all a bit so I wouldn't have a freaky long pinky nail lol. I do have some material with pics in which I still have long nails, so don't be scared, it's just a little time jump!

On to the pics!


LA Girl Punk in daylight
LA Girl Punk indoors, three coats. LA Girl Rockstar Punk is a glass flecked slightly duochrome-y blue. The polish is extremely shiny, so you won't need any topcoat for that! The finish is so awesome. Look at it:

So extremely pretty! I don't have any other words for this. And yes, I said it's duochrome! Not too much and only visible in certain angles and lighting, but still there and very pretty. Here are some pics to show you:


Crappy picture, but see? It's purple!! Wheee!!

In the bottle you can clearly see it's both blue and purple. It even flashes a little green in some angles, but this was impossible for me to capture.

As for the application, this was flawless! This is three coats and the polish was just perfect for me in terms of structure. It dried a little slow though, so it could use a quickry topcoat to fix it, but other than that, I'm satisfied!

What do you think of Punk? Do you own any of the LA Girl Rockstar polishes?

Thanks for stopping by!