Lumene - Magic Night / Taikayö (51)

Hello fellow polishers!

Time to show you Lumene Magic Night / Taikayö - I showed you the bottle in my Polish-Shopping post and finally I was in the mood for wearing it. And in short: I'm in love with it!

It's a lilac base which contains pink glitter and small blue/pink flakies.

You want pictures?! Here you go!


(inside, daylight)

Dragon said "Whoooa! This one is cool - suits your skin!" (wait a second: since when he realizes that a color suits my skincolor?!)


(outside, natural light)

For the first time at work someone (besides the one co-worker who knows about my addiction) mentioned my polish! They wondered how I manage to apply it so neatly. Well they haven't seen Michèle from Lacquerized ... so I just enjoy their compliments.


(flash)

Later my cosmetician also told my how great this polish looks on me - and that the application was so wonderful (again: she did not read the blogs of the real application-artists!) and she even asked "Are those your real nails?" - "Yeah" - "Great!" (I think it's save to say that I'll never convert to acrylics and so on because I'm just too afraid about them, too economical and I don't like my nails much longer than they are now - so why I should try them out?)


(daylight)


(flash)

Okay, what else there is to say ... application was okay - nothing too great, nor too terrible. But it took 3 coats to get a perfect coverage - by now I get the feeling that I do very thin coats. Only downside: Shrinkage. Looks like my nails usually do after 3 days with tipwear. But I don't care - as long as it is even, I can live with it. And the good: I didn't get worst - on my 3rd day of wearing it it's pretty much like on the day I applied.

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
3 x Lumene Magic Night / Taikayö
2 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

Lumene seems to like "Night / Yö" in their polishnames ;o)

I'm glad that I have a backup from this - and I hope that Lumene has nice summer polishes when I'm back in buying range in july and not only those "play it save" colors they had the last time I checked their polishes.

Oh, and you remember my brush comparison? This bottle had a really uneven brush :o( Didn't like it a all. It was so hard to get an even line at the cuticles! Too bad. But I wasn't in the mood for trimming it, but one day I'll do.

Lumene - Night Party / Öiset juhlat (75) matte

Had to try Lumene Night Party / Öiset juhalt in matte!

This is one coat Essie Matte about You.

I was not sure if the matte finish would make the flakies disappear - but no, it did not, it's quite the opposite: Now you can see them much better because there are no more reflections on the nail. I like this! It makes the polish even more fascinating.

(with flash to show the orange/brown flakies)

By now the shrinkage + tipwear is disturbing but I don't want to remove the polish yet.

Gee, I hate how my skin looks on pictures - it's by far not that dry! It's not perfect either but still a lot better than what the pictures suggest!

For following posts: I seem to have find the best setting on my camera to capture the colors as accurate as possible - you'll see it next time when I show you P2 perfectly - my OPI Tickle my France-y replacement - not quite a dupe but the closest I could come up with in short notice.

Lumene - Night Party / Öiset juhlat (75)

Lumene, now you're talking!! This is really wonderful and a can't understand that I ever questioned flakies! They are perfect and I can't stop looking at them! This depth! Great, amazing, I'm totally thrilled!

Okay, what we have:
A brown shimmer polish with very small silver glitter and flakies that vary from yellow - green - orange - copper/red



Dragon says: Too tacky.
Sheep says: Just tacky enough!

But judge yourself:



(at sundown, therefore the reflections)



These are:
1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
2 x Lumene Night Party / Öiset juhlat
1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

And one close-up:

Isn't this just wonderful?!

This combination did not dry as fast as China Glaze Emerald Sparkle with Poshe but still fast enough for me. But for the first time: Shrinkage! But let's face it: No one realizes my tips when they are facing the flakies!

My co-worker was so distracted that she did not listen anymore and I had to repeat my sentences 3 times. Cute :o) She agrees with me: Great polish!

Well Lumene - go on like this! More of those polishes, please! You've shown that you can do more than sheer oder creme pinks!

Leaves me with a dilemma: Need more flakies ...

Do you have a craving for flakies as well or do you agree with my dragon?

P.S.: There is another giveaway I want to mention:

The Springtime Giveaway from The Dutch Nail Blog - check it out!

Lumene - Angel Touch / Enkelin kosketus (8) with China Glaze Wireless Holographic Topcoat

Okay, I admit it:

I was bored by the Lumene after 2 days and I had 3 layering-choices:

1. Essie Matte about You
2. China Glaze Wireless Holographic Topcoat
3. China Glaze Fairy Dust

My dragon ruled: China Glaze Wireless Topcoat

Still very low-key, right? But at least with a bit bling. But really ... nothing more to say about this one. It lasted 24h and than I moved on to a little bit more fun - stay tuned, I'll show it soon - till then I have this hint for you: The Giveaway from AllYouDesire.

Lumene - Angel Touch / Enkelin kosketus (8)

Here comes the first Lumene review!

It's a sheer duochrome polish and so hard to capture! In the sunlight the effect is pretty obvious but the camera just won't show it the way it really is - and of course by the time I was able to take a picture the sun was low again. Anyway, here are 2 pictures:



As you can perhaps guess the color goes from bluish pink over yellow to green - I wasn't able to capture the green at all! This is one coat of polish.

And here is one picture of the bottle:

I was able to wear this polish for about 5 days without any bad chiping but of course tipwear - without any base- or topcoat, because I just forgot to take them with me! So I just figured that this color looks so innocent, it won't stain. Well I was very surprised when I took it down after 5 days - my nails were yellow. Thanks a lot!

I will have to layer this one over a dark creme ... blue or black or something like that. Guess it would look pretty nice!

I already talked a bit about the Lumene brush, now lets hear a bit about the color range of their polishes. It's very dowdy. Mostly pink, nude and reds, cremes and shimmer. No blue or green. I saw 2 duocromes: This one and one light pink one which I will swatch somtimes later. The 2 most interessting colors I found was one brown with flakies and one lilac polish (the bottle is shown here). That's it.

The bottle size is pretty small, 6ml/0.19fl.oz. at a quite big prize between 4,90€-8€

There is one product line called "Natural Code" which also has nailpolishes and it even contains bold colors like green and yellow besides the notorial pinks. But I wasn't tempted to buy any of those, even if some colors where really interesting. Why not? The bottle size was even smaller! 4,5ml/0.14fl.oz. at a price around 4-5€. Somehow I fear that with such a bottle size I will wind up buying too many backups if I really like one color!

But I guess in the summer my curiosity has grown and I will buy a test bottle anyway ... so stay tuned ;o)



I usually use a basecoat to avoid stains - so do you know such innocent looking polishes that stain so badly?

Brush Comparison - Lumene and China Glaze

Some polishes really come with great brushes and others have the same brushes I know from my childhood nailpolishing advantures. One of these typical "childhood brushes" would be the China Glaze brush. It's not too bad but nothing great either. I can live with it.

And then there are brushes that are really an ease - like the "One touch brush" from Lumene.

Here's a comparison between Lumene Angel Touch / Enkelin kosketus and China Glaze Wireless Holographic topcoat:

Okay okay, I admit it: The Lumene brush is not perfect! And no, it's not only "one touch"!

Great: It's wide and I really need less strokes + the round shape of the tip makes it easier to apply around the cuticles

What could be better: As you can see the tip is not perfectly shaped. Perhaps I cut it myself one day. One half of it is perfecty round, the other one is frayed.

I'm undecided about the flexibility of the brush ... while the China Glaze is really soft and flexible the Lumene is sort of stiff. This has advantages but I'm not really used to it.

But over all I prefer the Lumene brush.

Nude swatches

It's weekend, I have a bit time - so it's time for nail polish! And some surfing! Just found this great Birthday Giveaway I'll take part in! I mean - Gosh polishes!! Gosh! Very hard to get around here ... nice idea for a givaway!

Okay, I'm in the mood for something nude or light pink, creme ... something low-key but nice.

You won't believe it, but the sun is shining!!

So here we go from left to right:

2 coats of OPI Tickle my France-y

2 fingers with 2 coats of Lumene New World - Uuteen maailmaan (hey, this is not properly translated, is it? It should be "To the new Word", not?)

1 coats of Orly Country Club Khaki + 1 coat of OPI Tickle my France-y

Of course with basecoats and topcoats ... the dents in the coats are from "hey are you dry" testings. Have to do them :o) By the way: The Lumene is from my 10 new polishes shopping spree.

I'm not really happy with the colors in the sun picture - they seem more similar than they are in reality. New World is rosy, the others not. The shadow picture is a bit better:

Okay, the OPI is what I really want. The Lumene is nice but very girly, even if it's not a real pink - it is quite toned down. The Orly+OPI combination is okay but the colors on their own a nicer.

And what is with my Tickle my France-y problem? Is it solved with only 2 coats and VNL? No, it's not! This time I tried it with Poshe base- and topcoat - and yes, it won't dry! Later on I will try it again with P2 basecoat and no topcoat. I want to make this work! Can't be that hard, can it?

Tickle my France-y - why can't you be like Orly Country Club Khaki? Almost a onecoater and dry within minutes without topcoat! Makes me want to buy more Orlys! I hope they are all that great. And I love the rubber-lid!

So, mental note: Need more Orly!

And now ... where is my polish remover?

Polish-Shopping

Polish-Shopping is a dreadful thing!

I have to buy most of my polishes online since the great brands like China Glaze, OPI (still not sure if OPI is really that great - I mean you, Tickle my France-y!), Orly, Essie, Nfu Oh and so on are not available in local stores around here. You may find Essie - but at a price that makes me laugh and think "it would be advisable to order that stuff online" - even if I have to figure in the shipping fees from e.g. USA to Europe + additional fees if the value of goods is too high (which it quickly is). The polishes in my local stores are mostly boring. Sheers, french, reds. A blue is already something special, the only two brands being a bit bolder are P2 and Essence - the good is that these two are really cheap and I don't feel guilty when buying them.

Since I'm a penny pincher - not in the sense of not buying stuff if I want it but in the sense of getting the most out of the money spent - I usually wind up in ordering as much as the postal fees allow. For example: You can buy up to 9 bottles of polish for a shipping fee of 18$ - of course I will order 9 bottles. Everything else would be silly, right? And I'll always have enough polishes on my wishlist to find 9 polishes!

But ordering 9 bottles of polish seems very lavish and my boyfriend won't understand why I need 9 more polishes because I already have enough for the next 10 years and don't get me started on my mom who'll even throw in a "Is it really advisable to order stuff from abroad?". But it is just total me: I always want more. More BPALs, more polishes, more water colors, more hairsticks, more books, more more more. I cut back on other stuff to afford something else.

Anyway, I try to avoid getting to the point that I allow myself to order online because I know that I'll spent more money than I should - excused by "if I pay the postal fees it's better to get one polish more than one polish less". But the yearning for more polishes is still there so I'll go into local stores, watching out for cheap polishes, having in mind which ones I would buy if I'd order online. But of course I only find boring ones in the stores - and still I buy some of them, thinking "better than nothing and hey, they are cheap!", bringing home more polishes which makes it harder to argue for another online-order while at the ssme time having spent already a part of the money I would have spent online - because the "hey, they are cheap" leads to "what the heck, this one looks almost interesting, even if I know that I won't be really wearing it" (I'm looking at you, P2 Happy) - meaning: I end up with more than one polish for sure!

Well, that's what happens if I'm in a local store with local cheap brands ... but what happens if I finally get to a store that has great brands I usually won't get?! Total mayhem!

Let's go back to last monday. I was in another country, in a great store called "Sokos" and well ... they had Gosh, Make Up Store (didn't know that one at all), Wet'N'Wild, even OPI, the usual suspects like YSL, Dior and so on and of course local brands like Lumene (but let me tell you: Don't buy Lumene at "Sokos"! I got mine from "Anttila" and "Vapaa Valinta" where they are much cheaper).

The moment I realized the options I went nuts. First I crept through all the aisles, critically watched by all the sales women there - I can understand them, I had this treacherous glow in the eyes which means either I'm going to spend a lot of money soon or I'm trying to shoplift. So they came twice to ask if they could help me but I just smiled and declined - and went on scanning everything in their displays before making any decisions. Well okay, one bottle jumped right away into my shopping basket: Make Up Store SIW. A light blue holographic polish!! How could I resist?! I even ignored that this would be the most expansive bottle of polish I bought until now (yes, until now, because lets face it: If I'd see a Chanel Particulière I'd grab it right away, never telling my sweetheart how much I paid for it).

And somehow - over 3 days - I bought 10 new polishes. And I paid much more for them than I would have paid for one online order, because I fell into the "wow, once I can see the polish live before ordering it! That is so great!" mode. Okay, I got polishes I can't order online, that's true. But still ... perhaps it would have been better to place one online order and ignore the local stores.

To sum it up: If you are used to online shopping like I am - beware of local stores! Try to avoid them! The sight of a filled nail polish rack will be too much for you and after some hours you wonder how this could happen (but since I wrote that I bought the poilshes in a period of three days it is obvious that even this phase of remorse does not last long for me).

But to give you at least an idea of some of the polishes I bought - here are some pictures:

This is the Make Up Store SIW - the picture didn't capture the blue hue but believe me: It's not silver (but they had a silver one ... I think there were 5 holographic colors but somehow I only wanted this babyblue one - partly because of the price and I thought "if the quality is good I can get another one in 4 months" - because then I'll travel there again).

Gosh Rainbow - I can't remember why I was thinking that flakies are not really my style. What was wrong with me?!

This one is Lumene Magic Night - Taikayö. It's a lilac base which contains pink glitter and small blue/pink flakies - grow you silly thumbnail, grow, I want to wear this one to work! :o) (for this picture the sun came out! Such a nice moment - and I have to say it: I don't want anymore snow! I want summer!)

Well, these are 3 out of the 10 polishes I bought - you'll see the others in time ;o)

Do you have these shopping problems as well? Should I join a help group?