P2 - elegant (017)

And again a P2 polish (as I told you, drugstore polishes tend to jump right into my shoppingbasket): P2 elegant

It's a toned down lavender with pink shimmer.

(with flash to bring out the shimmer)

1 x Poshe nail strengthening treatment basecoat
3 x P2 elegant
1 x Poshe super-fast drying topcoat

I had to try it in matte right away - so here it is with Essie Matte about You:

(daylight)

I don't know ... somehow it does not work too well with my skintone and I hoped it would be a bit more grey. It's not totally ugly but it's not great either. And again: Shrinkage! Seems to be normal with P2 and Poshe. I only wore this one for one day - just didn't feel right.

And lets face it: This is no way elegant - at least not on me and at least not in the matte version.

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.

China Glaze - Emerald Sparkle (28843) - matte

As I promised Musicalhouses here comes the mattified version of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle. And what should I say? Despite telling that mattifying this polish killed it - I love it! And here is why: First time I tried Essie's Matte about You on this it was very late and I only tried one nail in artificial light. This time I did the whole hand and in daylight and it looked great. Not quite as intriguing as the mattified Ruby Pumps but still wonderful (ignore the dry skin):




It brought out the glitter in a most amazing way and I will try this again - but first my thumbnail has to grow back.

OPI - Parlez vous OPI? - layered

Yesterday I was in the mood for some layering experiments. I wanted to remove the OPI Parlez vous OPI? - not because it would have looked bad - there was no chipping at all, it was still perfect! - but I decided to give my nails a least 24h hours to catch some breath. So yes - right now they are naked!! They only got some pure coco-oil I primarly bought for my hair - but my nails seem to like it, too. That's what they look like naked:


But I'm too fast! I wanted to show you my layering projects! I wanted to see the OPI with the China Glaze Fairy Dust and the Wireless topcoat, always hoping to get a better picture of the differences. Once in normal ligh, then in the sunlight to get the sparkles (well, the sun was low already):




from the left
1 x China Glaze Fairy Dust
1 x China Glaze Wireless Holographic Topcoat

And I found some of my older essence duochrome polishes and tried layering them:



These are (from the left)
1 x essence Splash! (36)
1 x essence Electric (25)
1 x China Glaze Fairy Dust
1 x China Glaze Wireless Holographic Topcoat

Splash! is really great for layering! I remember that I tried to get it opaque by itself and it was terrible - but like this it's great. From some angles it's unvisible, then it's a bit purple (didn't catch this one in the pictures) or just wonderful teal like in the pictures!

Electric was even harder to catch. You can see the pink/yellow shimmer but I didn't manage to catch the angle on which it is green!

I hope I find more of these polishes because the bottles of those 2 are old and not really full anymore.

In the end I wanted to see Splash! together with Essie Matte about You - it was okay, but not the "woooow" I expected:



Everything like above - only one coat Essie Matte about You over Splash!

I think tomorrow I'll polish again - but right now the nails stay naked ;o)

China Glaze - Ruby Pumps (182) with 3 different topcoats

Yesterday I got some new polishes and had to test some of them on my CG Ruby Pumps nails:

This is (from left to right):
China Glaze Wireless Holographic Top Coat (2 coats)
China Glaze Fairy Dust (551)
Essie Matte about You
pure China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Great effects! I loved all of them! The Essie Matte about You was my favorite, I think - at least in the combination with Ruby Pumps. This combination looks so nifty! Glitter and yet no glitter. I think soon I'll do a manicure with those 2! It's just a very special combination and I'm totally in love with it.

The Wireless Holographic topcoat needed 2 coats, otherwise it was too subtle for my taste. Holo + glitter was kind of boring - the holo effect totally killed the glitter. So while I really like the Wireless topcoat I just don't like it on Ruby Pumps.

Fairy Dust was a total eyecatcher *sparkle sparkle* I think it would be wonderful on a dark blue polish, will have to try that! It too killed the glitter in Ruby Pumps but was less subtle than Wireless and thatfore I liked it better in this combination.

Unfortunately the difference between the Wireless topcoat and Fairy Dust is not that obvious in the picture - but believe me, there is a big difference! The particles in Fairy Dust are much bigger than those in Wireless - but still small enough for my taste - I'm not a big fun of flakes in polishes ... it's just not "me". The Fairy Dust is much brighter than the Wireless - much more eyecatching.

Here is another picture that shows the difference in the particle size a bit better:


Anyway: I like all the 3 of them - but since I never had a matte polish before, the Essie Matte about You is the most interesting at this moment - but I'll juse them all, that's a given!