Push and Shove

Welcome to my new attempt at regular updates! 

Today I'm wearing OPI Push and Shove, and although every damn ridge is showing, it's shiny and nice. Of course not that revolutionary though, to those of us who've owned Maybelline Mirror Image for quite a few years. 

I don't believe I'll ever go back to swatching, but while I'm at it with the instas, let's just post what the heck. 

Rererererererereinstas

Yeah, you know the drill by now - I have been posting on Instagram, but not on the blog, so here are my saved up instas. Check 'em out.

Deborah Lippmann Forget You

Wet'n'Wild Shield and China Glaze Ingrid

My Xmas mani! Believe it or not. OPI 4 In The Morning, Darling Diva Polish Spank Me Harder, OPI Love, Angel, Music, Baby, plus rhinestone candle thingy.

Gina Tricot Alexis

A-England Her Rose Adagio



I'm working crazy hard to win the elections coming up here in Sweden September 14th - will I ever get a break? If I can find the time to redo my nails once a week, it will be a fucking miracle. Stay tuned. (I love you still.)

Didn't die

Hiya! Just so you'll know I didn't die on you, here are som re-instas.

From OPI Brazil: Where Did Suzi's Man-go? and Kiss Me I'm Brazilian.

Some Depend Mirage, probably 2055 Bronzy Breeze. very nice gold (!) foil.

Rimmel Torrid

Orly Androgynie

a-england Encore Margot

And if you wonder why I'm silent: I got too much to do. I rarely have any decent time off, that I don't use for absolutely nothing. I got a new temporary job, doing my political and union stuff, and on top of that I'm a single mom at somewhere around 95 % of the time. But I'll be better. I promise. At least I'm happy.

Re-insta OPI

Let's have yet another bulk of manicures that only ended up on instagram... This time all OPI.

OPI All I Want For Christmas (is OPI), with black and OPI All Sparkly and Gold leopard spots (there were some on the thumbs as well). Both OPI shades from the Mariah Carey holiday collection.

More leopard spots: OPI In the Cable Car-Pool Lane with OPI Goldeneye, black, and own mix of coral pink spots.

OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke! with OPI Black Spotted.

OPI Oy - Another Polish Joke! on its own.

Strawberry meringue water marble as requested by the boyfriend. ("Can you please pick my nail color?" -"Do those meringues with pink strokes in 'em." -*...*) The marbling was hell and I'll never do it again. Colors used  were OPI My Vampire is Buff, I Theodora You and Don't Touch My Tutu!.

Sorta skittles with dotted details, with OPI colors Goldeneye, Suzi's Hungary Again! and OPI... Eurso Euro.

And the well known sh*it disaster OPI It's All San Andreas's Fault. But actually it's way better looking when it's completely dry and not on photo. I think I wore it for three days!


Stay tuned for more of my terrible insta photos!

Give us some Luxe, please!

Sweden is now terribly dreary, so let's add some light, or some Luxe - I used the lovely Annahita's nails for this manicure with one of Orly's SmartGels.

Sparkly and nice, but went on a bit sheer - I have used three to four coats here. Gold that lasts!

Some new A-Englands

Recovered from instagram! As my life has been hectic and messy these last months, I haven't been blogging much. However, that doesn't mean I didn't paint my nails. I've been almost as polish-indulgent as usual, and sometimes I have received fantastic colors in the mail that I've worn pretty much at once. However, I have been slacking a lot when it comes to camera handling. But since I'm a modern day person, I always keep my phone close, and yes, I use instragram frequently.

Last week I had a rough time, and like a godsent, Adina, the mastermind behind A-England, sent me her latest colors. Here are two of them, captured in blur with an iPhone 4S and originally published on instagram.

Briarwood. Brown base with holographic shimmer and red to orange duochrome. Fantastic color.

Love is Enough. Antique, oxidized pale gold foil with olive tones.

I'm sure you've already seen far better swatches of these, but here are mine. And if you would like to follow my rather miscellaneous, Swedish-written instagram account, you can find it under the username alizarine.

Depend spring 2013 bottles and more...

A quickie today to show you the coming spring colors from Swedish Depend Cosmetics - quite a colorful collection!

Pinks, peaches and oranges... 346, 347, 348, 349 and 350.

Turquoise, blue, purple and lilac... 351, 352, 353, 354.

...and green and yellow! 355, 356 and 357.

No wheel swatches this time, as Sweden proved to be too gloomy for any decent photography sessions. However, there is an interesting theme in this collection: several of the lacquers have a very fine green shimmer, mixed with sparse glass flecks. I wish the green shimmer was more prominent, but I love the idea, and for one of those recurring finishes throughout a collection that Depend seems to specialise in, it is a fun one. The orangey red 350, the turquoise 351, the lilac 354, the yellow 356 and the lime green 357 all have this combination of particles, while the sheer peach 349 is a more classic glassfleck. Then the cremes of course... Although not all of these are totally breathtaking and inventive, it's quite a cheerful bunch, which is something I like in a spring collection. Thumbs up from me this time.

The Depend peeps also sent a bunch of releases for Christmas, and among them were a few samples of a collection of chromes, foils or possibly metallics that go by the name Mirror.

A dark and gloomy wheel - this is 2048 Java Dusk, 2039 Pixie Pink, and 2041 Frosty Lilac.

Metallic? Sure. Foil? Perhaps, in some cases. Mirror like finish? Definitely not. But perhaps the name of the collection is not to be taken literally. There are also green and blue hues, among others, in this collection, but I haven't seen those - I wish I had, though. These few examples don't really tickle my fancy, but I'll always find use and the appropriate time for a good gunmetal shade, so I'm sure 2048 will be satisfactory to wear a good day.

All products were sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
spegel -noun mirror
To be loved or feared...

OPI and Mariah Carey

Last year, OPI brought us polishes in collaboration with Nicki Minaj, and the year before with Katy Perry. This year, we're getting Mariah Carey's rendering of polish colors.

Clockwise from bottom left: Anti-Bleak, Sprung, A Butterfly Moment, and Pink Yet Lavender.

The much talked about Liquid Sand polishes, clockwise from bottom left: Stay the Night, Get Your Number, The Impossible, Can't Let Go.


And the wheel swatches I was able to shoot under the current conditions in le ol' midwinter Sweden:

A Butterfly Moment, Sprung, Pink Yet Lavender, Anti-Bleak.

Stay the Night, Get Your Number, Can't Let Go, The Impossible.

The wheel swatches can be magnified, but the detail isn't very good due to high iso grain.

The four polishes of more traditional finishes is what could be expected from an artist such as Mariah Carey - they are the more classic, ladylike colors. In contrast to last year's Nicki Minaj collection, they could very well be perceived as boring. A Butterfly Moment has a bit of an unfortunate finish and is somewhat prone to brush strokes, but is definitely an office appropriate color. Sprung is a bronzey copper shade that will suit warmer skin tones nicely, but it doesn't feel very new or spectacular. Pink Yet Lavender is a rather typical OPI glitter of recent years - not too big hexagonal glitters along with smaller silvery, holographic glitters in a clear base. And this pale pink version just isn't all that exciting, even though I can see how those who prefer classic colors will want to reach for this one to do something more bold. Anti-Bleak is the vampy plum creme who will work for a lot of people. It's just that it is painfully close to OPI's own Casino Royale, which of course came in the preceding collection Skyfall. They are not by any means identical, but too close to be released so close to each other in time.

The Liquid Sand polishes is what makes this collection stand out. It has been widely discussed beforehand whether this is a good finish or not. Some are tempted, but others are more skeptical. Regardless of how you feel about actually wearing polishes with the finish of an 50 grit file, they are somewhat interesting. I really like Stay the Night. It looks like lava! Had there been a few sprinklings of an orange glitter, the imagery would have been perfect. A heavy metal oriented person of course can't resist this. The others are a little less alluring. Get Your Number surely is a nice shade of aqua blue, with holographic glitters that makes it sparkle despite the lack of glossy finish, but Can't Let Go falls flat for me. There is nothing that makes it stand out beside the gritty finish. However, if the sandy texture is doing it for you, and you like a medium purple, then perhaps this one's for you. The last member of the family, The Impossible, is sorta bouncing back and forth in the spectrum between interesting and completely disastrous. The color is a bright magenta leaning red, there are the typical OPI hexagon glitters, and there are star shaped glitters. Which you sometimes will have to really fish for. And that will perhaps make an adult feel like a 14 year old. Whether that is good or bad is something we will have to leave to the particular beholder to decide.

This collection leaves me with an ambivalent feeling. It is one that I was very interested in seeing in person, but that I don't really want to wear much from. The only color I really like is Stay the Night. If you think you can handle the finish, I think it's a must have, especially if you're one of them who swears by the typical black with red glitter polishes. That stuff absolutely glows! Despite my feelings, I think the first part of the collection will sell really well, since they speak to the less daring, general crowd. The other part will probably sell better among younger people.

All products were sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
flytande -adjective liquid
Polishes tend to stop being so after a few minutes of air exposure.

And the curtain falls on OPI Skyfall

What better suited for any venue containing a huge curtain than red? The final post about the OPI Skyfall collection contains all three red hues, but let me tell you this at once: you shouldn'nt attempt photographing red shimmers lit only with the camera flash. It is not pretty, and definitely not accurate. Don't worry though, there are at least two pretty photos of a non-red polish too.

Die Another Day. Two coats. Orange-y red fine shimmer.

Goldeneye. Three coats. Warm gold foil.

The Living Daylights. One coat over Goldeneye. Silver, gold, copper and turquoise blue hexagonal glitters of equal size in clear base.

The Spy Who Loved Me. Two coats. Bright red with gold shimmer.

You Only Live Twice. Two coats. Cool-toned or slightly magenta tinged red jelly with pink glassfleck.

I know you can't make much out of these photos, but I'm sure you have already seen these colors on many other blogs for ages by now. All the red hues are rather standard colors for OPI to put out in their Holiday collection, especially the fuchsia-toned You Only Live Twice, who's had twins and siblings in all the recent years. Without dwelling on the subject, let's say it's not unique although it is pretty. Die Another Day has a finish that we've seen a lot recently, and is much reminiscent of a couple of the shades that came in the Germany collection for fall. Personally I'm not a fan of this fine shimmer, and only occasionally enjoy wearing polishes containing it, and since Die Another Day is orange in tone, it doesn't qualify for those occasions. The Spy Who Loved Me is actually very nice, though perhaps not that inventive.

There are many golden foils, but Goldeneye is a very reflective one. It's also very yellow, and will be hard for some people to wear. In theory, I love it because of how the different sized particles interact to create a seemingly smooth surface (that really isn't, actually), but I rarely enjoy golds and never the more yellow ones. It's also towards the sheerer, and definitely needs its three coats to look good.

The Living Daylights is the disastrous polish of the collection. OPI has picked up on the trend of massive glitters, that is first and foremost supplied by the growing masses of independent polish makers, but they have failed to make it actually look good. All the glitter particles are the same size, and added to that, they are suspended in a clear base, both properties of a rather flat and uninteresting glitter. The combination of colors is definitely a good one, had it been executed differently it might actually have rendered a decent polish. Oh, and I found it hard to apply for an OPI glitter. The glitters were piling upon each other, were hard to distribute evenly, and both full and sparse coverage were hard to achieve nicely. 

All in all, a mediocre collection. Some true hits, some misses, and many in between.

This finally concludes my posts about the Skyfall collection for the 2012 holidays. Already in stores pretty much world wide, so if you haven't yet, go pick out your favourites, since holiday polishes are always limited edition!

You can find previous posts on Skyfall here and here.

All products were sent for review.

Swedish word of the day:
mediokritet -adjective mediocrity
Life is full of it.

Some Color Club Winter Affair

Color Club is doing their holiday collection in full size bottles this year too (remember when they used to release the mini sets?), and this year the collection is called Winter Affair. I snatched some of them - five out of six, actually - and here is three-ish of them.

Glitter Wonderland, three coats. Red leaning purple shimmer with blue micro glitters (very micro). I can never resist a good purple shimmer, and this one is a rather nice one.

 

Ho-Ho-Holly, three coats. Green golden foil. I love these blingy green foils! Totally hot in every way. This is the kind of green that easily escapes the eye of the camera though, but the bottom photo, which was shot in lower light, depicts the color pretty accurately. It's warmer than it shows the fully lit pictures.

And as the sun disappeared and the rain started to pour, I went all in and added the flakie topcoat Snow-Flakes (sic).

It's the variety that changes from orange via yellow to green (and a little blue in extreme angles - if you can catch it). It's not as dense as Essie Shine of the Times, but gives a good amount of flakes in one coat. Also present in these two photos is a glitter from Wet n Wild's Spoiled line, called Show Me the Money, that just happened to stand in front of me, asking to be added. The smaller gold glitters on the surface is the Spoiled, which also has green glitters that don't really show up in the photos. Yeah, I know, I was a little eager.

And now on to what all of you are probably wondering right now, and that is how this lovely green foil compares to Color Club's holiday green from two years ago, Magic Elf.

Ho-Ho-Holly (to the left) is apparently a couple of shades darker, and the gold particles are more dense, so they are not that close at all. Both do run a little sheer though, and for my nail length, the third layer was needed.

I have two more fom this collection, and hopefully I'll feel like wearing them and blogging about them some day soon.

These products were purchased with own funds,

except Show Me the Money, which was a gift.

Swedish word of the day:
affär -noun affair
not to be confused with
affär -noun shop, store
I somehow prefer the latter.