The best of the best in 2012

Just like last year, I'm giving you the best of the best from the past year, meaning the manicures I put some extra thought and effort into. Apparently I wasn't anywhere near as successfully creative compared to last year, but here the selected ones are anyway.

Seamlessly spotted - Black creme base, Girly Bits Into the Night, and finally OPI Black Spotted. A patchy, less uniform space manicure. I love space manicures. See the full post here.

The Homa manicure - combining two colors and finishes in 3 + 2 on one hand and then reversed on the other. This was my first and most successful combination, consisting of OPI I Brake for Manicures and Sally Hansen Purple Gala. Although somewhat creative and fun, this was not my idea, but blatantly stolen from ...Yeah, who invented the Homa anyway? See the full post here.

Rainforest - a layered manicure where the glitter is not on top, but in between a creme base and a sheer duochrome shimmer. This is China Glaze Starboard, LA Girl Glitter Addict Purge, and the duochrome top is Ozotic 503 Rainforest. See the full post here.


Which one of these is your favourite?

Seamless spots

Finally, I have the super special edition OPI Black Spotted! Limited to resale only in French Sephora stores, my friend Malin helped me get it while she was in France - but it wasn't until she actually placed the bottle in my hand I undestood how much work she put into finding it for me. Apparently, the only Sephora in Marseille which carried it at the time was the one she didn't visit until a local friend of her told her she had to go in there and take a look, while Malin was severely pouting because of her unsuccessful search. That time, she, and more so, I, got lucky! Thank you so much, Malin.

A while ago I also placed my first order with Girly Bits, and one I got was Into the Night, a spectacular reflective glitter, possibly prismatic. At first glance I didn't see the resemblence with what I thought I ordered, but that was until I reached for the sun... The arrival of my OPI Black Spotted was just a day later, and I eagerly tried it on top of aaall test wheel swatches I had in front of me. The combination below caught my fancy.

One coat of Girly Bits Into the Night over a black creme, and then topped off with Black Spotted. Flecked universe?! This is either really cool or a total waste. I haven't decided yet. No, wait - it is cool. You can't really tell what's been done here, there's no spotted effect, but a random cover up effect that makes the glitter even more alive. That, plus I've always been a sucker for Space In A Bottle polishes, and this is just another way of creating that - perhaps with even more creative freedom.

OPI Black Spotted was a personal gift.

Girly Bits Into the Night was purchased with own funds.

Swedish word of the day:
fläck -noun spot
Strangely appealing.

Do you dare?

...to Wear? Okay, that was the worst blog post header ever. But of course we're talking Le Chat Dare to Wear polishes. I was quite satisfied when I realized that one of my favourite online shops was carrying parts of this line. I still haven't found my great lemming Enchanted Forest, but I have picked up a few other gems. Here are two.

Kiss the Rain. Three coats, I think. What's not to love here? A muted pale blue, like a rainy day, with pink and blue glassfleck sorta shimmer, and holographic or prismatic glitter. I can't tell which because it's rather micro.

Poison Ivy. Two or three coats - I can't remember anymore. Your standard gold shimmer in green base, a little streaky looking up close, but it's not painfully obvious from a normal distance. I used this one as a layering base... More on that another day.

Swedish word of the day:
våga -verb dare
I do.

Holo prismatic chrome

I thought you might want to see another Kleancolor, right? Actually, I did too - I can't wait to try them all! Really tempting lacquers, these. This is another misleading "holo" named one - Holo Chrome.





Bling bling! I did three coats of this purple toned blue jelly, jam packed with - no, not holo, but prismatic - glitter. Ahh! Prismatic is my favourite! It's the blingiest glitter there is. I have no complaints with this one. It needs to be applied in rather thick coats due to being a bit gritty and you'll need a tiny excess amount of polish to be able to distribute it evenly. This made me fear a prolonged drying time, but it was all in all okay, since I took my time and did my manicure in front of the computer - like I do most of the time - and kept myself busy during drying. I did alo fear it would need a shitload of topcoat, but what yous ee here is one coat of Diamont only, no more needed! A definite pro compared to similar polishes.

And sorry my nails are now again bending at the tips. I hate this, and I can't pick between the reasons "the pure look of it" or the fact that it's a sign of damage to the nail plate. My nails are still screwing me over after the winter, and combined with my work in the nursing home, they're left peeling insanely. [Pulls hair in despair.]

Swedish word of the day:
kristallklar -adjective crystal clear
This one is.

OPI Serena Williams Glam Slam England - Your Royal Shine-Ness and Servin' Up Sparkle with comps

So I finally got around to swatch the last two polishes of the Glam Slam England set. First up is Your Royal Shine-Ness. Yet another silver foil was my first thought when I saw this collection this polish actually differ from my other silver foils. As you (hopefully, otherwise - click to enlarge the picture) can see in the comparison picture below, Your Royal Shine-Ness is darker and looks a little bit more "rough" - it's a blackened silver foil! The formula was great but I did three coats since I managed to scrape two nails before the second coat was dry.

From left to right: 1. Orly Dazzle, 2. Orly Shine, 3. ChG Cheers To You, 4. Zoya Trixie, 5. Creative Silver Anniversary, and no number OPI Your Royal Shine-Ness.

The last polish in the set, Servin' Up Sparkle, is a silver glitter with hexagonal shaped prismatic glitter. This is one coat over Your Royal Shine-Ness.

Since I thought Servin' Up Sparkle looked so much like OPI Disco Ball Sparkle, a comparison was necessary!

From left to right: OPI Servin' Up Sparkle, OPI Disco Ball Sparkle, ChG Shooting Stars.

Although Servin' Up Sparkle and Disco Ball Sparkle are very much alike, they are not exact dupes. Disco Ball Sparkle has silver glitter and more prismatic hexagonal shaped glitter than SUS and Servin' Up Sparkle has both prismatic hexagonal shaped glitter and small prismatic glitter. Shooting Stars is much lighter than the other two and has less hexagonal prismatic glitter.

Over and out!

Swedish word of the day:
läggdags -adverb bedtime
Because it is!

More Silver Shatter combinations

Since I love the new Silver Shatter from OPI, I had to try some more combinations. When Feline mentioned Silver Shatter and holo in the same sentence, I knew I had to try it! I thought that Silver Shatter would look good over a dark holo so I layered it over Revvvolution! This is the result:



I wish Revvvolution had a stronger holo effect... Nfu Oh 63 has a strong holo effect but something happened (or didn't happen) when I layered Silver Shatter over this pink holo - Silver Shatter barely crackled!? The effect was still pretty cool IMO:

I think Silver Shatter looks more grey than silver without topcoat so I wanted to see if I could enhance the "stone look" by layering it over a dark grey matte. This is Silver Shatter over Orly Iron Butterfly (I know the pictures are crappy but so was the weather):

I already knew I love the combination of Zoya Trixie (a great silver foil) and China Glaze Spellbound (a topcoat with silver and orange glitter) and wanted to see how Silver Shatter would look over this combination. Once again Silver Shatter didn't really crackle, don't ask me why. I think Trixie and Spellbound looks cooler without Silver Shatter (see ring finger in picture three).

Swedish word of the day:
molnigt -adjective cloudy
Not the best swatching weather!

Space in a bottle comparison

The other day I wrote an extensive post on the gorgeous lacquer I got from Andrea, the talented proprietor of Evil Shades Cosmetics, named Rainbow in the Dark. As usual, I'm well prepared - already some time back I made a little comparison wheel, which I now intend to show you!

These are my space polishes:

Lumene Natural Code Cosmic Girl, Icing Blackout, Evil Shades Rainbow in the Dark.

China Glaze Cosmic, Funky Fingers Moonwalk, NYX Girls Frizz Spots.

Please click to enlarge the following pictures!

1. Lumene Cosmic Girl
2. Icing Blackout
3. Evil Shades Rainbow in the Dark
4. China Glaze Cosmic
5. Funky Fingers Moonwalk
6. NYX Girls Frizz Spots

And from another angle.

As you can see, the China Glaze is really gritty, which is something that bothers me. The Funky Fingers isn't much better. And obviously, the NYX Girls is playing in its own division, though I still think of it as space in a bottle. Just imagine combining it with any of the other ones for majestic space results!

I have to say though, due to the smoothness, the Icing and Evil Shades polishes are my favourites out of this bunch. No extra work with a trillion coats of topcoat, and they're both subtle in their expression, just hinting the glitz, just sparkling up in special moments.

I wore Blackout for an entire three day period this spring, when I was away for a party conference, and I managed to make it wear pretty well until I did a touch up the last night... I highly enjoyed it though, but unfortunately it never made it onto the blog since I was in no time or position to take other than blurry iPhone pictures. These polishes are basic enough to wear for more than a night without being tiresome, yet sparkly enough to avoid boredom. Pure love.

And no, I do not have Eyeko's Cosmic polish. Sadly!

Swedish word of the night:
rymd -noun space
Damn it scares me, but also: damn it's intriguing!

The iridescent silver glitter (?!) comparison

Didn't know what to call this comparison. How do you describe this kind of polish? Iridescent glitter in a silver glitter base? I keep buying these, thinking "this will be great for layering". Anyway, on to the comp:

1. Chg Nova, 2. Nubar silver sparkle, 3. Chg Shooting star, 4. Viva la diva 72, 5. OPI Disco Ball sparkle, 6. Orly Shine on you crazy diamond, 7. OPI Yule love this silver, 8. Chg Fairy Dust, 9. OPI Text me- Text you

As you can see, Nova has the biggest silver glitter pieces, Silver Sparkle and 72 are quite similar but Silver Sparkle is more dense. Shooting star and Disco Ball Sparkle has hexagon shaped glitter but Shooting star is much lighter than Disco Ball Sparkle.

Since number 6-9 has a clear base and are barely visible (intended for layering) so I layered them over black:

This would look so much better in the sun but I live in Sweden... Fairy Dust used to be my go-to layering polish, it looks great over almost everything. It's hard to tell the difference between Fairy Dust and Yule love this silver. Shine on you crazy diamond has extremely sparse glitter and Text me-Text You feels kind of pointless, I don't think I'll ever use these (I'll keep em though, just in case...)

Swedish word of the day
rea -noun sale
The only good thing about january!

The big purple and pink holo comparison

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! I'm sorry I've been absent, I've had a lot on my plate and as Feline wrote the other day I now have a bad, ugly nail break on my swatching hand. =(
While waiting for my nail to grow out a bit I thought I would show you some comparisons I didn't post during comparison week. You may need to click on the pictures to really see the holo effect. First up is my cool purple and pink Holos:

1. Color Club Wild at heart, 2. Chg Octagon wild, 3. OPI DS Original, 4. Chg IDK, 5. Chg Visit me in prism, 6. OPI DS Diamond, 7. Color Club Fashion Addict, 8. Nfu oh 63, 9. Nfu oh 64, 10. Nubar Brilliant, 11. Glitter Gal light pink, 12. Chg How about a tumble and the one without a number is OPI DS Signature (I got this after applying the others)

(DH is holding this one)

Moving on to my warm purple and pink Holos:

1. OPI DS Exclusive, 2. OPI DS Extravagance, 3. Chg Tickle my triangle, 4. Nubar Prize, 5. OPI DS Reflections, 6. Chg Don't be a Square, 7. Chg Rated Holographic, 8. Chg TTYL, 9. OPI DS Chiffon

The holo effect varies and some of these are more prismatic glitters than holos. Since I love holos and prismatic glitters I like most of these but I'm not very impressed by the effect on Color Club Wild at heart, Nubar Brilliant, Glitter Gal light pink and OPI DS Reflections. Which ones are your favorites?

Swedish word of the day:
baksmälla -noun hangover
Quite common on New Year's Day...