Jail bars

Hello people!!
Yet another day in the life of a polish freak. I am going through my favourite polishes at the moment, and wearing them with a lot of pleasure.I am now wearing my favourite dark burgundy Zoya Anja, a very good formula, and gorgeous color, almost a one coater.

I applied on my middle finger a coat of Kleancolor Salsa much, and then stamped a design from my Bundle Monster plate BM 209 with Kiko 400.

I think it came out pretty ok, but not impressive.
Anyway here are the photos, hope you like it: Sorry for the crappy hand pose, this is my right hand which normally takes the photos, but since on my left hand I messed up the design......

Essie California Coral and a coral comparison

As I mentioned in one of my previous posts, I bought 3 coral in NY, and this is the last one.
Essie California Coral was in my opinion the best formula out of all three Zoya - Maya and Sephora by OPI - I'm wired.

This Essie is a cream I think, tends towards a jelly but just a little bit. Anyways this is a dark coral, almost red.
I applied two coats, and I can still see a bit of VNL, but I like it this way.

And now for the comparison.

These are the polishes I compared

As you can see in the bottle they look almost the same. From left to right we have Zoya- Maya, Essie - California Coral, Sephora by OPI- I'm wired.

Here they are on my nails:

Soooo the onbly one that stands out a bit is the Zoya, which tends a bit more towards pink, and is very jelly. But mostly the Essie and the SOPI are mostly alike, so I guess for these two we have a dupe alert.

Gradient tutorial and Zoya Mitzi/ Manucure gradient tutorial/ Tutorial pentru manichiura gradient

My gradient manis had a lot of succes, and every friend of mine asked me how it is done. I know that there are lots of tutorials out there but I am doing my version.

So what are the steps to a perfect gradient:
Acestia sunt pasii pentru a realiza o manichiura cu gradient:
Ceci sont les pas à suivre pour réaliser cette manucure:

1. Do your mani as you normally would, choosing your base color - here I chose Zoya Mitzi - it applied not so well, very streaky, and needed 3 coats to reach opacity. This is a matte polish as you can tell so I didn't apply top coat, but you can, so it can dry quicker.

Incepeti cu o manichiura normala, deci baza, 2 straturi de oja si eventual top coat dc nu aveti rabdare sa se usuce singura oja. Eu am ales Zoya Mitzi  o aplicare destul de anevoioasa, cu multe dungi si dare. Nu am pus top coat pentru ca e o oja mata.

Commencez avec une manucure normale, avec la couleur de votre choix - j'ai choisi Zoya Mitzi qui ne s'applique pas d'une façon extraordinaire et nécessite 3 couches pour devenir opaque. C'est un vernis matte donc je n'ai pas appliqué de top coat.

2. The nail polish must be dry when you start this step. Once you have your mani done, apply 2 lines of polish on your work surface, one line of the base color and another line right next to it of the polish you want to apply on your tips - I chose CG For Audrey. Like in the picture bellow:

Oja trebuie sa fie uscata cand treceti la aceasta etapa. Odata ce aveti manichiura terminata, puneti pe o foaie de hartie sau pe ce vreti ca sa nu murdariti masa, o linie de oja la fel cu cea pe care ati aplicat-o mai devreme, si deasupra ei o alta oja la alegerea voastra eu am ales CG For Audrey. Ca in poza de mai jos:

Le vernis doit être sec pour passer à cette étape. Une fois votre manucure finie, appliquez sur une feuille de papier, ou votre choix de plan de travail, une ligne de vernis comme celui que vous avez déjà appliqué, et une autre ligne au-dessus d'un autre vernis de votre choix. Moi j'ai choisi CG - For Audrey:

3. Take a make up sponge and grab some of the two lines you applied like so:

Luati un burete de fond de ten si inmuiati-l in cele doua linii de oja ca in poza:

Prenez un éponge de fond de teint et prenez avec, une quantité des deux lignes de vernis comme dans la photo:

4. Press the sponge on your nail tips, as many times as you need to get the desired effect. Slide it from your tips downwards toward the middle of your nail, and dab more on the very tip, so the other color goes opaque.

Apasati cu buretele de la varful unghiei ( mai mult la varf) si treptat mai jos spre cuticula( mai putin) pana ajungeti la efectul dorit. La varf trebuie sa ajungeti la culoarea cealalta. 

Pressez avec l’éponge sur le bout de votre ongle en descendant vers le milieu de l'ongle, jusqu'à l'obtention de l'effet désiré. 

5. When you are done, do some clean up with e cuetip, or a brush, after apply top coat to even things out and tadaaaaaa:

Cand ati terminat, curatati pielea de excesul de oja, aplicati top cot pentru nivelare si tadaaaa:

Quand vous avez fini, nettoyez autour de l'ongle, appliquez du top coat pour la brillance et voila:

Zoya Maya and a gradient

This one is another one of my NY purchases, and I thought I'd do all the corals one after another, and at the end do a comparison.

In the bottle they all look pretty much the same, but this one is actually pretty different from the previous one, because first of all it's a jelly, and second of all it's not much of a coral, it's more of a faded pink.

Anyways I love this color, it's very summery, happy color. Makes me smile when I look at my nails.
I also did a gradient on it, because I am starting to love these so much, and they're so easy to do. I used Zoya Sooki.

 

 

Mumu is taking a nap

My Zoya stash

Hey everyone, I'm back with a new stash post.
Today you will see my Zoya stash. I don't own many, but I love each one of these polishes.

The Zoya site does not sell outside the US, so the only place to get my Zoya, is nailetc.com. I don't buy a lot of these because I find them pretty expensive, and I don't like the fact that they shrink with Seche Vite - my topcoat of choice.

I don't have any from their latest collections, because, I found that most of them were dupable, or already had some OPI that resembled.

So here are the photos, I also took photos of their labels so you can see which is which.

Zoya Anja & Essie Carry on

Hey hey everybody!!
First off let's wish Carolina from Colores de Carol a happy birthday because today it's her birthday!!
Happy Birthday Carolina!!

Now today is a double post, two polishes from this years fall collections.
I
First up is Zoya Anja, that is part of the Smoke&Mirrors 2011 fall collection. It's dark red cream.

I really thought that this would be unique in my collection, but it actually isn't. I was really dissapointed by this polish, the application is sloppy, it's too liquid, and you think you got enough of it on your brush, but it always is too much, and starts sliding down the brush, and messes up your mani. The second thing I didn't like about it, was that it srunk horribly with Seche. I had such a hard time cleaning up after this and then when I applied the top coat it shrunk, and it looked all messy again. Really really not loving this one!

The color is great, and the mani was decent overlooking the shrinking, for about 3 days.

Here are the photos: I am wearing two coats of Zoya Anja and a coat of Seche vite:

Next up is Essie Carry on, which had a much nicer application, the formula is better, and the polish is not so gloopy. This was a mini and the brush is not top notch on the mini Essies. This too is a dark red cream.

I applied two coats for perfect opacity and had no problem with the application, but the wear was really not what one would expect from an Essie. After two days my mani looked like this: it had a lot of tip wear because on everythinbg I touched I left a trace, and it was full of scratches, don't know why, because I didn't touch anything for a long time after I did my nails.

And I also did a little comparison because it was needed.

So as you can see there is not much difference, the Essie is a little lighter and more on the purple side, but honestly can you really tell the difference?

So don't buy both!

Kisses,
Ruxi

Zoya Neeka

Hello Hello!
I think I am back.

And back in force with swatches of the gorgeous Zoya Neeka, one of the must haves in the Smoke&Mirrors collection.

This is one amazing polish, I've never seen anything like it, and I sure would not like to have missed out on it. It's a delicious plum color cream base, filled with golden flakies.

This is an easy application and great formula, as Zoya has gotten us used to, and in two coats it was opaque.

Sorry about the crappy pictures - still haven't found the good spot in the new house for taking photos, and the horrible cuticules it's the lots of work and no time for grooming thing.
The tips were a victim of shrinking.

Here are the photos:

Zoya - Yara

One of my three picks from the Zoya Smoke & Mirrors collection ( by the way did you know that Topshop released a new make up collection called Smoke & Mirrrors?) is this lovely charmfull polish.

This is a definite MUST HAVE!!!!! For anyone!!! I mean this is THE color!! Such an amazing polish.
It's a dark but raw green cream with lots of golden flecks in it. Love, love, love it!!

The formula is a bit on the thick side, but nothing bad, anyone can handle it, I actually like it better a bit thick, I find it easier to manage.

This need a top coat, because it dries a bit gritty, but a layer of top coat fixes that right up.
So did I mention this is gorgeous?

Photos:

Artificial light

Natural sunlight

Natural sunlight

Illamasqua Theatre of the Nameless collection - Kink and Faux Pas Swatches

I got some surprising nail mail on Friday. I opened the door and saw the mail man, and then he handed me a black package and in it there were two polishes from the new Illamasqua collection. Haley their PR was kind enough to send me these two to try out.

First I want to tell you that these are the polishes I would have bought myself from this collection.

Ok so first of all the polishes came with a nice sealed enveloppe. Love their symbol!!

The polishes are wrapped separately in individual boxes:

The caps are rubbery just like the finish of the polish, but the rest is just the same:

And now on to the polishes them selves:

Kink is a dark green matte polish. This look took two coats. I love the finish, at first when they released the images for add I thought they were normal mattes, but they actually look different from normal mattes. The finish on these really looks rather rubbery. 

Another thing I noticed is that when you apply hand cream on your hands the finish does not become shinny like on the other mattes.

And because you don't apply top coat on these, you can expect to get more tip wear than on shinny finish polishes. 

Faux Pas is a matte purple. The finish is exactely the same as the previous and the caracteristics of the polish too.

The application is easy, and the formula is great, the brush glides on smoothly, and both polishes are almost one coaters.

Here are the photos - clisk to enlarge. 

Natural light

Artificial light

And a small comparison with Misa sorry just can't help it and Zoya Mira. 

Comparison with glossy polishes

Comparison with glossy polishes

Comparison with glossy polishes with matte top coat

These last photos of comparison are after a two day wear and as you can see, these Illamasquas get a bit glossier with time. But I still love them. Due to the very original finish I think of these as must haves for a laquerhead.
What do you think?
Are you going to purchase any of these?