Nail disaster - a horror story

This happened to me last year.

It was midnight. The streets were empty except for wolves howling in the distance. I was sitting behind my laptop, scrolling through a blog when suddenly ... the lights went out! I realized I was not alone in the darkness and someone put his hand on my shoulder...

Okay, okay, so it was in the middle of the day! Just joking. Prom was a couple of weeks away and I was growing my nails for it. Usually, I don't let them get too long, because of horseback riding. You know how annoying it is to saddle up with long nails? Plus, they'll break off anyway...
I was on my way home when I somehow managed to hit my nail against the bike's steer. And then the worst thing ever happened:

 

Can you believe it? Two weeks for prom! :( Normally, I don't really care about breaking a nail but now that I was actually growing them long for prom...
I just wanted to share ;)

120 shimmer palette

I know, I know - this was supposed to be a nail polish blog, but I couldn't help but involve my 120 shimmer palette from the Boozyshop into this.

The outside of the box with a red string to switch between the two loose palettes, which are stacked on top of each other.

I mean, the outside already looks delicious. Let's have a look at the inside.

The two palettes are not attached to the box and can be removed.

The top one consist of bright colors, the bottom one of the more nude shades. They all have great pigmentation, but I'll come back to that later.

A close-up.

And a picture of the separate palette, once taken out of the box:

 

Like I said before, I ordered this one from the Boozyshop (a Dutch site). It came in 3 days later, no damaging and in perfect condition. The few smudges you can see on the pictures was my fault - I couldn't keep my hands off it. 

I created a couple of looks with it so you can see the pigmentation and the overall look of the eyeshadow.

Products used:

- 120 shimmer palette (a light brown one and a coppery brown)

- MAC paint pot

- MAC liquid eyeliner in black

- Maxfactor masterpiece mascara also in black

Products used:

- 120 shimmer palette (a light silver one and a frosty blue)

- MAC paint pot

- MAC liquid eyeliner in black

- Maxfactor masterpiece mascara also in black

I absolutely love the looks you can create with the many colors with this one. I haven't tried the bold ones yet, simply haven't had the occasion to do so. 

Some Kind Of Black Hole

The next one on the list is Space Cadet - one of the most hyped over nail polishes.
...and I don't get why.

 

The color is a mix between pink/orange/swampish green/yellow. And that sounds like a great combination, except that the jelly base color is some kind of mix between a black hole and a swampmonster. I really don't get it - it's some kind of green that looks like black but not really.

But that's not the only thing I'm disappointed about. The application kind of sucks too. It needs four solid coats to make the polish cover the entire nail. The drying time is also pretty long, after ten minutes it wasn't completely dry yet and after a night's sleep I discovered a fingerprint on my brand new polished nails.
And then there are these:

Tip wear after a short day at college. Such a bummer, I was so enthusiastic about this polish and now that I have it ... I don't think I can think of one single positive thing about it. Hmmm, I guess not everything you read on the internet is true...

Not just a girl in space

This one is probably my favorite one from the Cosmic FX serie. Meet ... Galaxy Girl!

Galaxy Girl has a dark red wine as jelly base and lots of blue and red wine glass flecks. Yummy!

The application is smooth, but once again - Galaxy Girl needs three  coats to even out all the bald spots in your polish. It dries quickly, provided that you do use a topcoat that actually works.

In the sunlight.

And here another picture, just for fun :)

xox,
Maria.

The miracle that is Peridot

Hiiii, this is a small interlude in which I show you my new polish: Peridot from Chanel. I'm broke, but at least I have this beauty!

How could anyone pass up on this? Anyway, you know how sometimes the polish looks amazing in the bottle and then on your nails it's not more than 'meh'?
That is definitely NOT the case with Peridot. It looks just as mesmerizing on the nails.

Peridot has so many different colors in it and that makes it one of the hardest polishes to capture. But the above picture is how it looks most of the time.

 

Here you can see the little bit of gold in it.

 

 

 

Okay, so I think I actually managed to photograph every color that this polish has to offer. Those colors include: apple green,  turquoise, light blue, gold, dusty pink and swamp-ish green. Can you say - wow? 

Peridot is a slight metallic, which does mean that it can streak. The application is, previous not included, very smooth. You can actually apply it in one thick coat, or you can go with two thin ones like I did. One thing that stands out for me (except the rainbow of colors) is that after applying this polish my nails seem so much stronger. I don't really know if that is a significant detail, but I thought it would be fun to mention nonetheless :).

xox

Maria.

Cosmic fx ORLY

From left to right: Halley's Comet, Space Cadet, Lunar Eclipse & Galaxy Girl

Will you just look at that? That is a nebula in a bottle. A-ma-zing. As you may (or may not) have noticed - I don't have the complete Cosmic fx collection, I'm missing 2: Rocket Science & Out Of This World. I'm so exited about this collection it's insane. Let's have a closer look...

 

Are you feeling those jitters as well? Prrt<3.

Okay, so the first one I've swatched is the lovely Halley's Comet.

 

This is the result after a couple days of wearing the polish. Overall, this is a light-blue polish. But it has green and silver glass flecks mixed into it. Somehow, it makes me think of The Little Mermaid...

 

The application was smooth, the flecks were no problem whatsoever. Halley's Comet does need 3 coats, which is a bit of a bummer actually. I also read somewhere that people were having problems with how slow this polish dries. Well, I used Seche Vite (topcoat) and it was dry within six minutes. I don't know if maybe that's slow for some, but I find it pretty fast. 

Another pro is that this polish stays on without any chipping or tipwear. 

xox
Maria.

Glitters overload!

So...Yeah...Er, I've been having major problems with my nails. They kept on breaking off, splitting and it was a disaster. Now they are almost back to normal and I can finally take some pictures of them without being completely ashamed.
Todays mani is a collaboration between Collistar TorTora Lacca and China Glaze Fairy Dust.

TorTora Lacca is a beige cream nail polish, that looks a bit green-ish sometimes (depending on the light). Fairy Dust is a see-through full with small glitters. And when I say that it's full with glitters I mean REALLY full with glitters. Amazing. Now let's see how these two combine...

 

I must say I'm a big fan of this combination. At first, I had TorTora Lacca combined with a matte topcoat but that wasn't exactly what I was looking for - so I decided to try out Fairy Dust ... and I was completely blown away. 

It sparkles!

TorTora Lacca applies smoothly because of it's flat brush. I used two coats to even out imperfections, but I think you can apply it with just one thick coat if you are careful enough. Supposedly, it has vitamins A & E in it to protect the nails and nurture them.
I also used two coats of Fairy Dust to get as many glitters on my nails but one coat is actually enough (except if you're a sucker for everything that sparkles like me ^^).

This is a better representation of the color.

On my vacation in Russia I picked up the Galaxy collection of ORLY (yay!) and plan on swatch them too, because they are just that amazing and I don't care what everyone else thinks of them!

xox
Maria.