Happy Haul-y Days

Wondered where I've been? Hauling nail polish in the US, of course. This is just a quick post to show you what I got.

 See any favourites there? Some of the new Zoyas, Sinful Colors Cinderella, Milani Hot Pink glitter which I've been lemming for ages, Essie Navigate Her... And the most important discovery does not even show in this pic. Wait and see!

What I didn't get was the Color Club Halo Hues collection. But I'm not too sad. First, the trip was an aewsome experience and I got so many other things I hadn't even dreamt about. And second, I'm still allowed to shop the Halo Hues online (am I?).

Green Glitter and Purple Pattern

 I've received some nail mail: the DRK-A plate!! And the new Bundle Monster set is waiting for me in my mailbox. The negative side is that I'm currently a few hundred kilometres away from that particular mailbox... Why do I so often feel I'm in the wrong town? I honestly can't recommend dividing your life between three on more towns. :(

Anyhow, in the DRK plate there are so many designs to choose from, that I almost didn't get to using it at all. It was so hard to decide!!! I won't rest until I've used all of the patterns. I love them so much!

I wanted to use some polishes from my recent small haul from Estonia. (pic above)  I was especially keen to get my hands on those Manhattan polishes which scream to be used together. But today I ended up with something else..

The base colours here are Wild and Mild (ex. Wild and crazy) Sleeping Beauty (sheer as anything!!) and SpaRitual Moss. Stamping was made using Konad light purple special polish.

I had to get some glitter in, too, so I painted glitter tips Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe and added some random dots with it to the stamping. Just take a look at the holo in the BtM!!! Holy Holo!!!

 That was it and here are the polishes:

Konad Light Purple special Polish
SpaRitual Moss
Color Club Beyond the Mistletoe
Wind & Mild Sleeping Beauty

(Now I've been a good little blogger and given you all the specs. I've deserved some wine & chocolate & a good documentary film with the hubby.)

Kiko Haul and Gradient

I wandered to a Kiko store the other day, and there were about a million nail polish shades in sale. You can propably guess the rest..

 This is my favourite, from the new duochrome line (not on sale, though..). They had a Peridot dupe one, too, but I chose this baby, which is much more blue. Pretty!!!

I intended to paint the base of my mani with Kiko 298, a light blue glass fleck polish. It turned out to be way too sheer so I removed it and went for more opaque underwear: a coat of Orly Toast the Couple. Even after it I needed three coats of Kiko 298.

 On the blue base I made a gradient - my first using a moist sponge technique - with Kiko 298 (blue)
268 (green) and 269 (yellow). Have I told you I hate polishes with no names? Well, I do!!!! And why on earth I just bought a dozen of them???!??

And yes, there is green there in between the other two colours!

To add some nail art, I cut out hearts of a sticker paper, painted a sort of ruffian on with Essence Urban Messages Skyscraper. Removed the stickers, and voilá!

This mani needed just a coat of Seche Vite to even things out. And here are the polishes:

You wouldn't believe they were all used for this mani. So pretty, but oh so sheer...

Lacquistry Haul

You are going to see loads of glitter in the upcoming posts.... My lacquistry order arrived!

Aren't the recycled packaging material (the paper on the one in the right says "Chanel" :)) and the handwritten card just sweet!?

Lacquistry is an indie polish company founded, created and run by Jenna, who has an eye for glitter like no one else. I came across one of her polishes in another blog, went to see her Etsy shop and wanted them all. For now, I just ordered 10 of them..

 As you can see, she's got everything a polishing gal needs: bar glitter, holo glitter, flakies, black glitter...

awesome colour combos, giant glitter, tiny glitter... 

 And just to let you know, I paid the whole and total invoiced amount for these beauties, plus shipping. Just let's not think how much it was.... shhhh..... (OK, these polishes are a real bargain, but when you buy ten of them you don't want to see your credit card bill..)

My Untrieds

I've done some inventory of my polishes lately. You will see the results soon, but today I just want to show you some new polishes and my older untried ones.

I store my untrieds in a black canvas bag. Every time I don't have a clear idea for a mani, I just rummage through the bag, pick a polish and go with it. I think I've currently got some 20+ polishes there waiting for me, and I'm hoping to get that closer to 10 in the near future

 I noticed there is an overrepresentation of purple polishes in my untrieds. Have I been in a purple mood when shopping, or have I just neglected the purple ones when choosing which ones to use? I wonder...

I wouldn't know what to do if the bag was empty. I don't think it ever will be, though. There's so many enticing new collections coming out all the time. By the way, if you see a polish in there you'd like to see swatched, just drop me a line in the comments!

The newest addition to this crowd are a few Color Club foils and China Glaze Snowglobe I ordered from eBay. After taking these pics I've bought some Essence and Catrice polishes (they're cheapos, so they don't really count, do they..), so that's how it grows..

Extra: Haul

If you're not into haul posts, you can skip this and wait for the next challenge mani. (It'll be the "Inspired by Fashion", namely by some fun and frilly pieces from Victoria's secret.)

For the rest of you dirty little addicts some polish porn:
I knew I'd be going to the U.S. for a working (cough*shopping*cough) trip, so I had put off any polish shopping from the whole autumn (well, at least some of it..). As some (or most) brands are a lot cheaper in the U.S. than where I live, I happened to run into some serious polish shopping opportunities. (Looked up salons and beauty supply stores ahead from the internet and marked them onto a map? Me?!? Ahem...).


This is what I got:

Color Club:
Back to Boho Collection set 2
(Artsy Crafty, Blue-Topia, Rebel Spirit, Boho Mojo, Voodoo You Do, Nouveau Vintage, Topcoat)

China Glaze:
Turned up Turquoise(neon), Re-Fresh Mint, Happy Go Lucky, Secret Peri Wink-le, Peachy Keen

Some Like it Haute, Love Marilyn, Devotion

OPI:
Take the Stage, Tease-y Does It, Rainbow Connection, Pepe's Purple Passion, Excuse Moi!

 Are we There Yet, I Eat Mainely Lobster, I Vant to be A-Lone Star, Too Hot-Pink to Hold'em

Diva of Geneva, Here Today... Aragon Tomorrow, A-Taupe the Space Needle, Last Friday Night, Lincoln Park at Midnight

Orly:
Spark, Elsbeth's Rose, Shimmering Mauve, It's up to Blue, Fowl Play

Revlon:
Scented: Bubble Gum, Beach
Ocean
Blue Mosaic, Facets of Fuchsia

Sally Hansen:
HD: LCD, Wavelemgth
Gem Crush: Razzle Dazzler, Lady Luck

 Complete Salon Manicure: Peachy Keen, Fairy Teal, Grass Slipper, I Pink I Can

Nicole by OPI:
Silver Texture, Orna-ment for Each Other, My Sleigh's in the Shop

Milani:
Purple Gleam, Jewel FX Silver, Silver Dazzle

Borghese:
Notte Black, Luna Pearl, Bellissima Rose

Zoya: Dannii
Piggy Polish: Nocture-Nail
Finger Paints: Prints&Printsess, Winter Sky

That was it.  60 bottles of polish, if I counted them right. None broken in my suitcase, none confiscated by the customs or other authorities. Yay!

I've already used a couple of them, and others you will see shortly featured in this blog. I decided to put all these (and a few polishes I bought since, like some from the Essence vampires collection) to a separate box of untrieds, and you bet I want to get these to join my collection soon!

So stay tuned, and if you've seen a polish in this post that you'd like to see swatched, just drop me a note!

Day 4: Two, Green, Cha-cha-cha..

(Those of you who've ever danced Cha cha will wonder about the title less than those who haven't.)

For today's green nails I decided to give one of my new China Glaze polishes a go. Cha Cha Cha seemed to cover well with two coats. Only in the macro pics I notice that I could have been more careful with the tips. Well, who really, REALLY cares?

I decided to add some stickers I've intended to use a million times, but always wanted to save them for later. Seriously, SAVING nail art stickers, instead of using them?!? (Yes, I annoy myself, too, with my saving mania - and nothing can annoy me half as much as I do myself)

  

I felt the stickers didn't stand out enough, so I added a few rhinestones (bought from Born Pretty Store I think) and attached them with topcoat as I always do. The upper pic is my right hand, by the way, and the lower my left hand you're used to seeing.

Here's all the stuff I used. Oh my, what  a waste of nail art stickers this mani was!! I spent almost one sixth of the sticker sheet!! :D :D

I made a haul from the Nail etc webshop recently and gave a loving home to the China Glaze Island Escape collection and the Metro Downtown set, and a few OPI's (I Lily Love You, Mermaid's Tears, Love is a Racket and Pros and Bronze). If there's a specific polish you'd like to see me using, just leave a comment!

I also got my very first bottle of Seche Vite and I'm in looove. It dries faster and shinier than my any other topcoats, and it did wonders with the stickers. The surface after two coats of SV was so smooth even I couldn't see the outline of the stickers anymore (without the camera macro, of course).

Gargantuan Haul

I just "happened" to travel to Estonia (the trip was planned for two months ago) and "happened" to pop in a salon where they sell NfuOh polishes (had to drive a quarter of an hour with a map to get there). This trip was a good excuse to get my hands to some other polishes too..

 

 These are Essies, which were on sale at 5 euros each. I just grabbed them and stopped to look at their names at home. But what the heck?! Some bottles didn't have a label at all, just a big, ugly barcode tag in the bottom. Could these be from a set which was then separated in the shop? Are they allowed to do that? At least it was reeelly annoying trying to look up the possible names and collections for these polishes.

I think what I've got here is some polishes from the summer 2008 collection. At least the one on the left could be Movers & Shakers, and I'm pretty sure that third one from the left is Escapades. If I look at this particular collection, the second one from the left could just be Secret Stash.

On some bottles I was able to either find the original label underneath the barcode or read the name of the polish on the reverse side of the barcode tag. So the grey-blue shimmer far right is Fair Game from the 2011 Resort Collection. The second from the right is Burma Ruby which as far as I can tell is not a part of any specific collection (earlier dupe of Wrapped in Rubies?) and the third on from the right is Café Forgot from the 2005 Summer in the City collection.

I felt I bought the whole Opal range from NfuOh, but this doesn't look so bad. I left the red ones on the shelf, because I didn't really see the depth of other polishes in them, or the yumminess of Ruby Pumps. I also feel that a vivid pink or fuchsia flakie is missingfrom the line.

 I just had to take some close-ups. These are numbers 38 and 39, from left to right. (Names! Why don't they have names?)

I

 And here are the 49, 44, 50 and 51.

These are Wild and Crazy Twinkle Beat, Super Star and Sand Turtle. Somehow they seem quite alike  in this pic, but you should see them in action!

I had to pay the regular price for these babies, but they are worth it: OPI Teenage Dream, DS Classic and DS Coronation

 Some cheapo Sinful Colors from a sale (left to right): Treasure Island, All About You, Red Diamond, Serena and Chloe, Courtney Orange, Cloud 9, 24/7, Cream Pink, Summer Peach,

I don't really get why I wanted to take a pic of these neons by themselves. Maybe I just want to get another chance to assure you how striking neons they really are, even if it doesn't show in the photo.

Depend crackles were on sale at 1,50 euros each, but I decided only to get the pastels this time. These don't have any names on the bottles, but I remember seeing some on the display - very obvious ones like "Light Pink" or "Dark Pink".

The Konad stall was having it's own sale, though the reduced range was very limited. At least I got to buy the legendary m59 and two green stamping polishes.

I had thought to catch only the Stranger Tides from OPI's Pirates collection, but couldn't resist this minis collection with the price that's near one full-sized bottle. If I fall in love with Stranger Tides after trying it out I can still buy it and have tested four colours (almost) for the price of two.

These I classified as "care products", so they're really not nail polishes, so I don't have to count them in my grand total, right? Right. This is NfuOh Ultra Shine topcoat which is my very first topper I can use with stamping without any care or caution. It simply didn't smear the black Konad special polish, not even when I played with fire (not literally) and really brushed the top coat on. The Manhattan Cuticle remover has proved to be nothing special in a one-time test.

I'll never have time to swatch them all, so if there's something that interests you, just leave a comment and I'll be your loyal servant.