My Stash

Surprisingly I've never put all my polishes in one place and take a picture. It was actually an eye-opener for me. Who would have thought that my polishes divide fairly equally into pinks, nudes, dark colours and glitters. I know that I'm missing some 10 polishes that my friends have, some OPI, China Glaze and SpaRitual glitter and holographic ones.
It's not a surprise to me that OPI represents a big part of my stash. For the most part I really like their formula, I like the ProWide brush and most of the polishes last at least 3 days on my nails.

My China Glaze stash grew to it's current size in just a few months. Before that I was really reluctant to get them due to a bad first experience. But them I got OMG and DV8 holos in a sale and never looked back. I only have 2 full sized Orly polishes, crazy I know. But I never totally fell in love with them. But I do love their mini polishes a lot! It's like a quick colour fix.

Here is a box of different brands, polishes that I only have a few of each, and bottles I only got because of the colour.

Here is Essence and Catrice polishes that I got on my holiday in Amsterdam. I wish these brands were represented where I live! They are cheap and for the most part have a nice quality and cute colours. Also I do like both of their brushes.
Here are Misa, Barry M, American Apparel etc. I love the formula on these two AA polishes, you have to love a one coat polish. My only Zoya is here too. I mentioned before that buying Zoya polishes here is just prohibitively expensive, even if they have very pretty colours.

Here are my boxed goods :) I store them separately from other polishes because the boxes don't fit in the drawers where I have the rest of my stash. It's horrible, but I occasionally forget that I have these at all.


I do have another two boxes that didn't make it here. One is with all the base and top coats, cuticle stuff etc. And the second is a box with all the frankens and polishes I tried water marbling with, nothing interesting, Coloramas and such.

Revlon 320 Ocean Breeze

Afternoon everyone! I’ve been cooped up in the house for a couple of days now. It is cold and raining constantly. Plus some relatives I’ve never seen my life are visiting. There have been some trips down the family tree in the past few days, quite interesting actually.
This polish is an interesting shimmery blue polish that really does remind me of a deep blue ocean. It is one of the scented polishes from Revlon that I have, and I think this one has the nicest scent of them, though why you would need a smelly polish is beyond me. The polish itself has a rather thin consistency, so when I tried wearing it without the base coat, after four coats at certain angles I could see the nail line. I scrapped that plan and here I am wearing a ridgefiller and two coats. And it looks infinitely better. The wear is not as great because of course you don't wear a top coat with these polishes, so it started showing signs of tip wear after a day and a half.

Base and top coats that I use and [mostly] like

A couple of people have asked me what kind of products I use to keep my nails gin a good shape. Over the years I've tried many different ones but am never truly satisfied with them, so I keep searching for more.

Base Coats:
OPI Original Nail Envy - I think that this is my favourite one for now. It works well, keeps my nails from changing colour no matter what kind of polish I try. It also made my nails stronger I think, but mine are hard to begin with. This base coat made the biggest difference for my mum's nails. After years of having short and fragile nails from all the cooking and cleaning she managed to grow them out after using nail envy.
Revlon Nail Care Base Coat - I have had it for a few months now and I can't say anything bad about it, it's okay. One thing that bugs me is the printing on the bottle. I don't know what's up with that, but it rubbed off within days. I'm sure that eventually I won't be able to tell it apart from the top coat that looks exactly the same.
Orly Ridgefiller - I got this after I tried it at a friend of mine. It works well for me, fills the gaps and dries fairly fast. There's just one bad point, it goes thick very quickly, in a matter of weeks for me. Oh well, nothing that a thinner can't fix.
Other base coats I've tried:
Orly Bonder - well this did absolutely nothing for me. It did not prolong the wear of my polish, quite the opposite. Most of my polishes would start chipping within a day. A total fail for me.
Nailtek II - hmm, this is another base that did not work for me or my mum. It did not do anything at all, did not make the nails stronger etc.

I must admit that I am really bad at using top coats, I use them not very often or on a regular basis. Regularly I only use top coat on bright red polish. This is a habit from the time I was at school, so that I didn't leave bright red streaks on all my books, notes etc. Top coats don't really add anything to my experience with polishes, apart from yet more time needed for drying and another chance to bum into something and ruin everything. yes, I'm that clumsy :)
I actually don't even own a fast drying top coat. Shock horror, I know!

The only ones I have at the moment are:
Orly Glosser - it's perfectly adequate for what it is, it adds shine to polish when I use it, really nothing more to add here.
Revlon Nail Care Top Coat - this I really like, and it is unexpected, as my dad chose this for me on his trip to London. It says on the back that it dries completely in 60 seconds. That I thing is a bit of wishful thinking, but still. What I totally adore about this top coat is the texture it gives to the polish. Nails feel kind of slippery and wet. Great!
Nailtek Matte Top Coat - this is a rather sucky one, I have to admit, yet it is the best I can find here for now. It does make the polish rather matte. But the effect doesn't last for more than a day, and it turns the polish brittle, so in 2 or 3 days is breaks off in big pieces. I like to use this only on bare nails, then it's ok.

I've also tried Orly Flash Dry Drops. I highlights my problem with top coats in general. It does add shine, and is dry to the touch in a matter of minutes, but it still takes at least 30 minutes to be completely dry, and for me that is the same as when I just use the polish alone. For me this product also seemed to shrink the polish, so that it looks like the polish has worn off at the tips. It's fine with light polish, but sucks with dark ones.

Revlon 375 Passion Fruit

This is one of the polishes my dad brought for me from London. I have to say that I just LOVE this polish! I like the color, it's a really pretty pink wit a hint of purple. The formula is nice, it's not thick, goes on really well and dries fast. The best part is that it only needs one coat. That's right, just one! And of course there's the added bonus of it smelling when it's dry, though I'm still not so sure how I feel about that. It's nice that the scent is flowery and not very strong, only really perceptible if you actually smell your nails. The downside is that you can't wear a top coat if you want to keep the scent.

Hauls

The last couple of weeks have been really great in terms of acquiring new polishes. First of all my dad went on business to London and came back with lots of polishes for me and my mum. That was something I did not expect, plus I was really pleasantly surprised by his color choice, mostly because they were not neutral pale pinks (for the most part).

First of all,there are the Revlon polishes. Sadly, we don't have Revlon here so this is great. There's a base and top coat, which I really like so far, plus three scented polishes and one light pink one.

L-R: top coat, Pink Nude, Ocean Breeze, Passion Fruit, Beach, base coat.

Next are the polishes that are meant for my mum, the three Givenchy Vernis Please! polishes. They are only 5.5ml, but cost an arm and a leg.

L-R: Candide Peach, Acid Orange, and Vintage Garnet.

I also got three YSL La Laque polishes. I'm just drooling over them! The one on the right is called extreme purple, but I somehow just don't see it.

L-R: Tulipe Noire, Fuchsia, and Pourpre Extreme

Apart from that I also got some polishes on my own. How could I not - the local shop was having 20% off OPI. I'm hoping it means that they will have the new stock in the for of the Texas collection or even the Pirate one.

L-R: Strawberry Margarita, Brand New Skates, Baguette Me Not, Louvre Me Louvre Me Not, Bastille My Heart, China Glaze Ruby Pumps, Orly Here Comes Trouble

I got the small Orly polish to see if I liked how it looked, and by trying it on just a few nails I love it! I'll have to get the full bottle and the purple one as well. It looks so gorgeous!