Orly Space Cadet

I have decided to wear more of the polishes in my stash that have been somewhat forgotten. So I took out Orly Space Cadet. In one word it is just amazing. Of course with all its multichrome goodness going on it is impossible to photograph. This was three coats. If I had to find a negative, on me it takes a while to dry.

Orly Rococo A-Go-Go

When I went through my stash not long ago, it turned out that about 90 per cent of my polishes that fall into the 'purple' category are actually dark, jewel tones.
Rococo a-go-go is one of them. It the bottle it looks close to Space Cadet, my mum even asked me why I have two of the same polishes. After twirling them around she conceded that they're not.
I used two coats, and it is perfect. It's deep and shiny, shimmery, and since it has all these tiny flakies in the polish, they change colour depending on the angle of the nails to the light source, thought not as much as in the bottle.



Whenever our cat is not spending time outside, he's sleeping or begging to go outside. And whenever he's outside, no insect is safe. It is the open season on crickets, dragonflies, butterflies and so on. Thankfully he doesn't eat them, just plays with them.

NOTD Orly Androgynie

I have a sort of hit and miss relationship with Orly polishes. They are either amazing, with gorgeous colours, last long and are easy in application, or they barely last a day and are difficult to work with.
So whenever I see an Orly polish that is really gorgeous I really hope that it will be good. And only if it is really truly beautiful will I get it.

With Androgynie I went backwards and forwards whether I like it enough to get it. EventuallyI obviously succumbed :)
At first I was kind of disappointed that all the big hex glitter stuck to the bottle sides and very few made it to the nails. But after wearing it a couple of times I can say that I love how it looks. It is black, but there is enought of golden glitter in to to make it seem brown next to something truly black. Also whenever I use this polish, I shake it quite violently and then put it upside down for about 5-10 minutes. This way I get a sufficient amount of large glitter that I like on the nails. I usually use 2 coats like here, or layer one coat over black.

Orly Fresh

Orly Fresh is a manic green colour. I have no other way to put it. It comes so close to being a neon nail polish without being neon. Your eyes hurt to look at it, it's so bright. This was three coats. In all actuality this is way, way out of my comfort zone. I don't wear green polish in this shade. To me it looks like a polish I would have worn at 13 to be slightly rebellious, but not any more. As much as I think that this is a very fun colour, it doesn't fit anywhere in my life.
What do you think?

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.

Orly Here Comes Trouble

Hey everyone, happy Friday! It is so hot today that it feels like my face is melting. I guess +35 in the shade will do that to you. I've been really busy these couple of days with making jam :) We do this pretty much every year. There are blueberry bushes growing wildly on our property. We freeze them for winter to have blueberry muffins later. But also there are blackcurrant bushes that my grandfather planted years ago. They are my all time favourites. Yum!
So today I am wearing Orly's Here Comes Trouble which is a stunning green glitter of various shapes in a slightly tinted green base. I like it a lot, it's a really cheerful colour. I find it easy to apply, here I have two coats, but it could probably use another one. It wears well on me, around three days and I find that it is not as difficult to take off as other glitters are.

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.

Orly Prince Charming

Hello everyone! It is finally hot and sunny again! The summer is back on! Today I have for you a polish that I borrowed form a friend of mine. Prince Charming is a taupe brown polish. It kind of looks similar to Chanel's Particuliere, but they are not dupes. I love the name, but in my mind it doesn't really correspond with this colour. The polish itself is fine, though it needed three coats to get rid of bald spots and make it even. The wear was also very decent, around three days. Another thing I like is how it changes the colour depending on the light, from clearly brown to a more taupe with a hing of grey. I must say that it once again made me realize that colours like this are not my thing at all, but I'm sure a lot of people like it.


Also the place where we live seem to attract all sorts of creatures (and occasionally, people). Not only do we have neighbours who keep chickens that sometimes sneak into our garden, but we are also feeding another neighbour's cat while she's away. You can imagine my surprise when the cat food attracted a very determined hedgehog, who munched its way through a whole plate of it.

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!

Orly On The List

I'm really surprised by how much I actually like this polish! I got it a couple of weeks ago without expecting much at all, but when I got home and painted my nails *wow*, I was so impresses by this dark berry red. It has a jelly texture that has pink\mauve and red glitter in it. It goes on nicely in 2-3 coats and dries fairly quickly.

Orly Royal Velvet

I picked this polish a few weeks ago. I just wanted something different and this fitted the bill. Royal Velvet is a pretty purple polish with an awesome electric blue duochrome shine. It is easy to put on and I like the formula. It dries pretty quickly as well. Overall it's just a lovely polish. I'm not sure how unique this color is, I've read somewhere that SpaRitual has a similar polish, but I don't have anything even remotely close in my collection.

OPI Golden Rainbow

I have been looking at this polish for months now, looking and holding it in my hands every time I go to my nail polish shop, but not getting it for some reason. Until now :) This is probably the prettiest polish I own.
OPI Golden Rainbow is a very pretty glitter top coat. It has tiny gold glitter, slightly bigger silver glitter and quite big holographic hexagon glitter. In one word it is just Amazing!!!
I can't really find a lot about this polish, it's after they changed the formula, so if you know anything about it, please share.
Below is the polish in one and two coats respectively over bare nails.

Here is Golden Rainbow layered over Orly Black Out.