Saturday, June 25, 2011

Illamasqua Boosh and Nfu.Oh 56

Illamasqua Boosh is a pretty standard black creme. I have 'issues' with black cremes. I spent my teenage years sporting Boots No.7 black nail polish (or occasionally 'black cherry' for variety, which was...well black, basically) which I applied on a weekly basis in front of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, it's been years since I've been willing to go near black creme. I'm not sure if I'm looking back on my younger days with rose tinted glasses (unlikely, to be frank) but I didn't think the application on Boosh was that great. It was a little sticky and required a bit of work to get it to level. Then again, that's black cremes for you. Man am I glad I don't wear this stuff all the time anymore.


Fortunately, I can't say the same for the lovely green flakies I put over the top, which are much more my to my twenty-something taste. This is the infamous Nfu.oh 56, which is every bit as good as I'd hoped. Bright green flakies with shimmer and a blue duochrome, these really pop layered over a dark colour. I had a hell of a time trying to pick up the duochrome (it drifts between grass, emerald, teal and blue, with the blue showing up best indoors in low light - I am sure those of you who are into lenses will know why this created such problems!) but here's a couple of badly focused macro shots which kind of show it. Click to embiggen.





Yummy, no? The only problem with Nfu.Oh is that I keep wanting to type it 'NFU', which is the national farmers' union. I wrote a couple of my Masters essays on path dependency and regional governance in EU agriculture. I can't see the national famers' union producing nail polish somehow. Anyway...

The Nfu.oh was sent to me for review by Affiniti, the Illamasqua was purchased by my own fair hand. Although technically it came free in the Art of Darkness four polish set, so I'm feeling like a big cheap-o today. No-buy status: 6/35.


Edit - the UK Nfu Oh retail site has now launched. It's at Nfuoh.co.uk. Enjoy!
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Friday, June 24, 2011

Quiet Coquette - Essie Limo-scene

Just wanted to share a classic sheer pink with you today - Essie Limo-scene. It strikes a beautiful balance between creamy and sheer, pink and cream - it's also the perfect palette-cleanser to give me a break from all the bright colours I've been wearing this summer!


Not much to say, but this is an easy polish for me to wear - applies nicely, never feels overdone, but also feels a little bit sexy...like wearing delicate lacy underwear that no one knows about but you!

kittytokaren
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Thursday, June 23, 2011

Zoya Jancyn



(3 coats)

Great color. It reminds me a lot of CoverGirl's Candy Corn. I had similar formula problems too. It was sticky and wouldn't level very nicely.
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Wednesday, June 22, 2011

A tale of two polishes

Or, how to ruin perfectly good mani. I just cannot leave things alone.

This is Illamasqua Caress, a gorgeous baby blue creme. Easy two-coat application, smooth finish, stunning colour. When they do pastels right, they really do them right, and this is a fabulous example.



I managed to leave it all of two hours before deciding that what was clearly missing was a bumpy, draggy, horrible topcoat to frakk everything up. Lo! What's that I spy? It's Barry M Blue crackle!



I hesitated to show you this one because it was SO AWFUL. I still don't know how it's so bad, but it dragged the base polish everywhere, dented it, didn't crack properly, and was still really bumpy and gritty after two coats of lumos. Some days I really, really hate myself for doing stupid things like this to perfectly lovely polishes. I took it straight off because I was too embarrassed to leave the house with such a revolting manicure...*shame face*

On the plus side, this used up two polishes in my no-buy challenge.
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Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Chanel Morning Rose & Essie Topless & Barefoot


(3 coats)

The formula on Morning Rose is better than Mimosa but I still found it lacking. Plus I'm kind of eh over the color it's pretty but kind of boring to me.



(a million coats - but I could probably have gotten it in 3 careful coats)

A color I'm not eh over is this. I'm trying to purge my stash and I was SO READY to put this in the goodbye pile especially since I had real trouble with the sticky and unleveling formula, but I just couldn't. I love the color. I think it might be one of those almost universally flattering colors.

I messaged k2k about this and she reported no formula issues and convinced me to keep it. Hopefully, I can just chalk it up to a humid day.
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