2010 Favourites

So here are my favourite manicures (or polishes) that I have posted about in the last year. Some of them are from collections released in 2010 but some of them are older as I just wanted to list all my favourite manis of this year. They are in random order.

OPI DS Extravaganza

Color Club Magic Attraction

Essie Demure Vixen

Orly Space Cadet

Nubar Toga Purple & OPI Mad as a Hatter

Color Club Revvvolution

China Glaze Cowgirl Up

Eyeko Cosmic Polish

OPI The Show Must Go On!

GOSH Holographic

OPI DS Reflection

China Glaze Endurance

Color Club Tru Passion

GOSH Rainbow (over OPI Manicurist of Seville & Lumene Queen of the Night)

China Glaze Strawberry Fields

P2 Stormy

China Glaze BFF

OPI Kinky in Helsinki

Kiko Purple Microglitter (255)

New Year's Eve manicure: GOSH Holographic & China Glaze Platinum Silver

I have my New Year's Eve mani to show you today. It's (again) really simple, just one color:

This is Gosh Holographic and this is just insane! The holographic effect is so vivid, it's just unbelievable. I wish there would have been even a tiny bit of sunlight to properly show this to you, but I had to settle for taking the pics under artificial light.

As I said, this is insanely pretty but it's also just insane to apply. It's probably one of the worst that I've ever tried. It almost impossible to get it even out and cover the bald patches. I've heard that other people have had these issues too, so I decided to do a coat of silver polish underneath Holographic hoping that it would make it easier to apply and that I wouldn't need to use so many coats. So I used China Glaze Silver Platinium under the Holographic, just one coat though. After that I only needed two coats of Holographic. I painted my right thumb without Silver Platinium and it needed four coats to get rid of those bald patches.. But here's a pic of the Silver Platinium too:

I have to say that I really don't like this. Well, I like the color and would like the look too, but it's just so brush stroke-y. And the formula isn't quite right, it's goopy and thick making it really hard to apply and then you get those ugly brush strokes too. But I think this could be good for konading or something like that.

Anyways,

HAPPY NEW YEAR'S EVE TO EVERYONE!

Color Club Tru Passion

Today I have one polish to show you that I thought would be a nice color for the celebration of New Year.

This is Color Club's Tru Passion from Glitter Vixen collection for fall 2008. I have three coats here with two coats of top coat to make it smooth.. Well, I love glitters and I love purple so htere's nothing more to say than this is just perfect! Oh btw, I had to shorten my nails a bit as I broke my pinky's nail, but they were quite long anyways and will grow back too.

GOSH Diva

Well, Christmas is over, did everyone have great time, nice gifts and relax enough? I sure did, I really like Christmas but it's nice to get back to home too. Anyways, now it's ok to blog about something else than Christmassy color and I have one pretty color for you today.

So this GOSH polish is called Diva, two coats with top coat here. I do like this color, but I thought this would be even better. It's slightly frost and that's probably why I didn't love this color. It also looked more interesting in the bottle with that lovely silver shimmer.. But it was on sale when I bought it and all and all it's still a pretty shade.

China Glaze Ruby Pumps

I have my christmas mani for you today and it's nothing less and nothing more than the famous Ruby Pumps by China Glaze. I know you've all seen it like billion times and almost everyone owns this polish too, but I haven't had chance to wear it before and I thought that there's probably nothing more appropriate for christmas than this..

Two coats with base and top coat. You all probably know as well that this is one pain in the ass to photograph. I've seen many many swatches and it always looks different and I think you need to see this on IRL to really see it. Funny that there was even some sunlight when I took this pic, as it is the darkest day of the year. Well, the sun was shining something like two hours and then it dissappeared again. Oh well, after today it's going to be lighter and lighter towards spring, so that's good!

So this is my christmas time mani so I won't be posting anything until these chrismas days are over. I'm spending christmas with my family here in this small island where we have our "summer cabin". It's not really a cabin, as it is my grandfathers old family home, but it's the place where we go through summer and sometimes winter too, like christmas. I've spent the christmas here since I was seven or something.. So Merry Christmas to everyone or like we say in Finland: Hyvää Joulua! I leave you with a pic that I took today, can you tell that it's really cold here?! (something like -18 C = -4 F)

Eveline #406

Here's another holographic polish by Eveline cosmetics:

So this is two coats with top coat of the silver holo that I was talking about when I posted about the lilac holo. They look different in bottles but quite same on nail, but I don't mind as they vere so cheap and I think one can never have too much holos. I had to take this pic with flash so the holo effect doesn't show that much. I thought that this was quite nice color for the holidays too.. I don't have the bottle with me as I'm not at home, so I can't check what the number of this polish is, so sorry about that. I will add it later to this post. Edit: it's number 406.


I'll be posting my christmas mani tomorrow, it's going to be just one very christmassy color and you all have seen it soooo many times already. Can you guess what? :) Well, that's tomorrow..

Candy Cane

Amanda at Fiercely Fresh Fingertips had this cute purple candy cane manicure while back and I really liked the colors. I thought it was a fun mani as the desing was quite traditional but the colors wasn't. Anyways, I wanted to something like that too, so here's my purple candy cane mani.

As you can see it's not nearly as cute as Amanda's.. Well, I wasn't trying to do a replica, I just wanted to use the same color. Though my purple is darker.. I used China Glaze Frosty for the base white color and then this purple glitter nail art polish and Royal cosmetic connections number 92 for the stripes. I should have made stripes that aren't as even, but oh well, I think you still get the idea from this.. I hope.. :) I really need to practice more of that free hand painting though..

China Glaze Exotic Cranberry

Today I have one China Glaze oldie for you, and yeah, this is no B3F.

This is called Exotic Cranberry and it's apparently been apart of China Glaze collection in 2005. I really like the color, it's this dark berry color and super glossy. So very pretty! I used two coats here with a top coat.

I also used these nail stickers that I got from Viva La Nails. I ordered this free sample pack (you only need to pay s&h) that they offer for bloggers and Youtube artists. I think it's really nice that a company gives value to bloggers and such, and offers that kind of stuff. So I got three stickers and three water decals, they were offering this bigger pack before where you'd get some more stuff but I was too late for that and it was out of stock when I tried to order it. And now they are offering this 3x stickers + 3x water decals combo. Anyways, I think it's nice and here's what I got:

So for the mani I used those that are bottom left, I thought they looked so cute. And they are, I think they made my mani look super cute. But somehow they didn't stay on too well, though I tried to apply them as well as I could. Some of the edges kept rising of the nail and it's kind of annoying couse then tehy get stuck in your hair and stuff. But other than that, I think they were a really nice addition to my mani and a nice way to make it more interesting.

OPI The Show Must Go On! (over black)

I really loved the OPI's Burlesque collection colors, especially The Show Must Go On! so I wanted to wear it again. I thought it could look cool over black, so I had to try it out.

I painted one coat of TSMGO over a coat of e.l.f.'s Black and then I also did an accent nail with e.l.f.'s Golden Goddes over TSMGO, then also added one coat of top coat as always. I thought this really looked cool, though I think I like TSMGO more by itself, but this is nice look too. It makes the color look more darker and blackens to the sides, which looks nice imo. It's also nice that the duochrome effect is still there.

Holiday 'Ruffian Manicure'

I wanted to something holiday-ish but not too much.. so I wasn't quite sure what to do. Then I thought that I quite liked China Glaze's Mistletoe Kisses when I briefly wore it last time so I thought I could use that again. So finally I decided I needed to give that ruffian manicure a try, I know it's kind of old thing already, but since I haven't tried it yet, I thought I should.

I used Royal cosmetic connections number 92 for the silver base and then added one coat of Mistletoe Kisses free-handedly, then of course a coat of top coat. Sorry about the tips, I did some dishes before taking the picture.. I think the color combo was nice, suits for the holidays, but isn't too traditional or in your face kind of thing. Have you all tried ruffians already? What do you think of the ruffian inspired style?

China Glaze Bogie

I don't know if anyone remembers all those fall collections as there are so many nice holiday color right now, but anywho I'm gonna show you one polish from a fall collection that I haven't had time to show you yet..

So this is Bogie from China Glaze's fall 2010 collection (Vintage Vixen). And yes, it's a purple, so no wonder I like it so much.. But I think this is quite unique, I don't have anything like it. So it's very pretty fall or winter time polish. Btw, I have only one coat here, so the quality is great too.

Nubar Sultry Red

Guess what, I have my first stamping mani to show you today! Yes, I ordered some Konad stuff too, I'm not really sure if it's my thing so to speek, but it gives nice variety for manis to do for sure.. Go easy on me, this was really my first attemp to do this technique.

So I used Nubar's Sultry Red for base color and China Glaze's Passion for the bows. I tried to do something a bit Christmass-y but not too much. I think I need to practice a bit more..

Eveline #403

Today I have one nice subtle holographic polish to show you.

So this is number 403 by Eveline cosmetics. The brand comes apparently from Poland (? correct me if I'm wrong) but they sell these in other countries like here in Finland and the website says they are also available in US. Anyways, these polishes were on sale here (in Tokmanni) and they were only 1 € each, so I jumped and got myself a few.


This one look a lot like grey/silver holo polish here in the pics and also on nail IRL but it has this little lilac hint.. I think I need to compare it at some point with a more silver looking holo that I got also. The quality was btw quite good and this was easy to work with, so I think it was a nice buy for that price. Though the bottle is really small (only 4,5 ml = 0,17 fl oz) so when you are dipping the brush to the polish it feels like the bottle is going to fall over all the time. Other than that, a really nice polish..

China Glaze Crackle

I don't have time to do a proper post today (I'm so busy with my school I think I'm gonna go insane..). But I wanted to share some information that I found out at China Glaze's Facebook page, here.

So if you don't know it yet, yes, China Glaze is launching a line of crackle polishes that will be available starting at February 2011. And there will be six colors! How amazing is that?! I can't wait.. (there will be a purple too!!!)

You can see the black crackle polish and more information here.

Suomi Finland

Today is our Independence Day (itsenäisyyspäivä in Finnish) here in Finland. So of course I had to do a mani that fits for the day.

Our flag colors are white and blue, so I did a mani with those colors. White on my thumb is Lumene Have Fun and on other fingers it's China Glaze Frosty. Blue is Golden Rose number 162 and the silver glitter is Royal cosmetic connections number 93.

Here's two pics with the mani and our flag taken from the balcony of my apartment. So,

Happy Independence Day Finland!
Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää Suomi!

H&M Kitty Queen

I was shopping the other day and went to H&M to see if they had any interesting polishes and there were two new (well, at least for me new) Hello Kitty polishes, lighter pink and darker pink, almost magenta. I thought they looked good, but I didn't buy them at that time, don't ask why.. Then after two days I went again to buy one of them, and there were only like three darker ones left and one lighter one. Then I decided to buy both, because, well they both look good and if I hadn't bought them then there's no way, I could get them later. They sell like crazy! I've noticed that happen with other H&M Hello Kitty polishes, it's probably because they are so cheap.. But anyways, here's the darker one:

This is called Kitty Queen and I have two coats here. I quite like this one, well it's cheap but also it's a pretty color with lovely little glass-fleck-looking glitter. And the quality was nice also as it was opaque with two coats and the brush was easy to work with.

China Glaze Mistletoe Kisses

I have the last polish that I own from China Glaze's Holiday collection to show you today.

So this is Mistletoe Kisses and I have two coats here, no base or top coat. I wasn't sure if I'd like this, as I had not-so-good experience with the last greenish glitter polish I tried, but I really loved this one. It's really pretty and only needed two coats. Very Christmassy for sure, so really nice polish to wear right now.

Sponge mani

We (that's me & my boyfriend) had our anniversary just while ago (it's also our engagement date, we've been engaged for two years and together for four years now) and I wanted to some really nice festive nails to celebrate.. We didn't do anything fancy, just went out to dinner and that stuff, but that was still nice..

Anyway, on with the nails.. I don't want to complain about the weather and the poor photographing conditions, so I hope you can bare with these little less nicer photos for a while.. I'm going to get a light box, well, I already have one, I only need the lights and then I'm good to go..

I used OPI DS Extravagance and Let Me Entertain You and NYX Girls Margarita for this sponge mani. I topped it of with e.l.f. Twinkle (from their new Christmas polishes) and of course with a coat of quick dryer. I really liked this mani and I'm wearing it still though I made it like four days ago or so.. The colors washed away a bit in these pics, but you can still see the outcome..