NOTD - OPI Absolutely Alice ♥

So, I know I'm kinda late to the ongoing party in Wonderland, but hey - being an International means never getting your hands on new polish collections very early, I'm afraid ... :(

Well, since I am in a party mood today, I'll add in my swatches of Absolutely Alice anyway.
I almost fainted when I opened the parcel and digged out this beauty! This one (as well as "Mad As A Hatter" which was also in that very same package) is truly amazing -  just looking at the bottles brings a smile to my face. Perhaps I'm easily amused.... ;)

On to the pics then, shall we..?

 Direct sunlight...

 

 

Bling-gasm!! :)

 

Chillin' in the snow...

 

Close up - do enlarge!

Absolutely Alice is a bright blue glitter with some gold suspended in a clear base. It's the gold that makes this an interesting and quite unique shade, I can't recall having seen any polish quite like this one before. It’s truly dazzling!

Application was very nice, just make sure you load the brush with enough polish - if the brush is too dry you may easily end up wiping away the glitter, leaving blank "spots" behind. Since the base is clear, three coats are needed in order for it to be opaque.

I did apply a fairly thick coat of Seche Vite on top, since the surface otherwise tends to feel a little grainy.

Have you bought any of the AIW shades? What do you think of the collection?

Til next time - ♥

OPI Hong Kong Collection, Spring 2010

OPI Hong Kong Collection, Spring 2010

Release: February 2010

Colors are:

• Bling Dynasty

• Red My Fortune Cookie

• Hot & Spicy

• Dim Sum Plum

• Jade is the New Black

• Suzi Says Feng Shui

• A Good Man-darin is Hard to Find

• Lucky Lucky Lavender

• Meet Me on the Star Ferry

• Panda-monium Pink

• Pearl of Wisdom

• Chop-sticking to My Story

Anything of interest ladies?
I personally like "Jade is the new black" and "Hot & Spicy", but other than these two, nothing in this collection really wows me.

Swatches can be found here and here.

OPI Cabernet For The Lady

This is OPI Cabernet For The Lady.

This is a really pretty deep berry wine/burgundy/claret with a slight blue shimmer. It seems to be quite a close match to Bogota Blackberry, but since I don't own that one I'm afraid I can't compare them for you... ;)
Yum, I am in love with this one - it's such a sophisticated, velvet-y color, and very autumn appropriate as well.

 On to the pics! (as always; they are clickable)

Sunlight...

 Shade...

Chillin' in the grass...

Close up...

Application was a breeze, two coats offered great opacity. I can't comment on the lasting power since I only wore it for one day (anxious to try out other polishes from the ever growing stash, y'a know ;)).

What do you think of this one?

That's all I have for you today - hope to see you soon ;)

NOTD: OPI Shootout At The OK Coral

Hello gals!

How's your day going? Great, I hope ;)

May I present to you todays NOTD, which is OPI Shootout at the OK Coral from the Colorcopia Collection of this summer.
This is the perfect marriage of pink and coral, in the bottle it looks bright corally/orange, but on my nails it's just the right blend of pink and coral, very vibrant, with a blue and pink iridescence to it. It's a very dynamic shade, and it looks quite different depending on the light.

Application was a breeze, the swatches are three coats with Seche Vite on top.

This picture makes the color look a little warmer than it is IRL...
Just me playing with the camera settings ;)

I truly like this one.... a lot! I didn't expect to like it as much as I do, so it was a nice surprise, sometimes it's the other way around... ;)
This is a perfect summer shade - great for tips and toes alike :)
One of my summer staples for sure!

NOTD: OPI Dancing In The Isles

Todays nail is OPI "Dancing In The Isles" from the 2004 Greek Isles Collection.
This is a frosty peachy pink, not unique in any way, but I really like this shade ;) Great "softie" color...

Application was very good, it just glided on...the swatches are three coats with Seche on top.
I actually forgot to take shade pics of this one...sorry about that... ;)














I also have It's all Greek To Me, also from this collection, and I love that one as well! If you haven't seen that one, take a look at this TOTD post...

Do you have any Greek Isles shades?

That's it for now; see you soon ;)

xoxo

OPI 2009 To Be Discontinued Shades

Good afternoon everyone!

Just a quick FYI, as I think many of you would like to know ;)

Below is a list of the unlucky shades that OPI has chosen to discontinue in 2009:

A DOZEN ROSAS

A TRUE AB-ORIGINAL

CARA MIA CRIMSON

CATHERINE THE GRAPE

CHARMED BY A SNAKE

DANCING IN THE ISLES

DON'T MELBOURNE THE TOAST

DON'T SOCRA-TEASE ME

DRESS TO EMPRESS

GET ME TO THE TAJ ON TIME

GRAND CENTRAL CARNATION

HOODOO VOODOO?!

IT'S A DOOZI, SAYS SUZI

KREME DE LA KREMLIN

MAUVE-LOUS MEMORIES

MOST HONORABLE RED

NANTUCKET MIST

OH...TO BE 25 AGAIN!

OPI POR FAVOR

RUBLE FOR YOUR THOUGHTS

SKINNY DIP'N IN LAKE MICHG'N

SONORA SUNSET

YOUR VILLA OR MINE?

I DO! I DO!

JUST TEA-SING!

MOD HATTER

MY DADDY'S THE KING!

NO BEES PLEASE

ROOM SERVICE

ROSE PETALS

SHE'S GOLDEN

SWEETIE PIE

YOUR ROYAL SHYNESS

CALL MY CELL-ERY

GOIN' APE-RICOT!

GOLDEN RULES!

HEY! GET IN LIME!

I ONLY DRINK CHAMPAGNE

NICOLE ALERT!

SNAP 'EM UP WHILE YOU CAN!! :)

TOTD - OPI It's All Greek To Me

Hope all is well with everyone :)

I really cannot (CANNOT) believe that I'm about to show my feet for the world to see! But, nonetheless; I am. I've kept the pictures small, though, no close ups here ;)
I am wearing OPI It's All Greek To Me, which I personally think is a great toe color, especially for summer; bright and vivid fuchsia :)

What do you think?







Have a nice day/evening ;)

xoxo

My Latest Polish Haul & NOTD

Hi you!
Thank God it's Friday :)

I got these OPIs from an eBay seller recently. I ordered two OPI colors from the Greek Collection; Dancing in the Isles and It's All Greek to Me, plus My Daddy's the King from the OPI Princess Charming Collection and Los Cabos Coral which is a regular. I also bought CND Solar Oil.

L-R: My Daddy's the King, Dancing in the Isles, Los Cabos Coral, It's all Greek to Me

Creative Nail Design (CND) SolarOil...
Conditioning oil for nails and cuticles.
Ingredients list for those interested: Sweet Almond Oil, Jojoba Seed Oil, Rice Bran Oil, Fragrance, Tocopheryl (vitamin E) Acetate

My Daddy's the King is from the OPI Princess Charming Collection, consisting of soft shades. I thought it would be nice to have a few softies in my growing stash to wear on those days when I don't feel like or isn't suitable to wear bold and bright colors... I'm not at all fond of sheers; so it's a good thing this one is completely opaque with three coats, which is what I'm wearing here.
This is a soft, pearly peach shade. It applies very smoothly, and dries quickly to a high gloss finish.

Direct sunlight...

Shade

Indirect sunlight...

After wearing this for a few hours, I thought it looked a little "meh", sort of...boring... (I'm getting noticeably used to wearing bolds and brights ;)) so I decided to jazz it up a bit! I applied two coats of Viva la Diva #47; a silvery sheer glitter top coat, and it turned out like this...

Direct sun...
Sort of a peachy version of Princesses Rule, no..?

Shade...

Do you own any OPI soft shades? Which ones do you like? Or don't you like softies at all?

Any special plans for the weekend?
As for me; we'll be spring cleaning the garden most of the weekend; it's supposed to be sunny and quite warm, about 10-15 degrees (which equals about 50-60 Fahrenheit).

I do wish all of you a great weekend; thank you for being the sweetest readers! :)

xoxo

My Latest H2T Haul :)

Hi friends!

Hope your weekend is going well :)
I'm in a terrific mood today, since receiving my latest order from Head2Toe Beauty. The only draw back was that the package got stuck in customs, so I had to pay another $15 in order to get the goodies home with me, but hey; that's life.

This was inside the package:

ChG Watermelon Rind, Raspberry Festival (both from the Summer Days 2009 Collection) & Admire (from the Romantique Collection, spring 09) Red is a PITA to photograph accurately, what I can tell you is that RF looks waayyy more stunning IRL ;)

Color Club polishes, left to right: Recycle This!, Ride a Bike, Planet Punch, I Can't Believe It's Tofu & Babe
Those four mini polishes are 0.25 Oz (7 ml) each and are from the One & Done eco collection. Babe is from the original collection

OPI Mod-ern Girl, Poshé Fast Drying Top Coat & Seche Restore Thinner

Can't wait to swatch all of these! Also it will be interesting to compare Seche Vite to Poshé top coat. Although I'm very happy with Seche, it causes some shrinkage when used with my Zoya polishes. Perhaps the only way to deal with that is to use Zoya's own base and top coat (Anchor & Armor), I really don't know.
What are your experiences?

xoxo

NOTD: OPI Bastille My Heart ♥

Todays NOTD is OPI Bastille My Heart from the fall 2008 France Collection.
This is a rich burgundy with shimmer, I really like it :)

Flawless application; this is three coats with Seche Vite as top coat.

Inside under lamp light, with flash

Outside without flash

Outside with flash

I just couldn't resist adding this pic! We got snow last night; and lots of it too :)
No flash

Love and beauty to y'all :)

OPI Collections 2009

OPI släpper några nya kollektioner i år...
Some of the OPI collections to be released this year...


Lagom till Alla Hjärtans Dag kommer denna kollektion bestående av 6 lack, alla med glittrig finish; två av dem innehåller till och med små glitterhjärtan och är nog i första hand tänkta som överlack. Ska det va' så ska det!
OPI Valentine Glitter Collection; all are glittery, and a couple even have little glitter hearts dispensed in the formula!

(Photo credit: www.lenawhite.co.uk)

OPI firar 20 års jubileum med kollektionen Colorcopia som består av en samling populära lack som utgått ur det ordinarie sortimentet, men som man nu alltså släpper igen.
In English: With the Colorcopia collection OPI celebrates 20 colorful years by re-releasing some of their most popular, earlier discontinued shades.

Colorcopia Collection:

• Berry Berry Broadway
• Cancún Fiesta
• Copper Mountain Copper
• D.C. Cherry Blossom
• Florentine Fuchsia
• French Bordeaux
• Kinky in Helsinki
• Meditteranean Moonlight
• Purple-opolis
• Sahara Sapphire
• Shootout at the O.K. Coral
• Venus di Violet

Planerar att plocka upp Kinky In Helsinki, men i övrigt är det inte mycket av intresse för min del.
Will probably pick up Kinky In Helsinki, but otherwise there's not much of interest for me personally.

South Beach Collection:

• Done Out In Deco: lilac (creme)
• Clubbing Til Sunrise: tangerine (shimmer)
• Suzi & The Lifeguard: pink (shimmer)
• Conga-Line Coral: orange-rose (shimmer)
• Overexposed In South Beach: purple (shimmer)
• Bronzed To Perfection: brown (shimmer)
• Party In My Cabana: pink (creme)
• Sand In My Suit: nude (frost)
• Paint My Moji-Toes Red: red (creme)
• Miami Beet: violet (creme)
• OPI On Collins Ave. : red orange (creme)
• Feelin’ Hot-Hot-Hot!: flamingo pink (creme)

Här finns några stycken av personligt intresse: Done Out In Deco, Suzi & The Lifeguard, Miami Beet och Overexposed In South Beach...
Done Out In Deco, Suzi & The Lifeguard, Miami Beet and Overexposed In South Beach looks interesting...

Swatches of the this collection are found here and here.

90210 Collection:

Queen of West Web-erly (purple shimmer), Sweet as Annie-Thing (lollipop red), Pretty & Privileged (ruby red)

Ohhh; nostalgi på hög nivå! Vareviga vardagseftermiddag när jag kom hem från gymnasiet satte jag mig framför TV:n och tittade på... just det; Beverly Hills 90210, och tyckte att Brandon och Dylan var sååå söta. Nu kan ni alltså räkna ut ungefär hur gammal jag är...
Hur som helst; jag paxar Pretty And Privileged från den här minikollektionen.
In English: Nostalgia! I used to watch 90210 every afternoon after I got home from highschool; thinking Brandon and Dylan were about the cutest guys on earth...
Lemming Pretty And Privileged.



So; what do you all think of these collections?