Koh - Blue Universe

Dazzle

Everything but boring. A good description for an extraordinary bottle of nail polish. Koh, a Dutch brand, happens to have some true stunners in their collection. And guess what? Blue Universe is no exception.

Blue Universe is a denim blue nail polish, enriched with duochrome flakies that flash from orange to green. That's just the beginning though, there's also plenty shimmer and glitter to feast your eyes upon. When I'm in the mood for a complex and distinctive polish, I can absolutely count on Blue Universe.

Application

Does it apply as beautifully as it looks? Yes, it does! Two quickdrying coats and you're good to go. It does need a final layer of top coat to give it that glossy look, because it does dry rather matte.
I do find the brushes of Koh polishes to be a bit thin, but nothing I can't work with. The two major letdowns of Koh polishes are their price and availability. I don't know about you, but I don't find €14,95 a bottle that cheap. If you're living outside The Netherlands, you might have trouble finding a place to purchase these Dutch gems.

In The Netherlands you can buy Koh polishes for 14,95 EUR each at Douglas, MOOI or Bijenkorf. If you're outside Holland you can try your luck over at their online shop.

Ps. these photos were taken with my compactcamera

Franken: Dorothy's Journey To The Stars!

Hi all!

A couple of years ago I was browsing the web and I stumbled upon this blog post by The Nailphile on the original Dorothy Who?. This is the first polish I fell in love with and it was the beginning of my love affair with nailpolish and nails. I spent the next few days reading her entire blog and when I was done I followed links to other blogs and did the same there.

You can imagine how happy I was when China Glaze announced they would bring the Wizard of Ooh Ahz Collection back! Finally I would have the chance to own this beauty myself! As soon as it came out I bought Dorothy Who? but when I saw it in person I was dissapointed. This looked nothing like the original and frankly, I think the new version is just plain ugly. It's too light and too silvery and kind of cheap-looking.

Left: Esprit Metallic Blue, Right: China Glaze Dorothy Who?

Another polish I was disappointed in was Metallic Blue by Esprit. It has an indigo base with turquoise and magenta microglitter and looks gorgeous in the bottle but on the nail the glitter won't show up as much as I would like. I bought this to kill the lemming I had for a darker blue glitter polish like Essie's Starry Starry Night but was not satisfied.

Close-up: left: Esprit Metallic Blue, Right: China Glaze Dorothy Who?

So I did the only reasonable thing to do: I frankened them!



I'm calling it Dorothy's Journey To The Stars.


It looks nothing like the original Dorothy Who? and nothing like Essie's Starry Starry Night but I love it! The different colored microglitters from Metallic Blue give it so much depth!


Unfortunately the sun wouldn't come out and play...




The recipe is fairly simple. I had about half a bottle of Dorothy Who? left after using if for other frankens and the Esprit polish was a 5ml mini so I just added that one to Dorothy Who? a couple of drops at a time until I was satisfied with the color which turned out to be when the entire bottle of Esprit was empty.

I think this franken needs a bit of clear polish to make a a tad more jelly and bring the glitter out more, but the bottle is full so that will have to wait until I've worn it a couple of times.

Thanks for looking!

Essence Choose Me!

Today I'm wearing Essence Choose Me! This is apparently a dupe for Zoya Charla, OPI Catch Me In Your Net and I belief there's also an Orly polish that is a dupe. I can't compare them for you because I don't own any of those. This is definitely the cheapest of them all though so if you are looking for a budget alternative, you need this in your life!

You've probably seen better pics of this on other blogs but if you haven't I strongly recommend you google this polish. It's a stunning blue-green foil glitter polish that really looks best with a bit of sunshine on it but the sun wouldn't show itself while I was taking pics.


I've seen this polish described as a glitter but I don't agree with that description. It's very sparkly but I would describe this one as a foil. Maybe a foil glitter but not just a glitter.



This is the best pic I could take that shows some of the sparkly goodness. Those of you who own this polishes or one of it's dupes know that it's much better irl but it's impossible to capture without sunlight so this pic will have to do.

Thanks for looking and until next time!

Nails, Hair, Bento and Stuff

I guess you all noticed I hadn't updated in a long time and that this has been a reoccurring theme on my blog for the past months. There has been a LOT going on in blogland which has, quite frankly, taken the fun out of blogging for me for a while. I started this blog because I love nails and nailpolish and wanted to share this with anyone who was interested in reading my ramblings. Painting my nails is relaxing for me and even when my arthritis is flaring up and I can do very little else and even the most basic daily tasks are hard, fiddling around with polish is something I can do to relax and take care of myself and my appearance. Playing with colors makes me happy. Sharing this with you guys made me happy.

This blog however, stopped making me happy. It had become a big giant Thing on my ever growing To Do List of things I don't have time or energy for next to my everyday life. My heart wasn't in it anymore and painting my nails and playing with my polish became something that drained energy instead of giving it. Where blogging and polishing my nails used to be a fun addition to my life, it now was something that life got in the way of. It took me a while to realize I did that to myself.

I do not HAVE to blog, I like it. I do not HAVE to keep up with other blogs, I like it. I do not HAVE to blog solely about nails. No matter what my blog title says, it's MY blog. I do not HAVE to have to buy myself silly to get all the latest collections and quite frankly, I DON'T want to. I have no intention of ever going professional. I have no intention of ever joining any kind of bloggers union no matter how important they think they are. I do not have to get anyone's permission to post, say or do anything on my blog and no one needs to approve. I blog for me.

So, there are probably going to be some changes to my blog over the next few hours, days, weeks, months... Or not. I won't commit to anything because that takes the fun out of it for me. If you want to stick around for that; GREAT! I really appreciate you guys and the fact that you take time to read and even comment to my blogs. I can't promise I'll respond to every comment but I will read them all and please know I appreciate them.

On a positive note: I've found something else that makes me happy. I've been growing my hair out for the past two years and it's getting to a length where I can start to do fun stuff with it. I've joined a couple of long hair fora and learned a lot about haircare and ways to put your hair up and have found a new passion: making hair sticks and forks. This means you can expect the occasional post on haircare, updo's and new hair sticks and forks I made and I'll probably catalog my hair growth here too. I might even write a tutorial on how to make hair sticks if you guys are interested.

To end this Big Wall 'O Text, here are some pics of things that made me happy today:

OPI Suzi Says Feng Shui with a gold colored holographic glitter called Stardust from Wet Glaze.

A Lazy Wrap Bun with a couple of hair sticks I made.

My bento lunch! Anyone who can look at a bunny-shaped egg without smiling should have his funnybone checked.

On the left: fried rice with red pepper, garlic, courgette, peas and tauge, a soy sauce fishy and a bunny-shaped egg. On the right: mini pancakes (poffertjes), clotted cream, strawberry jam, a couple of mini roma tomatoes and some pistachios. Not the healthiest of bento's but it's perfect comfort food!

ETA: My comment system is spacing out on me. Hang in there, I'll see if I can fix it!

An idea that would have been too much

So yesterday I mentioned buying 2 new Funky Fingers, well here is #2. This is called Sand and Stilettos, I <3 this name!!! Thinking this was going to be semi sheer like Golden Coast, I first used a base of Sinful's Black on Black. To my surprise, it was really almost opaque in 1 coat! Then I had this idea I wanted to do, since I had some fimo butterflies with me, but after I did the scotch tape design, I thought it would have been too much. So I just left it as is, and on my lunch break, will attempt my idea with other colors :)

I started with my black

Then added 1 coat of Sand and Stilettos

then half ass attempted my idea, lol, but here is a sneak peak, or idea, for tomorrows mani :)  I again used my black for the design & scotch tape.

Another Shredded Mani...

I had tried another Shredded mani using one of Funky Fingers 2010 Holiday glitters, Blitzen. It's sooo sparkly! I just used my regular black as well. It was waaaaaayyyy easier to see the actual shredded part in real life.

My Quilted Mani....

Okay, so I didn't want to do another Patchwork Mani, so I did this. A friend over on MUA said I should call it my Quilted Mani, since in my Patchwork, I use 3 colors, and this is 4. I love it, so that's what it's called :P

I used China Glaze Towel Boy Toy, China Glaze Recycle, Sinful Black on Black and OPI Simmer & Shimmer.

Playing with Perplex....

So I finally got Revlon Perplex, Chanel's Pradoxal dupe!! I actually grabbed 2, but I'm saving 1 for a give away I'm going to have, along with some other prettes :) I'll probaby have it after the new year!! It really is such a pretty color, and the hidden shimmer is GORG! Here are a bunch of different manis, all using this!!!

Here she is all by her pretty self :)

Then I used my Bundle Monster plate, BM20 to do this design. I just used Sinful's Black on Black for the image

Here I did Perplex with Nicole's Pitch Black Glimmer over top

Annnnnnnd....of course black tips :)

Then I tried it under Barielle's Elle's Spell, and LOVED IT!!! You can really see the flakies in Elle's Spell now.

But add a coat of the Nicole Pitch Black Glimmer, and you have a very fun mani!!!

A Holiday layering experiment....

This was a mani that I did, just sort of playing around, lol, but I loved how it turned out. I started with my Sinful's Black on Black, and then added Sinful's All About You. Its an awesome gold, orange, rust colored glitter.

Then, cause I can never leave anything alone, I wanted to add some red to this, just to make it a tad more festive. I had this polish I ordered from Forever 21, and loved it, but it was just to sheer. Well, it was perfect for what I visioned. I love how it was sheer enough to let All About You still show through!

The Black Widow....

Now, I'm not 100% sure what made me come up with this, and it would have been great for Halloween, but it's still fun now :P It's just back and Milani Red Sparkle. Thank goodness these are core, cause I LOVE this red!!!

This is how it started....with an edgier version of the half moon mani :P I polished my nails black, then added a coat of SV. I then taped them off, and painted the red triangles next  to my cuticles, like so. Then one more coat of SV.

Then after they were mostly dry, I taped off my tips and painted them red : P