Nfu Oh 51 Revisited

Nfu Oh 51

Oh Nfu Oh 51.. If there's one polish that got me into nail polish big time, this is the one. I've written about it before, but there's no such thing as too much attention when we're talking Nfu Oh 51. Come on, just look at it! It's like magic on your nails.
A beautiful blurple base, glowiness, flakies, no wait, DUOCHROME flakies, Nfu Oh 51 has it all. No wonder it's always out of stock somewhere..

The awesomeness that's Nfu Oh 51, is hard to capture on camera though. Sometimes it's leaning more towards purple and at other times it's definitely more of a glowy red. Especially in low light you can see the duochrome flakies change color like a chameleon: from red to orange to green. For this manicure I layered it over Claire's Magic, a purple polish with lots of shimmer, an absolutely perfect candidate to team up with #51.

Application

You can use #51 on its own or you can layer it like I did. If you want to wear it on its own, you'll need about three coats. If you're going to layer it, just one layer will give you the effect you see in the photos. The formula is kinda jelly and squishy, so I'd suggest using a quickdrying top coat with this. One layer of top coat will smooth out the flakies and add more intensity to the color.

You can order Nfu Oh 51 ($9.90 for 17ml) at Viis Ilusalong or ($12.50 for 17ml) at Fabuloustreet.com (I suggest paying with paypal as there were some credit card troubles in the past..) or at Nail XL (currently out of stock).

Beauty Salon Dimensions 2010 & A dupe for Chanel Paradoxal?

Beauty Salon Dimensions Event

Hi guys! Today Daphne and me went to an event called Beauty Salon Dimensions. This fair is visited by cosmeticians and nail techs mostly, but everyone is welcome there. A lot of awesome brands were present, showcasing their beautiful products. Nailwise, you could visit stands with brands like China Glaze, OPI, CND, Herome, Trind, Nfu Oh, and the list goes on.
The Netherlands is a bit behind when it comes to new collections, so unfortunately I won't be able to present hot scoops to you, but I do have some eyecandy for you to see. Read More after the jump!

Trind Cosmetics

Dutch brand Trind Cosmetics gives us a sneak peak of their newest collection for this winter. Pretty huh? The representative told me Trind adds four new colors to their selection every winter and summer, so I'll definitely keep an eye out for those!

Nfu Oh

Nfu Oh Nederland was there as well. I've never seen so many Nfu Oh's Together. Heaven! I've added a lot of these to my ever-growing wish list.

OPI

OPI had such a beautiful and impressive stand. Their entire range of products were beautifully showcased. The products were selling so fast they had to keep restocking non stop. I was really hoping to catch a glimpse of the Burlesques, but as I mentioned before, Holland is a tad slow.

OPI's current Designer Series Collection. The two new shades Magic and Radiance were also there. DS Magic looked insanely close to my manicure of the day: ORLY's Lunar Eclipse! Dupe alert?

OPI Swiss Collection swatches, how convenient!

I also took this picture of the Go Goth! collection. They sold these mini packs as well, too bad I couldn't purchase anything since I'm just a consumer.

Hollywood Nails

I LOVE discovering (new to) me brands. Hollywood Nails is a German brand, but their products are available in 12 European countries. I picked up four polishes here, 3 of them cost 2.99 EUR and one of them cost only 0.99 EUR! I hope I will be able to swatch these soon, they're absolute stunners. Further down in this post you will see #509 compared to a high end nail polish..

Aren't these pretty?! From this collection I bought #04 and #509.

ProNailFoil

ProNailFoil is a company that specializes in foils for nails. Appliques seem to be hotter than ever! They gave a nice demo and they looked really cool. I didn't really like the designs that much, but they did have a huuuge selection to choose from.

Chanel versus Hollywood Nails

Woah look at that! The colors in this picture aren't true to life AT ALL, but it shows the similarities very well. The base color and even the shimmer is practically the same! The shimmer in Paradoxal is a little bit bigger, but damn, it's close. I'd say this is closer to being a dupe than Models Own's Purple Grey! And it only cost me 3 euros.

Overall

I had a great time today! I absolutely loved oogling all the pretty polishes and makeup. I've bought some awesome polishes by Hollywood Nails and the new fall colors by CND. Score! Me and Daphne had a really nice talk with one of CND's representatives from BeautyXL and she told us CND will be releasing a gorgeous deep navy blue polish this winter. Can't wait!

I hope you enjoyed this little report of our day, thanks so much for stopping by!
- With love, Michèle

Review: Gosh - Fix Base Coat, just as good as Nfu Oh Aqua Base?

Hi guys, maybe you remember my review on Nfu Oh's Aqua Base? Nfu Oh Aqua base is a base coat especially designed to go under hard to apply holographic polishes. I'm really happy with this base coat because it works absolute wonders. When it comes to applying, but also extending the wear majorly.

Some weeks ago I got an email from Marte, she told me about the Gosh Fix Base Coat and how it should have a similar effect! Ironically I've had this base coat for ages, months before I even ordered the Nfu Oh Aqua Base, but I never tried it beneath holographic polishes.

Nfu Oh vs. Gosh

Marte was right, these two base coats are really similar, the have the same structure and almost an identical smell, but do they both work...?

My answer is yes! I tried it with Nfu Oh holos and the notoriously hard to apply Gosh Holographic nail polish and they went on sooo easily. You'll get better coverage, which allows you to use less product for the same end result. Both these both coats work really nicely with matte and suede polishes as well.

Conclusion

So, if it's hard to get your hands on Nfu Oh, or you don't like to order online and have access to this brand, definitely give the Gosh Fix Base Coat a shot! Thank you so much, Marte, for the great tip!

Relatively the price is quite a bit higher than the Aqua Base (9.10 EUR for 18 ml) though. Gosh Fix Base Coat costs 6.95 EUR for a bottle of 7 ml.

Thank you all for stopping by and have an awesome day!
- Michèle

Review: Nfu Oh Aqua Base

Extra oomph?

Lately I've been reading a lot about a special base coat by Nfu Oh, the Aqua Base. This base coat is specifically designed to go under holographic nail polish. On several blogs I read this base coats gives extra "oomph" to holographic nail polishes, it would even make Nfu Oh 61 a dupe for Chanel Holographic. Oh la la. So my nail polish heart beat a little faster and I before I knew it I had ordered myself a bottle.

Application

Nfu Oh holos are notorious for their patchy application and bad wear, but this base coat makes application a whole lot easier. This milky base coat smells a bit funny, almost like glue, but luckily it doesn't have a very strong scent. I only need 2 (!) coats of Nfu Oh #66, when applied over the Aqua Base instead of the usual 3 or 4 to cover up any bald patches. So that's a huge plus for me! I can't really tell anything about the wear yet, but I promise to update this post when I know more.

Put it to the test

But does it really spice up the holographic effect? I tried it myself, with Nfu Oh #66, a gorgeous lime green holo. I applied 2 layers of the Aqua Base and 4 layers on top of Orly Bonder. I skipped the top coat. Mhmm, honestly, I see no difference, do you? I'd totally recommend this base coat for its ability to handle holographics so well, though!

I wanted to end this post with a little bit of news for my Brazilian readers! Yesterday I stumbled upon this link, and found out a brand called Rivka is going to introduce esmaltes Holográficos in Brasil. Sanction Angel is also releasing (in 10 or 15 days) a bunch of - to die for - holos, how hot are THESE?!

You can order this base coat at NailXL or check out my faq for other etailers.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!
- Michèle

It's Alive!

Mijn laatste blogpost is al een tijdje geleden maar ik ben niet toegekomen aan bloggen doordat ik druk was met tentamens en de nieuwe pup. Maar het is zomervakantie nu dus ik heb tijd om het in te halen. Bedankt dat jullie toch zijn blijven plakken!

Ik heb niet van alle NOTD's van de laatste tijd foto's kunnen maken maar ik heb er wel een aantal voor jullie.

It has been a while since my last blogpost but I just didn't get around to it with finals and the new puppy. But it's summer vacation no so I'll have time to catch up. thank you so much for sticking around everyone!

I haven't been able to photograph every NOTD lately but I do have a couple for you.

Laat ik maar beginnen met mijn NOTD van vandaag. Ik heb mijn nagels kort gevijld en ik vind het eigenlijk wel mooi dus ik denk dat ik ze een tijdje zo houd. Het voordeel is ook dat de Konad full-nail plates nu op bijna al mijn nagels passen behalve mijn ringvingernagel maar de ruimte die overblijft is klein dus dat vind ik niet erg.

Ik heb Nfu Oh #65 gebruikt met Konad plate S06 en Wet 'n Wild Black Creme voor het stempelen.

Let's start with my NOTD from today. I filed my nails down to nubbins and I actually like the style so I think I'll keep them this way for a while. The good thing about this is the Konad full-nail plates will actually fit all my nails except my ringfinger nails now, but the remaining gap on my ringfinger nail is so small it doesn't bother me.

I used Nfu Oh #65,Konad plate S06 and Wet 'n Wild Black Creme for stamping. 

Nfu Of maakt de beste holo's! Ze zijn belachelijk schitterend, glanzend en makkelijk om mee te werken, daarnaast zijn de flesjes prachtig. Als ik een snelle zomerse manicure wil grijp ik altijd naar de Nfu Oh holo's omdat ze zo snel drogen. Het zijn eigenlijk matte lakken maar omdat de holo zo enorm sterk is valt dat haast niet op.

Nfu Oh makes the best holo's! They are insanely sparkly, shiny and easy to work with plus the bottles are beautiful. If I need a quick summery manicure I always grab for the Nfu Oh holo's because they dry so fast. They are actually matte but it's hardly noticeable because of the insane holo shine.

En dan nu de reden dat ik weinig foto's heb kunnen posten...

And now the reason I couldn't post as much...

Ziet er onschuldig uit hè?

Looks innocent right?

Fout! Het is een nagellak-etend monster! Ik weet niet meer welke lak de eerste was maar het heeft het maar een paar uur gered. De tweede foto is Color Club Wild At Heart.

Wrong! It's a nailpolish eating monster! I can't remember what polish the first one was but I know it didn't last more than a couple of hours. The second pic is Color Club Wild At Heart.

En hij vind het leuk om me te helpen om swap pakketjes uit te pakken.

And he likes to help me unpack swap packages.

Maar dan gaat hij weer nagellak jatten...

But then he goes and steals polish....

Op mijn nagels zit hier OPI Who The Shrek Are You?

My nails are painted with OPI Who The Shrek Are You?

Maar hij kan ook lief zijn...

But he can be sweet...

Dat was het weer voor vandaag. Bedankt voor het kijken en ik beloof dat ik jullie niet weer zo lang zal laten wachten!

That is it for today. Thanks for looking and I promise I won't keep you waiting this long again!

Kiko 300 meets Nfu Oh 52!

flake it up Remember my review on Kiko 300? I actually wore this for quite some time, and on the second day I decided to add a little bit of extra spark! After debating what to do with it (so many polishes, nothing to wear!), I picked out Nfu Oh 52, fabulous flakies in a blurple jelly base. You definitely can wear #52 alone, but it requires about 4 layers to eliminate the evil VNL (visible nail line), so lazy as I am, I went with layering.

Mhmmm cherries...

When I got #52, I expected to get a more purple jelly base, but the more you build it up, the bluer it gets.
Not only do you get duochrome flakies that flash from green, teal to blue, there's also green microglitter serving as the cherry on top. Doesn't that just suck?

I have to admit the flakies got a bit lost in the picture, since the base was already teal-ish blue to begin with, but I think it sure makes a nice mermaid-y manicure. AND I promise hereby to post the Nfu Oh on it's own and layered over several other colors soon!

Got some great layering suggestions? Please share!

Well dear readers, this post has come to an end! I thank you all for stopping by and wish you a great day!
- Michèle

Review: Nfu Oh Flower Oil

Ingredients

Nfu Oh Cuticle Flower Oil packed with nourishing botanicals and aroma essential herb oil. Real flower provide the great fragrance to your nails and cuticles. Nfu Oh Flower Oil filled enriched with Vitamin E and aroma esssential oils. It has mositurizer for penetrate deeply and quickly, softening into skin for healthy, growing natural nails.

Mineral oil, Aroma Essential Oil, and Dried Flowers.

Eye candy

For today I have a review on Nfu Oh's cuticle oils, named Flower Oil. Let me start off by saying these are hands down the prettiest cuticles oils I've come across so far. The oil is contained by the 'regular' Nfu Oh bottle we all know and love. The cap is shaped like a corset, and the bottle is a draped skirt with scroll and floral details, just as you'll find on the cap. On the bottom of each bottle you'll find dried flowers floating about which makes it incredibly cool to look at. So, when I placed a Nfu Oh order a while ago I just had to try these out. I got the Banana scented one and my mom chose the one that smell like Jasmine.

Is it all that?

I'm afraid the praise has to end here. While the smell is nice, this product isn't really doing anything for me. And my mom isn't a big fan either. It just doesn't feel like it's moisturizing at all. After some research online (the label doesn't list any ingredients), I found out what I already suspected: the main ingredient is mineral oil. Now the opinions are divided on this, but mineral oil (basically just baby oil) to me is pointless as it cannot penetrate the nails or skin. It can work as a sealant, so maybe it could do any good if you apply this after you rubbed in some Lemony Flutter.

Final judgement

I don't really understand why a brand with such great packaging and normally high quality products, would want to sell cheap ass oil that doesn't do jack. It isn't cheap either, depending on where you buy it you'll have to pay 8.55 EUR or 12.50 USD for 17ml.

Available Scents:

Vanilla Banana

Sun Flower Mango

Orange Rose

Strawberry Plumeria

Bubble Gum Lavender

Peppermint Jasmine

Green spring mani!

Hola dear readers! I hope everyone had a great weekend, the weather in Holland was amazing, spring at its best! The weather was so good, I felt like bustin out another spring mani. I even dug up this nail art carousel by Essence. You all know I'm such a wuss when it comes to nailart, so it was still unpacked, covered by a layer of dust haha. I used Sephora's Picnic at the Park as base color, I'm planning on doing a comparison with it soon, so I'm not really going to get into that right now.But if you're planning on using it: it stains like crazy. Be warned.

I topped this with a layer of Nfu Oh 50, a really pretty lilac base with duochrome flakies. The flakies weren't as dense as I hoped so I applied a 2nd layer.

I must have gotten a sunstroke because after that I took my Essence Nail Art Glitter Mix, called Glam it up and chose some pretty duochrome flower glitters. These glitters flash seagreen and purple depending on the light, really cool! I applied them when a toothpick in the still wet layer of Nfu Oh. These glitters are quite thick and definitely not bendable. I think this is a really pretty nail art kit, the other glitters look really cool too. There are 2 kinds of flowers, 2 kinds of circle thingies and 2 kinds of teardrops.

Does good weather influence your manicure as well?

Essence Nail Art Glitter Mix - 01 - Glam it Up!

How to: Happy Cuticles!

Hi everyone! I've done a lot of swatching today, but my MacBook failed on me AGAIN :-(. I got it up and running again but most of my recent files are gone. I've been swatching some great colors by American Apparel, Diamond Cosmetics and Eyeko. So expect those soon, after I redid them, lol!
Since I don't have anything nice to show you, I figured I'd write about another subject I'm getting a lot of questions about, cuticle care. I've always had awful looking cuticles and after trying a lot of things, this is my routine now:

1. To cut or not to cut? A lot of people pick, or bite or cut their cuticles, using clippers or scissors. Please don't! I'm a firm believer of the no cutting regime, and I'll tell you why. Cuticles are a very important part of the nail growth cycle, when you tick them off, you're bound to see this reflect in your nail growth. Cuticles serve as a natural barrier to bacteria and fungus. If you fiddle with this too much, you'll lose this protection. And not too mention the risk of nasty infections that can lead to permanent nail damage. Yikes. If you insist on doing this, make sure you use sterile tools. As you can see in this very old picture, I, admittedly, used to cut mine too. You can see how annoyed they look, but I just didn't know how to care for them.	Sad cuticles :-(
Nfu Oh Cuticle Remover	2. Get rid of it After soaking in warm water, simply push back your cuticles with an orange stick or cuticle pusher. Be careful though, or you'll end up with damage anyway. Now, I've raved about this before, but I love love love Nfu Oh's Cuticle remover. I use this religiously and it makes a huge difference! There are different kinds of cuticle removers out there, the ones that just soften your cuticle and the ones that actually work. The latter are the so called A.H.A removers. Alpha Hydroxy Acids are natural exfoliators that dissolve and slough away dry, dead skin. Some other A.H.A. cuticle removers are CND Cuticle Eraser or OPI Avoplex Exfoliating Cuticle Treatment. Just apply the stuff on the cuticle and move an orange stick along the cuticle and watch the gunk come off!
3. Moisturize! Another huge part of taking care of your cuticles, is hydration. In order to keep them supple and healthy, you need to keep them hydrated. If I'm slacking, I'll notice this right away. There are a lot of products out there that promise moisturized cuticles, but I'm very picky. There are balms, oils, creams, butters, you name it. I think we're seeing oils the most and funnily enough I like these the least. They often contain mineral oil and they seem to dry out my cuticles even more. The product I'm using a LOT is Lemony Flutter by Lush. It does contain oils but probably in the right conjunction, because this stuff is miraculous. Every night before I go to bed, I slap this on and I wake up with super soft cuticles.	Lemony Flutter by Lush
Happy cuticle :-)	4. What do you do? So, that's all there is to it actually! Step away from the clippers & nippers, get a good cuticle remover and moisturize like there's no tomorrow. Some lovely Brazilian readers told me it's common for them to cut the cuticles, so I'm really curious to see how many of you are doing this: Do you cut your cuticles? No! Yes! Yes, but I'm not going to anymore    pollcode.com free polls

So now you know all about how I keep my cuticles happy, I hope this was helpful! Thanks for reading and I'll see you soon!
- Michèle

Catrice - I Sea You

Hello everyone! Everybody enjoyed their weekend? I was feeling a bit under the weather so I didn't really do much, like, totally nothing. But I do have a post for you today!

We all know the European brand Catrice for coming up out of nowhere with an amazing collection, filled with trendy colors. This brand used to be so bland, and now they're dominating Dutch drug stores with their unbeatable coolness. I've drooled over some of their colors before, and today I want to introduce you to: I Sea You. This one is just gorgeous, a beautiful dusty aqua/turquoise-y green creme. Application wasn't that great, but my P2 thinner was there to save the day, and after applying 2 coats, all was good.

It isn't the uniquest color out there, it sure is similar to some other polishes we all know and love. Let's take a look at this comparison I did:

As you can see: I Sea You is incredibly close to Misa's Dirty Sexy Money. It's a bit lighter and maybe a bit more on the blue side, but still very similar. Slate green is a whole bit lighter and Nfu Oh #431 is less dusty. What's your favorite?

Thanks for reading and till next time!
- Michèle

Nfu Oh #64

Hi everyone! Hope everyone is having a great day. Today's a holiday here in The Netherlands, so everyone is wearing orange, since that's our national color. I absolutely hate orange 90% of the time so I decided on this very festive polish: Nfu Oh (pronounced En Foo Ooh), number 64. #64 is a not very subtle mauve-ish holographic polish. I showed you #65 a while ago, and this one is pretty much the same. Application is a bit patchy, so it could take up to 3 coats for complete opacity. The finish is very smooth though, so 3 coats won't leave you with big chunky nails, thankfully! The best thing about Nfu Oh's holographics is that they're still enjoyable as hell when you're not lounging around in the sun. Very cool. I once said I liked subtle holos better than these, but I find myself liking these blingtastic ones more and more, they just never cease to amaze me. The fact that even guys turn their heads to get a glimpse of my nails when I'm wearing this, isn't an influence at all! ;-). This is too good to be true, you might think. What's the catch? Well, there is one and that's the wear. After 2 days you'll already notice major tip wear and spots where the polish already has worn off. Nfu Oh has a special base coat for their holographic polishes though, namely the Acqua base coat. Unfortunately I don't have it, but perhaps it could make all the difference! Another thing, I think it's good to know that these holos dry somewhat matte, I used top coat once (David top coat) and the holo effect definitely got duller! Thanks so much for reading, take care! -Michèle