Kiko 400 - Steel Grey (Swatch)

Good morning!

While scrolling through my blog pictures folder, I noticed that I never posted my swatches of the fourth polish from the Kiko Lavish Oriental collection. I bought this one a couple of weeks later than the rest, which is probably the reason. But for consistency, here are the swatches of Kiko 400 aka Steel Grey.

I'm glad that I bought it. I wasn't so interested in this grey at first, but after seeing swatches I felt the need to buy it. Together with the beige holo, Steel Grey got the strongest holo effect out of the four. But it's not an in your face holo. I'm still waiting for my China Glaze holos... I can't wait to compare their holoness. Though, I already know that the particle size is different.

Since I tried to capture the holo effect on all the other pictures, here's one in lamp light. The holo is still there, but it's faint. I find it pretty in this 'state' too. It's a sparkly grey, quite opaque (2 coats) and its drying time is quite good. Also, topcoat doesn't dull the holo effect. I have yet to try them Lavish Oriental polishes for stamping, but I think there are better ones.

Have you got any of the Lavish Oriental Holos? What do you think of them?
Have a nice day~

Kiko 402 - Jewel Pink (Swatch)

Hello~

Today, I want to show you a few pictures of the last of the three holographic polishes I bought from the new Kiko LE this week. It has the number 402 and is called Jewel Pink.

As the name suggests, 402 is a pink holo polish, but the holo is a lot more subdued in this one compared to the other two. It's still pretty though.

The holo effect is there and it is linear, but it doesn't show up as a rainbow, but rather like some sort of glow, because the colors are close to the base color.

It's a pretty pink, but out of all the four polishes from this LE, I'd say it's the least impressive. Application was the same as the other two, quite easy. You see two coats in my pictures.

I'm a bit disappointed in this one. I hope the new series of holos that are going to be released in the coming months are going to include some pink holos with a stronger effect. I'd probably buy other colors with priority, but pink is a nice classic color... might feel the need to have a strong pink holo.

What's your opinion on this one?

Kiko 399 - Silk Taupe (Swatch)

Here I am again with another picture spam involving the new holographic polishes from the Lavish Oriental LE by Kiko. I'm still amazed... and I'm so glad that we currently have sunny weather in my region. Perfect conditions to try out my new bunch of holos~

So after yesterday's post about the teal holo called Peacock Green, I want to present some many pictures of Kiko 399 today, a shade called Silk Taupe.

Compared to Peacock Green, the holo effect is quite a bit stronger. Even my crappy camera shows the full holo-V! For my pictures, I applied two coats and it appeared to be opaque. Although, right now, my nails are rather short, so if you have longer nails, you might need three. Since it is so easy to apply and dries quickly, this won't be problematic though. Like yesterday, I used no base or top coat.

Silk Taupe is a really light delicate color. Maybe my definition of what a taupe looks like differs from Kiko's, but to me Silk Taupe is no taupe shade. It's a beautiful greige that goes surprisingly well with my skintone. I can imagine this as a nice office color for all those that can't wear bright nail polish to work, but still love to wear something with a twist. On my pictures it looks quite silvery, but it's definitely no silver holo.

There's not much to add here. Silk Taupe behaves just like Peacock Green... flawless and easy to apply and it's quite shiny on its own. The holo effect stays very visible in indirect lighting too.

What do you think about this beauty? I think I really like it... it's probably going to be a color I'll reach out to whenever I feel like something calm. And yeah, that happens too. I just feel kinda bad if I'm uncreative and wearing a nail polish all on its own, hehe.

Kiko 401 - Peacock Green (Swatch)

I'm so excited right now! I just had to write a blog post immediately and show you a few pictures of my newest holo polish: Peacock Green aka 401 from the newest limited edition by Kiko called Lavish Oriental. I'm really glad I went to my local Kiko store today, because I bought the last three bottles from the nail polish display. Which means, I didn't get all of them, but I got all of the polishes I was really interested in.

For now, let's begin my picture spam of Kiko 401. I always wanted a teal holo and now, I pretty much got what I was looking for~

Let's just say this first: my camera refuses to take proper pictures of holographic polishes. The effect is stronger than what my pictures show. It's not as strong as the China Glaze OMG collection or any Laylas, but it is very visible and it's a linear holo effect!

Peacock Green is a light teal leaning to a light blue. A very summery teal in my opinion. It reminds me of the crystal clear water of the mediterranean sea in Spain. I would have loved it a tad more if it'd lean green, but I'm not going to complain until I have a greenish teal holo with a similar effect for the same price.

Application was a dream for a holo polish. I didn't use any base or top coat for my pictures. The first coat was a little bit patchy, but no way as bad as Make Up Store Greta. It smoothed out with the second coat and the drying time was really good too. When it is drying, it starts to look dull for a while, but then gets glossy again. I'll try later how it works with a top coat. I just hope my new teal love is no stainer.

I'm constantly looking at my fingertips right now... so pretty! The holo effect is very visible even here in front of my notebook... far away from any ray of sunlight. But it's certainly the prettiest in direct sunlight. That's when the full holo-V is showing up in all its glory~

I have no idea how long this limited edition (Lavish Oriental) is going to be on sale. It has not yet shown up on the German Kiko website and I don't think it's been on sale longer than a week. I mean, holos!? How can there by any left after more than a week!? So for all those who have no Kiko store in reach, I definitely recommend to check the online store every now and then. Those holos are worth every cent.

Apropos cent, all four shades (399-402) come in the usual Kiko bottle that holds 11ml (0.37 fl.oz.) and is sold for 4.90€ per polish. That's not exactly cheap, but for a true holo, it's not bad at all. Especially for a teal holo... :D

Okay, picture spam end. What do you think? Do you agree that it looks awesome!?
I'm going to post pictures of the other two tomorrow!

Snowflake Bling Bling

I'm sorry for not posting in a week or so. I have some really nasty stuff to sort out and I don't know if I can at all... Well, I'll know on friday, I guess. I'll either scream with joy or be broke for the rest of the year... But I suppose it will be the latter.

I think I did today's mani on the last day of the Christmas holidays. I felt like a blingy manicure somehow. Well, I guess that was due to me browsing a lot of Japanese nail art blogs over the holidays. It's really interesting how different Japanese and, let's say, western nail art blogs are.

Anyway, I got inspired by one of the designs I discovered on a Japanese blog. I forgot to write down which one, though. The Japanese design was a gel manicure and stiletto length... they sure have a lot of "canvas" on those! But I decided that I would try something similar on my rather short nails.

I received some new nail art supplies in December, so I had a chance to use those too. So I ended up using 4 different sizes of rhinestones, buillon beads, two kinds of large pailettes and some studs. The snowflakes are not painted this time. I used some decals I bought in Japan years ago. I'm really reluctant on using those. I mean, if they are gone, I don't have any anymore ^^; And I don't know when I will be back in Japan next time. Aside from that, I didn't use anything special for this mani:

I think I'll be getting myself some svarowski rhinestones soon. I just hate how the acrylic ones get cloudy...

Biocura - Fliederzauber

So today, I want to show you a polish called Fliederzauber. It's by the brand Biocura, that is only sold by German discounter Aldi Nord. I'm not living in a region that has Aldi Nord stores, but luckily my sister is, so I asked her to get it for me. Very nice of her!

Fliederzauber is actually a holographic polish that retails for 1,99€ and contains 11ml per bottle. A lot of other nail polish lovers in Germany too were very surprised that a discounter like Aldi Nord would sell holographic nail polish - and a pretty one at that!

I did this manicure ages ago, but since I rarely do French manicures and thought that technically this one turned out okay, I didn't want to just skip it. So I first painted my nails with 2 coats of Fliederzauber, no base coat this time. 2 coats were okay, but some may prefer three. I'm not very fond of the brush, but I can't complain here since the polish was only 1,99€. Just like a lot of holographic polishes, Fliederzauber is on the thin side too, but it's still okay. It tends to drag a little bit when you apply the second coat too early. Impatient me had to redo one or two nails because of that... ^^;
Anyway, when all 2 coats were dry I added p2 rich as my French color. Fliederzauber and rich look nice together, but I didn't like the combination at first. I actually didn't like Fliederzauber with my skintone at first, but after a few days, it grew on me.

I used top coat here and it didn't dull the holo effect. Fliederzauber is not a strong holo, but rather a subtle one. It is still very pretty though. I'm definitely going to ask my sister to get me at least one backup. You never know how long they will be selling this beauty...

One more thing about this manicure concerns p2 rich. I had this feeling that rich is a dupe for Deborah Milano's Mirror Glow No.153 that I wore a while ago. Colorwise, I still think it is. But that's it. rich does contain flakies too, but they are way more pronounced in No.153. The effect is completely different. So I decided for myself that these two are no dupes. (yes, I feel better now that those two are no dupes :D)

Fail: Silver polish stamped... and shattered...

Okay, I consider this mani a huge fail. It didn't turn out right at all. I had this idea, but it just didn't turn out the way I wanted. Meh.

I have these metallic polishes by drugstore brand "basic". They are very cheap and actually aren't too bad. I chose the silver one. My idea was to try essence - Style me love for stamping and I thought that silver would make a nice base for that. Style me love actually works for stamping, but the stamping design I chose is too weak for a silver background. I'll try again some other time.

I didn't like the result enough, so I added one coat of Flormar 392 to give it something extra. Well, failed. I didn't like it better at all. But I still like 392 a lot.

After wearing this for 2 days, I felt like I had to add something else. I had seen several blogposts painting crackle polishes diagonally, so I tried that.

 

I think it looks a lot more cracked that way than when you paint it straight. I like that. But I still didn't like the manicure... ^^;

Well, there have to be fails to appreciate a nice mani. ^^;

Milani - Hi-tech

Another week has passed.... again! Time is flying by so quickly lately... :(

Anyway, we have had sunny weather in Germany! So I decided to wear one of my new holographic polishes. I chose Milani's Hi-tech, the green polish from their holo line.

Greens are usually a difficult color for me, but this one works with my skin tone, I think. I like Hi-tech a lot! It's all sparkly and shining soooo pretty in the sunlight. Sadly, my camera failed me at taking pictures. I don't know how many I took exactly, but most of them were totally weird. It really seemed to me that the holo effect was too much for my camera. Or maybe the combination of holo and the green. No idea.

I recently decided to cut down my nails. I'm working a lot more on the computer lately and my nails started to get in my way while typing. It's way more convinient right now, but I miss the length... Looking at these pictures doesn't make it better at all... Plus, right after cutting them down, they started breaking again. And here I thought my nails were finally getting stronger :(
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