Toma : Prima Donna (review)

Hey everyone! Hope you're having a good week so far :)

Prima Donna

Today I have a dark, vampy colour to show you. I received 2 Toma nail polishes for review with the help of Julia from Nailtopia. I have never tried this brand before, so I was really excited to be given the opportunity of reviewing these!

Toma Nail polish is produced and sold by Mad Beauty Ltd in the UK. You can buy their nail polish from Nailtopia, at the price of roughly 6£ excl. tax.

Toma nail polish comes in bottles of 13.31 ml and I quite like the bottle - it's heavy and of nice quality. One thing I do like to mention is that it's 3-Free and not tested on animals, but it does contain Formaldehyde Resin, so it's not 4-Free. The smell of it was not overwhelming, neither was it particularly pleasant (as nail polish rarely is).

Prima Donna consists of a black jelly base with loads of red microglitter. The brush was very good, perfect for my nails and I had very little clean-up work to do. 

I used my regular basecoat, NailTek II and 3 coats of Prima Donna. I was expecting to use more than two, but if you have shorter nails and are a little more careful/use thicker coats, I'm sure you can get away with two. Another idea would be to use a black creme as base colour, as I often do - but I wanted to show you this gorgeous colour on it's own for this review ;)

I decided to take a picture outside as well - this polish really glows in the sunlight! All of the glitter from the first layers shines through the jelly base, making it deep and gorgeous to look at ♥

Inside:

Toma - Prima Donna - inside, flash

Outside:

Toma - Prima Donna - outside, sunlight

While the colour is not unique, I absolutely love it. I haven't tried China Glaze - Lubu Heels, so I don't know how they compare, but I own and have worn Eyeko Vampira and while they're very similar, I think there's just a little more glitter in Prima Donna. It would make sense, since Vampira covers after two coats and PD needs three. If I were to choose, I'd go for Prima Donna since the brush is so nice to work with - and the price is very nice, too!

I'm very satisfied with my first experience with this brand. I tend to be rather picky about the details - and the only thing I can put my finger on is that it contains Formaldehyde resin, which isn't an ingredient I steer clear of anyway. This is definitely a brand I'll be keeping an eye on for future releases!

♥ Vetten


(The product in this post was provided for review by MAD Beauy, UK)

Lippmann : Lady Sings The Blues

Sorry for not putting up a mani in ages! I have so many pictures I want to show, but too little time to make the posts for you. I'll try to be more effective next week :)

Lippmann - Lady Sings The Blues

Today I'm wearing Deborah Lippmann - Lady Sings The Blues. This glitter has been a want for me a long time, but as I didn't want the other glitters from the set I put off buying it until I could get it on it's own. As luck had it, I found it on Ebay a few weeks ago and last week I could finally say it was mine.

I was saving it for a weekend manicure, and yesterday was the perfect opportunity to try it out. I must say that I was pretty disappointed with my manicure. I used one coat over one coat of En Vogue, a dark blue Catrice polish. Maybe I should have put on more layers? I will try it on top of a lighter blue next time to see if it's the base that is too dark.

I think the basic problem for me is that the glitter looks amazing in pictures, because it looks white, but in real life it's silver. And it's hard to get it to shine and capture light indoor but in the pictures it looks amazing. I don't know why that bothers me though. It's such a silly thing, and I should cherish this polish because it tops a lot of other polishes I have.. Maybe I thought I'd be as thrilled with it as Glitter In The Air? I think it'll be hard to top that glitter for me.

Watching the macro-bottle shot I love this polish to pieces - it looks amazing! I'm honestly thinking of using the picture for some art projects :)

So, while I definitely love the polish, I'm still on a mission to make it work for me.

Here's a shot of my manicure ~

Catrice Glamourama - En Vogue + Lippmann - Lady Sings The Blues

To sum everything up I used; NailTek II Foundation, Catrice - En Vogue (from the LE Glamourama collection), Deborah Lippmann - Lady Sings The Blues and lastly, a thick coat of China Glaze Fast Forward. If you want a completely smooth finish, it'll take two coats.

To repeat, this really does look divine in pictures. In real life, not so much. I almost wish I could've gotten a picture of how the result looks in real life, but alas, it's a very photogenic polish ;)

Have a great Sunday everyone! And welcome to my new followers; I can't believe there's 200+ of you out there following my blog! :)

♥ Vetten

Lippmann: Glitter In The Air

Having finally beaten my headache/migraine (sometimes it's hard to feel where one ends and the other begins), I kicked myself off the couch to try out a new polish I got yesterday... One that I loved immediately when seeing it on to-be-released posts.

Deborah Lippmann - Glitter In The Air

The polish I'm talking about is Glitter In The Air, just released by Deborah Lippmann. Lippmann is famous for her amazing, one of a kind glitters crammed with big and small hex glitters in a jelly base. 

These polishes are some of my very favourites - I don't wear them often, granted, but I treasure them dearly and save them for a day that needs something extra.

Glitter In The Air is not like the most of Lippmanns glitters - I knew as soon as I saw the bottle pics that it wouldn't be as dense as most of her glitters. The base looked creamy, on the sheer side, and I was prepared for this. If you want GITA (what a pretty abreviation) because you like dense glitters from Lippmann such as Across The Universe and Bad Romance, you're going to be very disappointed. Do not expect the consistence to be the same - just sayin' ;)

Personally, even though I adore my Lippmann glitters and doubt I could ever grow tired of new being released, I'd find it boring if dense glitters were the only kind of glitters Lippmann would make. In my humble opinion, I think she's given the polish world something amazing - her collection doesn't consist of 1000+ polishes (as I suspect OPI's does, LOL), yet she managed to contribute with some of my all-time favourites and some very unique polishes. Across The Universe is perfection. For all I know she could've continued making dense glitters in different colour combos until people would throw up rainbow glitter. I see Glitter In The Air as Lippmanns attempt to give us something new - in lack of better words, a lightweight glitter for Spring. I think she's trying to give us something new again, and I must say that I love it. In my book, GITA is a winner.

Here's a close-up of the bottle ~

Deborah Lippmann - Glitter In The Air - closeup

I'm sorry for the wall'o'text, I just feel like protecting this amazing polish like a newborn baby, LOL. It needs the love! Enough ramblings ;)

For this manicure, I used my basecoat, NailTek II, 2 coats of China Glaze Sea Spray, 2 coats of GITA and one coat of Fast Forward. I think two coats of GITA is perfect - I admit you have to move a few glitter particles around to be satisfied. It doesn't bother me, though, as long as the end result is worth it.

And it's worth it, I think ♥

Deborah Lippmann - Glitter In The Air (GITA) on China Glaze Spray

I don't think two coats is that far away from the mani I had in mind from the promo shots ♥ I love this polish for it's uniqueness, its softness, not to mention the perfect match for Sea Spray (another way to wear one of my fav shades right now) and the fact that Lippmann has the balls to make a new kind of glitter instead of making the same type in different colours.

I'm very excited to hear your opinions about this polish :) Did you dislike the polish from the beginning? Are you disappointed with GITA, did you expect it to be like the other glitters from Lippmann or are you as much in love as I am?

♥ Vetten

Glittering stripes - a blue/purple manicure

I was experimenting... LOL.

I started out trying a new purple from Germany - when I got home I realised I have way too few warm purples.This is on my list for next year! :)

Essence - Break Through

This is one coat of Essence Break Through. As you can see, one coat isn't enough, but I didn't want more coats when I had plans for lots of layering. I think another coat would cover up any bald spots nicely.

It's funny; when I bought the polish, I didn't see the shimmer - but it's visible when you use the flash and on the nail as well. Very subtle, but it adds a little sparkle. It was a nice surprise :)

I ended up finding Gosh, Kiko and Catrice polishes I thought would look lovely together with this and I started doing layer upon layer...

This is the result. If you want the name of one or more of the glitters, LMK and I'll try to remember which I used :)

Glitter upon glitter upon... you get the picture.

~ Vettelicious

Pharmacy haul..? LOL

Yep, I found nail polish at our local pharmacy. It would make sense if they sold special polishes for allergics, as they do with cremes and what not, but these were cheap and from a brand I've never heard about (I was actually amazed they even had a name!). It's called Casuelle. If you live in Denmark, like sheer glitter nail polishes best for layering, check out your local Apothek (danish for pharmacy)! I ended up getting a black, teal and transparent holo glitter.

I decided to try them out yesterday, and I started with the black one. As they are very sheer they won't build up opaque, so I used Wet'n'Wild Black creme as base. I was a little disappointed in this black glitter, as it's beautiful in the bottle, but once applied on the nail looks grainy - there's lot of glitter, but it just doesn't shine through. Only in direct light did it show some sparkles, and only after I applied a topcoat.

Casuelle black glitter - no, it's not dust. It's sparkles, lol!

I decided it wasn't sparkly enough for the weekend, so I tried out the teal one on top of it. This is one amazing combo, if you ask me! The glitter is smaller than your average cheap glitter which can look a bit... cheap, and applies real nice and smooth with one coat. It's a sheer teal base too, so it would be awsome for other layering experiments.

Casuelle glitter WIN!

This combo is amazing... The teal coloured glitter is something I don't see every day (and anything that is not your average polish colours in Denmark is neat, lol!)

Now, this would've usually been enough to satisfy my glitter needs, but a quick glance in my nail polish cabinet made me lust for more, lol! So I tried the mini OPI glitter (which I doubt is genuine OPI, btw) I showed you in an earlier post.

It smells so bad. I can't believe OPI would release stuff like that. Seriously, it stinks like PVC or something like that. I was getting dizzy before finishing my 10 nails lol. Other than that, it was great - the glitter applied randomly without too much fuzz.

I had a hard time capturing the big hex glitters properly, but you get the idea with this picture, I think. Half of the glitters didn't show up at all, so it looks like it applied terribly, but trust me - they're there. I gave up taking a proper picture when the sun disappeared. The combo of all these make me think Deborah Lippmann Glitter ♥ Like a teal - blue version of Across the Universe, which is more of a green and blue combo.

What do you think?

I might try to take a better picture tomorrow.. It looks amazing in RL <3

~ Vettelicious

NOTD - can't wait for Teenage Dream from OPI!

Today I decided to try out a nail polish my mom gave me this weekend - it was in a nail gift set with two other polishes, a nail file and top coat. It was really sweet of her to think of me when she saw it, and as soon as she gave it to me I knew why ♥ She knows I love glitter! Sadly, I forgot to take a picture of the gift set so that will have to wait until I try out another one of the three. But here is todays nail polish! I am sorry for the crappy yellowed pics today, but I've been in bed with the nastiest migraine from the moment I was off work. If I have the time tomorrow before work, I might snap a few with better light.

I call it "Want to be a Teenage Dream" - isn't it lovely?

And this is the polish I thought of as soon as I saw it... Teenage Dream from the upcoming Katy Perry collection from OPI! ♥

Teenage Dream - pic snatched from OPI press release video on Youtube

I could see that it (my new polish, not the real TD) was really sheer and not the buildable kind, so I decided to find a sweet pink base and use it as a layering polish. And I am glad I did! It took me two coats to build the glitter you see on the pictures... And I was tempted to put on even more! I used 2 coats of GOSHs Sweet Rose as base.

natural bathroom light

flash

blurryfied for added sparkles!

My opinion? A beautiful glitter, perfect for layering - but I was hoping it would make me content until Teenage Dream is released. But no, now I'm waiting even more excited for the real deal!

~ Vettelicious

This month's big haul!

My parents invited me on a trip next month to visit my brother in Germany, I can't wait! It's been a while since he was home in DK to visit us, and there's still a long time 'till christmas, so it's awsome to be able to see him sooner! I'm meant to save for the trip (and I am doing my best!), but of course a "few" nail polishes has found their way home to my stash... A lot of new brands I've never tried, some I've been dying to try.. and some because you grab 'em when you get the chance! I have one more package on the way, but I swear it's the last I'm getting for November. 

I forgot to take pics of my two new bottles of China Glaze Peppermint cuticle oil, but both the one the seller resend and the spare I bought arrived without breaking! *phew* So now I have deliciously smelling oil for my poor cuticles :) I can see improvement already, but I'm going to use it daily until I'm satisfied.

I've also received a lot of nail art goodies, such as 60 cheap nail art pens, the little haul I bought from Mardys makeup shop, rhinestones, beads and detail brushes I'll be using for my future nail art. I made a pretty funky design Thursday, which I'm still wearing, but it's for a nail art contest and I won't show you before it's over. I sure won't win but the design means something for me so it'll be good to be able to share it anyway ;)

This post would be pretty boring without pics of my newest nail polishes, wouldn't it? Let's get on with it!

First, Mardy's daughter Mandy kindly offered to pick up some nail polishes from my wishlist I can't get online or in DK. I've been drooling over these, especially Choose Me ever since I saw them the first time online this summer. I'm ver so grateful she helped me out, thank you so much Mandy! ♥

These might not be high-street insanely hard to get and expensive, but to me they're just as amazing.

Essence NA Twins Bonny & Clyde, Thelma & Louise, Essence Choose Me! and Moviestar

And here's bottle close-ups of the glitterfilled pretties!

Clyde

Louise

Choose Me!

Next up is a package from Illamasqua, including two nail polishes I have been drooling over. I allowed myself to splurge and buy Raindrops since I've literally been thinking about it ever since I saw a post on Nihrida's awsome blog. This polish has, no kidding, been haunting me in my dreams. When I was going to order anyway, I decided this little pretty shouldn't have to travel all by itself, and I've had a good eye to Rampage, so I ordered it as well.

Also featured in this picture is my very first polishes from the amazing brand Nfu-Oh. And they are definately not my last. I have been lemming NARS' Zulu, and decided to get Nfu-Oh's #569, a green jelly that looks somewhat similar (and I will have to fight the supposedly bad application when the time comes. An awsome colour is worth it!). My fiancé was so sweet to offer t pay for it, so I decided to order one of their famous flake polishes as well! ♥ My choice fell on #56, which looks amazing with #569.

Nfu-Oh #56, #569, Illamasqua Rampage & Raindrops

And again, here's bottle-closeups of the sparkly pretties!

Illamasqua Raindrops

Nfu-Oh #56

Last, but certainly not least, a great find from a "sell your old clothes & misc" site... Polishes that I have been drooling over - both colour-wise and name-wise, they have so brilliant names! plus they're insanely sparkly! I was so bummed when I found out they're virtually impossible to get. Well now I get to cross almost all of them off my wantlist!! ♥

Behold...

China Glaze's awsome OMG collection!! And 6 of the best colours, even so! I still can't believe they're mine. The girl that was selling them actually had a few more from the series, but I couldn't allow myself more than 6, so I took the ones I like the most :) Maybe I can go back after the rest later... *looks in empty wallet*

OMG, BFF, IDK, LOL, 2NITE & DV8

My favourites name-wise are LOL and OMG. Both are expressios I use too often ;) Colourwise, DV8 has stolen my heart - I love everything turquoise, teal and blue-green!

I paid about 10-12$ each, and they have been used on 1-10 nails one time each. I don't know if it's outrageously expensive and it was in fact her that made a good deal LOL but I don't care. I wanted them so badly!

I hope you enjoyed my post, even though I have no new nails to share! If there's one or more of the colours I've shown you'd like to see swatched in a certain combo, LMK! I don' know where to start anyway! ;)

Have a greet weekend!

~ Vettelicious

Funky Fingers Moonwalk

Hey! Today I want to show you a polish I got because of my silly ideas. I was ordering China Glaze Atlantis on Ebay, and, as I always do, end up looking for another one or two to save on postage. Yes, I feel like I spend less if I buy more. LOL.

I decided to buy Funky Fingers Moonwalk, a gorgeous black with holographic glitter (much like Atlantis, only the glitter is much smaller). And, to my luck, the sun decided to pop out for an hour so I could take some pics!

Funky Fingers Moonwalk

Funky Fingers Moonwalk - bottle close-up

Funky Fingers Moonwalk - sunlight

Funky Fingers Moonwalk - sunlight

Funky Fingers Moonwalk - sunlight

I used NailTek II basecoat, 1 coat Wet'n'wild Black creme, 1 coat Moonwalk and 1 coat Seche Vite topcoat. When there's little to no light, the glitter looks like small grey flecks. I think that's prettier than the perfect round glitters used in most glitters :)

That's all I had for today! Happy Halloween everybody!

~ Vettelicious

Across The Universe

Yesterday I checked out H&M on my way home from work to see if they had gotten new nail polishes. They had! I bought 5 or so, and one of them is the base for today's manicure :)

It's a dark teal creme called Moody Model, a very shiny, almost jelly-ish polish - and wearing it, I realised what all the NARS Zulu fuss was all about. I love this type of nail polish! Even though it's "just" a creme, I couldn't stop looking at it (and I have been wearing OPI Mad as a Hatter for a week so it was hard to top LOL). This colour is hard to catch on pics so I will leave you with a no-flash and a flashed pic. The colour is something in between the two IRL.

H&M Moody Model - I'm sorry it's so blurry! No flash

H&M Moody Model - flash

In my humble opinion, H&M isn't exactly cheap polish - in Denmark this line costs about 8$, so I have pretty high expectations to the polish. Moody Model didn't disappoint one bit! I've wanted a perfect dark teal for a while and this one is right up my alley! :) I'm wearing two coats on the pictures.

Now, after having worn Moody Model for a day, I went to check it with my glitters to see if it would be a good base for any of them. To my luck Lippmanns Across The Universe looked pretty beside it, so I took the chance! I needed a little special polish today to lighten my mood anyway.

Across The Universe - bottle pic

Here is the result! 2 coats Moody Model and 1 coat Across The Universe. One top coat for an almost smooth finish.

Moody Model + Across The Universe

Moody Model + Across The Universe

Moody Model + Across The Universe

I love it! Not nearly as deep as Across The Universe is on it's own, but still very beautiful. And one bottle will last a lot longer if you use it as a top coat only every once in a while ;)

~ Vettelicious

Most amazing polish haul ever!

What started as a crappy day with a headache forcing me to stay home, turned into a great day when the mailman rang the doorbell (and not only because that means he has a package, it also means he's learned to use it LOL). And not just any package..

♥♥♥

The package. The one I've been the most excited about all month, including polishes that has kept me drooling, dreaming and sighing for a long time! An amazing friend in the US helped me get them - I owe her a million hugs and at least as many thank-you's, without her help I would've never gotten them ♥ If you've noticed my blogs new header (of course you have!), you've seen 3 of them. I have seriously never longed as a much for any make-up as I have for Lippmann's glitter polishes. I saw them on NegleNymfernes blog this summer, and nearly threw a fit when I realised they would be hard (and expensive) to get my fingers on.

Bad Romance, Happy Birthday & Across the Universe

My quest to get Happy Birthday, Bad Romance and Across the Universe has ended. I am still thinking about Today Was A Fairytale, but right now I feel pretty content with these three (and I should be ashamed if I didn't, right?). I hope Lippmann continues to make more gorgeous, dazzling glitters, I feel like stuffing an entire cabinet with these pretties. Imagine the entire rainbow represented in these glitters? ♥

I finally figured out how to do better macro-shots with my camera, so I included one of each for you. I will save these for a special occassion or a day I really need a pick-me-up, so for now they will remain unused.

Deborah Lippmann - Bad Romance

Deborah Lippmann - Happy Birthday

Deborah Lippmann - Across the Universe

Finding a favourite between these three is hard. I know I am more thrilled about Across The Universe and Happy Birthday than Bad Romance, but between those two it's a tie. They are both equally amazing, Across being a dazzling colour combo and Happy being so funky and unique.

Now for the three last polishes in the package. I'm sure everyone knows about the Venomous Villains collection collab MAC made with Disney by now, it has been out for a while. I was sure I could buy it online, but since I'm don't have a pro-thingy, they got sold out before the official release (ask me if I was gutted!). My hopes of getting these three already elusive polishes got a lot smaller. I had already asked my friend if she could buy the Lippmann Polishes for me, so I didn't want to trouble her further. I made a wanted ad in the (non-polish) forum, and she hooked me up with a pm saying she'd be glad to look for them! This was the day before the release I believe. She found a nearby store, and made plans to check out if they got it in her lunch break on the release day! She got a set for me, and later that day they were already sold out all over her town! I feel like the luckiest girl in the world ♥ It was so sweet of her to do it between work and everything. 

MAC Bad Fairy, Formidable and Mean & Green

Aren't they beautiful?! They are so much prettier IRL, twinkling and shining ♥

MAC - Bad Fairy

MAC - Formidable

MAC - Mean & Green (sorry for the quality of this pic)

My fav of the three has to be Formidable. I can see myself wearing this one all the time (I'm thrilled there are dupes out there, this bottle won't last long LOL), the latter two are a tie. All three are amazing though, I'm super psyched about adding them to my collection! :D

That's all I have for you today, but to me it's honestly more than enough! 6 new polishes and only two hands LOL.. Which one should I try out first?

Off to rest my poor head again, see you soon!

~ Vettelicious

NOTD - Mad as a Hatter

As promised I have pics of OPI Mad as a Hatter for you today!

Sparkle sparkle!

I was recently looking through google and the blogs I follow, and I couldn't seem to find a swatch with MAAH on a grey creme, so I decided to try it out and hoped for the best. IMO, glitters come more to live with a calm base colour, and it doesn't take you 4 coats to cover so you save the sparkly goodness too ;) Of course it doesn't look as deep as 4 coats alone would, but I can live with that. I'd rather wear MAAH twice as many times before emptying the bottle!

I used NailTek basecoat, 2 coats of GOSH Miss Grey, 2 coats (last one only to cover bald spots) MAAH and 2 coats of Seche Vite topcoat.

GOSH Miss Grey

The weather is very grey today so my pictures aren't the best. I also haven't had the time to moisten my cuticles before the pictures, and I've been cleaning a bit this morning so they look dry. I still hope you enjoy the pictures!

OPI Mad As A Hatter

OPI Mad As A Hatter

OPI Mad As A Hatter

OPI Mad As A Hatter

OPI Mad As A Hatter

Depending on how much light it catches, it will go from light grey to dark almost black with lots of sparkles. This polish did not disappoint and I had very high expectations! ;)

♥ Vettelicious