Showing posts with label nails. Show all posts
Showing posts with label nails. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 1, 2014

Another one for the nail files

Napoleon Perdis is one of my favourite makeup brands, but I never really thought to try their nail polish.

As I don’t wear nail polish very often, when I do, I tend to stick to the obvious brands, Revlon, OPI, and Dior are some of my favorites, mostly because they have awesome marketing I already know about them.

Similarly, I tend to buy makeup based on brands I already know, or on recommendations from people.

This incidentally, is how I became addicted to Napoleon Perdis, after someone bought me ONE product and I realised how fantastic their makeup was, it made it really hard to go back to drugstore brands which are way harder to apply without looking like you are ran away from clown school.

Incidentally, before I go on to praise Napoleon Perdis any further, I would like to point out that I actually don’t really like shopping in their stores as their staff have a tendency to be slightly extremely pushy.

Obviously, this is not true of all their staff and some of the girls are brilliant, but on the whole, I have found that when I go in there, I need to have a good idea of what I want, a firm budget in mind and the words “no, thank you” at the ready.

Which was evidently not the case when I went to Myer this weekend “for a quick look”.

With a vague notion that I wanted a new blush and really did not want to do my uni assignment, I wandered in and asked the girl to make me pretty. 

Which she did. 

And then showed me the 1249 products it had taken her to make me look like I was wearing nothing at all.

Of course, I had to have everything.

After handing over my life savings and signing away a couple of my unborn children, I left with a huge smile on my carefully constructed face, holding a new contour palette, a new brush, as well as a lovely gift set including a huge makeup bag, a nail polish, a small foundation and a new primer, a blush (success!), and a surprisingly large tube of lip gloss.



So far, I am pleasantly surprised with all the products.

Napoleon Perdis Nail Polish - Biscotti

As you may have guessed, I am not a patient person, so I really like that this nail polish dries super-fast despite the fact that I messed up a few times and so ended up with about three coats on.

It is a nice matte color, and the nude shade is subtle and lengthens my fingers, which is always a bonus.


Two days after application with no base or top coat, I only had one small chip on my right index finger which I only noticed hours after I got home as it is such a discrete color.


Overall, I really like it and will definitely be buying other shades as they are fairly reasonably priced (about $16 online).

I tried it out with a shiny top coat as well, as I wanted to see what the result would be, but unfortunately forgot to take photos.

I used Seche-Vite Dry Fast Top Coat, which I love not just because it is super glossy and very forgiving on people who aren't super careful with their nail application, but also because it really lives up to its name and dries extremely fast.

I normally apply it about 30 seconds after my second coat of nail polish, and within a couple of minutes, my nails are touch-dry.

Win.

In this case unfortunately, the beauty of the nail polish is the matte finish and I did not really like it as much with the glossy coat. I thought it made it look a little ordinary and boring...


As this is a nail-related post, I might hold off a little longer on reviewing the other stuff, but I am getting to it, I promise!

Love always,

Tatiana




Tuesday, March 18, 2014

For the love of nails

Do you share traits with your family?

Despite the fact that she would firmly deny it, my sister definitely shares my obsessive, shopaholic behavior patterns. As evidenced below:


My own collection of OPI nail polish is slightly more modest but once I factor in other brands...well, let's just say there is a reason I am always broke. 

The thing is, I don't actually wear nail polish. 

For one, I absolutely hate the look of chipped nails, as I find it highly counter productive to wear something which is supposed to make you look polished and cared for and instead sporting hands that look unkempt and neglected. 

My other reasons include:
  • the length of time it takes to actually allow your nail polish to dry
  • the length of time it takes to take off your wet nail polish after you rub your hand on something, repaint them and allow your nails to dry again
  • the horrendous smell of nail polish remover
  • the fact that my cotton pads all seem to magically disappear - probably eloping with said stinky nail polish remover - whenever I want to remove my nail polish. 

The list could go on.

Sometimes though, seeing all the sad bottles of nail polish sitting neglected on my shelf guilts me into wearing some. 

Today is one of those days:



I was feeling a little blue and as this shade is called "Got the blues for red", I felt it was fitting.

One coat of this color does not really provide enough coverage, so I had to wear two, which usually means  longer drying times and faster chipping.

Fortunately, I have mastered the legendary art of typing while drying my nails, and as I still have 1459 words of my assignment left to type (out of 1500), time is not an issue at this stage. 

On that note...I should probably get back to it...  



Love always,

Tatiana