THE FIVE DAY NAIL POLISH EXPERIMENT - KIKO

It's monday and I don't have to do anything. The best feeling in the world.

I've been wearing the Kiko royal blue nail polish I already mentioned HERE for the past 5 days. In that previous post I also highlighted what the brand says about the nail polish: "special ingredients intensify the adherence of pigments to the nail creating an elastic and resistant film, and that the active anti-wear boosts its durability and color vibrancy".
It is, as far as I know, only available in Italy, Spain and Germany.

In comparison with the Essence nail polish I did an experiment with HERE, you can see a clear difference. I again used 2 coats, no base coat, no top coat. The photos are a bit different in this post, because, for example, on the third day I wasn't home at all, but I got the chance to photograph the wonderful Sara L. (and you can check that out HERE) so I had my camera with me and took a photo right there, and on the very first day I totally forgot to take a photo, but on the first day the nail polish looks great anyway so I just added the photo from the previous post about Kiko.

I really do not know what the color number or name of this royal blue polish is because I cannot find it on the bottle and the Kiko website has SO many blue shades and shades in general that I don't know which one to pick.

REVIEW: BALEA SPLASHY WATERMELON

I'm healthy again. Review time.

Price & size:
I paid €1,45 in Salzburg where I got this. You receive 10 g of lip balm in a small metal dose, and it really is tiny and adorable.

What it says on the packaging:
"...your lips become soft and are protected from dryness." "soft care for your lips, fruity freshness for you."

Ingredients:
Since there are only 5 ingredients in this lip balm, which are vaseline (PETROLATUM), perfume, a substance that gives you shine (MICA) , color (CI 77491) and vitamin E (TOCOPHEROL), there is only one ingredient that I would point out as highly recommended and that is TOCOPHEROL - pure vitamin E, which is considered "an antioxidant superstar" and I have written about its various benefits here.

PETROLATUM, PARFUM, CI 77491, MICA, TOCOPHEROL.

My opinion:
I like this lip balm very much. I usually prefer lip balms packaged in sticks over doses because you have to use your fingers with these and your fingers aren't always clean, so I stick my lips into the dose and just twirl the dose to get a nice amount of lip balm on. :)
The lip balm really is nourishing, it smells very nice. I don't find that it tints my lips at all despite it's deep red color and it gives me a nice shine.
I specifically love Balea's products because the brand itself is very environmentally friendly, it states on the packaging that the paper comes from very responsible sources and that 70% of it is completely recyclable.

BERRY PURPLE NAILS!

I'm still sick. 7 days and counting. No nail polish experiments yet - oh well. I did my nails differently today, I actually used a nail cutter to trim my nails (I usually file them), even though I heard it causes nail splitting. Well, I'll see for myself.
I got this beautiful berry purple color from s-he stylezone, the number is 240. I hate numbers, and this company, even though they completely redesigned their whole line a few months ago, still didn't realize that names are so much more memorable than numbers, and so much more fun, too.
The bow ring is from H&M, it's a few years old. How are you doing? Hope no one else is sick.

ROSY TAUPE NAILS!

I've been sick for the past 5 days and today I also stayed home. I went to Salzburg on Saturday because I had already paid for the trip but I think that it only prolonged my sickness. I cannot do an experiment with nail polishes right now because all I do all day long is lay in bed. I really love this color. It's by s-he stylezone, the color is 324, and this might be my all time favorite nail polish color. I think I might have to stock up on these. :)

SUNNY YELLOW NAILS!

The color I have been wearing for the past two days is Catrice's 010 Don't feed the birds. It's definitely not expensive and you get 10 ml/0.34 fl.oz of beautiful canary bird yellow color. The fact that this reminds me of canary birds is the reason why I drew one on my hand in Photoshop. I know it's silly. Forgive me. :)

I don't like this nail polish. I do like the color, but I hate the pigmentation. I actually needed 5 layers of polish to get the real out-of-the-bottle-color to show up. You know what that means? 5-10 minutes of drying between each layer - and that sucks. With one or two layers your nails will look like you've been smoking for 50 years, no joke. After three layers I added two more to get the color from the photo above.

And since I had to put on five layers of it, it's not fair to compare these results to the ones from Essence's nail polish. That's why I most likely won't be posting the 5 day experiment photos, of course it won't wear off as fast as some other nail polish of which I only needed 2 layers. I really really really don't like getting sheer nail polishes after being so excited about the bright color that's in the bottle.

TAKE YOUR NAIL POLISH OFF WITHOUT STAINING YOUR SKIN.

And finally, here it is. I used to avoid wearing red nail polish because I hated taking it off. But after experimenting with different manicure procedures and techniques, I figured out a way to take off nail polish with no or minimal color residue. I suggest you do this after a hot shower, the effect is even better.

What you need is:
- nail polish remover
- cotton pads - I suggest 1 per 2 fingers - 5 altogether (use more if you'd like, they're not that expensive)
- a small bowl with warm to hot water
- hair conditioner

The first thing you want to do is put a decent amount of hair conditioner into a bowl with warm water, or even hot, depends on what you can endure. Use an egg whisk and whisk those two together until the conditioner turns your water pasty and forms a nice foamy surface.

Soak hands in the solution for 10-20 minutes until your fingers go wrinkly and pruney. The conditioner will actually condition your hands and soften your nails and nail polish which will make it easier for you to take it off.

Now, the proper way to do this is NOT to wiggle the cotton pad from left to right because that way you're actually creating color residue but to just pull it straight downwards (from the cuticle to the tip).

THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT.

Also, do NOT use that same spot on the cotton pad to get off the rest of the color from that nail, rotate it, move it or fold it to find a clean spot and repeat the step. Your cotton pad will look like mine does in the left photo. That should be a rule with red and blue nail polishes: NEVER REUSE THE STAINED SPOT ON THE COTTON PAD. I'll rather use 5 whole cotton pads for my 10 fingers than one and get left with wounded looking hands. And when you're done you will have tint free but still pruney fingers like I do on the right photo and you're ready for your next nail polish! :)

THE FIVE DAY NAIL POLISH EXPERIMENT - ESSENCE

5 days have passed since my last post.

Let me introduce you to a new category on this blog - THE FIVE DAY NAIL POLISH EXPERIMENT.
In addition to reviewing a nail polish, I will be wearing it on my nails for five days, no base or top coat, and taking a photo every day to show you how well the nail polish stays on my nails. As I previously posted here, the nail polish is essence's multi dimension XXXL shine nail polish in the color 30 LATE AT NIGHT.
I took each photo around 1-3 PM, and you need to keep in mind that things like hair washing, showering and daily duties have an effect on how well and how long the nail polish is going to stay on your nails, and that varies from person to person - the more contact with water you have, the sooner the nail polish will flake off.

I'm wearing two coats of this nail polish, no base or top coat. What I do not like about it is the fact that the red color rubs off on different surfaces like paper, kitchen counters - in fact, there are dozens of red stripes all over my kitchen counters. But I've tested many red nail polishes and the same thing happened every time, unless I put 3 layers of top coat over the red nail polish.

Tomorrow I will finally post, as I promised, a post containing advice on removing red nail polish without it leaving your fingers stained and looking wounded.

I have to warn you though, I am aware that my fingers are not perfect, and you will see that in the photos below. I am working very hard on stopping the nervous messing with my cuticles and fingers in general, and I've come a long way. These are photos of my left hand where nail polish usually, for some odd reason, seems to wear off faster. I cannot really say how much better/worse this nail polish is than others since I don't have other results to compare these to, but with time I will post more and we'll be able to compare them. How things changed day after day is visible in the photos below. Please do tell me if you like this new category and which nail polish you would like to see next. :)

DEEP RED NAILS!

I love the classic look of red nails, and I usually prefer dark reds over bright, bold reds. This is Essence 30 Late At Night. Why am I wearing red nail polish today? Well, to make a post about removing red nail polish with minimal skin tinting. I'll post that in a few days. I used to avoid wearing red nails simply because I hated how they tinted my skin and days would have to pass for that to disappear.

The owl ring is from ebay, for $1.29 I believe.

MY HAIR HORROR STORY AND HOW IT ENDED

So, to make a long story “short”, my hair was greasy from the day I hit puberty, and 2 days after I wash it, it’s greasy. From 2005-2009 I would wash my hair every other day and straighten it practically every day. (My natural hair is very curly, I might post a photo of that one day.) I tried so many shampoos, I cannot even name them all. From drugstore brands like Pantene Pro V, Herbal Essences, Schauma, Gliss, Head & Shoulders to high end stuff like Redken, TiGi, even their Catwalk line, yet none of them amazed me so much that I could instantly say it was the best thing for my hair. It has always been my dream to have long hair, since my mother always cut it short back when I was a kid. But then I realized that no matter how much it grows out in a month or two, I would have to cut off even more because of all the damage I made with a straightening iron and because my hair has a slower growth. And I wasn’t straightening my hair with a cheap straightening iron, I actually cashed out 100 euros for it. But high temperatures are always deadly for hair. I was literally depressed because I believed I would never have long hair.

Then, around fall 2009 I decided not to straighten my hair AT ALL for as long as I can and wear it up practically all the time. Now, 2 years later, I occasionally straighten my hair - once or twice a month - and my hair has reached a length that I thought it never would. But, since nothing can ever be perfect, I noticed that I had dandruff, but not the regular kind, I would actually be able to pull out pretty big pieces of scalp and that sort of freaked me out. I instantly thought I had seborrheic dermatitis. The symptoms were all there: greasy hair, dandruff, itchy red scalp, increased hair fall out. I tried using a mild baby shampoo like Johnson’s baby shampoo and PENATEN but they made the thing even worse. I switched to a beer shampoo which everyone raved about on several forums, and I wanted to make myself like it, I really did. I actually used up 3 bottles. But the dandruff was still there.

I was desperate. I was planning on visiting a dermatologist but never got around to doing it. So then a few days ago I was reading about all the different shampoos that people had recommended and I was sure that I had tested them all. I stumbled upon a Balea product thread and read that their Aprikose & Milch Feuchtigkeitschampoo (transl. Apricot & Milk Moistureshampoo) was raved about. I visited german forums and read about more people swearing by this shampoo. So I bought it along with the matching conditioner. I washed, blow dried and straightened my hair and I got silky smooth, moisturised, amazingly smelling hair with NO DANDRUFF. Yes, I finally got rid of the devil. And now I can finally say that this is the best thing I have ever used on my hair.

Another product from Balea that lured me in was the Bodymousse. It is a limited edition product, or at least that’s what it says on the packaging and it’s raspberry scented. If you ever enjoyed Mamba candy as a kid, and liked the raspberry one, that is what you are going to smell like after you put this on. So far, I really like it, but then again, I don’t. I love how it moisturizes my skin and really makes it soft, but the amazing raspberry scent turns into a rancid sour smell 2-3 hours after application. Now, I don’t know if that’s because it reacts with my skin in some weird way or if it’s because of the product itself. I can only remember this happening with one more product, and that was Fruttini’s body butter in Cherry Vanilla. Anyone knows what that sourness is all about? I hope you enjoyed this ridiculously long post, feel free to share your hair story, I’d love to read it!

INTENSIFY YOUR EYE SHADOWS!

You all may have some eye shadows in your make up collection that do not show up well when applied but look beautiful in the packaging and are exactly the color you want. This happened to me: I bought H&M's blue eyeshadow, but swatched it only after I got home, and all I was left with was a pale blue eye shadow and a sad face. But I found a solution: The left swatch is the original eye shadow and for the right swatch I used my "mixing medium".

This is the original eye shadow in its packaging:

If you are familiar with MAC Cosmetics, you may already know about Mixing Medium, a liquid product that enhances the color pay off of bland eye shadows or that you can use when working with pigments, but their products in general are a bit too pricey for my taste. So today I have an alternative that anyone can make at home for an extremely low amount of money.

 What you need is:
- an empty container,
- water,
- glycerin.

Glycerin is the main ingredient which makes this "mixing medium" so effective. It is a colorless liquid that you can get in any pharmacy for a small amount of money. Glycerin is widely used in soaps because of its hygroscopic features, which means that it absorbs water from the air and thereby gives your eyeshadow even more vibrance than regular water and better staying power as well.

NOTE: always make small amounts of this mixing medium and exchange it every two weeks since we're not adding any preservatives that would prevent it from going bad. I made a fairly large amount this time to show you how it's done.

You're going to be making it from 1 part glycerin and 3 parts water, which means: multiply the amount of glycerin you are going to use by three to get the amount of water you need. Eventually, with time, you will figure out how much amount is enough for you for two weeks so you won't have to throw away any. I used 20ml of glycerin and 60ml of water (which is 20 times 3) and got 80ml of mixing medium.

How to use: just like watercolors. You simply dab your brush into the "mixing medium", tap off the excess and then pick up eye shadow from its container, and repeat.

So let's look at the price and how efficient it is. I bought 100 ml of glycerin for 5 dollars, and I can get 300 ml of mixing medium while you would pay $108 for the same amount of MAC's Mixing Medium. I love it! :)

THE PERFECT BALLERINA BUN

Here's another video hair tutorial. I'm wondering what your opinion on these is.
I wear my hair up about 80% of the time. What about you? Down, pony tails, buns, something fancy?

I learned how to do this bun a long time ago and I don't think that many people know how to do this because they're always shocked when my response to their "How do you get your bun to look like that?" question is:"With a sock." You could order or make your own foam doughnut but I'm showing you a way to do it with a simple, old (but washed) sock. :)


In the video, the bun didn't come out as round as it usually does, but I was struggling without a mirror, and I also recommend that you teach yourself how to do this in front of a mirror.

And here's a tip to keep your sock doughnut from unrolling. Take rubber bands and tie them like I did here.

A CORAL LIPSTICK & A ROYAL BLUE NAIL POLISH

First of all, I would like to thank you ALL for following me and leaving kind comments, I really appreciate it!

I am obsessed with lipsticks. Even though I bought 3 lipsticks last week, I bought another one yesterday, and frankly, I don't even know why. It's not like I don't already own five pink lipsticks, but Max Factor's Elixir Color Lipstick in Bewitching Coral almost made me faint.

At first I wasn't sure if I really should get it so I swatched it on my arm, drove home to compare it to two lip sticks that it reminded me of, but luckily, it turned out to be a completely different color and texture compare to my big matte and semi-matte collection of lipsticks. That indeed was my excuse to buy it so I drove back and did so. How sad. :)
I'm definitely going to review it because it's a fairly new product and Max Factor claims that
"a special blend of skin emollients, conditioners and antioxidants including vitamin E transforms the look and feel of your lips in just 7 days". Definitely sounds good.

After that I met up with a friend who lives in Austria and she gave me this beautiful royal blue nail polish from Kiko cosmetics. Funny name. Kiko is a brand that you can, as far as I'm informed, only buy in Germany, Italy and Spain, and she mentioned that she got it in Berlin and had two, so she gave me the one she had here. Also, they're 100% cruelty free. The color is to die for. I'm usually not a fan of crazy colored nails because I don't think that they look that good on me but I find that this color looks really chic and edgy at the same time. Anyone else have problems with bold colors?
I can see a review coming because Kiko Cosmetics claims that at the price of €1,50 the "special ingredients intensify the adherence of pigments to the nail creating an elastic and resistant film, and that the active anti-wear boosts its durability and color vibrancy". We'll see about that!

NUDE NAILS (FOR A SMALL PRICE)!

For the LONGEST time I wanted to get my hands on a simple, nude nailpolish, but I never went out to buy one because I have around 20-30 nail polishes and I feel bad buying new things if I haven't used up at least one of the ones that I already own. So, since I finally used up Essence's Spot On, which I loved and used all the time, I went to DM and got a nail polish from their brand "s-he stylezone". S-he stylezone is DM's original brand, and if you're from the US and aren't familiar with DM, it's short for drogeriemarkt, which is a German drugstore chain. There are over 2 000 stores in 11 countries in Europe.

I paid 20 kunas, which is $3.50 for a 10 ml bottle and that's really cheap. Their colors don't have names but  color codes, which I find quite annoying. The color I bought is 322.