Very sunny on top of being pretty cunning

Dear readers,

I'm pretty late posting this tonight, it's been one of those days... but I won't go to bed until I've shown you my stripe mani!

I wasn't sure what to do for today and was just going to do some random stripes, but then my order from Lucky 13 Lacquer arrived, which included a Firefly-themed polish: The Hero of Canton, the Man they Call Jayne. I know, longest polish name ever, right? But I appreciate a nice long quote when it's from one of my favourite shows.

I have a lot more to tell you about Lucky 13 and Kyoti, who is the woman behind it and is incredibly sweet and awesome, but I'll leave that for another day when I'm not in such a hurry to finish packing because yay, I'm going on holiday! I'll still be posting though - in fact, I'll finally have time to blog!

matte

So back to the Jayne polish. As soon as I saw it I knew exactly what kind of stripes to do: a Jayne hat! If you haven't seen Firefly, Jayne is this big coarse guy with more brawn than brains, but when he gets this knitted hat from his mother, he wears it all the time (despite the others snickering about it). You can't see it so well in the video below but it's yellow, orange and red. In addition to being "pretty cunning" and iconic geekwear, it was also the subject of a bit of nasty business when FOX decided to ban people from selling hats like it on etsy etc., despite it being one of the simplest knitting patterns and colour combinations out there. But I'm pretty confident they can't take my nails from me.

Here's a fan video that explains the whole Hero of Canton thing, complete with the song from which the polish takes it's name, but it's mildly spoilery, so watch out.

3-4 coats of Hero on its own, matte top coat

The other polishes used here are H&M Yellow, L'Oreal Lush Tangerine and Dior Diablotine (in what is probably the smallest and cutest polish sample bottle I have ever seen). For some reason it wouldn't photograph well, it's actually more orange, not that pinkish tone most of the pictures show.

Do you like Firefly? How do you like my hat? And have you seen today's other stripes yet?

11. Stripes :

The nail newbie (always a browncoat)

Note: Any links to external blogs or stores are pure link love - no advertising or affiliate linking going on here. I paid for everything (except the Dior, which was a drugstore freebie), but then, there is no power in the verse that could stop me from buying geeky polishes.

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Today I've got a quick layering mani for you: H&M Shanghai Nights over Catrice The Dark Knight. I mentioned in my recent haul post that Shanghai Nights looks amazing over purple, and The Dark Knight is just the right one for the job.  

Heute gibt's einen kurzen Post mit einer Kombi von H&M Shanghai Nights und Catrice The Dark Knight. 

It's a deep, glossy purple that's beautiful in its own right - just look at it, don't you just want to dive right into it and see what lurks beneath that gelly surface?

The Dark Knight kann bei manchen Lichtverhältnissen fast schwarz aussehen, ist aber ein wunderschönes tiefes Violett mit einem großartigen Finish.

 

 

 Shanghai Nights is pretty on its own but really on its best over purple (or possibly black, but I haven't tried that yet) - it turns into an oil-slick shimmer that keeps changing as the light catches it.

Shanghai Nights hab ich von H&M mitgenommen und finde es auch für sich allein schön, so richtig zur Geltung kommt es aber auf einem violetten Untergrund (vielleicht auch auf Schwarz? Das muss ich noch probieren). So erinnert es mich an Pfauenfedern und Öllacken mit endlosen Farbschattierungen, je nachdem wie das Licht fällt.

If these descriptions fall short, I hope the pictures speak for themselves. I have few words this morning - it's raining again after a three-day reprieve when it seemed like it might be spring or even summer and there is not enough coffee in the world.

I hope the sun is shining for you, inside or out!

The rained-on nail newbie

Meine Beschreibungen gelingen mir heute nicht, also lasse ich die Bilder für sich sprechen. Nach drei Tagen, in denen ich mir fast schon vorstellen konnte es sei Frühling oder gar Sommer regnet es nun wieder wie aus Kübeln. Ich kann gar nicht so viel Kaffee trinken wie ich heute Morgen bräuchte...

Ich hoffe, bei euch scheint die Sonne - zumindest im Herzen :)

Euer verregnetes Nagelnewbie

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It's been a while since my last haul post... which of course means that I have an embarrassing amount of nail polish to show you... though perhaps not quite enough, as you'll see tomorrow. In an attempt to not turn this into complete picture spam, I'm making two posts and using collages - you can click on them to enlarge.

Liebe deutschsprachige Leserinnen, der heutige Post ist nur auf Englisch - ich hoffe, er gefällt euch trotzdem!

So I discovered H&M has polish in fantastic colours! This is a pack of five mini polishes with the imaginative names glittery purple, glittery green, turquoise, orange, and yellow, and the more excitingly named Shanghai Nights. Glittery purple is a mix of tiny bars and round glitter particles in purple, gold, and teal in a relatively clear base, while glittery green should be called glittery teal, because the round glitter here is teal (not that I'm complaining!), also in a clear base. The orange is slightly sparkly and tends towards red, really pretty. The other two are more on the creme-y side, and it just so happens that the yellow is the slightly mustardy yellow required for Star Fleet command shirts, so you've seen it in my Star Trek mani. Shanghai Nights is gorgeous, especially over purple (mani to follow).

Flormar had a 4 for €10,- deal so I picked up the deep classic red M109 (used here), the coral shimmer 08, the nude 124, and the grey M127 I used in last month's tri-polish challenge.  

I scored the ones in the bottom picture at a flea markets for crazy good prices. They've all only been swatched. My first butter London, models own and China Glaze polishes! From left to right, they are: Manhattan 97, Manhattan 78C, Models Own Indian Ocean (which you've seen featured as a topper here and here), butter London Scouse and The Black Knight, Jessica 744 Platinum Wishes (never heard of the brand before but it's a lovely fine multi-coloured glitter with blue, green, orange and gold), and China Glaze 1204 Get Carried Away, which is the most unusual topper I have - hard to wear but kinda cool.

There's a beauty blogger flea market this weekend, let's see what I find this time :)

I  succumbed to the draw of Literary Lacquers when I saw the swatches for The Good Parts collection on The Crumpet and on many other blogs and got the fantastic holos If It Pleases You and Laters, Baby. This would be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

I bought the surprising and mysterious Anny 047 The Answer is Love and got a free mini sample of Dior Diablotine from a Douglas store - I say surprising because despite what you see in the bottle, it is a deep blue with all sorts of red and rust and purple going on on top. 

Catrice Mint me up has little gold sparkles in it, which together with the muted mint gives me a sort of art deco feeling. 

My sister gave me a bottle of L'Oreal Lush Tangerine that didn't work for her and that I was first only going to use for nail art but since trying it properly, I'm starting to think I should wear orange on my nails. 

And finally, experiments with top coats. You've seen the flormar mattifying top coat in action several times already and, though you don't know it, the essence quick dry top coat on pretty much everything else. The essence gel-look top coat does look beautiful but it's so infuriatingly soft! It doesn't matter how long I let it dry, I always ruin it in the end.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2 - the May haul.

The well-stocked nail newbie

Note: Any links to external blogs or stores are pure link love - no advertising or affiliate linking going on here. I paid for everything (except what I got from my sister and the Douglas sales lady).

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