Expocosmética 2013

WARNING: This is going to be a long, long post, with lots of photos!!
Aviso: Este post vai ser muito, muito longo e recheadinho de fotos!!

This weekend, we had here in Porto, a cosmetics fair with all you can imagine about hair, make up, skin care and, obviously, nails! I'm not going to lie...of course I went for the nail polish! :P

I took lots of photos to share, but unfortunely, I still failed to photograph lots of brands that were there, as I was too excited about their polishes. But without further ado, here they are:

Este fim de semana, tivemos aqui no Porto, uma feira de cosméticos, com tudo o que se possa imaginar sobre cabelos, maquilhagem, produtos de pele e, obviamente, unhas! Eu não vos vou mentir, o meu interesse na feira era, puramente, pelos os vernizes! :P

Tirei montes de fotos para partilhar, mas infelizmente, acabei por falhar e esquecer de tirar foto a muitas marcas que lá se encontravam. Mas sem mais demoras, aqui estão elas:

Andreia, a portuguese brand, very well known here.

Andreia, uma marca portuguesa, já conhecida de todas nós.

PN - Pro Nails - A new brand to me, never heard of it.
PN- Pro Nails - Uma marca nova para mim, nunca tinha ouvido falar dela.

IBI, another new to me brand. Loved the cute bottles! 

IBI, outra marca nova para mim. Adorei o frasquinho!

IBI's base coat, thinner and top coat.

A base, o diluente e o top coat da IBI.

LAYLAAASS! 


MORE LAYLAS!
MAIS LAYLAS!

Peggy Sage (sorry for the blurry photo :S)
(Desculpem pela foto desfocada :S)

 Kinetics stand, was absolute craziness. Their polishes were mad cheap at the fair!!

O stand da Kinetics foi uma loucura. Os vernizes estavam baratíssimos!!

All the pretty colours...

Tanta cor bonita...

...wish I could bring one of each with me.

...bem que gostaria de ter trazido 1 de cada.

Another awesome stand, was Orly's.
Outro stand espectacular, era o da Orly.

Orly's minis and glitters.
Os mini e os glitters da Orly.

 Now, the important part. What did I get??

Agora, a parte importante. O que comprei eu??

Ados 642, 65 and 72

Misa Frozen In Time and I Like It Like That 

Orly Miss Conduct and Nicole by O.P.I She's Mauvelous

Kinetics Velvel Asphalt, Call Me Blue, Flowery, Paris Green and All Night

2 Kinetics Kwik Kote - my go to top coat, at the moment.
O meu top coat preferido, de momento. 

And finally, my partners in crime:

E finalmente, as minhas parceiras de crime:

from left to right:
Diana Raquel, Maggie Correia and me.

I had a wonderful day with these girls, with was soooo much fun! I also got to know lots of other bloggers, but I have to say, the ones I was most excited about meeting were Cristina, Bárbara and Luisa! We've been talking for so long now, that it really felt good to see them in person and talk with them, even if it was just for a brief while (we were about to leave, and really dead and tired, when they finally got there :P).

Passei um dia excelente, na companhia destas meninas, foi incrivelmente divertido! Também conheci várias outras bloggers, mas devo dizer que estava mais excitada por finalmente conhecer a Cristina, a Bárbara e a Luisa! Já falamos há tanto tempo, que foi, realmente bom vê-las em pessoa e conversar com elas, nem que tenha sido, por apenas um breve momento (nós já estavamos de saída, e mais que mortas e cansadas, quando elas finalmente chegaram.

1 year after...

Yesterday, this little blog turned 1 year old!
I started this as a way to share with others, my love for nail polish. Since then, I've learned so much, not only  nail wise, but also in photography, and met some great girls who share the same interest as me, with whom I can talk to all about my nail polishes problems. xD
It has been great fun, and even though I haven't been posting as much, I still love to come here and spam you all with photos of my manicures and swatches, so thank you all for sticking with me. This blog would be nothing without each and every single one of my followers. 

To celebrate the blog anniversary, I bring you the nail polish that kicked things off, and it's still one of my favourites, Orly Fowl Play! This time with proper photos, and one of the old ones, just for comparison! :P (And if you feel like reading that post, here's the link)

Ontem, este pequeno blog fez 1 anito!

Comecei a escrever por aqui, como uma maneira de partilhar o meu fascínio por vernizes. Desde então, aprendi muito, não só sobre unhas mas também sobre fotografia, e conheci meninas fantásticas que partilham deste meu interesse e com quem posso falar sobre todos os meus problemas "vernizólicos". xD

Tem sido muito divertido, e apesar de não andar a postar tanto, ainda adoro vir aqui e "spammar-vos" de fotos das minhas manicures, por isso, o meu muito obrigada a todas vocês, que ainda vêm cá visitar-me neste cantinho. Este blog não seria nada sem vocês.

Para celebrar este aniversário, trago-vos o verniz que deu o pontapé de saída do blog, e que ainda é um dos meus preferidos. Orly Fowl Play! E desta vez, com fotos decentes e uma antiguinha, só para comparação. :P  (E se quiserem ler o outro post, fica aqui o link)

(Jeez...So many things wrong with this photo! o.o)

Go Pink for October!

As you all must know by now, October is the Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and I (like so many other bloggers) couldn't let this subject pass me by...

First of all, I'd like to say that I consider myself lucky, as I don't know anyone in my family or close to me that is suffering or has suffered from this awful disease. The closest I have been to this subject was when I was 16 and I found a HUGE mass on my right boob, and I really mean HUUUGE! It scared the crap out of me, but after a couple of tests the doctors came to the conclusion that it was nothing, just some really dense mammary tissue and that it would go away with time. I think that was one of the worst and most stressful weeks of my live and I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off my shoulders when I got the good news...I really can't imagine how hard it would have been had it gone the other way...Unfortunatelly, breast cancer knows no age or gender, it can happen to anyone, so I really feel it's very important to raise awareness on this subject whenever and wherever we can, and this is my way...

Girls (and guys), check out your breasts (or chest area) regurlarly, and if there's something that doesn't feel right, even the tiniest thing, don't hesitate to contact your doctor, it's always better to be safe than sorry...

Now that is out of the way, lets move onto the manicure, shall we? :P

For this I used Orly Rock It! and Gosh Bubblegum, I think they look cool together! xD I've had the Orly for almost a year, but all I did with it was a simple gradient when I started blogging (here if you want to laugh at my photos and lack of skill back then xD), and I've never tried painting my nails with it! I guess it was because I was so disappointed with it when I got it, I was expecting it to be a cool duochrome, but unfortunatelly I can't see any of that effect on my nails. Still, it's a really beautiful dark pink!
I used 2 coats of both polishes and then made a french on my accent nail and stamped it my DRK-B using Rock It!

With this, I also discovered that I dislike Konad plates...DON'T SHOOT ME! This was so not the design I wanted to stamp, but after failing 3 times with the Konad plate, I just gave up and went back to my beautiful. wonderful and very loved DRK-B, that thing never lets me down! So there, no more buying Konads for me. u.u

Now I just need some MASH...and Bundle Monster...and Cheeky...I need them all!

Orly Terracotta and Stamping Fail #2

Ok, not really a fail, but still not perfect! xD

The nail polish I'll be showing you today is Terracotta by Orly and it's one of those colours that I can't really define...Is it a neon? Is it pink? Or is it orange? Maybe this is what they call a coral? I don't know...Let's just say it is what it is and it's awesome!

I'm usually not someone who wears bright colours like this, the skintone on my hands can be quite red sometimes so I tend to choose darker colours, but I really wanted to try something brighter this time and I think I really like it! I should invest more in this type of colour...

This is 2 coats of it, at first I thought it would need a third one because it still looked a bit streaky right after applying it, but it evened out nicely while drying and turned out perfect!

Here are some photos, in natural light:

On my accent I stamped with Kiss Nail Art Polish in white using plate m64 from Konad. My stamping is still far from perfect and I find it quite hard to be able to get the stamp to cover my entire nail properly, since they're very curved. Because of that I end up getting some bald places on the sides of my nails, but practice makes perfect and I'll get there!

Orly Androgynie Swatch

Hey everyone!

I know, I know, it's been a week since my last post, but I'm still ajusting to work and I've also been a bit sick lately, so I'm sorry for not posting this earlier, since it's what I was wearing by the end of last week.

The star of this post is Orly Androgynie and my pictures don't really show how pretty it is, my camera didn't catch all the different colours of the glitter on my nails...

I was a bit scared to try this one, as I've heard mixed reviews about it, but it looked so beautiful in the bottle that I couldn't resist it. I won't deny it, though, application can be kind of tricky with this nail polish, so this is what I did:

• I noticed that the glitter was all stored at the bottom of the bottle when I picked it up, so I put it upside down for 10min or so;
• Right before using it, I rolled the bottle between my hands for a few minutes;
• Layered it over a black polish. This one is very important as the black base completely swallows the glitter, so I just used one coat of it and tried not to use too many strokes to get full coverage.

Okay, after all this it's better if you just see the pictures.

Not season appropriate, but what do you all think of this polish?

Expocosmética 2012

Yesterday I went to the Expocosmética 2012 and it was crazy in there! D: So many different brands of nail polish, hair stuff and everything related to beauty. It was awesome and I had a really nice time hunting for nail polishes while still trying to not blow my budget! xD I think I did ok, only spent 20€ and brought home with me all this:

• a new nail file;
• Peggy Sage nail stickers;
• 3 Orly mini - Lucky Duck, Androgynie and Terracotta;
• Coral Prosilk #156;
• 2 Ludurana flakies - Trovão and Relâmpago;
• Golden Rose Holografic #141
• Essence #78 Blue Addicted (famous DL Across the Universe Dupe)
• 3 tiny pots with micro beads so I can try a caviar mani sometime. 

Funky French with Nite Owl

Ohai everyone!

Today I'll be showing you my only tan/beige nail polish. I don't really go for these colours, but something about this one caught my eye and I had to buy it! I'm talking about Orly Nite Owl.

I bought this one a couple of weeks ago and I wasn't even sure if I'd ever wear it, until last thursday, when I was called for a job interview on friday. After that call I immediately took off my previous mani, I couldn't go with blue and pink nails! xD So I grabbed Nite Owl from the drawer and I've had it on my nails since then, which is quite long for me.

The application on this was excellent, 2 easy coats, no dragging, no streaking, just perfect! Also, no chips so far as you will see from my photos, since these were taken today. I am very impressed with it, don't know if it is the nail polish or Seche Vite, all I know is that I still had an almost perfect manicure today with just a tiny bit of tip wear.

All the photos were taken under artificial light, no flash.

I usually get bored with a colour quite fast and change my manicures every 3-4 days, but I couldn't bring myself to take this one out, it just looked so perfect, so today I decided to freshen it up a bit and did a funky french, using my black Kiss striper, and added some drawing on my accent nail. I didn't draw it myself, I'm not that great with nail art, I used a stencil that came with the striper and this is what I'll be wearing tomorrow for my new job! C: (Just a call center, but better than nothing xD)