The box contained two Lip Spa lip balms, a bottle of Speedy Top Coat and two bottles of polish from the Winter Breeze collection.

I’ve reviewed the top coat earlier, along with the shade Mannequin, read more about it here. Today I will be showing you my swatches of the two winter colors, called Purple Haze and Star Gazer.

First out is Purple Haze, this is a purple taupe creme. It has a chameleon-like quality, sometimes it looks grey, sometimes brown and sometimes it leans more purple. Although it’s a creme, it looks very similar to Chanel Paradoxal, just without the violet shimmer. A very chic and edgy color.

Next we have Star Gazer, and I just have to say wow! What a stunner! It has the same base color as Purple Haze, but it’s packed with tiny glitter particles in gold and purple that really makes it sparkle. It kinda reminds me of a purple version of SpaRitual Sacred Ground, which I also love.

These were easy to apply, just a tad streaky on the first coat(s). I used one thin and one thicker coat for Purple Haze, and it really levels out beautifully on the nail. For Star Gazer I needed three coats, but you could also layer this one over Purple Haze, since the base colors are so similar. I’ve used the Speedy Top Coat over these swatches, and it’s a quality top coat with great shine.

These polishes, and other products from Linda Johansen’s line, can be purchased here. The price of the nail polishes is NOK 139 a bottle.

By the way, did you know that Karianne from Neglelakkmani is a color consultant for Linda Johansen’s nail polish line? I trust her to give Linda some insider tips on what we nail polish addicts really want to see more of!

(These products were sent to me for review.)

For this manicure I started with two easy coats of Revlon Just Tinted Desire, a pink jelly that dries to a satin-y finish on its own. Then I added a coat of Petites Pink Diamond, a combination of big and small baby pink glitters in a clear base. I added a coat of Desire over Pink Diamond, and finished it all off with Seche Vite.

I have to say I love this combination! It’s so pretty and light, but still with some excitement in the glitter bits caught beneath the shield of jelly. Now I want jellies in every color to make a bunch of sammies on my nails!
Have you tried any interesting combinations of jelly and glitter lately?

Back Alley Deals is a dream come true for me, I just can’t think of a better combination than this concoction of fine purple glitter with bright fuchsia hexes in between. It’s like this polish was made for me, I guess everyone knows my weakness for pink and purple. My pics doesn’t even begin to show how intensely this sparkles, but I hope you get an idea.

Not even is it gorgeous to look at, this polish is easy to apply as well. Even if it has a clear base, the glitter is dense enough to be opaque by itself in three coats. The glitter spreads evenly on the nail, and there’s no need to coax the hexes around for better distribution. It dries very matte and gritty, though, so I brought out what I thought was my fail-proof combo of Gelous x 3 with Seche Vite on top. Even with this industrial strength topcoat combination, my mani shows some bumps when dry. I’m really exited to try Lynnderella’s Glitter Tamer topcoat which I have coming in the mail, hopefully that will quench hungry glitters like this one.

Bobbing For Baubles is a beautiful, dusty, dark navy blue creme. It was released right before New Year’s with the Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011.

This polish was a dream to apply, very pigmented and smooth and opaque in two thin coats. The biggest surprise was the brush, I have never liked Essie’s skinny brush, but now it looks like they have changed to a wider, square brush. Me likey!

I was also surprised by how grey this polish looks compared to the swatches I’ve seen online, and I see that even in my own pics it looks bluer than it seems in real life. I did a small comparison between a grey (China Glaze Concrete Catwalk) and a blue (China Glaze First Mate) just so you can see how it looks.

I bought this polish at a local store (Cubus), I think the price was NOK 129. That equals roughly $21, so it’s quite a lot more expensive than getting it at for instance TransDesign, where Essies are $8 a bottle. Still, I was so happy to see that we can get more “international” brands where I live as well, so I decided to buy it locally in the hopes that we could get more polish into Norwegian stores! (I wouldn’t mind lower prices either, but one thing at a time.)

Beyond The Mistletoe

Light blue-green and holographic glitter in a clear base. 3 coats.

Gingerbread

Gold and holographic glitter in a sheer base. 3 coats.

Sugarplum Fairy

Silvery lilac and holographic glitter in a clear base. 3 coats.

The formula on all of these were pretty thick and gummy, quite typically for glitters. They are very sheer on the first coat, but all of them can be built to opacity in three coats. I bet they’ll work perfectly for layering in one or two coats, so they have great versatility. My favorites from this collection are Sugarplum Fairy and Jingle Jangle, which I’ve shown you here.

So there you have it, maybe you’d still like to get some of these glitterbombs? I bought mine from TransDesign, and most of this collection is still available there for $3.10 a bottle.

China Glaze Visit Me In Prism

Color and finish: Golden-taupey nude scattered holographic.
Collection: Kaleidoscope (2009)
Formula and coverage: Easy to apply, but be aware that you’ll easily drag the previous coat and get bald spots if you don’t wait a bit between coats. Very sheer, 4 coats for full coverage.
Where to get: Unfortunately, these are hard to come by nowadays, but maybe you’ll get lucky and find it in a blog sale somewhere? Also, “dusty” salons are likely to still have these in stock, or eBay as a last resort. Price will naturally vary.

China Glaze Starboard

Color and finish: Starboard-lantern green creme. Reminds me of when I used to go fishing with my dad when I was little, and he used to let me steer the boat, and how he taught me the difference between port and starboard. A nice basic color. (I had to hold the topcoat bottle, because when I held the polish bottle, all the green in the frame freaked out my camera and made the pic very inaccurate!)
Collection: Anchors Away (2011)
Formula and coverage: Glides nice and easy on the nail. Surprisingly sheer, I needed three thin coats for opacity.
Where to get: Web shops such as TransDesign, $2.99.

Orly Emberstone

Color and finish: Orange-red glassfleck (or mineral-fleck?). I can also see some pinkish particles here and there! This was hard to capture on camera, so my pics are more orange than it looks in real life.
Collection: Mineral FX (2011)
Formula and coverage: Easy application, but slightly on the runny side. 3 coats.
Where to get: TransDesign, $5.32.

Color Club Alter Ego

Color and finish: Purple based foil with gold and silver sparkles. Looks oddly grey and mostly silver on me, though.
Collection: Alter Ego (2011)
Formula and coverage: Slightly runny, but easy enough to apply. Sheer, so I needed 4 thin coats for full coverage.
Where to get: TransDesign, $3.10.

Hope you enjoyed this little roundup, thanks for stopping by!

I thought of putting this over black, but my eye caught the China Glaze Calypso Blue bottle, so that was it! I love how this looks over the almost-black blue. It’s like an instant galaxy on your nails! Two coats of the bride over Calypso Blue, then 3 coats of Gelous and one coat of Seche Vite to make it super smooth and shiny.

Don’t you just love it? Keep an eye on Lynnderella’s blog for updates on her new collection, I bet it’s going to be just as fantastic as her previous ones!

As you know, these polishes can be bought at Lynnderella’s own blog when she opens her shop (if you’re in the US or get someone over there to ship them to you), or if you live in “international” like me, you can get them on Llarowe. Just please don’t harass Leah Ann about shipping or stock, that’s not nice! Just be patient, everyone gets their stuff in the end.

So I dove into my untrieds drawer, and the first bottle that spoke to me was Lynnderella She Lived In A Swamp. This is from the Halloween collection, and it’s a mix of “multiple sizes of sea green, chartreuse and mossy green hexagons and squares in a yellow green-gold base, as well as gold plus green holographic hexagons and olive microglitter.” Because the base is kinda sheer, I’ve layered it over Orly It’s Not Rocket Science.

This is what I’d call an “advanced” Lynnderella polish, it’s not as easy to love as for instance Love Potion No. 99 or Mercurial. At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked it or not, but it grew on me very quickly. Is it pretty? No. Is it unique, cool and awesome? A big YES!

It’s not the easiest polish to tame, I used two coats of SLIAS over the base color, and some of the bar glitter is very sticky-uppy. I used three coats of Gelous and one coat of Seche Vite, and that would have made it smooth if it weren’t for the aforementioned strings poking out. I had to use a pair of cuticle nippers to get rid of the stragglers, so beware that this swamp thing is an unwieldy one!

Are you as excited for the new Lynnderella collection as me? I just can’t wait to see what she’s come up with this time!

The other day, Anna from Beauty by Shortylegs asked me if I would swatch Wet ‘n’ Wild Gray’s Anatomy, and being the nice person I am, of course I will!

I’m really glad you asked me to put this on, Anna, because it’s such a beauty. It’s a duochrome that changes between green, grey and purple, and it really is much more flashy than I thought. It’s really sheer on its own, though, so I used a coat of black underneath. I tried hard to capture all the color changes, so there might be a few weird hand positions in these pics.

The formula is good enough, maybe a little runny, but as long as you wipe the brush well, it won’t be a problem. The brush itself isn’t the best, though. The bristles are very stiff and hard (that’s what she said!), so it’s almost impossible to avoid brushstrokes. I feel that these duochromes look best when layered for that extra oomph, so this is two coats of GA over black.

I recieved this bottle in a swap, but luckily this is very easy to get here in Norway! Nelly.com stocks Wet ‘n’ Wild cosmetics, and these polishes are NOK 59 a bottle.

I hope this helps you decide, Anna! And to everyone, don’t hesitate to ask if there’s a particular polish you’d like to see here.

I still wasn’t quite satisified, so I added a coat of CND Crimson Sparkle. That was too subtle, so I needed something more. The magic happened when I finally added a coat of OPI DS Original on top. Holy cow, this is one of my favorite manis to date! In strong light it has the most beautiful holo effect, with a smidge of glitter peeking out underneath. But in low light, the holo effect is more subdued, and it looks more bronze-y, slightly duochrome and very glittery. I’m swooning over here!

Quite a successful layering, if I might say so myself! I need to do this more often, experiment with layers and effects. Even if it doesn’t turn out perfect every time, sometimes you get gems like these and it’s all worth it.

I hope you like it as much as I do! Thanks for reading.