NOTD Viva La Diva 16

First up apologies for the lack of posts I've been incredibly busy in real life, but hopefully the craziness has calmed down for now! 

Today's NOTD is Viva La Diva 16,  a pink cream, this colour kind of reminds me of Pepto-Bismol. I’m not sure it’s great with my skin tone.

 I had some application problems with this but before I did the third coat, I put a few drops of thinner in it and ta-da problem solved. This did not seem to play well with Seche Vite At least I think that’s the problem, I had shrinkage from the cuticle up. It also didn't’ seem to dry great and I had sheet marks the next day. Unfortunately I’ve been stupidly busy and I’ve had to wear this mani all week, sheet marks and all and it’s worn really well! 

Nubar 2010

Up today is Nubar 2010, this is a flaky polish in the vein of Gosh Rainbow, which must be sold out the length and breadth of Ireland! Not only is Nubar 2010 a dupe for Gosh Rainbow, it’s also a dupe to Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure which has all the American nail junkies on a hunt for elusive bottles!

First up a bottle pic,

I’m not quite sure if Nubar is trying to insult me or encourage to revert back to my previous sluttish state, but anyhow for best resluts! Right time to compose myself and get over my nail polish insulting me, didn’t it know I was never a slut, hence no need to reslut myself!

So when I had the skittles from the giveaway win post on, I thought this would be an ideal time to try out the Nubar 2010 and kept them on for an extra day to try and do the 2010 swatches. (I got some very strange looks at work!) Since I’m a little late to this party, I thought I it was an easy way to try it out on a wide range of colours.

Of course all day when I was in work with my multicoloured nails the weather was lovely and sunny and I knew this polish would need sunlight to photograph properly, on my way home the sun went in. The next day I had a meeting with my boss so it had to come off, but I held off to see if it would be sunny in the morning and just as I had remover in my hand, the sun came out for a brief minute so I got 2 not very good sunlight photos, so I’ve put a few photos in to try and capture the flakey goodness!

Artifical light, flash

No Flash, artifical light

Finally sunshine (through the window!) and no flash

Each of these is one coat of Nubar 2010 over the polish, I didn't apply topcoat as I didn't want to dull the flakies, it dried extremely quickly anyway. This was an absolute pain to photograph and I took over 150 photos of it and these were the best! When I use this again I'll try 2 coats of 2010 and find a sunny day!

I had heard about people loving this over pastel colours, I personally wasn't feeling it so much but I loved it over the darker colours, especially the Hello Kitty pink on my pinkie. Expect to see a few more colours 2010'd in the upcoming weeks while I decide if I love it or I'm just meh about it.

Have you any suggestions for good colours to try with 2010?

A Great Start to the Weekend

So, last week I got an email from the lovely Felizarine from Alizarine’s Claws, informing me I had won her giveaway. Check out her fab blog here. Now, this was a surprise of the best kind not least because I'm known for never winning anything, so much so that everyone remembers (in my family at least) when I won a raffle in 6th class (when I was 11!) because it's the only thing I've ever won! So I did go a little mad doing the lotto and the like thinking lady luck had finally found me and I was about to make up for years of being mucho unlucky alas it was not to be! However, a couple of days later, this package arrived on my doorstep, completely erasing the pain of not winning the lotto!

I couldn’t believe how quickly it arrived, all the way from Sweden. There were 11 fab nail polishes, 2 eyeshadows and 2 lipsticks.6 of the polishes and the makeup were from a Swedish brand called Viva la Diva. When my sister saw the makeup she swiftly decided I wasn’t going to wear it (!) and it was much better in her hot little hands, before I had time to object she was gone. I’ll track her down and demand a review!

So on to the polishes there were 11 polishes in total and since I actually already owned the lovely blue my mind I thought I’d swatch the other 10 polishes. The Viva la Diva polishes had no names only numbers. I’ve put Blue my mind away for a giveaway in future.

On my left hand, I swatched these (From L-R) Viva La Diva 13-17

No flash, from Thumb to pinky Viva La Diva 13-17

Flash, from Thumb to pinky Viva La Diva 13-17

The formula of these was really really good for pastels only the yellow (17) and the peach(15) were 3 coaters. (actually I dinged the yellow and it became 4 coats)

On my right hand, from L-R Viva La Diva 18, H&M Bella’s Choice, H&M Check Me Out, Hello Kitty Turquise Kitty, Hello Kitty Pink Kitty.

No flash, from Thumb - Pinky, Viva La Diva 18, H&M Bella’s Choice, H&M Check Me Out, Hello Kitty Turquise Kitty, Hello Kitty Pink Kitty.

Flash, from Thumb - Pinky, Viva La Diva 18, H&M Bella’s Choice, H&M Check Me Out, Hello Kitty Turquise Kitty, Hello Kitty Pink Kitty.

I loved them but Bella’s Choice deserves special mention as it was a one coater, and the colour was very simlar to China Glaze For Audrey (more of which tomorrow). The rest of the polishes were 2 coaters. There’s a shimmer in the Turquise Kitty colour, which I managed to fall to capture in the bottle picture and both of the swatch pictures, I’ll do a full mani with this and try and get better pictures. Here I should mention that Turquise Kitty is H&M's name for the polish and not my appalling spelling!

I’d never heard of Viva La Diva before and have no idea if they are available outside Sweden, the polishes are very pigmented and some the nicer pastels I’ve used. I don't live near a H&M but will be making a trip to one soon to pick up some more of their polishes.

Have you seen the Viva La Diva range before, are there more products we should be trying? Also, has anyone got any other recommendations for any other H&M polishes?