OPI - Catherine the Grape

I am an OPI devotee. The formula, the brush - they're just plain outstanding if you ask me. So! When I saw one of my favorite bloggers, Pamsan of Clawsincolor sporting Catherine the Grape, I was aghast that I didn't even know this shade existed! I immediately made my first ever eBay-purchase and a week later, this smart-looking stunner was mine to parade around (our very medium-sized) town!

As usual with OPI, it was an easy two coats with almost no cleaning required! Nice, dusky, warm purple with a rather shy shimmer. This is from the Russian collection of fall 2007, but it has the ProWide brush, which I love and consider flawless.

The book I'm reading now is Dan Ariely's The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty, and it's just as interesting and amusing as his previous Predictably Irrational. Apparently, we are all liars to a certain degree. The trick most of use though, is that we only lie a little, because we still want to be able to think well of ourselves. Given the circumstances though, we may lie more or less and it has nothing to do with being rational.

OPI - Oktoberfest Afterparty

I loved the Germany collection from OPI, and my two absolute favorites from that collection is Germani-cure and Every Month is Oktoberfest. However - every time I've used the later, I have been slightly disappointed because the color in the bottle doesn't translate to the nail. The shimmer is hardly visible and it dulls quickly.

So. Over the last few months, I have added a little bit of this and a little bit of that to Oktoberfest and, today, I finally tried it out. I turns out that I now have a dark, deep purple with hot, warm pink shimmer that is visible on the nail and the vampy wow-factor is fantastic. I'm very pleased with myself!! What I added? A dollop of white, a dollop of shimmer deep red (I think) and half a bottle of a Depend warm shimmer purple.

Still great pigmentation and application. Two coats is more than enough for perfect coverage!

Ninja Polish - Mystic Glacier

Well. Am I ever in love. It's Ninja Polish again. This time, it's Mystic Glacier, the blue one I almost didn't buy because I'm not a big fan of blue. Of course, it's out of stock now and I am so pleased my instinct as a consumer kicked in and I just clicked on eevrythign in this collection when it came out. Here, I have layered it over OPI Ski Teal We Drop.  was in a hurry and was worried I had to deal with VNL if I tried it on its own. This is two easy coats on top of one OPI, and Poshé on top of that. Words cannot describe the shimmer, which reminds me of holo-polishes. It ranges from a blue grey with pink shimmer to a vivid turquoise green with golden shimmer. I'll just show you the pics!

I also think this will show an entirely new side if I layer it over vivid blue or red for instance. Then again, next time, I think I'll try it on its own:)

This is my entry for Nailoramas Blue Monday. It's blue sometimes:)

OPI - It's My Year

I bought this reluctantly, basically because I listen to what other people say and people say this is beyond fantastic! At first I was horrified because it looked very similar to Sprung, from the Mariah Carey collection, and I hated Sprung with a passion.

Anyway, I layered It's My Year over something, could have been Anti-Bleak, and... I like it. It's certainly an eye-catcher, but as always with glitters it's a bit too much in-you-face-fancy-pants for me. I'm thinking of trading it or selling it, but then when I look at the bottle, I always change my mind. So, go figure. I don't know what else to say!

Sprung is to your left and It's My ear to your right.

OPI - Yoga-ta Get This Blue

I swapped this for OPI's Yodel Me On My Cell and am very happy with the trade-off. This is completely opaque in two coats and almost mirrorlike in its shine. My hands don't look too corpsy, which I usually think they do in blue and, surprisingly, this looks nicest in indoor, evening light. It has a very subtle turquoise shimmer which shows itself then.

Half Moon Mani!

Today, I'm joining Le Lack's Sunday Nail Art with this super easy half moon mani. The blue is OPI's Yoga-ta Get This Blue, and the top is Ozotic's 730 (although I wished I'd used 502...) I used little round stickers to get the half moons in place and it was really easy and only took a minute or so. A lot of bang for my time buck. Or something along those lines...

OPI - Anti-Bleak

The OPI Mariah Carey collection is a bit over the hill now, I know, and Anti-Bleak certainly didn't make a splash. Bloggers have continually said that the shade is unoriginal but they have also agreed that the formula is flawless. The formula IS flawless. In fact, it's almost a one-coater, but two coats make for perfect coverage. It spreads like butter and levels itself out perfectly. And the shade? Well, I only have a bit more than 50 polishes, and this is a beautiful warm, dark purple creme. So if you, like me, don't have anything like it before, this is the perfect choice!

The book Ladies makes for easy reading just now - English ladies! Excentric, peculiar and with extraordinary lives. Also, if you don't want to finish the whole thing, you can just pick and choose among the chapters:)

OPI - DS Indulgence

This is two coats of OPI's DS Indulgence, on top of three coats of the hideous Sprung from The Mariah Carey collection. Indulgence fixed everything - including my mood with a minimum of effort. A polish to come back to:)

I also tried Poshé for the first time, since Seche Vite shrinks all my polishes. Worked like a charm:)

Cult Nails - Flushed

Like I said, I'm lazy. Since the two last Cult Nails polishes I tried were kind of sheer and I didn't want to risk another three-coat-episode - I took a short cut and used OPIs Anti-Bleak as under wear for Flushed. It worked GREAT! Ironically, Flushed actually didn't seem as sheer as the other two! Both coats were a joy to put on and both polishes levelled out really nicely at application.

What I quickly discovered though is that Flushed is a shade made for summer. The shy March sun we're having here does not do it justice, when it pleases to show itself at all, that is. On a hot summer night though, with a sly, lingering Nordic sun, this shade will be a flirty, dirty stunner.

I also filed ny squares down to ovals. Kind of a risk to take, but so far, I'm pretty okay with the results. It's also quite nice not to worry about cutting my kids bloody or slashing though my cornea when taking my contacts out.

One coat of Anti-bleak in the sun

One coat of Anti-bleak in plain daylight

Flushed in the sunlight - this image does not do the shimmer justice!

Flushed in plain daylight.

The amazing Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, looking perfect with Flushed!

OPI - Yodel Me on My Cell

I've tried to like blues - really - I have! They look so pretty in the bottle and I'm not the type to give up. In the end, though, I always think my hands look kind of corpsy. At the moment, I've given blues a rest and am trying greens to see if that's the way to go.

Yodel Me on My Cell was an impulse purchase, and I got it in a regular store for an obscene amount of money. It was surprisingly sheer for an OPI and this is three coats if I remember correctly. For me - three coats are almost a deal-breaker - especially if I get a corpsy look, which I think I did this time too, unfortunately. In any case, I wanted to join in and be part of Blue Monday at Lindas Nailorama, and this was the only blue I had:)

The novel, On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan, on the other hand is really good. There's no one like McEwan to tug at everything inside you. We meet a couple on their wedding night. It's the 60s. The young man has been dying to finally make love to the girl he loves, and the girl... well, she would much prefer to not have sex at all. Ever. Short and painful.

OPI - Every Month is Oktoberfest

I'm guessing Every Month is Oktoberfest will eventually be an OPI classic. Dark, dark purple with a red shimmer. It came out last fall with the Germany collection and it's one of the bottles I own. It's almost a one-coater but you need two for depth, and with that marvelous brush it is laughingly easy to apply.

The novel, however, is not for everyone. I would say it's for Jane Austen-fans only, and not all of them. The die-hards will be horrified at someone playing at leasure with those well-loved characters, even if it's a grand old dame like P.D. James. I love to revisit Austen world in any shape or form I can, and have read many spin-offs. This one is actually quite good. There's a murder at Pemberley. Naturally, Wickham is involved. Or - is he?