Fade Street Fever

Now this blog has so far been a canvas for my and Claudia’s nail polish musings, ramblings and obsessions. But this post will not be like the others. THIS… is a special, once-off post in honour of the glorious RTE 2 program Fade Street.

Now Fade Street has already run for nine episodes, but after last nights visual feast, I knew I had to tell the world of my obsession. This was an episode of many delights. First of all, the star of the show was Cici. No, sorry, her eyebrows. Look at them! They’re absolutely mad! They practically jumped off the screen and declared themselves the star of the show.

shortly after this scene was filmed, Cici's eyebrows took the cast and crew hostage and demanded to be given a half hour prime-time slot of their own.

Next we had poor Dani being savaged by her work colleagues at Dublin Ink. It’s been happening for a few weeks – Dani says something, and the boys tear her to pieces. It’s no wonder that this week, she ended up in tears.

y u cry?

Here are the “tattooed fuckwits” that got Dani all upset.  *shakes fist angrily*

"See, first I'll crush her spirit, then I'll ask her to go out with me. Never fails."

If they don’t stop harrassing poor wee Dani, this is what’s going to happen –

LEAVE DANI ALONE!! *sobs*

We had some fantastic fashion moments in this episode, from Vogue’s baby blue nail polish to Louise’s floral woolly jumper. Louise had the cojones to wear her jumper with a leather skirt and high heels to a fancy event thingamajig in the five star G Hotel. YOU GO GIRL!

Vogue, if you're reading this, I love your nail polish. Where did you get it?!

casual granny chic

Was it just me, or did anyone else notice this? The fly on the wine glass?

the other star of the show

Dillon made a  delightful quip at leery lothario Diarmaid, which made me love him all the more.

Diarmaid: Am I getting blown off here? Dillon: I don't know, are you? I can't see under the table...

We also had the Many Faces of Michael O’ Doherty.

I don't want to be a snob about this, or anything like that, but...

...a Bikers and Slappers party, free in before ten o clock!

WHO LET THESE PEOPLE IN (blinks furiously to emphasise rage)

Finally we had Cici’s new beau, Keith, who bears more than a passing resemblance to one Justin Bobby Brescia, former resident bad boy of The Hills. Keith also comes across as a bit of a bad boy, as he told Cici in that inimitable D4-by-way-of-Australia?? accent that he in no way asked Dani to go out with him. Even though he totally did. He’s a wily one, that Keith. I’ll be keeping my eye on him.

Then it all ended happily when the lady in the green dress (first episode) came back and offered Louise a job. Suh-weet! Ah well, all’s well that ends well on Fade Street 🙂

shut UP that's awesome!

 

The Lady is a Vamp

2011 – It’s the year of the vampire, right? True Blood has been renewed for a fourth season, Vampire Diaries has won a bunch of awards, and every bookshop you enter has more or less replaced its young adult section with a miniature Vampires R US.

2011 is also the year that the final film instalment of the Twilight Saga hits our cinema screens. Edward and Bella in steamy clinches on a remote tropical island! Swoon! (Well, the Edward bit at least.)

Breaking Dawn (Part 1) is due to be released on November 18, and I guess I’m already getting into the vampire spirit! Or, to be truthful, I found this blood red nail polish in a Superdrug on Charing Cross Road when I was in London, and I thought it was really pretty. So I bought it. Voila, Barry M Nail Paint 1A 033 Red Wine!

indoor, natural light

outdoors, natural light

in the frostbitten grass

pyjamas

blurry but more accurate representation of the colour

It was so frustrating taking pictures of this nail polish – the camera just couldn’t pick up its colour correctly. It’s actually more of a deep, blood red. And it’s a jelly polish! I freaking LOVE jellies. It applied like a dream – but you have to be careful to do even coats, otherwise the layers are very obvious. Beautiful thin formula, lovely brush, full thumbs up for this polish. Barry M are always a winner for me.

Anyway, here are a couple of pictures that are closer in colour to the actual polish, to give you a better idea –

rather like its name - red wine

Aegean wallflower

I hope you get the idea, I’m so annoyed my camera wouldn’t pick up the correct colour. It’s very close in colour to actual blood with two coats, and more of a strawberry red with just one coat. Delightful! Needless to say, I love it. It’s a gorgeous dash of colour in this gloomy month of January. Did you know, today (January 17th)  is “scientifically speaking” the most depressing day of the year? I have just the thing for that – a shiny new manicure, and this picture below.

only a few more months 'til summer!

Happy Blue Monday!

xo

 

 

 

 

(all photos link to their sources, except mine of course)

A Dupe For Chanel Black Pearl? Essence 62 Must-Have

Black is back for Spring 2011 – take a look at the new collection from Essence (pictured below), for example. Of course, Chanel was one of the instigators of this trend, releasing pictures of its hot new Spring 2011 shade, Black Pearl, long before the Christmas trees went up last December.

coming soon!

courtesy of chicprofile.com

Chanel Spring 2011 nail polish collection, courtesy of fashionbeautyglamour.blogspot.com

Chanel’s Black Pearl isn’t a straightforward black – it’s been described as a sort of teal-tinted gun-metal grey, with a silver shimmer throughout. I rifled through my nail polish collection last night, looking for an untried, and came across a bottle of Essence I bought in early winter… and its resemblance to Black Pearl is more than passing. This is Essence Multi Dimension XXXL Shine Nail Polish, 62 Must-Have.

indoors, natural light

outdoors, natural light

outdoor close-up

*pause* isn’t the shimmer beautiful? For a nail polish that was less than two euro (compared to Black Pearl’s RRP of US$23).

indoors, with flash

The shimmery bits really pop out with the flash, but it’s pretty in any light. The formula is a thick creme, which made it hard to get a neat line along the cuticles, but it wasn’t all that bad – you could easily leave it at one coat and it would be perfectly opaque. For this I did two coats, after royally smudging up the first one.

So – it’s no Chanel, but if you want a shimmery steel grey at a fraction of the price, Essence is definitely a Must-Have.

 

Until next time!

xo

2010 in review…

The stats helper monkeys at WordPress.com mulled over how this blog did in 2010, and here’s a high level summary of its overall blog health:

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 12,000 times in 2010. That’s about 29 full 747s.

 

In 2010, there were 52 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 413 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 308mb. That’s about 1 pictures per day.

The busiest day of the year was August 23rd with 265 views. The most popular post that day was Nail Polish Trends for Fall 2010.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were twitter.com, facebook.com, beaut.ie, bloglovin.com, and emoltofashion.blogspot.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for katy perry, katy perry nails, black nails, stiletto nails, and graffiti nails.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

1

Nail Polish Trends for Fall 2010 August 2010
8 comments

2

Nail Inspiration, Part I: Katy Perry September 2010
3 comments

3

Tacky, Wacky or Cool? Questionable Nails… October 2010
4 comments

4

Nails and Things: October 2010 September 2010
4 comments

5

Nail Inspiration, Part 2: Lady Gaga October 2010
8 comments and 3 Likes on WordPress.com

Happy New Year! 2011 is the Unofficial Year of Nail Polish.

Happy new year dear blog readers! I won’t go making any mad promises to you… 

(like I’ll blog at LEAST twice a week, every week, from now on) … because I know I’ll just go ahead and break them. But I do want to blog more frequently, so here’s where I solicit compliments and encouragement to keep going 😉 Eh, eh?

Anyway, the first nail polish of 2011 is New York Color Long Wearing Nail Enamel 108 Polyester Pink Creme. It was a Christmas pressie from my dahling sister who is very attentive when I bring her to pharmacies and point out exactly the colour of nail polish I would like for Christmas, in no uncertain terms 🙂

Polyester Pink Creme has a very thin formula, so you can’t overload the brush. I also had the tendency, using this, to overload my nails with polish. It dried very nicely though, no smudges or dents. It’s beautifully opaque in three coats – any less and you’ll suffer from the old faithful visible nail line.

As a base coat, I used Sally Hansen Power Shield Ultra Protective Top Coat. Yeah yeah, it’s *supposed* to be a top-coat, but it works amazingly well as a base coat, too. One coat above and beneath your nail colour and it locks it in for about three days. Superb!

in natural light

indoors in natural light

close-up of my pinky. haha, get it? pinky? haha.... oh my...

I’m so excited about this colour, I love love LOVE it!! (Although, I say that about a lot of nail polishes. Perhaps, all of them.) Anyway, here are some things this polish reminds me of…

Ah, what collection of things pink would be complete without a little dash of Hello Kitty? So freaking cute 🙂

Another pressie I was delighted to receive this Christmas was a brand new ukulele! And, not only that, it is PINK!! I thought I’d show you my current manicure against the fretboard to contrast the colours.

pink on pink

cutesy pink ukulele

I was in my PJs taking these pictures, which is why I didn’t take a full-length shot of the ukulele… it would have involved way more pyjama than I am willing to show to the world. Note to self – get dressed earlier 😛

That’s all for now kids, hope you are all having a lovely New Year!

 

 

 

 

 

image credits:

pink lady : http://protectingbrands.com.au/?p=392

Grease image: http://prismreptilerobot.net/page/4/

Barbie car: http://www.gizmodiva.com/wheels/nissans_barbie_pink_mirca_is_the_most_expensive_of_the_lot.php

My Little Pony: http://www.balloonmaniacs.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1_164&products_id=4249

50th anniversary Barbie: http://funkydoodledonkey.blogspot.com/2009/03/barbie-turns-50.html

pink roses: http://heart2heartweddings.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

Hello Kitty: http://students.ou.edu/K/Lacy.C.Kelly-1/aboutme.html