So, when Monica was here on Thursday she also did my nails! I’ve never had my nails done before, but I really wanted them to look good for our vacation, and I’ve always wanted those clean-looking white tips. Needless to say, I absolutely love them! According to Monica she’s a little rusty, but I adore them. It takes a while to get used to these acrylic nails, since they are a bit thicker than my natural nails, but it doesn’t bother me. They look stunning, even on my tattooed not-so-ladylike hands! Now I feel all glamored up and sophisticated, all ready for Paris next week!

Thank you a million times, Monica!

Photo © Øyvind H. ’10

I wasn’t really planning on going shopping today, but somehow I suddenly found myself at Falkanger Sko AS where I discovered these gorgeous booties. Well, there’s usually no harm in looking, but last fall I was desperately looking for a nice pair of booties, exactly like these ones, so how could I leave them behind? I couldn’t. Epic fail.

But the truth is that I absolutely love them! Trust me, they look a lot better in real life than in the picture. I got them in size 36 (3½ US), and they look so cute on my foot – perfect to wear with just about anything, and without having to endure any pain in the process. Anyone who’s been wearing heels one time or another knows that it can be quite painful, and I can’t say I disagree (even though I don’t actually walk on them). Sneakers are nice, but not always fitting if you’re wearing a nice dress or maybe a cute skirt, and I’m quite picky when it comes to shoes and boots.

Apart from my new booties, Mr. Postman came knocking as well. He brought me a small package from the US containing two nail polishes: Sephora by OPI Iris I Was Thinner (medium iris purple) and essie® Midnight Cami (shimmering deep twilight blue) – two absolutely gorgeous colors! I’m hoping he’ll be back with more packages the following days – I’m still waiting for my two prizes from Sleek MakeUP, and a few other goodies I’ve ordered for myself to celebrate something I’ll tell you about very soon. I’m also expecting Mr. DHL to come by sometime during next week, and I know someone who’ll be extremely happy to receive a few of the treasures he’s bearing – apart from myself of course!

I wonder if maybe a collective M·A·C haul post is coming up?

Photo © Falkanger Sko AS

Mr. Postman apparently decided to brighten up my day a little as he brought me two packages today! I haven’t received any mail for a long time. For normal people the definition of “a long time” might differ a bit from mine, but I’m the one doing the defining here. The first package contained a small eBay haul of nail polishes after a recommendation from Pinchy Peach, and I’m thrilled! I do have to blame one of the polishes on Neglelakkmani, for including it when she swatched three slightly different lilacs for me in the end of March. The polish I’m talking about is OPI A Grape Fit!, and I absolutely love the color. I had OPI Do You Lilac It? from before, and it’s been a favorite ever since I used it the first time. What would life be like without purples?

The rest of the haul mainly consisted of essie® The Resort Collection (Splash of Grenadine, Lapis of Luxury, Turquoise & Caicos, Playa del Platinum), China Glaze Something Sweet and essie® Matte About You (matte top coat), as I mentioned here. I’m a bit disappointed in ChG Something Sweet, because it seems to be one of those completely off pinks which make my skin turn ashy. Who’d wanna look like a zombie? With pink nails? Bah. I’ll have to try it out though, I might be wrong. And if you want to see Theo making a sneaky guest appearance while Øyvind is taking pictures of my haul, feel free to click here.

Moving on to the second package! On May 4th I received a very nice comment from Kari, who wanted to know whether or not I’m pleased with our beloved Nespresso Lattissima and also asking me for my address so she could send me a little something from Nespresso for PR. How cool isn’t that? So today I received some free capsules of Nespresso’s new coffee Fortissio Lungo – purrfect! Thank you so much, Kari.

Imagine that, my blog actually contributed in getting me a cool freebie.

Photo © Øyvind H. ’10

It’s been quite some time since I obsessed with nail polish last, but now I’ve found the perfect polish for summer: essie® The Resort Collection. It was love at first sight, and I knew I had to have them. I don’t have much experience with essie®, apart from the one bottle of “Starry Starry Night” that I own, but I’m hoping this will be a nice experience. I’m not a several-layers-girl, and those of you who know me know that every time I find a polish that needs more than two, or preferably one coat, all I want to do is to throw it out the window.

Because of this huge ordeal with Trans Design not shipping internationally anymore, I had to resolve to eBay once again. I had been planning to place another order with Trans Design for quite a while, but I kept postponing it without really knowing why – and suddenly it was too late. Thanks to Pinchy Peach I found a seller who offered all the seven items I was out to get, and that made this transaction very smooth indeed. The three other items in my shipment are ChG Something Sweet from the Up & Away collection, OPI A Grape Fit! and then essie® Matte About You Top Coat. I’m not overly enthusiastic about matte nail polish, but with a matte top coat I’m at least able to choose for myself if I want my manicure to be glossy or matte.

I was trying to sell some of my nail polishes, but I kinda failed. When push came to shove I couldn’t part with them after all, and I ended up keeping them all – I’m such a color junkie! I think I will be giving it another shot by hosting a little “blog sale” soon, where you can get your hands on some China Glaze, Sally Hansen and maybe a few other brands of nail polish. Some of the bottles have never been opened, others have been swatched lightly once.

Photo © essie®

One of the popular nail polish colors nowadays is Sephora by O·P·I “Metro Chic”. As the name implies it’s sold only at Sephora, and therefore not available to a lot of us. Thankfully there are a few other options like eBay, a CP* or even using a redirecting service offering some kind of “personal shopper” like MyUS or other similar companies. I’ve been watching a few YouTube videos where this nail polish has been mentioned several times as a must-have color, but I never thought it would be a color for me. Sephora describes it as a “dark smoke with a hint of purple”, and it’s categorized as a gray color. To me it’s a lot more taupe, with a purplish undertone, and I really like it.

Last week I got a sample bottle of CND “Cinch My Corset” from a very sweet girl on the Wave. She had gotten the sample with an order, tried it and decided that she didn’t want it herself. Her description of the color was that it looked like diarrhea. Not a very flattering description at all, but something made me wonder if a taupe color like that would look good with my complexion, so I asked her if I could have it. Just a couple of days later it arrived in my mailbox, and naturally I had to swatch it immediately. I instantly had to disagree with the somewhat amusing description, because it didn’t look like diarrhea at all! It’s a lot less purplish than “Metro Chic”, and reminds me slightly of milk chocolate.

I had no other choice but to go ahead and add another bottle of nail polish to my collection, the gorgeous CND “Cinch My Corset” in full size. Thank heavens for eBay, I say! I’ll be adding some photos of these two colors shortly, also with a small description of each brand and how they apply.

Photo from Google