Illamasqua's terror story has a happy ending!

Howdy!

Today is a great day: (i) I am leaving for 4 days off work, seeking peace and relax, and (ii) I received all my stuff from Illamasqua:

Blush in Tremble (thanks Illamasqua for that voucher :p), and polishes in Loella, Vice and Faux Pas. That means a lot of fun ahead! Good thing I'll have some 4 days to work on my clawsies ^^ Can you tell I am excited?

Also, do not forget to enter my 100 posts GIVEAWAY :)

Take care and be really bad!

M.

ABC Challenge: Letter L - Limited Edition, Kiko Metallic Copper, Celebration Collection

Hello Señoritas!

I am ahead of the game today with letter L; that's how much I love this color! L stands for Limited Edition, and the beauty that I am starring today is Metallic Copper from Kiko's Celebration LE Collection.

I would not speedily classify this shade as a copper, it's actually somewhere between brown, pink and copper, and it's filled with pink, copper, red and even green microshimmer. It shines like crazy and is very appealing to the eye while staying in the classic range of colors. Perfection!

As you can see, Metallic Copper paired very well with one of my lawyerly outfits. Wear this; feel like a Lady.

I'm out now, take care!

M.

Check out the other L-themed amazing takes:

100 posts GIVEAWAY

Hey!

With this post I just passed the 100 posts milestone, and I am willing to celebrate it with a little giveaway :)

It is open internationally, starting now and until April 6th. There will be one happy winner, who will receive:

- Sinful Colors nº 801, Love Nails.

- Essie Lapiz of Luxury.

- Deliplus nº 502.

- Misslyn nº 753, Star Dust.

- Manhattan nº 4.

- Misslyn nº 285, Space Camp.

- One tube of cuticle cream.

Good luck everyone!

M.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Illamasqua Scarce. My new go-to "nude".

Hello dear polish hoarders! :)

I hope you're kicking ass this weekend; I am doing exactly that. Kicking the fatigue in the ass! I was drop dead on Friday night; I thought I'd have my afternoon off and BAM, I worked 'til 21h [NOTE: I need to have two words in private with Karma]. Since then, I've been doing nothing but resting. How's that sound? I say it sounds darn pretty amazing!

What a better moment to introduce you all to the fantabulous Illamasqua's Scarce:

I fell in love with it since I saw it in All You Desire's blog. The hunt had started. 

I needed it in my hands INSTA. Problem: Illamasqua is not sold in Spain + Illamasqua's terror history with the British postal service had already started... Happily, the lovely and oh-so-talented Abbie from AbbieNail made my love story possible [¡gracias!]. She bought it for me and sent it to Spain, quite sneakily, haha! I was a little worried it would be destroyed (like it had happened in 100% of my previous experiences) but it wasn't. That made my day. Seriously.

I've been rocking it last week at work and let me tell you: I think I've found my perfect nude-ish but not boring classy work-safe polish. That's a lot of adjectives, I know, but I'll excuse myself by saying all of them are necessary ;) 

The formula is perfect, this is only two coats. And I think one thicker coat may have been enough... Crazy, right? Sweet & subtle as it is, I had quite a lot of compliments while wearing it. So no doubt I'll be wearing it again soon :)

Take care,

M.

ABC Challenge: Letter K - Kiko Oil Blue (nº 383)

Hello there!

Easy one today for letter "K"; I think I own more Kikos than any other brand, closely followed by China Glaze. So I had loads of polishes to choose from, and yet here's another manicure from the vault! My poor archives are now filled with crappy pictures, for everything else has been posted for the ABC Challenge. At least I'm giving them a good use ;)

Today I have my first take at needle marbling, done with China Glaze liquid leather and Kiko nº 383 Oil Blue. It's close to a fail to me just depending on the day I look at the pictures. I guess I am in an optimistic mood today because I won't post it as such ;)

Apart from this I am working my ass off; just another day at the office. I hope to be back to living (hence, blogging) soon. Maybe tomorrow? Please bear with me a little more...

Today was the day the Code was presented in Madrid. Guess what? I am in Barcelona. Whatever, the manicure ideas you gave me are safe in my head and will come to light sooner or later :)

Have a nice day & go check the other challenge ladies' ideas for today!

M.

Simple French.

Howdy! :)

I hope you had a great weekend, wherever y'all are. Mine was totally f*cked up, to be honest. I worked all day long both Saturday and Sunday and I get the feeling I will have the same plan next weekend. Yay. I am glad The Boyfriend made it as bearable as it could be, that's sweet. [Nah, that's not my way of knowing if or when he reads my blog... ha!]. 

Anyboo, I had the Criminal Code event last Friday and it was totally nice to hear my name in the middle of professional acknowledgements; my ego was flattered. And completely satisfied. Here's what I had on my paws:

Ring included :) 

I'm out 'til Wednesday! 

M.

ABC Challenge: Letter J - Jade, King of Greens + Illamasqua adventure

Hello Ladies,

We've got a rendez-vous with letter J this week, for which I chose another one of my back-ups: Catrice's jade polish King of Greens. Yes. I have been a lame, lame lawyer. I got lost into the oceans of papers I need to read, review and summarize and when I found myself in front of my stash I just couldn't find anything more interesting than my new Kiko Mirror effect in Lavender. Fitting that in letter J felt too much like cheating, so I raped my archives once more ;)

Another shimmery beauty. Flawless aplication. Yet I confess I am completely out of love, so I'll let the pictures do the talking. 

Let's move to the obvious and undeniable evidence of my bad luck, "recently" proved by my last purchase to Illamasqua. Yup, remember the sales? Back in January? Right then! I dedided to indulge myself and acquire three Illamasqua beauties that I am still waiting on. It all started when the Queen of England decided (yeah, right. She personally did. *irony*) to pass a new law regarding the exporting of hazardous items from England to other European countries, right in the middle of the post-Christmas sales. Optimum timing, you'll see. Hazardous shit, I was saying. Ya' know, cocaine, dynamite, guns, nail polish. That sort of things we should all work to erradicate from the surface of the earth. But whatever, no one informed Illamasqua and its fellow companies of the passing of such law (bad!) and when the royal mail service detected hazardous parcels it considered more advisable to destroy them than to return them to the sender (very bad!). Illamasqua informed me that my parcel had been destroyed for the first time.

Next up, Illamasqua had to speedily resend all those destroyed parcels, and I am guessing they probably ran out of stock with something I had bought, for they took a good month to ship the package again. I am not blaming them at all, I can just imagine how costly this must have been for the brand. So, at the end of February my package was sent to me again. With a private company, this time, which assured Illamasqua they would send the packages following Her Majesty's new rules. Bullshit. Illamasqua just contacted me yesterday: my package has been destroyed a second time. Made my day.

Illamasqua needs to re-send everything for the third time, at its own expense. Again. They informed all the customers affected by this that they would send everything in "express delivery", and sent us a 20 pounds vaucher. 

Okay, so my bad luck has been scientifically proven by this series of events beyond all reasonable doubt. 

And seriously now; from Illamasqua's perspective, this implies a shitload of negative accounting stuff that I honestly  don't think they should be responsible for, and I am feeling sorry for a brand that I have come to value because it stands out for imperfection and uniqueness in this fake and impersonal world we live in. Thus, I don't think I will let my greed aggravate their situation by using the vaucher I have been sent. I need to think about it. Any thoughts?

Have a nice day!

M.

Check out below what the other ladies have come up with for letter J :)

Tetris nails + need a couple of tips...

Hao!

Warning: this will be a long post, so brace yourselves. 

Or skip it.

How is your week going so far? Mine has been *un infierno* ["Hell" sounds way harsher in Spanish, that's why]. I have been wishing it was over since Monday morning, and that makes an awfully long week..!

On to my Tetris nails! I loooove this game. It's actually the one and only game I have ever downloaded on my phone, and that shows some love. Some time ago [my work makes me feel like I live in a loop, so I don't even remember how long ago that happened - One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel García Márquez) anyone?] I felt like wearing something eye catching and fun on my nails. I had to wake up at 5 a.m. the next morning (on a Saturday) so I also needed it to be easy to do, and that's what I came up with.

Recipe: 2 coats of China Glaze Snow + 2 coats of BeYu nº 475 + 2 coats of INM Out the Door + some strategically place studs + one thick coat of INM. In short, a shitload of polish. Long live the fast drying top coat, I say!

If you've been reading me for a while you may (or may not) know that I am co-author of a Criminal Code with Case Laws that's been published in mid-february; it has taken me a lot of time to do my part of the work, which is 10% of 1500 pages entirely written by me. In the next two weeks we'll be having promotional events, in Barcelona and Madrid. We've had a great feedback already, more than I could have ever imagined, coming from huge personalities in the Spanish Criminal Law scene. Now, I need your expertise in the polish field to enlighten me. 

I've had three major breakages this week on both of my hands, so I have nubbinized my beloved claws to a point that makes me feel completely unprotected. Ridiculous as it is, crying is of no use, so let's move on. I have been thinking on what manicure to wear to the Barcelona event next Friday, and my first pick is half moons in red, just as I showed you in THIS post but (way) shorter. Second option is a classic french manicure. Third and last is a V french manicure, like so. Any imput will be highly appreciated :)

I also changed the blog's background. The previous one was supposed to have a paper texture that gave it a pixelled effect IMHO, that I hated. The colors were nice, but as Jin pointed out it wasn't easy to read the entries with them on the back. And I was already starting to get bored of them. So I have taken my time, but I think I have improved the thing. Yay or nay?

I just nead a gorgeous blog title now. Any tips?

M.

ABC Challenge : Letter I - Cult Nails Iconic

Well hello! :D

Today's letter of the ABC Challenge is letter "I". For this installment, the challenge gave me a little push to try Cult  Nails Iconic for the first time since I bought it, months and months ago... It's not my oldest untried, but it's still on a top 10 range I think. Note that I am not a big hoarder, admittedly. Here we go:

As you can see the polish is quite complex in itself (what an excuse for not doing nail art on it, ha!): the base is a dark red creme leaning to orange, filled with gold microshimmer that adds a lot of depth to every layer, and red flakies that lay evenly on the nail by themselves, without any fishing needed :)

I was worried at first because the mixing of red and gold / yellow draws me back every time. It reminds me of the colors of the Spanish flag; we can all agree it's not the best time in History to make it fly in the sky (or on the nails). It's a personal choice, of course. All in all I was quite happy with Iconic, no color clashing resulted of its application, and my nails were dressed for another week of work :) 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to jump in my swimsuit and find my way to work through this incessant rain that's falling over Barcelona...

M.

Kiko Sugar Mat no. 641, Strawberry Pink

Hello dear readers!

Although I thought I would not be a big fan of sugar mat / liquid sand polishes, this has been my first pick among the polishes I hauled last week at Kiko's. The reason is  that Strawberry Pink is rich, shimmery, summery and gorgeous in the bottle, and I felt physically compelled to try it on. I am not disappointed, but positively surprised!

What you will see next is ONE coat of Strawberry Pink by itself. Please look at that gold shimmer peeking through the mat gritty polish! Also, take a look at the length of my nails *proud*

The feeling was a tad too rough for me at that point; I like my nails smooth just because I am boring like that. So I slapped one thick coat of Essence Better Than Gel Nails and one coat of INM Out The Door TC. Strawberry Pink is definitely a TC eater, so even after that the grittiness was still visible. Hey, what's the point of taking off all the fun, right?

I am quite in love with this polish, to my surprise! Application was flawless, and I am glad the sugar effect can be moderated and become really fun even to my taste. The color is amazing, that's obvious, and will be perfect for summer ^^ I have been lucky enough to sport those in a sunny evening in Sitges. 1 up! :D

Be bad and kill boring nails!

M.