Seventeen - 91

Ελληνικά/ Greek

A kind of 'smokey' light blue ceam that is so opaque it's great for stamping, too.

Beautiful lavender greys: Sixteen 648 & Stargazer 235

Greek/Ελληνικά

This has got to be one of my favourite combos ever. The base is pale lavender grey and the stamping polish is chrome purple. The way these two colours interact with each other is amazing and ever-changing. The lavender brings out the grey hues in the chrome polish and they both look very different depending on the light conditions. One minute the base looks lighter and the stamp darker, then I’ll walk into a different room and the effect will be reversed and both will look greyer. I step outside and they’ll look purple, sit under the shade and they’ll be grey. They are a colour lover’s dream! 

Base: Sixteen - 648
Stamp: Stargazer -Chrome 235
Born Pretty plate L005

 

 

Fantastic Baby!

Ελληνικά /  Greek

Another one from the vault, one inspired by the many fantastic visuals of the Big Bang "Fantastic Baby" video. I wasn't that keen on the music when I first saw it as kpop is not really my thing, but the style was out of this world. 

Let's see if I can remember all the colours I used for this.
Index

A-England - King Arthur (base), Camelot (black) and Stargazer - 232 (silver) stamping with at least one Βundle monster plate.

Middle

The dark base is Galahad by A-England, the thin shiny stripe is Le chat CM - Ashy Green, the tiny triangle is by a greek brand called Erre Due and I suspect the thick stripe is For Audrey by China Glaze. 

I am not even going to attempt the ring finger though I recognise a couple
Little finger (not Petyr Baelish)
Etude House (white), A-England - Camelot and Seventeen 533.

The video follows, but if you're not used to kpop , listen at your own peril!
That's it from me and T.O.P.

xxx
Elysse

Retropolish: Seventeen Super Shine #471

Greek/Ελληνικά

I thought I'd create a special tag for my older polishes that may or may not be discontinued. I'll kick off this journey through my collection with a Greek polish by the company Seventeen (nothing to do with the UK 17 brand). These polishes unfortunately don't have names, only numbers, but they have an near infinite variety of colours. No 471 is a bit tricky to describe as depending on the light it looks from purplish to steel. It doesn't shift like a duochrome, the change in colour is much more solid with this one as you can see in the pictures. So pretty!

natural light (shade)

incandescent light

Greek Stories I: Seventeen - 533

Greek/ Ελληνικά

As I mentioned previously, I am currently in Greece. I hadn't been in a beauty supply store in Greece in ages and when I did, I was taken aback by the amount of nail polish and brands available. I try to hold myself back and not buy everything I like and I regret not having taken my polish sample wheels with me to make sure I don't get any exact dupes as too often I find myself gravitating towards the same colours and the even the same hues.

Here is the first one I want to show you by a brand called Seventeen - no relation to the UK brand 17. As soon as I saw this deep glowing orange (at the lowest shelf no less!) I knew I had to have it. It's only the second orange polish I own, but it has become a firm favourite. It's so warm and beautiful it almost soothes me when I look at it. 

I know there is a similar orange by OPI in their Germany collection called Deutsch You Want Me Baby?, but I don't think they are dupes. I haven't had a chance to compare them side by side, but from what I've seen 533 is more vibrant and less red than DYWMB. It also stamps well as it is very pigmented, a very well behaved polish that took two coats for complete coverage with no brush stroke issues at all. What I did notice with Seventeen polishes in general is that they take a while to dry, but with a quick drying top coat it's all good. All in all, I love this autumnal beauty very much.

Let me know what you think of my pretty find!

X

Korres Nail Colour in 92 Vert Amande and Yamapi

Αυτή η ανάρτηση στα ελληνικά 

Today I received the most amazing packet from my wonderful friends full of presents that made my heart flutter like a five-year old's on Christmas day. It took me about an hour and a half to go through them all. Am I the only one that prefers a million little things instead of a big present?! The Yamashita Tomohisa fan in the picture below was in today's parcel and deserves a spot here. Yamapi(山下智久)is a Japanese pop star/actor and, thought I am not a crazy/omgodIhavetowatcheverydramaheisin fan I find his diary entries very amusing as it's like reading a kid's diary; they are almost always about him being hungry, what he ate, how he worked out and -of course- the weather report. He makes me laugh. My friends know me so well that some of the things they sent me are cosmetics and they will be featured here! 

My mani with a Yamapi fan that was also in the packet.
My friends are crazy and funny.

The first of these things is a Korres nail polish! I didn't even know that Korres had a nail polish line till a friend told me about them and then she sent me this one, isn't she great? I've not found them in their on-line shop so I'm not sure where you'd get them from at the minute. Korres polishes go beyond 3-free; they are 7-free as they have no silicones, acetone, phthalate, formaldehyde, camphor, toluene and xylene. Now if only they were a certified cruelty-free company, too, that would make them fantastic! I don't know why they haven't made a move towards that, but it's a shame as they are great in all other respects.

The colour I received is Vert Amande (92), a beautiful minty green cream. I've not checked out all the colours, but I am sure that this would be the first colour I would want to try. Even though it's a cream it has depth; it feels a bit like a jelly, but still manages to be opaque in two coats. I really love it! It's also not too pastel or stark and it doesn't give me lobster hands. The application was very smooth as you can see from the pictures. The brush is a normal round brush, not flat like I am used to and it'd be nice to see this improve in future versions. Normally I make a good mess of my cuticles when I am handling a round brush, but look at the pictures: no mess even though I've not done a clean-up! It applies like a dream, smooth and perfect with no issues of bubbling. I don't know how long it would take for it to dry as I applied a fast-dry top coat.

One coat (artificial light) Check out how smooth it goes on!

Two coats (natural light-cloudy)

Of course, I had to do a bit of stamping. I used SpaRitual's gorgeous dark bronze colour Running with wolves and Bundle Monster plate BM214 (from the second collection of plates). 

Thank you my dear friends! You bring so much light in my life!

PS- Excuse the slightly blurry pictures. My camera broke down, I have a new one and I'm still getting the hang of it.  

Propoline Lip Aid/ Lip Care by Apivita

One of the staples in my routine is Apivita's Propoline Lip Aid/Care. I've been using them since the early 90s when I was living in Greece and I don't think I've ever been without them. They are great lip balms, they keep my prone-to-dryness lips soft and hydrated and even though I occasionally stray away to try others, I always come back to them appreciating them more than before. In fact it must be one of the few things I buy plenty of so that I can have them scattered around in my bags, thus ensuring I am never without one!

What I appreciate the most with all of them is the their texture. My lips look natural and healthy, not glossy and sticky like I'm wearing a light gloss. I really don't like lip gloss and glossy textures because I find them sticky, a quality that is particularly annoying when it's windy where you live and your long hair end up sticking to your lips (yuck!). I have no such problem with these.

In addition to keeping my lips hydrated, I find them hard to replace because they are  so well made and they keep improving the formula; the current version of lip balms is free of parabens, synthetics, silicones, propylene glycol and mineral oils. Now if only I could find out whether they test the finished products on animals I would be even happier. In their disclaimer they mention not using raw materials that have been tested on animals, but I couldn't find anything about animal testing in general.I've posted a question on their facebook page and I hope I'll soon hear back from them. 

I know that they have reformulated them and changed the packaging since I last bought mine, but I still have three left of the previous packaging and I've almost finished them,too. Unfortunately, I don't have any of my favourite rose lip balm to show you because they are always the ones I finish first. I will make a separate post about it, but I can't not say anything about it when I have finished more or less 20 bullets of it over the years! It has the most gorgeous rose fragnance that calms and sooths you and it gives your lips a soft sweet pink colour. It was my first 'lipstick' (i.e. anything that gives colour to my lips) as a teenager and I am emotionally attached to it! When I am stressed I wear it  before I go to bed and the soft smell soothes me.

Of the ones I have here, only the middle one (walnut & olive oil) has any colour, the other two are  chamomile & olive oil (left) and propolis & beeswax (right). 

The Chamomile one has a very light sweetish smell and of all the lipbalms it smells the most 'green'; it's not too greenish/fresh on its own, but I find the smell gently refreshing for use in the summer months. It also has SPF 15 which in the current version (not the one pictured) is due to 2 active ingredients, Avobenzone and Octinoxate. 

The Propolis & Beeswax one is probably the oldest in the line. It has a smell I would recognise anywhere; a lovely soft honey smell. It makes you want to eat it! It was the first one I ever bought and still love it. 

This is a swatch of the Walnut&Olive Oil lip aid; heavily applied on the left and applied once on the right. I just noticed it's been discontinued in the new line. What a pity! It's soft and I find it looks particularly good when I am wearing blue eyeshadow. It gives my lips a soft earthy colour without making them look muddy. I am not a fan of brown lipstick, it clashes with my pinkish skintone, but this one doesn't bother me.

If you want to give them a try, you can always order online from their site. I hear they offer an excellent service and from personal experience, their hair care is also very good. I can't wait to visit Greece again to stock up from my local pharmacy. Going through all the beauty products I can find in Greek pharmacies is like a ritual when I visit!

UPDATE: 5/4 

They replied to me about the animal testing issue and I have to say they were very fast and very cordial in their communication. Here is what they had to say: "APIVITA, loyal to its philosophy and values, does not perform any animal testing in any stage of product creation. Our products are created within the European Union and are by law not tested on animals.Our raw materials are of natural origin (not from animal origin, except bee products like honey, propolis and royal jelly) and natural or organic certified, therefore not tested on animals. If we need to perform tests in order to prove safety or efficacy of our products, then we do clinical tests on humans conducted by dermatologists according to scientific protocols.
Thank you very much for your interest in APIVITA products."