Belle Toute Nue - OPI Germany nudes & comparaisons

 Bonjour les filles!! On continue notre découverte de la collection OPI Germany avec les nudes. Je pense que les vernis nudes sont parmi les plus difficiles à choisir et à aimer parce que le fait qu'ils aillent ou pas à une personne dépend de la couleur de peau (et donc aussi de la saison, parce que forcément, on n'a pas la même couleur de peau en été et en hiver), mais perso, j'ai une passion pour les vernis nudes. J'aime me vernis les ongles parce que j'aime avoir de jolies mains, je trouve que ça donne énormément de classe, mais avouons-le, il est assez facile de "tricher" , c'est-à-dire de masquer un ongle pas tout à fait joli avec une couleur. Avec le nude, on ne peut pas, donc avoir des jolies mains nudes, c'est vraiment un challenge. Évidemment, je ne pouvais pas passer à côté des vernis nudes de la collection Germany, My Very First Knockwurst et Don't Pretzel my Buttons, ici en deux couches sans top-coat.

 Je pourrais arrêter mon article-là et vous resteriez avec vos interrogations sur 'est-ce que ça va m'aller ou pas?' Déjà, MFVK est plus simple à porter que DPMB parce qu'il est rosé et donc plus flatteur sur n'importe quelle couleur de peau. Pour DPMB, c'est une autre paire de manche: c'est une teinte "fond de teint", qui me va bien à moi (je suis d'ailleurs très contente de l'avoir trouvé, j'avais tenté de faire un Franken de cette couleur qui restera sans doute comme le pire vernis de la planète), mais il n'est pas dit qu'elle ira à tout le monde. Donc, pour vous aider, j'ai décidé de sortir ma collection de nudes et de faire des comparaisons. Vu la quantité de photos, je ne vais pas les commenter une par une, sauf si la photo ne parle pas d'elle-même. La qualité des photos est inégale, je m'en excuse, j'espère cependant que ce post vous sera utile.

 

 

 

 

Là j'ai fait des gros plans car les Zoya de la collection Feel sont de loin les plus proches, même si Kennedy est un poil plus mauve que MVFK et que Avery est un poil plus jaune que DPMB

 

 

Zoya Feel 1 Avery + comparisons

Hey everyone! I've been neglecting you for a couple of days, just didn't have time: Minnie came back last week-end telling me that she wanted to repeat the Finnish Christmas party we had done last year, so all our (very little) spare time was devoted in cooking and decorating. The party was on Thursday and it was great, but yesterday I literally spent the entire day zombying around!!

So, back to polish. As you can guess from the photo above, I'm gonna start reviewing the Feel Collection from Zoya, with the beige Avery (yes, I'm gonna go from right to left on the picture above).

You see Avery on one finger only, because the day I wore it, I tested a new top-coat which was highly unsatisfactory and messed up my manicure, so I couldn't wait to take it off! This ended being the only finger that I felt like showing, and you can see it's far from perfect.

Avery is a beige polish with a hint of pink. Not quite peachy enough to be my mannequin-hand shade, but warm enough that I can wear it without having lobster hand.

As you know by now, I have a lot of nude/beige polish so I had plenty  of comparison material. First round is with Zoya Shay from the Touch Collection (on the left), leaning more towards peach and closer to my skin tone but with shimmer, and with Bare Grace, my nude franken (on the right).

And second round of comparison is with Zoya Minka, still from the Touch collection, on the left, which is much yellower, and Essie Sand Tropez on the right, which leans more towards grey and beige.

The formula on Avery (and on much of the collection) is a bit strange, quite thick and yet runny. You have to carefully wipe the stem of your brush, otherwise you risk having a big drop falling on your nail seconds after you've started your application. But once used to that, it applies ok, covers perfectly with two coats and dries quickly.

See you soon for Kennedy!

OPI Sand in my Suit

Today's pick is another nude before going back to winter and holidays shades, to bring you a hint of summer in the cold dark days. Here's OPI Sand in my Suit from the 2009 Summer South Beach collection. I had had my eyes on it for a while but it's kinda hard to find, and while I sometimes agree to fork an additional couple of dollars for a pretty shade, this one was not worth it in my opinion. So when I found it at the regular price, I caved in. It's a warm sandy shade, just warm enough to suit me and I'm not disappointed! You will first see it in two coats, which turned out to be a bit short on opacity, so I went for another.The finish is pearly, so there's a risk of brushstrokes but nothing too bad. Application is easy and it dries super glossy.

You've seen my hands with nude shades a couple of times and I've had my share of lobster hands but this one is perfect!

And here Sand in my Suit in three coats, as you can see, it's now perfectly opaque and without brushstrokes.

Finally, here's Sand in my Suit compared to Zoya Minka. The difference is slight, but that's enough to go from a shade I can't wear to a shade that gives me super pretty hands!

Mermaid nails

And now for the last polish of the Zoya Touch collection, Minka. As I showed you before in my general presentation of the collection, this is a color that doesn't suit me at all, but it's quite perfect on Minnie, so it's officially one of her polishes. The first time she tried it on, it made me think of sand, and since I had then recently received OPI Turquoise Shatter, I went for a "sand & sea" manicure, to make up for the fact that neither I nor she will see much of it this year (no rest for the wicked!). So this is Minnie and her Mermaid manucure, two coats of Zoya Minka, accents nails with OPI Turquoise Shatter and turquoise star-shaped stones on the other fingers.

Zoya Pandora

Today I'm showing you the second polish from the Zoya Touch collection. You'll see the last one soon, I finally managed to ambush Minnie for some nail art, she's very busy right now. But right now I present you Pandora, in two coats, without top-coat.

It's a very classy pink nude, and I wanted to decorate it, so I took out my konad kit and went for some black flowers with plate M73.

I do need some practice with Konad, it's been too long since I've done any: as you can see, my middle finger was done in several times. All in all, my favourite fingers are the thumb and the ring-finger, even if there's a bit of a black smudge on the ring.

Being my perfectionnist self, I didn't keep that nail art, but I'll try it again another time, I adore this colour combo.
I told you before that Pandora reminded me of OPI You're a Doll, so I did a comparison with it and LM Cosmetic 37 Beige Crayeux.

As you can see, Pandora is a bit warmer than both You're and Doll and LM 37, and of course it lacks the copper particles that make You're a Doll such a unique colour, so there are absolutely no dupes here, just three beautiful polishes!

Zoya Shay

As promised, today I'm showing my mannequin hands, or the closest to it I can achieve, with Zoya Shay. Since the Zoya Touch polishes are all shimmer, you cannot get the real mannequin hands look, but in terms of colour, it's spot on for me. I've tried to go for one coat only, as shown on the first two pics, but I do find it leaves some brushstrokes and I prefer two, as shown on pics 3 and 4. I really love that look, though my hands are not quite as healthy as they could be yet, but it's not far (and when it's done, I'll write a review of my handcare and manucure products).

This polish is really a huge crush. My only tiny complaint is that since it's supposed to be a one-coater, it's a bit on the thick side, so if you don't manage (like me) to get away with one coat, I recommend waiting a while for the second, otherwise it's not gonna be as pretty as it could be. Btw, same goes for all three polishes of the Touch collection.

The finish is really glossy, the opacity is good. Zoya is definitely in my top three brands and this collection does not disappoint.

I'll probably wait a bit before showing you the other two, firstly because I need my guinea-mouse (=Minnie) for Minka and she doesn't have much time for nail art right now, but also because too much of the same thing can be boring, so enough with nudes!!

Zoya Touch nude collection

As much as I love dark vampy colours or glitter, I also love nude shades. For me, having beautiful hands is not only having long nails, it's also a question of healthy-looking hands and fingers. For that nude shades are very unforgiving, and pulling off pretty hands with a nude polish means a lot in my book. But "nude" covers a lot of shades and it takes time to find exactly what shade is made for your skintone.
So when Zoya announced the release of the Touch collection, I had to give it a try. Those three one-coater shades are supposed to enable anyone to find their perfect colour.

Here are Minka, Pandora and Shay, from top to bottom. I kept the first picture to show you the shimmer of those shades. In spite of the announced one-coater quality, I found that I often needed two for a good result.

This last picture really shows what I was talking about at the beginning: I find it quite impressive how Minka gives me a lobster pointer. This is clearly not a shade for me, and that's why you'll only see it on Minnie's hands, because it looks fantastic on her. It seems I can pull off both Pandora and Shay. I suspect Pandora to be of the same family as OPI's You're a Doll, that calls for a comparison. But the real surprise comes from Shay: I didn't expect this peachy shade to be my perfect nude. 

See you tomorrow for my mannequin hands :)