Nicolas Jaar

Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner Pencil in Binge and Lust

Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner Pencil in Lust (top) and Binge (bottom)

I've been putting this review off for so long cause I'm actually not sure what to say. I'd been deaming about these pencils for so long that when they finally arrived at my door I was extatic. Unfortunately I must say I'm a bit disappointed with them.

Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner Pencil in Lust (top) and Binge (bottom)

The colours are what I'd hoped them to be like.  Binge is shimmery purplish blue with with blue sheen, whereas Lust is a sort of matte purple with blue tones and silver sparkle. Actually thay are more similar to each other than I'd expected. The outside colouring and the swatches (like the one below) are rather misleading. Binge is much more purple and Lust is not as bright and vivid as the packaging would suggest.

Urban Decay 24/7 Eyeliner Pencil in Binge (left) and Lust (right)

However, it's not the colour that I'm disappointed with, it's the quality and application. I do admit, just like Zero, these pencils are the softest I've ever used. They glide on effortessly and without pulling or tugging. But, as you can see in the swatch above, they apply most unevenly, leaving clumps and bald patches. It's not so visible when you apply them over shadow, but when used alone they look no better than other, much cheaper liners. My disappointment is even greater cause Urban Decay is a brand I sort of trust. Apparently you can't be good at everything, can you?

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Essie nailpolish in Coctail Bling (review + swatches)



Essie nailpolish in Coctail Bling

 When I ordered Coctail Bling I'd hoped it'd be more blue-toned. In reality this polish is very definitely light gray creme with milky finish which very much resembles wall enamel. Only in some artificial light you can see a hint of blue, which I like very much. All in all I'm surprised at how flattering the polish is and how well it matches cool-toned clothing.
Texturewise the polish is very opaque, 2 coats offer complete coverage.  The only issue (but nothing major)was that it kind of refused to level out, leaving streaks here and there.
Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Nails inc. nailpolish in Fenchurch Street (review + swatches)

Nails inc. nailpolish in Fenchurh Street

Fenchurch Street is described as russet creme, but to me this is simply caramel. Every time I glanced at my nails I actually felt like eating something sweet. This is also the colour of leaves in autumn. I like it sooo much, pity that my husband doesn't share my opinion and keeps teasing me about toffee sweets getting stuck to my nails. I'm trying to ignore him, but how long can I go on like this?
The polish itself is of excellent quality. It applied really well, lasted a long time. One coat was very opaque, I used the second one to eliminate any potential sheerer areas, though I think this wasn't necessary.

The colour in the pics looks much more orange than t is in reality. The picture below seems more true to life of the two.

Nails inc. nailpolish in Fenchurh Street

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Home made Halloween pumpkin costume

My son Mikolaj resembles Andy Pipkin from Little Britain in many respects. When I asked him who he'd like to be this Halloween, he said "pumpkin". "Wouldn't it be better if you dressed up as a ghost?", I said. "Pumpkin" said he. "Jack Skellington perhaps?". " Pumpkin". "Why not Zombie? I could paint your face". " Pumpkin".

What could we do? We rushed to Ikea, got a paper lampshade, picked orange wall paint from Obi, long johns form H&M and made Jack O'Lantern belly for him, long jonhs being the most expensive item. Regards to Mr Mind!  

Nails Inc. nailpolish in Paddington (review + swatches)



Nails Inc. nailpolish in Paddington


This polish landed in my hands only because this was a part of a 4-piece Autumn collection from Nails Inc. I definitely I wouldn't have bought it otherwise. But since I came into its possession, I decided to give it a go and applied it for review purposes more than my personal aesthetic pleasure.
The polish applied very nicely, two coats did the trick and my nails were painted gray-green. Not the sexiest shade, but not bad actually.  I think this kind of shade needs careful attention as regards choosing the colours of your clothes, tomorrow I'm gonna wear something that will mirror this tone, a gray skirt, a teal-green shawl and black pencil shirt and boots. Not the most playful of outfits, but a very classy one. I'm still not sure about the make-up, but I suppose I'll hit some silver and gray tones.

Nails Inc. nailpolish in Paddington

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Nails Inc. Autumn 2011 collection

Nails Inc nailpolish in St Pancras (review +swatches)



Nails Inc nailpolish in St Pancras (direct sunlight)

 St Pancras is the nailpolish I couldn't resist, even if only because of its name. So many good memories... Luckily enough the shade itself is gorgeous, very dark brown with burgundy hues. Unfortunatelly it's pretty similar to Essie polish in Carry On  from their Fall 2011 collection. Actually the whole Nails Inc Autumn 2011 quadro is strangely reminiscent of the aforementioned collection from Essie, perhaps not exact dupes, and yet sooooo similar!
If it hadn't been for the fact that I've already got a very similar polish, I would be quite excited about St Pancras. Apart from the gorgeous colour the polish applied very well, 2 coats provided complete, even coverage. It also lasted pretty long and made a lovely base for glitter polish (eg. China Glaze in Ring in the Red).

Nails Inc nailpolish in St Pancras (away from the sun)

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Nails inc. nailpolish in Charing Cross (review + swatches)

Nails inc. nailpolish in Charing Cross

Charing Cross is a red polish Nails Ins offers for this autumn. I'm not absolutely sure if this shade matches the mood of the season. Actually it's a very bright red, somewhere inbetween Zoya Tamsen and Sooki, which were part of this year's summer collection. Nonetheless the shade seems very pretty for me, but then I'm not objective cause I'm such a sucker for reds! The polish is well saturated, 2 coats did the job, applied evenly,
causing no problems at all.

Nails inc. nailpolish in Charing Cross

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

nails inc. autumn 2011 collection

China Glaze nailpolish in Velvet Bow (review + swatches)



China Glaze nailpolish in Velvet Bow (direct sunlight)

 Velvet Bow is a gorgeous burgundy red, but not dark enough to be mistaken for black. Rather vampy. This is the shade I was longing for. Unfortunately, to my surprise the polish was extremely difficult to apply. Although I wouldn't call the consistency thin and runny and the polish wasn't sheer at all, it applied very unevenly. The polish was dripping in blots and applied in horrible stripes and smudges. I needed four coats to even out the polish and get the desired result. This is a big surprise cause I normally like the quality of China Glaze polishes. I'll definitely continue using it for the sake of colour, but I believe there are much better dupes out there.


China Glaze nailpolish in Velvet Bow  (away from the sun)


Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

China Glaze nailpolish in Winter Berry (review + swtches)

China Glaze nailpolish in Winter Berry

Winter Berry is another pretty red in my stash. I guess it's easily dupable and I have some similar shades, but I really like it. I wonder what colour is a winter berry supposed to be, my idea of a berry colour was somewhat different, but I think it does actually resemble a holly berry in its brightness.

Formulawise the polish is excellent and applied like a dream. Two coats gave a full coverage.

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Orly nailpolish in Wandering Vine (review + swatches)

Orly nailpolish in Wandering Vine

Now I know greens are not my story. Not that I don't like the colour, actually I think it's very pretty saturated forest green, but simply I don't feel it suits me. The formula was excellent, applied evenly, two coats were enough to achieve full coverage. Unfortunately the polish chipped badly the next day, I supppose because of a bad base coat (Nail Tek to be specific).

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Zoya nailpolish in Mira ( review+ swatches)

Zoya nailpolish in Mira is definitely my favourite purple. I absolutely adore this cornflower blue toned kind of purple, which looks bright in the bottle, but when applied it's much more muted and wearable. Also not too light or too dark (I have a number of purples, which are a bit too dark). I also love the cream finish, it's so classy. And the formula is amazing, the brush just the right size, making the application a real pleasure. Well, what more can I say... I love Zoya!


Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Essie nailpolish in Size Matters

I didn't think I would adore this shade as much as I do. In the bottle it looks raspberry pink, but on the nails the pink notes somehow disappear and the colour is something inbetween raspberry and burgundy (darker than raspberry and less pink). It applied like a dream, the second coat was barely necessary. In my opinion this is the most beautiful shade from the Coctail Bling collection and a very pretty red in general.


Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

OPI glitter nailpolish in Gettin' Miss Piggy With It (review + swatches)



OPI nailpolish Gettin' Miss Piggy With It over Essie in Size Matters, Seche Vite top coat

 Gettin' Miss Piggy With It is my first glitter polish and I guess the last one cause last night I spent over half an hour trying to remove it, wasting half a bottle of enamel remover and a heap of cotton pads. When I was literally scraping the stuff off my nails I said "no" to all glitters (including the gorgeous Zoya Kissy, which figured at no.1 on my wishlist).


OPI glitter naillpolish in Gettin' Miss Piggy With It - one coat



Getting Miss Piggy With It is a clear based mix of tiny red and large silver hex glitter. Applied without a top coat it looks kind of matte and dull, but when combined with a good top coat like Seche Vite, all the glitter comes to play and the polish starts looking very nice. Obviously you need a couple of coats for full coverage, but I bought this polish to wear it on top of another polish, so I tried it out on Essie in Size Matter and I was really glad about the result. The red glitter became less obvious and the silver particles looked like gemstones. Very nice indeed.

All in all  if the glitter was easier to remove I would definitely use it on regular basis to add new dimension to fading polish, but I'm definitely not persistent enough to spend so much time trying to get rid of the thing. Not worth the effort.

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Butter London nailpolish in Old Blighty (review + swatches)



Butter London in Old Blighty


I'd been dancing around this polish for sooo long, but actually I'm very disappointed with it. The colour is lovely, just what I expected it to be, but the formula is horrible. First of all it was quite thick and the brush was too small. What is more, the polish applied most unevenly, it wasn't sheer but required at least 3 coats for fairly even coverage. The polish refused to even out, just stayed put wherever it was applied, which resulted in smudges and sheer areas. It definitely is a shame cause I like the colour so much.




Butter London nailpolish in Old Blighty

 Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Leighton Denny corrector liquid for nail polish

This nail polish corrector is something I can't stop boasting about. This is a marvellous invention consisting of nail polish remover and a brush. You dip the brush in the bottle and slide it around the areas where you've flooded your cuticles and it removes the polish without any smudges. Very helpful.
The devil is actually not in the remover, but in the excellent brush, which is fairly stiff, with a pointed tip. It picks up the right amount of the remover, removes whatever excess of the polish there may be and it's easy to wipe off. I'd used a pen corrector, which was fine, but the tip got stained with the polish and needed constant replacement, when I run out of the spare tips the pen became useless even though there was plenty of the product left in the pen. I suppose this product is gonna last for ages, and when it's finished I can fill the bottle up with my remover and this, combined with the brush, will do the same excellent job.

EDIT: The brush, which I loved so much at first, turned out to be total crap. The brustles literally got dissolved by substance in the bottle about half way through the product. Now I'm using a sort of makeshift replacement brush, but this shouldn't have happened, should it?

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Dirty Beaches

I love the way she smokes her cigarette. I can almost taste it!

A week's summary

I felt weird going back to work after a two year's break. But I'm glad to be among people again.


I succeeded in getting up early, driving Mikolaj to his kindergarten on time, getting to work on time, doing all my paperwork, finding the key to the staff room, collecting Mikolaj from the kindergarten, preparing the kids to beds, ironing.

I failed at cooking, washing my hair, hanging out the laundry, getting organized, going to bed early.

All in all seems like there were more successes than failures. Good!

King Midas

Nails Inc Kensington Caviar top coat

Nails Inc Kensington Caviar top coat

-dry to touch in less than a minute,  which is misleading cause the polish remains wet for much longer, this leads to smudging and dents
- rubbery, flexible when dry, this prevents chipping
- nice shine
- doesn't bubble
- doesn't shrink polish like Seche Vite does

Maybe this is not my Holy Grail, but I'm really satisfied, fullfils my expectations without doing wonders..

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Olay Skin Comfort facial cleansing gel

I've always had bad experiences with Olay products, and I normally stay away from them. This time (silly me) I was lured by the description on the back of Olay cleansing facial gel saying that you can use this gel also in the eye area to remove eye make-up. I'm a real sucker for these products as I really hate to drag and tug and pull at my eyelids with cotton pads, so I immediately bought the Olay, hoping this product would suit me well.
Imagine my surprise then I opened the tube. The substance is nothing close to gel (look at the picture, is it me or something's wrong with this gel?) What is even worse, the gel contains micro-particles, like a peeling. Definitely not the best idea to use it near your eyes.I wouldn't mind if this thing retailed as peeling cream, not cleansing gel. Before I knew this was so grainy I applied it all over my face and tried to remove make up with it. Indeed, it did remove the non-waterproof mascara, but the eyeshadows stayed where they were, just smugded and greasy, I guess the same happened to my foundation, just less obvious because of the colour.
The substance is a non-foamy cream, intended for dry skin which washes your face in a similar way a facial cream would. Doesn't leave my skin dry, but most of the cleansing job is done with a cotton pad and a toner. As for the eyes, surprisingly it didn't irritate my eyes, but didn't remove the make-up either. Generally very disappointing!

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

China Glaze nailpolish in Jolly Holly (review + swatches)

China Glaze nailpolish in Jolly Holly (indoors)

Greens are a tricky topic, some of them are adorable, while others can be really ugly. China Glaze Jolly Holly is exactly the kind of green I love. For me it's the epitome of saturated, luscious greenness of holly, x-mas trees or... the jungle. The addition of intense shimmer definitely makes the polish more festive and makes my thoughts circle around Christmas Eve, I guess I'm gonna wear it this Christmas with Zoya Kissy on top (if I can get hold of this one until X-mas).
The polish applies really nicely. You hardly need the second coat at all. I love China Glaze for that!




China Glaze nailpolish in Jolly Holly (outdoors)


Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Orly nailpolish in Sapphire Silk



Orly nailpolish in Sapphire Silk


Orly nailpolish in Sapphire Silk is a lovely mid-toned blue, leaning towards teal, with milky creme finish. To my eye it seems fairly unique, so my desite to look different is satisfied here. And my hubby likes it. What else could I ask for?

Orly nailpolish in Sapphire Silk

I did my best to capture the teal shade, but the pictures came out mostly blue. The shade contains teal hues, depending on light.



Orly nailpolish in Sapphire Silk

 Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Zoya nailpolish in Akyra (review + swatches)

Zoya nailpolish in Akyra


I must say I'm not very excited about this polish. First of all it's very sheer, you need more than 3 coats for the nails too look decently. Then the colour... is much less teal than I hoped it to be. Or rather it is teal, but I wanted it to be darker and Akyra is a mid-tone teal shimmer, leaning definitely more towards greens than blues ( I prefer it the other way round). It feels do  "not me" that I don't think I'll use it very often.

Zoya nailpolish in Akyra

Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

Zoya nailpolish in Sooki (review + swatches)



Zoya nailpolish in Sooki


I bought Sooki after my good experience with Tamsen ( both from summer 2011 collection), and I wasn't disappointed. Sooki is a blazing red of unbelievable pigmentation and consistency. This polish is wonderfully easy to apply, I did only one coat and received the desired coverage. The brush bristles are rather short, but they do wonders. I'm not a nail artist  ( far from it!) and my hands are shakey, but this one is really foolproof, I'm really glad about my job here. And the colour is soo gorgeous ( but then I'm not objective, I'm such a sucker for reds...), will definitely stand out in a crowd, which I like!

If you're wondering (like I did ) what the difference is between Sooki and Tamsen ( if any), ... well the answer is: huge. The swatches on the net don't show much difference, but Sooki is a really bright red, whereas Tamsen is much more calm and muted. I love both, though I suppose Tamsen is more unique.
Disclaimer: I bought the product myself for my personal use and I am not affiliated with any company. I am not paid to do this review and everything I said here is my genuine opinion.

The holiday is over

This was the weirdest summer I remember, followed by equally weird September. During July and August the temperature levelled off at 22degrees, both day and night. Thick grey clouds prevented the sun from warming the air during the day and we dwelled in this unusual darkness for 2 months. Dead calm, no wind to blow away the clouds. Spells of good weather never exceeded one-day's length. The water in the lakes and in the sea remained cold. Oh how I longed for the sun...
We basically stayed at home, all our holiday plans ruined by the weather and Adam's sickness.

The most beautiful Indian summer kind of sun showed its face at the last weekend of August and stayed until today. September was the hottest September I can remember. The sight of people wearing sandals, t-shirts and shorts, so unusual at this time of the year, didn't surprise anyone today, with the temperature reaching 25 degrees. The day was so beautiful I find it hard to believe that real autumn will eventually come one day very soon. Even harder to believe I'm about to start work the coming week.