Loving my blue nails feat. diego dalla palma Pure Color Nail #62

Ah, long time no see! I won't go into details as some if you already know why I haven't been blogging much, or rather at all in recent weeks...suffice it to say that my son & I are back home now and he's doing okay, so thanks to all of you who sent their thoughts our way!

However, I must admit straight away that no blogging doesn't mean I haven't been shopping, especially since we all know shopping works wonders for our worried/unhappy states of mind!

Of all the seasonal collections by Italian brands, I always look forward to seeing what diego dalla palma comes up with. I adore their visuals and I've already commented on the brand's quality before. The Autum/Winter 2010 collection "Rock & Glam" doesn't disappoint and I have in fact already bought a few items, all of which I will show in the next few days, as I haven't been able to play with them properly just yet.

The one item I've been able to use in the past few days (though the nuns in the hospital must have thought I was a bit weird...) is the new diego dalla palma Pure Color Nail #62 Blu Navy, a gorgeous royal blue colour with blue shimmer.

See, I've always been fond of blue on my fingernails, I remember I had quite a collection of pale blues sometime between 1994 and 1998. Nowadays, though, when autumn and winter come I prefer to choose dark blue shades which I think look especially good when I'm wearing jeans and a crisp white shirt.

I find this a very elegant shade as its dark purple undertones make it a little more special compared to other shimmery blues out there.

I apologize for the state of my nails, my cuticles are literally screaming at me to deal with them. Also, I didn't apply the varnish very carefully as the pictures I took last week just didn't do the polish any justice and I wanted to take advantage of the afternoon sun, which explains the weird reflections in the nails (I'm on the balcony so the ridges you see in the photo above are actually the railings reflected on the nail beds!!)

Compared to the diego dalla palma nail varnish I spoke about last summer, when I complained about the flimsy brush, the applicator seems to have improved. It smoothly delivers a good amount of colour onto the nails, but although I find one coat applied thickly is enough to give a non-streaky and creamy look, two thin coats last better. Of course, as with all dark colours I suggest you also apply a base and also a top coat (though I must admit I don't usually wear a top coat, but that's mainly because I'm lazy!).

Here is Blu Navy (middle finger) compared to other blue shades I have: Royal Effem #183 Blue Indaco, Collistar #44 Blu and Chanel #461 Blue Satin. I applied two coats of each polish apart from Chanel Blue Satin, which I only applied one of as I thought that with two coats it would look almost black in the photo...still does, though, which is the problem with this shade: as beautiful as it is in the bottle it does tend to look black indoors or at night!).

Of the four, at the moment my favourite shade is definitely the diego dalla palma, as I find it a bit more interesting and sophisticated than the others.

What do you think? Do you like blue nail varnishes? And if so, what is your favourite?

Love to all of you, old and new subscribers!!

Anna xx

PS: I buy diego dalla palma products from Coin stores in Italy, but they have recently relaunched their website and now ship to all EU countries. If you're interested, I've noticed they have a promotion on at the moment (valid until 6th October) whereby all new subscribers get free shipping on their first order of at least 69 euros!