The trip part 1: Dubai, Holland & DA Magic Mauve

October 18, 2013 by drydammit 8 Comments

*Nothing to disclose

Hello from Veenendaal, Holland! It’s taken me a little while to get this first post out because someone (AKA my husband) packed the wrong cord for the camera to the tablet we are using to access the internet while we’re away. So we had to buy an SD card reader, but can you believe that we had such great difficulty finding one? Oh well. We have been having a great time and I have a few interesting photos to show you, so I will start at the beginning: Dubai!

After our 14-hour flight from Melbourne (and before that a one-hour flight from Hobart) we arrived in Dubai. It was so extremely hot! I knew it would be but I still wasn’t prepared for it. One of our first stops was the Dubai Mall, which is huge. We spent a good few hours there just looking at things until I found a Konad stand. It turns out there’s actually two stands; one on the lower level and the other near where you catch the metro. The photo below is the stand on the way to the metro station. I was in heaven but ended up buying just two polishes (not stamping polish, but normal polish that I didn’t realise Konad made).

Now, a note on the photos. My husband said it would be a good idea to not bring my DSLR, but a smaller digital camera so we would have to carry less. Turns our his camera is falling apart and takes pictures to only 10 megapixels! So the quality of my photos are not at their usual, unfortunately.

Also in Dubai we went to another mall (Dubai is great if you’re into shopping) called Mall of the Emirates. Aside from its indoor ski slope, it was hosting a fashion week called World of Fashion and people were receiving free manicures. My husband and I both had our nails done and I was also given the nail polish they used on my nails, a purple creme (my husband’s nails were just filed and buffed).

The nail company doing the free manicures was called Nailstation Paris. I’d never heard of the company before and the lady who did my nails did an OK job, but to be honest I could have done better. She got a bit of polish on my cuticles and told me that my nails were too short to file and buff! I have never heard of that before. Mind you, the night before I had to cut my nails back as many of them had sadly broke, but still, I was looking forward to having them shaped nicely by someone who knew what they were doing.

After three nights in Dubai we flew to Amsterdam. I was hoping the nail polish would be cheap, but so far it’s been very expensive. Only the cheap brands are cheap, if that makes sense. I’ve bought a few Essence polishes and some other Dutch cheap brands such as HEMA and DA, which I was excited about because DA is made in my grandmother’s hometown, Zwolle.

We are now in Veenendaal, which is where my grandfather comes from and where a lot of my family still lives. For five days we’ve been staying with my grandfather’s sister and tomorrow we will head off to Rotterdam and then Paris by train. I have been having such a good time just relaxing; it has been lovely. Holland is such a beautiful country and so flat! Bike riding has been a breeze.

My nail polishes from Dubai (from left): Konad Love Holic, Konad Blue Mountain and Nailstation Paris World of Fashion.

Nail polishes from Amsterdam (from left): Essence Me & My Lover, Essence Glitter On Me, Catrice Genius in the Bottle and Catrice Denim Moore.

Nail polishes from in and around Veenendaal (from left): Essence Chic Reloaded, HEMA Holographic Bordeaux, HEMA Holographic Blue, HEMA Chameleon Purple and DA Magic Mauve.

I also did my grandfather’s sister’s nails. I said she could pick any colour she wanted and she decided on OPI In the Cable Car-Pool Lane, one of the few polishes I bought with me. Below is her hand and mine (with DA Magic Mauve on my nails).

So now I will show you DA Magic Mauve. I wanted to show you this one because I was so surprised I found a polish from Zwolle. It’s a beautiful duochrome polish, which is either a purple or greenish-blue, depending how you look at it.

What you see here is two coats, but I probably could have done another coat because for some reason in the sunlight it looked a bit thin. I’ve had this with other duochromes before, so I’m not sure if it’s just what they do. The formula otherwise was great and so far I’ve had this polish on for three days without a chip!

I’m more than a week into the trip and so far I’ve loved every minute of it. I’m pretty sure it’s only going to get better as well. I hope I find more great polish. I’m looking forward to seeing if France is cheaper for nail polish and what brands it has. Thanks for reading!