More Claire's color changing polish!

I had so much fun the first time I wore Claire's Earthy/Happy, I decided to wear it again over the summer. I stamped some cute konad flowers on it, and then the whole thing reminded me of 70's bedsheets or curtains! Haha!

No flash:

Flash:

In a lot of lightings, for some reason, it looked almost exactly like my picture without flash. Kind of weird-swampy. I'm not sure why that happened this time, but in bright light it looked the way I remembered, all neon and happy. :) I forgot that I had said last time that I wouldn't put topcoat on it if I did it again, whoops. That really ate some of the brightness of this fun polish. Maybe third time's the charm?

Color Club Chelsea Girl

Hello again! :)

I bought another Kleancolor last summer, with blue glitter. It's so pretty! Unfortunately, my first attempt at wearing it kind of flopped. I had decided to leave Color Club's Chelsea Girl at home instead of bringing it back to school with me, but I felt like I should wear it properly before I shipped off. It's not a color I really like on me, but I thought that it might make a good base for it. Instead, it just came off kind of... flat.

No flash:

Flash:

It looked even worse close up! I'm not sure what was going on, but the Kleancolor and the Color Club started separating from each other pretty quickly, and all these weird bubbles formed between them. Gross!

In the end, I decided to leave both of them at home. They're both very pretty but neither really did anything for me.

Halloween Nails 2010

Happy belated Halloween! ♥

My actual Halloween nails weren't that spooky, but this is what I was wearing a few weeks earlier. Orly Glamrock stamped with silver and black bats on my right hand and silver spiders on black webs on my left! Pretty terrifying, am I right? I put a top coat on it to make it shiny, although Glamrock looks amazing matte as well. It took two coats to be totally opaque. The problem lay in the fauxnading (the konad spider was fine), or maybe the Wet n' Wild black. The spider webs in particular were a real pain to get on my nails.

Maybe because the stamping was such a hassle, the sun decided to cooperate with the pictures:

Way to set the atmosphere! That one sunbeam falling through my window onto the desk sure knew what it was doing! Unfortunately, my camera's pretty much dead, so I had to use a phone for these and didn't realize until later that I only had one good picture of my left hand.

Essie Wicked

Hello again, dear readers! I apologize for my extremely long absence. Things have been rather topsy-turvy for me in the last few months, but I'm happy to report that things seem to be settling down and I'm trying to get back to blogging.

This is last minute and of poor quality due to my actual camera being about 2000 miles away, but I thought it would be a start and rather fitting for tonight. Essie Wicked is a deep dark reddish brown, and of course, very vampy. In dim light it appears nearly black. I found the base color to be a rich wine or berry color, but it darkens to a deep chocolate with a few coats. Wicked indeed.

I love the gloss and durability I get from Essie polishes. I only have a couple, but I've really fallen for the formula. This lasted nearly five days with only minimal tipwear and no chipping.

I think a manicure like this deserves some classic Film Noir, don't you?

Until next time~!

LacquerMuse

Pool Party

Hello and happy belated 4th of July for all our followers in the states! :)

This wasn't what I wore for the 4th, but it is blue with a reddish star! The polish itself, however, is Essence Pool Party, which Lacquermuse received in a swap with the fantastic Ayuu. It went on really well--two coats was fine for me--and has a very pretty glass fleck sort of shimmer to it. It wasn't that visible inside or under poorer lighting conditions, but it really popped in the sun.

I took these three pictures under a light and with flash on since my camera was acting up and refused to focus without it. For some reason it would only focus on the ones with major shadows over part of my hand, too. :( At least you can still see the pretty blue...

Flash:

OPI Designer Series Amethyst

Because I am so far behind, here is a quick mani I did back in early May. Amethyst is a gorgeous mauve holo. It applied quite easily, with no dragging or cuticle pull. I really love the formulas of OPI holos, and how they aren't really affected by which topcoats are applied. Especially now that it's summer, I'm finding holos really delightful. So, on that note, here's a little picture spam of OPI DS Amethyst:

(all pictures taken in sunlight)

Until next time!

Strawberry Fields

Okay, so I have these two ancient Old Navy minis, and I'm trying to find a dupe for the pink one. I got Strawberry Fields thinking it might match it and it doesn't really, but it's still a pretty color. It's brighter and a little cooler than my mini, but I liked wearing it anyway. It's a very princess-y sort of pink, so I put little crown stickers on it.

Flash:

Natural Light:

This is three coats that applied pretty normally. Nothing unexpected for better or worse. Wear time was pretty average on this too--I think it got four days with minor chipping.

Also, I'm really sorry about the delay again! :( Both Lacquermuse and I started work this week and things have been really chaotic in the personal as well as job worlds.

Pure Energy!

This is one of my new favorite polishes, Pure Energy by Color Club!! I looove this color!! ♥ Check it out!

Natural light:

I tried it on back in late April on a whim and it really "blue" me away, haha. It's the brightest, neonest blue you could ask for and it applied like a dream! I think this is three coats, but that's in part because I do three automatically by now. Two probably would have been sufficient. I used Color Club's Vivid topcoat (really loving that one, too) and this lasted marvelously! I wore this for at least five days but could have gotten more wear out of it. I wasn't even tired of it when I decided to take it off. It was just that other people were doing their nails at the time and I didn't want to be left out, lol.

To really love this color, though, you need to see it in direct sunlight...

Wow! How blinding is that?! You can see that my camera was acting up a little with this picture, but it really was that bright blue. It was the same color as the swimming pool! :)

I did also put on a layer of OPI's Can't You Sea, but it didn't change the base color. Can't You Sea is an old (read: not Big Three Free) and very very sheer polish that Lacquermuse and I found when we wandered into this tiny mani/pedi place. They were selling a bunch of old polishes and Can't You Sea just looked too pretty to me to pass up, even if it has tons of nasty chemicals.

It really reminds me of OPI's And This Little Piggy..., especially in the bottle. They are similar tones of pink and blue and they both have the same sort of fleck glitter. I took a couple pictures of them side by side in natural and bright light for comparisons. If you enlarge these pictures, you can see that they both have the same yellow glitter mixed in with their pink/blue as well.

I brought both Pure Energy and Can't You Sea home with me and definitely plan on experimenting with them some more! :) They're just too much fun!

No More War

Sorry about the delays in posts! For some reason both Lacquermuse and myself have been having internet connectivity problems. :( I'm uploading a bunch of pictures all at once today, so hopefully updates can continue as usual for a while now! :)

Anyway, I wore No More War with a couple stickers for my birthday back in May. I really like this color and wore it once last winter. It's a very interesting swampy color and it goes on pretty well, although I realized after looking at these pictures that there are a couple places where you can see through the polish. It doesn't really dry, either, which was annoying. I ended up having to take it off the next day because it was just getting wrecked by packing up and moving out...

No flash, shadow:

Flash, shadow:

Another interesting thing about this polish is that it's the exact color of artichokes! I cooked a couple artichokes (trying to empty out the fridge, haha) and they really were the exact same color. I wanted to take a picture, but by that point they were in pretty bad shape and I didn't want to scare everyone. ;)

Flash:

I think I bought these stickers on a Sally's run. I like them! They're on the thicker side, though, so I had to choose fairly flat nails to place them on. They're quite long, too, so I was glad that my nails had grown out enough to be able to use them!

edit I just found out that RBL will be bringing back No More War soon and it's now available for preorder on their website. :)

Blackout

Lacquermuse and I agree that Icing's Blackout is one of the most awesome polishes ever! We have backups (yes, that is plural), because it is just that amazing. Blackout is a jelly black with holo glitter and looks great either built up by itself (3-4 coats) or layered over another black.

Unfortunately I didn't get the greatest pictures of it and the holo refused to photograph unless I used flash even though it's really very obvious in normal lighting.

Flash:

Lacquermuse and I actually made a special trip to a mall farther away than we usually go (especially when there are two malls much closer by...) just to stop by at Icing and search for backups of this! I'm so glad this isn't a limited edition! It's so cool, I thought that for sure they were just going to release it for one season and then snatch it away...!

SpaRitual Nail Lacquer Muse

It's my first SpaRitual Nail Lacquer in Muse!

I originally ordered Muse because I "had to make shipping worth it" for SpaRitual Optical Illusion, I liked the name, and I didn't have anything like it.

Full Sun:

Fading Evening Light:

It's an unusual plum-tinged bronze with rainbow micro shimmer. The purple tones don't really show up in these pictures, but I assure you they're there. :) I don't usually wear this sort of color, but I really liked it on me. It's very work-appropriate, very sophisticated. It sort of has an Greek/Roman goddess feel to it. I really can't think of a better way to describe it than that.

Flash:

This lasted for a whole week with only very minor tipwear. I had to take it off to patch my index finger (which I then broke properly today, grrr), but otherwise I'm sure I could have worn it several days more.

I'm curious: What are your favorite SpaRituals? What do you think of Muse?

Until next time! Thanks for reading!

Nfu.Oh 61

Just a quick post with a NOTD from last week. Nfu.Oh #61 is simply BLINDING in full sunlight. For some reason uploading it to blogger toned the colors down. Try to imagine it a bit more retina-searing. In shade it is a gorgeous silvery blue-grey. I tried it with five different topcoats and they all dulled the finish, which is why this picture is of my left hand. Definitely do NOT try the Konad top coat over Nfu holos!

This is my first Nfu.Oh holo and it is really stunning. It was a royal pain to apply, worse than most holos I've tried, but the result is much stronger, so I suppose it evens out. I'll try this without a base coat next time to see if that makes it any easier. This also did not dry glossy, but had more of a satin finish. I prefer glossy, so the quest for different topcoats continues!

Hope to be back with more soon!

Until next time!

Color Club Volt of Light

Sorry for the lack of posts recently; LacuqerMuse and I were busy with the end of term and moving out. Hopefully we'll be back in the swing of things soon! :)

I ordered a bottle of Color Club Volt of Light because I was really feeling the neons and this one looked extra bright. And it really is! It's like I colored my nails with highlighter! All of the neons in this series have an interesting blue flash in the color that makes them seem even more intensely neon.

I stamped on top of it with Konad plate m65 (I just realized I forgot to say what plate I used in my previous post! How embarrassing!) because the color was a little overwhelming for me when I first put it on and used Color Club Vivid topcoat. I really like Vivid. It really keeps the colors popping and gets nice and shiny. ♥

Flash:

No flash:

You can see a little more of the blue flash I mentioned in the picture without flash, but the first one really shows how bright this polish is! I considered putting stripes on this color but decided against it when it was pointed out to me that it would look so much like a yellow jacket. There were some buzzing around on campus and I didn't want to attract that kind of attention...

A Week of Orlys! ORLY Iron Butterfly

Interrupting the chain of spring colors is the matte black with silver glitter ORLY Iron Butterfly! I guess butterflies are spring-y, though, so it's still keeping with the theme in that way...

No flash:

I stamped butterflies from Konad plate m78 with China Glaze Millennium. These pictures are actually taken after a day of wear, so the finish is more satin than matte. I didn't think it would change so quickly! Originally this did look very matte. Iron Butterfly went on very smooth and opaque--I think this is only two coats. I might have done three on a couple fingers to even out some patches, but if you have better application than I do that really wouldn't be a problem.

I hadn't tried any ORLYs before this and hadn't used mattes in a while, so this was very fun for me. I was considering ORLY goth as well, but am glad I chose Iron Butterfly. The polishes in that series look very rich for metals to me. They really have depth to them. I think the flash picture especially hints at that. It would be more visible if I had put a shiny topcoat on, but even when it was very matte it was very interesting to look at.

No flash:

Flash:

The reason I did this mani was because a friend of mine wanted a bunch of us to dress up "sexy" when we went out to get sushi to celebrate the end of school/his birthday. Fortunately we had just ordered some polishes and this one arrived in the mail just in time. :)

Featured on Be In Style and Notice

Just a shoutout to say LacquerMuse was mentioned on Be In Style's Carnival of Shopping. Be In Style is a fashion and beauty blog, and one of their contributors wrote me a few weeks ago and asked if I would mind if they mentioned this blog.

Also, I'm in the process of moving right now, so I might take a bit longer to respond to comments. I have been reading and enjoying them all. :) I expect to be back in full force by the weekend, but I wanted to give a head's up just in case.

Until next time!

A Week of Orlys! Orly Cotton Candy

I love this color. If you were patient, you could probably achieve bottle color in two coats, but I used three.

I used OPI My Private Jet (new, non-holo brownish black w/small semi-holo glitter) and Konad plate m28 to stamp the unicorn, and topped it all with a coat of Orly Prisma Gloss in silver. I love that this topcoat is subtle enough that it doesn't interfere with the image, but you can still appreciate the wonderful glitteryness of it.

Cotton Candy is an adorable soft, squishy pink. It's quite warm, nearly peachy in appearance, and it photographs like a neon. I apologize for that, as my pictures are far from color accurate.

Until next time!

A Week of Orlys! Orly Lemonade

Welcome to day five of A Week of Orlys! This is Orly lemonade, with Essie Tart Deco sponged on the tips and konaded with some tropical flowers (plate m57). I didn't know what to do with Orly Lemonade at first. I think it might have been my first yellow nail polish ever, haha.

I was so surprised at how much I liked this. I was just experimenting, as I haven't really done much sponging, but I think it turned out great! I prefer sponging to french tips, and I've been trying to get better at gradient manicures, so I think this was a lovely success.

This was a lot of fun, because it was totally out of my element. I never wear orange or yellow, even in nail polish, so at first I didn't know what to think about this. But I loved it! It was so fun, summery and clean, I felt like I should be sitting on the beach in Hawaii!

Just for fun, I thought an action shot would be neat. I love how well the colors match! This is my favorite of Hawaiian Sun juice.

What do you think? Are there colors you usually avoid but have begun to enjoy?

Until next time!