Flying Dragon Konadicure

Just a quick post. This is the darker version of China Glaze Flying Dragon. It has neon pigments so it dries matte, but it is more of a dark purple than a bright neon.

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.

A Week of Orlys! Orly Pixy Stix + China Glaze Bad Kitty

I'm afraid I could not get this color accurate to save my life. For some reason, Pixy Stix and Cotton Candy photograph like neons, even though they aren't.

This is two coats of Pixy Stix under two coats of China Glaze Bad Kitty. Bad Kitty (which I would love for the name alone) is a lovely watermelon color in the bottle, but comes out so sheer on the nail that achieving bottle color would be extremely difficult at best. Pixy Stix however is a gorgeous watermelon creme, and the base colors matched wonderfully.

This was fun and feminine without being sickly sweet. The playfulness of the glitter was really delightful. I even had a friend ask to borrow my lacquers so that she would recreate the same combination!

I took a ton of pictures but I just couldn't really get the true color. I know there are many good swatches of this out there, though, taken with cameras much better than mine! This last one is probably the most color accurate. Taken in sun through a window.

Until next time!

China Glaze TTYL

Hello again! It was nice and sunny when I did my nails for these pictures, so I wanted to use polish that could take advantage of that! I decided to try China Glaze TTYL since I hadn't used it yet but love the collection and layer Nfu Oh 38 on top of it. I was worried that since TTYL is so linear and subtle (compared to some of the other ones in the OMG collection) it would get eaten by the flakies. For a while when it was drying I thought that it really would just vanish, but fortunately I was wrong! Check it out~

No flash:

Flash:

I think putting the Nfu Oh on top did change the base color a bit, which I didn't really like. Well, not change it so much (you can see it looks very much like the bottle color), but dull it a little. It had more intense color and holo before I put the flakies on. But hey. Flakies! ♥

The funny thing about wearing this was that depending on the light and the angle, I would either see strong holo or strong flakes. Dim lighting tended to bring out the Nfu Oh, but it also grayed out TTYL a little. I think next time I wear this color, I'll let it speak for itself.

I also put little pink flower rhinestones on my thumbs, just for fun. This was several weeks ago, but funnily I still know where both of them are. One of them fell into the drawer with all the nail polish when I was taking it off, and I found the other in my jacket pocket on Friday. They're following me!

Essie Pop-Art Pink

I tried Essie for the first time. :)

I wanted to try a jelly, so I used Essie Pop-Art Pink, but it came off as more of a pastel cream. That might have been my fault, though, since I probably should have stopped at three coats instead of putting on a fourth. I applied it in kind of a rush, though, so it was streaky and I wanted to even it out. I think someone who was more careful than me could get this to a really pretty light pink semi-jelly.

I thought it needed a little something extra, so I put a coat of China Glaze Treasure Chest on top.

Flash:

No flash:

Lacquermuse told me it looked like cupcakes at a five-year-old's birthday party! I think she's right! ♥

Revisiting China Glaze Atlantis (Picture Heavy)

I finally got to try DV8, the first polish that really caught my eye in China Glaze's OMG collection. Amusingly enough, I acquired 5 other OMGs before this one, because blues and greens are not the easiest for me to wear with my skintone. DV8 is a beautiful aqua/teal color, and on me it tends to lean on the bluer side. As always, pictures are clickable.

With flash:

Artificial light:

Finally, a little sunlight!

Sorry for the weird angle, but you can see more of the holo goodness here. Also taken in sunlight.

It wasn't bad, but was a tad too blue, so I added two coats of China Glaze Atlantis to it, and I LOVE it now. Because Atlantis is a jelly, you can still see a little of DV8's dimension through it. If I had layered it over a creme, I think it would have lost more of its depth.

Using my light box:

With flash:

Isn't it pretty?

I really love how these layered together. DV8's holo makes a fantastic base for Atlantis.

Until next time!

China Glaze He's Going In Circles

I recently obtained China Glaze He's Going in Circles, from the Kaleidoscope collection. It's a beautiful sea-foam green, a really delicate color. It's very feminine, and I like it a lot.

The holo in this is apparent even when not in bright sunlight.

But with sunlight (or, in this case, flash, since it is dreary out) it really glows! Beware of driving (or biking, jogging, walking...) with this on! It's really quite distracting, because it twinkles nearly constantly.

I assumed this would be on the bumpier side, and I would need to soak my nails to get it off cleanly. Wrong! This is very smooth, even though it looks quite glittery, and it comes off just as easily.

I actually wore this for about three days without much tipwear or chips, and was not tempted to stamp over it at all. A great polish. This is three thin coats, because it is on the sheer side, but it dries fast and it totally worth it. This collection has been discontinued, but I know some etailers still have a few bottles, so it's still around. I love the design on these bottles too, they just look so snazzy.

I'm hoping to get up some swatch pictures of Kaleidoscope Him Out, the only other polish I got from this collection soon.

Until next time!

Still More Giveaways, and Weekend Glitters!

I know all (11!!!) of you are probably tired of hearing about all the giveaways going around, so I'll be brief. These are just too neat for me to pass by. If you aren't interested, feel free to scroll down to the mani pics. :)

painted Lady Fingers is having another great giveaway! This giveaway is for four hard to find polishes (including China Glaze Crystal Ball) and full sized bottles of Skin MD, in regular and spf.

This ends on April 10th. More details can be found here.

Nailstah is having her first giveaway! Hello Kitty, China Glaze, and more! Check it out here. This ends on April 12.

Laura at Sawan is having a (really) huge and terribly exciting giveaway! From lacquer to files to fun accessories, this one's got it all! Check out all the goodies you could win here. This ends on the 30th of April.

This is the manicure I was going to do this weekend, but I chickened out and chose something else instead. I took pictures of this because I thought it was fun, anyway.

To prevent visible nail line, I used Sinful Mint Apple (thumb, middle, and pinky) and OPI DS Extravagance (index and ring) as a base. Then I followed with three coats of China Glaze Atlantis over Mint Apple and one coat of Island Girl Island Sunset over Extravagance. Next time I think I'll use a darker base for Atlantis to give it more depth.

This one came out a bit blurry, but I thought it was a better shot of the sparkly glitter:

Until next time!

Typhoon

I did a mani with Sinful Colors What's Your Name and China Glaze Millennium. Unfortunately, the über-amazing blue/purple shimmer in the Sinful is much more subtle on the nail. I could still see the colors when it was in bright light, which was good enough for me. :) Other than that it was a deep navy erring on black. All the better to make the silver konad show up, right?

Here it is in the bottle. So pretty! And gets Lynyrd Skynyrd stuck in my head.

Sorry about the wear on these. I didn't take pictures until a couple days later. Still, two/three days and this is how they look? Not bad, right? Right? I was going for storm clouds and rain, so I used Konad plates m8 (for the rain) and m56 (for the clouds).

Orange Swatches

I remember in fourth grade all the girls in my class agreed that orange was the ugliest color because it didn't look good with anything. Except black, but if it wasn't Halloween, you just looked dumb. I never liked orange either, although I did get this set of two Old Navy mini polishes in a goody bag from someone's birthday party, one pink with gold flash and one orange with gold flash, that I thought were super cool. I justified that as being okay, though, because we had been talking about clothes, and nail polish wasn't clothes.

...Anyway.

Apparently that logic stuck with me because I love orange nail polish. I started buying polish again last year and ended up with a lot of orange near-dupes really quickly. They're not identical, I swear! See, let me show you...

(with flash) China Glaze Dreamsicle, OPI DS Treasure, Jordana Mango, NYC 112a, Zoya Penny

(no flash) China Glaze Dreamsicle, OPI DS Treasure, Jordana Mango, NYC 112a, Zoya Penny

Dreamsicle is a cute fun light tangerine but oh so chunky. :( It took me days to get it off my toes. ...It also flaked right off my fingers in big sheets. Actually, the parts on my toes that didn't have me scrubbing forever also chipped off really fast. I don't know what's up with this one, but China Glaze's Bad Kitty had the same effect. Must be a junk batch.

Treasure's my favorite out of the lot. ♥ As you can see here, it's actually a pink base with a LOT of orange and gold shimmer. I usually layer it until it's more or less opaque, so that it looks more orange than pink, but it wouldn't be bad sheer, either.

Mango is a softer sort of orange shimmer and... really doesn't look like a mango to me. It's yellowy, but the shimmer throws me off. Very pretty, though, but is kind of streaky. I thought it might be a match for the Old Navy mini I had (which, btw, is officially so old it doesn't dry), but it has more depth to it.

At the other end of the spectrum, I have no idea where this NYC came from. I asked my mom to mail me some things and this got included. I don't remember buying it and it must be from junior high. It's actually not a bad creme, though. Really streaky at first but evened out nicely after three coats.

Zoya Penny is very pretty and very opaque. I think this is two coats, although one is almost good enough to wear. It really does live up to its name. It looks exactly like a melted new penny.

(with flash) Zoya Paz, Jordana Hot & Spicy, Wet'N'Wild Inferno, Zoya Kaufda, Nfu.Oh 58

Breaking up the monotony with a family portrait. :)

Zoya Penny, NYC 112a, Jordana Mango, OPI DS Treasure, China Glaze Dreamsicle, Nfu.Oh 58, Zoya Kaufda, Wet'N'Wild Inferno, Jordana Hot & Spicy, Zoya Paz

(with flash) Zoya Paz, Jordana Hot & Spicy, Wet'N'Wild Inferno, Zoya Kaufda, Nfu.Oh 58

I think everyone is allowed to have a couple of polishes they buy just because of the name. Paz is one of mine. Except that I also like the color. So. Anyway. It's a really, really, really, really neon orange. Blinding. Takes two to three coats for full oh-my-god-my-eyes appeal.

I got Jordana Hot & Spicy to try and get a dupe for Treasure. It's close, as it is also an orange shimmer in a pink base, but this base is more berry and the shimmer isn't as intense. I think it looks redder when being worn. Still nice. Just not as magical.

Scrangie did a review on Inferno a while ago that was pretty dead on. It's a really vibrant reddish/gold orange. Very pretty! I'll wear it properly someday and show the color better then.

Zoya Kaufda is another one I should really look into wearing... It's beautiful. Deep orange to bronze, very opaque. I think Zoya gave it a 5/5 opacity.

This Nfu.Oh was kind of a mistake. The picture on the site is very misleading. In reality it looks like rotting leaves with flakies instead of dark red with rainbow as they would have you believe... Once you get over that, it's pretty cool! Brown-orange with warm tone flakies. It got used in the first mani on this blog! :)

St. Patrick's Day Manicure

Happy (Belated) St. Patrick's day! My apologies for the lateness, I should have posted this earlier but unfortunately I caught an icky cold. :( Here's what I did for St. Patrick's day.

I used Sinful San Fransisco, and stamped the vine/flowers (or clovers, as I was going for this time) using China Glaze L8tr G8tr. I finished with a coat of Kleancolor Peaceful Heart, a green glitter with blue hearts, and topped the whole thing off with Nubar Diamont.

I did have to do a bit of fishing to get the hearts out, but it wasn't bad. I haven't worn a green this vivid in months, so it was rather shocking at first! I felt a bit like Poison Ivy, haha. Greens can be hard for me to wear, so this was a bit out of my comfort zone, but I wanted to do something with a bit more pizazz for the holiday.

Are you a fan of emerald greens? Did you do something special for St. Patrick's day?

Until next time!

Treasure Chest

Hello again! This is the manicure I did for Chinese New Year, since red and gold are lucky and I had been waiting for an excuse to try China Glaze Treasure Chest. :) The woman who runs the nail supply store I bought this from had it on her toes and it looked like gold foil. Pretty awesome!!

This took many layers since it is just a glitter and not really meant to give such full coverage, but it was fun and I liked the bling. It did chip relatively easily afterwards, but it was much smoother than I had expected it to be. These pictures don't show it, but it wasn't rough and bumpy at all! It was thick, but the individual pieces of glitter layered well.

I used Island Girl base and top coat and Jordana Black to stamp cherry blossoms (Konad S9). There are a bunch of cherry trees here and I'm really looking forward to the blossoms. ♥

LOL, Fashion Addict!

I wanted to use a nice springy color, since it has been so cold and dreary out. I hadn't yet tried Color Club Fashion Addict (a lovely lavender holo), so I thought I'd try it to encourage spring to come a bit quicker. I used China Glaze LOL (medium blue-based purple holo) as a stamp with Konad plate m60. I like the dotted gradient pattern...it makes me want to try sponging again! I love gradients. This came out very mod, not at all my usual style, but very fun nonetheless. :)

The first two were taken without flash. The third was taken with flash. All were taken under artificial light, as we had no sun!

I left this last one a little bigger so you could see some of that wicked holo that Fashion Addict has. The holo is quite strong, and very pretty.

One of my hands has more konad, using plate m26. I used Color Club Revvvolution and OPI DS Extravagance. I just thought it was a bit much, so only one of my hands was done that way. :P

Overall, application was good. I had no real problems with it, and it dried pretty quickly (as most holos do).

In other news, Travels with Euridice is having a really neat giveaway. The winner gets a whole hoard of holographic polishes. I love all that rainbow goodness. This runs until Friday, March 5th. Visit here for more details and pictures!

Until next time! <3

Happy New Year!

Happy Chinese New Year! This is the year of the Tiger, so in honor of that beautiful creature, I did my nails to match.

This was a many-layered manicure, one I did over the course of an evening, so I don't recommend trying it if you are planning to go out not long after.

Steps:

1. Nubar Nu Nails

2. OPI Comet Loves Cupid

3. OPI Dear Santa (2 coats)

4. Nfu.Oh #58 (2 coats)

5. Jordana Black (tiger stripes and kitties)

6. China Glaze 2030 (stars)

7. Konad Top Coat

8. Nubar Diamont

Konad Plates: m2, m3, m57

Whew!

Until next time! ♥