Pink Glitter Gradient!

Here's my latest mani, a deep pink to nude-pink gradient. I sponged OPI's Ali's Big Break over the tips, covered the whole thing with a coat of Teenage Dream, and used Konad to stamp accents on my ring finger and thumb.







I love how this came out! Bright, pretty, and fabulously sparkly.





At lunch yesterday I was reminded when I ordered this delicious desert at one of my favorite restaurants. This is "Lady in Red", a strawberry and guava delight.





Mmm, strawberry-guava cake! Words cannot describe this beauty.

Hope you enjoyed! Until next time!

Suzi Says Feng Shui, and a Franken

This is Suzi Says Feng Shui, a gorgeous blue with a rather silly name from OPI's Hong Kong collection. I only rarely wear blues, but I tried this on a whim and totally fell in love. I love its dusty quality and the formula was a dream. I apologize for the photo quality, my camera cord has disappeared, so this was taken with my phone.

The polish on my ring finger was my attempt to franken something like Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air so I wouldn't have to spend $18+ on the real thing. I made this with OPI Funny Bunny, ORLY Snowcone, and NYC Starry Silver Glitter (holo with blue and violet hexagonal glitter). It definitely isn't a dupe, but it's pretty nice!

Here's a bottle pic:

On a more personal note, I am very sorry for the long absence with no explanation. Things have been quite topsy-turvy for the past year, and I'm not even sure when (or if) this rollercoaster will end! I appreciate your patience and understanding, I really do. :)

Until next time!

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!

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!

A Week of Orlys! Orly Bon Bon + OPI Significant Other Color

Welcome to a week of Orlys! For the next seven days I'll be showing Orly Bon Bon and the Orly Sweet Collection.

I've been looking for a lovely light purple for a while now, but I haven't yet stumbled upon my perfect one. I've heard that Bon Bon is hard to wear, but I found it to be sheer, milky, and delicate. It definitely wasn't as unflattering on me as Orly Lollipop (which I will show you soon).

It did take longer to dry, as I think Orly polishes tend to, and because it was watery I did have some pooling around my cuticles. Unfortunately I did get some small dents hours after topping it with Seche Vite. I love the soft, squishy look it has, though. A lovely look for early spring, especially.

The other thing I felt was noteworthy was that this polish is ridiculously shiny! You know the shine polish has when it's freshly painted and extremely wet? Bon Bon keeps that same shine. I'd say the shine from it is comparable with that from my Seche Vite or Diamont topcoats, if not more so.

I wanted to do something to spice it up a little, but I couldn't decide what. I finally added two coats of OPI Significant Other Color to it, and it was completely transformed. The OPI is usually very sheer, too sheer for me to wear on its own because of the stains on my nails. However, over Bon Bon it became opaque and quite pretty. I am not usually drawn to this sort of finish, but I love the soft delicate purple so it was a fun experiment.

Until next time!

Quick R&J Post + Giveaway

I apologize for the lack of posts, this week has been a really busy one. I'm hoping to get the Orly Sweet collection by the end of the week, so that's something to look forward to, anyway.

This is an old one from the vault, if you will. As a lover of Shakespeare, I just had to try out OPI Romeo & Joliet (I believe this was from the Route 66 collection?). It's a rich burgundy brown frost. I think this was three coats. To maximize the tragicness of R&J, I added a black rose with Konad plate m 54. I don't think it's quite this red in person, but it's pretty close. R&J is a pretty color. It's not one I usually wear, but great for fall.

It's really late, but if any of you are interested, Crystaliciousss is having a fun giveaway for spring. It ends tomorrow, the 7th of April, so hurry and enter! Check out the prize:

Find more details here.

Until next time!

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! :)

OPI Bling Dynasty

I was really excited about OPI's Hong Kong Collection because I have family connections in Hong Kong. Unfortunately, most of the colors just didn't look good on me! So, OPI Bling Dynasty is the only polish I own from the Hong Kong collection. It reminded me immediately of gold flakes. It's a beautiful color, and has a rather antique look to it. I like that it's a bolder gold, it reminds me of treasure chests. ;)

This is three coats with artificial light. The two flash images are better examples of the vibrant color, however.

Look how it glows!

What are some of your must-haves?

Until next time! <3

Pre-New Year Mani

Hello! I'm Aquajogger, the other blogger here with my first post, another set of Chinese New Year nails. I actually did these the week before New Year, so they're not as fancy but they were fun to look at anyway.

This was actually my third try. I had found a bottle of Island Girl Yellow Out that I had never used, so I decided to give it a try as a base coat--not doing that again. An hour or so later, all my polish had come off in big nail-sized pieces. I tried again with a regular base coat, but I guess I didn't wash off all the residue properly (or two coats of Nubar Sugar made it too thick) because the same thing happened again. I finally got pictures of the finished product the next day on my third go at it.

1) Island Girl "Nail Stregthener"

2) OPI Conquistadorable Color (two coats)

3) Nubar Sugar (one coat)

4) Jordana Black (stamping)

5) Zoya Armor

Konad Plate: m8

Hope to post later with our haul from shopping on the 14th! :)

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! ♥