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.

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!

A Week of Orlys! Orly Lollipop

I was really excited about Orly Lollipop, because I was looking for a lovely delicate purple. Lollipop unfortunately doesn't really work with my skin as well as I would have liked. I have one picture bare, but I think it looked worse in real life.

I remedied the situation by stamping over Lollipop with Borghese Carnevale Grape. Carnevale Grape is a purple cream polish that unfortunately becomes a brownish purple color so dark it is almost black. It was a real disappointment for me. But look at what a beautiful color it stamps! Now it is my go-to purple color for konad.

This is one of the few times I was very resistant to changing my nails. At first I thought it was really busy and almost garish, but since I did it before bed I didn't want to do it again. I was going to change in in the morning, but I left it on since I was short on time, and I'm glad I did! I totally fell in love with this look and was reluctant to take it off!

I got many compliments on this color. It is so striking and playful! I think the soft purple of Lollipop keeps it fresh and clean looking.

Until next time!

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!

Rainbow Nails!

Hello! I'm really excited to show you these pictures! During spring break, Lacquermuse and I walked to all sorts of places where we thought we might find nail polish. (Fear the determination of us car-less students!) One of these places was a Ross, where we found a set of Color Club Poptastic. :) I used them right away, but couldn't settle on a single color so I decided to use five of the seven. Check it out~

No flash:

Flash:

From left to right this is: Color Club Poptastic, Pucci-licious, Almost Famous, Twiggie, Chelsea Girl Blue

The flash picture is much better, I think, but they're both pretty true to color. The other colors in the set were Warhol and Wham! Pow!, a bright magenta-y pink and a neon orange. I actually like both of them best (although I'm also really fond of Almost Famous), but they were too neon and didn't go with the rest of them as well. ...Chelsea Girl kind of sticks out too, but I stuck it on my pinky so it didn't bother me so much.

I got a bunch of compliments on my nails when I wore this. On the first day I had them painted this way we rode the train to Portland and both ways someone asked about them. ^^

No flash:

Flash:

I had a lot of fun deciding what animals to stamp on what color. It's a zoo! I ended up putting bunnies on pink because they had hearts, cats on purple because... they just looked like they would like that..., chicks on yellow, pandas on green for the bamboo, and dogs/sheep on blue because that was the animal design I liked next best, lol.

I actually really like those chicks. I was so sad to see them go. But then I stamped them on my toes twice in a row. They're just so cute. They say "pi"...!

Color Club Wild at Heart

After I swatched Wild at Heart, I immediately wanted a backup. When I received the backup, though, I realized they were a bit different. I applied one to each hand, and was surprised to see that the holo in them was inconsistent. I apologize in advance for my camera's poor macro, but I thought you could get the idea from these pictures, so I thought I would share. All pictures were taken without topcoat, as I didn't want to alter the effect. Unfortunately I got a lot of tipwear because I didn't use topcoat. :(

This was my original bottle. The holo is present but not strong.

My backup bottle. Holo was much easier to detect here.

Scattered Holo Closeup:

Linear Holo Closeup:

Scattered Holo:

Linear Holo:

Scattered Holo (partial sun):

Linear Holo (partial sun):

Both are more holo than they appear. The newer Wild at Heart has much stronger linear holographic particles, the older one has weaker, scattered holo. I noticed the backs of the bottles were different, as well, so I assume they are simply from slightly different batches. Neither are holo like the China Glaze OMG holos, but they're still gorgeous. I much prefer darker colors, so Wild at Heart is a favorite for me regardless.

Until next time!

Claire's Mood Nail Polish: Calm/Wild

I apologize for the abruptness of this post. The charger for my computer is on its last legs, so I'm trying to use it sparingly. This is a slightly older mani, before I cropped my nails down. I wanted to post while this polish was still available. Claire's Mood nail polish! This is calm/wild, a purple-to-pink polish and the only one with glitter (silver) in the collection. I believe there are five? total, but this is the only one that really caught my eye.

When I was a little girl I had a pair of pants that had one purple leg and one pink leg. Those were my favorite colors, so you can imagine how much I loved those pants. Even though I wasn't sure the colors would be flattering on my skintone (it looked cooler toned and I am neutral/warm), I just had to get this one in honor of my favorite pants. The first trip to Claire's they had already sold out of this color, but when they restocked a couple weeks later I pounced on it. The colors on my pants were a bit deeper, but this is very reminiscent of them:

The pink does get brighter than this when exposed to heat (such as hot water, etc), but I am usually on the colder side, so it did not get really bright when I wore it.

I'm waiting for when they invent polish that changes to a myriad of colors. This will hold me over 'til then, though. ;)

How do you feel about color-changing polish like this? At least it's an easy way to get a colorful french if your nails are long enough!

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!

Borghese Nail Lacquer

Having recently discovered Borghese nail lacquers at Rite-Aid, I wanted to do a mani with all Borghese products. For a base coat I am using Hydrati, a treatment designed to rehydrate nails. I used three coats of Botticelli Nude and stamped using Carnevale Grape. I used Konad plate m71, and topped it all off with Borghese Presto Fast Drying Top Coat. Three coats was enough to cover my staining and look relatively uniform, but it was not fully opaque, just milky/creamy. I think you could reach full opacity at around 5 coats, but I was satisfied with three.

I originally got Botticelli Nude as a mannequin nails color. It's close, but not quite right. I really like it, though, it's very soft and delicate. I feel very sophisticated wearing this.

Borghese nail lacquers supposedly contain micronized gemstones, and given that the brand was started by Italian royalty, there's no denying the glamour of these lacquers. Thankfully, the application makes me feel glamorous, too. I had minor streaking with Botticelli Nude, but the polish evened out nicely. These polishes tend to be creamier than many I've tried. They aren't watery in the slightest (I'm looking at you, OPI You Don't Know Jacques), nor are they thick and blobby. I am careful with my application, and going a bit slower made me feel very elegant and serene. Also, they dry quickly. Not like holos or neons do, but significantly quicker than most cremes I've tried, especially thick ones. And did I mention shiny? I swear these look wet for ages, they've got marvelously high gloss.

As for the topcoat, I think Presto dries polish more thoroughly. It is not dry instantly like Seche or Diamont, but dries the layers of polish quicker than either, so manis are less dentable. I experienced no tipwear, and polish does not need to be wet or tacky for this to work well; the box even suggests waiting at least 1-2 minutes before applying the topcoat. I'm loving this topcoat right now, but it does leave occasional brush strokes if you really look hard.

Borghese nail lacquers are pretty pricey, especially for a drugstore brand, and retail for about $8. The bottles only hold .4fl oz of lacquer, unlike the standard .5fl oz, so they really do fall on the pricier side. Their color selection is limited mostly to reds and pinks and other french tip appropriate shades, definitely mature and classic. Their Fashionista collection has much wilder colors, although the only one I have from there is Stellare Notte (which is still in my untrieds, but has plenty of swatches floating around). I've been very intrigued by Plummagio Purple, an interesting blueish purple shimmer but I fear it will be too blue for my skintone.

Have you tried any Borghese products? What do you think of them?

Until next time! <3

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