St. Patrick's Day Manicure

I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me. My entire family is of Italian heritage, on all sides of my family. The dearest, on the other hand, is half Irish (and half Scottish, which makes the spitfire and spitfire 2.0 quite the mutt). So, being absolutely not Irish doesn't mean I can't wear my green! So, to be absolutely sure I won't forget tomorrow morning, I decided to give myself a St. Patrick's Day manicure.

I picked the color the way I pick nearly all my polish colors - I pulled out every green or greenish polish I had and let the spitfire pick. I gotta tell you, the boy has good taste! He was immediately drawn to China Glaze L8R G8R from the OMG collection. That's my boy!

Oh, boy, how I love this color. I love how the light dances off the very fine holographic glitter making the rainbow lines move all around. I tried to capture the different angles:

Click to enlarge

The formula itself isn't the best. It's very thin and dries *very* quickly. The first coat looks awful. It works best if you get a good amount on the brush and make as few strokes as possible, no more than 4, maybe 5 on the thumb. And do it fast. I used Orly Ridge Filler as a base and Seche Vite as a topcoat.

 

These holos are mesmerizing. I have to make it a point not to stare at my nails in direct sunlight as I'm driving!

Happy St. Patrick's Day - to the Irish and non-Irish alike!

Chanel Black Pearl

Yes, I know, Chanel Black Pearl has been reviewed within an inch of its life. Every blogger has gone over it, so now I'll add my 2 cents. I bought this right around Christmas, but I didn't want to use it right away as my nails were short, peeling and uneven and my cuticles were so ragged. Chanel deserved better than that. So, I've been taking my B vitamins, taking care of my nails, applying cuticle oil religiously and my hands are looking better. It's Chanel time.

Black Pearl is one of the slew of grays that are hitting the stores for the Spring 2011 collections. This one stands out in that it is not just grey. Suspended in the gunmetal grey base is a very dense green microshimmer. The green makes the whole nail color look a murky green, but not in an ugly way, but in more of a "Oh, let me look at that again" kind of way.

There was some minor brushstroke action going on, but you have to really look closely to see it. It's a very lovely color. So far it's had some lasting power. I'm on the end of day 2 and the manicure still looks nice.

I think this one can go into heavy rotation.

Happy polishing!

Eagles and my Wildcard manicure

I'm a homer.

No, not that Homer, a home-team fan. I love my Philadelphia sports teams. Flyers, Eagles, Phillies, 76ers, I'll watch them all. When any of them are in the playoffs, there's extra excitement in the Lacquered Mom household. Even the spitfire will ignore Ben 10 long enough to cheer for a game.

Today, the Eagles play the Green Bay Packers in a wildcard match up. For the next 4 hours my butt will be plopped in front of my TV cheering, whistling and sometimes cursing at it. Of course I needed a wildcard manicure. Digging through my stash for appropriate greens I came up with Revlon's new Top Speed nail polish in Emerald. It's not dead-on Eagles green, but it's not Packers green.

Actually, the polish isn't that bad. It's a basic green creme. I used two coats, no base or top coat (as this will come off after the game, I'm not worried about shine or longevity). And true to its name, it dried fairly quickly. This pictures were taken not 20 minutes after tightening the cap.

If the Eagles win, I will be doing the same manicure next week. If they lose, I'm tossing it (not really, but I'll bury it in the waaaaaay back of the drawer). I could go on all day about sports, about the morality of rooting for Michael Vick, the inability of the secondary, whether Andy Reid should be driven out of this city, but I will just end with, "Let's go, Eagles!"

(At the time of typing, Vick has been sacked once and they've already gone 3 and out, let's home this gets better)

Deborah Lippmann - Don't Tell Mama

Every now and again you find a nail polish that is such a fun color that you can deal with the application problems that come with it. That's how I feel about Deborah Lippmann's Don't Tell Mama polish. This polish is a densely packed blue-green microshimmer packed into a black base. When it's in the shade, or a poorly lit room it looks like a dark, dark green, but in the sun or direct light - boy does the shimmer make itself known!

With a flash - look at the shimmer!

As much as I really love this color, the application wasn't without its problems. There was an annoying amount of drag on this one. I suggest doing as few brushstrokes as possible with a very light hand and wait until entirely dry in between coats. If you let it dry between coats you may only need two coats. I had to use a thicker third coat to cover bald spots from the first two coats. Once I did that, it looked fine - great, even.

Shimmery!

The Deborah Lippmann site said that it's sold out, but check your local Nordstrom's or Neiman Marcus, as that is where I purchased this one. It retails for $16.00. As long as you're careful with application, it's a great polish.