Ombre Manicure

I am not one for intricate nail art, however, I have been a bit more adventurous with minor nail art. I've delved into the accent nail, and now, I've tried an ombre manicure.

Ombre manicures consist of 5 different shades of the same color group, one on each finger. Honestly, even with my fairly large collection, it's difficult for me to pick out a set of similar colors. This time I just let myself go. I picked shades of black and gray. With the exception of one gilttery polish, I picked cremes.

On my thumb I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White on. It's awful. I don't know why I have it. It's a thick and gloopy, but at the same time streaky white-out type of polish. On my pointer finger I used Zoya Dove. Middle finger is Nails, inc. The Thames. Ring finger is Orly Rock Solid and pinky finger is Orly Liquid Vinyl.

I've had this manicure on for three days now, which is normally my limit for nail-polish boredom, so it's probably going to come off soon. I actually received a lot of comments (many confused) on it, but I actually kinda like it.

Next I have to start looking for a good green polish for St. Paddy's Day even though I don't have a drop of Irish blood in me.

Decisions, Decisions

My birthday is coming up in less than a week. If you remember, last year I made a big announcement on my blog. No big huge announcement this time, just a decision to make - I need to figure out what is going to be my birthday manicure!

This year, the spitfire is no help, he's more interested in Wii than mommy's nails, although I'll try to get him to pick tomorrow. Here are the contenders:

Pointer - two coats of OPI Princesses Rule with a coat of OPI Teenage Dream on top
Middle - Julep Brooklyn, quite smudged at the cuticle, of course
Ring - Dior Aloha
Pinky - A England St. George

I have a feeling spitfire is going to gravitate to St. George, because it's green, but I'm leaning towards the pink.

Oh, the problems we face!

Glitter Gal 3D holographic polish in Green

Ok, I did it. I hopped on the Glitter Gal bandwagon. A few weeks back I placed an order on Llarowe for a bunch of holos. The first of which I posted about last week. Today's pick is Glitter Gal 3D holo in Green.

The color is a light green with a very lovely linear holo. Oh, how I love the linear holo. It is dangerous while driving in direct sunlight as one tends to stare at their nails - or maybe that's just me.

This polish definitely shows up better while using a flash, otherwise you just don't get the dancing flashes that you would in real life. Here is a picture in indirect sunlight (because the sun was refusing to help me out today).

Still pretty, though!

The polish was good. It was on the thin side, but not so bad that it runs into your cuticles. I did use three coats and there was still a faint nail line. Again, being that it is a holo - it wasn't enough to deter me from loving this. The brush did have a stray bristle, but a snip of my little scissors remedied that right away. The bottles are smaller than I expected. 9ml, so bigger than the tiny Le Metier de Beaute polishes, but smaller than most that you will find, especially for the price. But, from what I understand, holographic polishes cost a bit more to make, which is why recent holos have been on the pricy side.

This particular color is still available at Llarowe, as well as a few other colors in the holo line.

Wanna know how opaque a polish is? Check its balls!

Boy, oh boy, I can't wait to see the Google search that leads people to this posting.

Have you ever brought a bottle of polish home thinking you have this awesome bottle of polish only to find out that the color is so sheer that you need 7 coats just to get the color of the bottle? The opacity of many polishes will clearly be evident. However, if you pick up a bottle and are unsure, just check its balls.

The little steel mixing balls of course! Now, obviously, if your polish doesn't have the mixing balls, well, you're out of luck. However, it if does, hold the bottle up to check 'em out. With opaque polishes you will only see the little dot of the ball. Check out the pictures:

Looking at the two bottles above (China Glaze Mediterranean Charm on top and Zoya Jenine, yes I bought it just for the name, on the bottom), all you see are little dots. This are nice and opaque polishes, see:

Those are both only one coat of polish.

If you hold the bottle up and you can pretty much see the entire ball, you've got a sheer polish on your hands here:

With these two polishes, you can pretty much see the entire ball. Both of these polishes (Butter London Disco Biscuit on top and Revlon Grapefruit Fizz on the bottom), while pretty, are quite sheer.

These are both 3 coats of polish, and you can see how sheer the polishes are.

Now, granted, the opaque polishes I picked are pretty obvious, as are the sheer ones. But I have put down bottles based on the ball trick (one being a Deborah Lippmann, which is a brand that I love, but I wanted the color to be opaque, and it was just too sheer). As a rule, I just don't like sheer polishes, I'm way too anal about a visible nail line to futz with sheer polishes, and I never have luck with underwear polishes, I usually just avoid them. I did willingly buy Disco Biscuit after the ball trick because I just simply loved the color and couldn't resist.

I may be stating the obvious here, a thing that everyone knew and I'm last to the table, but just in case I'm not last - I'll repost it for those that are!

Between balls, anal and underwear, this blog is probably going to be placed on interesting lists. Weeeee....

The return, with holos! HITS No Olimpo Ares

So, I've been away for a bit, but I'm returning with a heck of a polish. I have been seeing the HITS No Olimpo collections make its way through the blogs, and there were so many that I wanted. I settled on the bright red Ares.

In Greek Mythology, Ares is the God of War, son of Zeus and Hera. He represents the brutality of war, so I guess it's fitting that this polish is a bright, blood red. But not only is it a bright red, but a bright red with a LINEAR HOLO. Sorry, I just get excited when I look at the bottle.

With flash

Unfortunately, this polish wreaked havoc on my camera, and Santa sent me a very nice upgraded camera and I still couldn't capture the lovely holo as good as I would have liked. It is definitely linear and actually looks like a silver shimmer, until it gets directly in light, then the colors dance off the nails. The polish smells a bit funny, and I doubt it's 3-free, so keep that in mind if you go to purchase this. Also, I have read that some people have had problems with the brush, however I didn't have any problems. The brush was on the thin side with respect to volume of bristles, but it was a bit wider than most brushes. The polish itself was on the thinner side, but not so thin that it was runny.

I do love a nice red nail, but adding a holo to a red - divine. This polish will most definitely go into high rotation.

In sunlight

I got mine at Llarowe, however it currently looks like Ares is out of stock, but there are other Greek Gods that are in stock that look just as lovely.

I promised this wouldn't turn into a baby blog, but I can't resist - here the reason I've been neglecting this blog:

My Little Miss - notice the lovely big drool spot under her chin, teething sucks!

Now, how can I focus on nail polish that that face staring at me?

Why I love NARS nail polishes

See this bad, slightly blurry pic:

It's NARS Night Flight from the NARS Night Series. It's a lovely shimmery blue, yada, yada, yada... Scrangie and Vampy Varnish have reviews on this series. The reason I posted that picture? It's one coat. This polish is so lovely and deep that one coat is perfect, streak-free and opaque.

I also have Night Porter (the green shimmer). I can't wait to try that one, too. NARS is quickly becoming my favorite polish brand for their formula alone.

butter London The Black Knight

A few weeks ago I noticed a special 2-pack of butter London polishes in a stupidly large (read: wasteful) package. Of course, I bought it anyway. It contained two glitterbomb polishes, one being The Black Knight. It looked like a fun glittery polish in a dark base. I'm usually apprehensive about glittery polishes, but I bought it anyway.

The two things I don't like about glitterbombs are 1) the lumpy, bumpy feeling you get with the finish and 2) the horrific, cotton-shredding, get-out-of-the-room-while-mom-curses removal. I'm sad to say, both exist with this polish.

First two nails are 2 coats of TBK, the second two are one coat of black and one coat of TBK

The polish itself consists of blue and dark pink glitter, smaller silver micro glitter all suspended in a dark jelly base. As I was swatching on the first two nails, I noticed that the base was very streaky and splotchy. At that point, I thought it would look good over a base of a plain black creme, so I painted my ring and pinky finger with one coat of Orly Liquid Vinyl (which is a fantastic black creme, by the way) and then one coat of The Black Knight. Pointer and middle finger are two coats of The Black Knight plain. It looks much better over a base coat of black than on its own.

Two coats of TBK plain, click to embiggen

You can still see some bald spots in the plain coats. I'm sure a third coat would have evened it out, but it's already quite gritty as it is. I didn't put any top coats on this, but I would guess that it would eat up the topcoat as well. Maybe a coat of Gelous first and then one of Seche Vite would go towards smoothing out the finish.

One coat of TBK over one coat of Orly Liquid Vinyl. Click to embiggen

I think the glitter just pops a bit more when layered over black. You can really see the blue and fuchsia glitter really well like this. And just as I thought, it was a bear to remove. I almost sent the spitfire out of the room during removal in case I began cursing (spitfire 2.0 is still too young to understand my, uh, colorful language, she can stay). But I persevered. 

I'm glad I bought this. I'm sure I'll be hesitant to use it simply because I'm anticipating the removal, but I'm going to have to get over that!

Chanel/Sally Hansen comparison - and 1 year anniversary!

So, one year ago today I decided to start a blog and posted some really crappy pictures of my Deborah Lippmann Bad Romance manicure. Well, my pictures haven't gotten that much better, and there was a brief hiatus while I was birthing my daughter, and recovering from said birth. I'm still trying to find time for the blog, and I get little bits here and there now that she has a decent schedule, plus, I have a ton of lovely little additions that I haven't broken into yet so I can take pictures (the things bloggers do!)

In the meantime, I took these pictures some time ago, but only one turned out publishable, and barely at that.

I caught a glimpse of Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri in Bronze Ablaze and thought it may be a good budget friendly alternative to Chanel's Peridot. Oh, boy was I wrong! I have found that SH polishes can be hit or miss. Many are great, but when you get a doozy.. whooohooo..

Bronze Ablaze went on thick and clumpy, and it bubbled like a sucker, to boot.

Oh, hello bubbles! Peridot on pointer and ring, Bronze Ablaze on middle and pinky

Formula aside, the color can't compare to the duochrome complexity that is Peridot, but a flat metallic bronze color. This one is going into the swap pile for sure. Peridot, on the other hand, is staying put!

Dior Vernis 651 Merveille

*tap tap*

Is this thing on... hello... hello...

Yes, it's been quite awhile here. I've been, um, well, busy. After 6 years I very nearly forgot what it was like to have a newborn in the house. But I'm happy to say that spitfire2.0 is doing very well. In fact, we're getting into a nice routine that actually allows me some free time. For the first time in nearly 2 months I was able to give myself a manicure. Not only that, but she's allowing me to actually sit and have time to blog about it! Wee!

So, I picked Dior Vernis 651 - Merveille - from Dior's holiday 2011 line. Of the four released, this was the only one that I picked up. I really liked the slightly coraly red with gold shimmer. However, as prominent as the shimmer appears in the bottle, it doesn't translate well onto the actual nail. You really have to work the light to make the shimmer show up.

Either way, I really like this color. Maybe it's because I've had naked nails for the past two months, but I keep staring at this color. It is a perfect holiday color.

Dior has the same great wide, flat brush that I love so much, and the formula on this one was a bit on the thick side, but not so much so. Absolutely not like my bottle of Graphic Berry that I brought back, but not like last year's polishes, either, but still well within workable bounds.

I'm happy with this purchase. I'm still trying to decide if it will be my Christmas mani this year. Last year was a Dior mani, why not continue the trend?

Orly Fowl Play

I wasn't real moved by Orly's Birds of a Feather collection that was released a few weeks back, until I saw a display at Ulta. Most of the colors seemed ordinary, with the exception of Fowl Play. It stuck out like a colorful parrot in a cage of canaries.

This is a very blacked plum jelly base with tiny silver glitter, small blue glitter and coppery flakes suspended into it. As you can see from the side of the bottle that the coppery-red flakes will also reflect green and gold at times. I love seeing flaky polishes readily available as they add that special something to the polish.

Now for the bad news. This formula is horrible. I managed to get this opaque-ish in two coats - but two quirky coats. I was trying to keep the coats thin, as it is a jelly and I didn't want to wait forever between coats. However, that thin coat looked absolutely horrible. It was streaky, it dragged and was just terrible. For the second coat, I just put a thick coat on and prayed that the Seche Vite I use as a topcoat would help the drying time (it did), but you can still see some drag up by the cuticle in the closeup shot.

I do love the color, but I'm not sure it's enough to overcome the horrible formula. I will have to see with time.

Can't... Wait... So.. Excited...

Wow - I know it's a teeny, tiny picture, but it's a twitpic from Neiman Marcus (follow @neimanmarcus on Twitter)

It's the latest in the Ken Downing colors for Le Metier de Beaute Neiman Marcus collection - Bodacious Bordeaux. 

 

I raved about the last one.. this one will also be mine, mine, mine!

Bling Nail Appliques -or- the only nail art I can do

I am not one for nail art. Primarily because I simply do not have the dexterity to accomplish nice-looking nail art, see exhibit A. If you want to see some great nail art - please go on over to The Daily Nail. Then come back, of course! :)

So, in an attempt to try something a bit different, I picked up a couple sets of Bling Nail Appliques from Sally's.

These are little silver dots on a clear nail sticker. Now, these aren't like the Sally Hansen nail stickers which act just like nail polish - these are honest-to-God stickers. They're textured and they can be removed are repositioned until you get it right on the nail. I had Chanel's Mimosa on my nails to begin with, and I just wasn't feeling it - so I added these over it.

They were a bit labor intensive for stickers, only because I was stingy and because I have short little nubbins - I was able to make one sticker go on two nails. So, I would put the sticker on my pointer fingernail, *very* carefully trim it close to the nail tip with cuticle scissors, retrim the ends and place on the pointer fingernail on my other hand. So, now I still have another manicure available! See - stingy!

After adding and trimming the sticker, I carefully filed the edge to smooth it out - which actually was harder than it sounds to get a nice, even edge. It took a little persistence and it came out nice with a few little bumps. At that point, I added a coat of Seche Vite, although it probably wasn't necessary. I just wanted it extra shiny.  I like this, and even though removal will probably be a bear, I'll probably do another manicure like it, not to mention the other styles I bought as well! Quick and easy nail art even with unsteady hands.

On another note - this is my 100th post.. woo hoo!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Purple Haze

Purple Haze all in my brain
lately things don't seem the same.
Acting funny and I don't know why
Excuse me while I kiss this guy.

A few weeks back I ordered a few polishes from Rescue Beauty Lounge's Bring It Back order. One of the polishes I ordered was Purple Haze. This is described as a vivid violet creme, and I'm a sucker for purples.

I love the color, a slightly dusty lavender. I also love the formula, not too thick, not too thin and perfectly opaque and shiny in two coats.

I do have one complaint about the polish, and it's not about the polish, per se. I don't like the brushes used in RBL bottles. It's sparse, thin and slightly stiff. It makes for a tougher time applying polish. I found that with the exception of my pinky nail, I could only wipe a tiny amount off the brush or else it would be streaky and require many dippings.

Aside from the brush issues, I do love both of the polishes that I have tried from this order so far. I have two more left and I look forward to trying them as well.

Revlon Carbonite and Chanel Graphite comparison

So the trend now seems to be Chanel comes out with the season's new IT color, and then Revlon releases their dupe about a month later. First, we had Perplex, which was a pretty good dupe of my all-time favorite Chanel polish, Paradoxal. Next came Black With Envy, which was supposed to be a dupe of Chanel's Black Pearl, but from the pictures I saw, didn't capture the green tones in the polish. This time around, Revlon comes out with their dupe to Chanel's Graphite called Carbonite.

No, not that carbonite, fellow geeks!

In the bottle, they look very similar. Right away you can see that the particles in Graphite are slightly larger and reflect more gold and green than does Carbonite. Besides that, the base color is strikingly similar.

On the nail, they still look similar. You can still see the slightly bigger particles in Graphite, and Graphite seems to reflect a little bit more. The formulas are very different, though. Graphite applied beautifully and had full opaque coverage in two even coats. Carbonite also had full opaque coverage in two coats, however the formula was quite thicker and took longer to dry. It also dried a tiny bit bumpier than did Graphite.

However, having said all of that, the colors are very, very similar. Close enough to be deemed a dupe. Also close enough that if you love the color of Graphite but don't want to spend $25 on it, Carbonite will satisfy your lemming at a fraction of the price.

OPI Nice Stems mini collection

I actually wasn't interested in the OPI Nice Stems collection, that is, until I saw the mini collection available at my local Ulta. With the cute little bottles, who could resist?

L-R: Play The Peonies, Come To Poppy, Be A Dahl-ia Won't You, I Lily Love You

These are cute springy shades of pink with a really nice flecked jelly layering polish. I did find that putting I Lily Love You over Play The Peonies made for a streaky, flaky mess, so I didn't even include the picture.

Play The Peonies:

This one is a light, shimmery pale tinged white polish. Normally, this is completely not my type of color, but it would be nice to wear to a spring wedding. It applied nicely in two coats, but as I said before - it didn't play well with the flecked layering polish.

Come To Poppy:

This one was my favorite of the colors. It is a very nice shimmery warm pink. It also covered nicely and evenly in two coats. I also liked this one with I Lily Love You.

Be A Dahl-ia Won't You:

Another shimmer, but this one is more of a fuchsia pink. This one was still a little sheer after two coats, so I needed a third, still a pretty good formula. This one looked the best with I Lily Love You.

Not a bad purchase. I've been trying to get more pinks into my collection. I tend to look for unique colors and skip over the nice, basic everyone-should-own colors. These fit the bill nicely. I also like the mini bottles. These should still be available at Ulta.

butter London Wallis

So, this past weekend was the Nordstrom Anniversary Sale. There wasn't a whole lot that I really wanted that was limited edition, but I did pick up some nail polishes. The first of which is butter London's Wallis.

This was a nice olive green micro glitter suspended in a dirty green base. I knew I wanted this one when I saw it online. And, I have to say, it didn't disappoint.

This one, thankfully, didn't have the same application problems I had with Yummy Mummy. It went on nice and smooth, opaque in two even coats. And, for the amount of shimmery flecks it has in it, it dried very smooth.

The color sometimes misbehaves with the light, where it will look like there are bald spots on your nail in the right light (see above picture), and sometimes the light just dances off of the glitter.

I really enjoyed this one. Even the removal wasn't too bad. I'm happy with this purchase. I also indulged in the Dior polish exclusive as well as the Metier de Beaute mini set - oh those reviews are to come!

Did you indulge in the Nordstrom sale?

Le Metier de Beaute Kontagious Koral Nail Lacquer

This season, Nieman Marcus's Fashion Designer, Ken Downing, teamed up with Le Metier de Beaute to create a very lovey coral nail polish/lipstick duo. Le Metier de Beaute has never really been on my radar, until I read Elvira's post at Pink Sith all about this polish. I fully blame her for making me want this polish and subsequently going out specifically to purchase it.

One of the reasons Le Metier de Beaute has never been on my have-to-have-NOW list is because their nail polishes are always so expensive and small. Now, I'm not opposed to dropping bucks on awesome polish, in fact, I may just have a problem, however lMdB are just so TINY. 4ml tiny. However, this one is nearly 3 times that amount, 11.3ml, for only a few dollars more.

None of the colors had appealed to me before this one, either. Kontagious Koral (I'll let Ken slide on the silly K names) it is a beautiful red leaning coral. In some lights it looks dead on red, and in others you can definitely see the orange undertones. I keep staring at my nails.

The real beauty of this polish, aside from the color, is the formula. It was one of the nicest formulas I have ever put on my nails. It was thin, but not watery, applied evenly, but it did need 3 coats to be nice and opaque. And shiny, oh is this shiny. The pictures above are without a topcoat and they're still shiny shiny shiny. One of my nails did bubble a little bit, I have found when I put polish on a bare nail that happens, I have yet to experiment with base/top coats.

I love this polish. Love. I'm actually debating buying a backup, however with the amount of polishes I own, I don't think that would be necessary. My suggestion? Run, don't walk to get this polish. And if you run into Ken Downing on the way, give him a big wet kiss for me.