NotD: Sinful Neptune

Sinful Neptune, two coats with topcoat. Beautiful slightly dusty medium blue with copious opalescent shimmer, giving it an awesome speckled look. This came out recently, in the Cast Away collection, which snuck into drugstores just after Walgreens' 99¢ sale, of course. But still, it's totally worth $1.99 (normal Sinful price), so I snagged it anyway.

Vault 106: $OPI Run With It Shattered

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Sephora by OPI Run With It, 2 coats with topcoat. I remember really lemming this polish, then being a bit disappointed by it. It kinda gives me corpse hands, and the shimmer is not nearly as visible on the nail as it is in the bottle, but it does have a sort of textured look to it. It certainly isn't flat or chalky, it's just a bit blah on me, kinda like Minnesota weather in February.

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And a coat of OPI Turquoise Shatter livens it up! I loved this because it makes me think of water washing over a white sand beach. What I wouldn't give to see that in person right now!

franken: Swallow

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I made this last summer, and finally got around to wearing it last week. This is 2 coats. I made it by mixing ½ Claire's Poison Apple and ½ Love & Beauty Sunlit Waves. It ended up a nice dark, dusty denim blue with some awesome red-gold sparkle. It's a little darker than I intended, but I like it anyway.
And the namesake song:

NotD: Jelly Sandwich

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Revlon Blue Lagoon, two coats, no topcoat. Pastel blue with iridescent shimmer. Unfortunately the shimmer gets completely lost on the nail, especially amongst all the bubbles. I bought this specifically as an opaque base for Sinful Cinderella. It matches and is opaque enough, but the formula is awful! It's chalky, streaky, gritty and bubbly. Yuck. I'm so glad I only paid about $1.50 for it. Too bad it's such a pretty polish in the bottle! I think it'll be worth trying over a different basecoat, waiting a little longer between coats, or something.

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Spoiled Pet My Peacock, one coat, no topcoat, over Revlon. Equal parts blue, green, purple, gold and silver hex glitters, all the same size, in a clear base. Love the glitter, hate the brush! Just like everyone else who's reviewed the new Spoiled (by Wet n Wild) line, the brush in this was wonky and needed a haircut before I could use it properly, even with a glitter like this.

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Sinful Cinderella, one coat with topcoat, over Revlon and Spoiled. This looks so awesome, and is worth the application issues with the other two polishes. I love how Cinderella really intensifies the color of the glitter while subduing the bling. It also makes this look like all one polish, not three layered. What a neat effect! I think the milky finish of Cinderella is perfect for jelly sandwiches, and the pink-gold sparkle just adds some extra oomph.
If you enlarge these pics, you'll still see the Revlon bubbles, but they're less noticeable in real life and I think I can manage to ignore them for a few days. Maybe.

Franken: Blue Orchid

My first franken post! For those who don't know, a frankenpolish is a unique, homemade polish, made in one of three ways:

1. Mixing two or more polishes together.
2. Mixing (powdered) pigment or eyeshadow into a polish base.
3. Any combination or variation of 1 and 2 above.

I've made a handful so far, and it's a lot of fun! The only restriction is needing empty bottles sometimes. And, since no polish shall remain nameless, I have taken to naming my frankens for music! Usually song titles, but sometimes just music-related. So, when I post about them, I'm going to include a link to the relevant song.
First, swatches:

Blue Orchid. 2 coats, no topcoat. Foily/metallic periwinkle. It came out more foily and blue than I expected. I might franken my franken, with a touch more purple, now that's there's a bit more room in the bottle. (Why, yes, I do have perfectionist tendencies - how could you tell? )

Here it is with topcoat. It looks a bit bubbly, because my original topcoat didn't play nice. It was opaque at one coat, so I put topcoat on, but it bubbled! Hence, the second coat with a different topcoat. Ugh. I hate more layers than I really need!
On a side note, if I (a rank amateur) can make a polish that's opaque in one coat, why can't the 'pros' get it right, consistently? I'm just sayin'... 

I started with a nearly full bottle of Essie Ballet Slippers, which I stocked up on when Ulta had them on clearance for 99¢.  As for measuring the pigments, well, I didn't. I just started throwing them in (via a paper funnel) until I was happy with the color. It's mostly Lilac mica, though, with just a touch of Blueberry Pop (a bit too much, since it came out more blue than I intended). Add BBs, shake and you're done.
Whoever suggested that tip about using a sheer (but still slightly pigmented) polish instead of clear for pigment frankens, thank you! It worked like a charm, and doesn't appear to settle out - I made this several weeks ago and didn't even need to shake it again when applying!
Here's that song I promised:

This time the franken came first - after watching this video, I thought the name fit!

Sapphire Moon

For today's look, I was inspired by haute couture - specifically the CND Ruffian nails for the NYFW. After seeing photos on a few blogs, like Polish Swatches, I just had to see if I could recreate the look, with my own twist! For more pics of the originals, check out: CND Fashion Week.

Maybelline Matte Sapphire. True navy satin matte with silver shimmer. This is 2 coats, plus one coat of China Glaze Matte Magic, to protect the polish and increase the matte factor. On its own, the Maybelline is a satin finish and more blue than this appears. Nice application, very forgiving for a matte polish.

I found this tape at Dollar Tree. I laid a strip of the silver on a piece of wax paper, and cut out crescent moons. I stuck the crescent moons into place, and voilà!

Here's the result still matte, but I knew the tape wouldn't last more than a day (probably no more than a hand washing, LOL), so after a few hours, I added a shiny topcoat:

Now, I know they're not perfect, but it looked MUCH better IRL. As many of you know, the macro setting shows every flaw and blemish, but they lose too much detail without it, so there ya go. Next time, I might cut the tape a little narrower, or maybe try a chrome polish for the effect. If I use the tape, I may reinforce the adhesive with some nail glue.
For anyone who's curious, that last pic is taken on my dog! She thought I was nuts! LOL Here's the look she gave me during the proceedings.

I liked it both matte and shiny, and couldn't stop staring at my nails. It was totally awesome! I loved the chrome shine, and it was so different from anything I've ever done or seen. What do you think? Matte, shiny, too amateurish?

Thanks for reading!

Glitter Insanity!

I wore this beauty the first week of January, but procrastinated on posting, because I knew I couldn't capture the full awesomeness of this glitter polish on camera. I wore this for an entire week, and found it as mesmerizing on day 7 as on day 1. The only reason I removed it was one nail completely flaked off (out in public, of course *eye roll*). So, which polish is so amazing, you ask?

Pure Ice Strapless. An absolutely breathtaking blue glitter. Wow. An opaque glitter, I might add - making it perfect! It's hard to tell in pics, but the base is actually clear - so the blue you see is SOLID glitter! This is 3 coats, but I'm really sloppy, so if you're good, you may only need 2. (FYI, in a tape swatch, I tried one coat over black, and that rocked, too.) This pic is probably the most color accurate, as it reminded me of Superman blue, but here's more pics, to showcase the awesomeness. Please click to enlarge, to get the full bling effect.

Now, I know the other nail blogs are throwing around swatches and ooh-ahh's over the new OPI Absolutely Alice, and that looks pretty and all (and I'll probably end up getting it), but to me, this is the end-all-be-all of blue glitter polishes. Bonus: it's only $2! I was so excited that I immediately (no, really, as soon as it was dry) went to buy a back-up. I have NEVER bought a back-up bottle of anything! I really need some empty bottles now, because I think this will be crazy-awesome to franken with!
Two (minor, expected) caveats, though: it is a glitter, so removal is a PITA, and you will need a good, thick topcoat. But look, it's totally worth it, right?! Blingtastic! *sigh, drool*
Thanks for reading!

Snowy Skies

I changed up my mani again yesterday for a more wintry theme. I started with another Dollar Tree find - Maybelline Express Finish in Matte Blue:

This is 2 coats, no topcoat, under full spectrum lamp.

This was pretty enough, but I was really hoping to do a water marble over the top, to make it look like a pretty frosted glass ornament. I still wanted the base color to show through, so I was going to use it in the marbling. This is the point where I discovered that mattes (apparently) don't work for water marbling. (:P) I may try some more experiments, but for now, I'm still too much a n00b to make it work. I'm not going to show the epic FAIL, since I didn't take a pic of the one nail I attempted.
So, I went for the NK Sparkling Silver, which I got at a little local beauty supply shop:

I've never heard of this brand before, so naturally I had to try a bottle. :)
I didn't want to cover up the whole nail, since I wanted to retain the matte finish of the blue for contrast, so I just did a thin, uneven layer of sparkle from the cuticle down, using very little polish on the brush. I think it turned out okay, but it kinda  looks like a funky french, which wasn't the look I was going for. Still, not bad for a n00b with no nail art skills!

These two are under the full spectrum lamp.

This one's in a sunny window. Sorry, I'm not going outside for pics, cuz it's 19°F right now. Brrr.
I couldn't get the sparkle to show up very well on the nail. The bottle shows it much closer to reality - it's all silver square glitter, no black like some of it looks. Totally blingy and fun, with no topcoat required. It lays fairly smooth, and really sets off the matte finish of the blue.

Bonus pic, because I can:

Here's the inspiration for my screen name, all grown up. Yes, she is as sweet and soft as she looks. :)
Thanks for reading!