Vault 106: Life of a Manicure, Deconstructed

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It's not uncommon for me to get bored with a mani quickly, but I'm too lazy to remove it and it still looks okay, so I just add something. Yes, I confess to polish ADD. This time it turned out alright, if a bit thick. Here's the final manicure after about 5 days. This shows the stamping, using plates BM03 and fauxnad M96. The blue is Sally Hansen Navy Baby and the white is Love My Nails White.

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Sans stamping, this layer shows one coat OPI Big Hair... Big Nails. Mmm, jelly sandwich, anyone?

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Here we have three coats Sinful Deep Red Ocean. Starting to look a bit thick already. But SO sparkly!

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Back to the beginning, this is two coats China Glaze Flip Flop Fantasy alone. It's a typical neon, so it dries matte, and I liked it that way. It's so bright! Love this one.
Whew, that's a lot of layers! Did you follow all that? Are you polish ADD, too?

Vault 106: $OPI Run With It Shattered

full sun

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!

Vault 106: OPI DS Coronation Cracked

directly under a full spectrum lamp

This is three coats of the lovely and elegant OPI DS Coronation. It's essentially large fleck holographic pigment in a clear base. As you can see, it's not a linear holo. I suppose it's similar to the China Glaze Kaleidoscopes, but a cousin not a sibling. As some of you may know, there were two different holo pigments used in OPI Designer Series polishes - linear and non-linear, and they seem to use each in the same color bases. For example, Coronation is to Shimmer what Fantasy is to Glamour. I'll have to do a swatch post of my DSs someday, to show what I mean. Regardless, the holo (both linear and non-linear) DS polishes are all old/discontinued and hard-to-find, but SO gorgeous! If you ever stumble across any, BUY THEM! You won't regret it!

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Gorgeous as Coronation is, when I found a new-to-me brand with this gorgeous purple crackle, I had to try it out! This is one coat Nabi New Purple crack with topcoat. It's less blue in real life.
I found Nabi polishes in a little neighborhood discount clothing boutique, and needless to say, I bought a bunch. They were only $1.50 each, even the crackles, which is still the cheapest crackle I've ever seen.
Are you sick of crackles yet? I'm not, mostly because I use them somewhat rarely, and they're still really useful for covering up tipwear and other manicure sins, regardless of trends. I'm not buying many more, just because I have a nice selection, but I will continue to use the ones I have. Honestly, I'm more sick of everyone else saying 'I'm so over crackle'.

Vault 106: Tiger, Tiger

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I did this manicure last spring, when I was playing with different uses for crackles. For this look, I used OPI Black Shatter over Zoya Rica. I started with very little Black Shatter on the brush, and pulled it from each side of the nail towards the center. I really liked this, and I've used this same technique a few times since then. It looks best with a very thin layer of crackle, and if you don't quite meet in the middle.

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Zoya Rica on it's own. I didn't record how many coats, but it's most likely two. Gorgeous color! I bought this whole collection (Zoya Sunshine) last year, because I adore the gold fleck/foily finish and the stunning colors.

Quick and Easy Wish Fulfillment

This drive-by swatching is an addendum to my last post, for the reader (the blogger behind Lacquer Ware for Tips and Toes) who requested to see Chi Love That Milky Way Shake with a matte topcoat. Great idea - thanks! After seeing the Chi matte, I also took it one better with a comp, because I was instantly reminded of the OPI Suedes finish.

OPI You Don't Know Jacques Suede on index, Chi Love That Milky Shake mattified on middle and ring. I used 3 coats of each, then one coat of Essie Matte About You on the Chi. The finish is the same, but the OPI has a bit more sparkle to it. Sometimes, the matte topcoats seem to add a veil to the sparkle. Still gorgeous, though! I love how delicate the Chi looks.
Your wish is my command! ☺

Hot (Pink!) Mess

I don't wear pinks very often, but last week my Mom requested pink for Valentine's Day. Well, Mom, here's the pink I chose:

OPI La Paz-itively Hot - Matte. Hot pink satin. Very cool! I like the matte finish of this one, it really adds a level of interest. What I didn't like was the FOUR coats, and there is still VNL! I wasn't expecting it to be so sheer, so I didn't use an opaque base coat - but next time I definitely will. Application was a bit difficult, too. I would consider this to be an advanced polish - fellow n00bs beware! It is truly a three-stroke ONLY polish, if you try to go back over a spot, you will get globs, drag AND brushstrokes. When I have improved polishing skills, this one will get way more use. (Oops, yes, that is a giant dog hair across my ring finger! How in heck did I not notice that?!?! And, egads, please to disregard the dry cuticles. kthx)
I wore it matte for a day, but the next day I noticed the usual tired matte thing happening, so I put a sparkly topcoat on:

Revlon Grapefruit Glimmer. I love this polish! It's very sheer, and I think the Glimmer Glosses are all intended for layering. This one has pink glass flecks in a pink grapefruit colored base. I think these have been discontinued, because I found this at Big Lots, in a two-pack with another Revlon. (If any of my family reads this, and happens to see some other colors at their Big Lots, feel free to pick some more up for me, okay? I'll pay you back. LOL ☺)
For what it's worth, I don't see a need for the new $5.50/bottle CND effects polishes when I can get awesome topcoats like this for $1!
Sorry for the craptastic pics today, I didn't take the time to clean up the gloss, because I had a limited sun window to take these. Even with sun, the pics still don't show the full awesomeness of the gloss. I think I should use it over a contrasting color next time, maybe blue or black, to really showcase it properly.
So, Mom, what do you think?
Thanks for reading!

Springtime! At Least On My Nails...

I've been lemming Zoya Adina since the first swatch I saw, but I know I won't be getting it anytime soon, so in the meantime thought I'd try a substitute. I think I'm on to something here!

OPI Done Out In Deco. Dusty lilac creme. Very pretty! This is 2 coats, no top coat. Great application. I'm really getting to appreciate wider brushes. This is the base I used for underneath Significant Other Color.

OPI Significant Other Color. Two Coats (over DOID). This is fantastic! It's definitely tri-chrome, with green, pink and lavender flashes. I love how delicate this looks!

This one definitely shows the dark pink side, and I love how the bottle looks in this one.

Here, you can see all three colors, especially on my middle nail. I love it!

Please ignore the finger print, :P, this is pre-cleanup and pre-topcoat.

Freaky bottles shot.
I don't have any photos to prove it, but this is equally lovely matte. It looks like frosted glass, and retains it's tri-chrominess. (New word, LOL!) Another little tip: instead of regular topcoat, I used Orly Twilight for some sparkle.
Thanks for reading!

Merry Midnight Moon

Happy New Year! May 2010 be your best year ever.
I wish I had some good New Year's Eve party stories to tell, but I'm kinda boring that way. Hubby and I just stayed home and hung out, as usual. We did stay up til midnight, though, just to say we did. :)
Neat little factoid: there was a blue moon on New Year's Eve, and that only happens once every 19 years, so I thought that was cool enough for a little nail stamping tribute.

I used 2 coats of OPI Merry Midnight, and stamped with Essie Steel-ing the Scene, because it was a little sheer, and it totally reminded me of the real moon's color. It was really subtle IRL, and I really liked it for that.

This is the fauxnad plate I used. FYI, this m27 is NOT the same as the Konad M27 plate. I am planning to post about these plates when I finally make my light box and can take decent (read: non-reflective) photos of them. I really had to do contortions with this, so neither my camera nor my light source would be in the pic. ;P

This is pre-stamping, in full sun (sunny window), because the stamped photos look a little VERY washed out. This is much closer to the real color, even if I didn't manage to capture all the flaky goodness.

Here's some good flake-age. Nom! Yes, those are awesome blue flecks in there, too!

(FYI, all photos are clickable to enlarge.)

I wore Merry Midnight's sister, Shim-merry Chic, for Thanksgiving, and I have to mention that both are fantastic. If anyone's curious, the base color for SC is exactly the color of turkey gravy, and for MM, it's grape juice. That totally made me laugh when I was applying these. LOL! I'll have to wear SC again, and take pics this time.

Bonus pic! Here's our puppy playing at being a kitty. Littles always makes our leather furniture look so good. LOL!

Thanks for reading!