China Glaze New Bohemian Luster

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China Glaze Swanky Silk. Two coats, with topcoat. This is from the Fall 2012 duochrome collection, and hopefully you can see here that it goes from a neutral, greenish-gold to a dusty rose gold, in a lovely chrome finish. This was quite pretty, but I think three coats would've been better. Formula was great, if a little thin and sheer, but application was a breeze. It was so delicate and ethereal!

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This really reminded me of Black Hills Gold - they make beautiful gold jewelry with combinations of green, yellow and rose gold. I'm pretty sure there's at least one dupe floating around, but I don't own any, so no comps this time.

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And because I can never leave a mani alone, I stamped over it! I used Swanky Silk's collection mate, China Glaze Deviantly Daring, and BM315 for the paisley pattern. Not my best work, but it's pretty all the same.

Chester Cheetah

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Cherimoya 5 Stars, stamped with Sally Hansen The Good Earth, using BM221, topped with Essie Matte About You. I loved this! Doesn't it look like animal print velour?

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Shiny, just because.

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Cherimoya Matte·n·a 5 Stars by itself, one coat, no topcoat. Gorgeous copper penny matte foil. Love that it only needs one coat! Definitely a suede finish, my favorite for mattes.

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And with shiny topcoat. This pic makes it look a bit earwax-ish, but that never occurred to me while wearing it, so it wasn't really noticeable.

More Cherimoya Pebble Beach

Just wanted to show some options using my Pebble Beaches like 'normal' polish.

This is Fire Opal Step 2 on all except ring, which is Ruby Step 4, ONE coat of each! And, yes, the Fire Opal is *really* that yellow, do NOT adjust your monitors! These are beautiful colors, and I really love that they're one-coaters. Ruby especially really has some depth! The finish is sandy and matte, so this is with topcoat. They're like foils, but grittier than most foil polishes I've tried.
Friendly PSA: All that lovely pigment WILL bleed onto your topcoat brush, so make sure to wipe your brush on a paper towel between dips, or you'll color your bottle of topcoat! 

I sponged the tips in the opposite colors, but you can hardly see Fire Opal over Ruby, unfortunately. Thankfully, the reverse was gorgeous! I attempted to stamp the snakeskin pattern from BM215 using Nina UltraPro Mossy Britches, but it didn't show up even this well in real life, and just muddied the look.
I also tried stamping with the Pebble Beaches on paper, but they didn't stamp well for me, despite being so pigmented. I think they're just too gritty. I'll try again, sometime, though, and if I'm successful I'll definitely post about it.
Another friendly PSA: Use your most trusted anti-staining basecoat under these!
Both of these polishes stained right through my nail treatment + anti-stain basecoat!  Guess this ends my trial of that basecoat! I was really hoping to find a cheaper alternative to Orly Nail Armor, but apparently not this time. Luckily, after my denture cleaner soak/scrub and a couple of weeks with a buffing or two, the staining has faded completely. 

Cherimoya Pebble Beach Gradient

A few weeks ago, I walked into a 'new' Walgreen's (one that I'd never been in), and the first display I see is an endcap of several Cherimoya lines. I only knew about their 2012 crackle line, so this caught me off guard. They had a full endcap of 2012 crackles, Pebble Beach and Matte•n•a polishes, plus a separate counter display of Vernis Classique! I was floored, and naturally had to snatch up a few of each, especially since all but the mattes were 2 for $5 (all were regularly $2.99 each, but the mattes were excluded from the 2fer special). I thought I'd post about the Pebble Beaches first, since they're the most unique.

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This is how you're 'supposed to' use these - they're made to be gradient polishes, with sets of 4 steps for each polish name. So, this is Emerald Step 1, Fire Opal Step 2, Fire Opal Step 3 and Fire Opal Step 4, used in order. I didn't buy Fire Opal Step 1, because I liked the Emerald one better, and figured they were close enough.

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Here is the same thing without topcoat, to show the almost sandy, matte finish. They're shiny in a foil kind of way, but definitely gritty to the touch, and thick, compared to most regular nail polish. Nothing a coat of Seche Vite can't handle, though. They're very pigmented - easily one-coat coverage when worn alone, so that's a plus.

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I broke down the steps here, to show how to use these. No more sponges needed for gradients! Just use the normal brush and start lower on the nail with each color. If your nails are shorter, I don't see why you couldn't skip a step, just using three colors per nail.

bottle shot, with names for reference

For the curious, and those still reading, I thought I would include a brush comparison. The Cherimoya brush is very similar to OPI Pro Wide brushes, but the bristles tend to splay out a bit more at the end, which makes them slightly more difficult to use, but nothing terrible.

Overall, I really like this idea, because it makes gradient manicures simple and foolproof, kinda like those labeled eye shadow palettes that tell you exactly where each color should go. I'm always a fan of simple, no-brainer nail art! And the price is right to indulge in a full set, too, but they look just as nice on their own, being very shiny and foily.

What do you think? Would you get a full set and use them the way they're intended, or just buy the colors you like and use them individually?

China Glaze Metallic Crackles

Fashionably late again. 

Tarnished Gold and Cracked Medallion. I couldn't decide which to do first, so I did them both! TG is on index and ring, and CM is on middle and pinky. I really loved how these look over that rich blue. Gorgeous! This is one medium-thick coat of each in full sun.

Oxidized Aqua. This feels so retro '80s! Love it. I played with the coat thickness here, as you can see: thin coat on index, progressively thicker to pinkie. I really like this over neons!

I'm still loving the Crackle trend, even though others might be tired of it. And these foil-finish crackles are beautiful! I'm not saying we need to see any more crackle collections, necessarily, but I'm happy to play with what I've got.

*Disclosure: Some of the products featured in this post were provided by China Glaze for PR purposes.

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!