More Purple Layering

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NYS Hot Purple + Nicole by OPI Count On Me. 2 coats NYS + 1 coat NOPI, with topcoat. Shortly after using my beloved Hot Purple for the glitter sandwich I posted last time, I found another spectacular use for it - as the base color under the beautifully iridescent Count On Me. If you look closely at the above pic, you will see prominent blue shimmer in the direct light, but you'll also notice some pink highlight to the side - both are the NOPI! I really adore duochromey shimmer polishes like this, especially when they're sheer enough to layer over darker colors that really showcase the color-shifting properties. I couldn't capture the completely pink shift on camera, but it's there irl. This really sparkles, too - I would classify the finish as micro-glass fleck, if that makes any sense. It's in a sheer, pink-tinted base, that only marginally changed the color of the base polish.

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Here's a shot in full sun, just because. I wasn't counting on the NOPI being quite as sheer as it ended up, or I would have used three coats of NYS Hot Purple, or a proper underwear polish. As it was, the VNL was only apparent in full sun. Once again, I really needed to wrap the tips with every color layer, especially for photos. D'oh!

I'd like to expound a bit on how NYS Hot Purple has totally won me over on jelly finish polishes.  I really dislike most jellies/sheers I've found for the following reasons: 1) they aren't supposed to be sheer, so they end up looking like the bad formula that they are, 2) they're just watered-down, washed-out versions of a color, 3) they're usually a streaky mess, 4) I'm not fond of the unintentional French mani look, 5) they'll never even get close to opaque, no matter how many coats you slather on (see the NOPI above), or 6) they're so dark that by the time they're opaque, they're also black (google Nars Zulu, for example). NYS Hot Purple, on the other hand, ticks all the right boxes for me. The rich, saturated color is outstanding, and never looks black. The squishy translucence and shine are irresistible. It's a real multi-tasker, too, looking stunning with layering (especially glitter sandwiches!) or all by itself. It's buildable to full opacity in three coats. Now I find myself seeking out sheers, but I don't think I've found any that equal this one yet, especially for the price (only $2.50, and cheaper online)! Needless to say, I'll be snapping up any more New York Summer 'Hot' polishes I find.

How about you? Have you ever been completely converted on a finish or color by a single polish?

My Favorite Purple Jelly

Hmm, layer cake? Jelly roll? Jelly sammich? Must have food on the brain. Specifically, grape jelly. Love my New York Summer Hot Purple! I found this beauty for $2.50 in a bin at the nail salon in my local Wal-Mart - and I'm considering going back for more! I can see myself using this color a LOT. It's the perfect shade of purple, with just enough blue and the jelly finish is just so squishy and delicious! I forgot to get pics of it alone, but I think you'll get a good idea of the color from my layering pic. Behold!

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New York Summer Hot Purple layered with Colormate Glitter Glam and Confetti Tasmanian Devil, in this order: 1 coat NYS HP + 1 coat CM GG + 1 coat NYS HP + 1 coat C TD + 2 coats topcoat. Capisce? (Note to self: wrap tips on ALL color layers when applying a jelly. That's not tipwear or shrinkage you see at the free edge, it's just the translucent nature of jellies - it wasn't as noticeable IRL.) Love this combo! I used two different glitters for the layers, because after the first layer of Glitter Glam, I wasn't as fond of the all-one-size-glitter-pieces as I thought I'd be, so the Confetti gave me the smaller glitter, also. Whenever I do a jelly sandwich now, I like to do a glitter layer on top, as well as in the middle, because I think it gives it more depth.
FYI, I got Colormate Glitter Glam at Big Lots, in a three-pack (with two other great colors) for $2. If you've been meaning to try Diamond Cosmetics polishes, but haven't gotten around to an online order yet (like me), they also make Colormates. And Big Lots has been selling some awesome colors in three-packs, as well as individually (for 80¢ or $1, depending on location). Dollar Tree has also been selling some singles lately, fwiw.

And check this out: I used Elmer's glue for my basecoat, and the polish just popped right off (when I wanted it to, of course). This trick started popping up on blogs last summer, ever since Essence came out with a PVA-based basecoat that was only available in Europe. Somebody did their homework, and realized that plain old white school glue was the exact same stuff, and glitter polish removal was changed forever! I just put some glue in one of my empty bottles, brushed two coats onto clean nails, letting each dry completely (being extra careful not to get any glue on my cuticles), then went to town with my glitter. When I was ready to remove the polish, I just used an orange stick at the base of each nail, and gently worked the polish right off.
As you can see, it comes off pretty easily in a solid sheet, with little damage to the nail. I say 'little' because there is still some damage, especially near the free edge, and I have a theory about that: I think heat has something to do with the ease of removal. My nailbeds are warm enough to loosen the hold of the glue, but my free edge isn't quite warm enough for that, causing the glue to hold a little tighter - pulling up an extra layer or two of nail when the polish is pulled off. I haven't tested that theory yet, but next time, I will either remove right after a hot shower, or use a blowdryer to warm up the free edges, and see if I can't minimize the damage even further. (The other possibility is that my nails are prone to flaking, and this removal process just exacerbates that tendency.)

I'm probably weird, but I find the little nail-shaped flakes of polish fascinating. Look how pretty and translucent NYS Hot Purple is! Anybody else try the glue trick yet? I'd love to hear about your experiences, especially if you can verify (or disprove) my heat theory.

NotD: Glitterati in the Nude

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Ulta Set the Nude. Two coats, no topcoat. This polish is kinda awesome - it's a fully opaque nude that is perfect underwear for us pale girls. It has just a touch of pink, making it very flattering, while still being a shade of pale tan that is very chic. If I had been more careful, and were applying a sheer color (instead of a clear-based glitter) one coat would've been plenty to obscure the dreaded VNL (visible nail line). It was a little thick, but not horrible - I did add some thinner for next time, though.

Also, with initial testing (literally on paper), this looks like it should be a fantastic stamping polish! I'm excited about that, because pale stamping polishes are hard to find. I got this recently from the Ulta $5 for 5 table, and it's in the oldish square bottles, with the shiny, square plastic cap - not the Pro, just regular. (Incidentally, I wish Ulta would just settle down with their bottle changes! They've changed three times in as many years, and each time the bottles get smaller, while the price stays the same. Boo!)

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Sation Pyramid Princess (over Ulta StN). This is two coats, with one coat of topcoat. It's surprisingly smooth, but if you're like me and need it glass-smooth, an additional coat of topcoat would get you there. I held off because I plan to stamp over it. It applies a bit thick and gloopy, but the coverage is great, and a little thinner helped with the gloopiness. It's incredibly complex for a mainstream glitter, so I'll list what I can see. As far as I can tell, it contains several sizes of hex glitter, like so: small (almost micro) gold and silver, slightly larger silver, medium black, largish blue, largish pink holographic and largish iridescent all in roughly equal proportions. The overall effect is a lovely speckled disco ball, really blingy. See the reflection on my ring finger bouncing off my pinkie nail? It's super-sparkly, even in low light.

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I'm so excited to see that our area TJ Maxx's and Marshall's have finally started getting a trickle of Sations! I've been keeping an eye out for weeks now, since seeing the first blog posts about them. About two weeks ago, I found the same lone pastel pink at 3 or 4 different locations. Now, I'm seeing a handful of creams at a few locations, and this one orphaned in one. Being the first glitter Sation I've found so far, naturally I snatched it up in my greedy little paws! If this is representative of the collection, I can't wait to see the full displays!

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Aaand one last shot, because after years of practice and a few different cameras, I've come to the inescapable conclusion that I really suck at capturing glitter in pictures. So, Quantity over Quality, folks! Hopefully my description somewhat makes up for my lack of camera skillz. And maybe someday I'll get a DSLR (rather than my current point-and-shoot, let's blame the camera! ), and see if my quality improves.

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?

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.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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I really wanted to do something vampy and classy today, after doing sweet and cute hearts yesterday. So, I went vintage '40s style. My nails have really grown a lot lately, and are too long (for me), but I hate just chopping them off. Instead, I decided to try out a new nail shape while they were long enough to do it. I was going for almond, but clearly ended up more round. I really suck at shaping!
Anyway, if anyone remembers the 1940's, or has seen old ads and photos, they might recognize this look. I hear it was quite trendy back then! I did this using two coats Sally Hansen Without a Stitch (the nude, of course!), then added two coats China Glaze Phat Santa, masking off the half-moons with hole punch reinforcement stickers.

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This pic is just for fun. I used my editing software to make this black-and-white, then colorized it, to make it look a bit vintage. Actually, this is pretty close to the real color in low light. Phat Santa is a chameleon - in bright light, it's a nice bright red, but in lower light, it's more oxblood, but always clearly red. So both photos are color-accurate, even though the second is colorized!
Happy Valentine's Day! (aka Happy Half-price Chocolates Eve! )

Disclosure: China Glaze Phat Santa was provided for review. All other polishes in this post were purchased by me.

Orange Crush

This is three coats of Rimmel Pop Apricot with one coat Hard Candy Hypnotic. Love this, despite the VNL (Visible Nail Line) with four total coats of polish! This combo reminds me of Rica, from the newest Zoya summer collection.♥ Awesome. No more words really needed. ♥

Confession, and One Hot Polish!

Okay, I can't hide it any longer! I had a major break a couple weeks ago, and I've been posting Vault 106 pics and anything else I could find since then! But I can't handle the lying and subterfuge anymore! My left pinkie nail is gone - beyond nubbin, right down to below the quick. Ouch! So today you're seeing my right hand (yup, I have one!), and what was left of my left nails. Sadly, since these pics, I've had more serious breaks on my left, so they're ALL down to nubbins. But, I will persevere - this polish is too hot not to share! Enough with the melodrama - behold!

Rimmel Hot Rock. Two coats. Hot orange-red (red-orange?) jelly with gold microglitter. Definitely click to see these full-size! This is so aptly named - it really looks like lava. Yum! It has so much glitter that I would almost classify it as a foil finish, but it doesn't apply like one, and I would say it was easier to remove, too. Oops, still a little VNL, so a good nude base or a third coat is recommended if that bothers you (as it does me). It reminds me of the swatches I've seen of Hard Candy Lava, so if you can't find this one, that might be a good substitute. 

Check out the gold glitter! AAAHHH! So beautiful! It doesn't all translate as gold on the nail, but it definitely adds depth and dimension. I love how it seems irregular, like glass fleck or teeny gold flakies.

To refresh this after a couple days, I added two coats of Orly Prisma Gloss Gold just for fun. Wow! Once again, you need to click to see this full-size. Love it!

Vault 106: Insane Neon Glitter!

Okay, so picture in your head mac n' cheese powdered cheese. Got it? Good. That's the exact color of the this Hot Topic polish:

Hot Topic Marigold. 4 coats. Eye-popping light orange neon. I should have put this over white, because 4 coats is always excessive to me - and, look! you can still see VNL! And do I need to mention the horrible mop that Hot Topic calls a brush? Yeesh. Too bad the bottles are so cute. This is not a unique color, so you can skip it in favor of one with better application.
This is shown with top coat, because it does dry matte, like all neons. I liked it matte, but after the fourth coat, it started to bubble - so I panicked and threw on Seche Vite, which does seem to cure bubbles handily. (I'm finally starting to get along okay with SV, learning its quirks and stuff. See, there's no shrinkage this time!)
So, what do you do when you have VNL, but you know another coat won't build up? Go for the bling, of course!

Sinful UFO. 2 coats. Sheer orange jelly with huge bling factor! Nice. It does bring the neon glow down a notch, but WOW. I loved this! So HAWT! I think this is what UFO was made for - these two together should have been one polish! I'll be doing this combo again this summer, for sure.

Here's a bonus sun pic, because it almost makes me look tan. LOL.

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!