Diamond Cosmetics Drift Away and Valentines Manicure #3

After the pink extravaganza from earlier this week I needed something more subdued.  I am a huge purple fan and have been meaning to try out Diamond Cosmetics Drift Away.  This is a standard Diamond Cosmetics formula and applys like butter, though I did 3 coats instead of the two I can normally get away with for a Diamond polish.  SHAKE THE BOTTLE, yeah I know I am supposed to do that for all polishes. I mean it for this one.  I don't know if it was because its so cold here or what but there was quite a bit of settling/seperation when I first opened it.  I did my normal couple shakes and the first stroke seemed watery and streaky.  After about 30 seconds of mixing it was back to what I am used to from Diamond.

This is an unusual color purple, it looks like a dusty, grayish purple in the bottle but on the nails it has a brownish tint too.  Its really hard to explain, just know its not your standard purple.  It is subdued but interesting at the same time, I really like it. 

 

Drift Away (3 coats) with top slightly more red in real life

I have been waiting to try a monotone hounds tooth pattern from Konad plate M63 so I grabbed my China Glaze LOL and stamped that over the Drift Away.  The LOL is only slightly lighter than the Drift Away and when the light hits the holo its pretty amazing looking.  It was a little plain though for Valentines Day, so I added a flower from plate M21 in China Glaze Millennium off centered on each nail.  The end result is pretty cool looking and I am happy enough with the whole manicure that I have left it on for two days. 

Drift Away base(3 coats), LOL hounds tooth, and Millennium flower, with top coat and flash so you can see the holo goodness.  Excuse the tip wear I took this after I had been wearing it for a while

Diamond Cosmetics Naughty Intern and a Valentine's Konad

Ok I am going to try really hard to get into the whole Valentine's Day thing and do holiday themed manicures.  I am not sure that Valentine's Day counts as a holiday, I mean who determines holiday....Hallmark?  Regardless its an excuse for themed nails and trying out some of my unused polishes.

My first attempt at holiday cheer is a simple konadicure using Diamond Cosmetics Naughty Intern.  This is a beautiful wine colored polish.  It makes me want to go open a bottle from my wine closet now....that could be the long day at work too but any excuse that combines wine AND nailpolish can't be all bad.  Anyway, this is a really good color for me.  Truly epic on me, made all the better by the fact that it matches the maroon in a lot of the spirit wear for the high school I teach at.  The first coat was pretty streaky but a second coat seemed to even everything out.  In certain lights I may have had a bit of uneveness, next time I will do three coats.

Naughty Intern (2 coats) with topcoat in sunlight

I stamped the hearts french tip pattern on M73 with New York summer Hot Metallic gold.  I am really awful at stamping the French tip patterns on the tops of my nails...its pathetic, so instead I tried stamping across the bottom of the nail.  A couple of the nails looked nice but all in all it wasn't great.  I think the interlocking heart pattern is a bit to abstract for the base of the nail, you couldn't tell what it really was on smaller nails.  The color combination is a winner though...how can you go wrong with gold and red.  As a side note, Hot Metallic Gold is a pretty close dupe to Bling Dynasty I think.  I am going to test that out later.

 

Obviously yellow lighting, this is an awful picture but I had a really difficult time photographing this mani.

Teal Appeal - Diamond Cosmetics Don't Teal My Heart Away

Number two on my list of polishes on my search for the perfect teal was Diamond Cosmetics Don't Teal My Heart Away.  Well it was the second one I decided to test, between finding it and it arriving at my doorstep I stumbled on a few others, more on them later.  Don't Teal My Heart Away is significantly lighter and greener than RBL Teal so I was hoping it would be the shade I was looking for.  I hadn't tried Diamond polishes before this one so I wasn't really sure what to expect, their web site swatches frankly suck. Luckily there are MANY other nail polish crazed bloggers out there and I was able to find several good swatches.  

When the polish finally arrived (it took almost 2 weeks, though they shipped it the day after ordering) I was thrilled.  The color was a lot lighter than I was expecting in the bottle but as soon as I got it on my nails I was struck by how amazing it looked and how well it applied.  Seriously, I could have done just one coat and been thrilled with the color, the polish just flowed off the brush.  A word of warning, I like thicker polishes so this might seem thick to some people initially.    

 

Don't Teal My Hear Away (2 coats) and topcoat

So there I was with probably the most amazing color I have ever worn on my hands, admiring them, showing them repeatedly to my husband (even he agreed it was glorious) and then I realized that as perfect as Don't Teal My Heart Away is, its still not the color I was looking for.  Still not the elusive cowl neck sweater teal, so I have to keep looking.  I am ordering 3 bottles of this stuff.  This is officially my new favorite polish. 

After two days I chipped the polish but I wasn't ready to take it off yet (unheard of) so I painted over the chip with a fresh coat and then topped all of my nails with Sinful Colors Nail Junkie.  I have a love hate relationship with Nail Junkie, up until this point I love it in the bottle too much to franken with but I hate it on. I think this is the perfect solution.  It was raining so I had to photograph inside and you can't see how amazing this reflects the light. 

  

Don't Teal My Heart Away (2 coats), 1 coat Nail Junkie and topcoat

Close up of Nail Junkie over Don't Teal My Heart Away - I am not sure whose blog I saw the circular close ups on but its brilliant and I am adopting it so you guys don't have to look at my gross cuticles.

If you aren't familiar with  Don’t Teal My Heart Away or the Teal for Toes Ovarian Cancer awareness movement you should check out their site here.   Diamond Cosmetics donates $.25 from each sale of “Don’t Teal My Heart Away” to the National Ovarian Cancer Coalition.