Rock the Red Pump - China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Today is National Women and Girls HIV/AIDS Awareness day and keeping with that theme today I wore my red patent leather peep toe pumps and a China Glaze Ruby Pumps mani. 

Ruby Pumps is one of my favorite polishes, it is a perfect color red for me, it has glitter, and it is a jelly.  I mean what more could a girl ask for?  Oh and it gives complete coverage in two coats without any of the lumpiness of a regular glitter.  Its nice and smooth like a foil.  This is one of those polishes that even non lacquerheads and people who like mom colors can appreciate...I mean its red nothing wrong with that and the glitter stands out but its not in your face (like the glitter in a polish like Dorthy Who?).

China Glaze Ruby Pumps (2 coats) with top

Eureka! I Have Found it - OPI Merry Mignight

Ok so some of you know that I have been traipsing all over the city looking for Merry Midnight from the 2009 OPI Holiday Wishes Collection with zero luck.  I checked nail mecca.....nada, Trade secret...zip, Pennys and Ulta also came up big zeros.  I even tried stopping by some of the local salons and just asking, "Hey do you have a bottle I can buy, I don't even care if its new."  One lady told me to check Sally's.  SALLY'S!  Seriously?!  I had to tell the nice lady that Sally's doesn't carry OPI.

I was sad.  I made the decision to order it online and was really surprised to discover that I could only find a couple bottles on Ebay and 2 random online vendors that listed it.  I wasn't familiar with either vendor so I was dragging my feet hoping it would magically appear and had basically given up on it.  Luckily a fellow nail polish crack head reminded me that Victoria Nail Supply might have it....DUH.  So we set up an order of things we didn't need and prepared to send it in.  That afternoon we happened to be stopping by a store new to me that carries Zoya (I posted about that earlier this week) and the gods of nailpolish must have smiled down on me because there it was in all its purple, foil, glittery glory....Merry Midnight.

 

OPI Merry Midnight (3 coats) and top

The formula on this was perfect, even I was able to apply nice thin coats.  I had full coverage in 2 coats but the color was more pink than the bottle so I added a third.  Let me just say this...I love foils, they go on so nice and thin, and smooth, and holy nail polish batman...they dry in no time flat.  The glitter in this is really small also so there isn't any of the lumpiness of a normal glitter.

Can anyone recommend any other foils? I just picked up Orly Glam Rock and Iron Butterfly and I have Finger paints Icy Iris and Easel Come, Easel Go but I want to try some in other colors.

Buried Treasure - OPI Bling Dynasty and CG Cleopatra

I am sure many of you have seen the swatches of the OPI Hong Kong Collection on other blogs by now.  Yesterday I snagged a few of the colors using gift cards from my mom (go mom) and rushed home to test out something I had been musing about... 

All Laquered Up described Bling Dynasty as a "burnished gold" that an "ancient queen" would wear, which by the way I totally agree with.  Its beautiful.  It looks a bit green on me, but I think with a bit of color this summer it will be fabulous.  This is a nice gold metallic shimmer that applies great and stamps for all you Konad fanatics. Also since this is the first OPI I have reviewed let me just say this....I LOVE the pro wide brush.

OPI Bling Dynasty (3 coats) and topcoat.  There hasn't been sunshine here in a week so excuse the crappy photos.  I am getting a light box.

Anyway, All Lacquered Up's description got me thinking about my other favorite ancient queen polish, CG Cleopatra. Cleopatra is gold glitter polish in a clear base, but this is no ordinary gold glitter.  Its an almost coppery gold...don't get me wrong its gold but in certain light it just looks deliciously tarnished, and it has holo glitter!  As soon as I saw Bling Dynasty for the first time I knew I wanted to layer Cleopatra over it.

 

One coat of CG Cleopatra and topcoat over Bling Dynasty.  This was taken the day after I did the mani, once the sun FINALLY came out so there is a bit of tip wear.

Close up of sparkly goodness

My nails are crazy sparkly!  The Cleopatra blends almost perfectly with the Bling Dynasty, its like they were made for each other.

Warlock

I have a confession, I am an addict.  No not to nail polish, ok that too but that's not my confession.  I am a WoW addict.  For those of you that don't know what I am talking about WoW is  short for World of Warcraft a massive multiplayer role-play game...a.k.a. a computer game.  So three nights a week I sit in front of my computer and type and talk through a microphone to 24 other people while we try to kill new imaginary bad guys to obtain digital loot and a gain a sense of accomplishment.  I can't really explain why I do it but I enjoy it most days.

The thing is that there is a lot of wait time associated with getting 24 other people all ready to play at the same time (even though we have a set start time), so most nights I use that time to change my nail polish.  Last week I was sitting at my desk staring at my character and thinking I should make a nail polish that matches her.  Ok I know that is weird but I think she is cute and I like the colors associated with her.  I play a warlock in the game and she typically cast spells and wears equipment in shades of purple, bright green and black.

She casts purple and pink spells so imagine that with the green

Materials:

• Sinful Colors I Love You
• Sally Girl Glitter - Fuchsia
• Chartreuse glitter
• Chelsea Twilight Purple
• Fingerpaints base coat (my bottle was half full)
• Clear Top coat
• Ballz

1. Add  1/8 of a bottle Sunful Colors I Love You to the Fingerpaints base coat
2. Add 2 small funnels each of chartreuse and fuchsia glitter
3. Add 6 drops Chelsea Twilight Purple (for shimmer)
4. Add ballz
5. Top off with clear
6. Shake well 

The chartreuse  glitter isn't very shinny, it is really sticky and likes to settle.  I really have to shake the bottle before using it.

Though I intended for this to be a sheer polish for layering over another appropriately warlocky color, I thought I would check it out solo first.

Its very hard to see the fuchsia glitter with multiple coats layered.  Three coats with a coat of Seche.

Here is is layered over some random polishes in my stash. 

WnW Black Creme

Rimmel  Night Before

Fingerpaints Sketched and Etched

Pure Ice Splash

I like it over both the Night Before and the Sketched and Etched.  The Night Before lets you see both colors of glitter the Sketched and Etched makes the green stand out more.  I was feeling a little brighter so I decided on the Fingerpaints.

One coat Warlock over 2 coats Finger paints Sketched and Etched and a close up of the glitter

I know its strange but it was fun combining my two addictions. Now when I look at my nails in the morning I will think about goofing off after work and who knows maybe it will bring me some good luck while playing tomorrow night.

Always remember that nail polishes don't always play well with each other.  If you are going to play mad scientist proceed at your own risk and use proper safety procedures....yes I am a science teacher.  I am not suggesting that frankening is risk free and my franken recipes are just me recounting how I mixed up my latest potion. I take no responsibility for your mad scientist experiments. 

Sinful Colors Fall '09 Haul - Part 2

Day 6 of swatching Sinful Colors...

All I have left are pearl/frosts and glitters in clear bases.  I bought the frosts thinking I might be able to Konad with them before I realized how thin and sheer most of these polishes are.  I wasn't particularly excited about testing these out but I figured they would be a good base to Konad over.


Social Ladder is a sheer pale pink with a slight iridescent shimmer.  It takes 3 coats to achieve bottle color and I still had visible nail lines.  If I was looking for a sheer nude color or for something to use like a CND effect this would be a decent choice.  It is a however streaky and doesn't apply evenly. 

Social Ladder 3 coats with top coat

Tokyo Pearl is a creamy white pearl that is extremely streaky.  I mean streaks galore.  Even after three coats I still had obvious brush strokes and had already developed bubbles.

Tokyo Pearl 3 coats with top coat

Next is Out of This World which on the first coat had potential to be out of this world, it is a sheer silver base with tiny micro glitter that is very sparse.  The microglitter is silver iridescent and in certain lights looks like a holo.  Unfortunately once you put a 2nd or 3rd coat on it just looks like blah silver polish with some lumpy bits.  As a sheer over a regular base I think this would be great.

Three coats Out of This World and top coat

All About You is a brassy gold glitter in a clear base.  The bottle is densely packed with glitter but this is not a polish that is going to give you full coverage alone.  I used three coats here and it is still completely sheer though from a distance my nails did look gold.

All About You 3 coats, excuse the smudge these
were fairly thick coats in an attempt to get full coverage
and I smudged one picking up the camera.

Nail Junkie is AMAZING in the bottle, truly amazing.  A mix of chunky turquoise glitter and iridescent hexagonal glitter this polish has glints of gold, pink silver and green when it reflects light.  It gives full coverage in three coats though there is a visible nail line in bright light and the occasional bald spot, with four coats this could be covered up.   Sounds great right?  It should be but on me it is just....off.  I don't know if its the color or the texture or what but this polish looks awful on me.  I look at it in the bottle and LOVE it, I put it on and bleech.  I think I will try one coat off it over a really dark purple like OPI Siberian Nights and see if that makes it usable.  Right now its in my Franken supply drawer.

Nail Junkie 3 coats.  I know my cuticles have polish
on them...its hard to get motivated to clean them
when the polish looks so bad I know I am taking it off.

So 10 bottles of Sinful Colors late and I have learned to be a bit more selective with my drug store purchases.  Some of these I love and some were a complete disaster.  I did see two bottles on the display last week that look like duochomes so I will probably be stopping back as Walgreens for a new haul sometime soon.

Rationalization, "Woman Logic", and the No Buy

So it has a full week since I decided that I am on sort of a No Buy until I swatch everything I already have.  It's a sort of  No Buy because I had a Sally Beauty coupon for a free China Glaze with purchase of a bottle of Seche Quick Dry.  I am of the opinion that top coat and base coat don't count on a No Buy, I mean they aren't for pleasure they are necessities.  Right?  Look I know that I live in a world of screwed up logic, my husband calls it Woman Logic.   For example, the classic buy one get one deal.  If I buy a pair of shoes for $60 and can get another pair for half off in my mind I saved 30 bucks.  Makes sense to me, come on you know it makes sense to you too.  In reality I just spent 90 dollars, which incidentally is a lot of nail polish.

Its really irrelevant anyway, because I fell off even my interpretation of the No Buy wagon while at Sally and bought a bottle of CG Stroll and a Sally girl bottle of Shy.  Both were on the clearance table, though I think I saved 70 cents total on both.  I also picked up a bottle of CG Dorothy Who as my freebie with the Seche....and while I was there I splurged on a glass nail file.  I have been having real issues with my nails splitting lately and as I am sure you have seen my normally dry cuticles are HORRIBLY cracked and ragged.

In a normal week I change polish about three times.  In the past week I changed my polish over ten times while swatching the Sinful Color Fall Haul and the ones here.  I think my fingers need a weekend off from acetone.  Maybe I will go look for a new acetone free remover....

Enough rambling, time for the swatches!

Three coats of Dorothy Who and top coat

China Glaze Dorothy Who has been reviewed pretty much everywhere and recently has been getting a lot of comparisons to OPI Absolutely Alice.  From looking at online swatches it looks like Dorothy is more of a medium blue with blue and silver glitter while Alice has gold and what looks like dark blue glitter in addition to some turquoise.  I picked up my bottle of Dorothy and had to wait an ENTIRE week to swatch due to my self-imposed week of Sinful Colors polishes.  It sat in my bathroom drawer taunting me.  When I finally pulled out the bottle and looked at it today I was expecting a true medium blue with silver glitter, at least that's what it looked like in the bottle.  What I actually have on my nails is more of a dark turquoise with some darker blue and silver glitter. I compared it to swatches online and my nails look much more turquoise than those on my favorite blogs.  Not that I mind, I was happily surprised as I am obsessed with all polishes teal and turquoise.

The polish applied smoothly though a bit thick and I was surprised to have full coverage at two coats.  I did a third coat as my nails still weren't bottle true, they still are not after 3 coats and a layer of top.

CG Stroll 3 coats and top coat

CG Stroll reminds me a lot of Ruby Pumps because it is a jelly with glitter.  The color is a deep raspberry wine and the glitter looks gold in some light and raspberry in others.  I couldn't find a magnifying glass to see if the gold was just covered with polish or there are two types of glitter in the bottle.  The glitter seems to be smaller than the glitter in Ruby Pumps and the overall finished look isn't as....well jelly as Ruby Pumps.  The glitter in Stroll seems to lay on the nail rather than the suspended look of Ruby Pumps.  The color is rich and beautiful though and application was smooth.  I see this becoming a fairly popular dark red/berry in my stash.

And last (and certainly least in my opinion) is a Sally Girl mini polish called Shy.  You know those 99 cent minis by the register at Sally Beauty?  I never buy them but it was on clearance and I had just read a mannequin hands article sooooooo.  I understand the point of mannequin hands I can even see wearing a pale nude polish to some events (i.e. as a bridesmaid, at a very stuffy black tie event, job interviews) but I really haven't gotten into the whole movement yet.  I mean I wore nude nail polish when I bit my nails and they were ugly, they aren't pretty now but I'm not biting them so bring on the color.  On the other hand my fingers are STUBBY, so I figured I'd give it a shot. Technically this polish is a shimmer rather than a  creme but the bottle was so tiny it was hard to tell at the store and to be honest if I am going to wear something so boring it can at least be shimmery.  Application was really good and this is only two coats.

Shy 2 Coats with top coat

My first Franken - Longhorn

The week after I my entry into the strange new world of polish I found myself in a Walgreens buying a Diet Coke and some aspirin after a long day helping friends move. I had a grand total of 6 polishes to my name. Well that is until I stumbled into the cosmetics section and discovered the Sinful Colors display, two for $3.00. I bought ten.

The next day I discovered that many of these polishes applied unevenly or left a visible nail line (which I can't abide by). A quick trip to Sally and a few dollars spent on glitter and tiny funnels later and I was set to make the best of what I had.

I decided to start with the Serena and Chloe as I loved the color but it was way to sheer and uneven when painted.

Here is what I started with:

• 1 bottle of Sinful Colors Serena and Chloe
• 1 bottle of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Uptempo Plum
• 1 container of Sally Girl Sparkle Effects Gold Digger
• 1 small plastic funnel (purchased at Sally)
• 1 empty 2 liter bottle
• stainless steel BBs (ballz)

I don't have a photo of Serena and Chloe as I forgot to
take one before I began mixing.

So this was kind of a spur of the moment experiment and I didn't take any photos of the before polish (but google shows some good swatches).

My goal was to make the base of the Serena and Chloe more densely pigmented so it wouldn't be so sheer. I also wanted to experiment with the glitter. The 2L was necessary as I wasn't really equipped to Franken at the time.

1. I poured about 1/5 of the Serena and Chloe into the empty bottle (hey I needed a place to get rid of it and it was handy).
   
   
2. Added 10-12 drops of the Uptempo Plum, I really wanted to use black but again I wasn't really prepared and this was available and pretty close to black.
   
   
3. Mixed in 1/3 of the gold glitter.
   
   
4. Added 2 ballz.
   
   
5. Shake, shake, shake. My husband spent like 40 minutes shaking for me.
   
   

Results:





The resulting polish is almost University of Texas burnt orange, its a tad bit more rust colored. The glitter is dense and the base is darker but it still really looks best with 2- 3 coats. It dries REALLY quickly and needs at least one coat of a fairly viscous topcoat. I use a nice thick coat of Seche. I LOVE the results, it is amazing in fluorescent light and sunlight. This polish really changed my mind on glitters. I really prefer shimmers as they aren't as lumpy when they dry but this came out amazing.

Always remember that nail polishes don't always play well with each other.  If you are going to play mad scientist proceed at your own risk and use proper safety procedures....yes I am a science teacher.  I am not suggesting that frankening is risk free and my franken recipes are just me recounting how I mixed up my latest potion. I take no responsibility for your mad scientist experiments.