Metal Madness - Failed Manicure and an Old Konad

So I had planned to swatch New York Summer Hot Metallic Gold for today but last night I decided to upgrade my computer.  So after a trip to Fry's and 2.5 hours spent swapping out my memory, processor, cpu fan and motherboard (read that as take the entire damn box apart and rebuild with the new parts) it was late and I didn't have time to change my polish.  I did have time to bleed all over my jeans as the cooling fan has sharp bits on it.

So instead I am posting one of the first pictures I took of my nails. This is China Glaze Avalanche (lavender metallic) with the zebra pattern from M57 China Glaze Millennium stamped.  I haven't swatched/reviewed either of these yet but I have used multiple times.  The Avalanche is pretty but you end up with pretty awful brushstrokes, totally alright if you are Konading with or over it though!  Millennium is great to Konad with though it does tend to dry really fast.

Sorry about the crappy photo quality, this was taken with my phone and no flash.

Mardi Gras

You know what the best part about a Mardi Gras manicure is?  I FINALLY got to use my week old bottle of OPI Jade is the New Black.  The entire week of Valentine's Day I had this green gem sitting on my nightstand taunting me.  I just couldn't bring myself to put it in the Helmer with the rest of my stash, it provided emotional support in a sea of red, pink and purple (and I really love red and purple). 

This color is simply luscious....I didn't know green could be luscious but this is.  Application was smooth, though it was a bit thin and required 3 coats.  This is one of those colors you just can't help looking at all day.

OPI Jade is the New Black (3 coats) with top

Initially I wanted to do something simple, a nice 2 color blended stamp on just part of the nail.  I choose floral cluster from plate M51 and painted Rimmel Night Before (purple) across the base of the design and New York Summer Hot Metallic Gold across the top and then stamped it at the end of my nail.  This resulted in kind of a striped effect...green. purple, gold.

The photo is complete crap and frankly I didn't really like the effect.  I think it would have been better with purple at the tip and gold in the middle.

Mardi Gras and Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year Manicures

I am late posting these because my parents were in town this weekend (a major production since the airports were non functional part of the weekend).  They thought me photographing my nails was funny but I didn't want to push my luck by busting out the Photoshop and starting to Blog.

This is my manicure from Saturday the 13th.  I have been a belly dancer for the past 10 years and Saturday my troupe danced at a Mardi Gras fund raiser so I wanted to get in the spirit.

I started with a base of Fingerpaints Icy Iris, which I have had for a month but hadn't had an opportunity to use yet.  EVERYTHING you have heard about Icy Iris is true.  It applies smooth, with full coverage in 2 coats and it is freaking gorgeous.  For those of you that haven't seen it, this is a deep purple with lighter purple/raspberry foil particles.  The foil is very small so it looks like very small glitter but it is sooooo much smoother, it also dries really fast. It was slightly dull to my eye once it dried but nothing a layer of top didn't fix.

 

Fingerpaints Icy Iris 2 coats with top.  The foil is pinker in person.  Yes that is 12 inches of snow in Dallas in the background.

Once I had a nice purple base I grabbed Rimmel Camouflage and New York Summer Hot Metallic Gold and Konad plate M69.  I painted the bottom of the ribbon design (well they look like ribbons to me) green and the top half gold and as Emeril would say BAM!

 

   Mardi Gras konadicure with flash, yes I am that pale.  The light box comes tomorrow hopefully photos will improve.

By Sunday I was tired of all things Valentine's Day and was really looking forward to a nice Chinese New Year mani in red...thats enough Valentine's Day cheer right?  Last week on my snow day I grabbed a new Konad plate I have been wanting to experiment with, M66 the one that shows parts of an Asian landscape.

I borrowed this picture from http://www.thenailart.com/ but I have never used their site for anything but looking at Konad plates, they have HUGE pictures of each.

Anyway I had been wanting to use little bits and pieces of the whole plate on different nails so each nail was different.  Chinese New Year gave me a great excuse to buy the plate and try this out.

 

China Rouge (2 coats) with top

I began with 2 coats of my favorite red creme, China Glaze China Rouge and then stamped New York Summer Hot Metallic Gold (hey its my go to gold stamping polish).  The overall manicure ended up being very subtle as the lines on most of these designs are very thin.  Black or silver would have provided more contrast.  It looked nice but you didn't really notice the designs unless you were close to my hands.  Photographing this was a complete nightmare, I couldn't get pictures that showed the details at all.
This is the best one I was able to get:

 

pinky - chrysanthemum (I think thats what it is)

ring - bamboo

index - woman

pointer - lotus

thumb - cherry blossom (not in picture though) 

I almost didn't post this as the photo looks like poop but I like the idea, I just need to use colors with more contrast between them.

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

Franken of the Week and Valentine Konad #2

I am a little behind on posting Valentines manicures so I am using today's snow day (yay) to catch up a bit.  Earlier this week I decided to work on a franken a little outside my comfort zone....light pink.  Well actually I made two frankens this week, one is a dark pink and the other is a much paler version of the same color.

Materials:

• Sinful Colors Social Ladder
• OPI Marooned on the Subway
• Fingerpaints Chroma Coral
• WnW French White Creme
• Pure Ice Gold Mist
• random clear topcoat
• 2 bottles
• Ballz

 Franken 1 (dark pink):

1. Mix 1/3 of a bottle of Social Ladder with 1/5 bottle of Chroma Coral and 15 drops Marooned on the Subaway.  
2. Add 30 drops WnW French White Creme
3. Shake well

Franken 2 (light pink)

1. Pour 1/4 of the mixed franken into a new bottle
2. Add 1/4 of a bottleclear
3. Add 1/5 of  Social Ladder and 1/4 of a bottle of French White Creme to lighten the polish.
4. Add 20 drops of Gold Mist 
5. Shake well

 

Bubblegum (left) and Bugbite (right)

So the polish on the right is really outside my wheelhouse, its very ummmm....pink.  When I first put it on I thought is was a pepto bismol color, but then I smudged my thumbnail and had to take the polish off to fix it.  The polish on the cotton ball looked exactly, and I mean EXACTLY, like Calamine lotion, so I am calling it Bugbite.  The darker polish is pretty much the color of bubblegum.

 

Bugbite in sunlight, it has a slight shimmer from the Social Ladder and Chroma Coral

I frankly couldn't handle this color solo for an entire day (really, really pastel pink) so I decided to Konad over it. First I stamped the fishnet pattern from M57 using the Konad Special polish white and then used the flowers from the same plate with the Bubblegum franken.

Bugbite base coat, Konad White, and Bubblegum

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.

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.

Photographing Holos is a PITA

So photographing holos is a total pain.  I am totally going to get/build a light box as a result of today's polish.  A month ago I bought a bottle of China Glaze DV8 and has very excited about it.  Two days after buying it I accidentally knocked the box holding it onto the cold, hard, porcelain tile...shattering the bottle and sending gorgeous teal holo everywhere.  I was very sad.  On the positive side it gave me a reason to go buy a new bottle.  I was on a No Buy....ok I still officially am on a No Buy, but I'm not very good at it.  While at the local Vietnamese nail supply store (OMG!  I need to do a whole article on this place) grabbing a fresh bottle of DV8 I also picked up a bottle of LOL.  Its discontinued, if I don't get it now I might miss out.  Right?

Since I have had so many blue polishes on lately I decided to swatch the LOL first.  LOL is a purple linear holo.  I am obsessed with the linear holos like those in the OMG and OPI DS collections, they actually started my polish addiction and I have no willpower when it comes to them.  I was expecting really god things from LOL and I was needless to say giddy about trying it out.

Much like my experience with OPI DS Glamour, initially I was unimpressed.  It wasn't as dark a purple as it looked in the bottle and it didn't really have any of the holo goodness under fluorescent lighting.  Once I caught a glimpse of it under some nice recessed lighting or sunlight though....OHHH MAMMA!  Not as obvious as Glamour but still pretty fantastic.

Giddy and filled with purple, hologram cheer I grabbed my camera and started snapping pictures.  I normally try to take photos without a flash as my pasty white fingers reflect too much light with a flash.  Unfortunately there was no way to see how awesome this polish is without a flash or a better lighting set up than I currently have.  I resigned myself to taking one with and one without a flash, and a close up of the yumminess.

 

Three coats CG LOL and topcoat indoors without (L) and with (R) flash. 

 

 Ohhhh sparkly!

Because it was so overcast and gray out I wasn't getting a lot of light reflected back from this (well, the ladies room at work has great lighting but its just weird to hang out there and look at your nails), so I decided to add some hot pink and a little sex appeal for a Valentines-y konadicure.  Leopard print is romantic right?  No well my idea of Valentines day is skewedt, so this next week's mani's could be very boring or incredibly out of character for me.

CG LOL (3 coats), Fingerpaints Sketched and Etched, M57

Sinful Colors Fall '09 Haul - Part 1

So my very first nail polish haul was 10 bottles of Sinful Colors from Walgreens.  I immediately used one to Franken.  I really don't like how these apply so I have been avoiding swatching them but am making a concerted effort to use everything I own at least once before buying more.

See You Soon is a black base with a teal microglitter.  In the bottle it looks almost like a dark teal shimmer but once you start painting you see the black polish and the shimmery glitter.   It applies fairly unevenly unless you use A LOT of polish on the brush.  I had bald spots and clear brush strokes after one coat.  A second coat and a layer of top coat takes care of these problems though.  In side it looks darker and more shimmery but in direct sunlight the glitter is really pretty.  I have worn this polish more than once despite the fact that it is a bit of a pain to apply and the fact that I have several polishes in the same color family.  I'm a Cowboys fan and while the color isn't quite right this has become my stand by for game day, though I admit that I typically Konad over it.

Sinful Colors See You Soon - 2 Coats and topcoat

I'm not really sure how to describe Mercury Rising.  Is it burgundy? Is it brown?  Is it bronze?  The answer is really yes to all of them.  There is definitely burgundy and dark red microglitter/shimmer in the base polish but that base is a bronze brown color.  It is beautiful when on though .  In doors it looks almost conservative but there is something that just keeps you looking at it.  When it catches the light though it just glows!  I keep looking at my nails and thinking how pretty it is.  I really want to put gold glitter on it or Konad an antique gold over it but I am refraining until I have had it on at least a day.  The Mercury Rising seemed to apply more opaque than a typical Sinful Color polish but once I was outside I notice VNL with only 2 coats so next time I wear this I will have to do three coats.

This shows two coats of Mercury Rising and a topcoat in sunlight. 
I didn't notice the VNL indoors but its pretty obvious here.

I am not in love with I Love You.  I don't know if it is even worthy of the "lets just be friends" status.  The first time I applied this polish I had such high hopes only to be utterly disappointed by the formula.  The polish itself is a purple jelly with purple glitter.  In the bottle it is a truly majestic purple, bright and glittery and holds a ton of promise.  Once you start painting though the problem becomes evident quickly...it is SOOOO thin.  The first time I tried this color I got 4 coats on and waited an hour, it never seemed to harden so I took it off.  I figured I had a bad combination of base/polish/top so I put it in a drawer to try later.

My second attempt It took me 4 coats to achieve bottle color and prevent VNL and by then it was really thick.  Combining that with the requisite Seche topcoat (I can't stand the bumpy texture of glitters) I looked like I had armored nails.  Ordinarily the thickness of a glitter polish doesn't bother me too much but there were other issues with I Love You.  Namely the color.  It was just too....bright?  It was almost garish.  I asked my nail polish buddy what she thought and her response described it perfectly.  It looked cheap...I mean it WAS cheap but I didn't want it to look cheap. On a positive side, it was possibly the shiniest glitter I have ever used and since it was 4 coats all the glitter blended together in the sun to look like a purple chrome. From arms length it looked like a purple chrome minx.  After swatching this I had to do something to tone the polish down a bit so I grabbed my WnW Black Creme and Konad plate M65 and subdued the violet glare a bit.

Sinful Colors I Love You 4 coats and top coat.  It is FAR brighter in person

Sinful Colors I Love You; WnW Black Creme M65

On a side note I had a disturbing amount of shrinkage after finishing this manicure.  Within three hours of this photo the tips of ALL ten nails had pulled back and exposed about 0.5mm of nail tips.  I am not sure if this was because I used Seche or the polish formula or just the thickness of the polish (6 coats total with base and topcoat). 

Fire Red is a typical red shimmer and was surprisingly easy to apply.  I have actually worn this polish a few times now and it goes on easy and wears about the same as a typical CG creme polish.  It is not fire red though, its a dark red, not vampy or anything just not true red and it has no orange undertones that I can see.  I really like to Konad black fishnet over this one.  Actually I did that immediately after taking this photo but then I forgot to take a picture of the final product.

Fire Red 3 coats and top coat