Zoya Ciara

The Zoya sale last week prompted me to go track down a bottle of Zoya so I could try it out before deciding if I wanted to order or not.  I stopped by Blooming Beauty, which carries the full range of Zoya and a ton of OPI and Nubar (though no Prisms yet darn it!).  I walked in expecting to buy a bottle of Gwin but decided that it was too bright and that I should really try a creme first rather than a duochrome or frost.  I tend to have better luck with creme application and there is usually fewer brush marks and  drag issues so to be fair I picked up Ciara.  This is not a typical color for me, it is a lot brighter than it looks in this photo. Well in daylight it is, in dim light it looks almost like a red plum. 

 

Zoya Ciara (2 coats) with top.  The ridge line on my ring finger is from poor application of Seche, I was in a rush to get my dog to his best friend's birthday party.....yes birthday party for a dog.

Let me preface this by saying that I like thick polishes, it lets me be lazy and do 2 coats. Besides I fail at applying thin coats so thick polishes make me feel like I am doing something right as there isn't any streakiness. This polish applied like cement, or white out...remember painting your nails with white out in middle school?  Anyway it was REALLY viscous and didn't flow off the brush at all and was very slow to dry.   Next time I use this I am definitely going to add thinner.  On the positive side the color was very vibrant and it really didn't smell as much strongly as many other polishes.  I mean it smelled still, just not as much.  

I really like the idea of investing in some less stinky polishes, I feel like I am gassing my poor husband and friends regularly.  Does anyone know if all the Zoya's are thick or did I just get a partially dried out bottle?

And just so you believe me....

 

My puppy Indy...yes we named the dog Indiana

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.

Fingerpaints Sketched and Etched

This is just a real quick review of Fingerpaints Sketched and Etched.  I wear it pretty regularly under glitter and as a base coat for a Konad and I thought I would go ahead and just swatch it alone while I had it on. 

I only have two Fingerpaints polishes but the formula on both is good, applying smoothly and covering fully in 2 coats.  Sketched and Etched is a nice fuchsia lacquer with a slight shimmer.  The best part about it is that it has that glowing from within appearance, which you of course can't see in this picture because winter hates me and the sun.  Occasionally I do have visible nail line if I only use two coats of this but since I normally layer something over it doesn't bother me.

Sketched and Etched 2 coats and topcoat (indoors), this is much brighter in person.

Does anyone have any Fingerpaints favorites?  The formula seems to be pretty solid and I like the colors but I haven't seen a lot of swatches.

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.