Friday Franken - Bronze Medal

Yeah I know its not Friday.  I wore this Friday and took the photos Saturday night but I got distracted and forgot to post it.  Has anyone seen Up?  "My master made me this collar so that I could SQUIRREL!"  Well that is me lately.

So the Olympics got me in the mood for some metallics so I am declaring this week metal week, well I might save a couple days for Alice in Wonderland themed polish since the movie is out Friday.  I realized after watching the USA take the bronze medal in woman's bobsled that I don't own a bronze polish.  So I set out to make one that matched the bronze medal from this years games.

 

2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics Bronze Medal

Materials:

• Wet n Wild Shine Clear
• Sinful Colors Mercury Rising
• NYX Ultra Pearl Mania Loose Eyeshadow (Oro or Mink, the label is missing)
• Ballz

1. Mix 1/2 a bottle of WnW clear with 1/2 tsp of NYX eyehadow and 3 ballz, mix well.
2. Add 20 drops Mercury Rising (this just adds some depth and makes it less gold)
3. This only makes about 2/3 of an ounce.

This was by far the easiest Franken I have done, the NYX dissolved instantly.  I will definitely be buying more of it in different colors for future mad scientist, frankening pursuits.  Anyone have a favorite NYX color?

 

Bronze Medal

 

Bronze Medal (3 coats) and top with flash , excuse the tip wear I wore this for over 24 hours before I remembered to charge the camera batter.

Bronze Medal in sort of sunlight, minimal tip wear after almost 36 hours, pretty amazing actually.

Since the actual medal is a combination of  brushed and shiny bronze I decided on day 3 to Konad using CG Matte Magic. This was utter fail as the Matte Magic kept drying before I could get it stamped and then I ended up with white film hanging off my nails.

Teal Appeal - The "Real" Teal

Ok so I have come to accept that my definition of teal might be more of a green blue than teal as I can't really find any "teals" that match my sweater.  Maybe my sweater is more peacock blue....whatever I wanted a nail polish that matched so I decided to mix my own. RBL Teal was pretty close to perfect, I just wanted a little more green and a tad lighter so I set out to make a "near dupe."


Materials:

• Sinful Colors See You Soon
• Sinful Colors Tokyo Pearl
• New York Summer Amaranth
• Nars Thunderball eyeshadow (mine had sadly broke months ago so I figured I'd make use of the bits)
• Sally Hansen clear base (I don't remember which one I used)
• Ballz

1. Mix 1/3 of a bottle of See You Soon and 1/2 a bottle of Amaranth.
2. Add 30 drops of Tokyo Pearl
3. I then added 1/4 of the powder from my Thunderball eyeshadow to make the polish more pigmented and make the base more blue (See You Soon is blue glitter in a black base). 
4. I split this mix between 0.5 oz bottles and topped them both off with clear (one bottle was a gift).

The "Real" Teal

The color of the resulting polish was really close to the RBL Teal but, though lighter and greener.  It is also a shimmer.  Halfway through I realized I really wanted a creme but it was too late.  In retrospect I am glad it is a shimmer as it is pretty close to RBL Teal.  The shimmer gives it a different look and makes it more of its own color.

 

The "Real" Teal with flash (left) and in sunlight (right)...well cloud light, I hate winter.

A close to perfect match!  I could have added a touch more blue but I wanted to stop here.

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.

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.

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.

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