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August 27, 2013

Salon Perfect: Light My Fire Swatch

Not a whole lot today.
I know I've used moving as an excuse for like 2 weeks now but seriously. Moooovingggg suckkkkssssssss.

Today is Salon Perfect Light My Fire. Why do people not swatch Salon perfect, like, always? It's seriously, seriously awesome. Which is why I keep showing it to you.


 
Artifical lighting, yo.
I guess it's definitely more glittery than shimmery but it's kind of hard to describe. It's probably not, I'm just bad at describing things. Okay, so, the base is super pigmented orange-soda orange with tons and tons of tiny orange and gold glitter. This is two coats and there's still a bit of VNL but that's not something that bothers me with a polish like this because it's really hard to notice because of the, you know, glitter. Dried pretty smooth but topped it off with SV just cuz.

And there you have it. Light My Fire. Yeah, it is that kind of. Like little flames hanging out at the tops of my fingers. Good job, SP, in your polish naming choices.



August 24, 2013

I WANT TO MAKE A CONDIMENT-INSPIRED POLISH COLLECTION

OKAY, LOOK.

You know when you're trying to go to sleep and your brain is all 'THINGS'? Well a couple nights ago, things-brain actually came up with something that I'm seriously into. Oh, shoot. Now I can't remember what name I came up with for the collection. Condiments. Condi-meant to Be! Bah hahahaha. I was seriously about 2 seconds away from being asleep at that point. Anyway, without further ado:


Spicy Mustard
 
A rich, olive-toned golden creme with burnt orange, brown and tan matte glitter. I wouldn't want the glitter to be too huge- I'm more interested in capturing the color combination. Actually, I could probably figure out a whole mustard collection. Tell me you wouldn't just love the color of Dijon all up on your nails this fall.


Ketchup

Duh, ketchup. A barely-orange-hued bright red crelly. I feel like a true jelly would be too opaque and wouldn't properly capture the congealed quality of ketchup. Congealed, also, is an awful descriptor but completely accurate.


Soy Sauce

This one would for sure be my favorite. A warm mahogany, deeply pigmented sheer. I would jelly sandwich the crap out of this one. I would want to be able to build this one on the nail just like how soy sauce looks in a bowl, where the most layers looks black except for in bright light and it gradually lightens to the brown the less layers there are. Guh.

Mint Chutney

Probs Def a textured polish. Grass green with darker and lighter green texture bits. What is that even? Feel-y particles. Interest bumps. You know what? Let's get crazy. The base would a sheer grass green (because I seriously cannot get enough of sheers) with crap-tons of texture in avocado and dark green.


Pico de Gallo

Clear base, glitter bomb consisting of regular and matte glitter in different sizes of square, hex and micro glitters in the following colors: aubergine, green, off-white and vermillion. I would probably assign the shapes and sizes to specific colors, i.e. large vermillion square glitter for the tomatoes. I would want it to look like a salsa bar at the tips of your pretty little finkies.


Aaand that's as far as my brain got me before I drifted into dreamland. There's something about things that look like other things that I just love (nail polish that looks like food, for example). I think it's kitschy but could be really chic, which I guess is kind of how I see myself but without the whole chicness thing and also kitschy is also kind of a nice word for "weird". WHATEVER THO.

So, would you wear this nonsense? Okay, I already know your answer is yes. I guess the better question is: which one makes you the hungriest?

August 15, 2013

Fingr's: Lace Up Nail Art Review

I have a COLD. We're moving in two days and I have a cold. In August.
Here are my nails:

Sunlight, OBVIOUSLY.
I did the gradient using Essie - Meet Me at Sunset (favoriteeee) and Flower - Eye of the Tiger Lily. No sponge nonsense, just a couple layers of Sunset and a slow build up of Tiger Lily towards the tips.

Anyway, then I see these appliques at Wally World and decide to go for it.

Firstly, I know these are probably made for tweens-through-early-20s kinds of ladyfolk, but I have some long, skinny piano player fingers, and the width of the ring finger sticker was still, like, half of what I actually needed. In fact, none of the stickers were wide enough. Seriously, little kid sizes here. 

Application was all fine and well enough. I tried re-positioning the first one and once I started trying to pull the thing off it wasn't having it. Tear city, and some, I don't know, stress discoloration. So whatever. And I had to clip about half of it off since my widdle nay-ools are still-a growin'. 

Can I just tell you how much it bums me out that I don't feel well? I seriously have SO MUCH TO DO. Even writing this, I'm like, "meh". I would so rather just be watching TV and eating Hot Dog Chips (which are SO GOOD and I'm not even getting paid to say so!!!!!!) 

Anyway, so my nails have spots on them, and that picture is AWFUL and there's black sh all over the place from trying to fill in the blanks with black nail art polish and this living room smells like a diaper and I can't figure out why, because there aren't any diapers laying around. LIFE.

Got my Ipsy bag today finally. Happy with it. Will I start posting reviews about that kind of stuff? I MEAN SINCE I HAVE SOOOO MUCH ELSE TO TELL YOU ABOUT. Whatever. I want to take a nap.

Um, the appliques were all right. My nails look pretty neat when they're not all up in my face and I can notice all the insane flaws. OUT.

August 14, 2013

Orly: Space Cadet Swatch & Review

Good day to you!

I know this is polish is a few years old but I just picked it up a couple weeks ago at Ulta when all of their Orly polishes were $4.99. What the hay?

Space Cadet is rad. It's been pretty dreary and chilly here the last few days so while it's not a summer color, it definitely fits the weather currently.


3 coats, cloudy sunlight
The particles flash between a pinkish mauve to a nice grass green with bronze and gold in between, and even a bit of blue and purple in the right conditions. Like I said, rad.


Blurred for your enjoyment, shade

Under a running tap (?), cloudy sunlight

I've been seeing chromatic polishes photographed under water because the light diffusion allows for a wider range of, like, colors happening. Or something. But I literally don't have a single sink in this apartment (out of 2) that I can plug up without going through some trouble and I don't know what the baby did with the tub plug. But I think the effect is there anyway, somewhat. 

That's that! I need to pack more. Mooooreeee. More always. Moving. Is. The. WORST.

Oh, um, application was pretty solid. 3 layers did it for me. Things and things.

August 10, 2013

Striping Tape & Gradients: NOTDs

In the midst of the moving madness, I still find the time to paint my nails. I guess you can probably see my haste, hahaha. Not the best cleanups in the world... Not that it matters. My nails have been chipping like maniacs what with packing and all. No breaks yet! Knock on wood.

First up is a little striping tape action. I don't love striping tape when left on the nail because no matter how careful I am to make sure to cover up the ends with top coat, they always start to peel within like, an hour. But using striping tape to make line designs with layered polish is definitely my currently favorite technique.

Orly - Glitz & Essie - Sunday Funday, sunlight

I've been using the Essie quick dry top coat and I must say, it's a nice change from my insanely gloopy almost-empty bottle of Seche Vite. It's not as, hmm, sturdy (?) feeling as SV, but it still leaves my nails super-shiny and it does dry rather fast.

Barielle - Berry Blue under Hard Candy - Bity Blue & Essie Naughty Nautical, sunlight
I mean, I really love that design, too. It was a Julep NOTD a while ago and she used gold and army green which is really quite lovely too. This got messy, however. Besides my wonky pinky paint-shape, my cuticles were, indeed, blue. Berry Blue is a gooorgeous deep blue, but it bleeds like no other during cleanup. 


SOPI - Is It Payday Yet?, Salon Perfect - Robin's Egg Blue & OPI - Parlez-vous OPI?
Zoya - Maria Luisa (awesomeeee) on my ring finger, sunlight
I joined a new facebook group called Nail Polish Challenge the other day and one of the prompts was pastel gradient. As you can tell, I suck hard at gradient. I understand the technique, but I'm not patient enough to let the first coat dry all the way before sponging on a second layer and it gets all sponge-marky. I like the color combo, though. I'll try this again around Easter, I think. Maybe I won't be so bad at it by then!


I bought Charla and Maria Luisa from Zoya.com a couple days ago. As a new registered user, I got one polish for free which was pretty great. Plus shipping was free too (I think because of a promotion that was running...?) Also, I've discovered pinterest nail polish sales/swaps! Oh nooooo! That just took this obsession to a whole new level!

I also recently did my first swap with the most lovely lady in Canada. She writes a darling fashion blog that you should check out here: bluecollarredlipstick.com. She was super patient with my complete cluelessness about swapping. Plus, she swapped me some really spectacular and HTF polishes!! I can't wait for that package to come. Friendliness really seems to be a trend in the nail polish community. It feels like everybody's rooting for each other and trying to help locate lemmings and things like that. That's not very common on the internet, I've noticed.

Well, have a good weekend, everybody ever!




  

August 9, 2013

Essie: Shine of the Times

Hey.

It's been a while.

We're in the process of moving. Moving sucks.

Here's a picture of Shine of the Times over Salon Perfect Electric Grape, with Revlon Matte top coat:



And a macro:




Right on. 



August 3, 2013

My First Franken: Wannabe Essie Starry Starry Night

Edit: I just looked at a bunch of SSN swatch pictures and realized how much farther I still have to go with this, ha ha! (tear)

Got in late to the game. There are tons of gorgeous polishes I'll never be able to find/afford (although I did just buy a new bottle of Peel Me a Gobi Grape at a dusty today on the cheap...) and SSN is one of them. I have come to terms with it.

Using my extensive art background* I decided to take a stab at frankening. These are the polishes I chose to use:

L to R: L'oreal Miss Pixie & Berry Nice, Nina Ultra Pro Silver Slipper,
Wet n Wild Black and Essie Aruba Blue
I started by cleaning out an old Ulta mini bottle. I filled it up about halfsies with Miss Pixie and added a few drops of Black, a few drops of Berry Nice and a buncha drops of Silver Slipper. The result was a sad, sparkly grayish-blue. After quite a bit more Miss Pixie and Black, the polish turned into a desaturated version of SSN. It would have been pretty great if I had some royal blue pigment laying around. But alas. I decided to add a couple blurps of Aruba Blue despite the shimmer.

I don't have any ballz laying about. :'(
In the bottle it kind of just looks like a less dimensional Aruba Blue with silver sparkles all up in it. But on the nail:


Like three coats, Seche Vite'd, in the shade
1. I'm sorry it's my toe and thus cropped funny. I don't have, like, awful toes generally. I just don't moisturize them as much as I should so it's all dry skin looking and ain't nobody want to see that. 
2. It doesn't suck though, right?


Close-up. Ignore the green-stained cuticle area, prty plz
In the shade, it satisfies my lemming. Is that a correct way in which to use that word? Like, my lemming is a creature of some sort and it eats only vhtf polish and if I don't feed it it bites me in my eyes or something.



Sunlight
Buuut as you can see in strong light the Aruba Blue shimmer gets all shimmery which isn't a feature in SSN. But I like it anyway. I'm for sure going to try my hand at frankening more in the future. Because just finding and collecting already existing polish isn't addicting enough.

What am I going to call this? 



*like 3 years of ungraduated-from art school



Adventures in Nail Striping Tape, Round 2

Pinterest, am I right?
After about 2039402934802 posts tagged "Great Gatsby Nails" I found THE prettiest nail tape design ever at Coewless Polish. I implore you to look at it. And now my, um, poorly manufactured knockoff:


Essie - Good as Gold and LA Colors - Fiji Purple, sunlight
I feel like this should sort of be one of those lessons in how not to paint one's nails. I guess, as a first-time experiment, it could have gone worse. Do you notice how the gold is looking pretty pink? That's the Fiji Purple bleeding like a mother after Seche Vite application. I did wear a base coat, but I'm still expecting my nails to be a stained mess after this one.

OKAY and the bubbles. Ohhhhhhh the bubbles. The biggest sigh.

I did this last night while watching a 6-part series called When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions. It bums me out that the US shuttle program got shut down. Do you ever think about how insane it is that man was even able to build a machine that could propel and keep him two-hundred miles away from the planet? In the 1960s, no less! You think about the kind of technology we have now and how archaic and quaint things from the 60s seem and it's mindblowing. It was all trial and error, and yet there were teams of people who dedicated their entire lives to the exploration of the unknown. I tend to romanticize stuff a lot, but things are real bleak when funding for space exploration gets cut. All the things we don't know.

Some life form far away (who, you know, evolved in such a way that the nails on their weird space-hands are these badass weapons... like barbed electrical talons or something) thinks it's just adorable that this bunch of Earth-matrons decorate whatever the dainty, delicate things are that are growing out the ends of their touchy-bits.

I would love to have been an astronaut except that I couldn't be less suited for the job.

August 2, 2013

Barielle Orange Parfait & Pure Ice Heartbreaker

Hi friendos.

I was thinking about doing an ombre mani... gradient mani... that mani where a dark version of a color blends delightfully into a light version of said color. But I didn't. Instead, I painted a layer of Heartbreaker over Orange Parfait and ended up with this:

This was in the sun, I swears. 
Orange Parfait looks like a creamy coral in the bottle but actually dries a bit darker and brighter on the nail WHICH I didn't get a picture of. I dug it as-was. However, Heartbreaker rules hard, especially over orangey polishes I've found. It's all, oh I'm so shimmery and green!


Two coats of Orange Parfait, one coat of Heartbreaker except on ring finger which had 3.
The formula was Orange Parfait was just a touch thick but not so much in a bad way. I didn't think I was going to like this color much until I swatched it for my never-ending swatch book.

Shade. Heartbreaker duo-chrome-ness.
I bought Heartbreaker long before I was super into the, you know, polish lifestyle. I tried wearing it by itself and was pretty confused by its inability to be seen except for in bright light. I guess it was maybe kind of obvious that it's meant for layering anyway, despite being new at nail things. Whatever. I know now, okay? I learned. I learned the ways of the sneaky topcoat. 

A story:
I hate spiders. I have this insane irrational terror of the little bastards. It's bad. It's considering-going-to-a-hypnotist-about-it bad. SO, I'm cleaning my apartment yesterday and I notice this piece of cotton-looking fluff on one of my kid's sandals. I go to remove it and BAM this seriously blink-fast spider (that was by no means small) jumps out from under a sandal-flap and basically I unloaded a can of bug spray onto it which was real dumb because then I had to barricade that area so my put-everything-in-his-mouth child wouldn't insecticide to death. Spiders are THE WORST. I don't even like seeing the word. Have you seen those? The kinds that make these webs with holes going into them that they crawl out of. Heebie to the jeebie. I can't stop shuddering. I'm from Ohio, okay. I know Ohio spiders are little sissy spiders compared to, say, Texas spiders. They're still just awful.

What is today, even? Friday? All right, well, do have a wondrous weekend!