Salon Perfect - Bermuda Baby Swatch & Review (round two!)

Hi!
I've been meaning to re-swatch this polish since I grew out my nails because I'm seriously in love with the color. I'm not saying I'm a pro, but I at least have, you know, nails to swatch on now. (The original swatching can be found here, if you were looking for a good chuckle and something to go 'awww, that's precious' to.)

Without further ado...

Bermuda Baby is a bright turquoise creme with sky blue flash that dries matte. This guy dries lightning fast so be precise with your application or wait a minute before going over the same spot twice. At least the wait time between coats is pretty minimal.

Shown below is three coats (though you might be able to get away with two thick ones) followed up with Essie G2G.

This polish screams Summer which is so lame because it's currently blizzarding outside. At least my finkies are all tropical.

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.

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!

  

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. 

Seafoam & Poppy Mani

I was seriously all about this blog in the beginning, okay? And I still intend on being. Just stuff and stuff.

So, nail stuff, then.

I have these Sonia Kashuk hairbrushes that I seriously love the colors of (they were on clearance at my local Target, hay) sooo I decided to paint my nails in one of the brush's, um, honor.

There's some Salon Perfect Robin's Egg (which is more green-hued than what I typically think of robin's egg blue being), a bit of Zoya Raven (which has almost unrecognizable shimmer) and Essie Meet Me at Sunset (which is my favorite color currently, an orange-tinted bright red crelly? I'm clearly confident with my nail polish, like, technicalities...). I first taped the top half of my nail off and did the Robin's Egg, then (impatiently) removed that tape and taped off a little further up for the Raven. I have had absolutely zero percent success with taping over existing polish. I know it's because I don't wait long enough for it to dry. But having done two coats with the tape on, the polish forms a little ridge for me to be able to bump the brush right up against the next color without having to worry too much about the new color going all up on the previous one.

SO ANYWAY MANI INSPIRED BY HAIRBRUSH which should obvs be in some sort of manicure-month thing.

I picked up some pretty rad changes-color-in-the-sunlight polish from Five Below that I'm going to swatch soon. I know you're on the edge of your seat!

Fingr's Striping Tape Manicure Round 2

I used Salon Perfect Robin's Egg and Essie Go Overboard, Seche Vite blah blah blah.

Look at how long my nails are getting. Ha ha. But it's true... I keep catching the tips on, like, everything. I guarantee these mofos are all going to break off within a week of my getting them to a decent length. I'm a clumsy Clara. I somehow forget that it's not only because I bite them that I can't grow them out.

HEY SO I'M THE WORST BLOGGER EVER. I started this as a draft like a week ago, or like, however long it was since my last post. I've done like 239846203984 manicures since then and took pictures of exactly zero of them. Cool!

In other news: my little baby boy turned 1 two days ago! He likes to sit in my completely disorganized bin of polishes and crawl around absconding said polishes and I find them all over the house. Whatever, guys. Don't judge. (Guys... pfft. Me. I already know I'm a hot mess).

Today, also, is MY birthday! I'm about a million years old. No, okay, I'm 28 but that's CRAZY. I was 18 TEN YEARS AGO. Shoot my brains out.

I'm making a swatch book, thanks for asking. I'm using these Post-it page marker thingers and I'll probably never get around to taking any pictures or any of that because of that being an awful blogger thing. 

Salon Perfect: Electric Grape Swatch & Review

Firstly, I wish my camera could do this color more justice.
Secondly, I'm staring at my hand right now and my nails are dark, and right next to me is the Electric Grape bottle and the polish in there looks like it could almost be neon.

 I'm gonna be totally bright, I swear!

Electric Grape is, realistically, a fairly opaque eggplant shade loaded with micro glitter; lots of bright pinky-purple and a little blue. Slightly Static Plum. 

Two coats, in the shade. Really overcast lately. :/

Zoya Anchor base coat. This was pretty opaque with the first coat and as soon as I applied it to the nail it looked like it does in the bottle, but twelve seconds later it darkened. Added another coat to even things up completely. The Seche Vite top coat seemed to lighten the polish up but again it went right back to eggplant once it dried. 

Tried to get the sun involved, here.

I mean, I think I prefer the color it ends up being anyway. I feel like a more neon shade would be less wearable for me. The polish really is quite a few shades darker in person. From far away, also, the glitter is super subtle but it still adds, you know, that somethin' special. More than a straight shimmer would, IMO.

And that's more or less what it actually looks like. But I really am as pale as all the other pictures make me look.  

Salon Perfect: Bermuda Baby Swatch & Review

Oh, haaaay!

Foreword: I love teal. As soon as I saw this color I was all 'yep'. Upon returning hope I noticed it was called Bermuda Baby and not Going Sailing Tropical Escape as it was on display as at Walmart. (Note: I have just returned from a polish trip and noticed that the display says Tropical Escape but it's fully stocked with Bermuda Baby and behind some pink shade was a bottle of Going Sailing which looks like a slightly dusty version of this color without the glorious shimmer. I never actually saw what Tropical Escape looked like. Boom.) That being said...

Hello, I'm neat!

Bermuda Baby is a bright sky-bluish teal with a fairly subtle light blue shimmer. At first, I thought the shimmer was more in the pink family, but it's, um, not. It's blue. And I love it. 

Three coats, indirect sunlight (shade, I guess)

I used Zoya Anchor base coat. Application kicked my face in. I don't know it's because I'm new at this or what but it was a wet-to-matte streaky see-through nightmare coats 1 and 2. Coat 3 evened things out to opacity bit but it was the mighty Seche Vite that saved me from the uneven texture. It was really hard to capture full shimmery action with my camera but a good example of how lovely it is color-wise is between my middle and ring finger shadows. 

A little more sunlight, here. Look at!

Overall, I dig the heck out of this polish. Chances are, I just need to get used to Salon Perfect application (and China Glaze, while we're at it) and maybe have some more nail to work with. Despite the small struggle, I'm quite happy with the finished result. 

Totally on purpose.

In fact, the color matches a tattoo I got almost ten years ago (oh, god, sob)! It's kind of like I was destined to find this color. We're color-mates. So, anyway...

There it is. Bermuda Baby. My very first swatch and review. Exhale!