Colors by Llarowe - Oops! Bag (round two) + Teal Oops Comparison

Hi everybody! Hi new friends! I just want to take a couple seconds here to thank you guys for reading and following. Without sounding like too much of a giant poop, I don't often feel very accomplished. I'm a stay at home mom (who majored, but didn't earn a degree, in printmaking) and it's difficult for me sometimes to find, like, merit in my life. I know "being a mom is the hardest job in the world" blah blah blah. It has its ups and downs, but the thing I struggle with the most in being a SAHM is that there isn't any sort of universal scale I can use to see if I'm doing a good job, you know? The kids are alive and fed and clothed most of the time, so I'm at least getting passing review. Oh, and loved. Can't forget about that love thing.

Aaaaanyway, that all is to say that it's really awesome to be able to look at my blog stats and see an increase in readership, more comments, things like that. You guys rooting me on. I know it's just one silly nail blog in a sea of thousands of (mostly better) nail blogs, but the support is thrilling. I mean it.

[insert cute 'thank you' GIF here]

Colors by Llarowe had another restock on Oops! Bags so obviously I had to get one. Super pumped to have only received one duplicate (Oopscat, actually, which I'm pretty all right with!) out of the three polishes that are included in the Oops! Bag.

The two new ones I received are:

1. Pink Sprinkles Oops!
This guy was the result of bleeding glitter but actually turned out to be a favorite amongst customers. The base shade of pink is so freaking pretty (and flattering on my skin tone) and the addition of the magenta glitters brings a nice little addition to an already great polish. I've only seen one swatch of OG Pink Sprinkles and I like the Oops! waaaay better.

2. Teal Oops!
I saw a bottle shot of this color after the last Oops! Bag restock and wanted it desperately as I am a TTW (total teal whore, which I just made up, which I am totally going to implement henceforth).

... remind you of anything? Liiiike, maybe a certain Literary Lacquer called Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster? I compared the two, if you wanted to see:

Yeah, they're pretty much identical. The only real difference I noticed was that Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster has the edition of holo micro glitter. Whaddya think about THAT?

I mean, I looooooove P.G.G.B. so whatever whatevs. It was just kind of like 'oh, hey...'. The formula's great on both of them so no complaints.

Colors by Llarowe - Ocean Water & Cult Nails - Baker Simple Nail Art

Foreword: I was once on a search for a teal jelly polish. I am no longer on that search.

The walls in my room are the color of Ocean Water (or, possibly, a touch darker and more blue) and I love it. I plan on painting a room in my house that color, every time we move, because I love it so much. Hopefully we're not going to be moving so much because I really hate painting walls.

I have a pair of sunglasses that are kind of Ocean Water teal with yellow arms. I did this manicure with those colors the other day and it was too much -- the colors look great together, but not with this design. But I liked the design, so I found a pretty nude: Cult Nails - Baker, and it worked, and I like it, all right?

I love hole reinforcements too, FYI.

For this look, I stuck the reinforcements to the top halves of my nails, making sure to wrap them completely around the nail so I could polish all the way to the sides without there being that strange angled gap between colors. I applied three coats of Ocean Water and, after letting it mostly dry, removed the labels. I then carefully applied Baker to the area of nail that didn't have Ocean Water on it (I'd say three coats here too) and then once everything way pretty much dry I put on topcoat.

Just something a little different than your typical half-moon manicure. Like, a reverse half-moon? Upside-down half-moon?

Girly Bits - Get Weaponized Swatch & Review

Ahoy! I participated in a Valentine's Day swap with an indie polish group on Facebook aaaaand Get Weaponized was one of the four awesome polishes I received from my darling swap-friend. In addition to it being my first Girly Bits polish, it rules way hard for these reasons:

1. Teal.
2. Linear holo.
3. Magenta and purple glitter.
4. Super easy to work with formula.

Get Weaponized was a custom shade made for a blog's two year anniversary (Nail Polish Wars, if you were curious and were somehow just finding out through my silly blog). 

Swatches show two thin coats topped with this calcium nail hardener stuff I dug up because I don't know where my Essie G2G went to, mope. The polish dried with a hint of grittiness to it so with a better topcoat it would have looked a lot smoother in thee pixx.

The thing I like most about this polish is that it's balanced-- it's not just a holo polish or just a glitter polish. The components work together to create a comprehensive effect. Not that I don't love rainbows and sparkles at the tips of my fingers, but the elements in this polish seem to be added thoughtfully, not just "let's make this holo cuz everybody loves holo".

Does any of that make sense to you guys?

Enchanted Polish - January 2014 Swatch & Review

I'm still kind of on the fence about Enchanted Polish.

I totally bought into January 2014 during the EP pre-sale being a mystery color. I figured I didn't have too much to lose since 1.) people are still totally ape-poop over EP;  2.) nobody sells EP at or below retail; and 3.) if I didn't love the color, I could sell it for what I paid so, like, everybody wins, right?

January 2014 came in a pretty shiny black box this time with the signature holographic foil-accented logo. If nothing else, EP's branding design is super easy on the eyes.

Upon removal, January 2014 looked like a dark dark gray creme with linear holo. Then I noticed that there was some bright blue super-fine particle action going on (not unlike what's sparkling around in A Little Fishy Told Me). Then I realized that the polish wasn't grey, but a blackened teal.

The formula is pretty dreamy-- just thick enough to avoid cuticle flooding, but it's self-leveling and deeply pigmented so that opacity happens in two easy coats. Plus, it's nice and glossy without topcoat.

It's pretty though, right? I don't know that it's $17 pretty, but I get that EP has grown into kind of a designer indie brand and part of the cost is in the name itself. The reason I'm on the fence about EP is because of the insane hype surrounding it. I wasn't in the, uh, polish game when EP transitioned from lesser-known indie brand to bottles-going-for-twenty-times-their-original-price territory, and I'm curious as to when exactly that happened. Most EPs are genuinely lovely polishes, but I would never dream of spending 10 polishes' worth of money for a single, "htf" bottle. I get why people do it, but there are too many awesome indie brands out there (and my budget is far too limited) for me to ever be that person.

If you bought this polish, are you happy with it? If you didn't, do you wish you had?

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!

  

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: 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!