Not.
Okay, I've read some super helpful tutorials and gone through fifty million designs and I think I've finally settled on something I'm happy with for the blog design. What do you think?
Also I'm about to reach 1000 page views, at least a quarter of which are my own, but yay! Leaps and bounds! Every little milestone should be celebrated, as I have learned as a first time mom.
Okay, but I really love teal/orange too. Hmm.
Edit: How do I un- +1 this? Why would I ever want this +1'd? ETERNAL SIGH.
September 18, 2013
September 16, 2013
ILNP: Mutagen and Birefringence Ultra Chromes NOTD
ONE: My stupid pinky nail broke on my swatch hand. This is why, until it grows out (fourteen decades from now), it will be hiding, awkwardly, off to the side, under the bottle or something.
Total Nails Broken Since I Started Growing Them Out: 5
TWO: THE ULTRA CHROMES RULE. Birefringence is a little bottle of Lisa Frank's tears. It does that thing on the nail where one eye sees the blue and one sees the magenta so it's all brain-playing-with and magical and the fuuutuuuureee.
Anyway, I'm seriously a nail tape junky when it comes to making designs. And by designs I mean lines. Lines in patterns. I need to get the other two Ultra Chromes so I can go crazy with them and nail tape and then I'll never change my polish again and then when I die I will have my hands preserved and they will be doing metal horns.
For all intense and porpoises, this is 3 coats of Birefringence on the non-accent nails with a coat of SV. The accents nails have 3 coats of Mutagen with one coat of SV followed up with 1 thick coat of Birefringence, topped with 2 coats of SV. BAM.
For the record, while some bubbles are present, it's not nearly as disasterly as that macro is making it. So, I'ma go stare at my hands for about six hour. Naw, I'ma play Skyrim and stare at my hands during loading screens.
Love,
Brandy
Total Nails Broken Since I Started Growing Them Out: 5
TWO: THE ULTRA CHROMES RULE. Birefringence is a little bottle of Lisa Frank's tears. It does that thing on the nail where one eye sees the blue and one sees the magenta so it's all brain-playing-with and magical and the fuuutuuuureee.
Anyway, I'm seriously a nail tape junky when it comes to making designs. And by designs I mean lines. Lines in patterns. I need to get the other two Ultra Chromes so I can go crazy with them and nail tape and then I'll never change my polish again and then when I die I will have my hands preserved and they will be doing metal horns.
For all intense and porpoises, this is 3 coats of Birefringence on the non-accent nails with a coat of SV. The accents nails have 3 coats of Mutagen with one coat of SV followed up with 1 thick coat of Birefringence, topped with 2 coats of SV. BAM.
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| Artificial Light |
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| Direct Sunlight |
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| Indirect Sunlight |
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| Shade |
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| Your Hopes and Dreams |
Love,
Brandy
September 9, 2013
OPI: Man of La Mancha Swatches
I can't get enough of this multichrome OPI gloriousness (spell check seriously thinks I'm illiterate for the record). I'm a total OPI fangirl and I'm not ashamed to admit it. So, about this polish: Man of La Mancha is also from the Holiday on Broadway Collection. I looked at a thousand swatches of La Boheme (a lemming for me for a while) but after swatching this and Movin' Out I don't think I even need it anymore is how righteous this polish is.
The swatches are 2 coats of Man of La Mancha over German-icure by OPI (which is freaking awesome also), topped with SV.
One coat made for a nice, sheer, sparkling red-orange topper to the rich shimmery burgundy of German-icure. And I know chromes over black make for the best, you know, color shifts, but I wanted to mess around with the deep red tones of La Mancha. I'll have to try it over black too, as I don't know if it made a difference or not (but I dig the contrast on the accent nails and I much prefer German-icure to straight black). I also wanted the full impact of La Mancha, so I went for the second coat. Instant nail polish obsession time.
Man of La Mancha shifts between ruby to coral to orange to yellow and even to lime green in very certain lights. Example A:
Example B:
This one has red/orange scatterd microglitter in it too, cuz it's not already amazing. Application was great, or whatever, and I just realized that I didn't lay down a base coat. Bummer. I'll be chipping the crap out of this in no time!
The swatches are 2 coats of Man of La Mancha over German-icure by OPI (which is freaking awesome also), topped with SV.
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| Overcast Sunlight |
Man of La Mancha shifts between ruby to coral to orange to yellow and even to lime green in very certain lights. Example A:
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| Facing away from Overcast Sunlight |
Example B:
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| Artificial Light |
September 8, 2013
My First Enchanted Polish: A Little Fishy Told Me Swatch
So, I was originally like "wtf?" about Enchanted Polish. The hype seemed ridiculous with the third-party price-jacking and the impossible-to-purchase-ality during EP launches. I thought some of the colors looked pretty awesome, but I also knew of other, more accessible polishes that were just as pretty but wouldn't require me to sell of my limbs to be able to afford on eBay since I would never actually be able to buy them on any other site.
Then I swapped for one, and it was kind of like "oh, that's why," although I'm pretty okay with the idea that this is the only EP I might ever own.
A Little Fishy Told Me, like you don't know, was created for one of the most adorable and vivacious little girl I've ever seen in my life, and all the proceeds from the polish's sale were apparently donated to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.
The polish is a desaturated mint shade with subtle holo and even more subtle sky-blue microglitter (which in very certain lights looks pink, I SWEAR). It seemed a bit thick but not annoyingly so and was basically opaque in 2 coats. Shown here is 3 coats, topped with SV.
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| Sunlight |
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| Shade |
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| Shade |
September 7, 2013
OPI: Movin' Out Swatches
So a tip from a new friend-in-nails (get it kind of?) (HEY visit her blog: lacquerheaded) lead me to purchasing two of my very first lemmings: OPI - Movin' Out and Man of La Mancha. Today I have for you a few swatches of the most excellent Movin' Out, from the 2003 Holiday on Broadway collection.
Movin' Out is one of the rainbowest in-the-bottle polishes I've seen. It looks like liquified dreams. I'm holding it right now and in my living room light, it looks like it's got this ectoplasm-green shimmer. I tried taking a picture of it and failed, so you just get to imagine how awesome that looks.
While the spectrum of colors don't translate onto the nail entirely, there's still a huge and delightful range o' colors. I will show them to you now (I used 3 coats of Movin' Out over 2 coats of Orly - Velvet Rope with 1 coat of SV for all photos below.. kind of labor-intensive but wooooorth itttttt).
That looks like a nice bright mauve shimmery delight, yes? The red/orange blurry dots on the leftmost nail give the best color accuracy of the scattered microglitter in this sweetheart.
The chrome-ality is much more apparent out of direct light (like all multi-chrome polishes, I'm finding out, likely because of ... stuff. Indirect light beams and scattered sun particles and, you know, really scientific things).
Aaand in indirect artificial light was where I was able to pull the most color shifting from. Plum, mauve, bronze, gold, yellow, green. And that glitter! <3
So, there it is. The scattered glitter is apparent in Man of La Mancha, too. It reminds me of camera flashes in a stadium (OR A THEATER, BROADWAY COLLECTION...). I'm super happy I was able to get a hold of this polish. While it's not suuuuuuper htf, it's still a polish I'm quite pleased with adding to my stash-a-roo.
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| Yellow Wall, courtesy of 1994 |
While the spectrum of colors don't translate onto the nail entirely, there's still a huge and delightful range o' colors. I will show them to you now (I used 3 coats of Movin' Out over 2 coats of Orly - Velvet Rope with 1 coat of SV for all photos below.. kind of labor-intensive but wooooorth itttttt).
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| Sunlight |
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| Shade |
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| Artifical light / Shade |
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| <3 <3 <3 |
September 4, 2013
Zoya: Aurora Swatch & Review
I LOVE AURORA I LOVE AURORA I LOVE AURORA.
Firsties: Because of the move, I'm still not on my regular computer and I haven't downloaded my watermark font onto this one which is why my watermark is lame. Because you noticed that. Because "lbol" is going to prevent people from stealing my pictures. Because my pictures are worth stealing. Because everybody knows what "lbol" stands for.
Secondsies: I bought Aurora from a Pinterest polishes for sale page along with 11 other polishes for $32 including fees and shipping, most of which were Zoyas. I LOVE PINTEREST I LOVE PINTEREST etc.
Thirdsies: Look at this shiz--
I KNOW, RIGHT? So, Aurora is a fuchsia-violet jelly with holographic glitter, but not just ANY holographic glitter, it's all irregularly-shaped and things. Plus, I swears, it's linear holo to boot, just in a very scattered way.
Application was all right. It didn't apply as smoothly as other brands I've been obsessed with lately (coughSINFULCOLORScough) but it was mostly 'opaque' (as much as a jelly can be, anyway) in 3 heavy coats. I almost typed goats just then. Three heavy goats.
Aurora is from Zoya's 2012 Ornate (holiday) Collection. I also got Storm from the same collection that I cannot wait to try. I. Love. This. Nail. Polish.
I need some consistency to this blog, right? Polish shot with the bottle, without the bottle, wonky watermark, crappy lighting in like 239482973 of the swatches, and so on. I just need to hit my stride. Or not suck so hard at blogging. Or a happy combo of bolth.
Firsties: Because of the move, I'm still not on my regular computer and I haven't downloaded my watermark font onto this one which is why my watermark is lame. Because you noticed that. Because "lbol" is going to prevent people from stealing my pictures. Because my pictures are worth stealing. Because everybody knows what "lbol" stands for.
Secondsies: I bought Aurora from a Pinterest polishes for sale page along with 11 other polishes for $32 including fees and shipping, most of which were Zoyas. I LOVE PINTEREST I LOVE PINTEREST etc.
Thirdsies: Look at this shiz--
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| 3 coats, sunlight |
Application was all right. It didn't apply as smoothly as other brands I've been obsessed with lately (coughSINFULCOLORScough) but it was mostly 'opaque' (as much as a jelly can be, anyway) in 3 heavy coats. I almost typed goats just then. Three heavy goats.
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| 3 goats, shadelight |
I need some consistency to this blog, right? Polish shot with the bottle, without the bottle, wonky watermark, crappy lighting in like 239482973 of the swatches, and so on. I just need to hit my stride. Or not suck so hard at blogging. Or a happy combo of bolth.
September 1, 2013
FingerPaints: Sarong So Right Swatch & Review
Oh, hey guys.
So, I broke three nails on my right hand during a garage sale I had. My thumb looks weird and gremlinish because of it. I seriously never in my life thought I'd prefer how my hands looks with nails versus without.
Sooooooooooooo.
I went to Sally Beauty today just for funsies, mostly to check out the clearance, not having any real goal in mind. Besides picking up both Orly FX Matte Flakie topcoats, I also got this lovely gem.
Sarong So Right is the dreamy brainchild of Michelle Mismas of All Lacquered Up as part of her A Pair Affair collection. It's a coral jelly with subtle bright pink shimmer and scattered holo glitter. Basically, it's this: <3
The formula is a bit thick which makes for a much more opaque application than I'm used to in a jelly. Honestly, I wouldn't immediately have called it a jelly (although it is quite squishy looking) because of the slight texture it dries with. It almost looks like it could be a glow-in-the-dark polish by texture alone, but the color is much more saturated than a glow-in-the-dark.
I happen to love coral, jellies AND holo glitter so this polish is right up my alley and it definitely doesn't disappoint. Plus it's a 5-free polish so your fingers won't fall off and/or sprout freaky finger-fingers or anything. Pluuus it was dreamt up by quite possibly one of the nicest nail bloggers on the internets and I'm not even saying that to be a kiss-ass because I'm about 99.97% sure that Michelle will never see this, ha ha.
So, I broke three nails on my right hand during a garage sale I had. My thumb looks weird and gremlinish because of it. I seriously never in my life thought I'd prefer how my hands looks with nails versus without.
Sooooooooooooo.
I went to Sally Beauty today just for funsies, mostly to check out the clearance, not having any real goal in mind. Besides picking up both Orly FX Matte Flakie topcoats, I also got this lovely gem.
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| 2 coats, natural light |
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| Crappy artificial light |
Sarong So Right is the dreamy brainchild of Michelle Mismas of All Lacquered Up as part of her A Pair Affair collection. It's a coral jelly with subtle bright pink shimmer and scattered holo glitter. Basically, it's this: <3
The formula is a bit thick which makes for a much more opaque application than I'm used to in a jelly. Honestly, I wouldn't immediately have called it a jelly (although it is quite squishy looking) because of the slight texture it dries with. It almost looks like it could be a glow-in-the-dark polish by texture alone, but the color is much more saturated than a glow-in-the-dark.
I happen to love coral, jellies AND holo glitter so this polish is right up my alley and it definitely doesn't disappoint. Plus it's a 5-free polish so your fingers won't fall off and/or sprout freaky finger-fingers or anything. Pluuus it was dreamt up by quite possibly one of the nicest nail bloggers on the internets and I'm not even saying that to be a kiss-ass because I'm about 99.97% sure that Michelle will never see this, ha ha.
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