Adventures in Nail Stamping: My First Success!

I bought a Konad double-sided stamper and a brand-unknown stamping plate (it's octagonal and is labeled KD28... I googled it and found nothing, and when I googled "Russian Doll stamping plate" a round version of what I had by a company called Nail Craze came up. So I don't know) with the cutest little triplet of Russian Dolls, this winter sweater pattern and a pretty floral pattern (and a mouse? And a flower "sprig," if you will). I wanted to do a fall-themed mani, so this is what I came up with.

I used Hard Candy - Crush on Lava (which is this really neat sort of burgundy-rust to gold duochrome... sort of like Orly - Space Cadet without the blue base) and stamped with Essie - As Good As Gold, then lightly brushed on some Zoya - Maria-Luisa.

It doesn't shift to quite as green of a hue the pictures are showing you in real life. The macro is really the most accurate in terms of color. As Good As Gold was awesome to stamp with. I haven't done a lot of experimenting with stamping yet, so it was nice to actually have something work out pretty early on.

Well, all right. I'm going to go play some GTA5 while the kids are asleep.

Parlez-vous OPI? NOTD

Dear Blog,

This NOTD didn't turn out like I had wanted it to. I intended on using striping tape but when I sat down to do my nails I realized I had left the striping tape in my room which is also the room the (teething) baby was napping in at the moment, so I free-handed it.
Also, It wasn't just s'posed to be a standard triangle-tip manicure but that's what it looks like. I needed to make the second stripe further down on the nail, etc etc blah blah etc.

I USED THESE COLORS:
1. Parlez-vous OPI?
2. Layla: Softouch 11
3. OPI - Wooden Shoe Like to Know? (Tee-hee, cute named polish alert!)

I like the subtle orange sparkle/shimmer in Wooden Shoe.
Layla dries to a semi-matte finish (hence Softouch!).
Parlez-vous is kind of runny, IMO. Ee-moe.

Aaand that's what I have for you.

Love,

Your Friend Brandy

PS The last 4 blog posts I, you know, post... they show up +1'd. Like, immediately. And I'm certain that someone isn't just refreshing their browser waiting for my next post to +1 it. And I'm not trying to actively advertise every single post I make. I guess I'm just this about it: ?

Layla: CE 52 The Butterfly Effect Swatch & Review

Because one can never have enough flakies in one's life.

I found a college textbook from a couple years ago in my mom's garage and traded it in to Amazon for more money than I thought I'd get sooo of course I got a whole bunch of nail-related things (a Konad stamper and Russian nesting doll plate being two of which...) including this polish! I almost got Nfu-Oh 51 with my first swap but didn't, and not that it's, like, the hardest polish to find ever or anything but I didn't actively seek it out after that. But when I saw that The Butterfly Effect was a dupe for it, AND on Amazon at a reasonable price (um, also gift card), I had to get it because duh.

Here're some swatches, ya'll! This is 4 coats (Doofus McDingbat didn't use a colored base, but it didn't take too long anyway).

Sunlight-ish

Sunlight

The Butterfly Effect is a purple jelly base packed with red-orange to green shifting flakies. For real life, orange and purple are soulmates. They look so dang good together. And how the orange takes on a sort of coral tone to it because of the purple all over it... yes.

Shade

Shade-ish

I didn't do a very good job capturing the green shift but you can see the spectrum of orange to yellow to green along the left side of the nail in the last two pictures.

Application was fine overall. A couple issues with bald patches here and there (I knoooow because of the whole not letting it dry thing. Okay). I scooted some of the flakies around during the 2nd coat which was completely not needed since by the 4th they were all, you know, all over the place evenly.

I'm quite satisfied with this guy. I now own 3 Layla polishes and I haven't been disappointed yet. 

Side note: isn't my pinkie nail just the saddest thing you've ever seen? I've tried cropping it out but swatches look legit weird with only 3 nails.

Side not dos: I just ate an entire bag of xplosive pizza flavored Goldfish.

Fresh Paint: Sugar Crush (Shine of the Times Dupe!)

At Five Below today I noticed a bin full of a polish that looked remarkably like Essie: Shine of the Times. SOTT was my first true lemming, so I thought I'd do my very first comparison post on these two polishes. I know there have been other polishes in the past that were pretty close to SOTT, but I think this one is the closest thing I've seen to an actual dupe.

The photos below show 1 coat of polish over Zoya: Raven, no topcoat.

Exhibit A:

Cloudy Sunlight

Exhibit B:

Artifical Light

Exhibit C:

Artificial Light

The color, green/yellow/orange shift, size and density of the flakies are almost identical. The differences are so subtle that if you're lemming SOTT but are unable to get a hold of it, Sugar Crush could very easily satisfy it! The only real differences I noticed were the shades of orange the polishes flashed: SOTT's orange is just the slightest bit more of a saturated, red-orange. Baaarely. Also the way in which the colors shift are slightly different as you'll notice in the second photo.

I'm looking at my nails right now and if I had the worst memory ever I would absolutely not be able to tell which is which.

Sugar Crush can be purchased for $2 at your local Five Below. Holla!

Ulta: My Two Cents Swatch & Review

GUH.
My cuticles are the WORST and what's with that, like, ledge going up the sides of my nails that polish gets onto and makes my nails look all wide-middled? My nails desperately need some TLC. Will be researching the crap out of that!

In other news:
Per Ulta's $2 polish sale, I picked up a couple bottles, one being My Two Cents. Also, today's the first day of Fall. Also, this is kind of the perfect polish for such an occasion.

My Two Cents consists of small round copper and orange glitter (which is a subtle color difference but a nice touch, unless I'm just seriously losing it and the glitter is all just one color but some of it looks different because of the layering... but I'm like 98% sure it's two different colors) in a sheer brown base. It could very easily be a two-coater, but Patches McMissingspots over here suffers from Application Disaster Syndrome so I applied 3. It dries like, you know, glitters tend to, so I topped it with 2 coats of SV.

Artifical Light

Why does this picture look like some sort of weird 80s glamor shot? Also I put my watermark over the middle nail to try to hide the shredded nightmare that used to be my cuticle. Ha!

Sunlight

 Do you see what I mean about the two different shades of glitter, though? Like, one color is much more saturated. Isn't there some research I could do to actually figure this out? Man. Best Blogger of the Year award coming my way for SURE.

Shade

This polish has some nice depth to it thanks to the darker base. It was also pretty easy to work with, despite the amount of glitter all up ins. This was my first Ulta swatch and I look forward to, you know, getting more (when they're back in stock...).

Happy Fall you guys!

Autumn NOTD

Since having a baby, what summer is has changed for me. It's no longer drinking beers on a patio somewhere, taking night walks and participating in general, warm-weather shenanigans. Now it's more, um, do the same stuff every day except not hate it as much going outside because I'm not freezing to absolute death. I loved summer. Like, loved loved it. I dreamed about it during every other season. And I still do, really, it's just different.

So, the fact that it's going to start getting colder doesn't affect me as much because, like I said, it's not really going to change how I spent my days. No more hiding from thunderstorms or hordes of spiders, so that's pretty cool. Also Fall is my second fave (maybe first fave-tied) so, you know, whatever. It's all peachy. OH PLUS APPLE PIEEE.

Here's an Autumn inspired NOTD using a bunch of untrieds I have.

Starting from the tip, there's:
China Glaze -Xtreme Thrash
Sally Hansen - Chop Chop Copper
OPI - London Bridge is Falling Brown (also on index finger)
Layla - Softouch Effect 11
OPI - DS Illuminate
and the dark brown underneath it all is Barielle - Coco Bar.

 

Looking through my polish stash on Pinterest, I have sooo many flipping fall colors I haven't tried yet. Geez Louise, guys! I need to get it together.

Essence: Gorgeous Bling Bling Swatch & Review

 Gorgeous Bling Bling. Gorgeous. Bling. Bling.

Oh, what a silly name for a polish. For this polish, specifically. It's gorgeous, but it's not exactly bling blinging. Gorgeous Pumpkbling, maybe. Gorgekin Pumpling. Anyway, I picked this up at Ulta on clearance and I'd do it again! This is three coats, topped with SV.

Sunlight

Shade

Gorgeous Bling Bling is the color of pumpkin pie, of crunchy fall leaves, of every pumpkin-scented candle ever made, and also it has very pale gold glass flecks scattered throughout. It looks pretty squishy when applied, so I'm gonna go ahead and call it a crelly because this is MY blog and I do what I want! The shade picture is more accurate in color than the sunlight one though it's not quite as red-tinted in real life.

I, um, have nothing to say about application, really. Or wear. Which I probably should since I'm reviewing nail polish aaaand those are kind of important key details. Sorry. Sorry guys.

In other news: THERE IS A GIGANTIC BEETLE FLYING AROUND MY LIVING ROOM. It sounds like a tiny airplane. Blicky.