Friday, March 25, 2016

Late March manicures

You really can't see what I'd like to show you about this polish combo in this picture, but it's all I've got:
This is Formula X Cosmic (which was on clearance) with Jin Soon Gossamer on top. You can see that Cosmic looks pretty shimmery and purple in the bottle, but it's not really visible on the nails. (I had read reviews that said exactly this before I bought it, so I shouldn't have been surprised.) It goes on just as a dark blurple with maybe a slight shimmer. Gossamer on top of it actually did a good job of faking the look I wanted from Cosmic alone - that's the part you can't really see. (Jin Soon's website is here but I'm pretty sure that Gossamer is discontinued because I bought it from a clearance sale at Space.NK or somewhere back a couple of years ago.)

Oh - also, Cosmic is really really near to being a one-coater. I would have said it was, but it pulled a bit when I put the top-coat on, so I'd probably recommend two coats to avoid that. You can't see it unless you look really close, though.

Before these I had on a couple of different greens, because I was in St Patrick's Day mode. I started with Cirque Lichen, which I really love - it's a shimmery dark olive, I'd call it. I wore that a couple of days, and then when it chipped a bit I added a green glitter on top of that - I have so many green glitters that I pulled three out of my stash without even looking hard, and that's not all of them. I asked my husband if he had a preference (I believe the three were RBL Locavore and Meow Meow, and Nostalgic Patricia) and he picked Patricia, so I patched up Lichen and put a couple of coats of Patricia on top. I really like Patricia so that was a good choice as far as I'm concerned.

After it was too late for this St.Pat's Day, I found this picture from last year of Pretty Serious VT-100 with matte top-coat. I really need to wear that one again, St.Pat's or not.

Friday, March 11, 2016

NOTD: AB/Frogtown

This is Aurora Borealis (from Lucky 13) over Frogtown (Pretty Serious) - it's in shade so it's kind of dark, but you can see the shimmer pretty well just the same!
Frogtown always looks sort of blue-green in the bottle, to me, but it goes on the nail as just green, as far as I can tell - it may have a slight blue tinge but it reads as green. As for Aurora Borealis, it was LE, I know, but you can probably find other similar polishes out there, since flakies are back in fashion these days. It shimmers green/purple/bronze (that's what I am seeing, anyway).

Wednesday, March 2, 2016

NOTD: Nailkale & more

I've been distracted by other things and haven't posted here much for a couple of weeks. But I'd better catch up on recent manicures or I'll forget completely, and that's the whole reason for this blog's existence, really. I fill in with other stuff, but remembering what I've worn is really the main purpose here, to me.

So when last heard from on the manicure front, I was wearing the remnants of my Valentine's manicure, as detailed here. I did eventually get that off with Dip-It, but what I didn't say there was that it wasn't until several days later, because I put something else on top of it instead, first. I believe I was thinking about jellies - so that the lace stuff would show through, see - but what I ended up with was Excuse Me I Blurpled, several coats of it, which did not let the lace effect show at all. But it did look pretty, so hey. Then a couple of days later when that chipped, that was when I got out the Dip-It.

Here's the Blurpled:
I actually am wearing this again now, over OPI Give Me Space (because I should have known better than to buy a holo, because holos just are not really my thing), and it doesn't look as good over dark blue as it did alone. (It's kind of like when I kept buying pastels because, y'know, pastels are pretty - despite the fact that they just don't look good on me. I keep buying the occasional holo because they look pretty in the bottle, or in somebody's pictures, and then I am always disappointed when I get them. I'm hard-headed, I guess, and it just takes me several wasted purchases to get certain things to sink in.)

(Added: I said I didn't like Excuse Me I Blurpled as much over dark blue, but actually in some lights it looks really gorgeous. I should also know by now never to judge anything only from how it looks in my living room.)

I have been doing a bunch of swatching to nail wheels which I mostly haven't posted yet, and one thing I was looking at were the sort of transitional grayed-out purples.
So this is more or less in order from most-gray to most-purple. The OPI mini is Tickle My France-y, and then we have NailKale Windsor Mews and Zoya Odette. (Interestingly, these seem to be an exception to the pastel thing I mentioned above - they do look pretty good on me despite being pale.) I got the NailKale set for Christmas and hadn't worn it so I did a whole mani with Windsor Mews. Later I added SOPI It's Bouquet With Me, and mattified it. I really liked that. I am all into the matte lately.
It's Bouquet With Me was a "Jewelry Top Coat" - SOPI had a whole line of these - and it's a holo glitter. It's sort of purpleish-pink, which is why I thought of it, I guess. Without the matte top-coat it's too sparkly for me, usually, but matted down it's just fine. (I think I was using Matte Me Crazy this week.)

(On the strength of a couple of tries with NailKale, I like it. The base-coat, especially, does seem to do something beneficial for your nails, and it lasts well.)

After that, I also matted-down Dollish These Are Not The Droids You're Looking For:
(I enlarged this so you can see the gold in this a bit. It did show up more in real life.) I'm not sure if Wet Cement was really the right undercoat for this, but it's not terrible, at least. TANtDYLF is mixed glitters with silver, gold, and blue (C-3PO and R2-D2's colors together, I assume), so I didn't know what to pick. Anyway, I tried it before without the matte and I kind of hated it, so I did like it much better this way. I'll have another try with finding the right undies for it, though!