The Llarowe report

(Thursday)
I'm wearing my new Color Club holo, which is... oh heck, I can't remember the name of it. - OK, I have consulted my list where I wrote it down, and it's apparently "Eternal Beauty" aka The Purple One. It's very pretty, but I've already managed to chip it. I have had it on for two days already, though, so by my standards, that's not bad. I imagine that when I take this off tonight or tomorrow, the next thing will be the new Picture Polish, which appears to be a considerably darker (and non-holographic) purple.

Now that I'm all through with stash posts I will probably go back to these diary-style entries. One little paragraph where I can't even remember the name of the polish is just not enough of an entry to suit me. (And yes, I could rewrite it where you couldn't tell that, but what would be the fun in that? Plus the names on those holos annoy me a bit. There's no rhyme or reason to them that I can tell.)

(Friday)
I got numerous compliments on Eternal Beauty, even after it was all chipped up. When the light hits it just right, it's really stunning. But now it's gone, and Violet Femme is on, and man, I love it. It's not as flashy, but it makes me happy, which I care about more than any number of compliments. (Which is not to say I don't love compliments, because I do. But colors I love make me unreasonably happy. I'm funny that way.) I am not actually giving Violet Femme a perfect report - it wants to be streaky, and it took 3 coats to get it mostly but not entirely unstreaky - but still, it's gorgeous. By the time I got the third coat on, it wasn't really quite what I'd call a neon any more, but I don't care in the least.

(Here's the Llarowe link to Eternal Beauty, but I apparently bought the last bottle - the "sold out" label went up so soon after I bought mine that I was worried I might not get it. But I did. Also, this was my first order from Llarowe, and they get an A+. Excellent service.)

Oh, one more minor note - Eternal Beauty came off extremely easily and cleanly, just as the Chirality holos did. Is that just a property of holos? Maybe I was giving Chirality too much credit!

Stash, part 8 - Greens, and a couple of strays

Top row:
(all minis)

• unnamed green (Color Theory set)
• unnamed light green (ditto)
• Kale (Chirality)
• N-Evergreen (Ulta Professional)

Bottom row:

• Racy Green (Milani)
• Emerald City (SH Xtreme Wear)
• Ivy League (SH Xtreme Wear)
• Crocadilly (Essie Magnetic)
• Irene (Zoya)
• Two-Timer Stars (Maybelline Express Finish)
• Jailbait (Hard Candy)
• Diamond Love (Orly)

Those last two are the strays, and I fished them out of a bunch of top-coats. I don't really think Jailbait is necessarily intended as a top coat, but that's how I usually wear it, when I remember, because it's pale-pink and sheer and that's likely the only way I will ever use it. (The Maybelline is similarly sheer, but it's greenish so I'm not counting it as a stray per se.) I do think Diamond Love is intended as a top coat; it was in a discontinued bin along with Pearl Wisdom, and seems to have been in the same line. (I like Pearl Wisdom better, but I do wear Diamond Love occasionally. It's a very bumpy microglitter, - too bumpy, really, or I would probably like it better.)

Aaaand that's it, except for a few more strays that haven't turned up so far, like those Orly minis I mentioned. I did a count and I came up with 145 bottles pictured - but a good 25 or so of those are minis. I think one bottle somehow made it into two pictures, too - at least there are two things that are labeled Revlon Vixen, unless one of them is actually Revlon something-else - I haven't remembered to investigate that too closely (see below for answer to this). Anyway, maybe 115-120 of the 145 are full-size, which puts me about where I imagined I was at the beginning (I think I said "somewhere north of 100" or something to that effect in the first post). I'm trying to only buy polish when I just can't help myself, because I could go for a couple of years on what I have, I think.

ADDED: It's not Vixen twice, it turns out - one of them is a color called Plum Attraction. It's very similar in color to Vixen, except it's more of a frost. I'll go correct the pictures if I can figure out which one of them is which.

Stash, part 7 - Blues and Blue-greens

I was right that all the blues and greens weren't going to fit into one picture (that is, not if limited to what will fit into the bottom of the Sterilite bin that I've been using for all the rest of the pictures) so here are the blues and blue-greens, and the last installment (greens) will be smaller. But there will be one more after this.

Top row:

• Henley Regatta (Butter London)
• Maisie (Zoya Fleck Effect)
• Zuza (Zoya) (that's the one that's trying to slide down into the bottom row)
• Tallulah (Zoya)
• Mesmerize (Essie)
• unnamed dark-blue (Color Theory set)
• Midnight Cami (Essie)

Bottom row:

• Nail Junkie (Sinful Colors)
• Teal of Fortune (Wet n Wild Fast Dry)
• Blue It (SH Xtreme Wear)
• Blackout (Revlon)
• Pacific Blue (SH Xtreme Wear)
• Shy (old-formula Hard Candy)
• Sweet Peacock (Orly foil)
• Black and Blue (SH Complete Salon Manicure)
• Indigo (Zoya)

For a second time, I've thrown out a bottle as I was making this listing - Tallulah. If you look, you can see what appears to be a stripe on the bottle, which is where you can see right through to what's underneath because the polish never moved when I turned it on its side. I must not have made sure it was closed properly, at some point. (Actually, Henley Regatta had a bit of the same problem, but it seemed to still be in useable condition when I tried to shake it up, and Tallulah did not.) I'm not crying over Tallulah too much because I've never worn it much, although it is a beautiful color and I recommend it, if you like bright blues. I don't seem to be very comfortable putting very bright blues OR greens on my nails, except for special occasions. More muted versions, yes; blue-greens, yes; but not the super-bright ones. It's my one remaining bit of color stodginess, where my nails are concerned. (There are other colors I don't wear, like yellow, and most pastels, but that's because I don't think they look good on me, not because I'm uncomfortable wearing them. Which is a different thing entirely, to my mind.) (Also, Essie Mesmerize appears to be awfully close to the same color, anyway, and I'm not sure I've ever even worn that one but once!)

I had almost forgotten about all these old Hard Candy bottles - I got on a kick of buying them back when I was still at my old job, meaning these are probably around five years old. Trailer Trash is the only one I've used a whole lot. I tend to forget about the rest of the minis, and the pastels are just not me. (Trailer Trash is a classic, though - so is Scam, which I talked about back with the pinks. They had some great colors back then. I never have bought any since they started selling it at Wal-Mart but I've looked to see if they have the old colors and they don't seem to.)

Stash part 6 - Black, White, Gray, and Miscellaneous

(I had this written up all ready to post, and then I forgot to actually do it. Oops.)

Don't take the appearance of a "miscellaneous" category here to mean that I'm done - I still have a large pile of blues and greens that I haven't even made an attempt to sort out yet. If I stick with one picture per post, that means at least two more, I think.

Miscellaneous includes some top-coat-type things and some glitters and foils that didn't fit anywhere else.

Top row:

• Gold Rush (CG Boundless Color)
• Glitz (Orly)
• Daul (Zoya)
• Tilted Halo (Ulta Professional mini)
• Vinyl (Hard Candy mini - looks black but I think it's actually a very dark purple)
• Chirality Symbiote (holo mini)
• white Sinful Colors Nail Art
• unnamed gunmetal gray (Color Theory set)
• unnamed black (Color Theory)
• Vibe (Hard Candy mini)
• unnamed white (Color Theory)

Bottom row:

• Mist You (SH Salon) (very sheer)
• Let Me Go (Sinful Colors - looks gray here but it's really more like mother-of-pearl)
• Pearl Wisdom (Orly) (I've always used this as a top coat, it's very sheer)
• Party of Five Glitters (Wet n Wild Fast Dry)
• Gray by Gray (SH Complete Salon Manicure)
• Wet Cement (SH Xtreme Wear)
• Steely Gaze (SH Hard As Nails)
• Jet Black (SH Hard As Nails)
• Starry Night (Sonia Kashuk)
• Black Creme (WnW Wild Shine)

I'm not sure why I have so many blacks. Starry Night has glitter in it so it looks different from the other two, but Jet Black and Black Creme are pretty indistinguishable. (And that's not even counting the two black minis.) On the other hand, I've gotten where I use black as a base a good bit, so I'll probably go through it all eventually. I certainly don't need to buy any more plain blacks for a good while, though!

Wish list

I said I wasn't buying any more Zoya, but I don't have anything else to do right this minute, to speak of, so I am window-shopping. (Note that the links to individual colors are Share the Love - meaning affiliate-type - links.)

I am really jonesing for this one: Ali. (Despite being awash in bright pinks already. But I don't have anything that neon!)
Another neon I never noticed before: Charisma
I seem to be in summer mode already.

One thing I don't have is nudes - Pandora, maybe? Cool nudes are a bit harder to find.

I still don't have Katherine (or for that matter Frida) from the jellies. (Paloma was the one of that collection that I decided I must have.)

Here's stuff that was already on my wish list:
Storm
Nova
Valerie
Mira (would I rather have that or Dannii? I do like metallics...)
Ariel
Envy
Isla (I must've added a lot of this around Christmas, there's a lot of reds and glitters.)
Carmen (which I believe is Zoya #1, their original polish)
Sarah
Emmanuelle
(I'm partly listing all these here so I can have a record of them and get some of them off my official Zoya wish list - it has way too many reds on it!)

And of course there's Pixie Dust, which isn't eligible for the current promo anyway. I don't know what I'd buy if I was buying one of those - maybe London.

Having done the stash thing this past week will hopefully keep me sane - god knows I don't need another fuchsia glitter. As long as I don't find six Ali's that I have to have, hopefully I'll be able to resist.

Also: something to jones for that's not Zoya: Chanel Taboo. Gorgeous, but totally out of my price range. (Let's see, I can have six sale Zoyas or ONE Chanel...)

Kale, and Earth Day

I imagine that most of the people who read here are nail junkies and know this already, but just in case somebody doesn't already know: Zoya's having their Earth Day promo again, good through next Friday, in which you can buy 6-24 bottles of Zoya at half price, and recycle your old non-3-free bottles (if you wish - it's optional). The details are in that link but the code is ZOYAEARTH2013. And, unfortunately, Pixie Dust is not eligible.

(I'm trying to talk myself out of buying anything. As all these stash pictures have made clear, I have a LOT of Zoya already.)

OK, so, the sun has finally been out the last few days (and it's cool - beautiful weather) and I took pictures of Kale in the sun on the way in. This is the one that shows the holo effect off best:

Stash part 5 - Silver and Red

So here we have silvers - all glitters and foils, of course (the grays will be in another picture) - and reds.

Top row:

• unnamed silver glitter in clear base (Color Theory set)
• Luna (Zoya)
• FeiFei (Zoya)
• Twisted Tinsel (Ulta Professional)
• Bet On Red (Milani)
• Stop (Hard Candy mini)
• Bad Santa (Ulta Professional)
• No.08 (Sephora - these don't seem to have names)
• Chinoise (RBL)
• Karina (Zoya)

Bottom row:

• Disco Ball (SH Xtreme Wear) (a glitter in a sheer base)
• Celeb City (SH Xtreme Wear) (very bright-silver foil)
• Trailer Trash x2 (Hard Candy - a mini and a full-size)
• Unforgettable Heart (SH Hard As Nails) (I haven't even worn this yet, I think!)
• Red Carpet (SH Xtreme Wear)
• Vixen (Revlon)
• An Affair in Red Square (OPI)
• Riley (Zoya)
• Delilah (Zoya)

I almost didn't put either one of those Zoyas in with the silvers, but I had room so I was casting around for something to add, and they do look appropriate. Luna is very ostentatiously silver, but in a gray base so I had stuck it in with the grays, and FeiFei is blue-gray (as discussed here previously) but reads more gray than blue, really.

It occurs to me that I know I have at least one for the "Not pictured" category here: Tiara (Orly mini), which is another silver glitter - I don't know where this set of minis got off to but I know I haven't seen it while I was taking these pictures!

Chirality report

I'm in the middle of the stash thing, and god knows, I have to finish it while I'm on a roll or I never will, but here's a mani rundown, meanwhile.

(Wednesday)
I said this in the stash post last night, but to recap: I'm wearing Chirality Convergence, 2 coats. It seems much more neutral than it looks in the Etsy picture - but neutral in a good way. I said I was looking forward to seeing it in the sunlight, and unfortunately today is one of our rare completely overcast days, so I still haven't.

(Friday)
I am now wearing the Chirality that I really did the order for: Kale. And I love it. Actually I love both of the two I've tried. I am not utterly in love with the base color of Kale, but that's just because it's a little too similar (in low light) to some of the other grayed-out greens I already have. But I love the shimmery subtle holo-ness of it even in low light, and I love the formula, and I am definitely a Chirality fan now. Also, Convergence came off like a dream, which is also nice. I'm sort of planning another order in my head, in which I will order more minis, because why not? Try out more colors, see if they are all equally awesome. But I am waiting for a bit on that. I still have one more (the black one - Symbiote?) that I haven't even tried yet.

Oh, and I did 3 coats of Kale but it probably wasn't necessary. I think two was really plenty.

ADDED:
Two things: one is a review of the Chirality holos that I came across after I wrote this - only one of those is a color I bought, but she says the formula is very consistent across colors. Which is good, and does seem consistent with what I've seen myself so far.

And two, just because I came across it, and because I had never heard of Chirality until a couple of weeks ago myself, her business card:

And because I have gotten a bit gushy here, I would like to reiterate that no, this is not a person I know, nor have I been compensated in any way for saying this stuff! I just bought the products and I like them, so I gush. (Uncompensated Gushing: a really terrible band name.)

Also added: a picture of Kale in the sunlight

Stash part 4 - Bright Pinks

I knew I had a lot of bright pinks:

Top row:

• Blaze (holo from the Zoya Ornate collection)
• Kierra
• Lilith
• Paloma
• Juicy
• Kimber (this and all of the above are Zoya)
• Scam (Hard Candy)
• Strawberry Electric (Revlon)
• Posh Plum (SH Xtreme Wear)
• English Rose (Rimmel London)

Bottom Row:

• Reva (Zoya)
• Peru-B-Ruby (OPI)
• Continuous Cranberry (Colorstay - old formula)
• Shopping Frenzy (Sephora by OPI)
• Hasty (Jet Set Shine)
• He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not (Orchid)
• Slammin' Red (Studio M)
• mislabeled NYC that may be Fuchsia Glamour
• unnamed bright pink creme (Color Theory set)
• Status Symbol (Essie)

It's pretty obvious from the picture why I have all those Zoya bright pinks - none of them look remotely the same. Several of these are almost-but-not-quite reds or burgundies - or at least, "not quite" is what I thought when I was sorting. I've mostly been going by my own eye, here, rather than by what they're named. (And you'll see, I have another bunch that are more definitely red, as well.)

I wish I could get hold of some more Scam without paying a fortune for it on eBay - I love that color. It's sort of similar to Slammin' Red, but more subtle. They're both totally glitter-packed, but Slammin' Red has multicolor glitter, and Scam seems to be all silver. (Yeah, like I really need more pinks!!)

Stash part 3 - Dark Purples and Pale Pinks

This is the leftover purples from the last picture (mostly the dark ones), and the first part of my pinks, the lighter ones.

(Top row)

• Empty Stocking (Ulta Professional, from the Wicked Wonderland set)
• Purple Potion (SH Xtreme Wear)
• I Love You (Sinful Colors, a purple glitter)
• Who Are You Wearing? (OPI)
• Strobe Light (SH Xtreme Wear, a really packed glitter that's predominantly pale pink)
• Domestic Goddess (Sephora by OPI)
• Purple Pizzazz (Confetti, a lavender-pink glitter)
• Always Sheer Bliss (old-formula Colorstay)
• Lara (Zoya) (hmm, why don't I wear this more?)
• unnamed pale pink glitter (Color Theory set)

(Bottom row)

• Orbit (Revlon Nail Art Moon Candy)
• Plum It (SH Salon)
• Vixen Plum Attraction (Revlon) (I do have Vixen as well, but it's stuck in with the reds)
• Purple Potion (Fantasy Makers, a glitter)
• Nightlife (Jet Set)
• Departure (Jet Set)
• unnamed candy-pink glitter (Color Theory set)
• Rory (Zoya)
• Aphrodite's Pink Nightie (OPI)
• Japanese Tea Garden (OPI)

I seem to have a lot of purple glitters! And a lot of pinks, period.

Stash part 2 - Purple

I said a few days ago that I loved purple, and I had so many, it turned out, that I didn't even get them all into this picture. The darker purples are going to have to be in another one.

Top row:

• Convergence (Chirality - a holo) (in the small bottle)
• Amethyst (Colorstay)
• Fiji (Sinful Colors)
• Purple Haze (RBL)
• Lotus (Zoya)
• Harmonie (Zoya)
• Kieko (Zoya)
• Roxy (Zoya - you can't see it, but this is a glitter)

Bottom row:

• Carly (Zoya)
• Winterberry (Sinful Colors)
• Deep Purple (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear)
• Purple Rush (Milani)
• Goin' Grape (SH Insta-Dri)
• Unnamed glitter (from Color Theory set)
• Island Couture (Orchid)
• Dancer Is the Best Reindeer (Wet n Wild)
• Unnamed red-violet creme (Color Theory)
• Celebutante (Ulta Salon)
• Ultraviolet (Revlon Nail Art Neons)

I threw away Deep Purple as I was writing the names down - it looked like I had left it open at some point, and it didn't seem to quite be liquid any more. It wasn't dried solid, but it didn't move on its own and it looked incredibly goopy. That color appears to be almost indistinguishable from several others, anyway.

I'm now wearing Chirality Convergence, and it's a different color from anything else I have, and I like it - sort of a dusty plum. In this light, the holo doesn't show up much, so I'm dying to see what it looks like in sunlight.

My stash, part 1 - Fall Colors

I mentioned in the last entry that I had a box of polishes I needed to reorganize, and I've gotten as far as dumping it out and separating it by color. Then I got ambitious, and pulled out all (well, most) of the rest of my polishes and sorted them also. And then once I'd done that, I decided I needed pictures. So here is the aforementioned box, with the "fall colors" pile in it - oranges, browns, and burgundies. I don't have a lot of oranges, in particular, and not that many browns. I've already found a couple more things since I took this that I think ought to be in this picture - I think Zoya Carly is more or less a burgundy (Zoya calls it a "red-toned purple") and also Sinful Colors Winterberry is sort of a purplish brown, and if I was obsessive enough to go back and retake the picture, I would add those, because I think they read more in this category than anything else. But I'm not.

So what we have here is:
(top row)

• Kaufda (Zoya)
• Crushed (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear)
• Retro Red (Orly)
• Forbidden Fudge (Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle)
• Pumpkin Spice (Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear)
• Unnamed coppery glitter (Color Theory)
• Funky Monkey (Orchid)
• It's Genius (Essie)
• Chic Peek (Ulta Salon Formula)

(bottom row)

• Unnamed orange creme (Color Theory)
• Times Square Tangerine (NYC)
• R.I.P. (Orly)
• Flagstone Rush (Orly)
• Decades of Shades (OPI)
• Rage (Orly)
• Zoya Jem
• Voodoo (Fright Night Claw Polish)

(If there are a couple I would put in, as I said above, there might be at least one I would take out of this category, on further reflection. Voodoo is really more of a dark red than a real burgundy. And Rage is iffy, although I guess it's a very light brown as much as it is anything.)

Note that I really have NO nude/tans whatsoever in my collection (unless you count Rage). And really, when it comes down to it, I don't have a huge collection of nail polish overall, compared to a lot of people. But I have more than I ever get around to wearing, so to my mind, that means I have enough, and I really try to limit what I buy because of that.

By the way, this is the uncropped version of that picture:

...in which you can see the Sterilite shoebox in question, and also the quilt it's sitting on, which is one of my mom's. Completely full, this box holds maybe 40 polishes, all nicely standing up, which is probably something less than half of my collection. I know I had around 100 polishes last year when I did a list, and in the meantime I've bought more and given some away and it's probably sitting at something over 100, but not a whole lot more, at a guess.

ADDED: I realized on re-reading this that I had repeated myself on the subject of orange polishes and how I didn't have many of them, and when I fixed that, I deleted the part that Karen is referring to in the comments, which just said that my VERY favorite orange polish is Creepy Pumpkin, which is one of those Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers polishes, and that I couldn't find another bottle of it last year when mine ran out!

Yeah, I'm a Nail Junkie.

Here's Maisie over Indigo (2 coats of each) - and this is a couple of days in, so there is a bit of visible wear:

I took that yesterday, and then this afternoon I looked at Nail Junkie (Sinful Colors) which happened to be on top of a pile of polishes (that were in a box that I kicked over and haven't reorganized, but that's another story), and thought, huh, that's kind of a similar blue-green. So I slapped a coat of that on top to see what it looked like, and here that is:

The color in the pictures certainly doesn't look identical, but then they were also taken in completely different light. Overall, this combo (Nail Junkie/Maisie/Indigo) seems to look pretty similar to Maisie/Indigo in some lights and completely different in others. I noticed that in my bathroom it looked quite green, with gold flecks. (If you google Nail Junkie, it does seem to have some multicolor flecks. I also seem to recall that this polish is supposed to be a dupe for something - China Glaze Atlantis, maybe? - Yup - a near-dupe, anyway.) (This is only one coat of Nail Junkie, btw. After I took this I added top coat, which was whatever bottle happened to be handy. I think it was an old bottle of Colorstay.)

Indigo & llarowe

Chloe/Carly looked good all week up until yesterday, when my right hand got very ragged-looking. But six days is a pretty good run. The left hand still looked pretty good:

Anyway, that's off now and I did an all-new (to me, anyway) Fleck Effect combo, which was Zoya Maisie over Zoya Indigo. Indigo is a very dark navy blue with a bit of shimmer - it looked black in the low light of my living room. On top of that darkness, Maisie looks very emerald, in most lights, with the occasional blue flash. I'll try to get a picture later.

For the first time in a while, I seem to be on a buying kick. Last weekend it was Chirality, and today I placed my first-ever order from Llarowe. I kept myself more or less in control - I really started out looking for some of those great A England polishes that everybody keeps swatching lately, but they were out of Dragon and I didn't see anything else that was in stock that appealed to me. They did have the Color Club holos, though, which I have been wanting to try, and I also got a Picture Polish to try (Violet Femme, which is a great name, and I think it's obvious by now that I am a fan of purples). Shipping was very reasonable, I thought. I would be tempted to call this a present for my upcoming birthday, except that I already have a new Kindle on the way so I think you'd have to say my birthday is taken care of. But oh well. I haven't shopped much in a while, so I was overdue!

Chloe and Chirality

I decided not to try to make Orbit last another day, since it was looking pretty ragged, and took it off last night. I have to give it extra props for coming off quite cleanly, especially considering the glitter and all those bazillion coats. I didn't even bother with the finger cots, since it came off so easily without them.

The new mani is an oldie but a goodie, Chloe over Carly. CSM basecoat, 2 coats of Carly, 2 coats of Chloe. Carly is sort of burgundy-ish on its own, and Chloe just gives it pink flash - sort of raspberry(ish), at least in the light where I am now. They go well together. (My barista liked it!)

(There are some weirdnesses with the light here that had me checking my hands to make sure they didn't really look quite like that. My fingertips are not pink like they appear there, although my cleanup job is admittedly pretty nonexistent. Plus I went, "Surely I don't have tipwear already?" and in fact I don't. Apparently what appears to be tiny chips is just the light as well. That bump on my middle finger from where my pen used to rub against it in grade school is unfortunately quite real.)

Speaking of Chloe: I was reading back over old posts, and I noticed the one where I said "Chloe over Roxy - I never thought of that!" - except if you keep reading back to January, I did in fact try Chloe over Roxy, and didn't like it. My memory is crap - but hey, that's why I keep a blog, right?

I was poking around in somebody's blogroll last night, and I have no idea where I ended up that pointed me to Chirality, but I fell in love with those holos, and since she has the mini-bottles, I ended up buying three. It's really the $9-12 price tags on most indie polishes that have put me off this long. So I'll be reporting back on that. I think it was Kale, Convergence, and Symbiote that I bought. It was the green (Kale, of course) that sucked me in.

Orbit

I put the Revlon Orbit on on Tuesday, the last entry tells me, and I patched it up a bit this morning and it's still going. It had a good bit of wear on my right hand (which always gets more wear even though I'm left-handed) but you can't see it unless you look close, and who's really going to look that close except me?

The drive-though line at Starbuck's was long enough that it occurred to me to take a picture while I was in sunlight:



I do think doing layers and layers of glitter paid off, in the end. The glitter has sort of a depth to it if you look close. (Once again, nobody may notice but me, but it makes me happy, so hey.)

It really reads as blue, doesn't it? It looks purple in the bottle and the base looked pretty purple on the nails, but the glitter (which also looks purple in the bottle) really seemed to shift it to blue. Interesting.

Nail Art Wands, the bad and the good

(Sunday night)
Yesterday the Ivy League/Maisie combo was looking sort of worn, so I took that off and decided to try the Revlon neons again. I know exactly what I had in mind - it was something like this picture here. If I could get that effect, I would be happy with the white/neon combo. But I don't exactly know how they did that - do you do it with a sponge? I'm not sure. Anyway, I tried doing it with the brush and it didn't come out looking right at all. And I kept adding layers and it got so thick that I sat in bed later and scraped it off with my fingernails, it was still that soft. So yet another unsuccessful neon experiment, but I had fun playing with it, anyway.

I did decide that I heartily dislike that whole Revlon double-tipped wand concept, where nail polish is concerned. It's too unwieldy - I ended up with white polish spilled all over the place. I need something easier to use.

So I took off the remnants of that, last night before bed, and then I slept late and didn't have time to do much,  and I ended up just slapping 3 coats of Chloe over bare nails. It doesn't look bad, but I don't love it either - mostly because my nails are stained and it doesn't cover that up at all. But it does have a glazed pink-gold look to it that is pretty. (I'm pretty sure I did put a basecoat under there, although I'm not entirely sure what it was. Nail Nutrition, and maybe another basecoat over that.)


(Tuesday)
Well, Revlon has redeemed itself somewhat - I finally got around to trying the other dual-tip Nail Art wand I bought back in my Walgreen's haul a while ago, which was Orbit, from the Moon Candy collection. Polishaholic has some nice pictures of it, although it really doesn't look a lot like what I ended up with. I didn't try to take pictures because in this light at least, it's really subtle and I doubt that the phone is going to capture much. The base color is dark purple which seemed similar to OPI Who Are You Wearing, sort of a "blurple" (I still hate that word). I probably could have gotten away with one coat but I did two. Then I layered the glitter over it really lightly, and did a lot of coats. The glitter looks blue, but it's just pretty and shimmery and, well, subtle, as I already said - as subtle as it's possible for a largish flaky glitter to be, anyway. I started out by doing just the tips and worked my way down on successive coats, although I'm not sure that you can tell. I wasn't even trying to count the coats but it may have been five or six - like I said, I was trying to go light. I put Colorstay top coat on top of that, and all I had on for a base was Nail Nutrition. It's a lot of coats of polish, altogether, and I don't know how it'll wear, but for now, I really like it. Call it a win.

(I did manage to do all these coats without spilling any polish this time. You just have to hang onto the thing and be damn careful - which is not something I'm especially good at.)