Sooki & Fairy Dust, & a red I wasn't supposed to buy

I was intending to wear fuchsia this week, but when it came down to it, I found myself completely unable to settle on anything, and I ended up with red instead - Zoya Sooki, with Fairy Dust, which is a flakie, on top of it. (I know there are at least two more Fairy Dusts from other brands. This is the e.l.f. one.) It actually looks really good and it's wearing well, but I had a hell of a time getting it on right. For some reason the Fairy Dust did not want to dry - I don't know if something in its formula wasn't playing nice with Sooki, or what, but I redid several nails before arriving at something that was wearable. Sooki is cherry-red and the Fairy Dust seems to give it sort of a gilded, slightly gold-shifted finish that's quite nice. I don't know if this flakie is a little gold-shifted itself - it doesn't look like it in the bottle, if so - or of it's picking something up from the color underneath. But I like it.

The picture picked the gold up really clearly where the sun was hitting it:

I have to 'fess up - I bought something. It was a L'Oreal jelly, and I would have specifically have made an exception for those if I had had any idea I would find them. I had only seen them once, and that was at the Rite-Aid in Ohio, and they were kind of expensive and I passed them up and have been sorry ever since, because I have not seen them anywhere else. And then they appeared at the grocery store yesterday. I restrained myself enough to only get one, the red one (I think it's Jolly Lolly) but since I have gone on and on about my no-buy status, I feel like I have to confess. Since it's still July, I'm still not going to make it count as the one thing I said I was allowed to buy in August, but I think I'm going to try to restrain myself from buying anything at all nail-related for the first half of August, because going anywhere near nail polish is obviously too much for me. (I only found the jellies because I went back there to get acetone.) If I behave, then I can still buy that one thing that I promised myself later in the month.

(I know this all sounds terribly silly but I know myself and I'm a chronic impulse buyer. I have to be realistic about this or I'll just be buying everything in sight again.)

I went nosing around on Sephora's website and looked at their new store-brand stuff:
Sephora "Color Hit" polishes - some really pretty colors here!
Also, Sephora X glitters and Sephora X top coats.
And a whole gel system, too.
(I haven't been in Sephora in ages. I'm a little worried about what may happen when I finally step foot in there.)

Giveaway spotted:
Imperfectly Painted has a giveaway of a whole set of Cult Nails polishes, open until August 10th. I decided not to enter because those colors all look too warm to be flattering on me, but they're really pretty just the same. Go enter!

No-buy update, and some deals

Deal alert:

• This one is good until tomorrow morning only, and I doubt that anybody who doesn't read my Twitter (and thus has theoretically already seen it already) will see it here in time, but I feel compelled to post it anyway: Hautelook has what appears to be the whole Orly SmartGel system at a substantial discount. The polishes are $7.50 and they have the LED lamp for half-price, and remover and a lot of other bits and pieces too. I didn't stop to figure out whether it would be everything you need because I am trying to resist buying it, but it looks like it might be. (Ooh, they have Rage, too. Rage isn't flattering on me - see here for my experiments with it last fall - but I know a lot of people adore it.) (Edit: I apparently left the link to Hautelook off the first time. That's now corrected.)
• A different Nordstrom Butter London deal, but still a good one (at least if you like pink): basecoat and top coat and Trout Pout for $27. They must just be switching the deals out as they run out of stuff. Which is smart. (Ooh! and Essie fall collection minis! And... more stuff that I'm trying not to look to closely at. There are some Lippmann sets in there, too.)

Since I keep blathering on about my no-buy thing - and I did successfully resist the Hautelook OPI sale last week - I will tell you what I've decided. The new rule is, I can buy one or two things a month, starting in August, but the Butter London I've already bought counts as one of my purchases for August, meaning I can only buy one more. I thought of saying I couldn't buy anything else at all in August and I decided that sounded like a rule that was made to be broken. I have a much better chance at sticking to it if I allow myself to buy one more thing. (And no, a Lippmann 3-pack does not count as one thing. ONE thing, ONE bottle of nail polish. I'm speaking mostly to myself here, you understand.) This time of year, I imagine that's likely to be something from one fall collection or another.

I am still wearing Hot Cinnamon but it is definitely starting to show tipwear and I imagine I'll change it out tonight. When I put Hot Cinnamon away, I put it in the box with the fall colors (i.e., oranges and browns), instead of with the rest of the reds, because I decided that's really what it is - a very red-leaning dark coral, I guess you'd say. The reds that look best on me are neutral or cool reds, and Hot Cinnamon is just not one of those. I still like it, though, and I'm sure I will be wearing both it and Sugar Rush a good bit this fall. (Question: if I still wanted to look for a cool-leaning version of this, what options are out there? Zoya Chyna?) (and that's an affiliate link, fyi)

As far as what's next, I imagine it's time for another fuchsia, but I haven't narrowed it down further than that yet. I will of course report back later.

Hot Cinnamon

Since I've been going on and on about Butter London lately, I thought I'd mention something else that I saw on Polish Insomniac this week, and that's that BL is about to follow up their nail polish and lip gloss with other color cosmetics, starting in August. They look very pretty in the picture she posted. As I have said here recently, I'm not a huge cosmetics user, so I probably won't be trying them out any time soon, but you never know. (And actually, on reflection, that blusher in the picture looks rather like it could be that shade I'm always trying to find, the one that's not too pink and not too purple - so someday when my current one runs out, I might actually try it!)

I almost tried to stretch the purple Essence I was wearing through today, and then I took a close look at it late last night (because, y'know, I am an insomniac myself), and I decided it was chipping enough that I might regret that. So last night I took that off and oiled my cuticles up really good, and later I put on one of the couple of Julie G's I haven't tried, Hot Cinnamon. In some lights it looks really red, and in some lights it looks more like a not-quite-red - I think maybe it's shifted just a tiny bit towards coral from a full-on red, but it's hard to be sure. Anyway (and I knew this, because Karen told me when we were discussing our swap) it has the same basic formula as Sugar Rush (the red-orange), which is the formula I liked the most. So I was expecting to like it a lot, and I do. (The cool colors have a slightly different formulation, and so far I'm 1-for-2 on those: I liked one and one annoyed me. I still have one cool one - Rock Candy, the green - left to try, so I'm less sure about whether I'll like that one. Since I liked the blue, I'm cautiously optimistic, though.)

Here's Hot Cinnamon:

It's more interesting, and more matte, than it looks here, but at least the color is reasonably true.

In which I find an excellent bargain

I placed a Nordstrom's order that includes a nail polish; however, the nail polish is incidental to what I ordered so I decided this is not breaking my no-buy vow. Besides, it won't be shipped until after the end of the month, which is when I decided the absolute no-buy period ends. Yeah, I know, I'm grasping at straws, but I don't care. I am a sucker for a good deal, and this was a really good one, relative to the normal prices for Butter London - which is, according to BL's website, $19 each for the top and base coats. For that matter, Nordstrom's also has a set of the two alone for $25, which is also a really good deal, if the other one wasn't better. They all say 0.6 oz, which is normal size as I understand it! I looked because I keep wondering what the catch is. (The remover in the first set is a purse-size, but everything else seems to be normal size.) So anyway, I'm looking on the regular nail polish as being essentially a freebie, along with the nail care items which I have previously established are not included in the no-buy. And it is a pretty color (it's Thames, if you didn't follow the link and want to know). It looks rather like a foil version of Henley Regatta, really, but that's a good thing. I feel like I am totally awash in blue-greens these days, but I keep wearing them - and goodness knows, compared to, say, purples or pinks, I have an extremely small number of them. (Added: I notice looking again today that Nordstrom's page in fact calls Thames an emerald green rather than a blue-green at all. It's meant to be a color-of-the-year thing, apparently.)

Today's mani is Essence Break Through, which is a very nice red-violet. (Here are swatches from Polish Me Please - as usual, I may get a picture of my own but that won't be until later.) It's very thin but it went on well and was opaque in three coats. And I've had it on for 24 hours and it's holding up well so far.

P.S. I almost forgot to credit Polish Insomniac for pointing me towards the Nordstrom's deal in the first place. She posted a slightly different version of it two weeks ago (all the same stuff plus another polish of your choice for $36), and I didn't see that post at the time, but when I went to the Nordstrom's site today I found the one I posted instead. I would have been fine with either version!

Layers of green

Rikki over Irene:

Base coat, 2 coats of Irene, 1 coat of Rikki, & Seche Vite on top. I guess this is blue-shifted again, though, because in real life it's more yellow or maybe olive-leaning than this. I may have to try again in different light if I'm still wearing it tomorrow! (Hmm, would a blue shift also account for my fingertips always looking pinker in these pictures than they do in real life? I guess maybe it might.)

Added: this is just before I took it off after (I think) 4 days of wear, so it lasted well:

This picture looks only slightly less intense than the other one, but I do think it's more accurate (at least on my screen!)

The Last Haul

Friday night I took off the bright blue, and oh yeah, bright blue is a pain to take off. (Another big surprise, huh?) It made such a mess on one thumbnail that polish remover wasn't budging it at all, and I finally resorted to a bit of chlorine bleach to get the worst of it off. That's probably not very good for your nails but it doesn't seem to have done any serious damage.

My Zoya order came, with Liberty included, but somehow I have no desire to try Liberty right now. (No more blue for a bit.) This is, for the moment, The Last Haul. It's not a very big one, but it's what I got. And if you see me buying any more polish any time soon, kick my butt, ok?

L-R and top to bottom:

• Sally Hansen cuticle oil
• Montana Sky (Colors by Llarowe, which are apparently completely sold out now)
• Liberty (Zoya)
• Seche Vite
• Suri (Zoya)
• Rikki (Zoya)

The Llarowe and Liberty don't look that different in this picture, but Montana Sky actually has a darker base, with bright glitter. Liberty is just bright.

So (to continue the story), after I got the blue off, finally, I decided to try Zoya Perrie. And - like every other paler color I've ever bought - it's just not flattering on me. I don't know why I keep trying. It's a pretty color, and I'm not getting rid of it or anything, but in my stash it's probably destined for layering. Which is basically what I used it for, in the end - I put Convergence over it, the plum-colored holo.

But by this morning, that was chipped, and I decided to try out Rikki, above. I was thinking I really wanted it to be just a little darker, though, so I put it over Zoya Irene. And I really liked the result. Two layers of Irene, one of Rikki. (Our waitress at dinner liked it, too.)

Two blues

I love it when people get all technical about nails: The Lacquerologist Tells All: Eponychium and Nail Plate Health and Care

Well, when last heard from I was wearing Julie G Blueberry Fizz, and I wore that for a couple of days. Here it is from yesterday with a bit of not-terribly-noticeable tipwear:

It probably really doesn't read as blue as what you're seeing there, but it doesn't read as completely silver as I initially thought, either - it's somewhere in the middle. A very icy blue, I'd call it.


I didn't get home until really late last night, but by then it was looking much more chipped, and so I took that off and put cuticle oil on, and left my nails bare overnight, hoping it'd have extra time to soak in since I've been changing nail polish so much lately and it's bound to be a little harder on my nails. And then this morning I put on two coats of Cabo Cruise, and topped that off with the blue Cocktail Colour, which is named Apple Berry Smoothie. (I don't think of apple-berry smoothies as being something that would be bright blue, but whatever. Actually it reminds me of those blues they use in blueberry-flavored candy, a bit. Like SweetTarts and stuff like that.) I wasn't sure how opaque the Cocktail Colours were so I figured I should have something underneath.

Here's a really bad picture:

It's out of focus, and I would try to take a better one, but the color is misleading, anyway, and I suspect that's the light, so I figure it wouldn't really be too much of an improvement. It's not really this blue - maybe the light in here shifts things blue, because both of these pictures were taken in the same spot. It's a bit brighter and a bit greener (but not much) - it basically looks like a cyan-blue foil. That's the good part. The bad thing is that it didn't want to dry, and it's a big mess because of that. I don't know if that's something to do with all the layers, or our general humidity - which is even higher than normal, right now - or what. So I will probably have something new at some point this weekend. But I do really like this a lot, in any case.