I am not big on team spirit. I don't do the matchy matchy thing. But when my manager told me, very seriously, that I was expected to be "part of the team" for a work event I kind of had to. So what do I do? I pull out polishes in our team colors and some nail art.
Our team colors were orange and teal, so I started with three coats of OPIs Call Me Gwen-ever with is an orange cream. On most people, two coats would have been perfectly fine. The formula is smooth and painted on without a problem. Unfortunately, because my nails are long and there is a large amount of white tip area, I could still see VNL with two coats. The third coat made it perfectly opaque for my high standards. Call Me Gwen-ever is from OPIs 2012 Amazing Spider-Man collection, so it would be considered a hard to find polish. I did buy this polish when it was readily available in most stores, and since then I have only seen it once in a random mom and pop beauty supply shop. Would I say it is a must have polish? Meh? I'm not the hugest wearer of orange polish and I'm sure other brands have more readily available options. If you happen to come across it at a decent price, go for it, especially if you are a comic book lover.
For the rest of my mani I used Essie Comfort Zone and Sephora's Formula X in Zing. On a whim, I also grabbed my Ciate Flower Manicure kit. I painted Essie Comfort Zone on my ring finger as an accent. It is a silver and gold microglitter that is pretty dense and painted on in two coats. It is from Essie's Winter 2012, so you can't really find it in stores too easily, but it is available on Essie's website. For the polka dots on my pointer finger and pinkie, I used Sephora's new house brand of polish Formula X in Zing. It is a great teal blue cream that is actually opaque in one coat. *gasp!* Shocking I know.
Now for my super interesting thumb and middle finger. I used the Ciate Flower Manicure kit which comes with real pressed flowers, a mini bottle of Candy Floss (a standard pink cream), and a full sized bottle of fast dry top coat. According to the instructions, you paint your nails as normal and while the top coat is still wet, you place the flowers on your nails, then brush another coat of the fast drying top coat. Now, I hate opening a bottle of top coat when I'm already in the middle of one. I don't like having multiple open bottles of something so standard, so I used my usual HK Girl instead of the Ciate top coat they had supplied.
At first I thought that it had worked just fine. My nails looked pretty damn cool and I was excited to show them off at work. But the next morning while I was in my shower, the top coat peeled off. The flowers became exposed and fell apart in the water. It totally sucked. I don't know if they always do that and this kit is meant more for a one day use kind of thing, or if their top coat really makes all the difference. I will have to try it again and report back my findings.
As a side note, when I removed the flowers with nail polish remover, they stained my fingers like crazy. I suspect it has more to do with the color of the flowers than the product itself. I don't think the lighter colored flowers in the kit would do the same thing.
Now for my super interesting thumb and middle finger. I used the Ciate Flower Manicure kit which comes with real pressed flowers, a mini bottle of Candy Floss (a standard pink cream), and a full sized bottle of fast dry top coat. According to the instructions, you paint your nails as normal and while the top coat is still wet, you place the flowers on your nails, then brush another coat of the fast drying top coat. Now, I hate opening a bottle of top coat when I'm already in the middle of one. I don't like having multiple open bottles of something so standard, so I used my usual HK Girl instead of the Ciate top coat they had supplied.
At first I thought that it had worked just fine. My nails looked pretty damn cool and I was excited to show them off at work. But the next morning while I was in my shower, the top coat peeled off. The flowers became exposed and fell apart in the water. It totally sucked. I don't know if they always do that and this kit is meant more for a one day use kind of thing, or if their top coat really makes all the difference. I will have to try it again and report back my findings.
As a side note, when I removed the flowers with nail polish remover, they stained my fingers like crazy. I suspect it has more to do with the color of the flowers than the product itself. I don't think the lighter colored flowers in the kit would do the same thing.
As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money. I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)
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