Mani Monday: Leather and Studs

Guys, I have some terrible news.  My ring finger had a gnarly tear that I've been managing to keep patched up and I've been nursing for about a week, but it finally broke all the way though.  If you're following me on Instagram, you would have seen the break when it first happened.  So now I'm back down to nubbins.  I'm going to try to grow them out and hopefully be back to swatching for you guys soon.  In the mean time, I do have a couple of back ups and older pictures I hadn't been able to post yet.  This is one of those!

I like to pretend that I'm a badass.  I really am the exact opposite.  I'm more of a fluffy, cute, pink princess, glitter and sparkles, unicorns and rainbows kind of girl.  Once in a while though, I do like to be cool.  This manicure did that for me.  

I am wearing Bliss Polish Jax with Nails Inc Noho as my accent nail.  Jax is from Bliss's Son's of Anarchy collection and it's awesome.  For the picture I used two coats, but a careful one coat would be enough.  I just had the odd bald patch, so the second coat was done one nail at a time so that I could press a stud at the base of each nail.  It dries to a matte finish and its a really nice gunmetal shimmer.  A layer of top coat would have made this a lot more shimmery, but I loved it just the way it was.  Noho is from Nails Inc's Leather Effect line that came out late last spring/early summer.  This is my go to black texture and I love it.  This painted on the same way as Jax, almost completely opaque in one coat.  I placed four studs on my accent nail in the shape of a diamond and called it a day.

I got the studs from Born Pretty Store a while ago and they are awesome.  I got a plastic zippered pouch full of them for about $3 and they are great to have around when a rhinestone isn't quite what I'm going for with my nails.  

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. ;)

Hard to Find Friday: Max Factor Sunny Pink and Dazzling Blue

I've always wanted Max Factor's Fantasy Fire, which is the most well known dupe for the infamous Clarins 230.  Let's be honest, there is no way I'm spending $100 plus on a nail polish.  I'm not THAT crazy.  :-P  I already own Color Club's The Uptown which is pretty similar to Clarins 230, but Fantasy Fire is supposed to be the closest.  So when one of my best friends went to England for her honeymoon earlier this year, I kindly requested (demanded) that she bring me back a bottle of Fantasy Fire.  Unfortunately, she could not find it, but she did bring me two other gorgeous polishes.  As a side note, if you have any interest in screenwriting, she has a tumblr blog called WriterLyn.  Check her out!  She has a fancy Master's degree and totally knows what she's talking about.

After thinking about it for a while, I decided that these two polishes should still be considered "hard to find".  While it is true that it is available in drugstores, it is only in English bookstores.  There is no other way of getting it.  I know, I've looked.  Last I checked, flying over the Atlantic Ocean for a nail polish makes it a bit hard to find. ;-)

First off today I have Dazzling Blue.  This is a shimmery blue polish with a bit of green duochrome.  I love these kind of colors in my polish.  It just screams mermaid to me.  I used two medium coats for the picture.  

This is Sunny Pink.  It is another shimmery polish with a duochrome finish.  In this case it's a delicate baby pink with gold duochrome.  It's just such a pretty princess color that I can't help, but love it.  This was four thick coats for this level of opacity.

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you may already know that one of my biggest pet peeves for polish is the dreaded visible nail line.  Now while my nails were shorter this was not that big of an issue, but now that my nails have gotten longer, VNL is something that happens far too often for me.  You may be looking at these pictures and know that I'm going to start whining about the VNL.

Yes, my nail line is driving me crazy, but I suspect that these polishes are more toppers than polishes that are meant to be worn on their own, especially considering that I had to use four coats for Sunny Pink.  

So if you happen to be in England or know someone who is, these polishes would be very pretty additions to any collection.  Their sheerness makes them a little different than more commonly available similar colors.  

Untried Wednesday: Essie Van D'Go

I own lots of bright colored polishes.  I am a fan of strong statements when it comes to color, so I am fond of picking bold colors for my nails.  Once in a while though, I do need to use a palette cleanser sort of color and that's why I picked Essie's Van D'Go as my polish.

Van D'Go is a baby pink cream with a bit of peach undertones that takes two coats for opacity.  On the first coat, the polish was a bit streaky, but by the second it was fine.  My  issue with this polish is that pretty quickly I got some almost spiderweb cracks on some of my nails.  I've noticed that this has happened to me before with cream polishes.  I don't know if it's the formula itself or if the polish is getting old.  Also if you notice that on the tip of my index finger, the polish didn't end up completely smooth.  The formula was a little thick so it was a touch difficult to apply.  Hopefully a couple of drops of polish thinner will fix both of these problems though.

Van D'Go was a pretty color.  Right off the bat, the color was pretty different from what I am used to wearing, so it put me off. Though it quickly grew on me.

As the usual kind reminder, this polish was purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Mani Monday: Minty Polka Dots

I love trolling Pinterest.  I think most people do.  One of the things I search the most is nail art, you know other than wedding stuff, and today I have decided to recreate one of the first ones I have pinned.

First off, forgive my terrible edge clean up.  I've been using the well known ELF concealer brush that everyone knows, but it's always been a bit of a pain.  I got a new one that I've started using and getting the hang of.  Maybe I'll eventually do a comparison post later.

Now, let's start with my base color.  This is Morgan Taylor Mint Chocolate Chip.  It is a mint cream polish that is actually not as bright as it shows up in the picture.  I don't know if it's my lighting or my camera was just freaking out, but it would not capture correctly.  My next picture does have the proper shade, so maybe the camera needed the contrasting colors.  I've heard before that the Morgan Taylor cream polishes stunk and to only invest in the glitter polishes.  Using this polish as my reference point, I would have to agree.  It took three coats for this polish to be opaque, some nails needed four.  It was streaky and patchy.  I keep trying to find a good solid mint polish, and I have yet to find one.

This is actually what Mint Chocolate Chip looks like.  Yeah, I don't know what is up with my phone.  

So on to how I actually did this.  As soon as nails were dry, I took a piece of scotch tape and placed it diagonally across my nails.  You want to be sure that your nails are really dry before you place down the tape.  If not the polish will lift and it's a huge mess.  I swiped a quick coat of Cult Nails Fetish (black) across the top of my nails, and quickly removed the tape.  If you let the polish dry with the tape still on, then THAT polish will lift.  Really, using tape is difficult and stressful and I have no idea why I do it.  :-P  

Once that was all dry, I used a dotting tool to stamp white dots over the black and swiped a line of silver glitter with a random striping polish where the mint and black met.  This manicure was not particularly difficult, just took some time.  

As the usual kind reminder, all of these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Swatch Saturday: OPI OPI Ink

I am so sorry about how late this is guys.  My computer has gone and died on me completely and I hate doing full blog posts on my iPad.  I finally managed to steal the boytoy's computer so I'm back!  So let's get on with it.

I love wearing purple.  Between the combination of my skin tone, black hair, and not quite dark brown eyes, purple has always looked good on me.  I am a sucker for purple make up, usually eyeshadows, but especially nail polish.  Whenever I want to try a new brand, I usually judge them on the quality of their purples.  While OPI is not a new to me brand by a long shot, OPI Ink is a fantastic polish.

OPI Ink is a dark, vampy, purple polish with purple and blue shimmers.  After taking close to twenty pictures, this was the only one that came close to showing the blue.  In the sunlight, from the right angle, this polish also looks navy thanks to that shimmer.  It was so pretty and shimmery that I actually managed to keep it on my nails for three days.  It probably would have lasted longer on them, but I had to move on to my next post for you guys. ;-)  For me that is a huge deal because I am quick to get bored with a color.

The final selling point of this polish?  It only required two coats!  I am so used to polishes that need three coats that when I find one that is a two coater, I am in love.  One coaters are glorious.

As the usual side note, this polish was purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have people send me polishes just to review them. ;-)

Hard to Find Friday: Pop Culture Cosmetics Fairytales

When I came up with Hard to Find Friday, I thought that they would be useful to my readers because hopefully my reviews and swatches would tell you if that rare polish was worth the effort of finding it and the excessive amount of money it probably cost.  But today, after I had swatched this polish and had started planning this post, I discovered I could not find any trace of this color anywhere.  I couldn't find it on the Pop Culture Cosmetics site or any blogger swatches.  Amazing nail buddy CinnamonKandy sent me this polish earlier this year with other polishes from the same collection, which are still up on the site available for sale.  So who knows what happened to this poor polish?

This polish is a teal blue crelly with various sized circle glitter in fuchsia, baby pink, blue, and purple.  It sounds like this polish would be awesome, but no.  The formula sucked.  That may sound super negative from me, but oh my, it was so bad.  The polish was very goopy, to begin.  It was really difficult to work with, so even after the two THICK coats you see on there, there was still bald patches and VNL.  Also the circle glitters stuck together and came out onto my brush in thick globs.  On my nail they would all stick together and refused to be placed.  There was no way to spread them out around my nail.  As a result of this, the glitter would not lay flat on my nail and kept it looking very bumpy.  Even after I did a thick coat of HK Girl as my top coat.

My guess is that they figured out the formula sucked and pulled it from the store.  I have other Pop Culture Cosmetics polishes, and they tend to be on the thicker side, but the formulas are not as terrible as this one.  I am still able to move around the glitter and make my nails pretty.  This polish was just a big dud to me, and not worth trying to find it.

As a kind reminder, while this polish was not purchased with my own money, it was given to me by a friend.  I am still not cool enough to get free polish from companies.  :-)

Untried Wednesday: Zoya Storm and Nina Ultra Pro Holographic Top Coat

Hey guys, sorry this is coming up later in the day, but it's been a busy couple of days.  My laptop wouldn't work and I couldn't get it to stay on for longer than a couple of minutes at a time.  Monday's post was actually done on my iPad.  Also yesterday, I fell down the stairs.  >_<  I sprained my ankle, so I've been hobbling around.  Today's post is being written from my phone while the boytoy pushes me around the San Diego County Fair in a wheel chair.  Yeah.  The luxury that is my life.  :-P

So last Sunday, I went on a road trip up to Orange County with some of my other nail junkie girls out here.  It was awesome, we went crazy, and spent far too much money.  So now I'm on a no buy again until I make a very large dent in my untrieds.  Hence why today I bring you two polishes!

I wore Zoya Storm and Nina Ulta Pro Holographic Top Coat.  I got Storm at my meet up and was so glad I had managed to find it.  I had been lemming for it for a couple of years now and I hate ordering from the Zoya website, unless there's a sale going on.  The Holographic Top Coat I bought in my search of Butter London dupes.  Butter London has some of the prettiest glitter polishes, but the formula SUCKS on me.  Within hours it will peel off my nails in sheets.  The Nina Ultra Pro Holographic Top Coat looked identical to Butter London's Tart with a Heart.  

For my nails I painted two coats of Zoya's Storm and one coat of the Nina Ultra Pro as an accent nail on my ring finger.  I loved both of these polishes.  Let's just start with that.  Black polishes are usually difficult to use in my experience.  More often than not, they will take three coats.  Not only did Storm only require two coats, but it also had glitter?  There was no way that I couldn't love it.  The Holographic Top Coat was amazing for multiple reasons.  First off, it has holographic glitter and hexes.  Second, it is a really good dupe of Tart with a Heart.  I am not heartbroken anymore that I can't wear the original Butter London polish.  It is a quarter of the price to boot!  The final reason I loved this polish was the brush.

The top brush is the Nina Ultra Pro brush and the bottom one is the Zoya one.  This brush is HUGE.  I know there are some people that don't like brushes this big, but I love them.  One swipe and my nail is painted, I can move on.  It makes me very happy.

As the usual kind reminder, all of these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)