Color Accent Mani

Polish Hoarder Disorder has a nail design contest (EDIT: challenge, not contest - silly me) every week, and I finally decided to participate this week. As it says in the challenge post, "This week's challenge is to create a grayscale nail design and include a pop of color!" After experimenting with several different designs, I came up with this:

I used Pure Ice Kiss Me Here for grey, Sally Girl white for white, Rimmel Black Satin for black, and China Glaze For Audrey for blue. I painted the black tips freehand, and used a toothpick to do the zig-zags.. I'm very happy with this - my right hand does not look as good, but it's okay. I definitely need to practice making designs with my left hand, though.

Thanks for reading, and let me know if you've submitted anything to PHD's challenge!

Nina Ultra Pro Like Butta

I can't bring myself to take off Mimi yet, so here are some swatches from last week:

Yellow nail polish is notorious for being streaky and difficult to apply, and Like Butta was no different. I only used three coats here, but it was still slightly streaky and I definitely would've applied a fourth coat if I were wearing it as a full mani.

 indoors, artificial light

 outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight 

The picture taken outdoors in the sun is definitely the most accurate of the three, though Like Butta is slightly darker and very slightly orange-er in real life. Also, it doesn't clash with my skin tone nearly as much as it does in the pictures, and is probably the most skin-tone friendly yellow I own--though I must confess I only have three. I've got to do something about that! At any rate, Like Butta is a great color for summer or whatever time of the year you feel like wearing it.

Zoya Mimi + Sally Hansen In the Spotlight

Yay, 20 followers! I am absolutely thrilled. Thank you all for following and commenting - I really appreciate it. Today I decided to try Zoya Mimi, a deep glass-flecked purple with gold shimmer. Considering it was the polish I was most looking forward to receiving in the polish exchange, it's kind of surprising that I hadn't tried it yet. Maybe I was afraid I'd be disappointed? Fortunately, that was definitely not the case. I decided to add In the Spotlight, but I didn't want to cover up Mimi entirely, so I just did it on one nail on each hand (pointer finger on my right hand, ring finger on my left). I quite like the results:

indoors, artificial light

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

The first picture is probably the most color-accurate; the last two show Mimi as more blue than it actually is. However, Mimi is not quite as dark as it appears in the first picture. In the Spotlight is silver holo glitter, but the holo unfortunately doesn't really show up in these pictures. I was pleased with In the Spotlight's application - I only used one coat and while you can't tell in my pictures, coverage was actually pretty good. I may add the glitter to the rest of my nails later, but right now I'm happy just staring at Mimi's gorgeousness. Thanks for reading!

China Glaze Golden Enchantment

As I mentioned in a previous post, I snagged this recently at Sally Beauty Supply for $1. Yup, I was pretty ecstatic. I have been in love with anything glittery lately, so I was really looking forward to wearing it both on its own and layered.

First, I tried wearing Golden Enchantment on its own. Since it's a holo glitter in a clear base, I knew that it wouldn't be opaque; however, I wanted to see what it would look like by itself since it was so amazing in the bottle. I was pleasantly surprised to find that one coat actually gave decent coverage--I think it'd be great as the sheer color in a French manicure. However, I wanted the full monty (I'm not referring to the butter LONDON lacquer, though I'd like that too), so I exercised some of the little patience I have and layered on five medium coats of this baby. It took me forever and a day, but eventually I got this hotness as a result:

sunlight

shade

Golden Enchantment is much more gold and much more holo and much more glittery than these pictures show. However, the pictures are accurate in that Golden Enchantment looks like a simple gold glitter until you get into the sunlight - it looks very unobtrusive until the sun hits it, and then it visually explodes. I am in LOVE. I know I say love at least five times in most of my posts, but this is...I don't even have words. My mom actually scolded me for looking at my nails constantly instead of joining in the conversation at lunch with our extended family. It's probably a good thing I don't drive, don't you think? Anyway, this is one of the only polishes that I would actually be willing to use five coats of, because it's absolutely stunning. It's stunning with just one coat, even, but five is just amazing. Oh, and might I mention that it wasn't rough at all? I did apply topcoat, but I didn't need it to even the polish out. Reluctant as I was to take off that gorgeousness, I wanted to see what Golden Enchantment looked like on other polishes.

From left to right and thumb to pinkie, the base colors are: Charlotte Russe unnamed, Zoya Roxy, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue It, Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Diamonds, Borghese Sonata Berry. I used two coats of the base colors and one coat of Golden Enchantment on each nail. I took a bunch of pictures, but none of them do any justice to how amazing these combinations look. The Charlotte Russe gold looks like it has holo glitter in the bottle, but it doesn't show up at all on the nail, so the glitter top coat basically made it look like what it should have been in the first place. The image of Diamonds is particularly crappy--the actual base polish is a sort of glass-flecked shimmer that is kind of holo if you look really, really closely, and it looks amazing with Golden Enchantment. The Borghese is actually very distinctively a berry, though it looks almost black in my picture, and Blue It is darker than it looks above. The glitter is just amazing in real life, and I'm disappointed that I was unable to capture it accurately. Roxy and Blue It are my favorite combinations (I'm going to wear one as my next pedi), but they are all gorgeous.

If you've made it to the end of my post, congratulations and thanks for reading! If not, well, I understand--I can get kind of long-winded. :) 

FYI

I imagine most of you have read Sara's (aka Daily Polish's) article describing a cease and desist letter she received from Ginger + Liz, but if not, here it is. I'm not going to write a huge long post about it, because I feel like that territory has been quite adequately covered. I will say, however, that it annoys me to no end when a company does something that is not only "not nice," but is actually detrimental to their business--I don't know how many commenters and bloggers I've seen that have declared that they won't be buying Ginger + Liz products anymore, but there are a lot, and I'm one of them. I feel like I should clarify, though, that this is all my personal opinion and that I'm not trying to make up my own facts without any evidence. Geez, don't sue me. :/

Charlotte Russe Charcoal Holo and Mini Haul!

I got this unnamed Charlotte Russe polish about a year ago and had only worn it once or twice. Today, I decided to get it back out again. It's a charcoal holo, and this is what it looks like in the bottle:

This picture isn't the greatest, but you get the idea. In the bottle it looks like it's jam-packed with gorgeous holo glitter. On the nail...it's not. It's still looks great, but in most lights you have to look really closely to see that it has any glitter in it at all--it just looks like a charcoal shimmer. I had forgotten this since the last time I wore it, and was pretty disappointed. In an effort to make it more impressive and sparkly, I added a coat of Sephora by OPI Only Gold for Me glitter top coat. The results: 

indoors, artificial light

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

Gorgeous! My pictures are kind of blurry and crappy, so sorry for that--I don't know if it's because I've been tired all day and can't operate a camera properly or if this combination is just too amazing and glittery for my poor camera to capture properly. Anyway, while it does look black in really, really dim light, the base in clearly charcoal, and it looks absolutely wonderful with the glitter top coat. The combination actually kind of reminds me of Ke$ha's album cover for Animal...totally unintentional. At any rate, I really love it, and I'm not sure I'll ever wear the charcoal alone again!

In other news, I went to Sally Beauty Supply today and then Walgreens, and I ended up buying five bottles of nail polish. The middle three had been lemmings of mine, and the other two were just really pretty. :) Here they are:

 
From left to right they are: Sally Hansen In the Spotlight, China Glaze Golden Enchantment, Orly Luxe, Orly Rage (both Orly polishes are from Cosmic FX Spring 2010), and Nina Ultra Pro Grin and Berry It. I was especially excited to find the China Glaze because I knew it was being discontinued and figured I'd never find it, but it was on the sale table for $1! I can't wait to try all of these and show them to you in more detail.

China Glaze For Audrey

This is the second time I've worn For Audrey, and I absolutely adore it. I had wanted it for a long time, but was kind of hesitant to actually get it because I was afraid it would give me lobster hands. Fortunately, it doesn't! My hands still look kind of pink, but my hands look kind of pink even when I'm not wearing nail polish at all, so that's not For Audrey's fault.

indoors, artificial light

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sunlight

The last picture is the most color-accurate--the first is a bit too green. I was very impressed with For Audrey's application--since it's a light color, I expected at least three coats, but I was actually opaque with two medium coats. While I don't really think For Audrey is a mint, it's a very pretty color and one that I will wear often.

Zoya Irene

I'm currently wearing China Glaze Golden Enchantment, but since I want to layer it over a few things before posting, I'll give you Zoya Irene instead. I swatched this a while back as an "extra" post to use when I didn't have a current post handy. Also, you should go enter the Polish or Perish anniversary giveaway. They've got a boatload of stuff to share, and anyone can enter! Now, on to the pretty--

Zoya Irene is a lovely, mossy green that is somewhere between a frost and a shimmer--it's not as brushstroke-y as some frosts, but it definitely does have brushstrokes, so I'm calling it a frost. Normally, this would be the kiss of death for me, as I, like many, hate brushstrokes. However, Irene is so beautiful that I can forgive its minimal brushstroke-y-ness, and it's another two-coater to boot.

indoors, artificial light

 outdoors, in shade

 outdoors, in (moderate) sun

The indoors picture is the most accurate, while the other two don't really show the marvelousness of Irene. You can see Zoya's color drop, which is completely color-accurate, here. Irene makes me think of crushed olive green velvet and moss and fall, and I love it. Now if it were actually fall...I'm getting tired of these summer temperatures. I just can't stand heat and humidity, especially when it's so bad that my glasses fog up every time I go outside.

Zoya Malia

 Guess what? I won something! Brooke of Babbling Brooke had seven giveaways throughout the day yesterday, and I, a notoriously unlucky person, won a pack of Kiss Catwalk Glue-on Nails! I can't wait to try them--the last time I used fake nails was when I was the Big Bad Wolf in a play in 5th or 6th grade and used bronze fake nails for claws. Anyway, I'm super-excited and thankful to Brooke for having all those giveaways. On to my NOTD!

I was really, really impressed by the lovely lavender Malia. For a pastel, it applied amazingly and was also incredibly opaque--one coat of Malia had almost complete opacity--I couldn't even see my nail line, and the only reason I did two coats was a couple bald spots.

indoors, artificial light

outdoors, shade

outdoors, sun

Even if I was entirely colorblind I would be able to tell that Malia is purple--it photographs horribly. The indoor picture is too red, the shaded picture is too blue, and the sunlit picture is both too blue and too pale. I think the indoor picture is probably the most accurate, but if you want to see what Malia actually looks like, Zoya can show you here. Don't pay attention to the bottle picture, though; the color drop is more true.

I got Malia, like all the other Zoyas I have right now, through the nail polish exchange, and I kind of feel like I was cheating somehow by getting so many great polishes for just the price of shipping. I am officially in love with Zoya, and the enormous success I've had with Zoya's formula and colors so far will ensure that I will buy more.

Nina Ultra Pro Salsa

I used two coats of this and it was completely opaque. There was some streaking on the first coat, but the second coat evened it all out and made it absolutely perfect. I must say, though, the fact that this is called "Salsa" kind of confuses me--even green salsa is not, in my experience, this shade.

 indoors, artificial light

 outdoors, shade

 outdoors, sun

The indoor picture is pretty much accurate, but the outdoor pictures are not. In those, it looks kind of dusty and almost teal, and Salsa is neither--it's a straight-up green. I love this shade, and while there are probably similar ones or dupes, I don't have anything like it. I look forward to having Salsa on my nails in the future. :)