Revlon Mistletoe (Part 2)

    Hi guys! A while ago, I wore Revlon Mistletoe from their new holiday collection and hated it. It was gross and ugly and I just did not like it at all. I couldn't return it because I lost the receipt, (-____-) so I just added some thinner to it and gave it another go. Here's how it went:

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

    I didn't have the textural issues again, so it turned out much better. Besides adding the thinner, I made sure to wait like five minutes between coats this time, and I guess both of those helped out. But I still don't like Mistletoe...it still looks a bit on the flat side to me, and the color is a so muddled and uninspiring. But I've learned my lesson...no more impulse buys and no more losing receipts. x_x

But that's all from me today. 

Thanks for reading, and have an awesome Saturday!!

Sinful Colors Swatches (Summer Color Edition)

       Yesterday, I was going through my drawers looking for stuff to purge and realized that I have a bunch of Sinful Colors polishes, but haven't seriously worn a single one. I don't know why...they just never really cry out to me. But if for no other reason than to know which ones I wanted to purge and which ones to keep, I decided to swatch them. I won't be posting them all at once, so for today, I have All About You, Unicorn, and Rise and Shine.  

All About You is a clear base with lots of flat, irregularly sized antique gold and copper shimmer flakes in it. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

   This is the oogliest thing I've seen on my nails in a long time. Like after I was all done, I looked at my nails and said aloud, "DAMN this shit is ooglay." I can't even stand how much I hate this right now. It'll probably look much better on someone with a different skin tone or layered, but by itself and opaque, I rebuke and refuse All About You.

    The formula was okay though..it was rather sheer (pictures are with four coats) and the base was a bit too thick, but besides that, no problems were had. There are bubbles, but that's because of the ceiling fan. 

Unicorn is a soft, buttery yellow creme.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     Even though Unicorn is yellow, I needed to buy it...I don't know. I saw it and just needed to have it. And I really don't regret the purchase, because I love the color, both in general and on me. It's a very wearable and sweet color, and gives me hope for yellow. But despite my love for the color, I can say with 100% certainty that I will never ever wear it again, thanks to the nightmare that was the formula. It took four painfully streaky coats to look like something, and I really can't put myself through that again. But if anyone can recommend a similar shade with a more reasonable formula, I'd love to hear about it! I really do like the color. 

Rise and Shine is a bright teal green creme base packed with crystalline microshimmer. The shimmer shows silver, green, and blue, although you'll probably have to enlarge the pictures to see it at all. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

    Love Rise and Shine! The base color is very fun and pretty, and the shimmer is fantastic. In sunlight, it twinkles so beautifully and reminds me a bit of BB Couture's signature glitter, just crushed up really finely. 
It also went on quite smoothly...the pictures are with three coats of color, and they dried pretty quickly. The only thing about Rise and Shine is that it dried matte, like a neon. So topcoat is definitely necessary to get the most out of it. 


And that's all from me today! Thanks for reading, and have a fun fun Friday!
P.S. My giveaway ends today, so don't forget to enter! n_n

OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow + Konad

            I have a test I'm supposed to be studying, so I'm gonna be quick. But in the interest of trying to post once a day, I just wanted to pop in and show what I wore on my hands today. Yesterday night, I only had about thirty minutes to spend on my nails and that wasn't enough time for a full color change. But I didn't want to do nothing, so I did some stamping, which turned out nicely, if I do say so myself. It was supposed to be like a garden at night, and it looked fine. But me being me, I just had to put a gem in there too, which is where things went horribly awfully wrong.

I used Konad Plate S9 and China Glaze Millenium for the stamping. 

The gem came from maytheps-uk on ebay. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

I think I should have just stamped some more stuff instead of sticking the gem in there. Or I should have quit while I was ahead. The good news is that I don't think anybody noticed.  LMAO. 

Have a great night everyone! ^_^

Milani Dress Maker

           Hello everyone! Last night, when I was trying to pick a new color to wear, I came to the abject realization that fall is in fact, not my bitch lover. Which means that no matter how many fall colors I wear, thanks to global warming, fall is not coming any time soon. So I decided to try something brighter and more summery, which is how I ended up with Milani Dress Maker on my hands today. I got pictures, but I need to just disclaim that this color played all kinds of mind games with my camera. And it played games with me when I tried to correct the pictures. So these pictures are going to look crazy as hell. Okay, here we go:

Firstly, I need to say that this color is wildly incorrect. It does not look like this. But anyway, Dress Maker is a mint green creme with some secret  green shimmer. Dress Maker's shade of mint has a bit more yellow to it than it has blue. 

Sunlight, no flash.

This picture is much more accurate, although it's still not perfect.

Sunlight, no flash.

Same deal...more accurate, but not perfect.

Sunlight, no flash. 

The color here is very wrong, but I think you can really see the shimmer here. 

   Plain and simple, I do not like Dress Maker. I know it's blasphemy, but I don't like it! It's so ugly. I will say that the color grew a little on me more as I went about my day, but I still think it's ugly. More on that later. But anyway, halfway through the day, I  decided to bling it up a little bit. Oddly, the color in these pictures is close to perfect representations of what Dress Maker looks like, without me having to do anything. I think it's because the light here was more yellow, thanks to the setting sun.

Sunlight, no flash.

This is one coat of Sinful Colors Green Ocean and two coats of Finger Paints Floatin' on a Cloud. And one thick layer of topcoat to make everything sparkle and shine.

Natural light, no flash. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Here you can see a little bit more of the Green Ocean than the FoaC. It's the blue flakes.

Sunlight, no flash.

And this one is to show how sparkly it was (look at the back two fingers!) and how thick my nails ended up. Looked like I had bad acrylics on. Smh!

      Dress Maker...how do I dislike thee? Let me count the ways! 

1. It's so ugly!! This shade of mint made my tummy hurt...it reminded me a little of swamp creatures. And it looked horrible on me...it pulled out the yellow in my skin and made my hands look sickly.

2. You can almost never see the shimmer. Such a waste, to have such pretty shimmer and hide it all the time.

3. It tells lies! On my camera, it came out this pretty, flattering green. Like, an almost Tiffany Blue green. See:

I also saw it this color in some swatches. But they were all lies. Liessss. It's not the color of understated luxury...it's the color of swamp things from the swamp!!

   

    Application-wise, Dress Maker was even more of a failure. The formula is very thin, and it took three moderately thick coats to get it to bottle color. Then I had to use a fourth coat to smooth out places where the polish dragged and left thin spots. Dry time was pretty bad too...I painted, used quick dry topcoat, used drying drops, waited an hour, and then went to bed. In the morning, I woke to sheet marks. And my nails were still a tiny bit dentable. No bueno...how you gonna do me like this, Milani? ;___;

    But you know, it's my own fault. I really should have known better. Blah blah, Chanel dupe, blah blah yeah. Buut...I knew going in that I don't really like Chanel polish. The only ones that were even remotely interesting to me were Paradoxal and Illusion D'Or, but I don't need them in my life. So I really should have known that I would not like Dress Maker...that's what I get for getting caught up in hype. LMAO.

   So I'm going to dig around until I find the receipt. I hope I didn't throw it out...there wasn't a coupon on it, so I bet I did throw it out. If I can't find the receipt, I'll just take the L and charge it to the game. Or maybe I can swap it. I think there are plenty of people out there that will appreciate this color and look fantastic in it, but I'm just not one of them. *sad horns*

   That's all I've got for today! Have a good night, everyone!

Wet n Wild Nocturnal + Ooglayness

           Yesterday was such a bad day. My aunt and uncle wanted to go to a couple's night thing, and I had to watch their children while they were gone. I love my little cousins, and they are so cute and cuddly, but it was rough. I was with them for ten hours and they did such naughty things the whole time. ;_; I was sad. 
           When I woke up this morning, I was still feeling a little down and wanted to paint my nails something dark and somber. I chose Nocturnal, from Wet n Wild's Craze line. 

Sunlight, no flash.

I don't have an close picture (I forgot) but Nocturnal is basically a blackened midnight blue creme. In most lights, it will look black. Although you can tell that it's blue sometimes.

 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

    As a color, I do like Nocturnal. Even though it is a little pointless (you might as well wear black), I enjoy the deepness and richness of this shade. I think it looks sexy! 

    But I didn't like the formula or packaging at all. The formula was a little gloopy, and it bubbled and was kind of streaky. And the bottle and brush was horrible. The top was hard to hold onto, and it kept on banging against the table that I lean my hand against to paint. The brush was moppy, and I had to cut quite a bit of it, because it was all crazy. On the upside, Nocturnal is highly pigmented, and can be opaque in one coat, with a really careful application. I wasn't careful, so the pictures are with two coats. Even though I probably won't be wearing this again because I don't want to deal with putting it on, I think it will be good for konading. And if anyone knows of a dupe-y color, please let me know in the comments? Thanks!! ^_^

 Then, I was bored, so I did some ooglay decorations on top of Nocturnal. I wish I had left it alone. 

Shh, don't tell nobody. 

It looks like Beetlejuice. :(

Have a great evening, everyone!!

China Glaze Cosmic

            Cosmic is another one of my previously forgotten China Glaze specialty glitters.I put it on for today because it's my mommy's birthday and I wanted to be festive.  But the best laid plans and all that jazz. 

Cosmic is a black creme base, densely packed with multi-sized silver and holographic hex glitter. There's more silver than holo, I think. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

       Cosmic is loud. It is loud and in your face. And it gets in the faces of all the people who are around you too. Normally, this would be fantastic, because few things are better than exorbitant amounts of glitter, but Cosmic takes it too too far. There is just too much glitter here. Yeah, I said it. There's too much. If the glitter was finer, or if it were sparser, I'd like this more. But that said, part of it is my fault, because I did wipe down my nail with a bit of acetone. Before I did, there was barely any sparkle at all, because the glitter was trapped under the base. Normally, a little acetone fixes that and makes the polish looks better, but not this time. :(

     The formula for Cosmic was not so pleasant either. It was pretty gloopy and thick, so application wasn't the smoothest. On the upside, it was opaque in two coats. But back to the downside, the glitter here is really gritty. In these pictures, I used three coats of Out the Door Top Coat, and I could still feel the glitter through it. The mani looked rough too. Granted, OtD is not the thickest TC available, but I used thick coats. I just think it shouldn't have felt or looked as lumpy as it did. 

    Overall, I think that Cosmic was a good idea that just wasn't executed in the best way. I'm going to take it off and find something else to do with my nails, because Cosmic took a flying leap over the line of festive and has entered obnoxious territory. Her party isn't until later tonight, so I have time. Hopefully, my next idea will be better. 

Later:

   I decided that I wasn't being entirely fair to Cosmic, because I didn't show pictures of it before I wiped it with acetone. With Meteor Shower, that was okay, because it looked better. But since Cosmic got uglier afterwards, I should have shown a picture from before. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Cosmic does look better here, but I still think it's ooglay. lol!

Blog Award + Ooglay Fauxnad

            Man, I can't sleep. So I'm here to clog up the blogosphere with a post of random and nail-related things. First order of business is a blog award, because I actually won one (homophone shout out) thanks to Lacquer Ware for Tips and Toes! I don't want to be all mushy, so I'm just going to say that I really appreciate this award, and that it means alot to me. I'm also really grateful to anyone who takes out time to read my nonsense, because there are like a bajillion blogs out there, so nobody has to pay attention to mine. So thanks, people! ^_^

Very pretty, no? 

     The rules for this award says that first, I have to tag ten other bloggers for the award. I wish the number was higher...even though I'm still new-ish to blogging, there are so many blogs that I've come to love and stalk. The ladies of the nail blogosphere truly amaze me with their creativity and great personalities! Here are my picks, in no particular order:

Pinkginger's A Thing of Beauty

Susie's Home and Hobbies

Skulda's Claws

ANOTHER Bottle of Polish?!

Nailstah

Little Music Boxes

Nail Junkie

Nails Beautiqued

Nikki's Nails

Imperfectly Painted

A Black Woman's Guide to Surviving Any Money Crisis

 (Not a nail blog, but I enjoy reading it)

Yeah, I picked eleven. Say something. u_u


The rest of the rules are as follows:


Make a post about the award including the picture and mention the person who gave it to you.

Put the award on your blog.

Let your nominated 10 know you've awarded them by leaving a comment. 


Second order of business is to post some fauxnading that I did over Scherer Calypso. I wanted to remove it, but my sister wanted to go to IHOP (and what a disaster that turned out to be), so I just stamped over it to kind of...refresh it. Again...what a disaster that turned out to be. lol!

I used the Bundle Monster plate BM20, and stamped on the pattern using Color Club Where's the Soiree? Then I put one coat of Finger Paints Floatin' on a Cloud, and sealed the whole thing with one thick coat of Out the Door Top Coat.

Natural light, no flash. 

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

   I think I would like this a whole lot better if I had just left off the glitter. I don't know what it is with me and glitter, but I just cannot leave it alone. If there's any possible way for me to use glitter, I will use it. Even when I'm about to take off a polish, I'll think to myself, "Maybe I should try some glitter." And then I'll put on the glitter, look at it for a while, and then remove the whole thing. Smh, I need help! The good news is that this mani did make me laugh all day. Whenever I looked at it, I'd think of RuPaul shouting "Extravagaaahhnzaahhh!!" and then start cracking up. Only Jesus knows why such an image would come to my mind, because my nails have nothing to do with RuPaul whatsoever. Just one example of why I worry about my brain circuitry sometimes.