Rescue Beauty Lounge Lucciole

Hi guys!
Hope everyone is well and is having a great holiday season so far. Things are still super busy and I'm beyond pooped with everything that I have to do right now, but I'm hanging in there.
Went on a nice vacation to Barbados with my sister and then spent time with my family for Thanksgiving, so that was a great reprieve from the hot mess that is my everyday life at this point. 

But enough bitching about that kind of stuff, on to the polish!
For today, I have Rescue Beauty Lounge Lucciole, from the Fan Collection 2.0. I picked it up during the most recent 50% off sale, but it wasn't included, so I paid $20 for it. 
All pictures are under the ott-lite, no flash.

Lucciole is kind of hard to describe. I guess I'd call it a hazy, very greyed-out purple shimmer base, with small and subtle golden flakes on top. The base is probably the most interesting part, because when you look at the nail, the edges actually look grey and the purple shimmer has an effect of kind of floating on top. 

Lucciole. I mean...well, let's do good things first. Lucciole is very unique...I haven't seen anything like it, and the dusky inspiration is very apparent. The floating shimmer with the darkened edges is beautiful and adds a dreamy, romantic vibe to the polish. 
On the other hand, the golden shimmer is wasted because you can't see it unless you get rightttttt up in there, and then the polish overall just looks dull and lacks impact. I mean, the grey is grey, the purple is grey, and the shimmer is barely there, so you end up with a polish that has no punch to it. While I was applying it, I was actually confused about if I put enough coats or not, because it just never really materialized into the knockout that I was expecting and hoping for.
So it's hard for me to love Lucciole. It's not ugly by any stretch of the imagination, but if a wandering gnome strolled by, took this away and left $20 in its place, I wouldn't be mad. 
I might even be happy. 

I changed my mind. I love it; it completely grew on me LMAO. 
I think I just needed to see it in the right light and for a long enough time (at this point, it's been 8 days and actually still looks reasonably good) but I've come to appreciate its subtle beauty. So weird how that happens sometimes. 

Formula was fine. 3 coats for opacity, and they applied smoothly and dried fast. Another good thing is that the wear for Lucciole seems pretty solid. I've been wearing it for three days and with my job, it's a miracle that it looks the way it does. 

And that's all from me today. Not starting on a great note, I know, but I recently made some other purchases that I think I will really like, so I should have some prettier things coming down the pike.

To make things happier, here is a picture of Crane Beach in Barbados. 

Thanks for reading, and I hope everyone is having a great day. It's Thursday already! :D

Born Pretty Ylin Mood Polish #7

Hey guys!

Long time, no see huh? This job search thing has been sucking up all my time and depressing the shit out of me, so I haven't been doing my nails or anything. I just hope the end of the tunnel is in sight soon. x_x

But anyway, I recently received something from the amazing Nicole at Born Pretty that really helped cheer me up. This is Ylin Mood Polish #7, or as listed on the website, New Magic Purple/Sky Blue Color Changing Mood Nail Polish Nail Art #7

When it's warm, the polish is sky blue and when it's cold, the polish is a nice lavender. I have a very warm body and short nails, so here's how it looks on me most of the time. 

Natural light, no flash.

And here's what it looks like after a dip in ice. 

And here are some shots of it in between:

     Okay, so visually, I love this polish. Both the blue and purple are beautiful on their own, and when they are transitioning, create this awesome gradient effect. And the color-changing thing happens so quickly and effortlessly. I did a demonstration for my sisters with some ice, and they were all really amazed at it. So based on how it looks and works, I would 100% recommend it to anyone. I think it would be really cool to konad over it too, so stay tuned for that.

    However, application was a little bit tricky. The formula was pretty thin and watery, so I needed four coats to get full coverage and I had to go really carefully and slowly to get it to not have bald patches. It also didn't wear too well, maybe because the formula was so thin. But layering it and making sure to use a top notch topcoat would probably solve those problems. 

But that's all from me today!

Thanks for reading, and have an awesome Thursday!

Wet n Wild Back Alley Deals

    Hey guys! So first off, I'm really excited because The Phalanges Files has broken 600 followers!! That's so crazy to me, and I'd like to thank all of you for hanging out with me and reading my senseless rambles. I was going to have a giveaway anyway, but maybe I'll make it a little bigger to celebrate lol. 

Finals are fully upon me, so today's post is a little blast from the past from the backlog.  This is Back Alley Deals, from Wet n Wild's Ice Ice Baby Collection. 

Back Alley Deals is made up of lots of small amethyst glitter, with larger bits of fuchsia hex glitter thrown in. 

Sorry for the bubbles, btw. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

       Although I don't think I like the name very much, Back Alley Deals is beautiful! The purple glitter is so luxe-looking and blingtastic, and the little bits of fuchsia add some nice interest. I also liked how delicate and feminine my nails looked with Back Alley Deals on, since sometimes, glitter can make your nails look clunky and weird. My only critique of this polish would be that I wish the fuchsia glitter offered more contrast against the base and I wish the polish came in the standard .5 oz. size, but overalll, I'm really happy with Back Alley Deals. 

     Back Alley Deal's formula was okay. The coverage wasn't awesome (I needed four coats for the opacity in the pictures) but the polish went on smoothly and dried quickly. It also needed lots of topcoat to be smooth and shiny. In the future, I'll probably layer it to conserve polish and time. 

But that's all from me today!! 

I hope everyone is having an awesome weekend, and thanks for stopping by! 

Jade Vine

Hi guys!! Sorry for dropping out on ya'll like that...in the past two days, things have gotten incredibly real so I haven't had time to paint my nails at all. Been strolling around buck naked...not even any clear coat for protection...just enjoying the breeze.
But moving right along, today's post is going to feature a plant instead of an animal. Animals are cute (sometimes) and fine, but really, it's plants that allow us to live on Earth today. Without them, we would have no air...no air. So we have to pay attention to them too. This is the Jade Vine:

    Although this gorgeous plant can also be seen in botanical gardens and greenhouses and is cultivated in Hawaiian gardens for decorative purposes, it is native only to the tropical rainforests of the Philippines. Jade vines provide food and shelter to bees and butterflies, which are important organisms in the rainforest, as so many plants there rely on bees and butterflies as pollinators. Without pollinators, there can't be any seeds. And no seeds mean no new plants when the old ones die. Since the jade vines allow the bees and butterflies to live happily, that makes them an important part of the rainforest ecosystem too. Sadly for the jade vines (and the butterflies and bees), they are quickly disappearing in the wild due to deforestation. 

I really loved the colors of this plant, so I wanted to base my nail look on them:

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     To do this, I started with two layers of Diamond Cosmetics Tranquility and let that dry. Then I used a chunk of a kitchen sponge (didn't have a makeup sponge lol) to pat on some Zoya Breezy and let that dry a bit. Next, I patted on some Color Club Pucci-licious, and when that was still wet, I applied topcoat, to try to blend the colors in a little bit better. Obviously, the blending did not happen, but I still like how this turned out. 

I also think it would be cool to water marble with these, so when I can find the time (maybe after finals), I'll do that and show it to you guys.

But that's all from me today!

Thanks for reading, and have an awesome Saturday!! (Mine will not be awesome...it will be filled with homework and misery. ;__;)

P.S. Earth Day is tomorrow!! :D

Catherine Arley 673

   Hi guys! I'm sure many of you remember the Catherine Arley craze that hit the nail world last year, and although I generally try to stay out of the flow of those kinds of things, this time, I broke down and ordered some Catherine Arleys. Like five thousand years later, they arrived, but I was really over their shit at that point, so they sat in my room for another five thousand years, unloved and untouched. That all came to an end recently, because I finally decided to take 673 for a test drive. 

673 is a mid-toned red-based purple with a mostly scattered, but still vaguely linear holographic effect. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

I left it a little out of focus to bring out more of the holo. 

Natural light, no flash. 

Ottlite, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     I am kind of underwhelmed by 673.The holo effect is kind of mediocre, and the base color isn't particularly pretty or special on its own either, although it is flattering on the hands. And then there's the whole having a number for a name thing, which sucks, because now I have to come up with a new name for it. If I could do it again, I don't think I would include it in my order. 673 is adequately pretty, but I'm just not sure that it's worth the wait or the hassle, unless you actually like the more subtle scattered holo look. 

    Formula-wise, it was pretty good though. I used some aqua base under there (the stuff that Jessica sells with their silver holo polish) and it slid onto that really nicely and effortlessly. I used three layers for full opacity and depth of color and put some topcoat on top. It dried quickly and without incident, so that was nice. 

And that's all from me today! Thanks for reading!

A-England Lady of the Lake (Again)

  Hi guys! I busted up my nails and am dying of suffocation by homework, so here are A-Englad Lady of the Lake re-swatch pictures from the backlog. From back when I had fingernails and the time  and energy to polish them. *softly weeps*

Also, I took these on a field trip to the woods for a class (yeahh multi-tasking) and didn't want to bring the bottle because I knew I'd drop it on a rock or off a cliff or some shit like that.  So it's missing from the pictures...sorry about that. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Ottlite, no flash. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

   I really love Lady of the Lake and all that jazz. 

I know this post sucks, but there will be better ones soon...finals are upon us, and that means there's a light at the end of the tunnel. *crawls towards light* I also promise to have a giveaway soon, because you guys deserve something nice for being so patient with me LOL.

And that's all from me today! Thanks for reading, and have a good one!