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. 

Scherer Calypso

           Good morning to everyone! I hope the Monday blues aren't hitting folks too hard. I'm personally feeling a little down about my nails, because they refuse to cooperate with my dreams. Can you believe that I broke another nail over the weekend? This time, it was thanks to my little cousin who swears that he's a stuntman. He was showing me his flying kick, and of course, he kicked the pinky nail right off my left hand. I picked the fool thing up off the floor and glued it back on, because I really love that nail and I wasn't going to give up on it. I'm so mad. Not at him, but at my nail. Man, this sucks. *roars*
        Now that I've got that out of my system, I can talk about what I really meant to talk about: Scherer Calypso, from the Chameleon line. 

Calypso is a frosty duochrome. Its main color is a silvery-lavender, but it shows green and blue as well. 

Also, I replaced my patch! It's not perfect, but it's better, so I can stop complaining about it.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, no flash. This is a really unflattering angle, but I wanted to show the color change. 

Natural light, no flash.

      Calypso is such a beautiful duochrome. The color change is obvious and fun to watch, although I'm not too keen on the frosty finish. 
      Although Calypso is beautiful, applying it sucked! There was lots of cuticle drag, the polish felt too thick and it wasn't easy to spread, brush strokes were visible, and the bubbles were horrific. All my fingers looked like this:

     I tried to ignore it and go about my day, but no ma'am. I had to take that mess off...it was just too ooglay. When I reapplied it, I was ridiculously slow and meticulous, and that helped some, although I still have bubbles and some visible brush strokes. I'm not surprised though, because Blue Sky gave me some application issues as well. Additionally, wear is horrible. I've been wearing this application for two days now, and I'm already getting cracking and chipping. 
    Overall, I'd say that I'm pretty much torn about Calypso. I love duochromes, and colorwise, this polish is a real winner. But putting it on was just too hellish for me to honestly say that I like Calypso. So I guess I'll call it a draw, and say that I feel meh about this one. I won't be getting anymore Chameleon polishes because I can't do it with the application. But I will say that I sincerely hope that CQ or Scherer reworks the formula on them, because these polishes are really quite lovely. It's a shame that something like formula would be what sinks them.

L.A. Colors Radioactive

            I still have one more Zoya left to do, but I just wanted to take a quick break from the brand. Today, I got to try out L.A. Colors Radioactive, from the Craze line. This came from the same family as Nuclear Energy, although they look 100% different from one another.

Radioactive is a light blue polish with a strong, sea-green shimmer. I didn't get any of the green shimmer and this picture is crappay, but it's there. Although the color is bold and vibrant, the overall effect is more mermaid-y than...radioactive.

And sorry for the bubbles and stuff. I'm going to try to remove the patch this evening, so I can apply a better one.

Sunlight, no flash. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash. 

     While Radioactive is not the most revolutionary or eye-catching color, it's pretty! It's simple, bright, and fun to wear. The shade of blue is nice too. I normally don't like light blues (especially pastels), but I do like how this one looks with my skin. It reminds me of China Glaze's Beauty and the Beach, but more muted and with less of a shimmer. Like...Beauty and the Beach is a more radioactive version of Radioactive. Heehee. 

      The formula for Radioactive wasn't too bad. The brush needed a haircut, and the polish itself was a little thin, but application was fine. The polish spread easily and smoothly, and I used four coats to reach full opacity, which I actually didn't mind. 

Zoya Adina

            Adina (from the Reverie Collection) is another Zoya that I tried out today. lol, yes...at the moment, I have quite a bit of time on my hands. smh.

Adina is another strong duochrome. She's mostly silvery-lavender, but also has a strong green shimmer and flashes pink.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Shaded sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. Behold the pink.

     With Adina, I had a funny time. Immediately after putting it on, I did not like it. I'm not sure why...I just didn't get that...angels singing type feeling. Blasphemy, I know. But I wore Adina as a full mani, and she eventually grew on me. I think I was expecting something a little darker and greyer, and was just taken aback by how pale a lavender this is. But once I acclimated to that, everything was gravy. The color scheme is lovely and the lavender, green, and pink work together nicely. Also, the colors combined with the shimmer makes Adina kind of dreamy...almost ethereal even. Adina does mean gentle and delicate, so once again...dead on, Zoya! I'd love to try it under one of the floral Bundle Monster plates.

   The formula on Adina was great. Smooth and easy. I used my Seche Ridge Filler again, and after two coats of that, Adina was opaque in three coats. 

   

And completely unrelated to nail polish, look at what my little sister made in ceramic class! At the beginning of the semester, she  said that she would make me a piggy, but somehow, she ended up with this cute, yet strange creature:

I have noo idea what this mouthless, noseless creature is. She says it's a monkey. I think it looks like a cross between a panda, a lemur, and the abominable snowman. Either way, I love it! lmao, it's so cute and indescribable. 

Zoya Ki

           Another sunny day, and another day of Zoya swatching. Today, I did Ki, from the Suede Collection. My pictures don't really capture her beauty, but hey...I tried. 

Bottle Ki. She really does look like a gasoline rainbow.

More pictures and whatnot after the jump!

Zoya Mimi

           This post will be about Mimi, my other color from Zoya's Sparkle Collection. Before I get on with the other stuff, I just need to mention how much I love that each of Zoya's polishes have an actual name. And not a pun or some random phrase or word. They have people names...like each new color is a baby. Something about the whole thing just strikes me as really sweet and tender, and it can come in handy. While I was swatching, my sister came in and asked what I was doing.  I insisted that I was hanging with Mimi and Charla, which earned me some looks, because quite clearly, I was the only person in the room. She kept calling me crazy and I just kept on saying that Mimi and Charla were right here (they were), and that they don't appreciate being ignored.  It was fun.  But enough of my mad ramblings. 

Mimi is a saturated violet base with small pink and purple glitter. This picture is horrible, but it was the best one I had. That's because Mimi was being a betch (Mimi is such a betch name) and gave my camera a hard time.

Sunlight, no flash. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash. 

Natural light, no flash.

      Even though Mimi was a prima donna and getting decent pictures was hard, I'm a fan.  I love that it's a bold, robust shade of purple, instead of a lighter purple. Light purple is all well and good, but there's something about a purple that proudly proclaims its purpleness, if that makes sense.  I think Charla was sparklier and had more evident glitter, but Mimi is no slouch. She's much prettier than my pictures would lead anyone to believe. 

    Mimi's formula was also perfect. I needed four coats to get her to full opacity, but unlike Charla, Mimi did need all four coats. It wouldn't have been okay to leave it at three. However, Mimi is one of those polishes where the extra coat was worth the work, so I don't mind. Application was very easy...Mimi spread easily and smoothly and was quite manageable. Removal was easy too.

   I know that I only have two colors from the Sparkle Collection, but man, I love them! Few things make my heart sing the way that beautiful and trauma-free glitter polish does. 

Zoya Charla

           Since today was sunny, and according to the news man, the sun won't last long, I decided to swatch my sparkly Zoyas this afternoon. I'll be posting them individually, because I went a little too far with the pictures to put them all in one post. So this post will be dedicated to the lovely Charla, from Zoya's Sparkle Collection!

Charla is an aqua, vaguely metallic base, packed with small iridescent blue glitter. The glitter also faintly flashes green at times, although the effect is much more pronounced in the bottle than on the nail. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. 

Bottle Charla is so beautiful, but she exaggerates just a tad.

      I'm in all types of love with Miss Charla. It's such a fun and flattering polish, and I love the glitter. Although it was sparkly and eye-catching, it was still fine and delicate, reminding me of the scales on a beautiful fish. My beautiful fish, in fact. His name was Neptune, and even though he was a fighting fish, he was so good and friendly. He didn't jump out of his tank (like some fish do) and was never finicky. And he used to play with me. I had a penlight, and he used to chase it around when I shone it into his bowl. And on top of that, Neptune was freaking gorgeous. 

    If it was sunny outside and I was doing my homework on the dorm balcony, I'd take him with me. Although he was nice to look at indoors, the sun really made him a star. It would reflect off his scales and filter through his fins, and he would look so hot. I'm sad I don't have any pictures of him. He was a really nice fish and I miss him often. Charla looks like him, which probably has something to do with why I love her.  

   Charla also boasts a perfect formula. It applied so smoothly and easily, and was opaque in three coats. I could have gone for a fourth, but it was fine in three, so that's where I left it. It also dried nice and smooth, so topcoat was only needed to enhance the sparkle factor. And removing it was so easy. I just used some Cutex Acetone remover and it came right off. No elbow grease required. ^_^

P.S. Oh yeah, I almost forgot! Charla gave me a stain. I'm surprised, because it doesn't seem the type to stain, but it did. So I guess I recommend using a good base coat with it. The one I used (Borghese Hydrati Treatment) isn't really much of a base coat, but I like to use it when I swatch.