Urban Decay Bruise

            I'm so mad at my nails...they just refuse to obey me. I had another break and a split on my left hand on Sunday, and instead of fixing them, I opted to cut everything off and start fresh. So pretty much, right now my nails are rightt back to where they were in March. I'm trying to be optimistic, because it is easier to do things now, and I can enjoy the Bundle Monster plates more easily. Plus, now my nails can grow back strong and healthy. But I can't help but still be mad. Maybe if I baby them, they will be back by August? Bleh, idk. 
       But that's enough whining for today. I'm going to move on to what I reallyy wanted to talk about, which is Urban Decay Bruise, the first in a trio of beautiful, but very sadly, discontinued colors. 
Also, please excuse my disgusting hangnail. 

Bruise is an interesting fusion of blackened eggplant and peacock blue, with a strong green shimmer. In the picture, the shimmer is showing blue (my camera is obsessed with blue) but really..it's green.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. 

      I realllyy failed at capturing the aptly-named Bruise. Aptly named because it really does remind one of a bruise.Both have that slightly sickening but oddly fascinating quality where purple, blue, and black morph together to form an ugly-beautiful color that sort of defies description. The green shimmer is a great detail and elevates the overall look from just being a bruise to being a bruise-colored beetle sitting in the sun. Very pretty.
    Application was okay too. The first coat was a little streaky, but it got much smoother and easier as I put on more coats. The pictures are with three coats, and one layer of topcoat. Drying time was exceptionally good too, because normally, I can just use an orangewood stick to push the polish off my nail after I'm done swatching it. Polishes usually come off in one big, plastick-y lump. But with Bruise, I couldn't do that because it had completely dried in the ten or so minutes that it took me to take my pictures.
    Even though they don't make Bruise no more, it's happily not so hard to find! It's still available through ebay for a reasonable price. I purchased mine from sledgely76, and got fast shipping and awesome service from her. 
  And finally, I was wondering if anyone had any tips to help me hang on to my nails. Right now, I try to keep my hands moisturized, I use a glass file, I clean under my nails with a brush, I never use my nails as tools, I don't pick at things, I use Duri, and I take biotin. I'm also going to switch back to Beauty Secrets remover, as well as making sure to scrub my nails before painting. Maybe residual nail polish remover is drying them out and making them break? If there's anything else I'm forgetting or if there's something that you do or use that works well for you, I'd be super happy to hear about it. Thanks! ^_^

Nina Ultra Pro Purple-Xing

            I've been wanting to do a post about Nina Ultra Pro Purple-Xing for a really long time. I've actually worn it about three or four times, but there was always something interfering with the picture taking...not enough time, dry ugly cuticles, bad weather, couldn't find my camera, a chipped nail, etc. But today, everything happened to work well enough together that I could take pictures. My cuticles still look kind of busted, but that's okay.

Purple-Xing is kind of complicated. It's a mid-range purple jelly base packed with a riot of multi-sized glitter. There's round, square, and hex glitter, and they're silver, violet, and holographic, with some of the larger hex glitter being that like...transparent, opalescent stuff. And then running beneath all that stuff, there's a electric blue shimmer thing going on. It's ridiculously entertaining to look at. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. 

The second one is blurred a bit to show a little bit of how Purple-Xing sparkles in the light.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

I think you can see a little bit of the blue shimmer thing I mentioned earlier.

      Purple-Xing is one of my favorite purple polishes in my collection. I can't really give it a solid rank, but it's definitely up there. It's just so flashy and fun, and I really appreciate all the thought and work that I'm sure must have gone into this color. And for the money, it's a great value. 

   Application was just okay. Purple-Xing seemed on the watery side to me, so it was a little difficult to control, but that aside, there were no problems. It was perfectly opaque in three coats, but dried a little gritty. I used two coats of Out the Door Topcoat and one layer of Poshe on top to get it perfectly smooth and shiny. Dry time was reasonable as well. I went to sleep 30 minutes after application, and there were no sheet marks, wrinkles, or dings that I could see or feel. And as far as I can tell, it wears fantastically. I wore it for five days at one point, and when I took it off, there was no chipping and barely any tipwear. 

  My only solid gripe about Purple-Xing is the name. Why though? Why name it that? How do you even say it? Purple Crossing? Purple Shing? Purple Exing? Purple Christing? How? I would have been happier if they had named it Purple Glitter. Or even the terrifically overused Purple Rain would have been better. Or Barney's Tweaking. Anything but Purple-Xing. 

Sorryy!!!

          Whee, it's been a while. I hope everyone had an excellent week and is getting ready to enjoy their weekend. I've been MIA because long story short, I got into a huge fight with my mom and it made me really mad. So I started watching Spartacus: Blood and Sand to take my mind off it, and ended up hopelessly entangled in that madness. I have done pretty much nothing this week but watch that show. I didn't even do my nails, so I still don't have anything new to post, but there are some  things (one a polish, the other a fauxnad) that I haven't posted yet. So first, I'll do the polish and then the fauxnad. This is Nubar Prevail, from the Modern Matte Collection.

Prevail is a slightly shimmery, deep eggplant matte polish. It has a little grey in there too.

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

    I'm a total fan of Prevail. The shade of purple is really rich and royal, as well as unique. And I really like how it's a true, flat, matte without appearing too chalky or gross like some mattes can. 

   Application gave me a little bit of trouble though. Prevail didn't instantly dry like my other mattes, which in theory should have made it easier to apply. But instead, I had lots of problems with dragging and consequent bald spots. That said, I am not used to working with this type of matte, so it really could just be my inexperience that led to the problem and not so much the formula itself. 

  And I also wanted to show the mani that I ended up wearing to my mom's birthday get-together. I intended to wear China Glaze Cosmic, but it was ooglay, so I had to nix that plan. In the end, I wore this:

The base is Milani I'm Online, and the stamp is the interlocking ring pattern from BM21. I stamped it on with Color Club After Hours and then covered the whole thing with a layer of Essie Matte About You. I did have to double stamp and there were smudgies here and there, but overall, I was really pleased at how it came out. I got a few compliments on it too! ^_^

Nubar Purple Rain

           Today is looking like a good day...the sun is shining, it's not too hot outside, and I finally got off my butt and did my nails. I'm currently wearing Nubar Purple Rain, which was a color that I was fiending over for a really long time. And then I got it, and it took me about...three months to wear it. lol!

Purple Rain is a deep, mid-range purple jelly base full of round violet (or silver, I really can't tell)  and holographic glitter. My thumb nail (and only my thumb nail o_O) was plagued with bubbles, so this picture kind of sucks. Sorry!

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

     I really love Purple Rain!! It's my favorite kind of purple (dark and rich) and the glitter really sparkles and shines. At the same time, the sparkle is on the subtle side, which adds to Purple Rain's beauty. This is not a glitter polish that will blind your friends, but it'll probably distract you on a sunny day. It's like..glitter polish for adults. If it were dark blue, or if the sky was purple, I'd probably liken this to a night sky full of stars.

    But even though I love Purple Rain as a color, I hated the application of it. The first coat was really streaky, draggy, and all around, just horrible to put on. By the third coat, the polish went on pretty smoothly and easily, but those first two were nothing short of war. That won't deter me from wearing this, because it's just too sexy. But I will not smile or enjoy myself while I'm putting it on. >:o

   I kind of want to Konad over this, but I have to go. Maybe I'll do it when I come back.  I hope everyone is having a great day!

Zoya Bebe

            So I totally did not change my nails....I just kind of forgot. But that's okay, because today is kind of cloudy and lame and not really good weather for taking pictures. So I'll be posting my final Zoya...I had this post written and done like two weeks ago, but I just never pressed the publish button.  

Bebe is a pale pearly pink base with tons of multi-colored microshimmer. The shimmer is mostly silver, but it does flash the occasional pink, green, and blue. The color in this picture is all wrong, but it was the only one that showed the shimmer clearly.

Sunlight, no flash. This picture is much truer to color.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

    Bebe is a really pretty, ladylike color. The pale pink in combination with the shimmer gives it a girly, airy look. It makes me think of Glinda, the Good Witch of the North.  I miss my old nails. :(

   Formula-wise, Bebe is pretty good. Like the other Zoyas I have, it applied really smoothly and easily. My only complaint is that Bebe is really sheer, and I ended up struggling with it a bit, because I wanted it opaque. On the Zoya site, they give it a three in the intensity department, but I think that they were being a bit generous...two would be more accurate. After trying it in various ways, I ended up with what I have in the pictures, which is five coats of Bebe over one coat of Seche Ridge Filler. Five coats is alot of work....Bebe is cute, but she's not that cute. So going forward, I guess I'll just be using it as it was intended (as a sheer) or over a similarly colored base.

Orly Lola

            Today's post is going to be really fast. It's Get Your Ish Together Day at Chez Butterfly, and that means lots of cleaning and organizing. As a result, I haven't had time to change my nails and probably won't have any until this evening. So I'm gonna bust out a polish from my backlog, Orly Lola. 

Lola is a bright and saturated pink creme. The color here is a little too dark though. The others are more correct.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

      My bottle of Lola is only a baby, and I must say that I'm a little glad of that. It's a fun, basic and pretty summer shade, but not terribly exciting, unique or interesting. I can't see myself wearing this too often, and I'll probably wear it on my toes more than on my fingers, so I don't need a full size bottle of it. Like if I see a full size bottle on sale for a couple of dollars, I'd pick it up. But I wouldn't pay more than that for Lola. Let me be clear, there's nothing really wrong with the color. It just doesn't warm the little cockles of my heart.

    Lola's application was really nice though. There were no problems with dragging or streaking, and the polish was nicely pigmented. The pictures are with two coats of color and one layer of topcoat, and it was nice and smooth and showed no VNL. 

     And I meant to mention this at my last post, but I was a little in a rush and forgot. I have 51 followers!! Yayyy!!!!! *blows one of those horn thingies that people blow at birthday parties* lol, I know to some people that's nothing, but to me, that's really big news! It's like...100 more people than I expected to be interested in my blog. So thanks to all of you!! ^_^

 I'd love to have a nice little giveaway, but I don't trust myself to shop for nail polish. However, I've been stockpiling polish, and will have one pretty soon. Probably this fall, when I'm back in DC and can get to the stores in the area.

  Hokay back to cleaning. Someone needs to kindly inform my mother that slavery was supposed to be over like...200 years ago. And that children are not for free labor. =___=

Orly Star of Bombay + Fauxnad

           Yay, it's Friday!!
           .....is what I should be saying. Unfortunately, I am saying no such thing because in my quest for summer employment, I lazily went through the city-run agency that places students with employers. Today, they're making me come in (for the third time in as many days) and get "counseling" about how to conduct myself in a professional environment and how to manage my credit. So I get to go to spend my Friday afternoon in a sweltering, noisy, and messy office being lectured about things that I already know about. I kind of want to just not work with them, but a bird in the hand is better than two in the bush and all that jazz. Since I woke up in a bad mood thanks to these people, I wanted to wear something dark on my nails and chose Orly Star of Bombay, from the Gems Collection.

Star of Bombay is a deep, jewel-toned, shimmery, navy blue. Like, if you've ever seen one of those borderline black sapphires, it looks like those.

Like this. 

Sunlight, no flash. The picture is washed out, but the color is accurate. 

Natural light, no flash.

Natural light, flash.

     I really like Star of Bombay. It's all deep, dark and mysterious, and bright sunlight really catches the shimmer and makes it glow from the inside. I admit that indoors, it could be mistaken for black, but if you look closely, you can still see that it's blue. Looking at it makes me think of the ocean at night.

    The application and formula were really nice too. The pictures are with two coats of color and one layer of topcoat. The coats applied really smoothly and easily, and full opacity could actually be achieved in one thick coat. I only used two because I wanted something to do besides think of this afternoon. 

After painting my nails and a few episodes of Reno911!, I felt a little better. It really doesn't take much to improve my mood. Since I was happier, I didn't feel like wearing a funeral on my nails anymore. But I didn't want to take Star of Bombay off, because that would be such a waste. So I fauxnaded over it. I wanted to use Orly Snowcone...I love the look of konads with dark and light shades from the same color family. But I don't have Orly Snowcone, so that wasn't going to be possible. I ended up using Color Club Revvvolution instead, and I think that turned out pretty well. 

I used the floral pattern from BM20. Because it's skinny and small, and my thumb nail plate is wide, I had to like...quadruple stamp it to get all the corners and edges.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. Sorry for the dry cuticle corners.

    I like this look. It's really simple, but the holo makes it more interesting. And it reminds me of one of those old couches that you always find in nursing homes. And best of all, they're Ravenclaw colors!! When I was in the Harry Potter club in high school, I got placed in Ravenclaw and we had so much fun. We did nerdy things, like spending Friday night eating and watching the whole DVD set of Planet Earth , but we surely had fun. I'm not into Harry Potter anymore...I didn't even read the last book and am not remotely interested in watching the latest movies. But I will always look back on my Ravenclaw days with fondness.

   Okay, I'm off to my awesome counseling sesh. I hope everyone else enjoys their Friday afternoons more than I will!  :)