Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Essie Midnight Cami + Finger Paints Sapphire Shimmer

        So I'm still wearing my crazy hand mani today. I'm a little mad, because I forewent doing my nails + I stayed up till like 3 am to finish my assignment. Then five hours later, I'm dragging myself into class, when I find out that my teacher extended the deadline to the end of the week. Because half the class didn't do it. 

Omfg...

 I like my teacher, but I was sooo mad at her. Since when do you reward people for not doing their homework?! But on a positive note, I have a job interview lined up for this week! I don't know if it'll amount to anything in the end, but it's the furthest I've gotten since I've started looking, so I am full of hope. But enough blah blah about my life and woes. Onto the pitchas.

This is one layer of Finger Paints Sapphire Shimmer over two coats of Essie Midnight Cami.  
Sapphire Shimmer is composed of small round glitter and larger hex glitter in a sheer cobalt blue base. The glitter is silver and holo, and there is a ton of it.

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       It's not the most innovative thing, but I love this combo so so much!! Sapphire Shimmer's glitter is disgustingly holo...it makes me sick with joy. ^_^ The flashes of color and silver stand out really nicely from Midnight Cami's dark blue base, and the whole look reminds me of outer space. I know...lots of polishes look like outer space. But this really does look awesome, lol.  In lower light, the holo calms down a bit, so the glitter looks more silver. But there are still rainbow flashes, so basically, it's never boring. I was actually walking to the library last night (to do my freaking assignment), and even with just the streetlights, there was still mad bling and rainbows.  And in sunlight...ahhh it's absolutely dazzling. The shimmer from Midnight Cami shimmers and the glitter from Sapphire Shimmer glitters and it just makes my heart sing. My camera was even nice enough to let me make a little video:


Ahh you like my Easy Mac background, no? 

   I'm ready for my nails to look like a normal person's again, so I'm looking forward to sitting down with some nail polish remover later tonight. But at the same time, I'm gonna be sorry to see my left hand go. However, it did get me thinking that maybe I should stop being such a punk and try to franken an actual nail polish that looks like this. If I do, I'm not gonna use Sapphire Shimmer because I only got one bottle and they don't make this stuff no more. Which sucks...why does Finger Paints discontinue all the good stuff? But I'll try to find something with similar glitter and go from there. 

  And that's all I've got for today!  Have a great night, guys!!

Monday, October 18, 2010

Essie Midnight Cami

         Ahh my nails look so crazy today. On my right hand, I'm still wearing OPI DS Tapestry, which incidentally wears great! It survived hair-washing day perfectly intact, which is no mean feat. On my left hand, I'm wearing Essie Midnight Cami, from the Cuddle with Color collection. Ohoho, try saying that one five times fast. ^_^  I was just playing with it, but I got caught up doing other stuff, and somehow woke up this morning with it still on my fingers. ;_; 
      
Midnight Cami is a blackened navy blue base with lighter blue shimmer. 


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I don't know why this picture is so crooked.


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     Midnight Cami is a pretty color. It's definitely not unique, and I wouldn't call it a must-have, but it's pretty nonetheless. In most lower lighting, it will probably only look blue to the person wearing it and maybe a more observant passerby. To everyone else, it will be black. However, in the sun, the shimmer is on fire and Midnight Cami is unmistakably blue. Personally, I like it...it makes me think of the deepest parts of the ocean. 
    Formula-wise, Midnight Cami was quite nice. It was very well-pigmented, and went opaque in two coats. A careful person may even be able to manage one thick coat. It also went on very smoothly and dried pretty quickly with the aid of some topcoat. My only complaint is that removing it will probably be a royal pain. Just cleaning up was hard because of the staining, as evidenced by my still blue cuticles. 
    Another good thing about Midnight Cami is that it makes an awesome base for most glittery and flaky topcoats. I like to layer glitter on top of black, but Midnight Cami is sexier than a black creme, easier to apply than the ones I have at the moment, and it allows glitters and flakies to stand out just as well. I actually did layer some glitter over this, but I'm gonna save that for tomorrow, because this post is already kind of long and I have a million pictures. 

  And with that, I'm gonna run along. Got two exams on Thursday and an assignment due tomorrow, so I have more than enough homework and not nearly enough time to get it all done. x_x Wishing you all a wonderful Monday! 


Sunday, October 17, 2010

L.A. Colors Electrified

           In the interests of procrastinating on homework, I decided to reorganize my stash and nail supplies this afternoon. While doing that, I came across a few forgotten L.A. Colors polishes that I got at Dollar Tree this summer. One of them was pink, so I was like heyy, let me put it on. So here's Electrified, from L.A. Colors' Color Craze line. 


Electrified is a cool-toned, silver-speckled, pink foil. I wish I could be more descriptive, but I really don't know what to call this shade. Any suggestions?

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       I don't know what I think about Electrified. I like how rich and saturated the color is, and I like how reflective and blingy it is. But then sometimes, I look at it, and it looks like a pink frost polish, instead of a foil, and I do not want.  I also don't like it with my skin...it's a little too cool. So jury's still out on this one. 
     But at least Electrified's formula wasn't bad...about what you'd expect from a foil. A tiny bit thick-feeling, but not unmanageable, and opaque in two coats. I made sure to take my time with application, and to let it dry a bit between coats. Consequently, I didn't have trouble with dragging, streaking, or brushstrokes. It dried pretty quickly as well, which was nice.  The only bad thing is that cleanup was hard, because of all the little silver speckles everywhere. 
   Overall, I'm pretty neutral about Electrified. I don't like it, but I don't dislike it. And it was only a dollar, so I think it's okay for me to feel that way, lol. Maybe it will make a good stamping polish.

  Anywho, that's all I've got for today. I hope everyone had an awesome weekend!!


 (Icon courtesy of  lizbot)


Saturday, October 16, 2010

OPI DS Tapestry

            Good afternoon guys! Today, I've got on the only OPI Designer Series polish that I own, Tapestry. I'm not sure why out of  allll the possible colors, I chose this one. I remember wanting to buy it and being excited when it showed up, but for the life of me, I cannot remember why. smh.


Tapestry is a slightly dusty rose creme base, densely packed with small, slightly weak holographic shimmer. It gives the polish a very scattered holographic effect. The color here isn't accurate though...it's too pink and too bright. But it's better than the orange color that I started with.  The others are much more accurate though.

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This is one of the few that I didn't have to correct, and I actually think it's perfectly color-accurate.

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      Even though I really cannot remember what made me want Tapestry, it's not bad. The base color is a little  common to me, but it's pretty and will flatter alot of skin tones. I rather like it against mine as well. But my favorite part of the color  is the holographic shimmer. It's on the weaker side, but because there's so much of it, it still makes a nice impact in sunlight. In the shade, of course the holo goes away, but the silver shimmer is still very visible and lends interest to the polish. Tapestry isn't a polish that I would want to wear very often, because I just don't like red. But if I need a polish that is office-safe but not dead boring, then it would probably be one of my first picks. 
   But probably the very best thing about Tapestry is its formula. Ahh this formula is so freaking fabulous. It's the perfect consistency, well pigmented (opaque in two coats), and went on like butter. There was no dragging, bubbling, streakiness, or tomfoolery of any kind. It also dried pretty quickly, and didn't need topcoat because it was super smooth and glossy alone. I used topcoat anyway because it's like..weird not to, and the topcoat made it look extra good. Just looking at my nails right now, man, they look so freaking good. If only the base color was not RED...if it were blue, purple, green, or black, I would be so freaking happy.  Damn OPI's sick obsession with red!

  But that is all I've got for today. Have a great evening, everyone!

Friday, October 15, 2010

OPI Flower-to-Flower

          Last night, I realized that I haven't worn a pink polish in like a week...no bueno. So I decided to try out one of my more recent acquisition, OPI Flower-to-Flower, from this past summer's Summer Flutter Collection.


Flower-to-Flower features a warm and slightly dark, but bright bubblegum pink creme base with lots of crystalline silver microshimmer. The color here is inaccurate, because the picture is taken in low light. 


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You'll probably need to click through to see the detail in this one.


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This picture is one of few that I did not have to correct, and it's the most color accurate. 

        Flower-to-Flower is cute, but nothing groundbreaking. The shade of pink is pretty bright and eye-catching, but it's also a bit darker, which makes it (in my opinion) more mature and wearable. The shimmer (when you can see it) is pretty too. It's the kind that sparkles, and reminds me of finely crushed glass. Once more though, I wish it were more visible on the nail...you can't really see it if you aren't in the exact right light or angle. The casual observer probably wouldn't even realize that it was there.
       The formula was a little bit tough for me as well. It had that slightly thick and sticky texture that I really don't like, and it was streaky and draggy for the first few coats. By the third coat, everything was okay and smooth though. The pictures are with three coats of color, and one layer of topcoat.  
    I don't regret buying Flower-to-Flower because it's a good looking polish, was easily accessed, and I didn't have to pay full retail for it. But if I had to struggle to get it or paid full price, I think I'd be a little bit pissed. 

   And this is random, but you know something? I really want to blow this school up. Like, if I had explosives, knew that I wouldn't get caught and that no one would be physically hurt, I'd legit just blow this entire place to kingdom come. The blast would be so big that a person at the bottom of a coal mine in China would see it and be like omg. 

Is there any place that you really want to blow up? ^_^



 (Icon courtesy of  lizbot)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Orly Galaxy Girl + Fauxnad

            Instead of removing Galaxy Girl yesterday night, I opted to do some stamping over it. There was no real reason...I just feel like I have a ton of nail art stuff and I never use any of it. So here's me trying to use some of this stuff. LOL. Also, the weather was so freaking blah today....it was raining rats and frogs all day, until the evening, when it suddenly stopped. So please excuse the blurry pitchas. 


I started off by stamping on the full nail ivy pattern from plate BM20, using China Glaze Let's Groove. Then, I used Color Club Pretty in Platinum to stamp on the like...flower string at the cuticle. That pattern came from a plate called B14. There's no brand name, but I got it from Hong Kong, and it looks like this:

I miss those nails.
But anyway, to finish it off, I stuck a purple gem in the center of each flower, and finished it off with one layer of Poshe.

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The duochrominess kind of blends in with Let's Groove, which is unfortunate. 

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      I'm quite fond of how this turned out. It does look kind of like Beetlejuice, but I feel like many of my attempts at nail art come out looking like Beetlejuice. I guess it can't be helped, and at least it's not ooglay. I think once more, my favorite part is the background. The color and pattern are very subtle, and I like how the blue shimmer peeks through the empty spaces. It's also a little optical illusion-ish, like you don't know which color is the base and which is the stamp. Me gusta.

  And that's all I've got for today. Have a great evening, guys!