No Two Are Alike!

            First off, I'd like to give all of you a big hug and thank you, because The Phalanges Files reached 400 readers last night, which is...surreal to me. I'm kind of broke at the moment, so it may take a little bit of time, but I'm going to figure out something that I can do to celebrate the occasion and thank you guys.
        After enjoying Milani Molten Rock on its own for a day, I wasn't in the mood to get rid of it, and decided to mess with it a little bit. Also, I took these pictures on a rather overcast day, so all the pictures are in natural light. 

I used China Glaze 2030 to stamp on the snowflake pattern from Konad plate M20. Then I put in two blue rhinestones in random sunflakes, and sealed everything up with topcoat. 

 

     I really really like how this turned out. But for some reason, I had a ton of trouble getting the whole snowflakes on the stamper...little chunks would just not pick up. I tested it with other paints too, but it just did not work. Maybe my plate is defective or I was scraping it wrong. But most of it got on there, so whatever, I'm happy. LOL. 

Finally, don't forget that today is the last day to enter my Lady of the Lake giveaway! It ends at 11:59 EST, so if you'd like to enter, please go sign up soon! (The graphic in the sidebar will take you to it.)

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

Milani Molten Rock

        Happy Father's Day guys!! Unfortunately, I didn't have time to make a Father's Day mani, but I do have something that I ended up liking quite a bit. This is Milani Molten Rock, from last year's Liquid Metals Collection. 

        

Molten Rock is a saturated and rich ocean blue foil, speckled with lighter blue flecks. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash. 

       I have no idea what molten rocks have to do with this color, but I love it alot. The light blue flecks sparkle in the sunlight, and in the shade, Molten Rock creates this pretty metallic glow. I also really like the shade of blue that they chose for this color...it's so saturated and rich, not frosty at all, and I think it would flatter a variety of skin tones. 

      The formula for Molten Rock was also really good. It was opaque in just two coats, and dried quickly. The only thing to be careful of was letting it dry well between coats or else I got some dragging, but besides that, everything was nice and easy. 

And with that, I'm all done for today!! Thanks for reading, and don't forget to be nice to all the fajahs in your life! ^_^

A-England King Arthur

        For today, I have my last A-England Mythicals polish, King Arthur. 

King Arthur is a tungsten silver base with lots of microshimmer in it. You can't see it in this picture...maybe if you enlarge the others, you can, but the shimmer is kind of pink and green, instead of just silver. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

   King Arthur is teh sex. It's so deliciously cold and industrial-looking, and made my nails look like they were encased in armor. I was also pleased by the way that King Arthur looked in sunlight. It has this really lovely metallic glint to it, and isn't dull at all. And as a bonus, it made my nails look longer and thinner. My only regret is that I don't have  talons to wear this on...then I could be like Wolverine. *sigh*

   Formula-wise, King Arthur was perfect. I used three layers for full opacity, and they went on super smoothly, with no dragging, bubbling, or other such foolishnesses. I also love how it dried pretty much brushstroke free...it helps preserve that "why yes, I do sprout metal from my fingers" look that I so yearn for. And I really do think that someone with better polishing skills than I would be able to get it perfectly smooth.

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

Lazy Person Nail Art (n_n)

        So today's post is going to be really short, since I was too lazy to remove Sally Hansen Grape Going! last night. I didn't want to leave it the same either though, so I used some of this mountain of nail art stuff and made a little spring-y nail look for myself.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

    So this was really easy to do and took all of like three minutes. I just used some decals from God knows where...maybe Rite Aid, and a fimo butterfly. I wish I had done some sort of stamping on the background and it's a bit late for spring nails, but overall, I like it! 

Oh yeah, unrelated to this polish, but I wanted to let you guys know that I'm going to be extending my Lady of the Lake Giveaway for an additional three days. I won't be able to get to the post office over the weekend anyway, so I figured why not. The new end date will be June 20, 2011, so if you'd like to enter that, you have a little more time. 

And that's all I've got for today! Thanks for reading!

Sally Hansen Grape Going!

         For today, I've got another Sally Hansen polish. This time, it's Grape Going! (damn unnecessary punctuation) from their Insta-Dri Line.

Grape Going! is kind of hard to put into words. I guess it's a violet purple, metallic-ish looking base, with bright blue, iridescent shimmer floating on top of it. The shimmer also has a duochrome shift to it, where it goes from blue to purple. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

    I think Grape Going! doesn't get as much attention as it deserves, because it's truly a lovely polish. And I know I'm gonna get beat up for this, but it's really what I hoped RBL Scrangie would be. In sunlight, the blue shimmer catches the light and stands out so beautifully from the base, but it's in regular light where Grape Going! really shines. With every movement of my fingers, the shades of blue and purple in the polish shift and flow smoothly over my nails, and the shimmer floating above it all gives Grape Going! this dreamy, fairytale-like quality that I just love. It's just so pretty, and especially if you can catch a sale, the price is really quite good.

   Formula-wise, Grape Going! was okay. It was a bit thin, but the Insta-Dri brush actually helped me with controlling it. It took three coats for full opacity and depth, which was fine, but unfortunately didn't dry as quickly as the bottle would have you believe.

And that's all from me today! Thanks for reading, and have a happy hump day! n_n

The Hungry Asian We Caught the Purp

       It's been a while since I've worn one of these, so for today, I've got another Hungry Asian original franken. Meet We Caught the Purp!

We Caught the Purp is a black creme base stuffed with glitter. There's tiny violet and green square glitter, as well as medium-sized blue, orange, and green hex glitter. 

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

    We Caught the Purp is probably the prettiest black-based glitter I own. In sunlight, the individual colors of the glitter create this beautiful rainbow sparkle. The way that the colors twinkle and flash from the base, it's like having a galaxy on your fingernails. It's not quite as striking in lower light, but it's still quite pretty, and you can still see all the colors from the glitter. And it gets bonus points for such a cute name.

    But as one might expect, the formula for We Caught the Purp was a bit tough. It's a one coater (although I used two) and dried in a flash, but applying it smoothly was a bit hard because of all the glitter and I ended up needing three layers of topcoat for a glassy finish. The good news is that it was worth the pain in the end. n_n

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

Sally Hansen Distressed Denim

    After enjoying Diamond Cosmetics Hot Summer Pink by itself for a bit, I topped it with Sally Hansen Distressed Denim, from their recently released Crackle Overcoat Collection. 

Distressed Denim is a cracking (haha I almost wrote crackhead) cobalt blue jelly.

Sunlight, no flash.

lmao at how my skin goes back to normal with the crackle shielding some of the pink insanity. 

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Natural light, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

Sunlight, no flash.

     I really like Distressed Denim. The bold shade of blue is really pretty to look at, and I am loving the jelly finish. Obviously, the jelly does have its limitations...over darker colors, Distressed Denim completely disappears because it's so transparent. But it looks amazing over sparkly things...I tried it over A-England Merlin and it was like O__O. Hopefully, I can show you it with glitter in a future post.

    In terms of formula, Distressed Denim is tricky tricky. The tips that I can give are to shake it up every few fingers, load a little more on the brush than you think you will need (because Distressed Denim is thin and the brush is skinny as hell), and to not worry about correcting bald spots or unevenness. And don't give up after one try! The first time I tried this, I was like wtf is this shit because it didn't really do anything. But after practicing with it a bit and getting a feel for how to apply it, it actually worked really nicely. 

  And the last thing is that I would not recommend that you buy Distressed Denim (or any of the Overcoats really) at full price. I paid $7.99 for this one at Walgreens and it's not worth that much, partially because it's not foolproof. So wait for a sale or coupons or something and you'll probably be much happier. 

And that's all from me today!! Thanks for reading, and enjoy your Saturday!