Unintentional Mermaid Nails

Pin It

I've been trying to tackle some a lot of untrieds lately.
I'm already doing the Try It On Tuesday thing, but I got a huge influx of nail mail in May that I have barely managed to even look at, let alone try on, so I brought heaps of it on holiday with me.

I've been wanting to try some of my Pretty & Polished mini glitters for weeks and weeks and China Glaze Hi Def was as good a base as any, so...

sunshine

shade

shade

macro

Mind Control has a clear base with small sized aqua square glitter and ultra fine bright blue, violet and bronze-gold/opalescent glitter. In the swatches I'm wearing 1 coat over Hi Def. I didn't think they'd really look good together but I didn't bring any good base colours with me, so I gave it a go. And viola!
When I stared at my nails I felt like I was looking into the glistening sea with the sun reflecting on mermaid scales!! i.e. it looked very pretty.

Application was very easy too, I didn't have to struggle at all to get the squares out and I ended up with a rather even distribution of the glitter.

Definitely a win!!! I can see myself using Mind Control in a Revlon Royal jelly sandwich too!!!!!!!!

xxx
NPA

Lynnderella Forget Me Not Layering Requests

Pin It

Hi everyone,

After my last post, I got a few comments wondering what Forget Me Not would look like over different coloured bases; so I thought I'd do a quick post with the old nail wheel.

 On all the nails I put 1 coat of FMN over the base polish.

L-R: China Glaze Lemon Fizz, OPI Alpine Snow, Maybelline Colorama Urban Yellow

I'm not sure how keen I am about FMN over yellow. In the photos it doesn't look too bad, but in person it looked quite dirty. The slightly blue tinted base and pink/purple/blue shimmer didn't look too great.

L-R: Maybelline Colorama Urban Yellow, China Glaze Grape Pop, Depend No. 171

I love how the purple and blue look!! And I've decided that the yellowish glitter just seems to take on the pink/purple/blue sparkle of the shimmer over darker colours. I really couldn't distinguish them, so it's either that or they just look clear?

I hope these have satisfied your curiosity, ladies.

If you ever have any requests, please just ask me in the comments or email me, it's fun to oblige (when I'm not feeling lazy!!!!

xxx
NPA

Epic Layering - for a lazy polisher like me!

Pin It

A little background to my layering:

My nails have been a fright of late, due to the far too much swatching, peeling off my glitters (yikes!), and skipping the nail balm/cuticle oil routine. So I needed to keep them nails painted to strengthen them, and stop removing the lacquer every 5 seconds!

How did I manage to keep the same polish on for a full 3 days? By layering another polish on top every day!

Here's what they looked like step by step:
 Day 1:

The Dream Girl - 2 coats - white light

The Dream Girl - 2 coats - white light

 The Dream Girl from Spooky Bones - a brand I found on etsy - is a dark muted purple shimmer. In low light it looks a lot like the colour of pencil lead with a purple tinge. The shimmer is really pretty, as you can see in the (crappy) photos, it is green and pink and makes what could be a blah colour come alive!
I had a bit of cuticle drag probably because I didn't wait long enough between coats. I just left it like this because  knew I'd be layering it.

Moonbow over TDG - 1 coat - white light

Moonbow over TDG - 1 coat - macro

Next, I applied 1 thin coat of Specialita Hits Phenomena Moonbow on top and put on 1 layer of top coat. Moonbow is a colour shifting glitter top in a clear base. The colour shift is seriously gorgeous in this one! The dominant colour is the blue & green you can see in the centre of the nails and that shifts to purple & pink. But there is also some gold and orange visible at certain angles which just equals GORGEOUSNESS!

I didn't particularly like how sparse the glitter was, but it was getting late so I left it like that for the first day.

Day 2:

Moonbow over TDG - 2 coats - white light

Moonbow over TDG - 2 coats - white light

Moonbow over TDG - 2 coats - macro

 So, the next day I added another coat of Moonbow and was delighted with the results. It certainly looked better on the base with more glitter. I only regret not getting any photos showing the pink & purple colour shift better! It's a bit difficult to do using my lamp :( 


Can you guess what I did next?

Day 3:

1 coat Hefesto added to the mix

I added a holographic top coat of course!!! Specialita Hits Hefesto arrived a couple of weeks ago and I actually didn't touch it until this manicure. I think I must have been trying to preserve the tiny 6mL bottle it came in!!! And JAYSUS it looks amazing!!! From an average distance it really looked like a dark purple multichrome linear holographic. Then when I looked close I could see the individual glitters peaking through and all the colour shifting and rainbowness of it all blew my mind!

I really couldn't believe I hadn't done more layering in the past. I'm just seriously lazy. And I adhere to the 'take off the last thing you put on' rule when it comes to clothing, makeup and jewellery because whenever I add that 1 extra bit of pizazz to a mani it usually ends up ruining it! Not in this case though!!!!

Now here are a bigillion more pics for you to ogle!

 

 Crazy awesome, right?!

And here's a bottle shot

L-R: The Dream Girl, Moonbow, Hefesto

I've recently bought quite a few layering polishes (like colour morphing top coats) so I really ought to try out more combinations and share the results with you all.

BTW keeping my nails painted for 3 days straight really helped them so I'm going to try to keep on leaving manis on til they grow out and are stronger!

xxx
NPA

An Experiment in Layering

Pin It

When I got Orly Bubbly Bombshell I was a little disappointed to find that the clear base and thirsty glitter didn't give full coverage too easily.
I meant to try layering it over a base colour but TBH with more and more polish arriving on my doorstep I couldn't be bothered putting in the effort, when I could try a brand new one instead!!!

Cut to 4 months later when I was rearranging my polish collection in the middle of the night - as you do... I picked up BB and decided now was the time to let her shine!
I tried to find a colour match amongst all my purples but alas, nothing was perfect. China Glaze Urban Night (a jewel toned medium-dark purple) however, kept calling out to me.

overcast

shade

white light

These pics show 1 coat Urban Night topped with 1 coat Bubbly Bombshell and a layer of Seche Vite.

I was really happy with the results, the fuchsia glitter works nicely with the darker purple and both polishes applied wonderfully!

I was in a creative mood and hadn't tried out Bling It! from Haze Glaze on etsy, so I slapped a coat on top, with fairly low expectations, considering BI! is a mix of gold, bronze/coffee and green/blue glitters in a light brown tinted base.
As it turns out, I kinda dig the result!!!

sunlight

shade

white light - close up

I didn't add any top coat for the pictures because I wasn't sure I actually liked the colour combination and I had to remove it straight after the pics anyway. I think you still get a good idea of how awesome Bling It! is though!!!
Can you the crazy shine/light deflection going on in the sunlight photo? These photos don;t really show it, but the medium gold hex are holographic, so it's even blingier in person.
The formula was great on this one too, no probs with placement of the big hexs, nor was it hard to get them from the bottle to the nail. The only thing I had to do to ake the glitter perfect was push some of the bar glitter away from my free edge cos one or two overhung a tad.

You can get your hands on Bling It! by visiting the Haze Glaze etsy store. I think it's around $7-8 USD a bottle.

How do you feel about my glitter layering? And be honest!!!!

xxx
Michaela

OPI Stems Collection Swatches

Pin It Please excuse the state of my nails, life has been tough on them lately & while I no longer bite them, I pick at the skin around them as a nervous habit that I forget I'm even doing; which is why they don't look so nice in photographs :(
Perhaps I should make a pledge to try not to do that for the next week. Will let you know how I get on, I don't have high hopes!!!

On with the collection!!!!!!!!! Not out in NZ yet, hopefully they will be by August.

Come To Poppy

Come To Poppy (flash)

  
Come To Poppy - Is a beautiful coral pink pearl polish. The flash made the colour look a lot bluer pink than it is. Really pretty and nice to see some pearl finishes back in stores, it makes these kinds of colours more wearable for older ladies & a wee bit softer too. The formula is the best yet from OPI's 3Free polishes. Pretty much covers perfectly in one coat. I did two for good measure though. Goes on like butter, richly pigmented and opaque, AMAZING!

Play The Peonies

Play The Peonies (flash)

 Play The Peonies - is a very light pink pearl. Same formula as CTP. This reminds me of Suzi And The Lifeguard from OPIs South Beach Collection, except it is a few shades lighter - way more white obviously. I did 3 coats but I think 2 would have been fine if I hadn't been shaking so badly. I take a medicine that's side effect is shakiness and today my hand had a mind of its own when I was trying to apply this one so I had to even out the application with a third coat, Hopefully next time my hand will behave!

1 coat I Lily Love You over Play The Peonies

1 coat I Lily Love You over Play The Peonies (flash)

I Lily Love You has a pink jelly base with tons of irregular flakes of opalescent sparkles. Definitely a layering polish I think. Doesn't it look pretty over PTP?! Very complimentary I think because it also darkens PTP making it a bit pinker. I haven't tried it over CTP but I doubt it will look as good as this. I can't wait to try this over other bases!

I didn't get the fourth polish (Be a Dahlia Won't You?) in the collection because it looks awfully similar to CG 108 Degrees & I don't need any more pinks in that shade or finish.
I really love this mini collection from OPI, so simple & sweet and most importantly WEARABLE! They're also a bit different from what everyone else is offering for summer so I like that!
What do you think? Love it or leave it?

I see this is already out, at least Beyond Beauty has it in stock so I suppose you'll be seeing it in a store near you the next time you look!
xxx NPA