A Very Crabby Mani

This is a very silly mani.

Ingredients: two coats Wet n Wild’s Black Creme, three coats Wet n Wild’s Prancer, a variety of Cina Nail Creations nail stickers from the Under the Sea sheet, and one thick layer of top coat.
The result?

Amusement.

My other hand has only one sticker: a red seahorse. Pictures… did not turn out so well. Oh well! I still think that it’s cute.

I also have to say, I was very impressed with Wet n Wild’s Black Creme. I had not had good luck with their polishes in the past, and definitely did not expect it to be a one coater. While I used two coats here, I think that a thick single coat would certainly provide opaque coverage. That said, Prancer (from a 2010 holiday collection) already has a special place in my stash: it was the polish that started this whole nail polish thing for me. Prancer can apply however it wants.
As for the nail stickers, they were very easy to apply (even with one of the cats, Truman, trying to help me – he was very concerned with sticker placement). I was surprised that they were spongy, as opposed to… I don’t know… flat sticker-like, but I had never used them before and didn’t know what to expect.

And the look on that crab’s face? Priceless.

Sinful Colors: Savage and Green Ocean

Sinful Color’s Savage is a very weird polish, and it was very difficult to photograph. Most of these pictures are not very color accurate.
When I look at Savage, this is about the color that I see:

Savage is a dark, green-leaning teal creme – darker and greener than it is here, honestly. And, without top coat, it isn’t nearly as shiny.
What does Savage look like it when it is first applied? Texture-wise, it looks like this.

I believe that this is three coats of color inaccurate plastic-y chalkiness. And I don’t mean that in a bad way – it’s a very interesting texture, and this polish dries very quickly! I was seriously impressed with it in this respect.
For this mani, I did decide to add top coat, and… Well. Savage sucks up top coat, and it felt like my top coat took longer than usual to dry (although that could be, at least in part, because Savage itself dried so quickly). I ended up using two layers of top coat instead of my usual one layer.

Later, I decided to layer Sinful Color’s Green Ocean on top of my mani. A while ago, I did a mani with Green Ocean over Sinful Color’s Gorgeous, and the colors weren’t really different enough to let Green Ocean shine. That was much less of a problem here.

(Again, Savage is much darker and greener than this, but Green Ocean is pretty accurate.) Look at those flashes of color! Really, really lovely.

For fun, I added up the number of layers in this mani:

3 coats Savage + 2 coats top coat + 2 coats Green Ocean + 1 (really thick) coat top coat = 8 coats

It beats out my OPI Mermaid’s Tears and Austin-tatious Turquoise mani by several coats! Wow.
Despite the number of layers, I have to give this mani props for staying power. Several days later, I have only minor chipping (mainly on two nails that, due to issues with the nails themselves, I expected to chip), and some tipwear. I am impressed. Overall, despite the weirdness, I am going to rate both Savage and Green Ocean as winners.

FingerPaints: Outta Sight Orange

Let’s take a break from all these teals and blues, shall we?
FingerPaint’s Outta Sight Orange is part of their Peace, Love, & Color Collection, and it is a very, very summery color!

Per my new photo policy, I was going to take pictures with and without top coat… but I never got that far. While I did add a top coat later, the Outta Sight Orange that is shown here is three coats sans top coat. Honestly, it is almost as shiny without my Sinful Colors top coat as it is with it!

(Please excuse the sloppy edges here. I’m wincing, too.)
Look at that glittery, bright orange wonderfulness!
This is a color and polish that I completely approve of. It was only my second foray into FingerPaints, and I am looking forward to exploring their collection further!

Outfit of the Day

Today I felt good enough to get dressed up, and then good enough to make awkward faces at the camera!

Dress: Super Low Fat*
Sweater: Frenchi
Tights: Hue
Shoes: What’s What

For make-up, I just did black eyeliner and black mascara, nothing fancy. That said, if you look close, you can see the nail polish that I will review next!

*I got this dress used, and it looks like it used to have a petticoat or tulle attached to the lining. Personally, I don’t mind not having the extra volume (although I wouldn’t mind having it, either) – I just like this dress!

Essie: Absolutely Shore

Guys… I have found a polish that being really, really shiny will not redeem. Unfortunately that polish is Essie’s Absolutely Shore, which I purchased at a whim because it was half-price and looked like an interesting color.

Is it an interesting color? Yes. To me it comes across as a very pale grey that leans green or blue, depending on the light.
However, being interesting does not redeem the four coats that it took to make it that interesting color – nor does it redeem the fact that it could really, really use a fifth coat.
While that is more visible in person, here you can (hopefully) see that I still have some bald/awkwardly uneven patches.

I will give it this: the problems with it were much more visible before I added my Sinful Colors top coat! I really should have taken pictures of it before I added a top coat, and I think that that is a policy which I will implement in later nail polish picture posts.
This is not a polish that I particularly like, and I will admit that after four coats and a top coat I was done. There is a fuzzy on one of my fingers, and, well, that is just too bad. I am not redoing it. In fact, I imagine that I will be taking this off pretty soon. It’s a shame, because I do like the color all right!
And, before I sign off, a bad joke that I just cannot avoid: if you’re thinking about picking up Absolutely Shore, make sure that you’re absolutely shore that you’re patient enough to deal with the application. Hehe.

China Glaze: For Audrey

Last week, I went into a Sally Beauty for a job application… and came out with said application, three (on sale, plus a buy-2-get-1 deal) nail polishes, and a membership card.
This week, I went back in and bought China Glaze’s For Audrey, and I am enamored with it.

For Audrey is a perfect robin’s egg blue with a gorgeous creamy finish. I can definitely see why this polish is considered something of a classic. It is also a two-coater!
The only nail in this picture which has three is my top nail (which I accidentally chipped before top coat application), and all of my nails have a Sinful Colors top coat. On my right hand, I did do three coats on every finger; I traditionally find it much more difficult to paint that hand.
That said, can you see the difference in these pictures between the nails with two coats and the nail with three?

Except for a dent where the chip was, I can’t!
Fantastic, lovely polish.

Revlon: Blue Lagoon

While visiting, my aunt purchased and did a mani with Revlon’s Blue Lagoon, which is part of Revlon’s 2011 Summer Romantics Collection. In the bottle, this polish has a slight silver shimmer, and while this can be seen on the nail, it primarily looks like a nice blue cream.

I believe that it is shown here with two coats – as you can see, there is still some visible nail line. My aunt also added a thin layer of Sephora by OPI black crackle and a Sinful Colors top coat.
While this color does not particular float my boat (possibly because I am currently in the mood for ‘pure’ creams?), it is a nice, gentle color, and could be great for people who love pale polishes!
(I am using the word ‘nice’ a lot here… possibly because it is the best word that I can come up with to describe Blue Lagoon. Not a fabulous color/polish, not a terrible one, but an ‘eh’ one.)

OPI: Austin-tatious Turquoise

This mani was a mess. I had read about the sheerness with OPI’s Austin-tatious Turquoise, but it was also the only shade in the Texas collection that had really struck me. When I saw it for sale (at Bartell’s!) I pounced.
In the bottle, Austin-tatious Turquoise is a stunner: a teal shimmer polish that goes purple at some angles. I decided to layer it over OPI Mermaid’s Tears in order to combat the sheerness; what is seen in these pictures is three layers of Austin-tatious Turquoise over two layers of Mermaid’s Tears, plus my Sinful Colors topcoat.* That is a lot of polish.
What I had hoped to get was all that beautiful shimmer supported by a solid color, making it more opaque. From some angles, I more-or-less succeeded: while I lost a lot of the purple shimmer, my nails were definitely shimmery and teal.

From other angles… I was not nearly so successful. This picture captures it best – look at that streaky, see-through mess. (Remember that this is five layers of colored polish.)

While I am unsure how many days of wear I took these photos after (probably not more than two), also look at the chipping and tip-wear. While that may have been due to too much polish, it was disappointing.

Overall, I was not particularly impressed by Austin-tatious Turquoise, and I am very glad that I did not attempt it without a solid color underneath. Perhaps using a darker color would help to alleviate some of the problems that I had?
While this polish is still in my collection, I don’t know when I will use it again.

* I had to redo my pinky, and I believe that I used one layer of Mermaid’s Tears, not two.

Leighton Denny: Do Me A Flavour

Long time no post! That said, besides this mani, I have pictures of three others to get up here. I’m doing this one first because it is the biggest turn around from my last few posts.
While I was in England a few weeks ago, I picked up several nail polishes. This on, Leighton Denny’s Do Me A Flavour, was actually a free gift with a magazine! (This is something that I think that we need more of in the US. Besides nail polish, there were also lip glosses, eyeliners, eye shadows, etc. sold with magazines. I like.)
Leighton Denny is a brand that I had not heard of, and this was the only Leighton Denny polish that I recall seeing during the trip. However, I did a little research on their website, and it looks like this polish is part of their 2011 Gelato Collection.

In my pictures, it shows a little redder than in does in person: in person it is a true, bright orange. This is two coats! While it was a little patchy in places (next time I would do three coats), two coats was quite passable. I also added a Sinful Colors topcoat.

After several days of wear, I added Sephora by OPI gold shatter on top of some nails. I liked the effect of this on the orange quite a bit (it was shiny! And glittery! Wooo). I find that this shatter is much more glittery with a top coat (as seen here) than without one.
Overall, I found both of these polishes to be fun and summery, and Do Me A Flavour scratched my itch for a bright orange polish. However… I am very, very glad that I got Do Me A Flavour as part of a four or five pound magazine, instead of paying the eleven pound normal price. That seems quite steep, especially with the US dollar still so weak.

Next up: we’ll be going back into my color family… but it will not be a rave review.

~ Nicole

Sinful Colors: Gorgeous and Green Ocean

At the moment I am wearing two colors from the Sinful Colors brand: Gorgeous, a shiny green-leaning teal, and Green Ocean, a green-based flakey polish.

While these polishes are a little too close in color to be terribly striking together, I am fond of this combination! This is one coat of Green Ocean (on every other nail) over three coats of Gorgeous. All nails also have a Sinful Colors topcoat.
Green Ocean can be finicky to apply: the flakeys like to stick up and, especially when multiple coats are used, the finish can be rough. This is a polish that I would not particularly recommend using on bare nails, because the flakeys are suspended in green jelly. The first mani that I did with this polish, I was at university and didn’t have my other colors, so I just slapped in on. The result? Very shiny flakeys on sickly green nails. Oops.

That said, however, this polish gives a nice texture and element of interest to the polish it is on top of. It does flash other colors, including a beautiful blue. Last night I layered it on top of OPI’s Planks a Lot, and was surprised at how well it went with the purple. Unfortunately, I didn’t get pictures.
If you run into Green Ocean, I would recommend picking it up – it’s only $2, and it’s a fun novelty polish to play around with!
As for Gorgeous, what can I say? It’s in my color family, albeit on the green side of it (this is another polish that looks greener in inside light than in outside light), and it is very, very shiny. Sounds like a keeper to me.
And, to finish this up, meet Ellie:

Ellie is very helpful when it comes to taking polish pictures!