So school has been whupping me soundly. It’s been fantastic and I’ve been very happy to be back in the books and papers mode, but my energy levels are not what they were ten years ago. How embarrassing! So I’ve been being a bit lackadaisy with both doing my nails and photographing them.
Today’s polishes are older ones that do not belong to me, rendering this a sort of guest-post. Lent to me by one of my dear peeps, the Scientifically Awesome S., please meet rather vintage Sally Hansen Aqua Chrome and Black Pearl Chrome. (Please also forgive the complete lack of cleanup and relatively sad lighting. I wanted to take very quick pictures because, lacking use of a base or topcoat, I was worried that they might chip within a short amount of time.)
I chose these two entirely because the skirt I was wearing had both blue and silvery-black as part of the design, and was very pleased. They are still very shiny, very brushstroke-prone, and very pleasing.
I don’t own any of the more recent chromes (e.g. Essie) to compare these to, so I cannot make any statements on how they might stand up to those. They did bubble a bit, but considering how old they are, I thought these did quite well.
The Black Pearl Chrome was especially lovely. It’s a dark, somewhat tarnished-looking silver that does indeed resemble photos of black pearls.
Mmm, brushstrokes. Clearly I was a little more careful on the accent nails than on the rest.
And here is her full collection. I may sneak over sometime later and borrow other colors, too. Fun fact: I hadn’t taken these off by the next day, which was the first day of school, so I layered three coats of Butter London Knackered over the top and it looked fabulous.
Nothing here was purchased by me, though I have found these around the internet for prices varying from $4-15 each, depending on where you look.
October is Holo Month, so you will be seeing a lot of rainbow action of all types on my nails. I think my next post (which may be tomorrow or may be next weekend. I’m still figuring out exactly how to manage my energy levels with school.) will be Enchanted Nails I Am The Walrus, a very lovely multichrome holo.
and the seas were white with raging spume — (no, that’s it, sorry.)
So I had a moment a few weeks ago wherein I decided I needed to own Cuprum (CU) from Rescue Beauty Lounge’s Fan Collection. It’s blue, really, really blue, metallic, and full of tiny coppery flakes of glitter. It was inspired by, well, let me copy the text of the color description from the RBL website:
The metamorphic moment when the presence of ammonia meets copper (II) transforms into a radiant blue. Cuprum is Latin for copper, and the dual nature of this element is what Neeta wanted to capture in a bottle.
Being the sort of person I am, with the poor impulse control that I have, I bought it. There was something else in that order as well. Something mysterious. But that is not a tale for this afternoon. Today, I will be showing you Cuprum and the only color that I found in my stash that seemed to complement it well enough to be an accent nail — China Glaze Harvest Moon.
This is two coats each, with a shiny topcoat that I added more for protection than because either of them needed it. Harvest Moon is from the Hunger Games collection CG released earlier this year. It’s really more red-orange than I would have considered optimal, but I’m not sure I know of a properly pink-toned copper polish that would really represent the shade of a bright new piece of metal. There’s probably one out there, but I haven’t met it yet.
The formulas on both polishes were very nice, with Cuprum being easy and smooth and willing to go where directed, and Harvest Moon being a bit more sheer and thin at the first coat. Both were easier to work with if I let the first layer dry fully before moving on.
The thing with Cuprum is that it has these copper flakes that, when the polish is shiny and you’re attempting to photograph it, don’t show up at all. They’re there in person, most definitely visible — here’s a bottle shot so you can see what I mean:
See? There are lots of irregular copper bits glowing through the blue! I chewed on the difficulty for a bit, tried a few different areas of my house for lighting adjustments, and eventually gave up for a while. But later that day, I remembered how much more flakies stand out when you slap a matte on them, tried it and — bingo.
There they are, and both Cuprum and Harvest Moon looked beautiful matte. Please do understand, those copper bits are truly present in Cuprum when it’s shiny. That blue and copper combination is wonderful. I’ll be looking for a brighter, pinker, copper color to wear with Cuprum, too.
I’ll also be working harder on not chewing on the skin around my nails. I had a really weird couple of weeks, then got sick, and I promise they’re doing a bit better now, but och, my fingers are so bad in these photos.
Rescue Beauty Lounge is available on their website. I bought my China Glaze at Ulta, where the Hunger Games collection seems to be going on clearance, but they are also available cheepcheepcheep from Trans Design.
Tomorrow: GLITTERBOMB. And after that, we are returning to our regular odd-days-only updating, as I’ve cleared my backlog and am starting school.
Time for more loot from Cult Nails via Gloss48! I have had a bit of a lemming for Princess for some time, so when it turned up as part of the sale, I jumped on it. I picked up Spontaneous as well, largely on the basis of seeing swatches on various blogs.
Princess is a soft blue with coppery shimmer. Spontaneous is a slightly dusty purple with intense purple glitter, and it is -glitter-, not shimmer. I chose to largely eliminate the subtle sparkle by tossing on a Spectraflair holo topcoat. I bought mine from Piper Polish Co., and have used it before, but various other companies have produced them as well.
I love how these two look together. Baby blue and purple please me as a pairing. This is two coats of each Cult polish topped by one thin coat of Spectraflair. Observe the purple glitter in Spontaneous. That stuff is a pain to remove. :)
The formula on these was lovely, smooth and generally pleasant to work with. Cleanup was easy, and I think they both look nice with the rainbow shimmer. Of course, doesn’t almost everything?
Princess is a delightful faded baby blue, mellow and relaxing. The shimmer is even and visible on the nail, though the topcoat does a pretty good job of rendering it invisible. I was in the mood for rainbows that day.
There’s a bottle shot where you can see Princess on her own.
If you like these, you can pick them up at Cult Nails’ website. The topcoat came from Piper Polish Co. on Etsy.
Tomorrow will feature another a-england and the first of several Twee & Honey polishes.
Welcome to the land of parenthetical statements. Buckle up and enjoy the slightly dubious ride.
Over the last while, there have been quite a number of limited sale sites that have popped up. I think Hautelook was the first I remember seeing, but there are many more now. Recently, Cult Nails debuted some very pretty topcoats at a shiny new site, Gloss48 (on hiatus as of 9/16).
Like the polish (and Cult) fiend that I am, I bought all three of the available topcoats, plus a couple of other colors that either hadn’t made it to their recent sale (PRINCESS. You will see that soon.) or that I had passed on.
A few days later, I happened to be at Ulta, looking for a polish that matched my phone case (don’t ask; I just get wild impulses sometimes.) and found that they had a super-secret stash of China Glaze hidden at the back of the store, including the entire Bohemian collection. I decided that the horribly named Want My Bawdy would suffice as a color match. I put it on the next day, decided it wasn’t quite close enough, so I layered on a thin coat of Glitter Gal Hidden Violets, a purple/blue duochrome. Later, I checked my mail to find my Glossy48 order, and promptly tore it open and slapped Alter Ego on top. The results made me feel mildly ‘meh’, so I adjusted with some dots in a-England Excalibur, followed by Essie Matte About You. The shrinkage was epic.
Long walk for a short reward, eh? I also got massively over-zealous when cleaning up my ring finger. Three coats of Bawdy, one each Hidden Violets, Alter Ego, and EMAY, single-dipped dots.
Here’s a soft-focus image so you can see just how shiny Excalibur is. It is the perfect metallic silver, aces for stamping (did I mention I got a pack of Bundle Monster plates recently? I’ve been toying with them, but I think I need to get a better stamper.) and dotting or anything else for which you might want a one-coat silver.
For whatever reason, I didn’t take any bottle pics with this mani. I can’t honestly remember why, but that’s probably the NyQuil speaking. I finally caught the cold that’s been running around my social/work/convention-going group, and am writing under the influence.
Hidden Violets is a blue, purple, reddish, and occasionally you’ll see a flash of teal multichrome. Like all the polishes in that set, it’s extremely sheer and best used as a layering polish. Alter Ego is a pinkish-based golden shimmer that adds a patina’d look to what it is layered over. The combination of the two was rather underwhelming.
This is a picture of the Resident Kitten, Nona, playing with a toy mouse. It has nothing to do with nails, but she was being super-cute while I was taking pictures, so here you are.
Yep, that certainly was a manicure I completed and wore a few days ago. It was notably thoroughly all right. I enjoyed the dotting, but I don’t know that I’d actually use this combo again. It ended up feeling very muddled, though the colors involved were largely pleasing together.
I buy China Glaze mostly at Ulta, Cult Nails generally at Cult Nails (the topcoats are all available now, including two that were not involved in the Glossy48 promo), and I bought Excalibur direct from a-england.
Tomorrow: Something better.
I’ve been a bit of an Anglophile since I was young, a result of reading a lot of British children’s (and not so children’s) books and watching possibly too many Britcoms and dramas on Channel 9, the local PBS station, so I have a long-held weakness for things with British themes. When I saw L’Oreal’s new London Fall collection at a local drugstore, I initially resisted, but after seeing it again at another, gave in and bought the peacock-blue creme, Rainy Piccadilly. I’m still tempted by a couple of the others, but am holding out for now.
It’s a beautiful color, very rich and deep, and it does dry a bit darker on the nail than it looks in the bottle. I’ve found that quirk common with this sort of dark blue, though this one is a bit lighter than the others I own. I decided to pair it with Enchanted Polish Vampire’s Dessert, which is a deep brownish-red holo. It tends to look mostly black in full sunlight, but in bright indoor light, shows off the true color, which is a bit like a freshly dried scab over a wound that bled profusely. It’s quite lovely, and I think looks very nice with the rich blue as a contrast. The holo effect was fairly strong, though not crazy rainbows levels of madness, and it does mostly fade in the shade.
Both of these polishes were fairly opaque at one coat; Rainy Piccadilly was slightly streaky on a couple of nails where my base wasn’t fully dry, but perfect all the others. Two coats are ideal, I think, for depth of color and evenness. I’ve really liked the color and texture of both the L’Oreal polishes I’ve tried, and would definitely consider purchasing them as they release more appealing colors.
Both of these are intensely pigmented, and cleanup was a bit of a horror. Not a full-on-screaming-in-terror-AUGH-WOULD-YOU-JUST-LEAVE-MY-CUTICLES horror, to be certain; they’re a holo and a creme, not serious glitter monsters, but still, if you have the interest, cleanup is easier while they’re still slightly damp, or by the terrible habit of peeling after they’re fully dry.
Vampire’s Dessert is one of the many shades that is being discontinued by Enchanted Polish, at least for the time being. As of last I checked (August 4th) it was still available at Llarowe. L’Oreal is a drugstore polish, and you can probably find it at any of your local shops. I’ve seen them at Walgreen’s and Bartell Drugs for certain, and heard rumors that they may be on sale at Rite-Aid, so check your local equivalents. This one is limited, but you can also probably find a decent dupe for it in other places; it’s a lovely color, but not super-unique.
Vanitas Rex 