I wanted a very simple manicure today, something pale and pretty and a little girlish.
The other day I bought a bunch of Essence Colour & Go polishes. They’re pretty nice, for as cheap as they are. The one I’m wearing here is Gold Rush (32). It’s a rather lovely pale champagne-like gold frost. The accent nail is Sakura, from Glitrix, an Etsy polish seller. I saw this one on Chalkboard Nails first, loved it, and ordered it immediately. I’m not usually bent on the indie style of glitter, especially bar glitter, but I thought this one was lovely.
Obviously I couldn’t resist the matte. Next week perhaps I’ll challenge myself to do at least three days in a row of shiny finishes. It may be holos all week, though. ;}
My bottle of Sakura seems to be a bit more pink than the one Chalkboard Nails has. I’m fine with that. This is two coats of Gold Rush on each nail, with one coat of Sakura over the index.
One of the things about Glitrix that sold me is the ridiculously cute bottles. They’re tiny for the cost ($6), but shipping is free, and they’re remarkably opaque. They also have a very fierce odor. Fades quickly, but it’s quite intense during application. See? LOOK AT THE CUTE.
That is one adorable bottle.
Sakura is from Glitrix Frankenpolish on Etsy. I bought the Essence at Ulta, where they are a whopping .99 each (or less). I’m not going to mention Essie Matte About You in my list of where I bought things after this post. You know I got it from Ulta, and I use it all the time. Repetition of verbiage bores me after a point, so. (Obviously, repetition of finishes bothers me not at all.)
This is also the last post with a disclaimer — I’ve got one on its own page up at the top, and I think y’all know I’m not doing this for the benefits.
So I was feeling uninspired the other day, so I asked my peep-of-all-peeps, Ceci, what I should do. She told me I should do something surprising.
So this:
A rad peep of mine gave me a set of dotting tools for my birthday, but I haven’t busted them out until today. This being my first attempt, please forgive the smudginess.
I’m not particularly big on either patriotism or polka dots, so in a show of seasonal effort, I did dots in a red, white, and blue color scheme. Surprise! The base color is Ulta Into Astrono-Me?, which is a slightly dusty teal-trending navy blue with a blue shimmer. The red accent nail is L’Oreal Owl’s Lust, a brickish red creme that I love, despite not being a huge bright red fan. The white is Wet’n’Wild Mad Styles, an ordinary white creme.
Naturally I couldn’t resist a matte top coat. Right? Right. I should have waited a bit longer than ten minutes, though, as it smeared some in a few places. Otherwise, while it turned out pretty much okay, I’m not likely to repeat it. I might try using the dotters to do flowers or leopard spots or perhaps a more planned dotted pattern.
The WnW and L’Oreal polishes were gifts from a friend (you will see more loot from her tomorrow, and probably for months hence) — thank you, U.! :D The Ulta was bought at Ulta, as they were having a sale, so it was only two dollars. Woot. Essie, still from Ulta. I’m going to need a new one of those sometime soon. :3
Everything was either gifted to me or bought by me for purposes of wearing. Yes.
Ugh. I’ve devolved into terrible puns already.
First, I must mention that today was nail clipping day. I do this pretty regularly to keep my nails in good shape. They grow pretty quickly, so I usually cut them a bit shorter than I really want them, and they’re about perfect in a week or so. The images you’ve seen for the last week or whatever are my nails at about the longest I allow them to grow. Much longer than that and I start gouging myself.
TL;DR, my nails are pretty short today, thus I went for a dark color because I sometimes find them a little overwhelming on long nails.
This one is a NotD featuring ORLY Royal Velvet, a blue/violet duochrome; Nfu Oh 53, a translucent blue polish with orange-red-green shifting flakes, and my singular favorite, Essie Matte About You.
The post is titled the way it is because I find Royal Velvet to be annoying in application — thin, streaky, and difficult to control — to the point where I’m nearly tempted to buy Mysterious Curse, its clone from the ORLY Dark Shadows collection, as I’ve read that it’s thicker than Royal Velvet.
This was three coats of Royal Velvet with one fairly thin coat of the Nfu Oh on my left and two on my right (hence the differing amounts of flake — I did eventually match them, but I liked the way fewer looked and kind of wish I’d left them both with one. It also murdered the purple right out of it, as the Nfu Oh is blue-based. The extra flakes were pretty, though. ), and then a whopping slap of E-MAY. I am deeply in love with flakies under matte. The effect makes me very happy.
When not buried under matte, Royal Velvet tends to appear mostly blue, as the shimmer is intense and tends to overwhelm the base color in all but the most intense of light. After being matte’d, it seems to turn into a more proper duochrome, if you will, in that it shows both purple and blue in equal measure based more on the angle from which it is perceived. It’s still hard to photograph, though, and definitely shows up best in more diffuse or yellow light. The above photo was taken with my desk light off — see how much more purple it looks? That was way more visible in person, too.
I’m enjoying this mani, but I’m still feeling greenish, so I may go back to that after tomorrow. Still, isn’t this pretty despite my horrible application and smudging around the edges?
I buy my ORLY polishes mostly from Ulta, especially when they have specials. They are available other places online, too. The Nfu Oh was a gift, but I presume you can find them online. Essie came from Ulta.
Not all polishes in this post were bought by me, but none were given as promos. Just birthday presents. :)
Next up, my first attempt at a jelly sandwich. This is notably funny because I don’t generally like either jellies or glitter, and therefore managed to eradicate almost all jelliness from the experience. Naturally, it involves Matte About You.
Check it out:
This started simply enough, with a layer of OPI Don’t Touch My Tutu, a fairly sheer (but buildable) white jelly. I could write forever about how much I hate OPI’s naming conventions, but I cannot deny that they make some pretty polishes. This one may not be unique, but it was the first one of its milky ilk that I found and purchased. The second layer was Revlon Stunning, which is really, really pretty. I mean, if you like glitter, which I do not always, but for this one I made an exception. It’s a clear base with three types of glitter: small holographic hex, small silver glitter, and small translucent holo glitter. It is ridiculously twinkly. Third layer, again with the white jelly.
I didn’t take any pictures at that point, but I just don’t like the way most jellies look on their own, and even layering them with glitter doesn’t make me love them. In an interesting note, the holo effect on the glitter was still very visible, even through the second layer of polish. Since I think flakies look amazing with a coat of Essie Matte About You (hereafter referred to as “E-MAY”), and since some of the small glitter in Stunning is the same kind of translucent shifty effect as flakies, I said to hell with it and slapped on E-MAY on everything.
Much better! Or, at least, much more to my taste!
And even though a matte topcoat generally wipes out holo pigments, holo glitter can still find a way to shine. Next time I try this, I might sneak a duochrome topcoat in there, too, just to liven things up a little.
Normally I am a little perturbed by visible nail line, but for this style, I’m okay with it. I have OPI My Pointe Exactly, a gray jelly from the same collection, and I might try something like this with that, too. Maybe someday I will find a jelly to truly love. Or, more likely, I will glower and slap E-MAY on it.
OPI polishes are available at various places, on and offline; I got mine at a Nordstrom Rack. The Revlon polish came from a Walgreen’s, if I recall correctly, and the Essie was from an Ulta.
All polishes bought by me because I wanted them. :3
I thought about copper or red, but it was gray outside the window and I needed a pep-up, so I ended up with turquoise with a color shifting topcoat. Oh you guys. You guys.
Check this out:
Colors used are Julep Miranda (two coats) and one moderately heavy coat of Lilacquer Polishes Kitsune on top. On the ring fingers, I also used a single coat of Essie Matte About You because I was curious if it would look neat. It did, and still showed the duochrome. BONUS.
This one was out in the sunshine, and is the most color-accurate image. Miranda is a lovely deep aqua polish — I would have punched myself in the side of the head about ten years ago, had I heard myself say such things; how tastes change! — with a creme finish. Kitsune is a clear-based, color-shifting, sparkly topcoat that goes from gold and orange/red to green. It’s gorgeous and incredibly versatile, as it doesn’t change the color of your base nail polish at all.
I think Kitsune would layer beautifully over almost anything, but these kinds of topcoats are known for looking especially striking over black or other dark colors. I’ve got a couple of very pretty dark purples I might try later.
I am relatively unrepentant about my obsession with matte-ifying polishes. Pretty much anything except a holo is fair game by me. Holo glitter isn’t exempt, however, as you will see in a couple of days. :3
Now, the day after I did this, I was due to have the sort of dinner that gets capitalized: A Really Nice Dinner, with nice clothes and moderately decent table manners and everything. Aqua nail polish? Not terribly appropriate. Naturally, I ran out of time to redo my nails (and not incidentally, ran out of polish remover), so I had to do a very quick alteration. I layered on one coat of Zoya Jules, a taupey gold, and then more Essie Matte About You and the thing ended up being a bit like old gold and rather cool, if somewhat thick and lumpy in spots. Still, it toned down the mani considerably and matched my hair accessory, so I was pleased.
SUCCESS.
Julep polishes are available on their website here, though I’ve also seen them recently at Sephora. (I bought mine from a friend, as Miranda is no longer available on the website. ^_^) Lilacquer polishes are available on Etsy.
All polishes were purchased by me with intent to use them in ordinary ways.
Vanitas Rex 