Bah. All my brain power is busily being co-opted for schooling.
Anyhow, this is a quick mani done with one of the L’Oreal Project Runway polishes, The Muse’s Attitude, plus a-england Excalibur, both with serious holo topcoats. If you’re looking for swatches of either of these, I apologize; this is not the post you are looking for. *waves fingers*
On to the photos:
.Without the topcoat, Muse’s Attitude is a ridiculously pretty deep teal-esque green foil that shows a slight purple duochrome or flash at extreme angles. It seems as though it’s pretty close to Illamasqua Viridian, as I’ve observed the same thing about it, but I don’t own Viridian myself, so I can’t do a proper comparison. This was two coats; the first was streaky and the second was opaque. I don’t think it got on well with my basecoat, but I’m a bit used to that from drugstore brands. I apologize for not taking any pictures of it without the topcoat. I’ll definitely be wearing it again before fall is out, though, so check back again later!
Excalibur is The Perfect Silver. Seriously, I will probably never buy another silver metallic polish (ask me about that in six months and we’ll see how well I’ve kept to that promise) as long as I have this. I initially applied one coat and it was opaque, but I inflicted a few dents via kitten and did another to fix them. I need more a-england polishes. I need them until I have all of them. :)
Over Excalibur, I applied one coat of Glitter Gal Silver 3D/Holo. Over Muse’s Attitude, I used my standby Piper Polish Co. Spectraflair Topcoat. You will be seeing a lot of that over the next month, as I don’t have quite enough actual holo polishes to fill a whole month, and I love playing with it.
There’s really nothing like a holo nail for distracting you when you’re walking in the sun.
I bought Muse’s Attitude at a Walgreen’s, but I’ve seen them other places as well. Glitter Gal is available various places (Llarowe, Ninja Polish, Beautometry). a-england polishes are also available at all of those retailers, but I got this one straight from their site during a sale. Piper Polish Co. is on etsy. *whew*
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.
But this is possibly one of my favorite manis I’ve done recently. Along with Bawdy (as seen yesterday), I picked up a bottle of China Glaze Exotic Encounters. It’s a lovely deep teal creme, and I had a plan.
The Very Fine Human U. recently moved into a very lovely house and had a housewarming, and I knew I needed to have something pretty on my nails because, in my opinion, it is important to wear nice things to nice occasions. So — this.
This is one coat of Exotic Encounters, one coat of Piper Polish Co. Zebra Juice, and one coat of Zoya Frida, a dark turquoise jelly. I love the way this looks. The teal is gorgeous, the glitter adds interest, and the jelly brings it together in a lovely sandwich-y whole.
Zebra Juice is another of those fabulous black and white mixed glitter beasts. I’m not sure if it is intentional or not, as it’s not mentioned in the description, but there is also a very small amount of holo glitter mixed that gave it a very subtle but present sparkle when looked at very closely.
I did experience some really horrible bubbling, and I’m not sure whether to blame it on Zebra Juice, Frida, or the Butter London topcoat I used. Fortunately, it did blend fairly well with the glitter and was not noticeable in person.
Bonus cat picture: This is Zilla. She’s ten and cantankerous and, like most cats, loves basking in sunshine. She is also enormous. I refer to my two kitties as Great White (Nona) and Megalodon (Zilla). Nona has a fine white underbelly and lots of teeth, and Zilla is also bitey and over twice her size, plus she sharks around the house.
Here’s Frida’s bottle shot. This was the only polish that I had any trouble with. It was very thin and wanted to flood my cuticles like mad. I persevered, however. I really adore these types of colors, and they’re very popular for fall.
I found Exotic Encounters at an Ulta, and I’ve also seen the Zoya there, though I bought mine from Zoya directly during one of their sales. Zebra Juice is from Piper Polish Co. on Etsy.
Tomorrow will feature Cult Nails Princess and Spontaneous.
My current obsession, aside from holos and matte topcoats and indie polish companies, is Essence, and especially their Colour & Go line. They’re ridiculously cheap, rarely fully stocked, and strangely awesome. I have yet to find one that I think has an awful formula, and most of them are quite fantastic. I buy them whenever I find them, in twos and threes and fives (when I find a display that actually has that many colors stocked), and as they’re only 5 ml bottles, they’re economical for space as well as cost. This fascinating charmer is 73 – Princess Prunella, paired with a pretty neutral holo called Flash Mob from an indie company called Piper Polish Co.
Princess Prunella is not only fun to say, but also a very peculiar color, both brown and purple in nearly equal measure. I’m pretty sure that the base polish is a frosty milk chocolate brown, but there’s so much purple shimmer that it overwhelms the base much of the time. They managed to recreate the effect in plastic on the cap, too, which amused me. I love the coordinating caps on these; it makes them really stand out in the sea of black and silver in my polish boxes. The brushes aren’t bad, either.
Flash Mob is a very pretty shade, but it’s almost a non-color. Tan? Taupe? Pale gold? Except it’s grayer than those; it’s like a holo topcoat with a tint and good coverage. It is described as a “bronze metallic”, but I think of bronze as darker than this is. I want to describe it as a “my nails but better”-style of color. This is two coats and in person had zero visible nail line. It had a pretty good formula and dried quickly, though it did like to flood a bit.
Yep, back to my old alternating accents tricks again. This picture really shows the base of Princess Prunella. I used Butter London P.D. Quick topcoat with these to heighten the shine, especially on Prunella, which can get a bit brushstrokey due to the frostiness.
Flash Mob has a nice semi-linear holo. It’s not tremendously strong (it actually photographed stronger than it looked in person), but pretty. This morning I stacked on a Spectraflair topcoat (also from Piper Polish Co., though many companies, indie and major, carry them), which intensified and unified the look considerably as well as looking fantastic on Princess Prunella. However, I didn’t manage to get any photos. Can you see my sad little broken thumbnail peeking through in this photo? All my nails are that length now, as I worked at my old comic shop again today and managed to drop boxes and catch my nails on cases with sliding doors and broke two others. :/ So I’ll have stubs for a little while. Bah, humbug.
I bought the Essence at a Fred Meyers, but you may find them at Ulta, or possibly Target, or other similar places. Flash Mob was purchased from Piper Polish Co., who has a shop on Etsy.
Vanitas Rex 