Hoo hoo hoo. I am super stressed out right now, but that does not mean that I have not had time to do my nails. This may be not always be a good thing, as sometimes I come up with some terrible, terrible ideas. This was not so bad, but it was preceded by, well. You’ll see, safely under a cut.
HITS no Olimpo Hermes and Rimmel Night Life — lovely golden linear holo and fascinating brown-taupe-that-looks-purplish-in-certain-lights with a rather gorgeous copper-gold-red shimmer.
I like the way they look together. Observe the shimmer on the bottle. It’s a bit more subtle on the nail, but not that much.
Rrrrrainbow! Also, Night Life displaying a bit more gold. That’s three coats of Hermes and two of Night Life. Next time I wear Hermes, I might consider using a base, as it goes quick. The bottle’s not huge, and if you mung up your mani three times as I did, well, you may draw an unlovely picture from there. The Rimmel was streaky in one coat and good in two.
I’m still really enjoying the double-accent manicure look. I’ll get ’round to something else sooner or later, but there are a lot of things that are currently popular that I just don’t particularly groove on, or, alternately, haven’t got the supplies to attempt.
Please note that I will never attempt ‘caviar nails’, because I think they are terrible. Flocked nails, likewise. I give such things sideways glowers.
Mind you, this does not prevent me from some hilarious things — see beneath the cut for a painfully bad one-hand mani.
Hermes was bought at Llarowe. The Rimmel was another present from the fantabulous U. ;D
Also known as a picspam post of nails that I enjoyed, but which either didn’t get enough satisfactory photos to justify their own post, or I found too boring to talk about at length. It will give you insight into exactly how out-of-order some of my posts are. :)
I started with this, on June 29th:
That’s two coats of OPI My Private Jet (the brownish version) on the dark nails and one coat (!) of MAC Earthly Harmony as an accent. It was a pretty decent manicure; lasted about a day, wore well with my clothes, etc. I was incredibly impressed by the MAC polish — smooth, even, easily controlled. It made a great contrast to my other experiences with the brand.
When I checked the mail that evening, I discovered that I’d received some new toys and could not possibly wait to play with them.
Same mani, but with two layers of Glitter Gal Shade Shifters Soft Hidden Violet on the main fingers and GG SS Soft Daybreak on the accent. This photographed horribly. It was really lovely in person, and the duochrome is beautiful on both colors. Sadly, the light was unkind, or perhaps my photography is really that sad.
That mani lasted about six hours. Late that night, tired of looking at tipwear/shrinkage, I redid my nails entirely as the pale gold/pink look I posted a couple of days ago. After that came the polka dots I posted on the fourth (actually completed on the third), and then I could not deal with the spots after wearing them four about five hours and did this:
This was initially just BB Couture Award Medal and Layla Magnetic Purple Galaxy. My first magnetic experience was underwhelming, though the polish itself was actually pretty nice. I wore this overnight and hated looking at it in the morning, so I thought I’d see if I could add things until I liked it again. The BB got a topcoat of Lilacquer Lycanthrope (green-gold duochrome sparkly topcoat w/a clear base, very lovely) and the Layla first got three coats of Pretty and Polished Wine Night Out, then an additional topcoat of Lilacquer Bakeneko.
One more to show off Lycanthrope’s lovely green and gold shimmer:
But even with beautiful topcoats I still hated the gold and purple combo, so I wiped it out and redid my nails entirely.
This is how my manicures work at the moment; with a suddenly expanded collection and propensity for getting bored with my nails within hours of doing them, I change things up faster than I post. Be proud of me, though — there’s no matte in this post. ;D Also, I acquired a bottle of acetone and a cheap brush and am learning how to do proper cleanup! Go me! Next step: wrapping the tips. Hm.
All of these except the two indies and Glitter Gals were gifted to me by the mesmerizing U. The GG’s were purchased at Llarowe, where they are currently on sale, and Beautometry, where they are not. Lilacquer sells on Etsy, as does Pretty & Polished, though P&P will also be turning up on Llarowe soon.
In two days, I’ll be talking about a pair of superlative duo/multichromes — Hits Mari Moon Cool & Dreamer.
So one of my friends is moving and decided she had a dreaded case of Too Much Nail Polish. Being awesome, she decided to share it with her peeps. My polish collection increased by two-thirds. This is awesome, but provides me with the hilarious problem of choosing what to wear next.
OH MY GOD. WHAT TO WEAR?! I could go for some vintage China Glaze, or some ridiculously amazing duochromes from Hits. Maybe a nice OPI or something from an entirely new-to-me company, like Nubar or Barielle! Too many choices! How awesome is that?
Wrelp, I picked none of those. Instead I re-attempted a manicure I’ve been trying since March with varying degrees of success. This time I got both vaguely closer to my goal and much, much further away. It’s pretty much just a hot mess, but I’m sharing anyway. Feeling penitent, perhaps?
In March, Zoya released the Peter Som New York Fashion Week collection — three colors, two sheer, one creme. The two sheers I have attempted several times to layer into a sakura-inspired sort of jelly sandwich gradient manicure with varying (mostly failures) degrees of success. Well, tonight I tried it again. This chappie was about eight layers of polish, I think? Towards the end I was just stacking things on there for the hell of it.
I did use two polishes that I didn’t have the last time I tried this: Tart With A Heart and Give Me The Chills. The latter was from my friend’s stash. Her full ‘keepers’ stash is epic and gorgeous and I am not-so-secretly hoping I can convince her to guest post someday — when she is not moving, of course!
Butter London Nail Foundation Base > Zoya Audrey (sheer petal pink) > Butter London Tart With A Heart (sparrrrkly holo-tastic glitter with a mildly pink base) > Zoya Katharine (sheer mauve-y purple) > T w/a ♥ > Audrey > T w/a ♥ > Maybelline Colorama Top Coat in ‘give me the chills’ (hilarious peachy iridescent thread top coat > nails inc. westminister bridge matte topcoat (which is not particularly matte, as you can probably see. It’s more satiny than anything else.)
Okay, nine, including base and top. It’s excessive. The color payoff is minimal. I have to take pictures of it now because it is never going to dry and I will destroy it in the night. Also, so you can have a good snicker at my attempt. On the plus side, holo sparkles!
Observe the tiny, weird, shiny hairs on my nails. As my friend said when I picked up the bottle and eyed it skeptically, it’s pretty easy to tell why this finish didn’t exactly take off. In person it ends up looking a bit like your polish has tiny, shiny fault lines, or as if sheet marks had developed a glossy sheen.
AH GAAAD. Yeah, I actually wiped this right off after taking pics. I didn’t even let it dry completely because of the glitter nightmare/heaven that is Tart With A Heart. I love it, it’s beautiful, but hurrrgh that many layers of it fully dry would take forever to remove.
The two Zoya polishes were from a limited edition box set from their site. The Butter London I got at a Nordstrom, but you can get them various places, notably at their site. I don’t really recommend the Nails Inc. matte topcoat, but I bought mine at Sephora. The Maybelline hairy topcoat was a gift, and if you want it, um. Check ebay, maybe? I haven’t seen anything like this anywhere else. Bar glitter, sure, but hair glitter? Uhhh.
Please note that I will be attempting to use it again someday. Maybe then I’ll succeed in making it look good; I definitely didn’t this time.
All polishes were either purchased by me or gifts from friends. Nobody ever wants to see me do this one again, not even me.
Vanitas Rex 