Bedazzled Toned Down

Here is a little sandwiching I tried with a couple of pretty el cheap-o polishes.

I was going to call this blog "Faux Lippman" but felt that I was better serving the polish by talking about the glitter.

Here is the result:

I was kind of surprised by this!

I didn't do clean up, and I've been losing millimeter by millimeter of my nails through work, but this is an older picture and I really love how the glitter is kind of summery/spring like.

What it is:

Claire's Bedazzled sandwiched between old Sally Hansen Salon Sweet Creams.
This has been slightly diluted, but be assured it's sheer.

I use Sweet Creams as a base when I have sheer polishes and want a fairly unstained base. It's sheer, but covers enough.

Bedazzled is a nice multicolor glitter, lots of silver, but a lot of warm colors thrown in like aqua and orange.

When the nude goes over the silver, it turns white.

Kind of nice!

I love it!

I kind of want more multi glitter to do this kind of layering.

Nice!
:D
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Glitter MashUp Part 4: Lavender

Perhaps it is easy to say that I love blue leaning lavenders. It is harder to find them in the realm of glitter.

The last of my four mashups:

A gauzy layering with a lot of depth. Perhaps a little less "certain" but certainly the most magical.

First up, I used a base of China Glaze's Electric Lilac.

A pretty amazing polish on its own. It is from that same 50 Glitters and Shimmers China Glaze came out with in 2010 and is packing iridescent and holo glitter inside of a pale jelly lilac base.

I love it so much!

Next I used Sally Hansen's Techno. Not to be confused with China Glaze's reissue of Techno - a holo glitter - but a holo glitter in a violet jelly base:

As you can see I did have a bit of a pile up on glitter on the middle finger, but all in all, hard to fault: generous holo glitter interspersed with a lilac metallic glitter all in a deep violet jelly base. Work!

Finally Revlon Star.
I know, I know: blah, blah, blah, sparse. blah blah, blah, few holo hexes, etc. But, it is a pretty dark royal purple glitter.

Very unique among my glitters, and very nice.

Once again, the mashup:

I love how there is less contrast so that the royal purple in Revlon Star shows up a little more purple. Plus, the jelly layers still let you see the flash at lower levels, nice.


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Glitter MashUp Part 3: Teal

Mashing them all together!
Throwing them on the floor and see what happens!

I tried to keep the bases fairly opaque, but I didn't pre-swatch some newer-to-me polishes.

Today, because of the snow, I had to walk to work. I had my Leki poles and was feeling pretty aerobic! Nice!

Here is the result:

I used Anise Fame and Fortune as the base. This is from a set I found at Rue 21.

Though it looks sugary, it is more of a silver glitter in a translucent frosty/metallic base.

Sally Hansen Sonar, three coats here. A delicious teal-y pine green. Full of holo and silver glitter. My favorite of the batch of these I found at Dollar Tree. I have to say, a really fabulous polish.

Cover Girl Anti-Freeze is a beautiful iridescent blue and green iridescent with some vaguely green jelly base. I love the density and didn't include it in my iridescent glitter comp for some reason due to organziational flaws...which have been rectified!

A recap:

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Glitter MashUp Part 2: Blue

First the result:

A clear bright blue, scattered with darker blue.

The base is Claire's Blue Skies.

Here it is with no "lingerie."

It is a sheer  aqua blue jelly with holographic glitter both small and large as well as some iridescent/translucent glitter.

With a nude base that is a jelly but reduces the stains.

Definitely with lingerie or unstained nails this is gorgeous. I love it, but I confess I thought it would be more dense and when I grabbed it I thought it would be a thicker base. Still, very nice! I think it would be great over Orly Snowcone or another bright blue.

Next up, Sally Hansen Magnet. This is an oldie, as was 3-D, that was in a first Dollar Tree Supah Score. I kind of wish I'd hit another motherlode like that!!! Indeed, I look back now at the polishes I left hanging on the peg and kind of wonder why.

But I digress...

A bright cerulean blue jelly with silvery blue square glitter and hex holo glitter. Sheer, two coats here, it is born to layer.

Finally the Revlon glitter, Galaxy. Sparse, yes, but the dark blue really is kind of a cool thing.

Dark blue, with some silver and a bit of larger holo hex tossed into the mix.

I won't rehash the sparseness, but suffice to say, I feel that this could have more glitter per mL.

A recap of the mashup:

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Glitter MashUp Part 1: Red

One day I was driving to the barn to work with my horse, back in the early 00's and I heard a story on NPR about musical mashups. It was out of London that this person was putting together tunes that didn't seem to fit, yet worked together very well.

Of course this is nothing new, at all, Jazz mashes tunes and rhythms together. Popular music has done it as well! Please rent Swingtime from your DVD rental place and listen how at the end of the movie Astaire and Rogers are mashing together two songs that don't really fit, to a perfect ending for the movie.

But how does that tie into nail polish? Frankly, I needed to jumpstart the blog and these seemed the best way to do it. Finally my feet are not killing me at the end of the day ad I am not moribund with exhaustion and pain and have a little energy to do, well, anything.

Enough about me, let's dive in.

First the results:

A little closer, please:

What are the components? 

Here is the base:

China Glaze Dynasty.

Part of the 50 Glitters and Shimmers released in spring of 2010, if memory serves, and are loaded with a huge variety of great glitters. I have many faves, and Dynasty is an unsung hero.

A gorgeous mashup in its own right: iridescent, holo, medium and small glitter packed into a cherry red base. Though I feel as though the "Dynasty" name implies that it is akin to a Geisha type of red. The photos I saw made it look a lot more warm than it really appears on my fingers. Hmm.

Three coats here, and a really good amount of coverage, too.

Have to say, it really is a completely underrated nail polish. Grab one and enjoy!

Next layer was an old stand by: Sally Hansen 3-D

Another jelly, more sheer with holo hexes and smaller silvery pink glitter. Two coats and pretty sheer, the jelly is a touch more warm, but packed with glitter. I believe the word "cranberry" kept running through my mind while I applied it.

Last is Revlon Slipper.

This is two coats I believe, though I think these are gorgeous in the bottle, it is a wee bit of a let down on the nail. Yes, there is that gorgeous red glitter and some silver interspersed, but the large hex glitters seemed rare as pearls in the wild, so I admit it was a bit of a bummer. The upside is that Revlon clearly intended these to be top coats because the finish is a high gloss shine. Total win on that score.

I recall these were paired with a creme polish, so the intention is to have a delicate smattering of glitter, not a glitter bath with a bit of base peeking through. Still the dark red is nice, even if the holo had to be eked out to get any sort of coverage.

Hope you enjoyed the mashup!

More to come!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Blogger's Block

I apologize for the lack of posts.

My photos are in a flight pattern over airport PhotoShop Elements, but I keep getting sidetracked by other responsibilities, plus being so spanked after work.

Make no mistake there probably is some procastinator mixed in there, too. Worse all I serm to do is peruse the message board (mua) and don't even look at blogs!!! Gaah!

I will say the new job is a case study in testing polish wear! Some polishes are not holding up very well, some - old Sally Hansen Salon - is made of sterner stuff and defies my grabbing, digging, poking and lifting like it's part of my DNA. Not even tip wear on Sweet Creams. Word!

I am lucky I can wear anything, and even wore a double glitter bomb. I secretly love watching ladies eyeballing my manis. Hee!

Meanwhile, I appreciate your patience!!

More soon!!

Another Installment of "Is It A Glitter?"

I confess my new job is a busy one. I'd love to say I am in a glamour industry, but in fact I am on my feet all day and should be used to it sooner than later. Meaning I get home and konk out because I am toast.
What. a. wimp!!!

This is a manicure I did a few weeks ago, I really love the way it came out.

Let's start the ball rolling with photos, shall we?

The players are all simple in their own right, and yet together play up each other's strengths.

The base is SinfulColor's Dream On. I believe I swatched it summer of 2010 and it is a bright neon-esque magenta. Two coats of win!

Then over the top I put the venerable Sally Hansen's DVD from her Hi-Definition reboot collection. That was and still stands tall among the great set of polishes. I could wax on about duochrome virtuosity, but really, the fabulous qualities of Laser, DVD and a few of the others merits repeating.
The thing is, that it builds in a few coats and it also tends to work well alone as a glitter.

Finally there is Revlon's Glimmer Gloss collection, this one is Grape Shimmer. A dusty medium purple jelly base with some milky qualities to it, and a fantastic shot of blue particles in a blue mini flakie particle, the same polymer-type of thing that makes up DVD.

The players:

Why are glassy particles  - aka plastic/polymer pieces - so neat? It's that in addition to imparting some gorgeous glitter effects, it is also translucent:

Let's face it, a neutral base beneath all this glamourous glitter-esque finish would poop out. Not Dream On, it pushes through and feels like springtime rather than summer, now more demure with the blue lacing over the top of it.

What is not to love?
Each polish worked well together, no fails in the chemistry department. The Revlon Glimmer Gloss was put on last and did take a bit longer to dry, but that is the nature of Revlon.

Finally a macro shot:

You can see the duochrome of DVD working along side the blue particles of Revlon's Grape Shimmer. Fabulous!
This, to me, is what layering is all about.

Whoo!

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Try to be a member by the 15th of January, I will be trying to roll out a give away. :D

Champagne Cocktails and Mimosas, Hello 2012!!

I wanted to re-swatch a couple of combinations of OPI's I Only Drink Champagne with a couple of "bubbly" layers.

First is Cover Girl Crystal Mist, an iridescent glitter leaning blue/green/amber in the particles, but showing pink in their translucent state. The base is milky, but for all intents and purposes, clear.

Three coats of OPI IODC and two coats of glitter.

Bubbly!

For the morning after brunch, Mimosas all around!

Instead of Crystal Mist, I grabbed Color Club's Turn The Other Chic and put it over IODC:

The sugary look to the finish reminds me of some sort of brunch-y desert cake frosting. Gotta carb load after a night of partying!

As a side note, since I have bunch of glitter swatches lined up, I may just carry on with this them for January. I had to toss out some photos of some swatches because I mislabeled them while editing. Yoiks!
I really want to finish up all the ideas I had lined up. Why not? Spring will be here soon enough.

Perhaps cremes for February before I hit March Green Madness. 

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!