Blue Layers

Just a quick blue layering combo

SinfulColors Most Sinful topped with SinfulColors Hottie then a layer of Cover Girl City Lights

The simple beauty of SC Most Sinful gives a great backdrop to SC Hottie.

Two coats of Most Sinful, then a coat of Hottie and Cover Girl City Lights.

A nice trio.

Perfect for bright days!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Green...Finally

Without a computer at home, and the learning curve of lighting for my new camera, greens are slow off the starting blog, er, block, this year.

I'm in it to win it, though!

Here's a glitter combo: Hard Candy Sweet Pea topped with Cover Girl Crystal Mist

Sweet Pea is sponge applied. Note to self: paint some latex protection on your skin, will ya? It took a lot of acetone with the brush to pry off the glitter. Doh!

This took about 3-4 sponges to get a very nice density. 

Painting it with coats of polish would have never reached this kind of coverage without a thick load of base. 

I've not used this technique for a long time and it didn't pan out, so I didn't bother. This went very well, with the exception of the excess glitter, so I will be trying it again on some other polishes.

Hard Candy Sweet Pea is a plain chartreuse metallic glitter. 

I added my favorite green/blue iridescent polish, Crystal Mist and that's the bright blue pops you see in the photo.

Both of these are discontinued, however eBay might reveal some love. I would check out indies, too, to see if someone is throwing down a chartreuse glitter. You never know!

Nice to start off with a fresh, yellow-green that reminds me of budding daffodils.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal.

The Blogging Year Recap

2016 is over. Wow. When I flip back through pages of blog posts, it feels like so little time has gone by. In fact, 2009 feels a lot like yesterday. (Well things were full of change and hope back then).

I'm still enjoying blogging, and that's key. I hope you are enjoying the polishes with me.

There are many changes in blogging and I don't think social media blogging has eradicated bloggers like me, yet. Yet. The challenges for me is time and accessibility. Instagram is very phone-centric, so I hope the new Sony A6000 will be up for that challenge.

I'm off the SinfulColors mailing list, much to my relief, and I don't have anyone offering me polish. Yay! So while I am not super timely with new things, my reviews will be my own. It's hard to be objective when you have free stuff arriving in the mail, despite disclosures and disclaimers.

This year I plan on trotting out a heck of a lot more indies and more stamping. I have to say I love both and with a better camera it's only my skillset that won't do right by it.

Finally, here are a few of my faves from 2016, enjoy!



FUN Lacquer Anna

OPI Into the Night and RBL Pardonne Moi stamped with white pearl (if I recall!) and topped with Orly Precious Metal

Maybelline Sand Storm stamped with Sally Hansen Frost Freeze

Guppy 77 over Sally Hansen Gray by Gray

Borghese Capriccio Blue stamped with Revlon Captivate

Sally Hansen Model Behavior

Illamasqua Muse

OPI Ro-Man-ce On The Moon accented with Milani Silver Dazzle

China Glaze All Wrapped Up

Petites Banish

Essence Back to Paradise

Diamond Cosmetics Tranquility franken

Nicole by OPI Sing You Like a Bee topped with Hidden Treasure all over Color Club Coastal Creme

American Apparel Tshirt

Dior Equis

Layering: Revlon Snow Bunny franken, SinfulColors Pinky Glitter, and Cover Girl City Lights

Morgan Taylor Making Waves

Dear Readers, thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Happy 2017!! (fingers crossed!!)

Layering Surprises

When I layer polishes and discover something completely new, it really makes my day.

The base is a franken I made from a polish called Revlon Snow Bunny (blogged here) that ended up looking like a dupe of China Glaze Blue Island Ice Tea (blogged here)  but less sheer.

A blue that I made from adding some Pacific Blue and a few other things, but ending up a pale glass fleck that was quite pretty.

Here's the result:

This is two coats, but it really covers, so I have a lot love for this little glass fleck bomb.


Then I added about 2 layers of SinfulColors Pinkie Glitter. It's an iridescent small and micro glitter in a bright pink jelly base.

Suddenly my polish was a beautiful blue lavender. What? Hello!

I loved this so much I wore it for 3 days then redid it and wore again for another four. Wow.

Topped it all off with Cover Girl City Lights (akin to Revlon Holographic Pearls) and couldn't stop staring at it for the whole week.


Here's a third iteration showing Different layers:

Left to right:
One coat SC Pinky Glitter
Two coats SC Pinky Glitter
Three coats SC Pinky Glitter
Four coats SC Pinky Glitter
(all topped with CG City Lights)

The thing is that you can see how it goes from blurple to a lavender. This photo doesn't show the change as well, but you can see that two to three coats really seals the deal.


The best part, that isn't imparted in my photos is that the glitter layers and plays hide and seek beneath the holo topper.

Mesmerizing.

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!

Mendeleev Had Something To Do With This

I love the periodic table, it's loaded with history. First a mere list, then as it grew to 60 elements, Dmitri Mendeleev saw patterns and periodicity, and the best part is how the predictability of empty spots over time filled with actual elements.
People thought water and fire were elements, and things like phlogiston were considered elements instead of evidence of a reaction.

Understanding the elements, how they are formed, how they react and how they behave takes alchemy out of the mix and replaces it with something even more interesting: things like quantum mechanics and fusion reactions. Besides, who wants to waste time making lead into gold (I believe last time I read about doing that, the cost made it prohibitive) when you can learn about atomic decay, which is kind of like alchemy, when you think about it.

Back to the chemistry I love best: nail polish.

Here's Vivid Lacquer's science plate. It is a magnificent thing. Mostly because it has a big old periodic chart on it!

Here's my stamping:

Base: LDL/Elle Elle burgundy red shimmer
Stamping polish: Cover Girl white, which has lost a bit of it's solvents so it's a bit thicker and stamps surprisingly well.
Nothing fancy.

I tried horizontally and vertically, while I love both, I think I like vertically best. There are some corners of the table that are harder to get, so I really couldn't get the Noble Gases or Lithium in there, though the Metals are fully represented and a couple of transition elements, too.

Here's a photo of the plate:

There are some really cool images on this plate besides the Periodic chart: DNA strands, some equations, planetoidy stuff (Red Dwarf reference), and some Erlenmeyer flasks to boot!

It kind of made my day when I found the plate, Vivid Lacquer is on Etsy, and made my week when I got to stamp with it. Much fun had all around!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Houndstooth Variations

Prints and retro influences are quite on point these days, and houndstooth has been quite a favorite of mine.

Fortunately BundleMonster plate BM19 has a good size for my small fingers!

OPI Bare It In Trafalgar Square stamped with Orly Opposites Attract:

I blogged Orly Opposites Attract a bit of a while ago, here, and thought it might work for a stamping polish, and OH BOY! Love at first site!
It pulls much more blue here, too.

Borghese Stellare Notte stamped with OPI Bare It In Trafalgar Square

This was was a pretty ad hoc attempt to see if the OPI would stamp, and low and behold, it did! You can see where I repaired the stamp, meaning it didn't quite reach in my application.

This reminds me of a dress I saw online:

Source: http://www.fashionisers.com/trends/fall-winter-2015-2016-print-trends/

Cover Girl white stamped with LDL/ElleElle 209

I did this one earlier and it inspired me to do the other two. I have to admit I was thoroughly surprised how beautifully this deep vamp stamped. I thought it would be dark, but it came out bright berry. Hard to not love this one.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Pie Crust Promises

I have to say, I wanted to post many more manis over the holidays, but combination of time crunch and not feeling up to par really reeled in many plans.

Anyhow, in the hopes that I can get several done by end of year, here is a layering combination that I found languishing in a folder, needing an outing.

Many layers at work, I'll post the pix then you can see how it wend down:

Base is a franken I made a few years ago, full of glass fleck shimmers that are now quite the norm, which is never a bad thing!
Next is an I Love My Nails, gotten in a RAOK/swap combo. I have to say the stars are sparse, but they are teal, and it was nice to get that color glitter.
Next is the old Cover Girl Ice Slicks. Packed with iridescent glitter that really never fails to please.
Finally old Cover Girl Boundless Color City Lights. I find that it is akin to China Glaze Fairy Dust, but a touch larger glitter. And, to be honest, a better formula.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Happy New Year!

Dusty Purple Layering

Hey folks!

Happy Sunday!

Sundays are lounge-y days, especially when you fall back and the day is almost gone before it starts.

Here is American Apparel Dynasty:

Akin to the dusty lilacs I blogged about last summer. This seems especially crushed, and looks more red/purple in the photos than it actually is. I'd almost say it pushes into the mauve terrain in real life.

Next I added Cover Girl Amethyst Mist

Purple glitter and iridescent glitters mixed together. Discontinued, but the payoff is pretty great for layering.

Finally Revlon Glimmer Gloss Grape Shimmer:

Purple base, but blue glass fleck glitters that don't color shift. Really like a glitter on the nail. Sometimes it's invisible then it pops up and flashes all the blue.
I've blogged this before, still love it a LOT.

AA was a great formula. Wow. Amazing. I really think it's got to be a top creme formula. I barely had to do clean up. I did three coats, but two would have done nicely.
I purchased it on eBay when some shelf pulls were up in a lot. Some colors were clearly not super wintastic (Palm Springs comes to mind) but overall, nice.

The two other toppers were to coats each. Ebay would be your best bet, both are long gone.

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

Coral Reaching

I am reblogging a polish that didn't really get a fair chance.

Not sure I'd call it a win, in the end, but at least I tried.

This is a combo of Princessa Melon and a top coat of Cover Girl Crystal Mist

Melon is a perle shimmer, unfortunately it is rather sheer. I put it in with my layering polishes, but it's in that annoying category of not-quite-sheer-enough-to-be-useful. As much as I love to layer, at times I don't always take the time to color coordinate the layering. As you know I am perpetually organizing, I don't think I have a librarian's verve for sorting, cataloguing, and swatching every permutation of a polish.
Some polishes I just need to let be polishes. Sheer or otherwise.

Here is the result:

Four coats, a little lighter on the nail than in the bottle, less intense, really, and in need of many coats to grab the coverage that is necessary.
Dry time, a little slow, but not impossible, though, it was a bit of a hassle.

Two coats of Crystal Mist, easy top coat that dried pretty well!

I think that it's a color that could be a greater one had there been less sheerness. It's iffy for me. Add that it's hard to find, Richon has revamped their nail polishes, and it's a generic pink coral, I don't imagine there will be many who accidentally pick up this one by mistake.

If there is one thing that works, it's Crystal Mist, Cover Girl's now defunct Boundless Color line was packed with topcoats! I am glad I grabbed one!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

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:

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal!

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!

Iridescent Iterations

The upside of organizing by color is that you see where your dupes are. And do I have some dupes here!

Iridescent Glitter! Four of them!

I am talking about glitter that is clear, but when the light hits it, it iridesces blues, reds, greens and ambers. I have Sinful Pearl Harbor, but it just iridesces blue and green. I did not include it in this batch.

The candidates are:

From left to right, with some general comments:

• E.L.F. Twinkle - Heavy, need to continually thin, dries like matte, needs a topcoat. Dries pretty well. Need a lot of coats to get decent coverage. Everything is about three coats.
• Cover Girl Crystal Mist - A very pale green base, very pale, with a more uniform glitter. Somewhat scant glitter, too. Dries pretty glossy.
• Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Disco Ball - Some smaller pieces. Dries well, but seems a little satin-like, but there is texture with the glitter when it dries so you need a couple of top coats or a thick one.
• Color Club Si Vous Please - Larger and smaller pieces, great two coat coverage, dries pretty well, a bit like satin and some texture.

More pictures! All bases three coats, all have a topcoat and some are more densely layered than others.




First over WetnWild's (perennial) one coat Black Creme

You can see on all of them, when over black, the range of colors, a veritable rainbow!  Disco Ball and Si Vous Please seem to be the outstanding pair: Si Vous Please for those tiny delicious glitters scattered in and Disco Ball for sheer coverage: both are two coats. E.L.F. is three and Crystal Mist is two.




New York Color 235, a Dollar Tree magenta

Same thing, dupe-o-rama!




Over Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Strike-It-Rich Mauve Creme. Three coats, a dusty pink rose that screams 1987 from the top of Mt. Everest!

The nice thing about pastels - though I am personally flashing back to some awful office decor from a job I had back in "the day" - is that it often lets you see the translucent particles in an iridescent glitter. Disco Ball shows this up the best.
Note how thickly applied is the Twinkle polish! It looks like a puffy pillow!



Now for an unnamed red shimmer that came in a Markwin (WnW) set I found at Ross in 2009 or 2010.

You can see the texture of Disco Ball...even with a pretty healthy dose of thick quick dry, it still has a bit of shadowing from the glitter. I will say Crystal mist is a light dash of glitter which isn't bad.
But, look at Si Vous Please!! Glitter like a christmas tree! Nice!


Wrap up...
I recommend Color club above all, then Disco ball for sheer amount of glitter. I know that for a while Cover Girl pulled their nail polish - I found this for 75% off at Rite Aid - but then while I was at Kmart months later, I saw it again, so I really can't figure out what is what with that brand.
Twinkle? Pass. It needs so much, that your tips will look like you did your own acrylics followed by your own gel, but kept layering. Truly thick.

I love iridescent glitter, I know that Color Club's Pardon My French collection had a really beautiful set of three in the pack, so, I think I'm set!

Thanks for reading my little nail polish journal, s'il vous plait!!

Summer Sand

Hot days. Cool nights. This is summer at 2500 feet above sea level. I don't envy those with humid summers, but I do wish I had a big lake or seaside around here.

No worries, there is a tiny set of dunes on the Snake River that keeps me feeling beachy. ;D

Here is an old Cover Girl called Sand Dune:

A golden beige shimmer in three coats here.

You can see a bit of brush stroke, but it's not too frosty, but indeed I'd call it a frost. They do: frost/givre is on the label. Who can argue with that?

I got this in a two-pack off of a nice eBay seller who must have grabbed it from their local Dollar Tree. I was looking for another color and this one was a bonus. Nice! A relaxed "office OK" shade that works.

Thank you for reading my little nail polish journal!