More nail painting fun

My sister-in-law came to visit and we painted our nails.

She used Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe over a coat of Orly La Playa.

I used Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure over Finger Paints Icy Iris.

Hers:

And all together now!

And now for your standard ending...

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Two polishes!

Today in my photo backlog, I have for you Sinful's Daddy's Girl and Orly Pixie Dust.

I was sorely disappointed in Daddy's Girl. I expected a much darker base, but this was definitely a bright purple with purple glitter.


Pixie Dust was a gorgeous blue-grey with shimmer/glitter. I loved this shade! It's unique to my collection. :)


And I had to slap some Hidden Treasure on it...

Three little polishes

So here are some of my new polishes. I really have ended up with a buttload (buttload should be a scientific unit of measurement) of untried polishes lately. I even have 8 mini Essies to try, even though I HATE Essies (generally, but not always). I found a four-pack of minis for $5 at Ulta from Essie's Fall 09 collection, and JJ bought me the four-pack of minis from their new Resort Collection. That man has to love me if he's buying me more nail polish. I know he thinks my collection is a bit ridiculous now, but he bought it for me anyway. Aww. :)

You know what else is ridiculous? My collection of shower gels and lotions. I have no idea why I buy so many. Even if I bought no more shower gel or lotion, I probably have enough to keep myself clean and moisturized until at least 2015. Hoarder much? Actually, it's more like I shop at Bath and Body Works twice a year -- during the semi-annual sales -- and stock WAY up then.

So anyway. Swatches!

First up is Zoya Alegra. This is pretty, sparkly, and foily, just like Charla and Mimi were. I like this dark, reddish shade of pink on me.


I kept reading about this color on a bunch of different blogs, and it was one of the main reasons I even stopped in at Ulta. The brand is LA Splash, which I'd never heard of before. I did see a LA Splash display in a Walgreen's recently, but it was all eyeliner and no nail polish. Maybe it'll be available at Walgreen's soon. This shade is called Golden Seahorse, and it's a seafoam green with gold glitter in it. It's really a unique color, but I'm not sure it's for me.


And this was my, "I'm bored and I found Hidden Treasure" mani. This is actually a base of Finger Paints "Tough Art to Follow," which I THINK is one of their new shades. It's a really dark olive green. I thought it'd be more forest green, but definitely has more yellow tones than blue, so I say it's dark olive. I was underwhelmed by this color. I didn't even take a picture of it by itself. So here it is with Hidden Treasure over it. Heh.



And there you go. I'm slowly whittling down my backlog of photos. :)

Nail of the day... with flakies

Man. I thought about swatching all the polishes I won from Chromatic Misadventures' blog giveaway today. But I overdid it last night and me and my hangover didn't feel like painting my nails over and over.

I DID grab the Street Wear "Tar" she sent and the Colorama flaky topcoat in "Ruby Rays" and came up with something even JJ thinks is awesome.

MAN, I remember seeing those Colorama polishes and never bought them when they were actually being sold. I didn't know about the joy of flakies back then! DAMMIT! If only I'd known!!

Here is what I used:


Look at the flaky goodness in the bottle:


And when you put the two together you get this! It's awesome! The flakies switch from red to orange to yellow to green, depending on the angle and the lighting. It's like having nails OF FIRE.

Boring Sunday at work

So, I probably shouldn't admit this, but I swatch nail polish for my blog during slow weekends at work.

Today has been EXCEEDINGLY slow. I think I've answered 5-6 calls in the last 9 hours (I still have three hours left in my day). I didn't get my first call til after 10am. I got here at 7.

So, as a result, I swatched all the stuff Jessica sent me! I'm going to post all of those and two randoms I'd already taken pictures of but failed to ever post.

This is my last weekend to work, ever. Well, maybe not EVER, but it's definitely the last weekend I'll be expected to work a 12-hour shift on both Saturday and Sunday. I should celebrate tonight.

So, here we go.

First up is Sinful Colors in Tokyo Pearl. It's a pearly white. Application was pretty good for a Sinful polish, especially in white -- they are usually so sheer, but this was good in 2 coats.
This is indoors.


And this is outdoors (well, not really outdoors, but by a window in natural light).


This is L'Oreal Wear Extraordinaire in Sheer Breathless. Okay, so when I saw this I thought, "Ehhhh... it's sheer. It's peachy-colored. Meh." But this is really pretty! And not too sheer! I had no visible nail line after three coats, and that's good enough for me. I really like the shimmer in this.


Jess also sent me this, which I didn't swatch because, well, it's a nail art brush. It will get used at some point... I thought the bottle was super cute. :)




This is Milani Garnet Gems, which I'd actually been wanting to buy! It's funny that Jess sent it to me, because I've never once mentioned to anyone that I was looking for this. The spot for it was always sold out in every store I went to, so I was pleasantly surprised to get it yesterday. I do wonder how close it is to China Glaze Lubu Heels, though. I was tempted to find my bottle of that this morning and do a comparison, but being up before dawn at ass o'clock in the morning didn't really make me feel too compelled to hunt for Lubu Heels. Maybe tomorrow. :)


THEN... she sent me four Goldie polishes. I kept seeing these Goldie trios at TJ Maxx last year but never did pick any of them up. I sort of wish I had now -- the formula was pretty good on all of these, and the glitter one looks like the lovechild of Dorothy Who? and Sinful's Nail Junkie. I wanted to try the glitter over the royal blue, but I was too lazy.. Maybe tomorrow. :)
Anyway, she sent me a nude color, a shimmery rose color, a royal blue with some shimmer, and a blue glitter. Man, I really need to do a blue glitter comparison, I seem to have a lot of those.
Nude shimmer:


Rose shimmer (this is really pretty):


Glittah! This is actually silver iridescent in a blue jelly base.


And this is the royal blue. I banged my middle finger into something when someone startled me so, well, there ya go. This is also pretty.


This!!! This is a polish Jess picked up in Taiwan. The brand is Kate and perfunctory googling turns up... absolutely nothing. But it's flakies! I layered it over black, and while it looks cool over black, I think it might look even better over a lighter color. Jess said that she thought it might be close to Nfu-Oh 40, and I think she might be right... not that I have Nfu-Oh 40 to compare it to. :) The Nfu-Oh may have more duochrome effect than this. I dunno. This is two coats of flaky goodness over Sally Hansen Lacquer Shine in Lustrous.




And that's it for the polishes from Jessica's box-o-stuff!

I also have two random polishes that I just never posted, so here you go:
This is Pure Ice in Rio. It's a purplish magenta with blue shimmer and it wasn't really opaque in three coats. Next time, I will use this tip for doing away with the dreaded visible nail line.


And this is OPI Shim-merry Chic. I picked this up impulsively at Kroger because it had flakies in it. Somehow that little fact escaped me when I'd seen swatches of this before. I was afraid it was going to be too bronze (not my color, not at all), but it was a really nice deep antique gold. Much like Merry Midnight, it coulda been flakier, but is still a nice polish. I took a few pics of this and still didn't feel like I adequately captured this color. It's a shimmery antique gold with glitter and flakies... there's a lot going on. :)

Two manicures

So, oddly enough, I had no sheet marks when I woke up this morning, despite Castaway not being dry when I went to bed last night. So here's a decent, color-accurate, non-iphone picture. It really is a cute color.


And I never did post the other picture I planned to post yesterday. This was the Nfu-Oh 51 I borrowed on top of my favorite purple - Rimmel Art of Noise. I think I preferred it over black.

Nfu-Oh...My

Well, I'd hoped for better weather when I swatched this, but today in North Georgia, it is cold and raining and cloudy. So my indoor pics actually turned out better than my outdoor pics.

So, I think I need a couple of these polishes. I don't want to shell out $25 right this minute, but in a couple of weeks, I believe I will. :)

This doesn't compare to OPI Merry Midnight. They are both purply jelly polishes and both have flakies, but the Nfu-Oh is much cooler-looking and more interesting.

Merry Midnight is more of a plum color, with micro glitter and a few flakies. 51 is more of an inky blurple with a whole crap-ton of flakies. 51 looks pretty on its own, but it really, really shines over black.

And now I'll quit running my mouth and post some pictures!

Here are the two polishes on their own. I used three coats of each. 51 is on my index and ring finger. Merry Midnight is on my middle and pinky. This is taken indoors:


And this is taken outdoors:



So then, I put on one coat of Wet N Wild Black Creme, let that dry, and topped it with two coats of 51 and Merry Midnight. Again, 51 is on my index and ring fingers, and Merry Midnight is on my middle and pinky. THIS is where you can really see how much cooler 51 is than Merry Midnight. This shot was taken outdoors. Look at all that duochromatic flaky goodness!


And this is outdoors:



Tomorrow I am going to do a full mani of 51 over black. It's supposed to be sunny, and I think I'll try to get better outdoor pics. I have some other stuff I want to swatch tomorrow, so I'll do that, then give myself a full mani. Then I will have to return 51 to her rightful owner.

Thanks a lot, Teresa, for letting me borrow this polish!

OPI Merry Midnight

I have no idea why this polish didn't catch my eye when the holiday collection came out, but it didn't. Not until I saw a couple of other people blogging about it did I realize, "OMG, I have to have this!" It has flakes and glitter in it!

I really want to try the Nfu Oh flakies, but right now I'm freaking out about how much getting married costs, so $12 nail polish really isn't on my agenda right now. I'll try it eventually, like after the whole wedding thing is over, done, and paid for. :)

This is actually my manicure for the day. I finally removed the crazy pink and blue leopard print.

This has blue glitter and... pink? purple? opalescent flakies in a dark purple jelly base. I really want to try this over a base of black polish to see how it looks.