Revlon Matte Suedes

I only got two of these polishes, I suppose. I could have SWORN I bought Emerald City, but I cannot find it in my polish drawer, nor can I find photos of it. So apparently I just dreamed I bought it.

Can y'all tell I'm trying really hard to get through all of my photos? LOL. Tonight I put on the first of my new Ulta Enchanted Nail Collection, Sugar Cookie, and I LOVE it. It's what I WANTED Zoya Gaia to be. But I cannot allow myself to post photos of it til I've posted the other bazillion photos I've uploaded to Flickr. So here's another post for today! Hee hee.

Anywho, I know I bought Ruby Ribbon and Powder Puff from the Revlon Matte Suedes, because I can find pictures of both of them.

I so wanted to love Powder Puff... but didn't. I even tried it with topcoat and it just wasn't doing it for me.

Here it is without topcoat:

And Powder Puff with topcoat:

Still too sheer, and I think I used three coats. Of course, the Sugar Cookie I'm wearing now is still pretty sheer at three coats and I love it... so go figure. Powder Puff just wasn't for me!

Ruby Ribbon, however, was awesome. Two coats. I didn't even try it with topcoat, but I bet it's super pretty that way too.

This was after a full day of work, so there is some tipwear (typical since I didn't wear a topcoat), but I think it held up pretty well! My job is pretty hands-on (I fix computers), so if something holds up this well all day with no topcoat, it's a pretty good nail polish!

And now for your standard ending...

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Cheat Day

So, I'm not wearing green today.
I am going to a friend's Alice in Wonderland-themed party later on this afternoon. We're supposed to dress in appropriate attire, but uh, I don't have any Wonderland-y attire, so I'm just going to go looking... insane. When in doubt as to what to wear, go for the insane and/or homeless look.

Anyhoo... Of course I had to do something fancy to my nails. And of course I had to use one of the OPI Alice in Wonderland polishes. And of course there are no greens in that set. So, I'll go back to greens tomorrow (probably tonight, actually). But for today, it's blue and gold.

I sort of did the ruffian-inspired thing. Except, instead of using a dark color on my tips, I used Absolutely Alice. I painted my nails with Orly Solid Gold, applied tip guides around the base of my nails, and slathered on a few coats of Absolutely Alice on the top part. I like how this brings out the gold glitter in AA. This could've been neater (yeah, if someone else were doing it!) but I like it anyway. :)

Green of the day!

So last night I gathered up all my green polishes and put them in a basket. Then I let JJ pick which one I'd paint my nails with. I think I'm going to continue this for the next 18 days (that's how many greens I have) because I'm terrible at making decisions like this. He picked OPI Gargantuan Green Grape Matte. Oh no! I hated this polish as a matte because it looked downright putrid on my nails.

I put a topcoat on it and I actually really like this glossy. It's a nice spring green. I realize it's not the same shade as the regular, glossy Gargantuan Green Grape, but I still like this shade.

Then I stuck some nail stickers on. I looked through my Konad and Fauxnad plates and I don't have anything remotely resembling a shamrock... or a leprechaun... or a pot of gold... or beer. And I don't think I can freehand paint those things on my nails. So, flower stickers it is!

I took this photo this morning against a lovely backdrop of sleet and snow. WTF. This winter has been way more snowy than I'd like. When I was little, growing up in south Alabama, it would snow, like, once every five years. And that's enough for me. I am SO READY for spring this year.

Some randoms

Here are some randoms I've just had lying around. Stuff I picked up for a dollar or two, stuff I've been meaning to try out but just hadn't. So I swatched it all today. Yay!

Wet N' Wild Caribbean Frost. It's a teal frost. It's ok. I think I got this on clearance for 50 cents someplace, so I don't feel bad saying I'll probably never wear this again. It's not a bad color, just way frosty for me.


L.A. Colors in Amethyst. This is actually a really nice glittery purple. It's a medium bright purple. I think this was three coats. Please excuse my ring finger, clearly I banged it into something. :D I picked this up at Dollar General one day.


Orly Blue Suede. My love of all things matte is fading fast. I do like this a LOT better than OPI Russian Navy Matte, but the OPI mattes were generally crappy anyway. This is a good navy that doesn't look *black*.


Pure Ice - Magic. WOW! I've read numerous times that Pure Ice is a great drugstore brand, but I'd never actually bought any of it before. This will be changing. I picked this up on a whim last night and I love it! The formula was great, the color is interesting, and it was only $2! Sweet! I had to take a bunch of pictures of this.
Natural light:


With flash:


In direct sunlight - OMG THE SPARKLEZ!!!



Finger Paints Icy Iris is last.
Holy mother of God, I love this color! It's a dark eggplanty-purple with teeny tiny lighter purple glitter in it. This is actually my current mani. I hope to leave it on til Tuesday... if I have that much patience.




And that is all until I get my Claire's pastels swatched. I really am excited to use those, I have no idea why I wanted to get everything else outta the way first. :)

Mannequin Hands, attempt 2

I think I actually found my mannequin hands shade. I found this Rimmel "Milk Chocolate" on clearance for 1.09 and figured, "Why the hell not?"

Oddly enough, I think I like this, even though I am more apt to choose a glittery or vampy color (I have to feed the inner goth girl, I tell you!). I might just wear it once I get rid of my crazy leopard print.

Glossy... Almost mannequin hands.


Full hand shot. Look at my pudgy lil hands. :)


And with Matte Magic topcoat... I think I have the right shade now.


Not-quite-full hand shot.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure

Ok, so I'd been wanting to try these, but $7-$8 is a bit much for Sally Hansen, in my opinion. However, Walgreens had a sale so I picked one up.

I decided to get the shade that everyone seems to be blogging about from this collection -- Commander in Chic. I don't usually do taupes, but I really like this. Maybe I should broaden my horizons a bit.

So I painted it on last night. I really like the wide, flat brushes in these, the Insta-Dris, and the new Rimmels. I think I may be in the minority on that one, but for me, these types of brushes are super easy to work with. Anyway, I painted it on last night and went to sleep.



This morning, I decided it was too boring, so I put on some tip guides, left the tips shiny and painted the nail plate with China Glaze Matte Magic topcoat. I like this. It's subtle but still interesting. :)

OPI Suedes

I've been swatching all day long today! I'll probably swatch all day tomorrow too! Now to post some content...

I only bought two of these, but I'd sort of like to have the whole collection. These are pretty much my favorite OPIs. I'm not a big OPI girl, honestly, but these are really nice. You're supposed to wear them without a topcoat, of course, but they really sparkle and shine with one. I have a thing for shimmery mattes! In the interest of swatching and staying true to the "suede" style, I did not do topcoat for these pictures. I did do basecoat and two coats of polish.

Lincoln Park After Dark Suede:


We'll Always Have Paris Suede:

OPI Mattes!

I actually have enough swatches photographed and enough time before bed to make two more posts. Oh yeah, I rule. :)

I only bought three of the OPI Mattes, and I hate two of them. There, I said it. I liked the suedes much better. The OPI mattes were too chalky and gloopy and brushstroke-y to me. Ick. This is why I buy so much drugstore polish -- it's much easier to stomach wasting $1 or even $4 on ugly polish than it is wasting $8 or $9.

Also, I think this is one of the ugliest nail colors I've ever seen. The color itself isn't so bad, but the color as a matte is putrid and terrible and... I should probably try this with a topcoat.
This is OPI in Gargantuan Green Grape Matte:


This is OPI Russian Navy Matte. It's okay, just way too dark. Also, I asked my coworker one day what she thought about it and she said, "Umm, your fingers look like you're dead."


Here it is in slightly better light so you can see that it is, in fact, dark blue and not black:


And here is the one OPI Matte that I own and really like. And I'm not even a "pink" person, but this is gorgeous. It's a little shimmery and satiny and just HOT. It's La Paz Itively Hot Matte:

Man Glaze

Man Glaze is my favorite matte polish ever. It looks great alone. It looks great with a topcoat. I broke down a couple of months ago and ordered their entire collection -- the grey, the black, the matte topcoat, and the "hot mess" topcoat, which is a matte silver glitter topcoat. Awesome!

Their matte topcoat isn't my favorite, but I'll get into that later. I have a few matte topcoats and I'm going to do a review post about them... but not right now. :)

Anywho, I did not take pictures of these with topcoat today, but I know I have a picture of Fuggen Ugly (that's the grey) with topcoat that I'm going to dig up for this post.

In fact, let's start with Fuggen Ugly right now. It's a lovely matte grey that has some rainbow sparkle in it, not unlike Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear in Gunmetal. The sparkle isn't all that noticeable until you put a topcoat on, but you can see it without the topcoat, too.
Here is Fuggen Ugly all by its lonesome:


And here it is with the Hot Mess topcoat:


And here it is with a shiny topcoat:

(MAN, my cuticles were in REALLY BAD SHAPE in this pic... they aren't great today, but they're better than they were. Progress! Yay!)

And here is Matte is Murder, which is their black matte shade. But it isn't a flat black matte, there is some shimmer in this as well, and I don't think it's really dark black, but more like a very very dark gray. It reminds me of asphalt.


And here is Matte is Murder with the Hot Mess topcoat:


Now, as for that Hot Mess topcoat. I LOVE IT! It's so unique. Everyone has come out with a plain matte topcoat these days, but I haven't seen a matte GLITTER topcoat anywhere else. This also looks good on top of glossy polishes. That is something I will take a photo of one day, when I decide to do it again. :)
This is just the topcoat by itself. You could probably achieve opacity in 4-5 coats of this, since this glitter is fairly dense, and get a neat matte foil sort of effect. I used two coats for this photo.

Orly

Here are the three Orly polishes I own.

The first is Poison Apple, which I picked up on clearance at Sally a couple of months ago. Sally, I love your clearance table! In other news, the $5 I spent for a year on my Sally Beauty Rewards card is probably the best $5 I've spent in awhile. This is an orange-y tomato-ey red. It's okay. Reds aren't really my thing, and when I pick a red, I tend to go towards a red with a more blue/violet tone than an orange tone.


The second Orly polish is one of their mattes -- Purple Velvet. I really like this matte. In fact, I like it a lot more than any of the OPI mattes I own, but not as much as the Man Glaze mattes, which are, I think, the best mattes EVER. I'll post those later. :) This applies fairly easily if you work fast. This swatch isn't the best ever, but it'll do for this purpose. It also dries quickly, but I think that's standard for matte polishes.


The third and last Orly polish in my collection is one of their Metal Chic polishes -- Solid Gold. This is a shimmery, metallic matte, sort of like the OPI suedes. I found this on sale at Sally last week. Are you seeing a theme here with me and Sally and sales? Hehehe.
I really want to try this with a topcoat one day, and I'm sure I will. You know, eventually.