Some New Goodies

Sorry I haven't been posting much lately, I've been busy watching/thinking about Doctor Who pretty much every waking moment when not working! I'll try to be better, since I am finally almost caught up :).

I recently found a wonderful diptych app for my phone, which also helps me out quite a bit with pictures for my blog since I can just upload one picture with several shots in it :). Love it! Of course if I need to put separate pictures I still will, but I think this makes everything more compact and easy to see. Especially if I do comparisons (not that I really have yet though, but whatev!)

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First off we have L'Occitane Pivoine Flora in Cerise which is a very nice darker red with subtle shimmer. For some reason I can't make it smooth on my lips half the time, but the formula is very moist and glossy.

However THIS is my favorite of the two, and is much more wearable on a daily basis. L'Occitane Pivoine Flora in Fushcia. It's pretty sheer but gives a very nice color to your lips again with a subtle shimmer. It's nice and buildable too although it never gets super bright. The formula is amazingly moisturizing for a lipstick. I love it. My only complaint is that the cardboard cap is a bit loose. I don't feel like cardboard makes it cheap or anything, but it would be nice if it had something to hold it on there a bit better.

A couple weeks ago I did this really need sorta skittles (thumb and accent nail are both the same color so it's not exactly skittles) manicure with Milani Holographic polishes just because I wanted something fun and sparkly! Even though I haven't had this on in a while I thought I'd share it still, since it looked so pretty in the sunlight.

I love this stuff, it's the Hello Kitty x Sephora Apple Balm, unfortunately the container is TERRIBLE and just sucks at opening, so I had to depot it losing it's charm and Hello Kitty-ness. Good thing the balm is amazing and wonderfully pigmented otherwise I'd be disappointed.

OPI Sorbet Layered Over Glitter

So, this is my 1am polish emergency solution (yes, my China Glaze Atlantis on my thumbs decided to peel around 1am). OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y over Urban Outfitters Afterhours. The very sheer jelly formula of the OPI "sorbet" is perfect for layering over glitter, as they suggested on their Twitter. I think it made a world of difference, since the glitter was very gloopy and gritty this made it much more palatable for me, but I had to do a layer of a thick top coat (Poshe) before I used the "sorbet" to make sure it wasn't absorbed by the glitter and went on smoothly. It's a really nice effect.

Artificial light, no flash.

Artificial light, with flash to show sparklies.

NOTD OPI DS Sapphire + Hard Candy Beetle

Oh man, this manicure has been a comedy of errors!! It looks ok here, but that's because I am covering the nick on my index finger with my thumb, and it's before dry erase board cleaning spray ruined the finish on my middle finger (there is also some red dry erase ink on it too...).

I can't wait to get home and fix everything >.<. These are such pretty polishes too, OPI DS Sapphire is such a pretty light blue holo and Hard Candy Beetle is such a neat duochrome glitter. I just want to be able to really enjoy it. The formula on both polishes was lovely, no issues there although I am going to get a bottle of Seche Restore ASAP as my Seche Vite is getting gloopy and is hard to apply without destroying the polish...it still works, I just have to be very careful and work very quickly.

In natural and fluorescent lighting.

I did the flash so you can see the holo effect better.

Nail Haul!

I got a few other nail polishes recently, of varying degrees of awsomeness.

First up are the 2 polishes I got from Forever 21. They are Aqua and Grey respectively. Aqua is the one I really wanted, and I probably should have just gotten that one as after looking at a beauty shop in the mall I found OPI Ski Teal We Drop from the Switzerland collection that I have on my want list. But I was on a bit of a budget at the time, and didn't want to spend $9 after I spent $6 on these too...boo. ANYWAY, I hear these aren't the greatest but I've only tried them on the nail wheel so far and can't make any real opinions about it. Aqua looks quite cute and squishy however Grey is a bit boring, which is why I am regretting it...it's a different color to have but if I want a gray polish I'd rather use something duochrome like $OPI Mash Up. Maybe I can use this to layer under a crackle though... it was only $2.50 though so no harm done really, other than having to wait a while to get Ski Teal We Drop.

Now on to my more anticipated polishes, that I'd ordered and weren't impulse buys like the F21 ones... first up is OPI DS Sapphire. A really pale bluish nearly silver holo that is quite strong indeed...it took a lot of willpower to not use it right away, but when I got it I still had my Milani holos on and wanted to do something other than a holo. Not a whole lot to say about this one, other than how lovely it is. I am addicted to holos! Some day I'd like to have all the OPI DS polishes, as well as China Glaze's OMG series and of course Gosh Holographic.

You can see how pretty and linear the rainbow is here, sorry it's a smidge blurry.

Last but not least, I got a couple of China Glaze's Crackle Glaze series in Cracked Concrete and Crushed Candy. As everybody has said already, Crushed Candy looks exactly like ChG For Tiffany which is awesome as I love that color, and I was aching for a pastel crackle since although I love OPI Black Shatter black is really rather bold for me usually. Same reason I got Cracked Concrete since it's a pretty light color. I may get some more colors in this series eventually, but these were my favorite and I am very pleased with them. I really hope even more colors come out in crackles, it's just such a simple way of spicing up a creme or an aging/messed up manicure.

As always with crackles make extra sure to give plenty of time for your base color to dry, even with Seche Vite. I made the mistake of doing it a bit too quickly before with my army manicure and the results weren't so hot. They weren't TERRIBLE but I was not pleased with it. Also as usual these crackles dry matte, in the picture below I have Seche Vite on top.

Here they are layered over a dark blue Maybelline shimmer. It's a little crummy because I did it quickly since I was anxious to see it...but you get the idea.

Some Improvement!

I think I made a huge jump in improvement with my nail polish application last night, also I used some cuticle gel and pushed back my cuticles which may have helped some. The skin around my nails still looks rough, but at least I got the cuticles fixed somewhat.

I also managed to get more control with the polish and not flood my cuticles and get it all over the skin around my nails, and actually only had to do minor cleanup that wasn't so bad at all. I am proud of myself :p. At least, I actually feel like I can show off my nails more (not that I didn't show them off before) since it looks a lot cleaner. I just have to practice getting a cleaner line around the cuticle and leaving an ever so slightly wider space.

Now on to the actual polish I used! I used Milani Holographic in Hi-Res for my accent finger and Milani Holographic in Cyberspace for the rest. Originally I used the pink/yellow Icing Mood Swing polish on the accent finger, but since my hand is warm it was yellow and didn't look so great with the blue of Cyberspace. Then I put a sticker on it, which warped (maybe I did something wrong...gotta figure that one out) so I just decided to scrap it and wiped the accent nail clean with a very saturated in remover Q-tip.

I also think that having a purple as the accent for blue is better this

time around, since last time I had blue as an accent to pink which was a pretty stark contrast. So this time it's still there but much more subdued, I like it. Still a little "wacky" but not as obviously so.

It's a bit tough to see the holo in this pic, since it's a scattered-type holo but it's there. I think it's more of a soft look with the scattered than the linear which is also nice. It's still rainbow just not as in your face about it. This picture doesn't really represent it well, but it's definitely true what people say about Hi-Res having a stronger holo effect. Cyberspace's is still pretty obvious but Hi-Res' is definitely stronger.

Don't mind the trash can and my sweatshirt sleeve :p.

Yes~! Got a good pic of the holo effect AND how it's stronger on the Hi-Res, all thanks to flash. Yay for iPhone 4 haha.

This about the best representation I can get of the holo effect right now, under my bathroom light.

Milani Holos Pt. 2

Last night I picked up a couple more Milani Holos, HD (silver) and Hi-Res (purple) and I think I am just going to get the other 2 today because why the heck not and I freaking love holos xD. I still like the linear holo effect better, but these are really pretty for being scattered, and cheaper than other holos with a similar effect so I figured I might as well get them all.

I managed to capture the holo effect pretty nicely using a lamp finally (been raining like crazy here lately). I'll try to get another pic of it in the sun at some point too. It's a little bit hard to see still in these pics, but they all have a decent rainbow/holo effect although it's not nearly as strong as a DS etc.

From left to right: Hi-Res, Digital, Cyberspace, HD.

Milani Holos Cyberspace + Digital

I haven't tried these on yet since I just got them. I saw them at CVS for buy one get one 1/2 price and had to pick up a couple to see if I like it. I'm going to swatch them on some fake nails tonight to see how it turns out since the sale is over tomorrow.

I got Cyberspace (blue) and Digital (pink) since I can't really go wrong with those colors, I love light blue and I love most non-bright/neon shades of pink. I was also eying HD (silver) and Hi-Res (purple) so if they look as pretty in person as they do in the swatches I've seen I'll get those 2.

Cyberspace

Digital

EDIT: Swatches of Digital and Cyberspace in artificial light.

Nubar 2010 + OPI DS Signature = Awesome

Hi everybody!

This is my first post, I've been wanting to start a nail blog for a while now, but haven't been able to take pictures with my good camera (I mstly take pictures with my phone) but today I finally did it, yay!

Here we go~

This manicure is a few days old at this point, so don't mind the wear on the tips, there is nothing wrong with anything I used :)

I was amazed with the formula for the OPI DS Signature, not just great at distributing the holo but also a great formula for any nail polish! I didn't really have to do any clean up at all, it was wonderful. Either that or I am getting better at doing my nails, I am kind of still a newbie right now, but I do my nails more than once a week so practice should make perfect...right?

As for Nubar 2010 I am super glad that I got it, I've been wanting a flakey for a while now. No complaints about the formula and for this manicure I only used one coat, the flakes seem to have distributed evenly on the first try, I didn't have to poke them into place or anything :).

As you'll be able to see in the pictures, when not in direct sun the Nubar 2010 gives a good effect that doesn't take away from the holo, but in direct sun it's almost impossible to see the flakeys through the holo.

On to the pictures~!

Outside, out of direct sun:

Outside in direct sun: