Back to nubs!

New year, new nails! Unfortunately my claws were getting stuck in the keyboard/mouse scroll wheel so I had to chop them off - one day they will grow clawlike again. On the flipside, I can finally stamp my full nail Konad designs again! 

I'm wearing OPI Yoga-ta get this Blue, my very first blue color (and my first 'crazy' polish color!) with mixed flakies on my ring finger as an accent.

Who else started new nails this year?

Illamasqua Serenity

With topcoat

And a few weeks later!

Man, I love Illamasqua polishes more than I probably should so it's no surprise that I was happy as hell when I finally found Noble on the Sephora shelves. It's one of their rubber finish polishes, which are semi-matte when dry. I like to use topcoat to give them shine though.

Creamy formula, basically a 1 coater, dries fast, it evens very nicely, which is a surprise for matte polishes. There's no need to go over with a topcoat, then a matte topcoat since there is no lumps when this polish dries - best matte I have tried in a while.

PS: this is actually as long as my nails got EVER! I had to cut them down after this mani - they started getting stuck in the mouse scroll wheel :( Goodbye, claws

Delicious duochrome - layering with Nfu-oh 51 and Revlon Royal

Coming back to kickass duochromes - Nfu-oh 51. A purple jelly base with iridescent purple to green to gold flakies and a scattered pigment of the same nature. This polish colorshifts like nobody's business and it's great! I've shown it here before, but this time... I can show you the full range!

It's layered over Revlon Royal. 

Let's start with this:

Looks purple, right?

Wait a minute

You can see the gold in this

Oooh there it goes!

Nothing better than wearing a few colors at once, eh?

OPI Fly and dotty nail art

I love OPI Fly... the colour itself is magnetic enough, but the formula really gets me! It's also notoriously hard to photograph. I've blogged about it three times, but I think these photos are the most colour-accurate so far.

I wanted to spice it up, so dots it was! I really like how a single line of white dots made my nails look so much longer. Simple, but nice!

Nail art - Metallic Zebra

I always love the Zebra stamp on the Konad plate m57 - it's always crisp and perfect. The base is Essie Blue Rhapsody, a perfectly blue metallic color. There's never a season without Zebra nails!

What's your favourite Konad/stamping plate?

Sally Hansen Pacific Blue

Who loves blue? Me, that's who! Now, I've been resisting this color for months, I loved SH Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away as my favourite blue creme and I was a little afraid of finding something that tops it to be honest... Then I saw that SH Xtreme Wear Pacific Blue was a very close dupe to Nails Inc Baker Street! I'm a lover of blue, so I wasn't going to pass up this polish any longer and picked up a bottle. That was a great idea.

Same formula as on the Blue Me Away: thick, one-coater with a very shiny finish, super durable and doesn't like chipping, evens out great and it's very saturated. Now there's TWO blues that are my favourite, and they are both fighting for the first place.

What's your favorite blue?

Essie Blue Rhapsody

Essie, Essie Essie! 

I finally found some Essie metallics and grabbed my favorite of the bunch - an icy metal blue, called Blue Rhapsody. It's a bit brushstrokey, but that makes it so reflective and with a steady hand, it didn't look too bad. I LOVED this color. It was a 2-coater (1 will fill and 2nd will cover the bald spots) and it dried very fast. The formula is creamy and glides on, but if you go over wet polish with a brush, it can create bald spots. The best part is how shiny it was. Somehow, I like it better than plain silver because it appears even more metallic and less dull in my opinion. The blue looks great on my skintone, which I was surprised by. This is my favourite metallic polish I own so far, even though it shows brush strokes.

Also, these photos are some of the best nail photos I took so far. This is an awesome milestone, compared to a year ago. Hurray to improvements!

Tony Moly GS08 vs Revlon Whimsical

Index - Whimsical. Rest  -Milky Way

As I promised, I present to you a comparison between Tony Moly GS08 Milky Way and Revlon Whimsical (known as the DL Glitter in the Air dupe).

1st difference - I'm sad I didn't have a picture of the bottles handy, but Whimsical's base is a little bit more minty with a hint of green, while Milky Way is totally baby blue. However, it doesn't seem to matter, because the base colors both end up looking the same.

Milky way's base was thicker and it allowed for more color per coat, where Whimsical has more glitter in it per coat and the 'secret' mylar glitter pieces were more prevalent. The glitter looked better, brighter. However, this difference is VERY minute. 

They looked pretty much the same on my hands, index finger just looked a little bit more glittery, Otherwise, it's a great dupe with a bit less glitter.

Your thoughts one jelly-sandwich-in-a-bottle polishes? Love or hate?

Gradient dots

It's time for gradient dots again! I used my Dear RUS color changing polishes for the dots and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away! For the base color. You can see the subtle change in color between the tip and the base of the nail. I have done this before, but it's crazy to see how different my nails are! Better, stronger... the comparison shocks me. 

Dear RUS discoloration 560

Normal look

Cold

Index finger: hot

Long time no see! I've actually finally got around to swatching and trying Dear RUS Discoloration 560, a part of a haul I got last year! (oh my gaawd it's been that long?)

560 is a dusty blue when cold (like in the bottle) and a seafoam green when heated up (on the nail). If your nails are long enough, it makes for a "funky french" effect and it changes color through the day! My hands tend to get pretty cold sometimes, so it's really neat to see it change and I have people asking "I thought you were wearing blue? How did you change it so fast?", which makes me feel like a magician.

The formula is a little prone for bald spots, so 3 coats is the optimum coverage for me. Shorter nails will not have this problem. The polish dries matte with a shimmer, which gives it a suede finish and with a topcoat, it's a very pretty color! Drying time is awesome, as with most matte polishes; wear is decent, I got 3 days of wear without chipping and some tipwear. In conclusion, I do love color changing polish and it's hard to find one with a very big difference between the 2 colors - this polish is just right! Dear RUS can be ordered through Tadukhipa over at The Cutest Makeup

SH Instadri wear Blue Away! with Revlon Whimsical

It's Whimsical time again!

Revlon Whimsical is something straight out of a dream - a milky jelly with a hint of blue and iridescent tiny glitters, along with pink and blue hex glitter - a treat for the eyes. I can't resist reaching for it every now and again, it is pretty much the perfect jelly and glitter polish I own. Here it is layered over SH Instadri wear Blue Away!, which is a one-coater light blue. Like all (at least in my experience) Instadris, it's a 1-2 coater opaque cream, dries very fast, not too shiny, so a topcoat helps. The worst thing about them is the chipping, but I do my nails every 2-3 days, so it hasn't been a big issue with me. With a jelly on top, it makes for a less harsh texture on the nail and a good backdrop for Whimsical. 

Despite being core, Whimsical is getting sold out every time I visit Superstore to pick up a backup. When I was there last week, it has TWO entire rows filled with Whimsical. Since I was moving and was shopping for essentials. I didn't get it... came back the very next day and they were all gone. What an elusive polish! I had no idea it would still be so popular. 

What do you think of it? Do you like glitter jellies or find them tacky?

OPI Fly again

A simple set of nails for the moving hassle - I am in transition right now and probably will be for a week or so. I did get to walk to work today though, which is a huge plus! I can't wait to get at the rest of my stash and show you my new pretties in a Korean haul I recently got from The Cutest Makeup <3

I do have a few pictures in the backlog, so don't worry - there will be updates! I will also be doing a 500 follower giveaway once I'm settled in, so look forward to that happening in a little while.

In regards to OPI fly, this photo is a lot more true to color than my other entry on Fly <- it's a lot bluer than it should be in the old picture. 

Again, lovely formula and just blue enough for me to love this teal. I might even buy a full size I love it that much! I don't have anything like this in my collection and I'm surprised by how much I love this. Yay for Fly!

Essie Borrowed and Blue + glitter tips

As an impulse purchase, I've picked up Essie Borrowed and Blue, a very light pastel blue with a creme finish.

The formula was streaky and the color looked chalky, which was a disappointment. However, it did dry fast, which is always a plus. The color itself is less awesome on my hands than it is in the bottle, so I've decided to do a little bit of a glitter gradient and a nail sticker! This seemed to have made it a little more "interesting" am reminds me of fresh linen drying outside in the summer... 

Overall, don't like the color with my skin, don't like the formula, wish it was a little bit less chalky, but maybe I can use it for stamping!

Nail art - Konad and neons!

It's been a dreary spring and an even colder, rainier summer. This sort of situation calls for a neon... but which one? Why not all of them? I used SH Xtreme wear Blue Me Away, Illamasqua Collide, Jo'Mina and Rare from index to pinky. I love the Illa neons, they are so creamy and opaque and don't need underwear! After that, Konad plates and topcoat. Funny enogh, I can never get the designs to go full length of the nail... I have issues stamping because my c curve is very pronounced, so they either end up covering a half of the nail or smudging. However, it does get better with practice, so that's always encouraging. 

Come on, summer! Show me the sun! I want to wear holographics~

What are some of your favorite rainy day polishes?

Wet 'n Wild - Speak When Spoken To and Jewels for your Highness

Speak When Spoken To indoors

These babies actually came to Canada! Found them in superstore, they apply like a dream, solid in 2 coats and dry nicely. They aren't as gritty as many other glitters are and much to my surprise... the removal was less painful than normal. These are dupes for the China Glaze Prismatic polishes, I saw swatches online where they are indistinguishable from each other. This is awesome! I like the tiny bottles because I will never use the whole China Glaze-sized bottle of glitter. The best part about these glitters, as you can see from the bottle shots very clearly, is that they are slightly duochrome! They also contain tiny multicoloured glitter besides the base color, making it a joy to watch, especially in the sun. 

Here's Jewels for your Highness over black (and by itself on the thumb for comparison)

These photos were taking in the sunlight.

This photo shows the prominent pink flash that comes through at this angle

The coloured glitter  comes through more indoors, but when the sun hits the polish, it lights up like a diamond!  All glitters begin reflecting light and it's a joy to watch.

In conclusion, I really love these polishes! They're easy to work with and look absolutely fantastic. I might even grab the green one sometime, since I love duochromes and duochrome glitters is an awesome combination. 

Abstract butterfly - holographic and duochrome

This was an experiment do sort of dupe the Ozotic mish-mash type of polish - a duochrome with a holographic effect.

I used Sparitual - It's Raining Men and HITS Hefesto on top. Then, I used a black nail art brush to do the lines. This was supposed to be an abstract look, but eventually, some of them turned into a butterfly wing pattern. I want to try this with a stronger duochrome next time, but I do love how airy and delicate this combination looks. I must do more holographic layering!

Essie Aruba Blue

Essie Aruba Blue was an absent-minded purchase, I needed a new color... something...Anything! With that I grabbed Aruba Blue off the shelf and wore it. It's a deep blue shimmer, a lot more blue than OPI Yoga-ta get this Blue with brighter shimmer. 3 coats, doesn't dry as fast as I'd like and stains a little. However, it is a brilliantly bright blue, so that's expected.

Here it is with Deborah Lippmann - Stairway to Heaven over it. It makes for an interesting combination! I do love that glitter.. it's so unique and useful.

OPI Absolutely Alice

A dusty hunt success!

I have't gone hunting for a while and have slowed down buying polish overall, but this is a nice find I would like to share with you. Unfortunately, the bottle is only a 3rd full, but it's more than enough glitter for me. Absolutely Alice was a part of the Alice in Wonderland movie tie-in OPI collection in 2009, I believe. 

It's a bit sheer in the first 2 coats and builds nicer after the 3rd coat. It dries fast with a slightly gritty finish. However, it's a lot less gritty than other glitters I wore. With a topcoat, it's even and shines like a mirror!

Glitter applied smoothly, it felt like it was a bit more finely milled than other glitter, which made the texture so easy to work with. And for the look... it's fantastic. Such an interesting and deep blue - I did not expect to love Absolutely Alice as much as I did!

If you like blue glitter and can get your hands on AA, don't hesitate - it's got an awesome formula and looks fantastic.

Blue Pinstripe nail art

It's stripey time!

I am a big fan of this blue color I used as a base, Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Blue Me Away! and I really wanted to try vertical stripes again, so this mani was born. I find that vertical stripes really make the nails and fingers look longer, it's a pretty cool feeling! Again, BME applied like a dream, 1 coat and it was a solid sky-blue creme... dried fast, wore like iron and looked like candy! Best blue ever ♥

Navy Stripes nail art

Horizontal stripes are my favorite thing to wear and now they're "in"! This means I get to stockpile stripey clothes like a boss. This also means I can give navy stripes a try on my nails! I used SH - Thinking of blue and the white nail art polish to do the stripes. The anchor was done with ORLY Luxe and a dotting tool. They turned out wider than I wanted, but I liked how vivid they looked.They sort of remind me of bees actually... it felt a little strange being distracted by my nails no matter what I did. Next time, I'm going to try making the stripes thinner, that should give it the look I really want. 

On my right hand I did something simpler, but I ended up liking it better! Same base polish, tapes off a white stripe and ORLY Luxe dots in the middle. 

 What are your thoughts? Have you worn horizontal stripes yet this spring?