Blush In A Mood Nail Polish, Purple

Purple is the only non-jelly color (it has a couple jelly-like properties, which I'll talk about later), but is a perfect two-coater of a medium purple. This baby is gorgeous--and yes, I know it's a purple, but it's pretty accurate. So glossay--I think you can actually see my face in the reflection of this one, yeah. And blue sky? I can totally see the sky.

I'm almost afraid of loving it as much as I do since it's a mini and can't possibly be replaced.And I really have no words to describe the beauty of this one. I guess this means I'm a purple-freak.. or that I'll become one? Hmm.

Oh yeah, the creme-jelliness. It's not a true, flat-out, stark creme, which is probably why it retains so much of its gloss after two coats. But the color is too pigmented to be called a true jelly, which needs a little more translucence. 

Well anyway,  here it is again:

Awesome.

Blush In a Mood Nail Polish, Orange

Look:  I don't like orange. There's a lot of reasons for me not to like orange, but one of them is that they just look horrible on my skin. Another is that my mother spent quite a bit of time under the delusion that orange was one of my best colors and continually decked me out in it until my classmates made fun of me.

I don't like orange, and I don't find it a "funny" color, and it does not evoke moods of humor in me. I'm sorry, Blush's little heart-shaped tagline. Orange is not funny.

I hate orange...but I LOVE this.

Blush's orange is a true jelly color that takes three coats to approach the amount of pigmentation that you see on my nails right there. You'll get visible nail line, slightly, when the sun hits the jelly just so, but y'know what? I don't mind that.  This polish looks so juicy, somehow. Like a tiny pulp of a tangerine, magnified.

(But y'know, you can always put a white base on it.)

Blush In a Mood Nail Polish, Blue

Blue, in the world of Blush, apparently signifies the "mysterious" mood. Stare at that pretty baby for a while and let me know if that's the first thing that comes to ya.

(Three coats, like every other Blush polish--also, it's after two days of wear, so pardon the tipwear and the scratches. Looks pretty good for that long a time, no?)

This color is my favorite so far out of the Blush set, although I disagree with the name. It doesn't remind me of mystery at all, as much as it does ridiculously bright summer skies, pools, beaches. It has all the energy and brightness of the words "summer vacation". I want this color on my toes.

The far-off pic, like usual, depicts the color accurately for being in the shade: there's a tad more of a greeny tint than what's suggested in first picture. Actually, I thought the color was similar to Illamasqua Muse, but I couldn't be more wrong--Muse is decidedly greener, and dustier, than the true-turquoise that's on my nails right now.

I'm really surprised at the wear of these polishes:  when applied properly, they seem to last for days! I have a little bit of tipwear, but no signs of cracks or chips yet.

Three more to go!

Blush In a Mood Nail Polish, Fuschia

Ah. Much better, no?

We're still continuing the Blush set, and I'm currently on Fuschia, which apparently means "Friendly."  Like everything else so far, it's a three-coater jelly (the only one so far not to have VNL, btw) and super glossy. (On a random note:  I predict you can do about 4-6 mani/pedis with one color each.)

More random:  the bow comes from a sticker set I picked up at Forever21.  Note to self:  Seche Vite is NOT a good topcoat for nail art stickers--the rapid shrinking that quickdry topcoats do causes the sticker to wrinkle, bubble, gap. I don't know how that ribbon bit tore off, by the way; when I woke up it was just that way.

I initially thought this color was more Magenta than Fuschia, but--again, sunlight proves me wrong. I had a friend who once told me that if auras existed, mine would probably be magenta.  Wikipedia says that the magenta aura belongs to a highly creative and artistic, openminded person. Isn't that funny? The word just makes me think of Blues Clues.

I should no longer write these entries at four in the morning. Crud. x_o 

Blush In a Mood Nail Polish, Red and Yellow

When I was at Ross at... er, some point in the past two weeks during my no-buy, I found this set next to a bunch of really old Wet n' Wilds:

        Seven little minis in colors I don't have, with a little heart-shaped card that tells you what mood that the shades are supposed to indicate. Bought it? Clearly.

This is the first in the lineup--"Red", which apparently indicates love. (Awww.) It is a gloriously bright red JELLY (whooooo) that leans to the warm side of town. Under indoor lighting, I assumed it was a dark orange. In sunlight I am pleased to say that I was wrong.

This is three coats. Really great application for a mini, dries fast and glossy, awesome. A little bit of VNL, but nothing too obvious and really obtrusive.

You do, um, see that chip there though, right?

That happened five hours in.

D:

Now, the Yellow? The, um, "happy" one?

This does not even merit an after-clean-up, sunlight picture. Three coats to get my nails to look like Plague. The first picture is more color-accurate--particularly the two fingers on the right.

D:

I'm still hopeful, though! Way hopeful. There's five more to go. They can't all be either chiptastic or, frankly, the ugliest polish I've ever seen, right?

Right?

We'll see.

Franken, Spring Break in Malibu

Funny: after I testified that Illa is my current most long-wearing, least-damaged np ever, it chipped. Sigh.

I technically shouldn't have worn this polish until after rainy week ended, since only sunlight manages to do glitter any justice, but I also need to do the next series in a row and I figured that I needed to return this polish to its rightful owner.

The story: My roommate presented me with a creamy yellow polish stuffed with holo glitter. She proclaimed that she hated it and never wanted to see it again, and that I was welcome to donate it, toss it and use the bottle, whatever. I asked her what was wrong with it. She said it looked like really questionable excrement (not in her words, of course) slathered over her fingernails.

I swatched it over a card. The issue, I saw, was that the yellow polish was so pigmented it covered up the glitter and made it... um, textured. (Think Lippman's Funky Chunky.) She also commented that she thought she herself looked terrible in yellow.

I wanted to make something for her---clear would diffuse the pigmentation enough to show the holo glitter, but wouldn't solve the 'yellow polish' problem. I remembered that she liked For Audrey, when she'd borrowed the polish for an event.

Thus was Spring Break in Malibu born:

All of these pictures are, again, taken in cloudy weather.

While I was putting this little sucker on this afternoon, I hated it. So streaky. So thick. So runny. The brush held on to all of the polish and was so large that it was impossible to maneuver on my tiny nails--thus, the gigantic gap. It took three coats to even approach evenness--in these pictures, it still isn't even enough but came out fine with one coat of Seche Vite.

I didn't know what Spring Break in Malibu looked like until I saw it in the pictures. Now, I like it. It's exactly what I was going for--a squishy aqua jelly with little holo particles scattered throughout, reminiscent of looking through blue water into the sand on a beach. There's a lot more glitter than I'd accounted for, but that's okay.

Recipe:
2/3 of yellow creme + holo glitter polish from a brand called Beauty Treats--no name. *
15 or so drops of Nfu-Oh 119
Add clear to taste

Mix Well.

So um, here you go, Day. I'm sorry. I'll add thinner for you if you can't apply it. Cheers. :)

(You better wear this during spring break.)

NOTE: okay, y'know what--I said it was holo glitter, but upon staring at my nails and at the gigantic pictures I've posted on the internetz, I've decided that it's multi-colored glitter instead: dark blue, lighter blue, green, yellow, orange. Doesn't make it any less fascinating, really. Just to be accurate. :)

Illamasqua, Muse

I'm a huge, huge fan of jelly, jelly glitter, cremes, greys, shrooms, dark greens, and dark reds. I tried to get into blues, purples, and teals, but ... they're okay. I like them, mostly. Yeah. (I am beginning to get into a red creme craze though, hmm...) Still, this is one of my new favorite polishes: Illamasqua Muse.



All pictures are outdoors on a cloudy day--about two hours after I took these, it rained.

Augh, incredible. Easy application, nearly one coat (it would be, but I have a terrible case of the peelies) and so, so glossy. Do you see the gloss? In the enlarged pictures, you could see me in the reflection on each nail.

Also also, this polish caught the attention of nearly everybody I spoke to. Nobody cares about my nails or their nail color, but this one is definitely something special.

Here's the thing about Illamasqua that is making me antsy right now: it wears down like nothing I've worn before. No tipwear, no scratches. It looks just like I put it on yesterday, and it has been two days--I at least have tipwear by this point. Chips, at the worst. For some reason, this freaks me out. But--yes, it's awesome. I heart it.

Franken, Sparkling Shiraz

I used up my bottle of RBL Bikini Bottom this weekend (it took fifteen mani/pedis, for anybody who's curious: since Bikini Bottom takes three coats to be opaque, it went pretty quickly...still, I am considering buying the polish again, I loved it so dang much), and so I cleaned out the bottle and took it home to my full stash for frankening purposes. I'd been dreaming of a wine-colored jelly glitter for ages without resorting to buying BB Couture's Napa Valley Red since it'd break my no-buy, and I realized that I had the means of creating the polish myself.

And--here it is! Her name is Sparkling Shiraz, to play on the red-wine-glitter-as-carbonation thing. Woot. It's two coats.
Please click on all pictures for gigantic images. (Note to self: apply more cuticle cream.)
These are all almost color-accurate: in real life, Sparkling Shiraz is nowhere near as brown-toned.

It's kind of like my first franken, but it's not! It is the color of red wine in the sun! It has a few gold sparkles! I like it! It's not exactly what I expected, but I like it!

The recipe goes as follows:

1. 1/4 Color Club Sex Symbol
2. 1/4 OPI We'll Always Have Paris
3. Almost 1/2 clear polish
4. Fill the rest with OPI Dazzled by Gold (shouldn't be much; just enough to provide interest)

Mix well.

It wore well, but most glitters wear well on me.

I have two frankens coming up soon--I actually don't know how one of them will look on the nail at all, so that would be an... interesting experience. The other seems to be quite similar to China Glaze's Good Witch, but less opaque and frosty. I'm not sure; I don't really know what I'm talkin about. We'll see, yes?

At some point. I think.

Color Club Sex Symbol

Oh Hello. I've joined the Glittery Dark Side.

Y'know, I originally bought (er, "was given"--thanks again, Judy!) Sex Symbol so I could franken with it. And I do franken with it--it was 50% of Bibbity Bobbity Blue, and a good chunk of a new franken that I'm plotting, which will hopefully happen this weekend. I also figured I'd be using the rest of it for glittery topcoat funsies. Then I put it on my nail. Then the glittery dark side thing happened. You know the story.

This next picture is blurry to show you the glitter.



This is three coats--three coats to achieve full glitterbomb opacity. This is ridiculously distracting on the nail, by the way: I put it on a day before rain, but this morning it was sunny and when I walked out--whoa. My fingers could become magpie bait, seriously. They probably would be, if the place I live had any magpies. As it were, I kept distracting small birds.

It wears well--I took it off today because I was no longer distracted and I couldn't imagine wearing it the first day I tutor a class--and the application is quite good. Nothing at all to complain about, especially for color club's prices. Have I ever mentioned how much I like color club? I'm constantly surprised to find that this is the only bottle of CC that I have. I really like it.

I guess that means I will actually be throwing down money for the Alice in Wonderland glitters, now... heheh. :)

China Glaze, For Audrey

I love this. I know EVERYBODY and their mom loves this, but I -really- love this. A lot. Um. Yes.

Two coats, utter perfection. What more is there to say? The black lacey thing is rub-ons---remember that torn up upholstery-type thing I was wearing? This is what it's supposed to look like, and then I got all ambitious and wore rhinestones.

That's right. It's uphill from here, babay.

Zoya Irene

Um wow. Sorry guys, I disappeared for a... a month? I've been good and not wearing chippy polish, but most of them were repeats and my camera died and had to get a new one and my lamp is still not working and I have to get a new one of those, too, and now I sound like I'm making excuses for myself. Blegh. I'm sorry.

Anyway, here's Zoya Irene, which I picked up during Zoya's Green Friday sale. I rather like Zoya. It works well with my base and top coats, and my body chemistry. They have lots of sales. They have a lot of colors. They also have Remove +, which is my HG remover.

I also really like this green, although I'd been skeptical when I first took a look at it. Most yellow colors wash me out and make me sallow, but I think Irene is kind of flattering. It's sort of a metallic, mossy green, and was done in two coats. It is the exact color I associate with the name Irene, which has this practical, down-to-earth feel for me.

Haha. :P Sorry guys, I just love this. I always want to wear this color with leather and heavy eyeliner, but I think I just wore skinny jeans and combat boots and called it a day. Sorry for the tipwear; Irene is somewhat brushstroky and I usually get rid of that problem by using a thick amount of polish and applying lightly. It works--but once you put quick-dry tc on it, it goes through massive shrinkage.

The base color for the ring finger is Nicole by OPI's Shimmy Shimmer, and I smattered Irene on top of it for that weird river-rock look.

I have more posts coming up, and I've been blog-tagged twice, so I hope to see you soon!

Oh, and quick question to any of my readers: I'm on no-buy, but do I NEED OPI Mad As A Hatter?

I think I might need it. But I'm not sure. x_o