Barely Matte.

I wanted to make the title of this post a race-related pun around the word 'matte', but I'm coming up empty. Why race-related? Because this Herôme W.I.C polish is Dakar! Obvious associations with the off-road race.

It's covered (and I use the term generously) by Hema's matte top coat. Which I am incredibly dissatisfied with. That's not matte! It's 'moderately less shiny-fied' at best! 

It also seems to wash off. Is that a regular thing with matte top coats? Either way, I intend to search for a better matte, because I've been unhappy with this one for quite some time now.

As for the purple, it's a good polish. Covers in two and is opaque. No shimmers in sight for this one. It's not very special but if you find yourself lacking a good 'base' purple in your collection, this one is well worth considering.

Artificial light - flash.

Please don't hesitate to recommend a good matte top coat ♥~

"Bagels and coffee!"

If the titular reference is unfamiliar to you, I'm going to guess you haven't seen Paul. Or.. maybe you have, but don't remember the line because you're not one of those people that feels they should commit all quotes to memory. But I digress.

April 6th was my 20th birthday, and on the day after a bunch of my friends came over. One friend and her boyfriend presented me with the two lovely Teeez polishes I've used here. I'd never used Teeez before, but it's certainly something I intend to do more in the future. The base colour 'Free 06' applied very nicely in two coats. The bright alieny green 'Big Apple' was lightly sponged on the tips.

Flash - bottles.

Unfortunately, it's currently raining, so these are all indoors pictures. Since they're taken so closely to the window, though, I think you get the general idea.

The sponging is subtle but it's such a nice sparkly green it's still noticeable.

Clubbing blues.

I feel like I've been grossly negligent in updating this blog lately. Another day and it would've been three weeks, woops. I have no excuses besides being lazy and spending all my time watching House. But I digress.

Bit of a blast from the not-so-distant past; these pictures hail from before I chopped my babies down. A blue I will describe as 'vaguely cobalt-esque but not entirely so', and is one of Miss Sporty's Clubbing Colours. In real life it had an interesting vibrancy that was difficult to capture on camera. Nothing too extraordinary, but still a very nice colour in a budget polish.
Also - another untried down.. quite a few more to go!

Omelette du fromage.

If that title made sense to you, odds are you're gonna like this post.
Or.. that you enjoy French and eggs.. but I digress - onto the nails!

This post sadly brings with it my significantly shorter nails. Ouch. I broke my middle finger nail making a Sally dress for my little sister, and chopped the rest down as well. It's also been really long since I did some proper nail art (roughly three months or so?) so I'm glad I did.
Anywho, a group on deviantART I'm a member of has Cartoon Network as its monthly theme, and I spent three years of my life doing very little else besides watching Cartoon Network!
I was instantly inspired to go for the cartoon I've cherished very much since I first saw it, Dexter's Lab. It's been a favourite for years and I frequently still watch the episodes. But I'm sure you don't care about my television-related life story and I'll just show you more pictures.

  The blue behind Dexter is a Miss Sporty polish. I wore it before my nail broke and I took some pictures so I won't get into it yet.
The darker blue on my empty nails is My Boyfriend's Jeans by Essence, from their Denim Wanted! collection some time ago.
The pink behind DeeDee is a L'Oreal Resist & Shine Titanium polish and has been previously discussed in A Study in Pink.
The characters themselves have been painted with gouache and acrylic paints and a 00 brush.

Koh - Medeter Green

I'm a girl that loves her greens (on her nails more so than in her dinner, but I digress), so when my dear aunt gave me this polish I was quite excited to give it a go. That she gave it to me back in December is besides the point entirely - I got around to it, didn't I?

Anywho, today I bring you Medeter Green, another polish by Koh. It's a lovely colour that my pictures really don't do any justice; I'll blame the lack of proper sunlight for that one. It really is quite a stunner in real life, but alas. It has a jelly finish that - as you can see in the picture - doesn't lend itself to perfect opaqueness. The above photo has 3 coats applied and a top coat.

On the right there with OPI's Greenwich Village to show you just how blue this green is compared to.. well, green. Anyway, in my opinion it's really a beautiful colour and the application is perfectly acceptable. I wouldn't pass it up, I'm really glad to own it, and I'm definitely wearing this again in the future. (And hopefully take some more colour accurate pictures!)

Artificial light -  flash.

I'm in love.

No, this isn't a belated Valentine's Day post. No, I'm not actually in love. Not with a person, anyway. When I ordered Watermelon Rind, I also ordered my first flakies (Golden Rose -  12). I had been wanting to get some for quite some time but never actually made an effort to get them, y'know what I mean? This was before I considered buying nail polish online. Well, that day I made the effort anyway. And I couldn't be happier.
How incredibly stunning they are! I spent a considerable amount of time getting distracted by the pretty shinies on my fingertips, I must admit.

Flash - Artificial light

 The polish underneath is one of my (now previously) untried, and it's a nice chocolatey (depending on the light) brown by Miss Sporty, from their 'Lasting Colour' collection. Not a very special colour, but the application is fine, the coverage is a little sheer but it's a budget polish so I shan't complain.
The effect of the flakies is sadly a bit lost indoors or when there's a lack of sun. Which sadly is mostly, nowadays. But I will love their goldish-orangish-greenish shine all the same in whichever light I find myself in.

First time's the charm.

In the last weekend of January, Enchantra had a 30% discount going to celebrate a segment in the papers. Now, I'm a sucker for the word 'discount' so I jumped right on that and bought Watermelon Rind from China Glaze's Summer Days collection.
Now here's a confession - prior to that, I'd never owned any China Glaze polish, rather opting for colours I could physically purchase in stores. Gasp, shock, awe; reasoning behind the title revealed.
Anyway, go figure me buying a summer nail polish around the days of the first snowfall. Despite that this is definitely a fun summery colour, I think it rather has some merits as to winter appropriateness. It can be seen as a cool blue-green, and I am all for cool blue-greens in winter. (Or really any time of year, I'm a bit biased.)

Artificial light - flash.

As this polish has been around for a while, there's no real point to me going very in-depth about it. I was pleased with the application despite a level of sheerness. Depending on the light it can look considerably more green or more blue, and due to the lack of sun my pictures seem to learn more towards the blue end of the spectrum.
So, that's pretty much it. I'm very happy with my purchase and I'm rather excited to maybe try this in combination with some other polishes in the future!