Mer-miss.

I had these little bottles of glitter sitting around on my desk and thought they'd make a nice mermaidish gradient, which is what inspired this mani.

It didn't really work out as planned.


Miss Sporty, '346',
Essence, '04 The Dawn is Broken'.

The intended effect was lost in spacing them out too far and not having done multiple rows of each colour. I aim to repeat this mani in the future, because I think the idea - with better execution - would look lovely.

The main point of this post is to hold myself accountable to actually try this again, no matter how fiddly the process of glitter application is.

Brussels, hold the sprout.

 

Herôme W.I.C. - 'Brussels 71'

When I started putting on this interesting colour I really didn't quite know what to make of it. Two layers in and it felt like a nude that didn't suit my skintone. Add a layer and it becomes this odd greyish, lavender thing!

I really grew to love this colour the longer I had it on. It's so unusual in the best possible way!
There's a slight shimmer in it and the coverage was decent enough. Damage to the manicure was all my own doing, I'm afraid.

Shengji.

A friend of mine was showing me her nail polish collection once, and when this Shengji polish came by I told her how gorgeous I thought the shade of red was.

When my birthday party came around (she'd already given me a gift on my actual birthday) she'd wrapped it up and gave it to me! If memory serves, she bought it on holiday in Hungary, and since the sticker on the bottom of the bottle says '1997', this happened quite some time ago.

The formula has developed no problems with age, but it does have a hugely chemical smell to it, as nail polish from days past often did.

Looking past the smell, I think the colour is stunning. A very glamorous red that I'd describe as richer in tint than ruby.

I'm not sure what number this goes by, as there are stickers reading both 'No 1108' and '21' on the bottle.

Deco.

In a previous post, I mentioned that I had become inspired by some art deco patterns I'd seen, and added a picture of a failed attempt at doing some nail art along those (proverbial but I guess also literal) lines.
Though the execution didn't quite go as intended at the time, the inspiration itself still tugged at me and I was up for trying something else. Gold on its own isn't really my thing, but use it sparingly and as an effect colour next to black and I'm happy to wear it.

Art deco is of course marked by its symmetry and its geometry, and it is easy to miss the mark when you utilise a technique like water marbling which doesn't always grant you that much control, but I think I did alright in retaining the general vibe of the style here.
Polish used are Dior's '668 City of Gold' and Catrice's '39 Black to the Routes'.

Take the Stage

I have the OPI Little Teasers set from the movie Burlesque, and though I've used them in the past here and there I don't think I've ever written up a post about any of them.
This shiny little thing goes by the name of  'Take the Stage'.

My aunt entered both our names in a contest to win the minis (including tickets to see the film and a CD of the soundtrack), and I won! I didn't find out about it until after she got the good news so it was a really lovely surprise.
To be honest I felt like the movie was just Coyote Ugly with more sparkles, but I do actually like the soundtrack. I'll leave it at that since it's a little late for a movie review at this point. (It came out five years ago already?!)

Back to the nail polish!

Sadly another slight case of  'by the time I noticed the picture was blurry it was too late', but I think you still get a good idea of the colour.
As far as oranges go, I feel like it leans towards the darker ones a bit and that's what I like about it, it's just not quite that common shade. 

Pineapples Have Peelings Too!

 

OPI - Pineapples Have Peelings Too!

I am all about the name with this one. It's fun and silly and I'm always in for a pun. That said, I'm not remotely into pineapples, but none of those had to be eaten by me for the purpose of this post. Moving on.

With this combination I think there could have been a lot of similar things done to it and ruining it completely, but the way it is now gives it a very festive vibe. When seen in the bottle I feared it might be very visually busy on the nail, but given that it actually takes a few goes to get a nice assortment of glittery bits out, it's all in your hands. And on your hands, because it's nail polish.
It also reminded me of the work of Gustav Klimt, if you can sort of see what I mean?
Lots of yellow. Lots of coloured bits.

Following are pictures of it applied after I added a matt top coat. The 'regular' photo's unfortunately turned out blurry, but to the eye there wasn't a huge difference between the two.

Flomo.. Fromo.. Frarmar..

I went to Amsterdam with a friend a while ago and she was very adamant about taking me somewhere with 'great cheap nail polish' which is absolutely how you sell me on anything.

Oddly, I just can't seem to remember the brand name unless I'm looking directly at the bottle. It's Flormar. I don't think 3,50 a bottle is all that cheap. I have a lot of fancy nail polishes in my collection but at the end of the day I'm basically a cheapskate budget type of girl.

They did have a very nice collection from which to choose and I tried to narrow down some obvious favourites to things that would work to complement my stash and not just be the same thing in a different bottle. After prying my eyes away from some nice greens, I settled on this light blue. My friend vouched for the quality of the polish, and I don't really have a light blue that covers well and so the choice was made.

It goes by the name of 'JL09 Sky Blue' which is certainly appropriate enough.

I was a little concerned about taking home not just a light colour, but a light colour labelled jelly, as those are notoriously pretty sheer. I definitely love how bright and vibrant this colour is, but it doesn't really look like a real jelly finish to me.