nivipa

A twinkly September

2009-10-01T00:27:00.001-07:00

Earlier this month I put up a poll asking which of five colors people would like to see swatched. Each of the colors got a vote this time, with Scherer’s Blue Frost getting one vote, OPI’s Time-less Is More, Del Sol’s Heartbreaker, and Nubar’s Forest all getting two votes, but the clear winner was from this little Kleancolor company, who out of the blue I’m starting to see more and more of, called Twinkle Heart.

At first I thought I’d swatch this both alone and over a color (since it is, ultimately, a top coat). But the thought of putting it on, and then having to take it off quickly thereafter – especially after so recently being brought to my knees after removal of one of China Glaze’s new glitters – quailed me.

So for this mani, I decided to put it over another polish. But which one? I wanted to make sure this one would stand out. I opted for an off-white. I’m not entirely sure why, that’s just the color that was calling to me. I decided on OPI’s Pearl’s Night Out, which I recently picked up at Trade Secret for 60% off.

As you can see, it’s a pretty sheer frost – this is one coat – but for the base of a top coat, I was perfectly fine with it like this.

I’d never worked with this kind of top coat before, where there are large specially-shaped glitters hidden throughout the bottle. I’ve read about them on blogs like Nail Juice and Body and Soul, though, usually about OPI’s offerings. Those bloggers would often use tools, like toothpicks, to get the confetti out, though I doubted I’d have the patience to do that.

As such, I decided to let the cards fall where they may, and simply brushed the glitter on.

Well, that was my idea, anyway. It took only two attempts to do my nails in my traditional manner to discover that this was NOT the way to accomplish application of this lacquer.

First off, I quickly learned not to try and remove excess polish from the brush before applying. If there were any hearts, this was a sure-fired way to put them back in the bottle. As such, I put on two to three very thick and somewhat uncomfortable coats. This was all to the good, because ever the small glitter is pretty sparse, as you probably surmised from the open varnish shot above.

As you can see, a lot of the hearts made it to the tip of my nails. It took extra going-over with the brush to get the hearts anywhere convenient; often they’d get brushed along until they were practically dangling off of the tip.

However, I was able to get at least one heart on each nail, even if I did have to dip my brush in and out of the bottle a few times before I applied a fresh coat.

(A rare “claw” shot so my thumb could get into the act.)

The good news, however, is that with a clear top coat added on, this dried relatively smooth, and pretty quickly. The bad news is that this was a pain to remove. Almost literally, as my nails are now getting really thin again (I have no idea why that’s so), and so having the cotton with remover pulling on the edges of the confetti wasn’t all that fun. But a little elbow grease, and I was eventually able to get this off my nails.

So, when all is said and done, this was an interesting polish, but I don’t know that I’ll ever wear it again.

I’ll have another poll up in a few days’ time, but first I have to enter some new acquisitions into the database – I’m getting behind!

And here’s some good old Richard Dawson. He always struck me as a minor player, what with him always giving the lady contestants a kiss, but I do rather miss him. This is the most out of control that I’ve ever seen him on the air – and I think the only time I’ve seen him completely ignore the clock.

Happy October, everyone. And to my friends in the UK, “White Rabbits!” (Though I guess that should’ve probably gone on the top of my post. . . .)

A little kindness – and a little slow

2009-09-21T16:48:00.001-07:00

Hello, all!

I wanted first to apologize for my frequent silences, both on this blog and in comments on other blogs. I am trying to get all of my mom’s stuff taken care of, which is a huge emotional drain, as well as a little like digging those tunnels in a sand box or on the beach. Every time I take a scoop out, more sand falls in. It’s miserable. But it also takes up a lot of my time, and what time I spend doing it is also extended by my emotional healing time afterwards. Currently, that’s running along the lines of reading fiction – any life but my life, if you know what I mean.

Also, last Saturday, I was down with my father going through his mother’s old things that my uncle had taken, as my uncle died just a few weeks before my mother did. (Has anyone else noticed what a crummy year 2009 is? I can’t tell you the number of people that I know that have lost loved ones, and my father is scarcely the only one I know who has suffered multiple blows in a very short time span.)

Anyway, we found a huge number of photographs from early in the twentieth century, and it was awesome (meaning it caused awe) and a little sad to see all of these people that lived and worked and trudged on through life, and now we have absolutely no idea who any of them are.

It was also fascinating to see what people took pictures of in that age before the instant gratification of digital feedback, and even before Polaroid. Remember then? When you took photos and wouldn’t find out for, at best, days what the end result was? I’m sure personal cameras and film were also probably pretty pricey back then. The really early photos were, I think, professionally done, as they were all on thick cardstock, rather like cardboard. Fascinating.

The funniest point of the day, though, was when we got to the bottom of the box, underneath all of the photos and letters (remember when written correspondence was a regular occurrence?), there were three large porcelain pieces wrapped in paper. The first one I pulled out was a bottle of Jim Beam “100 Day Old” Bourbon memorializing 50 years of the naval reserve – 1924 to 1974. The next one, as I started to unwrap it, I knew contained more bourbon. I could smell is even before I got halfway there. It was a trout or bass, honoring the fisherman’s association, or something along those lines. It was cracked, and as such, my dad dumped the liquor down the sink. (I *know* there’s got to be at least one person out there reading this now with a sob catching in their throat!) The final bottle was a large model of Italy, whose cork had broken off, with half of the cork still inside the neck. Dad, being Dad, promptly had to test the cork out and, pop!, into the drink it sank. So then that 100-day-old (“Well, more than that now,” as my dad said) went down the drain.

Now someone’s really sobbing!

And if you’ve ever smelled bourbon, you know it does not “go gentle into that good night.” Having had several drops spilled on my fingers, and after having to sop a good deal of it up from his desk, I knew that I’d better be good driving home. If I’m pulled over for a busted taillight and my window gets rolled down. . . .

My dad, being the helpful, paternal sort he is, suggested I “demand a breathalyzer!” So that was my Saturday. How was yours?

Sorry for the long tale. I thought you’d find it partially enlightening, and partially humorous. I hope so, anyway!

So now that you know why I’ve been (and, unfortunately, am likely to continue to be) a little slow, let me share my little kindness.

You may recall that I mentioned how Wixbetty was one of the two people that sent random, caring happiness my way when I really, really needed it. (I now have a new person to add, too, Pushpa, but she will also get her own full story, so I’ll just mention her here for now.)

Back in late May, she wrote a post offering a “Good Neighbor Giveaway” (I love that name). She basically offered to give away several of Orly’s long-discontinued Satin Hues (one each) to people who were having a hard time. Boy, was I living in the middle of Downtown Having A Hard Time. So she let me pick which color I liked, and after drooling for a long time, I chose Satin Finesse.

The first thing that I want to relate is how insanely long the brush stem is! If you look at the top picture, you have an idea how tall the bottle is. If you look at the bottom picture, you get an idea why polish bottles aren’t usually designed that way anymore. To be fair, it didn’t make it especially hard to apply the color, it was just very different. and application didn’t feel as “second nature” as it usually does.

The formula itself went on very smoothly, but I did need to apply three coats. As I try to make my coats thin, I could see a little bit of streakiness in a few spots after two.

While the Satin Hues have very matte-like qualities, they are also distinctly different. For one thing, these did dry pretty quickly, but unlike the only mattes I’ve tried to date – Zoya’s – this doesn’t actually dry during application, which makes application much easier. I don’t know if the recommendation was not to use a base coat when these first came out, but I used one. However, it’s almost as hard to hide nail flaws with these as with the mattes. If you look closely, you can find a couple of bumps on my nails in the bottom photo. (IRL, it doesn’t look quite so black as that photo makes out.)

But there is one major, major difference between the Satin Hues and mattes. I wasn’t able to take outdoor shots until late the second day (in fact, they’re are near-sunset shots). Look how well this top coat-less polish held up:

And the best part? Because I hadn’t been warned of the millions of things that could ruin the polish, like using lotion, I wasn’t afraid to just use my hands without obsessing about what might happen.

By the beginning of the third day of wear, I was starting to notice a little bit of tipwear, so I decided it was time to slap on a coat of Sally Hansen’s Chrome top coat (that I got free attached to other polishes).

As Janice would say, “Oh. My. Gahd.”

Did you see the depth? Did you see the shimmer? Did you feel like you were looking out, dining at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

If not, then look again:

I can’t believe how gorgeous this color is! In both finishes, truly, but the one with the top coat, just – wow.

So I have to say thank you, thank you, thank you again to her, and to anyone that passes along kindness in this world. You never know how badly people need it, sometimes.

Fun With Polish

2009-09-17T10:42:00.001-07:00

Wanting to have a work-appropriate polish that was slightly different than those Trip-Bs (Band-Aid But Better), I reached for a polish I hadn’t worn before: Sally Hansen’s Pink Promise.

But I wasn’t really feeling it. This is two coats, and you can see that while it does make a slight (but only slight) difference in terms of color, it also becomes highly reflective – look at my top nails in the photos above. In an attempt to tone it down a bit, I added one layer of OPI’s Breathe Life, but even that didn’t help, so I decided to use Nail Tek to tone it down.

It didn’t work.

As such, I left one hand with the Nail Tek, the other without, since I was going to be removing it straightaway, anyway.

(In case you’re having a hard time deciding, it’s the bottom picture that’s matted.)

So, this is why I don’t franken. I don’t really much care for it, but it was fun to experiment, at any rate!

My armor

2009-09-14T17:12:00.001-07:00

Recently, I needed to go to a meeting I didn’t really want to go to; one dealing with my mom’s estate. Emotionally, I was feeling very vulnerable, small, and scared.

So I needed to get some emotional armor on.

Even though I would not be working, I chose to wear formal clothes, which I never do when I don’t have to. My favorite pair of plum trousers were even a part of it. Check.

I don’t often wear perfume, but this is one instance when it was a good idea to. Some of my favorite Givenchy. Check.

But what about my nails?

I kid you not, I actually spent a good deal of time debating on what color to wear days ahead of time. But this thought process was mostly on my mental back-burner.

At first I thought of holographics, as those are my favorite finish. However, I knew that while looking down at my nails would make me smile, it was also a little more loud and celebratory for the tone of the meeting.

I could wear a StrangeBeautiful - as I’ve said, they make me feel very chic - but I just wasn’t feeling it.

There’s Essie’s Love, Beverly Hills xx, but red just didn’t seem to be the right color. I wanted something to make me smile, but something that could also be understated.

The final decision? Chanel’s Kaleidoscope.

I first made the acquaintance of this color on Stephanie’s Polish Addict. But twenty dollars for a Chanel seemed pretty steep. (Hah! They’re routinely up to thirty now; what was I complaining about?) So I hemmed and I hawed, and I hawed and I hemmed.

But the more I read about this color, the stronger my lemming became, As it was released at the same time as Gold Fiction, you often saw the two talked about in the same post. And people such as Scrangie were often saying the twenty-dollar price tag for Kaleidoscope was worth it; the thirty-dollar one for GF was not.

So, in a fit of madness (and with a rare discount as I had opened a Macy’s card the same day), I bought my first (and, to date, only) Chanel.

And when I first put it on, I was disappointed. I know, it’s a gorgeous color – what was I thinking?

Well, I think that when I looked on others’ blogs, it looked a lot more silver to me. On my hands it definitely had more of a golden/olive thing going on. (Maybe that’s why it’s called “Kaleidoscope”; as soon as you think you’ve got a description pegged down, it turns a bit and changes on you!) I honestly thought that I had made some kind of terrible error in putting this on because it didn’t look like I expected it to.

Fortunately, I dropped my comparisons and just learned to appreciate the color for what it was.

(That thick, boxy cap comes off; this is the size of the handle you paint with.)

This is three coats, by the way. It really would have been fine at two, but as I was applying to my dominant hand, I caused a dent in the polish of my non-dominant, so I had to apply a third to try and save it. The application was very nice, even if I was applying coats a little bit thicker than I’d’ve liked.

This is almost certainly a metallic with shimmer, and it is even somewhat reflective. Wearing a black top, I can see that color reflected in my nails. I’m sure it’s not Maybelline’s Mirror Image by a long shot, but it’s certainly somewhat akin to it.

(You can see the red curb reflected in two of my nails above.)

For those of you who have not heard of this little factoid yet, Chanels are pretty darn famous for their lack of durability. I honestly can’t remember what the wear was the last time I wore this, but none of my polishes usually lasted long, as I hadn’t yet developed any techniques for applying varnish.

But since I am now (slightly) older and (moderately) wiser, I know to expect chipping, and soon. Believe it or not, I often leave colors on for anywhere from three to five days (gasp!), so that’s actually an important consideration to keep in mind.

Thankfully, Nora at Nail of the Week did a top coat comparison on Chanel lacquers. The winner was CND Air Dry. So, based on her recommendation, I added a bottle to a recent online order, and that’s what’s gone on top. It actually worked really, really well, and I only found a slight chip in one nail about day three or four.

I’ve tried finding some image to compare the color to, but I lack the appropriate adjectives to find it. Humph. But looking for a clip has yielded just what I need. Not only is this exactly what it made me feel like – strong and capable of deflecting negativity with my indestructible bracelets, but her crown and wrist guards, while not identical to the color, certainly put me In mind of it!

Well, Kaleidoscope gave me just what I needed it to. It was my armor that I required, a beautiful color that’s not going to go unnoticed, per se, but also one that’s not going to shout, “Party Time!” either. A well-made choice, I think.

Looking back at these pictures makes me long to wear it again. And you can see how much it changes, depending on the light. That’s why I compared Molten Metal to it in its inability to be defined. My favorite shot of it, though, you might recognize as my current ID photo. It’s taken at sunset.

How about any of the rest of you? Do you have a color, brand, finish, or specific polish you use as your shield?

Random stuff about me

2009-09-12T15:51:00.001-07:00

I was tagged by the ever upbeat beautyjudy, Nicole, and Nessa (note new address – hopefully it’s her last move for awhile!)to share ten random facts about myself. Trying to think of “interesting” things to say always stumps me – like when you’re in a class or workshop and as an ice breaker they want everyone to go around sharing their name, their (major, job title, what have you), and one interesting fact. I don’t know about you, but all of a sudden my life seems very pedestrian! That said, I’ll try my best to think of ten of these things! At least I’m not on the spot, ignoring everyone ahead of me while racking my brains to come up with something!

1) I was a HUGE Disney fan as a kid. I could recite the names of the Seven Dwarfs in a heartbeat (still could, actually) and the names and order of all of the Disney feature-length animated features. I knew tons of trivial facts about Disneyland, too, such as the fact that the train station at New Orleans Square has a Morse code message tapping out Walt Disney’s opening day speech (which I also used to have memorized). At this point in my life, I would conservatively estimate that I’ve been to Disneyland about 350 times.

2) I fell in love with the movie The Princess Bride and had a major, major crush on Cary Elwes. I watched that movie so many times, I could recite every line of dialogue, from the opening notes of the Nintendo’s “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to Peter Faulk’s closing “As you wish.” Well, except for some of Fezzik’s (Andre the Giant) lines, which I just recited phonetically. I had no idea “pints” was “prince” until I bought the DVD years later, for example. A lot of the lines in this scene gave me trouble, too. I didn’t realize they were naming fencing moves.

3) I love languages. Not only am I constantly striving to develop a deeper, richer vocabulary in English, but I love to learn smatterings of other languages, such as Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Arabic, Dutch, and others. Not that I’m fluent – not by a long shot – but I have a natural gift for accents, or so I’ve been told.

4) I never travelled out of my home country until I was almost 30 years old. (That trip was to Montreal, Quebec, Canada). Now, however, I take the opportunities whenever they come, as often as possible.

5) I read Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol every December. After having seen several adaptations of it, I decided that I should read the original about fifteen years ago. I enjoyed it so much, it’s since become a tradition.

6) There are certain songs that I’ve gotten it into my head that I should know all of the lyrics to to be culturally literate. Among those are “Copacabana,” “The Girl from Ipanema,” and “Hava Nagila.”

7) I can’t stand mushrooms. Never could. Every time I try and take a bite, my mind tells me “It’s a fungus,” and, well, there goes the attempt.

8) I am fiercely loyal. It may take a lot to gain my trust and support, but once you have it, it is very, very hard to lose it.

9) I always send birthday cards and anniversary cards to my family members. Sometimes they don’t get mailed until the day of their special occasion, and on rare occasions, afterwards, but they always get sent. You better believe I have a Hallmark membership card!

10) I very rarely had any secrets from my mother, at least later in my life. People would tell me things and then say, “But don’t tell your mother.” Almost invariably, if it was something I thought she should know, I’d tell her anyway. And also tell her that I wasn’t supposed to tell her.

Now I’m supposed to tag ten blogs myself that I love to read. Truth be told, though, I think that most people have already done their own Random Facts. The blogs I haven’t seen this on, yet, and would love to see it from are:

Concrete and Nail Polish

Violet – Tales on an Ingénue

Aquaheart

I think I caught everyone (well, except Brooke, who is busy, and Lucy who doesn’t have her own blog – yet), but if I missed you, I assure you it’s an oversight. Anyone else who wishes to share, please do! having time to create the list takes the pressure off, I promise!

Holographic happiness

2009-09-09T22:27:00.001-07:00

What feels like a very long time ago, but in fact was only a month, I tried to come up with a “Top Three” list. On that list was one of my new polishes from the China Glaze Kaleidoscope collection, the first one I’d tried, It’s My Turn.

I tell you, pretty much from the moment I opened this bottle I couldn’t wait to get it on my nails! I am a sucker for holographic polishes, without a doubt, and you don’t see gold colored ones very often for some reason.

This is one of those colors I can’t stop looking at. It made driving a whole new kind of adventure! I put on two coats, and it glided on like a charm. I wore this for three days without any chipping evident.

I even attempted one of Colette’s patented “multi-holo” views.

I don’t know if any picture could adequately show how beautiful this color is. All of the collection is stunning, in fact. You can find bottle pics of it here.

Sigh. Isn’t it wonderful when something as minor as lacquer can bring such happiness?

Every time I think of “It’s My Turn” I think of Bon Jovi’s, “It’s My Life.”

I got these from Victoria Nail Supply, and they still have them in stock. Make sure you check out Mary’s blog; if you mention it, you can get free gifts added on!

A White Rabbit

2009-09-07T13:15:00.001-07:00

Those of you lucky enough to be regular visitors of Diana's blog might remember a darling little teapot a few weeks ago:

The “missive” the Great Owl possesses is the winner of NYC’s Molten Metal

Me!

I love how she does her giveaways. if you haven’t been to her site since Sunday, make sure you see how she determined the winner of her 50 Followers giveaway – it had me grinning ear to ear!

In fact, her website is a prime example of Magic Realism; the real world is clearly there, but the whole thing gives you a sense of wonder and optimism, that miracles are hiding around any corner, if you only look for them.

And that sense of whimsy even came through the mail. I mean, how can such a mundane little mailer . . .

. . . hold such wonders?

I love that card! It reminds me of Beauty and the Beast. Inside she said that she’d sent me an additional talisman to remind me to shine brilliantly. I was feeling especially down the day this came in the mail, and the Magic Realism worked it’s miracle and made me remember to do just that.

You can see all of the glitter that stuck to me!

Now, as to the color:

Now this is a true Magic Realism color. It almost so many colors all at once. First off, can you see the granite-ness in this color? It has a shimmer, for sure, but it’s not quite like most shimmers. Look near the top of the bottle, where the pool of polish has pulled away.

The first layer I put on almost seemed like it would be enough. And of all of the colors that come to mind with a name like Molten Metal, you know what I thought? Lavender. Can you kind of see it?

I put on another layer, and then, for good measure, I added a third and final.

The first two shots are indoors with flash, the bottom two in sunshine. But I’m just absolutely stumped as to what color to label this. In addition to the aura of lavender, I also see some rose. But there there’s also the distinct brown/gold/copper look. It’s what you want it – or need it – to be.

This color reminds me strongly of Chanel’s Kaleidoscope, but not so much by color, but by it’s malleable nature. Diana says “there is something about Molten Metal that is both industrial and fantastical.” I have to say I agree.

It’s official, I freakin’ love this color! If you can find it, buy it. Seriously. This may well be backup worthy for me.

Thank you so much, Diana, for not only giving me such a stunner, but for being the White Rabbit to my Alice :)

My own little disco ball – Epilogue

2009-09-06T21:36:00.001-07:00

There’s a little epilogue to my tale of sadness

I was dragged down the street by His Royal Dadness

How long has it been that you’ve even thought of Bart Simpson’s “Deep, Deep Trouble”? Maybe not long enough for some of you, but ever since I thought of this title, that line has been running through my mind. So I thought I’d share:

Usually I don’t write about polishes I’m currently wearing so that I can give more of a full review – bumper-to-bumper, as it were. But I was so excited to share Nova with you, I just didn’t want to wait!

Well, today I had a little strip of the polish pull right off one of one of my nails, so the whole mani had to go. (Truth be told, though, I had another, better reason for removing this today, that I’ll tell you about tomorrow :)

Anyway, as Mary had warned me in a comment from the last post, this was less than a joy to remove. beautyjudy was right, I wish I had felt to take it off with. Unfortunately, I only had cotton squares. You know what my nails looked like after nearly a half-hour?

Granted, that time was spent on both hands. But that was using pure acetone, which works really fast with regular polish. It never takes more than two squares, and often only one. Not this time; I think the last stand was taken with piece number four. It was a valiant battle, to be sure.

I even had to take some acetone to the back of the nail (see my middle nail?), meaning I would have to reapply my Breathe Life. That’s okay, it needs to be refreshed from time to time, anyway. (In case you’re curios, you can see what a single layer of it looks like on my ring finger, above.

So, these super glitters are great fun to wear, but they aren’t a whole lot of fun to take off. In my personal opinion, though, they are totally worth it.

My own little disco ball

2009-09-05T16:58:00.001-07:00

My manicure du jour (well, du “weekend”) is really a fun little number! As you may recall, I purchased three glitters from China Glaze recently, and though I had been planning on another color for this weekend, I thought one of them would be good to wear because a couple of my nails have been feeling kind of weak lately, and glitter’s good for reinforcement.

I decided on Nova (#832) over Atlantis for the simple reason that there have already been two swatches (that I know of) of the latter at Body and Soul (note the new address!) and at Dizzy Nails (whom I learned of through Inbal).

And here’s what I got:

Check out this fun little gem!

As you can see, this is a clear base packed with gorgeous (as Brooke would say) Glittah! (A rare example of when a flash shot way out performs a sunshine shot!) This large glitter really does have personality; it looks fiery orange, medium blue, grass green, bright yellow, or blood red, depending on how you rotate it. Here are a few blurry shots that hopefully show off the colors.

This look was accomplished in using four coats. I can tell you already I am not looking forward to the removal in a few days time, and not just because this is so fun to look at for once. But for now, I say it’s kinda worth it!

As is true for most glitters in a clear base, there will be a few bald spots as you start polishing. In fact, if you wanted to wear this as a top coat over another base color you certainly could – it’s somewhat dense, but not to the point where you couldn’t see the color underneath. I bet this would look great over an inky blue. Kind of like a heavy, thicker-glittered version of Starry Starry Night. Mmmmmm. Heavy, thicker-glittered version of Starry Starry Night.

Er, um, ahem!

Anyhoo, it took me, as I said, about four coats to get it to where I didn’t see any little bald spots. However, once I looked back at the photos, I saw them. I’m sure you can see them easily in the shots above. The good news is, there’s so much sparkling going on, it’s hard to notice!

I put on one coat of Poshe, and when I felt my nails a little later, they still felt a bit bumpy. Remembering wixology’s comment on my post about Yello-Out, where she said that it can slightly brighten a shade, I decided to used that as my final coat:

Maybe it’s only psychological, but I do feel like there is an ever-so-slight additional “pop” to these now.

Another cool thing about glitters is that they are really, really, really easy to work with! Whatever got slopped up onto my skin (which, as you can see from the first set of photos, isn’t a whole lot) came off within a few hours of just plain daily living. And any bald areas that I found (which took a lot of up-close inspection, as it’s hard to see through all of those sparkles!), I simply covered up with an additional daub of polish.

I haven’t yet noticed any tipwear, but that would be remedied by the same method. Anyone who has any doubts about their application skills should definitely go to glitters!

The other benefit to them, as I alluded to before, is that due to the nature of having all of these little stiff square bits in your polish helps make the whole nail become a little stiffer than might be normal for you. And believe it or not, I have extremely weak nails. Using various tricks of the trade has caused them to improve., but still it felt like time for some extra reinforcements.

The downside to glitters, though, is that they can be a major PITA to remove. Using felt, I’ve been led to understand, makes things go a LOT smoother, but otherwise, you need a lot of patience, and a bit of elbow grease to get the dang things removed. Be warned!

The other potential downside to these is THEY ARE ABOUT AS SUBTLE AS THIS!!!!!! If you aren’t comfortable wearing, for example, neons, then these really wouldn’t be your cup of tea, with the possible exception of as a top coat, as I mentioned before. These nails WILL get noticed, as I learned from the very first person I saw after I had it on, who wanted to know what it was I had on my nails. (Believe it or not, that’s maybe only about the second or third time I’ve been asked that, and the first time from a person I didn’t know.)

Then there’s the term my friend used. “Those are stripper nails!” Nothing negative was meant by it, but all the same, that’s not an adjective I’m filing away for my own personal description of this varnish.

But, as I say, if you prefer subtle nails, this just ain’t the way to go.

For me, though, they’re fun, and because of them I’ve had ABBA songs running in my head for two days now. I know for a lot of people out there that would be torture, but I came to love ABBA after first seeing what has since become one of my favorite movies, Muriel’s Wedding. So while I think of “Dancing Queen” and “Super Troopers,” I think I’ll regale you with this snippet that includes “Waterloo.”

(“Stripper nails,” indeed. Honestly!!)

New month, new color

2009-09-04T12:52:00.001-07:00

Coming off of August's "Color of the Month," I have some more interesting prospects for you.

As last time, these colors were chosen only because they had numbers in my database that corresponded with randomly chosen integers. I am really rather intrigued to see which ones get voted on this time! Up first, a glitter topcoat from Kleancolor called Twinkle Heart:

I can’t attest to the wear of this color, as I only recently acquired it, but it’s a sparkly little gem with heart shapes I got from a local 97 cent store.

Next up is OPI’s Time-Less is More:

This is a very pretty off-white creme that I first found through the Polish Addict, who named this as her 10th top color of 2008.

Next we have one of Nubar’s Going Greens, Forest:

I had to get the whole collection. Was it a stunner or what??

And here’s a Del Sol. As you may know, these actually change color in the sunshine! Since I wasn’t able to get a sunshine shot – it was nighttime when I took these photos – I took a picture of the top sticker, which is the color it’s supposed to turn into:

Rather glitteriffic, isn’t it? I wish Heartbreaker had colored glitter, rather than the silver. But I guess you have to be careful when the base is going to change colors. . . .

This last one is an interesting one, Scherer’s Blue Frost:

As you can tell, this is actually a color I’ve worn a few times. And you may have seen this on other blogs as a recent discovery. But I stumbled across this polish several years ago, and haven’t seen hide nor hair of this line at all since. I haven’t worn it for quite some time, so how “chameleon-like” it is, I’m not too sure.

So, as a refresher (or, for any new readers), let me explain how this works. You get to put your vote in (in the top left corner) for which of these you’d like to see a post dedicated to. I’ll leave the poll up for a week, and we’ll see where the preponderance of the interest lies. Whatever color is chosen, I promise to blog about sometime during September!

If you don’t care for any of them, just indicate that in the poll. All of these colors were chosen completely by chance, so it won’t hurt my feelings at all if none of them seem all that interesting to you.

And in closing, I would like to congratulate Mahmood for winning the Wet N Wild Rustic! I went looking through a few of his websites, but was unable to turn up an email address. So he has until midnight Monday GMT to get in touch with me. As a winner, he can keep it, pass it along to someone else, or decline it. The same goes for anyone that ever wins a giveaway here!

Have a good weekend everyone, please vote, and congratulations to Mahmood!

Announcements

2009-09-02T20:50:00.001-07:00

Hello, all! I hope this post finds you safe. I don’t know if you’ve heard of the wildfires that are raging in Southern California (though now they are starting to get a handle on them), but my father – and the house I grew up in – were very close to the evacuation zone. Being who he is, however, he never gave a thought to packing up, and his major concern now is getting the ash out of his backyard. Dads, gotta love ‘em!

Anyway, I do have some lacquer-related news to share. First of all, the lovely beautyjudy is having her very first giveaway! And it’s not just any old giveaway, no; she’s giving away the Nubar Modern Matte Collection!!!

As has been established before, I’m not sure how much of a “matte momma” I am, but heavens to hamburgers (as Mayor McCheese used to say), even I am all agog about this!

So make sure you go over and enter, and be sure to stay for the posts; it’s really a very entertaining blog!

Next up in the World of Polish, I stopped in my local Sally’s today and was amazed to discover this display:

Immediately I went “Holy Guacamole!” and did a beeline straight for that gorgeous, gorgeous glittery green. (I know, it looks blue here, but it’s green.)

I had no idea whether these were re-issues, or even current polishes on the market that they’re just repackaging, but I knew I hadn’t heard “Boo” about them on the internet. (I have to admit, though, that I’ve been busy as late, and thus not able to keep up as much as I once did – sigh.)

As I picked them up and looked at the names, none sounded familiar. As no one in the store seemed to mind, I took snapshots of the bases, rather than trying to hunt down pen and paper to take notes on the polishes. So in order of the above photo, left to right:

You may have noticed that the shots of Atlantis and Nova look a little different. That’s because I knew immediately that they were coming home with me, even though I am trying to at lease slow down my rate of varnish acquisition. In the end, though, I just couldn’t say “no” to Medallion, so here’s the happy trio:

Sigh.

Once I got home and pulled up the ‘net, I checked out China Glaze’s website. Not only was there no mention of the “Glitters and Chromes” collection, I couldn’t even find these colors listed on their color chart. Weird. Even a Google search of “China Glaze” “Glitters and Chromes” turned up empty. If anyone can shed any light on the subject, I’d sure appreciate it!

But back to the subject at hand. The chromes looked alright (as did that remaining glitter, Cleopatra), but they just didn’t thrill me quite as much as these glitters did. I may or may not be quite “In Awe of Amber,” so to speak, but perhaps to round out an online order, whose prices are guaranteed to be lower, I may give in and add that one to the group as well.

And finally, speaking of online ordering, Nevertoomuchglitter just let me know that transdesign has Breathe Life in stock. I know that there had been interest expressed in this color when I did my guest post on her blog, and as I had cautioned, it can be hard to find. So anyone who is interested, head over that way and get your very own for $4.99 and help fund research for Lung Cancer in the bargain! Personally, I find it to be a stunner of a shade, though I should warn you that, as it is a bit sheer, I often wear it with four coats. (It’s also gorgeous over black, though, as I’ll show you someday.)

Anyway, I wanted to be sure and share with you all of these fun happenings! I also have all of the colors together for your next vote, so depending on how late I have to work tomorrow night, it should be up either then or on Friday. Friday, also, is the day that I will select a winner of the Wet N Wild Rustic, so if you want an (additional) chance to win, be sure to do so soon!

The Color of August, 2009

2009-08-29T23:37:00.001-07:00

You may remember several days ago I had a poll running asking you to pick one of five colors to see a post on. L’oreal’s Flight and Carmen from Zoya had no votes cast for them, YDKJ had one, two votes were cast for Misa’s Love Bite, and one person wanted to see another set of colors to choose from altogether. I’m sure I will blog about those two colors eventually, and the person what wanted some other colors will be in luck very, very soon.

But the clear winner, with six votes, was the nameless concrete grey from StrangeBeautiful.

I gotta say – I love this color. It is a stunning, blue-toned grey creme. My pictures don’t quite do it justice, as it’s much darker in person.

With flash

It’s obvious how over-the-moon I am about this color because of all of the pictures I took of it! This is done at two coats, and application was flawless. If it weren’t quite so expensive, I’d say that this varnish alone would be worth the purchase price of the whole set.

Sunny window

Indoors

I’d say the most true-to-life colors are the ones you see at the bottom. Poking around Google images, I think that the best name for this color would be “slate grey.”

That swatch, from Polymax, seems just about right.

I wore this lacquer for three days without even the slightest chip threatening. In fact, had I not needed to remove it for work, I’d’ve been thrilled to leave it on five days or more.

It’s that great, that chic.

Sigh.

The bad news is that you can’t just buy this color. You need to get the entire Library of Color. And it’s limited edition, so if you want it, get it while you can. The good news is that the other colors are gorgeous, too. You can see my full set of swatches here.

These can be purchased at lucky scent (backordered, international shipping), Bergdorf Goodman (in stock, international by phone), or, as I’ve learned recently from Lucy and Mary, Neiman Marcus (same as above).

You get two videos to choose from today. At first I thought I would cheat in *August*us Gloop, but I remembered I already did a Willy Wonka scene recently. So you can skip over this video if you like --

-- and instead listen to this lovely piece that I only just found. I have not seen (nor heard of) the movie this appears to have come from, but I now want to see it!

And there you have the Color of August, 2009. A lovely choice, I must commend those who voted for it!

I got a wild hair

2009-08-28T21:12:00.001-07:00

Update: Rustic is the WNW up for grabs!

Before I tell you about my wild hair, I thought I’d tell you about the October Family Circle I just received. It’s not even September yet! Oh well, be that as it may, it came, and so I think it’s safe to say that if this issues isn’t on the rack yet, it will be soon. Certain people out there, such as Brooke, may wish to look for it. Why do I say this? Because there seems to be a high incidence of varnish- and Halloween-lovers out there! And take a look at the cover!

But I have to say, that I am less than impressed with it’s editors. I certainly haven’t sat down to read it carefully yet, but as I flipped through the pages I cam across a photo of polish that, well, somehow caught my eye. The corresponding text recommends we be on the Fall Fashion Bandwagon by having grey-toned nails. Their recommendation is Zoya’s Loredana. Not that I think anyone needs this reminder, but if you can’t remember what this varnish is, you can see my post on it. It’s a charcoal matte grey. Matte. Okay, everybody got that? Matte.

(Not the best quality, but the only one I could find with the line I wanted.)

So I have to wonder why they tell you that you can “de-gloss” this polish by using the Essie Matte About You top coat. There is nothing to de-gloss here. It. Is. Matte. Already!

Sigh, there are few things in this world as frustrating as people who have just enough knowledge to be dangerous. Like those who tell you your lacquer’s life can be extended by thinning it – with remover. In case you’ve ever wondered, don’t do that.

Okay – snide comments are done now. On to my wild hair!

When I bought my Wet N Wild polishes, I secretly bought two additional ones for giveaways! So here we go with my Very First Giveaway!

Up for grabs are Morbid and Rustic.

The bottom picture, with flash, shows the coppery Rustic true to life, but Morbid is a bit of a tricky mistress. The shimmer is a bit bluer than the top picture, and while the grain of the shimmer is better in the second picture, it is no where near that blue. It’s like a deep, blackened teal.

Okay, so this is what I’m doing: The first polish has already been won by Aquaheart! As a show of gratitude to those that have supported my fledgling blog, I put all of my Followers into a spreadsheet and then had random.org pick a number. Lucky number seven gets her choice of Morbid or Rustic!

Whichever one she doesn’t choose goes to another lucky winner! Since this is my first contest, please be patient with any growing pains that ensue. So here goes:

If you are a Follower, you’re already entered! If you don’t have a blog, send me an email so I have a way to contact you if you win. Or, if you prefer, you can just check back when it’s announced.

If you are not a Follower, or if you are a Follower and want another chanced to win, leave a comment below including your email. One comment per person, please. International readers are free to enter as well! The contest will remain open one week, through noon my time (7:00 pm GMT) 09/04.

Good luck to all, and I’ll let you know which polish is left after Aquaheart gets in touch with me!

Bringing it down a notch

2009-08-28T10:53:00.001-07:00

I know it must sometimes seem like all of the polishes I wear are either something I consider faboo or else dull old workaday lacquers. But there are times I will pull out a “traditional” varnish that, I think, few people would notice. An excellent case in point is China Glaze’s Long Kiss (#87).

This is two coats, with the photos taken in the late afternoon with a soon-to-set sun. While I find this to be a rather nice color, it is also not anything to write home about, nor to go to your nearest nail polish supplier and demand their entire stock of. I don’t even remember how it is I got this color, as I had purchased it years ago, before I was slightly off-kilter for the flavor of a Pringle, as it were.

It is, simply told, a deep, rich color that I think can even be described as a “wine.” I enjoy wearing it when I’m not really looking to “wow” anyone, including myself, but I want to have a nice color to look down at. To tell you the truth, I’m all about the vampy colors. Truly.

Close-up

As far as I can tell, Long Kiss is part of CG’s core line, and very easy to find.

Suspecting that this color might be easily dupable, I took a look through my collection and one of the first ones I came across was OPI’s beyond famous I’m Not Really A Waitress. Looking at the bottles. INRAW just looks a little less shimmery, and maybe has a smidge of a brown tone to it.

Further investigation then turned up Orly Garnet Truth, January’s varnish from their “A Year In Rocks” collection, which definitely has glitter that LK doesn’t. And finally, there was one of the two NYC nail glossies I got off of a clearance rack clear back in January. No names to these, as far as I can tell, so it’s simply number 227.

INRAW, Garnet Truth, Long Kiss, 227; indoors with flash

Outdoors

The swatches below are one coat each, except for GT which got two due to it’s extreme sheerness. Same order as above.

These are taken without clean-up, so you can see that LK was actually the messiest. The closest dupe I have is 227, and I’m just not sure how easy – or hard – the NYC glossies are to locate. As I said, I got them on clearance several months ago, and I’ve not seen them since, at least in my local drug stores.

GT, probably because of the glitter, isn’t even close, and despite the bottle pics, INRAW isn’t even close; it’s far too warm.

You may remember my mentioning I’m a child of the Eighties. You can’t get much more Eighties – at least not early Eighties, – than Hall & Oates. Boy, does this song take me back!

So is this Kiss on your list? Hee hee – couldn’t resist!

A contest, some mattes, and a mini collection

2009-08-26T17:03:00.001-07:00

I wanted to let you all know about a few goings-on in the world of polish.

First of all, Glittermillie is having her first giveaway to celebrate the fact that she’s surpassed (greatly surpassed, at this point) fifty followers! So if you have not yet been there, or are not yet a follower – Get Over There! You can be the proud owner of five Barry Ms or an Illamasqua – of your own color preference!

I also see the $OPI (or, Sephora by OPI) has their limited edition mattes out now, available in three colors:

Matte Domestic Goddess

Matte Metro Chic

Matte What’s a Tire Jack?

I’m not sure if they’re in stores, but you can always find them at Sephora’s website. They offer the same recommendation of no base or top coat, or hand lotion. I, for reasons stated in the post below, may not be likely to get them, especially at nine bucks a pop, but I know that a lot of you are matte about these (sorry, I can get a little pun-crazy at times), so I wanted to pass along the info!

And finally, I wanted to show you some mini sets I found at a Claire’s recently. They are super cute (and, coincidentally, about the same price as one of those polishes above), but I just wasn’t feeling like spending the money at the time.

I’m pleasantly surprised that these pictures actually came out alright; I forgot my camera on this outing, so I had to use my iPhone.

As you can see, these sets seem to be identical; it just depends on which labels you like more. The dogs are sweet, but I’m afraid the penguins stole my heart. They are ten dollars a set, and I may just have go back again later for them, especially if they go on sale.

That’s all the news that’s fit to print. We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming.

Don’t get matte – get even!

2009-08-25T21:18:00.001-07:00

Actually, get all of the mattes you’d like – they are not only wildly popular, but pretty much every big-name polish company is coming out with at least three. Zoya, Nubar, OPI, and Orly (but, apparently, not Misa) are all releasing mattes, to say nothing of the all-matte lines of KO Knockout Cosmetics and ManGlaze, and matte top coats like the release from Essie.

The first I saw of these polishes was the Zoya MatteVelvet collection on Scrangie’s blog, and ooh, did I want them!

However, after some time went by, and I heard what a pain they were not only to apply, but to even keep on, well, I just wasn’t sure anymore.

But then Zoya had a Twitter code for three free polishes, and, I mean, there are three MatteVelvets, so, y’know, logically. . . .

The first one of these I wore was #498, Loredana - which, for some reason, is a name I can NOT remember.

Even the liquid form of the lacquer looks matte!

As I’m sure you’ve all heard by now, you are not supposed to put this over a base coat. But I get the Heebie-Jeebies at the thought of putting this stuff on an unprotected nail, so I put it over some Nail Tek. This is doubly helpful, because matte polishes are not for hiding imperfections, so anything that helps fill ridges is bound to be helpful, hence the “get even” part of the title.

You may have also heard that this stuff dries fast. You have to be bold and daring with application on these; any pausing or or second-guessing, and you will lose what you’ve just applied as you try and correct it, resulting in some balding.

I was able to put on a second coat, however, after letting the first one dry a bit. And I do recommend not doing just one coat – this was was not “prêt-à-porter” at one. I’ll tell you something else, too; I may well be a bit OCD, but it drove me absolutely bonkers to not put a top coat on this. It’s like that scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit when he couldn’t stand hearing “Shave and a Haircut” being rapped out without the other shoe of “Two Bits” falling.

(I hunted high and low for that one scene on it’s own, but, alas!, it is not to be found. You can find it here are about the 5:55 mark.)

I did leave it as it was supposed to be for a few hours. As I went about my day, however, I kept obsessively thinking about my hands. This chips easily; act as though your hands are made of glass. This loses it’s matteness easily; don’t wash your hands too often. It’s not designed to last; no applying of cuticle oil or hand lotion.

As much as I enjoy polish, and as forefront as it can be in my mind from time to time, this constant vigilance (as Mad-Eye Moody would say) was making me unable to simply enjoy my lacquer. It was an interesting look, but if all I’m doing is worrying about preserving it, well, something is wrong with this picture.

So, as I had long suspected I would do, I added a coat of Poshe to it.

(Ew, nasty cuticles – please try to ignore.)

How weird am I? Everyone else out there is mattefying every polish in sight, and I have to go and do the exact opposite! But as I’m sure you can see, adding a shiny topcoat brings out an amazing shimmer and depth to the color.

I did like the matte effect, in the end. Maybe it’s like when you’ve had your first baby, and you’re absolutely paranoid about anything and everything within a five-mile radius. By the time you’re down to your third, as I’ve been led to understand, you kind of loosen up a bit.

If there’s only one thing that wearing nail polish has taught me, it’s that nothing’s permanent. No matter how much you like a color, nor how careful you are with your application, well, it just doesn’t last forever. You can try and fix it, but ultimately this falls in the category of temporary art.

So maybe by my third application I’ll loosen up and go about life as usual. And worse comes to worst, well, there’s always Poshe!

My single most important lacquer

2009-08-23T12:09:00.001-07:00

Normally I avoid superlatives – it’s only a matter of time before they get debunked, anyway. But this time I’m going whole-hog and using not only superlatives, but also the word “important” in association with nail polish.

First I want to reiterate something I know I’ve seen others say before; the nail polish blogging community is filled with some of the nicest people there are out there. But I learned the truth of that even before I became a blogger myself, and I was just drifting about the Ethernet as a reader.

There are two people, specifically, that jump immediately to my mind. One of them is Wixbetty, but as she deserves her own post, I’ll go into more details later. The other is the incomparable Jen of NeverTooMuchGlitter fame.

As you may recall, I have alluded once or twice to some tough times I’ve been going through. Well, a few months ago I first started a correspondence with her about some really nice nail art designs that she creates and sells on her Etsy web store. Shortly thereafter, I was in desperate need of her frankening skills for another reason.

Between the two of us, we agreed that I’d write a post of my experiences, and she’s posted that today. Please either go check out this post, or at least check out her blog in general (the link is above), because not only is she one of the best people out there, her frankens are amazing and her writing is really sharp. She finds inspirations from the most unique sources, and every once in a while you can find some jaw-dropping over-the-top Japanese nails featured there. I love to look at them and try and figure out how people go through one hour of life with those claws (and their detritus) attached.

In closing, I’d like to put up a clip from one of the movies that most helped me through this tough time. Whenever I had moments of pain and doubt, I remembered that just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean you can’t believe it, and that True Love never dies.

If you have not seen Secondhand Lions, do yourself a favor and find it. It didn’t get too much attention when it first came out, but it is a phenomenal film.

Thanks for reading.

nivipa

One of my absolute favorite colors

2009-08-22T22:09:00.001-07:00

I know, with a title like that. you probably picture this:

or this:

But, really, it’s this:

I know, kind of anti-climactic, isn’t it?

Say hello to OPI’s Fiji Weejee Fawn:

Whatever a Fiji Weejie Fawn is (does anyone have a clue??), it is one of my absolute top-favorites when it comes to work-appropriate colors. For me, that pretty much means “nude.”

When I first found this, it was in a dusty for one dollar, and I had absolutely no reason to pause for even half a second before snapping it up. Cheap. OPI. Work-wearable. Check, check, check. But from the first moment I put this on, I started staring at my nails as if they had just doubled in length for no apparent reason. I. Freakin’. Loved. This. Color!!!!

Really, I’m not too sure I can tell you why. I just know that when I’m needing to get on another Trip-B color (AKA BBB – Band-Aid But Better), this is one of the few I can put on and still feel like I’m wearing a knock-it-out-of-the-park polish.

From what little research I’ve done – you know, surfed the ‘net and Google for awhile – it seems as though this is a discontinued color from the Classics line. Still easy to find, though, from prices ranging from $5.95 to $13.00, and that’s with truly limited search patience.

It’s one of the few colors I have a back-up bottle of, having found a second bottle at another local store. But the second bottle has a black label rather than a green one. I think (and please tell me if I am mistaken!) that the black labels are the old formula, and the green the new. If you want me to compare them, drop a line, but as you can see, if the color varies, it’s only slightly.

(The one on the left, with the green label, is the one I am wearing in these photos.)

Anyway, this is three coats. You can get away with two, but I feel like the color isn’t quite what I want it to be at two. I think of it as a bit of a “sand” color, or even a medium/dark cream.

Lovely, just lovely.

And you know I just gotta do this, with “fawn” in the name!

(The great bonus for me is that this is one of my favorite songs – and scenes - from any of the Disney movies.)

I also wanted to do my part to bring attention to Nicole’s amazing idea of a nail blogger Secret Santa! It sounds like a whole lotta fun, and it’s open internationally; which means we can get non-local varnishes!

And if you have not yet checked out her blog, get thee over to MagicXMaid right away!

Ya hafta believe

2009-08-20T15:06:00.001-07:00

You know, I’m not really a pink person. Don’t think I’ve ever been. Maybe when I was very young, but I remember being all over purple, and anytime I could get something in a rainbow, that was what I wanted. As such, I have a rather small collection of pink polishes. Some just appealed to me one day as I was looking at polish (Sinful’s Easy Going), some are part of a collection (China Glaze’s Don’t Be a Square), and some are just really different (Revlon’s Sinful Strawberry). But well and truly, I have very few in my collection. Twenty-one total. That’s a minority of my collection, believe me.

So as I was getting ready to do my pedicure (which is really little more than a fancy word for changing my toenail polish, as I do little more than that), it struck me that I wanted to wear one of my vibrant HDs that were glaring at me. (I don’t use that word for its negative connotation, it’s just so much like there was glare coming off of them.) So, as I often do, I asked my BF for input in picking out a color. I knew the color family I wanted, so I brought out Digital, Three D, and Hi-Res. He picked the Digital (#06).

Now, at this point in time, I had only ever worn BLU, and, well, we all remember what a nightmare to apply that one was. But here’s the thing – I totally suck at applying polish to my toes. I can’t get my foot close enough to my face, so I can’t swear whether it was streaking like BLU was or not. Point of fact, it looked like I was good to go with two coats, but I decided to play it safe with a third.

I finished up painting, and I liked it. I did – good color.

The next day as I’m walking about, I keep glancing downward going, “You know, that’s really a great color.”

By the third day I wore it, I LOVED it! Inside, outside, it was always glowing! Can I call it a neon? I don’t remember it drying matte, but who knows, right? But if it’s not a neon, it sure feels like a neon. It glows like that. In fact, I’ll throw caution to the wind (you don’t mind, do you, Wind?). It is a neon!

I say this in part because I have a father who has collected neon signs for years, and I can easily picture this color coursing through the glass. So, as far as I’m concerned, these are neons. At least for the colors I’ve worn. If anything changes, I’ll let you know. Promise.

But I am not going to subject you gals (guys?) to my feet. I know, I know, we all think our feet are weird and no one is as picky as we are about our own bodies, and blah, blah, blah. And that is true for me. But also, as I said, my application really sucks eggs. I mean seriously. Polish all slopped on my toes and everything. And the only clean-up I do is what comes off in the shower. So I had to wait until I did a mani with them. And finally, I did!

The Craw!!

(Not in the slightest politically correct, and I apologize to anyone who finds this offensive, but Don Adams and Get Smart will always have a special place in my heart!)

I have to say, as the second color from the collection I’ve worn, night and day when it comes to application. Applied beautifully. The brush splayed appropriately. Two coats gave me this gorgeous coverage. (Though there appears to be VNL in the pictures, I couldn’t see it at all IRL) You can see some tipwear, but nothing major.

However, I do have to cop to the fact that this polish did bubble. Bubbled pretty bad, actually. It may have been the formula. It could have been the SH base coat/top coat I used with it (that really felt as though it could do with a thinning, but as I was not at home when I did my nails, thinner was not at hand). It might have been the fan that was blowing indirectly on me during the application. Who knows? But bubble it did.

Interestingly, though, this color is such a, well, COLOR that the bubbles were completely beyond notice to me unless the nails were pretty close to my eyes. When this color started chipping after a couple of days, if I didn’t think about it, I wouldn’t even notice. And that is not my M.O. – normally chips drive me insane! Again, I think that when you look down you see COLOR, and because of that, you pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, as it were.

But I could NOT capture the beauty of this color in photos. Check out this bowling ball – this is what I was looking at!

(Available at ebonite.com)

I picked the following clip to go with this polish for a few reasons. First off, talking about all of the colors I liked as a kid is *really* taking me back! On top of that, there’s something about this color that’s making me think of the 80’s and, specifically, leg warmers. Yeah, I don’t know why, either. Secondly, the fact that I’m all into pink is magic in it’s own way. And finally, there is a pink light that’s shining down on the stage and the people and props on it that is colored very similarly to this polish!

Don’t forget, the HDs are on sale through 08/22 at Walgreens!

Amazing

2009-08-19T17:23:00.001-07:00

How can such a little box . . .

(See? Barely the size of my phone!)

. . . bring so much happiness??

Last six, right to left: Milky White base coat, Sexsea, Sunset Glow, Emerald Sparkle, Platinum Silver, Bon Bon

With flash

All those shimmery, pretty ones with silver caps? Those are China Glaze’s Kaleidoscope collection of 2006.

Outside

And where can you still find this entire collection and some of these other (for me) hard-to-finds? Victoria Nail Supply.

I learned of this company through Mary’s website, and in fact, I believe you still get that Milky White base coat or toe separators for free – check out Body and Soul for more information.

Anyway, onto more Kaleidoscope love:

It’s My Turn, Don’t be a Square, Rated Holographic

Spin Me Round, Visit Me in Prism, Let’s Do It in 3-D

Tickle My Triangle, How About a Tumble, Octa Gone Wild

Kaleidoscope Him Out, He’s Going in Circles, Sexagon

(Sorry that this wasn’t my best photographic work. But you can see the colors, which is probably the most important part.)

I think I’ve said it before, I know I’ll say it again, but I’m just a sucker for holographic polishes! They are almost-always my go-tos for when I need a varnish I know will cheer me up! Some of the names, though, I’m none too fond of. Octa Gone Wild reminds me too much of a particular franchise I find, frankly, disgusting. I won’t go into it here, as when I started to, I realized I went a bit too far into an off-topic diatribe.

But since, despite what Essie might think, I don’t buy colors for their names, I won’t belittle a lacquer for that reason, either. They’re pretty, and I’m pretty darned glad to have them!

I poked a little bit of fun at Essie there, but that’s because it reminds me of a survey I was sent a link to today. (I’m sure any of you that are on their email newsletter got the same one.) As I filled it out, I chuckled more and more, and found more and more things that I wanted to share with you.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I don’t think that lacquerheads like us are their target audience. If we are, they’re a little off the mark.

For example, one question posed was “How many bottles of polish do you have?” You know what the largest number was? Twenty. Twenty! I don’t know about you, but most of my groupings (work-related, glitters, green, OPI, etc.) include more than twenty, leave alone my entire collection! We’re going to have to multiply that number by a bit to even get it close to a true representation for how many I have!

Here’s another question: “How often do you change your polish?“ Your choices are once a week, once a month, or every two weeks. I know that I am already rather unusual when I say I’ll leave a color on for up to five days, and here again even I can’t give a true representation! Once a month? Anyone I can think of from this particular community would rather eat the same meal daily for an entire month than leave one color on their nails for that long!

How about, “Where do you purchase polishes?” You know how many online-related answers there were? One. Essie.com. No other e-tailers listed, by name or by category. So I had to resort to “other” and spell out my answer.

They then gave you a list of about seven polishes or so, and you were supposed to select your favorite from among that group. As there was only one color I would ever pick, I didn’t pay too much attention to the list. Again I had to select “Other” and type in Starry Starry Night. I’m sure that I’m not alone in wanting them to re-release that color, but it wasn’t even mentioned. Grr!

Here’s classic Essie thinking for you, too. When they ask what colors you consider sexy, you can choose from red, neutral, or pink. Doesn’t that just about sum up 98.2% of Essie’s line?

And finally, and the question I was referring to up above, there’s “Why do you purchase Essie lacquers?” You could choose from: durability, color names, variety of colors, or bottle design.

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but it’s extremely, extremely rare that I will buy a color based on the name. In fact, though I can easily imagine times where that might happen, it hasn’t actually happened to me yet. And though Essie is branching out, I don’t really find that they do, in fact, have much of a “variety of colors.” But that’s just one woman’s opinion.

Anyway, anyone who is not on their mailing list can find their survey here. They say that as a reward, you get to see a preview of their fall colors. All that happens is that they tell you what the link is at the end. I’ll help ya out, if you don’t want to take the survey; it’s essie.com/seasonal. You also get a free gift – a sensitivity base coat (though they don’t tell you that will be your gift at the get-go) – but it’s from a code you have to enter with a purchase. (I’ll give you that, too; it’s freegift09, to be used at essieshop.com.)

It’s not a bad idea to take the survey, though. Maybe if all of us that missed the SSN bandwagon when it first rolled out include that as our favorite color, we can convince them to release it again. The survey took me maybe five minutes, if that, though I’m sure it was considerably shortened since I said that I didn’t have professional manicures done; my progress bar made a huge jump after that page.

And for what it’s worth, though I seem to be razzing Essie a bit up there, it’s not as though I have a problem with the polishes. I have, I think, six (two I got for free), and I’m still trying to get my hands on Greenport. But I haven’t actually worn any of them yet, so I can neither condemn nor commend their formula.

And, in closing, I have one more thing to share with you! (See what happens when two days go by when I can’t publish? But I felt the names were a perfect lead-in to the survey, and this next bit of news is both short and timely, so I’m tacking it on here.)

My Walgreens finally got the Wet N Wild Craze polishes in! And they did it at the most opportune time; they’re buy one, get one free – that’s a dollar a piece!

“Hey Larry!”

“Yes, Balki?”

“Now we are so happy, let us do the dance of joy!”

Not all of them looked that appealing to me, either in person or in any of the online swatches (such as Nicole’s, whose I found very helpful), so four came home with me:

I’m sorry these are so blurry; I couldn’t get a focused picture, whatever I did.

Left to right, we have Inferno, Shield, Rustic, and what seems to be the standout, Morbid. I didn’t really realize what tiny bottles these were – .34 fluid ounces – so I put them next to a Zoya, at .50 fl. oz., for comparison.

The BOGO sale runs through this Saturday, so Carpe Diem if there are any WNWs on your wish list!

And that’s all, folks!

I’m BLU

2009-08-17T00:30:00.001-07:00

Today I have for you the first of the HD polishes I told you about here. It’s BLU (#02), a gorgeous, electric blue, unlike any of other blues I have. It truly does glow. I think the right adjective for this color would be cyan.

Application left something to be desired, though. First of all, the brush is wonky. It’s weird. I start to apply polish to my nails, and as I put some slight pressure on the brush, I expect it to fan out. It doesn’t. It got to the point that I actually tried to manhandle (womanhandle?) the brush to see if I got one where the hairs were all attached at the bottom, as this has happened to me before. But nope, they are all separate, they just don’t like to separate.

Grr – wonky brush

On top of this, the first layer comes out streaky. I mean really streaky. Some areas are nearly bald. After doing two thin layers and seeing little improvement, I added on a third, rather thick layer.

Now, I’ve worked with multi-layer polished before. OPI Breathe Life is a prime example. But this is something different entirely. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. And I still, on the third coat, had some bald spots near the edges of my nails that I just had to shove the color down. I topped it off with Poshe, and either the color itself evened out, or the Poshe helped. Either way, the end result is gorgeous!

Indoors

Close-up

I really like it. I keep looking at my nails. I’ve taken several photos, which as I think we can all agree, is a sign of a really good polish/color.

I found a couple of pictures that match the color:

Would you believe that’s a design for a guitar? From prsguitars.com

Now, I was going to go with a Smurfs video (I mean, hello, blue!), but you know what’s a better match for this glowy little gem?

Tron!

Watch out for that song – I’ve found it seriously addictive. I eventually downloaded it from iTunes, so if you ever need the info, I now know it’s called “Blue (Da Ba Dee)” by Eifel 65.

If the application doesn’t deter you (and, personally, I totally find it worth it), then you may want to make a trip down to your local Walgreens. The HD collection is two dollars off, and for my local prices, that’s about a 30% discount.

(And don’t think I didn’t see you dancing in your chair during that clip! It’s okay, though, I did, too.)

Skittles (Taste the Rainbow!) swatches

2009-08-15T18:40:00.001-07:00

Well, I hadn’t planned to swatch the new StrangeBeautiful colors, but rather share them with you as I wore them, but demand was popular enough, so I got up early this morning and swatched them, one per finger, for your viewing pleasure!

First off, I have to say that this round the formula feels a bit more runny to me. Nothing horrible; I mean, I didn’t get little drops of polish flicked on my clothes or anything (Hi, Nixxy!); but a bit more thin than I remember the last collection being.

Also, some of the colors needed two coats, and that’s a first for me with the SBs. But, overall, I’m very pleased, very pleased.

These can be purchased from Bergdorf Goodman or lucky scent, but remember that this is a marrying collection. You can’t just date which colors you want; take them all or let them go.

[In other words, you have to purchase the entire “library of color.”]

As they have no names, I’ll give you the breakdown by (my) numbers, left to right, of the colors you saw above.

The bottle shots are indoors, all others in the ‘shine. They also all include a base and top coat. I didn’t plan to at first, but then I thought, “Oh, what the hey!”

And one other thing: One of these bottles was hard to open. No, wait, let me rephrase. One bottle was im-poss-sible to open! I tried everything I could think of, but it was a no go. Eventually, I had to resort to, um, unorthodox means to open it. Let’s see if you can figure out which one it was in the following bottle pics. . . .

#1 – a mustard yellow. A near-dupe or a dead-on dupe for OPI’s The “It” Color, judging from looking at the bottle and painted nail. The SB may be a little paler. (I have not yet worn the OPI, so I cannot compare applications.)

#2 – a blue-tinged concrete grey. It’s the current leader in the Color of the Month poll (have you voted yet?). It makes me think of the uniforms of the American Civil War, between the blues and the greys (the North and South, respectively).

#3 – a dark, inky blue with a purple cast to it. This one surprised me by how much purple was evident in it as I was applying it. I liked the color in the bottle, but putting it on . . . WOW, I’m in love. And this is one coat. Yup, one. I was ready to apply a second but, as I looked at it, I thought, “Why bother?”

#4 – I’ve gone through ecru, beige, and ivory, and none of them seem quite right; it’s got a slightly more yellowish tone than any of those. Even old parchment doesn’t seem to describe it quite right.

#5 – heavily brown-toned red. I’m almost tempted to call this a muted brick, but luckily this is one of the colors I know where the genesis sprang from specifically: the dull red shell of a lobster.

#6 – yellow-toned medium brown. This is the color I’m feeling “iffiest” about. At one coat this color looked nasty. Two’s better, but I’m reserving my judgment until I do a full mani with it. Hmm. . . .

#7 – this one I feel safe calling “beige.” Like the colors described above and below, these are not even close to being a one-coater, like all of the other SBs I’ve worn/tried. Two comes out quite well, though.

#8 – a slightly dirty sea foam color. As would probably come as a surprise to anyone who’s seen my varnish collection, I actually love the earth tone colors. But then again, it wasn’t until recently that colors like that were even released in polish form. Glad to expand my options :)

I’m liking the mix in this collection; some colors are very vivid and noticeable, and some are very subtle. A nice mix, I think. The muted colors remind me of The Corpse Bride. Other than the bright blue corpse, of course.

But wait – THERE’S MORE!

A special offer, for today only, at Lucy’s request I am adding in a shot of Femme Fatale, the less-than-stellar star of this post, this time over a coat of black lacquer.

(This picture I forced out of focus with my plant. I’d meant to crop it, but I kind of like it, so I left it :)

This is one coat over one coat of Sally Hansen’s Black Out from the Xtreme Wear collection. (I got that because CVS was putting on clearance any white-capped SH XW polishes, and I figured, who couldn’t use an extra black? I’m pleased as one coat was quite sufficient!)

So there you have it; the first quick-and-dirty review and swatches of the second Library of Color.

Have a great weekend, everybody!

The Wonderful World of Color

2009-08-14T15:31:00.001-07:00

I’d seen the Sally Hansen HD collection in the stores, and on a few blogs, but I more or less resisted them. One major reason for this is, well, I’m just not a terribly big SH fan. There, I’ve said it, and I’m sorry. But facts are facts, after all.

However the more I saw them, the more I was tempted. Then CVS had a BOGO1/2 deal. And I picked them up – all of them. And carried them around the store. And, ultimately, I put them all down. I couldn’t do it, I just couldn’t.

Then, the following week, Walgreens had 40% off all Sally Hansen, and then along came BLU, Pixel Pretty, and Hi-Def for the ride home. I looked and looked at Cyber, but decided against it.

Hi-Def, BLU, Pixel Pretty

But then I kept staring at my three purchases all lined up – the gorgeous colors. . . . So then came not only Cyber, but also Lite and Hi-Res.

Hi-Res, Lite, Cyber

But not the others, I resisted! I didn’t really like them. Until I saw them swatched.

Sigh. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet the entire line-up.

The two newcomers are, to the left of Lite (the yellow) Digital and Three D

Every time I look at them, you know what I hear?

And for those if you with a little more time to spare, here’s a better version, with some of Paul Frees’ Ludwig Von Drake thrown in – bonus!

Here’s the info on the polishes from Sally Hansen’s site:

The Color: Pure, vivid pigments with multi-dimensional color & vibrance.

The Technology: Patented formula with Real Liquid Crystals for multi-dimensional color and iridescent shine!

The Result: Dazzling, Lustrous High-Definition Color.

The application on these can be – well, “a nightmare” is an overstatement, but a bit of a pill to apply. But the three colors I’ve worn so far just really knock my socks off! And every time they *grow* on me, and I find myself liking them more the more days I wear them. Consider yourselves warned!

By the way, remember to vote for August’s color of the month – I can’t wait to see what color if picked! Right now it’s neck and neck between two of them!

Color of the Month

2009-08-13T22:56:00.001-07:00

One of the things that I’m betting we all have in common, so to speak, is a really unique collection. Even though we all usually drool over the same colors and collections, and though most of us already have standard polishes that we don’t even to spell out, such as DSM, MPJ, INRAW -

(Well, okay, I’ll spell it out for any newcomers out there – Misa’s Dirty Sexy Money, and OPI’s My Private Jet and I’m Not Really a Waitress.)

- all of us also have some off-the-wall colors that are all but unknown to most people out there. Our collections, ultimately are a reflection of who we are, and if we’ve been lacquering long enough, who we were, too.

All of this is to say that I had an idea for how to pick colors to show you all. Often, obviously, whatever colors (or lack thereof) I wear for work, and whatever new varnishes that have somehow creeped into my home (didn’t I have that screen fixed??) will have a very prominent place here. But I thought I’d ask y’all what you thought!

So I finally logged all of my colors into a database. (I know, don’t we all get there, eventually?) I then went to random.org, and had it select five numbers. Whatever colors came up, as long as I haven’t written about them yet, are eligible. Let the chips fall where they may: well-known, oft-photographed favorites; weird, discontinued polish lines; colorful, yet sheer, top coats; you name it.

Here are the five chosen:

L’oreal’s Flight:

I’m tempted to call this a metallic frost (with help from Steph’s sidebar breakdown of finishes at Nailjuice), but as it says “perle” by the name, I’ll trust them and call it a pearl. Medium brown crème, like wet sand.

Misa’s Love Bite:

A deep, vampy red creme that almost looks like a jelly. It looks a bit brighter in these photos than IRL; it almost has a brown cast to it.

Zoya’s Carmen:

A cool-toned tomato-red creme, not quite as orange as it appears here. Not much more to say; very much what I envision when I think of the classic red creme.

OPI’s You Don’t Know Jacques:

Yeah, you’ve probably never heard of this one, right? Another creme, A brownish, mushroomy, taupe-like color, a little less blue that the pic.

StrangeBeautiful’s medium-dark grey from their second Libabry of Color:

Bluish tinged concrete-like color. And, surprise!, another creme.

Now, what I’d like for you to do is vote on which of these you’d like to see given a full review. I can’t promise it will happen right away (I’ve got work to work around, and if I’m feeling especially in need of a certain color, I’ll give into that, of course ;), but it will for sure happen in August. If this goes well, I’ll have it be a regular feature!

So here’s the deal: I’m not sure if I have a lot of foot traffic here yet, but I’ve posted a poll that I will leave up for five days, and hopefully enough people will vote so there is a clear winner. If none of those appeal to you, click “None of these,” and if a significant number of people aren’t interested, I’ll randomly pick five other colors. As I’ve said, this is totally up to fate, so I won’t be insulted in the least if none are particularly appealing to you.

So please vote!

A little disappointment – and a big excitement!

2009-08-12T22:22:00.001-07:00

As has happened entirely too often – and as is only to be expected, what with all I’ve gone through lately (which I’ll ~~bore you with~~ tell you about some other time) – I again came to a point where I needed a real pick-me-up kind of color.

I started out with twelve promising colors that I eventually weeded down to four. I brought them in to the BF to see which of the four he voted for. (He likes to get involved with my polish obsession. I just love that!)

Of the four I brought in, he opted for Color Club’s Femme Fatale (# 851).

I thought that it was particularly appropriate, as FF came so close to making it onto my nails the last time I was feeling glum.

Ummm – didn’t quite have the effect I was hoping for.

A nice enough color, to be sure, and I’m sure it’d look gorgeous over black, but. . . .

Indoors

Sunshine

That’s four coats, people.

This is getting relegated to my “work” pile (since I’m indoors so often, if it’s barely noticeable in indoor light it’s a “go”) and, possibly, to be tried with black underneath.

There is some nice glittery shimmer to this, if you look just right.

But, really, it’s hard to notice. And when I do notice it, well . . . it looks like too much. Like the polish is bubbling. It may be because of the large number of coats. I think one or two would work better, since the color doesn’t build up at all, anyway.

And – aha! – yet again I think I’ve got another dupish color – this one without the glitter.

L’oreal’s Resort (on ring), two coats, no top coat.

I can maybe see a slight difference in color; sometimes I think Resort is a little bit of a darker pink, but if even in person, up close, specifically looking for a difference I’m not sure I can find one, I think it’s safe to call it a dupe. The only difference is the fine glitter in FF which isn’t in Resort.

And, for the bubble illusion mentioned above, I kind of prefer Resort.

So, long story short, nice enough color, but I wouldn’t want it living here, if you know what I mean. It stayed a day, then I was moving on to something that TRULY fits with the “Cheer up, Charlie” theme!

And now for the big excitement!

Aquaheart has nominated me for the, um, something blog award!

I did a little searching online and have discovered it’s the Lemonade Award! I am now to nominate twelve blogs I love to read myself!

There are really so many great blogs out there – just look how long my blogroll is! – so while I nominate all of them in my heart, I will only enumerate a few, so they have names left to nominate!

The Polish Addict

Getcha Nails Did

Nevertoomuchglitter’s Weblog

Wixology

Polish, Platforms, Perfume

Helen and Sheenie’s Nice Things

Happy Thursday, everybody!

A mysterious package

2009-08-12T01:31:00.001-07:00

[FYI, this is very picture heavy. I just wanted to make you feel like (with all due respect to Walter Cronkite) You Are There!]

Okay, so I get home late one night to find . . . a mysterious package! Dunh dunh DUNH! Well, okay, it isn’t so mysterious, since it was an order I was expecting. But I was too tired to actually go through all of the steps required to truly document its arrival, so I wait until the next day to open it for y’all! Yeah, I know. *nodding* I just care that much.

First, the box.

Huh. Fragile. Must be Italian.

(This is the best clip I could find. If 5 minutes is too long for you, just jump to the 1:00 mark.)

(Aaaand – just because I found it by accident and it’s a GREAT recap of the movie – check out the bunnies!)

(And, as long as we’re on the topic, sort of, one of my all-time favorite You Tube clips!)

Mmmmm – num num num!

Yay!

*Ahem* Sorry about that. Where were we? I swear the internet has destroyed my attention span. Let’s see. . . .

Oh, right! The mysterious but not mysterious to me, only mysterious to you package.

Well wrapped on the inside. . . .

Bubble wrap – and what’s that stuff in the corner?

Ah, free samples? I thought these smelled great . . .

. . . until I realized it was probably this perfume. Whatever it is, it’s nice!

Inside, a sealed envelope, and now you know where I ordered from. . . .

And a hand-written note to me! Times like this are what I love buying from a person directly, rather than ordering online.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand!

Hmm – see the color starting to poke through?

Becoming clearer here. . . .

Almost there! (The suspense killing you yet??)

*Aahhhhhh* [Hmm, that was supposed to be A Heavenly Choir, not Someone Running From A Serial Killer With His/Her Arms Waving.]

Anyway, you *knew* it was polish, but did you know it was the new StrangeBeautiful Library of Color? Didja? Didja, huh??? You might have suspected, when you saw it was from Bergdorf Goodman, anyway.

Aren’t they lovely?

It looks like they have added their company’s name to the bottom.

And now, if necessary (or even just if curiosity’s gotcha), you can see the ingredients.

And there we have it!! I wasn’t too sure, looking at the online promo pictures, but in person I am *totally* digging these muted colors! Including the second one, which is looking like a darker, greyer cousin to Misa’s Dirty Sexy Money, and its inky neighbor which was inspired by the J. Herbin company.

That link, by the way, will not only lead you to a brief description of this collection, but also one of the two sites I know of where it can be ordered. I can’t vouch for this company, though, as I’ve never used it. You can also order from Bergdorf Goodman, but they don’t ship internationally.

Well, as they get worn, I will let you know what I think, and there will be pictures!

Passion fruit?!

2009-08-10T22:48:00.001-07:00

L-R: Coconut Crush, Mad About Mango, Pretty in Papaya, Sublime Strawberry, Raspberry Rapture, Mon Cherry, Passionate Fruit, Not So Blue-berry

When I got the Revlon Fruitful Temptations set, I have to admit that I primarily got them for the gimmick of them being scented. But as the weekend was approaching, and I wanted to wear an “aunt appropriate” color for her visit down this way (my aunt does not think certain colors are appropriate for nails), I had to take all of my blues and greens off of the table. That is a huge chunk of my collection, you know. But as I narrowed down my choices, I decided a Fruitful Temptation might be a good choice. So looking over the colors, I picked Passionate Fruit.

The application was very nice. A little of that “balding” that can happen if you paint over one spot too much, rather than just being assertive with the brush, but it really wasn’t too bad. Two coats and I got good coverage. It was very easy to control, as well – very little clean-up needed. In fact, these photos are taken without clean-up at all (though it sure wouldn’t have hurt any).

It does have a wonderful, slight, fruity scent to it as well. I’m not sure if the smell is passion fruit exactly, because I’ve never had passion fruit without other fruit mixed in, like a juice, so I can’t attest to that; but a pleasant scent nonetheless.

Indoors, flash

Indoors, no flash

Now, I like purples, but this color didn’t seem like anything to be written home about. But it really did grow on me. As I guess shouldn’t come as any surprise, since I didn’t expect to particularly love this color, I don’t have too many dupes to it. In fact, the only dupe I have is one of my StrangeBeautifuls. It’s a smidge darker, though.

One coat SB on ring finger

So, all in all, it’s not a color that jumps up and begs to be noticed, but a nice little color to have in my collection, when I need something a bit more subtle than A Sin Worth Committing, or Watermelon Rind, or any of the OPI Designer Series. . . .

When I think of the phrase “passion fruit,” I remember an old commercial for what I’m pretty sure was a fruit juice. There was an off screen announcer listing all of the flavors contained in this particular product, and when he gets to passion fruit, this mousy-looking woman on the screen opens her eyes wide as says, almost in a whisper, “passion fruit?!”

I tried, but I couldn’t find that clip. Grr. But I did find this one that took me back a bit!

Remember Squeezits? I’d forgotten all about them! I’m sure the awkward, unfortunate final four letters of their name didn’t help their popularity any.

As for the polish, I’d call it a medium purple with a strong red leaning. But, seriously, a color deducer I’m not. I do believe you could call it a fuchsia, though, with a little bit of a red tone. In fact, it looks very similar to the center of these flowers:

Close-up

And there you have Revlon’s Passionate Fruit!

[NB: Apparently my photos are clickable now. I don't know what I did, but, hey, works for me! You can now view a close-up of the curtain from my last post if you want :)]

And now for something Completely Different

2009-08-09T16:22:00.001-07:00

Here I was, planning on not blogging a fifth day straight, when I stumble across a really fun idea that I simply must do. (And it has nothing whatever to do with polish, if you can imagine that!)

I was looking through the profiles of those of you who have decided to Follow my blog (thank you!), and through that, I learned of Aquaheart, who has a fantastic makeup blog that I encourage you all to check out!

Anyway, I found a darling picture of her little girl that she posted as a result of being “picture tagged.” I thought the whole idea looked intriguing, so I decided to basically tag myself on this. So here’s the deal:

The RULES:

1. Open your first photo folder.

2. Scroll down to the 10th photo.

3. Post that photo and story on your blog.

By following these rules strictly, I come to a picture of me holding nail polish bottles. Surprise, surprise. It wasn’t even a particularly interesting shot. But within that folder I had a few other folders, and by opening the first of those, I found some much more promising contenders!

One of the amazing opportunities I have had in my job is to work on some of Royal Caribbean’s cruise ships. Last October I was on a cruise to Hawaii (I know, Hawaii!!!) on board the Serenade of the Seas, and I spent a lot of time in their Tropical Theater. I was utterly fascinated with their curtain, which looked strikingly (though not, perhaps, surprisingly) different depending on what color lights shone on it. This is, I believe, from my first night in there.

So that’s my photo. I will tag, if I can, the other five Followers I currently have:

And finally, some soothing music from the islands. (With advertising, but where isn’t there advertising anymore? At least it’s all visual, so you can listen in to the music while doing other things, if you like.)

Mahalo!

Top three choices??

2009-08-08T23:08:00.001-07:00

I must admit – I am terrible at the “Top X” lists. For one thing, I am almost too flighty. As soon as I say A Christmas Carol is my favorite book, I have to think about Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. But then there’s also The Dogs of Babel.

How can you compare different genres? Does Wizard of Oz have any business being placed above or below The Edible Woman? And what about David Sedaris, huh? What about David Sedaris???

[Seriously, he’s hilarious! If you’re anything like me you’ll laugh until your sides hurt when you hear this, so make sure you’re somewhere you can laugh to your heart’s content.]

Anyway, all of that to say I can’t pick favorites. So I may, someday, create a Top list of nail polish, but as of right now, I just couldn’t commit.

Unless, of course, prizes are involved.

Helen reported on her and Sheenie’s blog about a contest being held for a Nails Inc pedicure pack (and, simultaneously, led me to another great blog – The Nail Buff). So, barely out of the gate, I’m going to try and pick three favorites.

I decided to go with colors that I like, specifically, rather than the lacquers. By that I mean I’m taking any sense of personal meaning out of my choices. So polishes that are particularly valuable to me because, say, someone special gave them to me are essentially off of the table. Those would be too hard to choose between.

I’m also trying to put out some polishes that aren’t talked about as much, so they can get some love, too.

So a quick, down-and-dirty choice of three colors for me comes to . . . the envelope please.

(In no particular order.)

Revlon’s Crème Brȗlée:

This is actually a near-dupe to another favored color of mine that I’ll give a full entry to later. That one, however, is discontinued, and this one is actually a “New Shade,” as you can see my the sticker on the handle.

It’s not an over-the-top exciting color, but I like the hint of gold, and shimmer, hiding in this varnish. But it’s also a perfect work-appropriate color, which I (heavy sigh) really need more of.

China Glaze’s It’s My Turn:

Okay, I freaking LOVE the Kaleidoscope collection CG released in 2006. I know this isn’t exactly a collection without love, by any stretch of the imagination, but IMT isn’t a color I’ve heard mentioned all that often, and while I love holographics, this was a first for me to have both a beloved holo and gold. Lurve it. Just lurve it. And it lasted beautifully, without a single chip, for three days until I had to *sob* remove it.

StrangeBeautiful’s brown:

(Please ignore the sad state of my cuticles!)

You know I had to include one of my SBs! And as I’ve mentioned before, every time I picked a favorite, even among this limited group, I wanted to pick another. So I simply chose one and told myself to stick with it.

I truly do find this brown to be utterly drool-worthy, though. I don’t have too many chocolate browns in my collection. Hmm – in fact, I think this is my only one! But it’s a great color. I love wearing it.

Interesting. I notice my three choices come pretty much from the same side of the color wheel. Ah, well; I’ve made my choices, and I stand by them!

What do you think? Any favorites? Have you selected any colors for the contest? (By the way, you have until July 12!) If so, let me know in the comment section – I’d love to take a peek!

When you’re Strange . . . Beautiful

2009-08-07T19:54:00.001-07:00

As promised, here are the last six colors from the premiere StrangeBeautiful Library of Color.

It’s amazing how polish choices can be so visceral. When I first got my haul, the dark olive color (which, for some reason, reminds me of camo), was the color I liked least. Yet when it came time to pick a color to wear, it was the first one I reached for, as I mentioned in my first post about this line.

And the last color that I finally wore? The dark teal, which by all rights should have been my itching to jump on my nails from the word “go.” But you can’t always tell which polish you will most want to wear from day to day.

Now that I’ve worn them all, I don’t think I could pick a favorite, even if forced to. There are some I like more than others, but as soon as I decide I really like one, another one falls into my field of vision, and I can’t decide. So I give – I won’t even try.

So, on with the countdown. (Wow – I’m channeling Casey Kasem now.)

This first color is described as a “midcentury modern orange.” I’m not completely sure what that means, but I believe it’s the color (or one of the colors) whose genesis came from the Mid Century Modern Knoll Fabrics. It definitely has a “modern” feel to it, the way OPI’s The “It” Color does, with its mustard-leaning yellow. This reminds me strongly of a Sunkist orange with some black added to it.

This next color is a dark, inky blue that was, according to Jane Schub, “inspired by a fear of swimming alone in a deep dark lake at night.”

(Best of the pictures I took – sorry!)

This next one, I predict, is going to be a showstopper for many of you out there. (Scrangie, are you looking? I think I’ve got a color for you!)

This is called an “Art Nouveau teal.” It’s definitely darkened, and reminiscent of Rescue Beauty Lounge’s Stormy In fact, as Kae pointed out, the bottle designs are very similar, so I did a side-by-side shot of SB’s teal and RBL’s Stormy:

You’ll notice two things. Firstly, though the SB (on the right) appears to be larger, it is also much more narrow than the RBL. After scouring the Web (read: surfing several sites for up to ten minutes and becoming bored), I am unable to determine the size of the SB bottles. RBL is 12 milliliters, and judging from these pictures, I’ll guess that SB is about the same amount.

Secondly, this is not a dupe for Stormy. They’re in the same family, but I would consider this polish to be much more teal, and a little more “blackened,” to my eye.

(Excuse the weird marks on my nails – for the life of me I can’t see them IRL.)

Next comes this yummy chocolate brown color. Sigh. It keeps pushing to be my favorite of the group.

Here’s a lovely fuchsia. Like many in this library, it is a dark version of the color.

And last, but certainly not least, is the light pink shade of the family. In a New York Times blurb, it is said that Ms. Schub realized ‘the pink in a Warhol painting she saw at the Dia:Beacon museum [would make a wonderful nail polish]. ''It had black in it,'' Ms. Schub explained. ''It was a little off. It turned the corner from being pink to something very beautiful to look at.''’

(Try to ignore the weird state of the polish on my tips – I thought painting a swatch of white on just my nail tips was a good idea. I know. But this was awhile ago.)

So there she is, in all her glory. I don’t want to repeat my first post on these too much, so I’ll just say that they applied beautifully, and they are so pigmented that two coats has been, without exception, perfect.

Again, you can buy these from lucky scent who does have international shipping (but, whoa, is it pricey), or Bergdorf Goodman, who only ships to the US and Canada, though there is a phone number you can call and, apparently, have something shipped outside of those borders.

I’d hoped to end with The Doors’ People Are Strange, but apparently they’re not allowing that on the web. So instead here is one of my favorite scenes with Peter Sellers and Keenan Wynn from Dr. Strangelove:

Enjoy!

Black light special

2009-08-06T14:45:00.001-07:00

Sometimes, on work days, I like to go without any color on my nails – or without appearing to have any color. To the untrained and careless eye (and perhaps to the trained but careless eye, or the untrained yet careful eye, or whatever) they seem to be just plain nails. But like subtle makeup where you don’t appear to have any on, if it’s done right, it just looks like natural clean beauty. And sometimes, that’s just what I want.

Now, my nails aren’t terribly yellow, not in my opinion anyway, but they do have some yellowing going on. So I’ll turn to something like Orly’s Love Each Other or to Yello-Out.

The story of my bottle of Y-O (which, as you can see, has been through the wars) dates back to I believe the late Eighties. My mother wore acrylics back then (that was before my brief foray into acrylics), and so of course went and had her nails done with some regularity. Well, one day she came home and told me about a product her manicurist told her about. It seems that she wore this with her acrylics and it caused her nails to glow under the black light at Disneyland dark rides! That brief description was all I needed to determine that I MUST OWN THIS POLISH!!

So, being a wonderful Mom, she brought home a bottle after her next appointment, and the next several times I went to Disneyland this had to be on my nails. It truly did glow under the black light, too!

Well, when I got back into nail polish in late 2008, I came across this bottle along with many other long-forgotten polishes. Thanks to learning of the magic of polish thinner, I was able to get this to a good consistency, and I’ve worn it a few times since. Take a look:

Naked nails (cue Psycho scream):

(Yeah, they’re all different lengths – I don’t have the heart to file down any I can get to grow – and I don’t know who’d want to steal this photo – just humor me :)

A layer of base coat (in this case, Rock Hard):

And with one coat of Y-O:

Can you see the difference? Since I wasn’t sure it would be apparent, I took another shot outside:

I tried to take a shot of the ingredients, but well. . . .

It DOES appear that there was Toluene in this – once upon a time, anyway.

At any rate, not being sure if they even made this stuff anymore, I searched the ‘net for you. I found it in its new incarnation at Amazon and some place called Sleek Hair, among other hits.

They say wearing it under another color makes it pop more, but I couldn’t attest to that. But people are warned not to wear it over colored polish as a top coat. (Why would you do that, anyway? I mean, based on the name. “Gee, Sue, I like this green color, but it leans a little too much towards the yellow spectrum. If only there was some way to get that yellow out. Saaaay! I know what we can do!”)

Anyway, it seems to cost just over three dollars, and if you take it anywhere that has black light (the aforementioned dark rides, maybe Cosmic Bowling? Do they even have that anymore? Naughty sexcapades, perhaps?), your nails can look like this!

(found here)

And my personal favorite:

(found here)

Yeah, they’re tats, but how cool are they?!?!?!?!?

And now I’m feeling all nostalgic for Disney, glowy stuff, and electro-synthemagnetic musical sounds! But where can a gal find that stuff all in one place? Aha!!

BONUS PICS!

I did this particular manicure at my aunt’s house, so I couldn’t resist getting some pictures of her six-month-old schnauzer, Greta

Stop with the nails – start with the pets!

You gotta pet this belly!

Hey – where ya goin’?!?!

Y’all come back now, ya hear?

It starts:

2009-08-05T04:08:00.001-07:00

I have had an odd history with polish. Pretty much all of my life, I’ve been drawn to that section of the drug store, and I’d spend time and money there. But it was usually like the tides – I'd really be into it, then I’d leave it be for long stretches of time.

Usually, though, when I did purchase lacquers, it was more unusual colors. When I look through my collection of “old” acquisitions, I see a lot of silver/grey, blue, and purple. Huh – I guess I was always off the red/pink-brick road.

So I guess all that is to say I was a varnish junkie waiting to happen.

Now, what really got me started on this road in earnest was an article in the New York Times last November. No, not the one that led to the great chipped-polish controversy of ’08 (which I think still rages on), but rather a little unassuming blurb in the Sunday Style section about a new lacquer company called StrangeBeautiful.

I don’t think I’d ever spent so much money on nail polish before (and there have been few exceptions since), and I lived no where near a Bergdorf Goodman, but I was going to have to find a way to get this “Library of Color,” as they called it.

It wasn’t out quite yet, so I spent some time drooling over their website. [NB: Their website is still up, and there are a lot of interesting things to see there -- just run your mouse over the bottle pics on the home page! -- but they don't seem to be updating it much anymore. Use the two purchasing links below for more current information.] I emailed their contact (who turned out to be the founder herself!) to find out how to order the first LOC. I was given a phone number and a sales rep’s name, and that was how I placed my order.

Oh, how glad I am that I did.

It turned out to be a gateway drug, but what a gateway drug! They are gorgeous colors; absolutely gorgeous. And here they are:

The Lucite box they come in

With flash

Sunshine!

Stunning, aren’t they?

As far as I can tell, this company is well below a lot of people's radar. I'm hard-pressed to find too much mention of them on other blogs, or even to find pictures of them. I hope their name gets out a little bit more, because I am absolutely ga-ga over them!

Their application is about what the definition of "buttah" would be for me. If you put on a second coat too soon, you will cause a little balding, but truly, these are near-opaque in one.

As this entry is already running a bit long, I’ll just give you the teaser of the first two colors. And, as I’m sure you’ll start wondering as I post the pictures, these colors have no names. I know; supremely frustrating! Also, as I warned you, this is what led me into nail care in earnest, so some of these shots aren’t of the most attractive nails you’ve ever seen. In fact, the dark olive color you see is the first of the collection that I ever wore!

First up, the red that started it all. The inspiration came from this typewriter, designed by Ettore Sottsass:

I love seeing the colors interact, so I took shots with their neighboring colors as well.

Next up. the olive green that I suspect is similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge’s No More War, but as I don’t own that color, I can’t attest to it.

Sorry for the blur – indoors

Outdoors – I was hiding a chipped nail :)

The collections are strictly LE (limited edition), so once they're sold out, they are gone. There are two libraries out now, and as far as I can tell, they are both still available. You can order them from Bergdorf Goodman or from lucky scent (whom I learned of specifically from Jane Schub herself). I've never ordered off of either website directly, so I can give you no feedback about their customer service. However, having ordered from a BD representative, I can tell you her customer service was exquisite.

I should also warn you that there is no picking and choosing as far as SB is concerned - you must buy them all. Of course, speaking strictly for myself, that's not a problem. I sometimes love to just sit and stare at the colors and watch how they interact so beautifully. These polishes - more than any others that I own - strike me as true accessories. Every time I wear these, I walk a little taller and feel absolutely beyond the pale chic!

And as "chic," in my oddball little mind, is permanently linked to "art deco," George Gershwin comes to mind. My absolute favorite movement from him is Rhapsody in Blue, so here it Disney's interpretation of that number from Fantasia 2000:

Hope you enjoyed!

Like a hole in the . . .

2009-08-02T19:00:00.000-07:00

I know, another new blog about nail polish. Aren't there enough of those? But I can't help it; I keep taking pictures of my polish and making long-winded mental analyses of each one. So I finally decided I had to let all of that creativity out or suffer the consequences!

I am relatively new to the ranks of the true lacquerheads, and in my next post I'll tell you what caused me to enlist. For now let me say that I have an absurd number of wildly creative polishes that I can only wear on non-working days, and a ridiculously small collection of colors I can wear on working days.

I am located in sunny California, which is nice for sunshine shots, but not so good when you actually need water for something. But that's just the way it crumbles, cookie-wise.

I'm also a child of the Eighties, and you will often see and hear refrences from that decade. Consider yourself warned!

However, this "Hello" is coming from a few years before that particular decade. But ya gotta love the Beatles!

Any time you have a question, feel free to leave me a comment or email me, nivipas{at}gmail{dot}com.

Most of all, just drop in, enjoy the pictures, prose, or both!

nivipa

A twinkly September

A little kindness – and a little slow

Fun With Polish

My armor

Random stuff about me

Holographic happiness

A White Rabbit

My own little disco ball – Epilogue

My own little disco ball

New month, new color

Announcements

The Color of August, 2009

I got a wild hair

Bringing it down a notch

A contest, some mattes, and a mini collection

Don’t get matte – get even!

My single most important lacquer

One of my absolute favorite colors

Ya hafta believe

Amazing

I’m BLU

Skittles (Taste the Rainbow!) swatches

The Wonderful World of Color

Color of the Month

A little disappointment – and a big excitement!

A mysterious package

*Passion* fruit?!

And now for something Completely Different

Top *three* choices??

When you’re Strange . . . Beautiful

Black light special

It starts:

Like a hole in the . . .

Passion fruit?!

Top three choices??