OPI & Wet 'n Wild

31/8/2012

 
Today I decided to try another one of my new-ish OPI polishes. I was in the mood for something simple so I picked Pedal Faster Suzi! It's a pretty, delicate pink with lots of silver shimmer. I liked it a lot more on my nails than I thought it would!
It was very sheer though and required four or five coats, I'm not sure which as I lost count! But it dried really quickly so I didn't mind it. It dries a bit matte so you'll need a good shiny top coat to bring out all the pretty shimmer.

After a couple of hours I I started to feel like it's missing something. I'm not used to wearing pale colours on their own so I started rummaging through my nail polish box. I picked Wet 'n Wild Night Prowl, which I haven't worn yet so it was the perfect chance to give it a try. Night Prowl is a black nail polish with lots and lots of purple shimmer.
It actually looks glittery in the bottle but the shimmer is much more fine and subtle in real life. And it's even less noticeable on my nails. Anyway, I decided to do a French manicure with Night Prowl!
I like how the silver and purple shimmer look next to each other. Next time I'll definitely try Night Prowl on it's own!
 
I've been wearing lots of different nail polishes lately but haven't gotten around to taking any pictures, except for today and yesterday. First is my sloppy attempt at using my new fimo sticks. The base is H&M's Yellow (yes, that's what it's called!). There's no close-up because my cuticles look horribly dry and no one needs to see that! So, here it is:
Today I wanted to finally properly try one of my new mini OPI nail polishes. I picked Kiss Me On My Tulips, a pretty hot pink polish. The polish itself is lovely, it dries quickly and isn't streaky or patchy or anything, but the brush... Not great. It's tiny! But I know the polish itself is tiny too so it makes sense that the brush isn't enormous either. Oh well. I'm wearing two coats here, although I probably could've gotten away with just one.
If anyone has any tips or recommendations on what I could do to make my cuticles look better, I'd love to hear it! I'm desperate.
 
I think I went into some sort of a shock after buying all those new nail polishes, because I've been wearing my trusty old Claire's Black Matte nail polish for a couple of days. I just couldn't handle the amount of choices I had!
Ignore all the lumps and bumps, it's a pretty thick nail polish and being matte it shows all the imperfections!

Anyway, this morning I woke up and felt ready for a change. I took a deep breath and started rummaging through my nail polish box to find something to layer over the black polish as I wasn't in the mood to remove it. And I decided to pick one of my new polishes, Models Own Bluebelle.
What do you think? It's more purple in real life. I don't know what it is about cameras and blue/purple nail polishes, it just never seems to work. I like the result, it's so sparkly but the black base makes it look kind of dramatic.
Also, my nail wheels from eBay arrived the other day. Yay! I swatched all my nail polishes on them. Here's a picture or two.
They're in alphabetical order like on my nail polish list. Maybe next time I'll arrange them by colour... I still have a few wheels left!

Also, if you're reading this, feel free to leave a comment! Comments make me a very happy blogger. :)
 
I figured that the best way to try on as many nail polishes as possible at the same time is to swatch one nail polish per finger. Clever, huh? So here are the new glitter polishes that I bought: Models Own Emerald City, Scarlet Sparkle and Bluebelle, and Barry M Aqua Glitter. So much glitter!

Now, a word of warning... I did this in very dim lighting, and only put on two coats of each nail polish. I tried to do a quick clean up before all the precious daylight was gone but as you all probably know, there's no such thing as a quick clean up when it comes to glitter nail polish. So there are some very persistent pieces of glitter around my nails. Not pretty, but it'll have to do.
Picture
Feel free to ignore the fridge on the background.
The formula on these was very mixed. Emerald City and Bluebelle are very similar: lots and lots of square shaped glitter in a clear base. Bluebelle was a bit more watery, which made it easier to work with. The problem with Bluebelle was that I simply wasn't able to get it to cover the tips of my nails. I admit, I was in a hurry so I gave up after a while, but I still thought that was strange. Maybe it's supposed to be some sort of a glittery French manicure in a bottle?

Emerald City was super glittery and a bit thicker and it definitely needs a third or maybe even a fourth coat. I had trouble spreading it evenly, as you can probably tell. There are weird bald patches where glitter just wouldn't stick. However I love the way this looks, it's a lot brighter on my nails that in the bottle. It also looks a lot better in real life! It would probably look great layered over a dark teal polish.
Picture
Here you can see the nail tip and edge problems.
Scarlet Sparkle is different to the other two Models Own glitters, as the base in it is red, which makes it easier to wear on its on. It doesn't look great in the pictures with just two coats but it was lovely to work with. It's very bright and sparkly. Love it!

All three Models Own polishes dried super quickly, btw. By the time I had finished painting my hand, they were already dry. Guess that makes sense since there's so much glitter in them! And as always with Models Own polishes, they smell awful.
Barry M Aqua Glitter is gorgeous. To me it looks like a sparklier, more glittery version of Deborah Lippmann's Mermaid's Dream. It's beautiful. The mix of bigger glitter and microglitter looks unique (to me anyway) and beautiful and I can't wait to try layering it over other polishes. The drying time was a bit longer than with the other polishes but no more than a couple of minutes. It spread on nicely. Also, I really like how heavy the bottle is! Might be a bit random but it makes it feel expensive.

So, the conclusion: The Models Own polishes are very densely packed and require a little work, except for the red one, but I think they're worth it. Also, they don't feel like mini polishes, except for the wobbly lid. Barry M Aqua Glitter is amazing and probably the nicest glitter I've ever seen. If you don't have it yet, get it.
 
Picture
My French manicure stickers from eBay arrived today, hooray! I got three different types: the classic curved one, a v-shaped one and a straight one. So I played around a bit with them.

I used two coats of Models Own Purple Imperial. Then I used a pink nail art pen to draw the lines, and managed to smudge my pinky before it dried so it's a mess. I have a few nail art pens but I don't think they're very good, the nail polish is a bit lumpy so it's really hard to draw a straight line with them. Ah well.

 
Welcome to my new blog!

To get things started, here's a colourful manicure I did with Mavala's Pistachio and Fresh Melon and e.l.f.'s Gum Pink. The Mavala polishes are from their Spring 2012 collection, Delicious Colours.


Now this was a very frustrating, time consuming manicure that I probably won't be trying again with these polishes. The Mavala polishes vere okay, they usually dry pretty quickly but they tend to bubble a bit if you do thicker coats. But that was fine, I didn't mind that. That e.l.f. polish on the other hand... It took about two or three hours to completely dry, and as you can see, I have a couple of dents on my nails that I got when I took the picture. And I waited an hour after painting my nails! I've found that most e.l.f. polishes are like that, which is a shame, because they're very cheap and there are some lovely colours.

I put on a matte top coat later that day and I liked how it looked but I was so annoyed about the drying time that I didn't even attempt to take another picture! Next time I'll definitely go for something a bit quicker.