NOTD: China Glaze FYI

Hello everyone! It's been awhile since I've been able to put a post together. I've been super busy.

I recently started my first full-time job. I've had assorted jobs for years but never anything career worthy and never anything full time. I'm so excited to see where this goes! I think I'm going to enjoy the work, which makes it even better. But goodness, working is tiring! My schedule also got a major shift. I'm not a morning person. Never have been, so being up and across town for work by 9am is a giant change! It's taken some getting used to.

Today I have for your one of my favorite polishes: FYI by China Glaze. Neutral, holographic glory in a bottle!

This polish is a gorgeous beige-colored holograph from the OMG collection. I think my pictures make it look a little more yellow than it actually is. It's really quite neutral in color and tone. Holographic polishes are some of my favorite polishes in general, but this one is one I keep going back to and never get tired of. The formula on this one is lovely. This is three thin coats and it goes on perfectly. No clean-up here.

How pretty is that! I can't stop looking at my fingers!

Hopefully, now that I've adjusted to my new schedule, I can find more time for my nails! I want to practice on my nail art. Recently, I stumbled across this gradient tutorial HERE that is way easier than how I was doing it before! (And I wasn't very good at it!) I've got a picture on my phone of my results, but I want to try it again and get better pictures. The result is beautiful just as a gradient and absolutely stunning when stamping is added. Also a rainbow gradient is much easier to do.

I also am going to take a stab at water marbling. I have seen a few wonderful pictures of water marbles with a gradient base layer and then a black and clear polish to marble with so the base still shows through. I want to try it when I have time! Anyway, there you go!

Have a good day everyone!

-Amy

(P.S. I'm excited to have a follower, by the way! Although, I see I am also a follower of myself. I'm not sure how that works since last time I checked I was still me and follow my own blog just by default! O_o )

NerdLacquer: Don't Blink

Hello everyone! Today I received my first Nerd Lacquer polish! It is called Don't Blink.

For those of you who instantly picture Doctor Who and/or the Weeping Angels... you would be 100% correct! This polish is named after Doctor Who, a British television show. I picked it up in it's reboot, or continuation maybe, in 2005 when it started airing on BBC America. More recently, I got a Netflix subscription with Series 5 to the present available for streaming! If I ignore my current obsession with Supernatural, Doctor Who is easily my favorite show!

So, I was super excited when I saw a swatch of this on another blog. (Sarah, from Chalkboard Nails, I think.) I made getting this polish a mission. Haha. Mission accomplished! So, pictures hmm?

Ignore my stamping. I got the urge to practice! (I'm terrible. This is the first good try.)

Don't Blink is a light grey base full of tiny silver and black bits of glitter and small silver hex glitters. The finish reminds me of stone, which is perfect since the Angels are statues! 

I don't normally like glitter polishes. I hate that it takes so many layers of top coat to get the finish smooth and that it's so difficult to remove them. This is different. It dries to a mostly smooth finish and I really like how the grey base makes the hex glitters look white at first glance... but they still catch the light. Sooo pretty! I was worried about application for a second because it looked sort of gloopy on the brush, but the formula was fantastic. It's odd because it almost felt thick but it went on beautifully with no cleanup necessary. I'm wearing three easy coats in the pictures with top coat. (Seche Vite.)

NerdLacquer polishes can be purchased from their Etsy shop HERE, Harlow & Co. HERE, or Ninja Polish HERE for $10 a bottle. Right now it looks like their polishes are mostly out of stock, but at Ninja Polish you can sign up to be emailed when stock is back.

I LOVE this polish. There are a few other ones I can't wait to get my hands on.

Finger Paints Lemon Sour (And I owe my camera an apology)

So, I looked back and my camera is about 6 years old. I got it in 2005 so it's probably about time for a new one anyway, buuuut it wasn't what was turning my hands purple!

I got bored today and decided to finally make a light box. It is ugly and really badly constructed, but it work! (Long tutorial short: get a box, cut out the sides but leave a slight edge, then cover the holes with tissue paper and shine a light from the top, or side.) Haha. So, I thought I would use the same color polish I was wearing when I was complaining about my camera. Finger Paints Lemon Sour. I'm a sucker for yellows so I had to pick this up. (Side note: from their Gumdrops & Lollipops collection. Sucker. Har har. Ok.... anyway.) As it turns out it really isn't my favorite. I like the idea of the color. I really, REALLY do. Unfortunately, my hands don't like it as much. I think, looking again, that the awkward purple/red is noticeable even when I'm not taking a picture of my hands. Sad. :( Usually I don't care, but the color didn't really pop at me either so this probably isn't a color I'll be wearing much, if at all.

How does the light box look? I'm pretty thrilled. I'll have to try it with some other colors to see how they look. (I'm using this as a comparison from last post, which was taken in front of my computer while I was sitting on my bed.)

Like I said, I want to love the color, but it really does look terrible on me. That said, application was only so-so. The formula on this was thick and gloopy for me. It didn't want to flow over my nail well, so I had obvious glumpy lines and when I tried to smooth them out I got attacked by air bubbles. They aren't in this picture because I put a top coat on almost immediately, but only on this hand. My other hand is air-bubble city. I put a little thinner into the polish and that seemed to help with the actual application.

P.S. My baby, Ophelia, was very against the idea of using this box for my lighting needs. I set it on the ground and she just hopped right in and didn't want to move!

Camera woes

So one of the things on my list of things to buy is a new camera. (And a decent lamp or lightbox. haha) I was going to try and take some pictures of Finger Paints Lemon Sour from their Gumdrops and Lollipops collection... but my camera keeps turning my hands purple! Not red or anything, purple. So I guess I'll have to do this color later, but for now, laugh at my purple hands if you want. I did.

Haha

Finger Paints: Asylum

Hello everyone! Today I have for your one of the the flakie polishes from Finger Paints! This is my first time trying this one out, which is actually sort of sad since it took me so long to get a hold of it! I walked into Sally's one day and say these on display. I think I was trying to curb my spending on polish at the time so I only grabbed one and told myself I would come back for the others on pay day. I purchased Motley, which is a gorgeous blue-colored flakie. A week or so later I go back into Sally's intending to purchase the rest of the collection, only to find they are all gone. And they weren't just gone from the Sally's closest to me, they were gone from ALL of the Sally's in town. (I'm in a small-ish city in the middle of the United States.)

I figured I would just check back periodically and sooner or later they would get these back in. Fast forward two months and there was still no word on if they would be coming back. I was really bummed because they weren't online anywhere either (that I could find) and it was starting to look like I had completely missed out. All the while I'm reading blog after blog about them and just DROOLING because they were so pretty! Anyway, it was maybe two weeks ago when I walked into my Sally's to see if they had any of the Magnetic China Glaze polishes and I think my eyes about bugged out of my head when I saw a half-full display of these Finger Paints flakies! I managed to grab this one and then did the awkward happy dance because I finally had it! Yay! So...without further ado... pictures!

All of these are two coats of Finger Paints Asylum layered over Julep Viola. Viola is a deep, blacked purple. Not usually my favorite, but it worked great here. I'm not a fan of black or almost black polishes, but I wanted to flakies to stand out, and I don't like straight black much. (Maybe because I was one of the gothy high-school kids and wore black polish regularly then? I don't like the rewind maybe?)

Asylum is a mix of orange and dark blue flakies. This was my favorite of all the flakies offered because it shifts nearly every color of the rainbow depending on the light and your hand position.

I tried to get as much color shift as a could but my camera is really old and terrible. You can see the orange, dark blue, green, and some yellow on my pinkie though!

And a closeup

That's what I had one yesterday. Then, because it really makes the flakies pop, I went ahead and mattified it! Usually I don't like matte, but flakies are one of the exceptions. I used a matte topcoat from Warpaint Beauty, which can be purchased from Hot Topic. (For like $4, which works for me since I don't use matte topcoat often.)

What do you think? Matte or glossy? The other colors of the collection are Flecked, a green flakie; Motley, a blue flakie; Flashy, the orange/red/yellow flakie like Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasures, Essie's Shine of the Times, or Nubar 2010; and Twisted, which is pretty much all the flakie colors. I already have Motley, and I hope to get Flecked and Twisted as well. Flashy is one that you can pass on if you have any of the similar versions I mentioned.