SUMMER BUBBLES: Del Sol color-changing* polish

I have owned Del Sol First Kiss for quite a while and decided it was time to try it.

  

The "before" silvery pink color is very close to how I remember my first nail polish ever: Love My Nails Innocent Pink, given to me at age six by a student teacher who knew not what she wrought. I kept it for years and years, until it finally got sort of yellowy and unfortunate. Then I barely missed my last opportunity to buy another before the brand went defunct; you could buy it at Walmart forever, but when it finally occurred to me, all I could find were some godawful magenta ones in a clearance bin.

  

My older, more sophisticated palate decried the color as TOTES BORING (also the VNL was unacceptable), so I stamped it with the bubbles from Mash-43 in China Glaze Galactic Gray (very subtle effect). Then I got all glitter-happy and added a layer of OPI Pirouette My Whistle to simulate MORE BUBBLES.

* There were too many layers of top coat to allow enough UV light in to change the Del Sol. Sometimes I fail to think these things through.

  

It does change color nicely in the bottle, so presumably, if you don't slop on endless UV-filtering top coat, it will also change on your nails. I ordered it from Sally's, but they have a wider variety on the Del Sol website in delightfully redesigned bottles. SWEET.

LISA FRANK NAILS: yup, I'm that old.

I originally saw this idea on a slideshow somewhere and have seen several different versions since then. But this is my best take on it.

  

Stripes lovingly hand-painted in (from the bottom up) Orly Charged Up and Sinful Colors Cream Pink, Savage and Innocent, topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust. Leopard spots stamped with Mash-23 in Konad black. Photobucket is being an ass about letting me rotate these pictures for some reason.

  

As long as I have tiny stub nails, I need to practice stamping. Obviously.

  

Does anyone remember the Lisa Frank picture of a dog and cat wedding? The dog has a sadistic leer, and the cat looked terrified. It was so traumatizing that there is no evidence of it on the internet anywhere. Ashleigh remembers, so it was not a crack dream of my youth.

FOURTH OF JULY: about what you'd expect

I tried gradient nails again. The makeup sponges I bought for the purpose seem to be capable of absorbing infinite polish, leaving an inadequate amount for the nail. Or else I need to be using one-coat polishes. Although the final product wasn't really what I intended, it was interesting enough to wear for a few days.

  

One coat of Sally Hansen Celeb City (AGAIN, I'm sorry, it just keeps happening that way), topped with ZOYA Tori and China Glaze Blue Bells Ring. The red and blue both have a silver shimmer, so the finish was consistent between the three.

  

I took a big chip off my right index finger and opted to sponge back over it for a quick fix as I was going home for the weekend and didn't have time to redo the whole thing.

  

Shade view.

Maybe kitchen-type sponges would work better? More or less godawful mess? THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

TAKO-CHAN: octopus FTW

Sephora by OPI Ocean Love Potion (or as I prefer to call it, Retro Bathtub) stamped with the waves from MASH-50 in China Glaze Deviantly Daring and the octopus from MASH-37 in Sally Hansen Celeb City. I believe the overall effect is in fact deviantly darling.

  

The polish is true to color here, but I don't know what happened to my skin. I assure you I have not been spray-tanning.

THIRD DAY: Holiday Skittles

These were supposed to be evocative of glass ornaments or maybe the old-fashioned light bulbs or something, I don't know, it's FESTIVE.

I think "skittles" is a dumb name for this color split, but that seems to be the generally accepted term.

  

PURPLE: Essie Sexy Divide
BLUE: China Glaze Blue Year's Eve
GREEN: Zoya Suvi
RED: Zoya Isla
GOLD: Ulta High Roller
MOONS: Sally Hansen Hard as Nails X-treme Wear Celeb City (wtf)

All except the silver bits were given a nice thick coat of Essie Matte About You.

  

I was musing how the Essie is such a nice purple, why don't I ever use that one...because it's a patchy disaster polish OH YEAH I REMEMBER NOW. I am excited because I think that silver may be good for stamping.

  

That is not very well focused but shows the colors in lovely December morning shade.

My beloved assistant said they look almost art deco. SQUEEEE

SECOND DAY: shiny glitter love

Here we have Zoya Isla with tips in China Glaze Twinkle Lights over China Glaze Champagne Bubbles, with an inverted accent ring finger.

  

This got a lot of love at work, but the pictures are not wonderful.

  

I have such mixed feelings about Zoya. The average wear time is crap, but I haven't tried it with their own base and top coats yet. If they would stock them at Ulta along with the polishes, I would have picked them up by now. HINT, HINT.

FIRST DAY: snowflakes glitter love

It is DECEMBER. That means it is time for HOLIDAY NAILS. I am EXCITED.

  

I stamped the snowflakes from BM14 on China Glaze Blue Year's Eve with Konad white polish and OPI Lucerne-tainly Look Marvelous, then topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust. Lucerne did not offer enough contrast to show up as more than a shimmery shadow; I would like to do this one again with white and ice blue snowflakes and maybe a different plate. Two people thought these were stars, which is understandable as smudge happened.

  

I usually prefer teal rather than blue, but this one is a delicious cold glass-fleck type. GOOD JOB CHINA GLAZE.

  

The thumbs came out pretty well.

  

It may be December, but the high is sixty degrees today, so this will be the only snow in my life for the foreseeable future. It is good for the utility bills but bad for holiday morale. I will squeeze my eyes shut and PRETEND.

WATER MARBLE: Gothic Lolita in Strawberry Fields

I had yet to trash the house within three hours of the boy's estimated arrival Sunday, so I decided to try water marbling again.

Since everything I had ironed and ready for the week was pink or purple, I opted to experiment with China Glaze Gothic Lolita and Strawberry Fields and Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear White Out, with two coats of the latter as a base and one coat OPI I Juggle...Men (that still parses oddly to me) on top.

  

This was not a resounding success, but it was good enough that I left it on. Not very consistent - marbles plus sand art plus bleeding watercolors. Let us say that adds texture to the experience.

  

I was far too proud of this and spent all day at work shoving my nails in co-workers' faces. Karma shall doubtless dictate that I can never do it again. But I think a water marble deserves mermaid colors. And unicorns.

  

As far as the colors, I admit to buying Gothic Lolita mostly for the name, but it is a lovely purple with tiny shimmer in. Strawberry Fields is hot pink with a gold glass fleck, and I always expect to like it more than I do. I may also have bought that for the name.

  

I WANT THEM TO TASTE LIKE BASKIN ROBBINS AND EASTER AND SEASHELLS.

  

If OPI is going to pull this idiocy with Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey, I think someone needs an Emilie Autumn collection to balance it out. Opheliac would be the best polish name everrrr. THE POSSIBILITIES ARE ENDLESS.

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY (or, as I like to call it, Wednesday)

My fingernails are my one acknowledgement of Boom Day, as I can wear neither red nor blue in any flattering sense and have to work. Whoever complains about lazy government employees obviously never worked for small government.

  

Here we have a Sally Hansen Hard As Nail Xtreme Wear White Out under OPI Red Shatter with an accent nail of China Glaze Blue Year's Eve and Konad white stars from plate m3. It would have looked better with more stars, but for once I quit while I was ahead.



Originally I tried to paint them solid red and stamp white stripes, but the full-nail plates are not wide enough for my particular full nails. Or long enough, but I can fudge that with colored French tips. I tried to extend the stripes by hand, but it looked like a drunken five-year-old's masterpiece, so I redid them. At 11:30pm on a Sunday. PRIORITIES.

  

Lots of positive feedback on this one. It's holding up pretty well, too; day three and only very minor tip wear. I'm hoping a couple more layers of Seche Vite will take it through Saturday.

HOLO WHAT: Layla Flash Black

I decided to continue with the skull theme (Konad m28) for budget meetings this year, lovingly displayed on a holo accent nail (Layla Flash Black) in a sea of black claws (China Glaze Liquid Leather) just waiting to rip someone's eyes out. I mean happy to change any numbers you want. Coworkers' response was, overwhelmingly, "cuuuuuuute!!!"   (sigh)

  

The sun was not as cooperative as it was for Ultra Violet, but this does hint at Flash Black's gorgeous potential to destroy the world. I mean to make up some reasonable end of year estimates.



The little aurora rhinestone didn't sparkle as much as I'd hoped but it may be due to the thick coating of hot buttered rage. I mean excitement at putting the bond limit to public vote.

  

I like to paint my nails particularly shiny for situations where I need autohypnosis not to inflict blunt force trauma on anyone. THESE ARE GOOD JOBS RIGHT right.

TWELFTH NIGHT: Carey in Lorelei's Tiara

I wasn’t going to post this one due to the horrific cleanup (or lack thereof), but I had more compliments than usual on it. Inspired by the one snow we’ve had so far this winter.




Three coats of Zoya Carey from the Feel Collection with China Glaze Lorelei’s Tiara from the Eye Candy collection splashed on the ends.




I felt obligated to purchase Carey as it is my namesake polish but didn’t expect to be very excited about gray as my skin demands warm colors. The glitter brightened it up enough to be okay. I think I’d prefer Kendal or Kennedy standalone. I got almost five days out of this one before I had to take it off, which is above average in my Zoya experience.

The glitter is highly adequate. I think the blue bits make the polish.

Also for your entertainment, my magical hair that I wore at the same time. I went to a semi-classy restaurant like this. I am that girl.




Surprisingly, the other girls did not make me sit at a separate table.




The man in front of me at the salad bar said he was glad I was there as the room was on the dark side. I LIGHT UP THE WORLD.

WORK INAPPROPRIATE AWARD: OPI Candy Mani

OPI recently posted an inquiry on Facebook regarding a "candy mani." I was all whut until Google informed me this is a a synonym for "jelly sandwich," a term I had seen before. I have had boring nails lately so decided to try this.




IT IS SHINY AND I WANT TO EAT IT. I think the jelly candy EAT ME effect is best with large shaped glitter - hearts or stars or skulls or tigers rather than sprinkle glitter - and it's a pain in the whatsis to fish enough glitters out of the jar for each nail. So this is not an every-week adventure.




You can't tell from these pictures, but I had one purple nail on my left hand (ring) and two on my right (ring and pinky). This is my favorite color split.




Purple nails: two coats China Glaze Urban-Night, careful coat of Timothy, one coat OPI Houston, We Have a Purple jelly.




Pink nails: two coats OPI You're Such A Kabuki Queen, carefully-applied Nicole by OPI Step 2 the Beat of my ♥, one coat OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y jelly. ( FYI, I despise two of these three polish names.)

(EDIT: Pink also has touches of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Extreme Wear Rockstar Pink; purple has touches of the same in Strobe Light.)

This all reminds me of my second-favorite art form: JELLO MOLD SUSPENSION!




I promised Orly Mineral FX but was too depressed to post it last weekend. So I will do it later.

COMING UP NEXT: Nina Ultra Pro - sadly underrated!

UPTOWN GIRL

These are from the China Glaze Fall 2011 collection, Metro. I suppose this collection is meant to be gritty? edgy? on trend? something like that. It offers a fairly wide range of colors. I'm trying to break away from my pink-red-purple-gold-teal rut and considered getting Westside Warrior, one of the newly popular puke greens (some people call this "olive"), and Trendsetter, which is sort of mustard (see Scrangie's lovely post here) but played it safe for this round.

I ordered these from Trans Design because a) the people who work at the Sally's Beauty Supply by my house are scary, and b) my Ulta gets its stock about eight months late. Also, Trans Design sells China Glaze for $2.99, and Sally's is $5.99 with the card if they aren't having a sale. So it tends to be cheaper even factoring in shipping. I visited a Sally's far away from my house today and viewed the puke green and the mustard in person. Trendsetter would look like my cat threw up on my hand, but I kind of did want Westside Warrior. I need to live more vivaciously.

Street Chic (Uptown)







This is a perfect dupe for Essie's Hot Coco. I wore the two alternating every other finger to work one day, and no one could tell. It's a deep taupe creme with a hint of purple; I think it dries a little darker than it looks in the bottle. Essie's formula is a smidge more runny than China Glaze, if it makes any difference to you.

Loft-y Ambitions (Downtown)








This is a nice burgundy creme. There are probably 347 dupes out there for this one too, but I don't own any personally. Like I said. It's nice.

Urban-Night (Uptown)








Lovely deep purple creme. Again, not that original. but I like it. I could probably wear it to work even if my office wasn't a freak show.

P.S. I'm such a murch that I didn't get the pun in the name until I'd worn it two days.


CG In The City (Uptown)










As you should know, I am ALL ABOUT THE GLITTER. This works well as a layer over any of the other polishes, as demonstrated above. I think it would take too many coats to be worth trying on its own. If you do, let me know.

COMING UP NEXT WEEK: Orly Mineral FX. In a word, SHINY.