Orly - Calypso Breeze and OPI - Absolutely Alice

Today I decided to wear Absolutely Alice, which, with Mad as a Hatter, has been sitting in my untried stash since I got it. I did a mini swatch and determined that this needed a base under it, so I chose Orly Calypso Breeze. (In other news, in the two minutes I had the swatch on, it stained horribly.) Both of these are lighter in color than I could get them in bottle pics.
Calypso Breeze had a nice application. I can't speak too much to it, because I only used one coat, but I can tell that if you were careful you could get complete coverage in one coat.
Basecoat: NailTek Foundation II (1 coat)
Basecoat: Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 thick coat - bet it will still stain)
Color: Orly Calypso Breeze (1 coat)
Color: OPI Absolutely Alice (3 coats)
Topcoat: OPI Top Coat (1 coat)
Topcoat: China Glaze Fast Forward (1 coat)

Wow, that is a lot of coats!

Absolutely Alice applied about like you would expect for a glitterbomb like this. It has finer glitter than a lot of other glitters, so even though it was a little gloppy and hard to control, it wasn't too bad and the surface was only a little bumpy. Cleanup was a nightmare, as you'd expect.

Fast Forward. Hmmm. I got this with the China Glaze Awakening Halloween set. I'd never tried it before except inadvertently. This stuff smells AWFUL. It smells like acetone-flavored Juicy Fruit gum. I mean, my cat ran away as I was putting this on. But, it did do a nice job of leveling and smoothing out the bumpy texture of the glitter that the OPI top coat didn't smooth completely. It's not as shiny as Seche nor does it dry as fast, but it's an acceptable substitute - if only it didn't smell so, so terrible!

Sinful - Summer Peach and UFO

Despite its name, Summer Peach is in no way peach, and if I saw a peach this color I would not even think about eating it. Summer Peach is a bright screaming orange neon. UFO is the orange version of Nail Junkie and Hottie.
UFO looks more muted than it is only because Summer Peach really freaked out my camera.

Basecoat: Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (2 coats)
Color: Sinful Summer Neon (4 coats)
Color: Sinful UFO (3 coats)
Topcoat: Seche Vite (2 coats)

I originally was just going to wear Summer Peach. I got to four coats and it wasn't streaky or anything but I still had really noticeable VNL. What's a girl to do? Add glitter.

Summer Peach had a sort of difficult application. For the fourth coat I added some thinner to my bottle and that really helped. UFO had typical application for a Sinful glitter bomb.

This is a lot of coats and I fully expect to have shrinkage tomorrow, but that's fine. I really love these Sinful glitters - I think I have all the colors they made, but if they make more I'll be buying those, too.

OPI - What's With the Cattitude?

What's With the Cattitude? is a sky blue creme.
I love the OPI Prowide brush, but this one was a little screwy. I had trouble with a few wild bristles and streaking.

Basecoat: Nailtek Foundation II (1 coat)
Color: OPI What's With the Cattitude? (4 coats)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

This took four coats to even out the streakiness. I still have some VNL and it's visible both in photos and in real life. I'm not sure I am thrilled with the color, either, but it's late and I'm tired and I'm not going to change it now.

I'm feeling dissatisfied with my polishes lately and I think it's because I am ready to wear my fall colors, but it's still about 90 degrees daily here. It's just too hot.

Zoya - Alegra

Alegra is a berry colored glitter bomb.
Application was typical for a glitter - it flowed nicely but cleanup was a real biatch. I can still see VNL after three coats but I'm probably the only one who does.

Basecoat: Zoya Get Even (1 coat)
Basecoat: Zoya Anchor (1 coat)
Color: Zoya Alegra (3 coats)
Topcoat: Zoya Armor (1 coat)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

This is a lot pinker than it appears in these photos. As usual, sun photos would help, but it's already dark outside. Very glittery - removal is going to really suck.

LA Colors - Atomic and Nfu Oh 54

Atomic is a pretty teal jelly.  Nfu Oh is a green-blue flake in a clear base.

This is two coats of Atomic.

If I were going to wear this alone I would use another coat.  I intended to layer Nfu Oh 54 over it so I didn't bother.  Atomic is a vibrant teal that dries shiny and is just short of neon.

Here is two coats of 54, layered on top of Atomic.

Basecoat:  NailTek Foundation II (2 coats)
Color:  LA Colors Atomic (2 coats)
Color:  Nfu Oh 54 (2 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Application for both colors was really good.  Atomic was smooth and flowed nicely.  54 applied like my other Nfu Oh flakes - a little jelly-like in consistency, but that makes it easier to apply and get even flake distribution.  Overall this is a really pretty combination and I will definitely be wearing this again.

Sally Hansen - Snappy Sorbet and Orly - Heat Wave

Snappy Sorbet is an Insta-Dri polish. I've been trying to use Heat Wave for a while, but it's so sheer I knew it would have to be on top of something else.

Snappy Sorbet was kind of an application fail. It is on the thick side for an Insta-Dri, and while it covered really well (I used two coats), it didn't self level at all.
Heat Wave is a sheer orange sparkle. Snappy Sorbet is a pink-leaning orange/coral, but Heat Wave was enough to push it to the orange side, as well as adding a ton of sparkle.

Basecoat: NailTek Foundation II (2 coats)
Color: Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Snappy Sorbet (2 coats)
Color: Orly Heat Wave (2 coats)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

A short housekeeping note: I think I'm going to delete the tags for color names. My tag cloud is getting ridiculous, and so far I haven't worn something twice since I've started this blog.

Have a great Monday!

Color Club - Age of Aquarius

Age of Aquarius is a turquoise jelly. 

I had a hard time color-correcting this polish both in the bottle and on the hand.  This is a little brighter than it is in real life, but all my bottle photos came out looking dusty blue.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (2 coats)
Color:  Color Club Age of Aquarius (4 coats)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

Application was pretty typical for a jelly.  I felt like three coats was too sheer, so I went with four.  I still have VNL in real life and in photos, but it's not as bad.  One thing I didn't like is that this does not self-level at ALL, not even to the extent that most jellies do.  So, even though my bottle of Seche is thick almost beyond repair I used it anyway - I love the David topcoat but it doesn't level quite as well as Seche.  Sure enough, the next day I had shrinkage at the tip and the cuticle.

Cleanup was about average - blues and greens stain my skin a little so it could have been better, but nothing I wasn't expecting.

Savina - Purple Confetti

Purple Confetti is a berry jelly with multicolored glitter.  Think China Glaze Atlantis, only the red-violet version.

I had a lot of trouble capturing the glitter colors in this.  But, I'm wearing Atlantis on top of my For Audrey pedi, and the bottles are right next to each other on my table - it is the same glitter.  The only difference other than the base color is that Atlantis has a lot of silver glitter plus some holo, while Purple Confetti has pink glitter plus some holo.

Basecoat:  Gelous (2 coats)
Color:  Savina Purple Confetti (3 coats)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (2 coats)

Application was pretty bad.  This is a thick and goopy polish.  I may try to thin it a little to see if helps, but with this much glitter I think it will always be a problem.  Cleanup was a beeyotch.  This dried shiny but lumpy - I needed two coats of Seche to smooth it out.   So, I'm thinking I will have some shrinkage tomorrow.

Still, this is a gorgeous polish and an absolute glitterbomb, though I couldn't manage to get it on camera. Sun photos might have helped - of course it's dark now.

Zoya - Nidhi and Nfu Oh 45

Originally I was just going to wear Nidhi.  I remember really liking this when I swatched it.

Nidhi is a slightly blue-toned red glitterbomb.

Basecoat:  Zoya Get Even Ridge Filler (1 coat)
Basecoat:  Zoya Anchor (1 coat)
Color:  Zoya Nidhi (3 coats)
Topcoat:  Zoya Armor (1 coat)

When I got this on, I just didn't like it that much.  I think it's the blue tone in the red - I would like it better in the winter, even though this came out in a summer collection.  I decided to slap a coat of Nfu Oh 45 on top.

Nfu Oh 45 is a yellow-toned red jelly base with red shimmer and flakes.

This is one coat (!) of 45 on top of Nidhi, followed by one coat of David topcoat.  45 completely changed the tone of Nidhi, which makes me think that I could probably wear 45 on its own.

The upshot - I still am not super thrilled with this mani, but flakes make anything bearable.

LA Colors - Nuclear Energy and Touch-up Paint Tourmaline

I wore this Friday and Saturday.

Tourmaline is one of the oldest polishes in my stash.  I am pretty sure I bought it at the front counter of Sally's years ago.  My bottle is about halfway full now.  When I was swatching Misa Embroidered Emerald it reminded me of Tourmaline, so I felt like wearing it.  I am trying to conserve it, so I wore it over a purple untried.

LA Colors Nuclear Energy is a purple jelly.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (2 coats)
Color:  LA Colors Nuclear Energy (3 coats)

I didn't use a topcoat here and I wasn't too careful about my application, since I already knew I was wearing something over it.  This is a really pretty purple jelly.  I think I would wear it again on its own.  Application was decent - it was on the thin side, but I didn't have any problems with runniness.

Here is my sad bottle of Tourmaline.  It is a purple/green duochrome shimmer, and the duochrome is extremely strong.  I can remember wearing this on its own but it took a lot of coats.  Using a purple underneath this made it lean a lot more purple at a glance, too.

This is two coats of Tourmaline and one coat of David topcoat on top of Nuclear Energy.

How gorgeous is this?  It made me happy every time I looked at it.

Also, if you think you saw this on the MUA nail board, you did - I posted this there last week.

I'm working on a couple of scheduled posts - even though I'll have several opportunities to change my polish this week, I think spacing out posts will help me during the weeks I don't have time to change it - there should still be new posts.

Essence - Point Break

Today I am wearing Essence Point Break.  This is a medium grey creme.  Tropical Storm Hermine has dumped a TON of rain on us (and a couple of tornadoes about an hour ago) and it's rained constantly for the last two days.  So, even though it's still summer, I felt like wearing grey.

This polish is a lot lighter and warmer than this photo shows.  I had trouble getting the color right.  Maybe if I had used flash it would be more accurate, but I don't really like to use the flash for polish photos - they tend to reflect too much off the glass bottles.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (2 coats)
Color:  Essence Point Break (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Application was very nice.  It flowed smoothly and wasn't too runny or too thick.  Cleanup was a breeze, too.

I am going to wear this tomorrow also, mostly so I can take a breather from posting.  Tomorrow I tentatively have planned a base color with a polish that has been in my stash forever on top.

Sally Hansen - Green with Envy, Hot Topic green/gold glitter

Yesterday I wore Sally Hansen Green with Envy, with a Hot Topic green and gold glitter top.

I had to decant the Hot Topic polish - its plastic cap was cracked.  This caused it to thicken way up - this was the first time I've used it, but clearly the bottle is nowhere near full.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (2 coats)
Color:  Sally Hansen Green with Envy (2 coats)
Color:  Hot Topic green/gold glitter (1 coat)
Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

Clearly, my Seche has thickened way up.  You can see the shrink in the photo (I took this the next day). I'm sure it didn't help that the glitter polish was super-thick either.

Application for Green With Envy was excellent.

China Glaze - Grape Pop

This is the mani I wore while we were on vacation.  It wore really well except for one nail, which was totally my fault.  Grape Pop is a medium purple creme.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat), China Glaze Strong Adhesion Basecoat (1 coat), China Glaze Fast Forward (1 coat, on my pinky, before I noticed)
Color:  China Glaze Grape Pop (2 coats)
Topcoat: David (1 coat)

I only had chipping on one pinky finger, and it's the same one I accidentally put Fast Forward on, so I'm chalking it up to that.

Sally Hansen - Lightening

I applied this on Wednesday night and wore it Thursday.  Lightening is a buttery yellow creme.

This applied well, as have my other Insta-Dri polishes.

Basecoat:  Gelous (2 coats)
Color:  Sally Hansen Lightening (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

This was a little harder to apply than the previous Mint Sprint Insta-Dri.  It was a little thicker but it really wasn't too bad.   It looks like there is VNL in the photo but in real life, there isn't.

Housekeeping

First of all, I am way, way behind on posts.  I went on a road trip Labor Day weekend, and while I took photos, I didn't actually post anything.

I've also deleted my Twitter account for this blog.  It wasn't my primary Twitter account, and lately there has been a lot of drama in nail blog land.  I didn't feel I had anything to add to the discussion, and all I was doing was posting new blog entries.  I did go back and follow with my primary Twitter account, though.

I'm about to post four (?) blog entries from the time I wasn't doing anything.  Enjoy.