China Glaze - VIII

VIII is a deep, dusty purple.  It's very similar to "Crimson" from this year's Halloween collection, but it is a touch lighter.

Basecoat:  China Glaze Ridge Filler (1 coat)

Color:  China Glaze VIII (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

I've had this bottle for a while, so there's been some settling at the bottom (visible in the bottom photo).  It doesn't affect the color of the polish.  This was a little bit runny and wanted to pool in my cuticles, and once it gets there, good luck getting it out cleanly.  This polish is *just* light enough to not be one of those "looks black all the time indoors" polishes.

Nubar - Gem

Nubar Gem is kind of an odd duck.  It's a holo glitter like Prize, but the base color... I think I would have to describe it as frosty greige.  It's not quite purple, and not quite beige.  I say a lot that I have a hard time capturing certain polishes on camera, but that was nothing compared to the problems I had with this one.

Basecoat:  Nubar Foundation (1 coat)

Color:  Nubar Gem (3.5 coats)

Topcoat:  Gelous (1 coat)

Topcoat:  Nubar Diamont (1 coat)

The third photo is probably the most accurate color for the base of Gem, but only the bottle part, not really the polish on my nails.

Application was okay for this - very similar to Prize.  Because it's less vivid of a base color, I felt like it was easier to control and clean up - that, or it was just less noticeable.

I did do the Gelous thing before using Diamont.  This polish looks MUCH grittier in photos, but it is totally smooth in real life.  The holo is much stronger, too, but it's overcast today and I had a hard time getting decent light.  Even the last photo, under desk light, doesn't show it as much.

Still, this is a really nice polish, and I'm still intrigued by the base color - would I wear this without the glitter?  Who knows?  It seems like it might be brush-stroke-y without the glitter, but I can't really tell.

SpaRitual - Sacred Ground

I only know of one brick and mortar store within two hours of me that carries SpaRitual, and I haven't been there in months.  I got this as an add-on to my Amazon order - the only other thing I ordered was a case of grape bubble gum (shut up, I am too an adult).

Basecoat:  Fiberglass Network (1 coat)

Color:  SpaRitual Sacred Ground (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

I have trouble figuring out the base color in Sacred Ground, but I'm going to call it a smoky gray.  It's full of mostly gold glitter with some purple glitter in there, too.

This was a little bit cuticle-runny but not too bad - I only gripe about it because it's a pretty dark color and so it's really obvious when I don't get it all cleaned up.

I like this a lot as a fill-in between the bright summer polishes and the more subdued winter colors.

Clarins - 230

Awwwww yeah.  The red shimmer in Baptiste reminded me of 230, so I just had to pull it out and put it on top of Baptiste.

Click to embiggen - they're worth it, especially the first photo.  This is two coats (probably could have stopped at one but I couldn't resist) followed by a coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri topcoat.

My favorite color from 230 is the strong green flash - I thought I hadn't managed to capture it at all, since it's usually only visible at certain angles that aren't good for photos, but nope, there it is in the first photo, especially on my index finger.

This polish is probably going on hiatus for a long while - I've only worn it twice and I have a noticeable dent in my bottle's fullness, boo.

Illamasqua - Baptiste

Illamasqua Baptiste is a purple with shimmer that leans red.  It's the first Illamasqua I've tried, though I also own Rampage (dark green jelly).  These have both been sitting in my untrieds for a while.

Basecoat:  Fiberglass Network (1 coat)

Color:  Illamasqua Baptiste (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Seche Vite (1 coat)

How gorgeous is this?   Baptiste applied near-flawlessly.  The only thing I didn't like was the stupid huge square bottle cap - I would have liked it to come off and leave a functional top, like Chanels and Butter Londons do.

Anyway I tried hard not to get this in my cuticles - as you can see I did anyway.  It wasn't too bad to clean up, though obviously once it gets all in your cuticles good luck cleaning it up.

I really like the red shimmer in this polish, and I also love that even though it's a really dark purple it never looks black like other polishes (Hello NARS Midnight Express!).

World Series nails

I said on Twitter earlier today that I wish I was a bandwagon Rangers fan like so many others in Dallas.  If I was a bandwagoner, I wouldn't be so worried about dying of a massive aneurysm by the end of this World Series.

Anyway, the Series comes back to Arlington starting tomorrow for three games, and as a season ticket holder (we paid for our post-season tickets way back in August - if they hadn't gone on to the playoffs it would just be credited to our season ticket account) - I'm going to all three games.

You've seen these polishes before - Nubar Fire and Night Sparkle.  I used Gelous as a base coat, and three coats of each polish.  I also used two coats of Gelous on top, and instead of Seche I used Nubar Diamont.  I still think I might end up having to add another coat of Diamont tomorrow, but it's okay.

I used nail art stars that I got from Nailsupplies.us.  I stuck these on after the first layer of Gelous, so there's another layer of Gelous and a fat layer of Diamont on top of them - that ought to keep them stuck on.

Chanel - Graphite

Here's one you've seen a million times, and here's a million more photos of it, too.

Basecoat:  Fiberglass Network (1 coat)

Color:  Chanel Graphite (3 coats)

Topcoat:  Sally Hansen Insta-Dri (1 coat)

Like Peridot, Graphite damn near applied itself.  Cleanup was minimal and easy, went exactly where I wanted it to go.

In the bottle it looks a little like another silver metallic, but it's not, at all.  There's a lot of dark gray/black mixed in, and some gold.  I swear there is some duochrome in here, too, because at certain angles I catch a lot of green tones and at others it's straight silver.