OPI - Road House Blues and Finger Paints - Twisted

I've had Road House Blues sitting in my untrieds for a while (I think it's the only polish I bought from the road trip collection).  Twisted was one I just picked up - I still haven't even swatched it on my nail wheels yet.   Road House Blues is a deep blue creme, and Twisted is a multicolored flake topcoat.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)

Color:  OPI Road House Blues (2 coats)

Topcoat:  Finger Paints Twisted (2 coats)

Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

I adore this combination.

Road House Blues was beautiful on its own, and applied well even though I still hate the Pro Wide brush.  I might have tried to be too careful, which explains the HUGE gap at the cuticle of my ring finger.  This would definitely be a two coater on its own.

Twisted is AMAZING.  I picked up both Twisted and Asylum from this collection (I have almost all of the Nfu Oh flakes, so I didn't feel like I needed the others).  I did need two coats of Twisted for this density of flakes, but this polish isn't all thick and goopy like some other flake topcoats can be. 

If you don't have it yet, you need Twisted.

Orly - Fowl Play

Yep, slacking again.  Anyway, today I have on Orly "Fowl Play".  Fowl Play is very similar to OPI Merry Midnight, but Fowl Play is a little bit darker.  I own both, but the comparison's been done a million times - I'm not going to repeat it now even though it's been months since everyone was wearing it :)

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)
Color:  Orly Fowl Play (4 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Look at those rainbow shimmery flakes!  Too bad they aren't as magical on the nail as they are in the bottle. Still, this is really pretty and I think I like the base color of Fowl Play a bit more than Merry Midnight - it seems a little less muddy.

Application was pretty good - not very runny at all.  It was opaquer than I was expecting it to be based on everyone else's posts, but I still ended up needing four coats.  It didn't try totally smooth, but one coat of David topcoat fixed it right up.

Essie - School of Hard Rocks and Shine of the Times

Yeah, yeah, I'm slacking again.  The weather's been just lousy in Dallas this week - even these photos are under my desk lamp because there's just no good sun.

(Oops.  There's a China Glaze bottle top just outside of this crop that's in perfect focus, though.)

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)

Color:  Essie School of Hard Rocks (3 coats)

Color:  Essie Shine of the Times (1 coat)

Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

First - due to the already-mentioned crappy weather, I applied this under a lamp, with much less ambient daylight as usual.  I really do think I could have stopped at two coats of School of Hard Rocks, but I just couldn't be sure enough without my usual (preferred) lighting conditions.  Anyway, this applied flawlessly - I sure do love Essie cremes.

Also, this is just ONE coat of Shine of the Times.  Usually with a flake topcoat like this I like to do at least two coats, but this SO did not need it.  I think the flakes are much denser than Nubar 2010 and Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure.  The downside, of course, is that this was so dense that it applied kind of like frosting - thick and goopy and not-spready.   I'm not sure I'd wear this exact combination again, but I love both of these polishes.

In other news, a new beauty supply store opened inside what used to be a Target near me.  (yes, it's HUGE!)  It doesn't have a whole lot of makeup (it's mostly hair care) but they do carry some brands I've never seen near me in person - a nice Kleancolor display (with some Chunky Holos!), Ruby Kisses, Ruby Kisses HD, NYX Girls polishes.  I picked up quite a few of these (though they're mostly neons) and hope to at least swatch some soon.

Revlon - Royal Cloak

Revlon Royal Cloak is a medium dusty purple with tiny flakes.  Today has been super overcast, and it's 5:pm and already dark, so you don't get my usual photos.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Instant Artificials (1 coat)
Color:  Revlon Royal Cloak (3 coats)
Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

I have stayed away from Revlon polishes for a long time, because I historically have had awful results - it peels off entire sheets.  Which is fun, but not really the look I'm going for.  But, I like Royal Cloak enough that I'm willing to try it again.  Royal Cloak applies really well - it was thick but not goopy, and I didn't have any problems with it running into my cuticles or anything.  Cleanup was super easy, too.  I did find that some of the tiny flakes hung off the free edge of my nail, but it wasn't too big a problem to fix.

Wear will be interesting, because we're hanging our outdoor Christmas lights tomorrow.  This is the first year we've had a house to hang lights on, and usually we put up the tree Thanksgiving weekend.  However, my in-laws are coming to our house next Friday for dinner (we go to my mom's house Thursday) and we both know that my father-in-law will insist on helping my husband put up the lights, and he doesn't need to be doing that kind of stuff.  So, they go up tomorrow.

Pardon my short break.  I'm going to try something different this winter.  Last year I basically quit blogging when the baseball season ended - I work at home full time and in winter I pretty much only leave the house a couple of times a week.  So I stopped polishing as well, and it just didn't seem worth the effort to put up a post when I wasn't even bothering to polish every week, either.

This year, I'm going to put up some swatches, instead of full NOTDs.  I have already swatched a bunch of polishes I keep either putting off wearing for one reason or another, or that I just don't see myself wearing.  I'm going to spend time this weekend writing posts for them, and hopefully I'll have enough stockpiled that I won't need to worry about lack of posts later this winter.  These won't be the most awesome things ever - you're gonna see some indifferent cleanup, and some lack of topcoat altogether.  I'm going to tag those as swatches, too, which should help.  It might take me a few days to get it going, though, so bear with me.

China Glaze - Stella and Nfu Oh - 50

Today I have a shining example of the phrase "know when to stop".  Stella is a medium reddish-purple shimmer.  Nfu Oh 50 is a pale purple jelly base with blue/purple/teal flakes.  Somehow I thought they'd go together.

Basecoat:  Salon Sciences Fiberglass Network (1 coat)

Color:  China Glaze Stella (3 coats)

Topcoat:  David (1 coat)

Color: Nfu Oh 50 (2 coats)

Topcoat:  Sally Hansen Insta Dri (1 coat)

Stella on its own is pretty but I felt like it was a little boring.  I initially stopped with just Stella and then a few hours later I had the bright idea to add flakes.  I should have gone with a different one like Hidden Treasure or Nubar 2010 but noooo, I looked at 50's base color and thought "that'll be perfect!" Well, it's not.  This combination is awful together.

Stella did apply nicely, though - it was a little thin and runny, but it cleaned up nicely.  I can't speak to wear because I hated this and took it off as soon as I got home from my dentist appointment.

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.

Nubar - Lime Green and 2010

Well, this is a Hot Mess if I ever saw one. I think Lime Green just looks wrong with my skin. I love the color so I'm gonna wear it anyway :)

Lime Green was kind of a pain to apply. My first coat was really thin - this might have been part of my problem. I would have been better off to do thicker coats. As a result, I had some streaking and bald spots. I knew after the first coat that this color was Not Right for me :)
This is three and a half coats, and you can see I still have some VNL. I added two coats of 2010, hoping it might look less terrible on my skin, but no such luck:
Now it looks like a shiny Hot Mess.

Basecoat: Nubar Foundation (1 coat)
Color: Nubar Lime Green (3.5 coats)
Topcoat: Nubar 2010 (2 coats)
Topcoat: Nubar Diamont

Think I'll have to do a new one Saturday. Have a great Friday!

Nubar - Geisha Blaze and 2010 with bonus picspam

I've been trying to wear older stuff from the untried pile before wearing anything too new.  I've only placed two Nubar orders - one when the Going Green collection came out, and the recent one.  Geisha Blaze has been in my stash since my first order, so I decided to wear it today with 2010 on top.  I took photos of just Geisha Blaze.  This is a pretty hot pink shimmer.  It is slightly sheer and I think it would take about four or five coats to totally eliminate VNL.  I left it at three because I decided before I even started that I was going to put 2010 on top.  Here is Geisha Blaze alone, under halogen light:

Inside, next to a window on a sunny day:

and outside, in full sun:

The shimmer in Geisha Blaze is more apparent in the bottle than on the nail.  This is almost work-appropriate, if your workplace has rules about nail polish, but may be a little too bright.  Here it is with 2010 on top, under halogen light.

Next to a window on a sunny day.  This was the best photo I got that shows the flakes off.

And here it is, outside in full sun.

Basecoat:  Nubar Foundation (1 coat)
Color:  Nubar Geisha Blaze (3 coats)
Color:  Nubar 2010 (1 and a half coats)
Topcoat:  Nubar Diamont (1 coat)

I had no application issues.  The consistency was really smooth, and cleanup was super simple.

Now for some bonus picspam.  This is my untried stash.  I may start changing my mani more often when I have time, because I am making no headway at all in this pile.  My Helmer wouldn't be full if I could get my untrieds down to one drawer (yeah, right).  This is my China Glaze and Zoya drawer:

This is my "almost everything else" drawer.  I have a lot of Sinful but there is a good bit of OPI, Orly, Sally Hansen in here.

This is my "overflow".  There is a lot of Color Club and Nubar in here, but I also have all my minis in here too.

And a bonus pic of my nail wheel pile.

I already have my next NOTD picked out.  I actually picked it out for today and sat down with it, only to realize that it was yellow, and I wore Sun Worshipper at the end of last week.  So, I'll probably put it on Tuesday instead.  It's another layer combo of something I've had for a while and something I've gotten recently.

For summer, I really love a neon pink on the toes.  Unfortunately, this means that every time I pick out a color for my hands, I think, "I might want to wear this on my toes soon."  Ugh.  I'll be changing my pedi this upcoming weekend, and I think I'll post pics of it, too.

Have a great Monday!