Misc Nails 2012 - Part 2

Good day, Kitschies.  I'm back for another installment of random manis from 2012 that I found when trying to clean up my desktop.  Good times.

You can find Part 1 HERE. 

And now for Part 2.

Starting off strong with Zoya!  This is Jem and Aurora.  I am so glad that holos are making a comeback because each one is more beautiful than the last.

Pretty glitter gradient using a black creme base (don't remember which one, exactly) and Walking on Broken Glass from the Ulta mini collection Glazed and Confused.  I liked this collection so much that I picked one up for a polish exchange thing I do every month. 

I am embarrassed to admit that I have no idea what this color is.  I want to say it's a China Glaze but damned if I know.  How horrible is that?  *sigh*  I can tell you that I didn't think there was enough little tiny purple glitter so I added a coat of Milani One Coat Glitter in Twinkle.

Maybeline Downtown Brown.  I want to like this color, but I don't.  It's so pretty in the bottle but just does not deliver for me.  It's a red-based brown with a teal flash.  The formula was HORRIBLE and I just couldn't get it to cover completely.  I searched for a month for this color (it was LE) and I am disappointed I found it.

NerdLacquer Event Horizon.  Hello, gorgeous!!  I've heard rumblings of NerdLacquer coming back but nothing concrete.  I hope she comes back - she had the BEST nerd-tastic polishes.  This one finished a little bumpy but an extra coat of topcoat cleared that up, no prob!

This was a second Halloween mani.  I started with a base of OPI Here Today...Aragon Tomorrow, a green so dark, it's almost black, and sponged on Zoya Ivanka for a glitter gradient.  I love glitter gradients (if you couldn't tell).  I wore something very similar to this for Halloween 2011. 

I have a very love-hate relationship with matte polishes.  It seems the only way I can handle them is if there's chunky glitter on top...like this.  The green is actually a matte polish: Zoya Veruschka.  The glitter is one of my faves: China Glaze Party Hearty.  Great combo for Christmas!

Don't worry...there might be more...I have more cleaning to do!  Hope you liked them.

Randomness

A bonus entry for the day.  The hubs is playing Star Wars on the Wii with Nate and Mason is napping.  I was going through my pending and pics folders and realized that I had a couple manis I hadn't shown you.  Why?  Maybe because they only had a pic or two or because they just weren't all that great (in my mind).  Either way, in an effort to start the new year off right and a bit more organized than when I left it, I'm going to show you some randomness.

I did this one for a black & white challenge on FAB UR NAILS.  I didn't really care for it, so I never submitted it.  Therefore, I never posted it.  Til now.  This is SH Black Out, Maybeline Express Finish in Shooting Stars (the glitter) and Finger Paints Papier Mache (white) with light blue rhinestones.  I'm still meh about this one.  I really like the glitter but it's PIA and takes FOREVER to dry - even with FDTC.

This is another FAB UR NAILS challenge, but I submitted this one.  I really do like this one; I don't know why I didn't post it on my blog.  This is ChG Foxy with gold and green acrylic paint and a gold rhinestone in the corner on the ring finger and thumb.

Love. Love. Love this color but it's super PIA to capture accurately.  This is OPI DS Extravagance - a GORGEOUS berry holo.  I think I didn't post this because I wasn't happy with the pics.

Another OPI.  This is Rumples Wiggin.  I like the color and the stamping (Color Club Wild At Heart) is cute, but I only got two good pics out of the mani.

OPI again.  This time it's William Tell Me About OPI.  I loved this color in the bottle because you can actually see the super dark plum color, but once it dried, it was darker and it was practically black unless you were in bright sun/light.  I think I wore this mani plain for a day and then added SH Hidden Treasure over top.  I liked it a little better after that.  Again, the pics aren't the greatest.

One more OPI for good measure.  This is Yodel Me on My Cell.  I do like this color, but it ended up be quite a bit more sheer than I expected it to be.  This was the standard 3 coats, but you can see on my thumb and pinkie that it could've used another coat.  Oh, and the stamps (stars done with Finger Paints Easel Come, Easel Go) didn't show up as much as I would've liked.  That's my big fat fatty kitteh, Sol, in the first pic of this set.

Zoya has yet to let me down and this one is no exception.  However, the pics aren't great and that's why I never showed you.  This is Gloria from the Fire & Ice Flame collection.  It's a really pretty light raspberry pink glass fleck.  The pictures aren't great (are you noticing a trend here?) and so it stayed in my blog pics file.

Zoya Mimi.  Beautiful medium purple glass fleck.  This is the *only* pic I have of this one for whatever reason.  This is more purple than blue as it shows here.  Why are purples so hard to capture accurately?

So, there ya go.  I get to clean up my folders a bit and you get to point and laugh at the horrible pics.  Which one is your favorite out of this?  And the worst?

Matte About You?

Yeah, if Matte means MAD.  LOL

Hello, my dear Kitschies!  I hope this evening finds you well.  It's Tuesday, and that means Parenthood is on tonight!  WOOT!  But...the hubs is getting ready to leave out of town for two nights tomorrow, so I'm sure we won't be sitting down to watch TV tonight.  *sigh*  Mason had a better day today.  He only had a very low-grade fever and was in much better spirits.  I think last night was the worst of it.  He's still not 100%, but he's getting there.  As for me, I didn't have much of a headache this afternoon and I think it's because I got an adjustment by one of the chiropractors I work with.  We'll see how I feel in the morning.  For now, though, I'll take a chance and say that I'm also on the mend.

A couple weeks ago, after I received some awesome polish from a giveaway through Glamorous Geek Chic, I could not wait to do something with at least ONE of the polishes.  While the hubs and I watched The Hurt Locker (good movie, BTW), I decided to play around with a matte polish and one of the pretty ChG Vintage Vixen colors.

This is Maybeline Express Finish in Matte Sapphire and ChG Jitterbug.  I picked up Matte Sapphire months ago at the Dollar Tree, and it's a good thing I only paid a buck for it because it is the suck.  It doesn't dry matte, it dries semi-matte and the application is gloppy and just yuck.  Luckily, I had ChG Matte Magic top coat, so I slapped a coat of that on top of "Matte" Sapphire.  I also added it on top of Jitterbug because it's a pretty glossy gunmetal silver foil.  When I was finished, I showed the hubs and he basically said "that's it?" and I decided to experiment with some fauxnad.

Thing is, you can't really see the image.  I used Jitterbug (silver) on top of the "Matte" Sapphire and visa versa.  I used the vine-y image from BM21.  It was kinda pretty IRL, but in pictures, it was really hard to pick up.  I was so disappointed with this mani, I took it off by the following afternoon. 

I don't really get the whole matte thing.  Unless it's for something specific (case in point), I really don't see why somebody would rather have a matte finish over a pretty, catch-your-eye glossy finish.  The same can be said of Orly's Plastix collection (as shown by The Manicured Manitee here).  Is there something about matte polishes that I'm just not seeing?  Wait.  I can think of one exception: Hot Mess by Man Glaze.  That is a gorgeous matte, but definitely the exception.

I promise to have a better, far superior mani to share with you next time.  Promise!

So...the hubs is out tomorrow night and Thursday night, so cross your fingers that 1) Mason feels better because I don't want to deal with a sick kid and a 4-year-old who has WAY too much energy and 2) that they cooperate enough to go to bed at their regular time.  Sweet dreams, Kitschies!

Mani FAIL & A Partial Redemption

Yay!  It's Friday!  But I can't get too excited about it being the weekend because I'm not feeling all that great this afternoon.  Headache and blah stomach.  BUT - it's the weekend, so I'm sure I'll start feeling better as soon as I head out of the office toward my car.

I was digging through my polishes last weekend after my previous HT polish disappointment and found a pretty little bargain I picked up at the Dollar Tree a while back.  I think I remember having this polish once upon a time and I really liked it.  But as I was applying it, I remembered that I didn't like it all that much, either.  We'll get in to why in a moment.

This is Plum Motion from Maybeline - it's one of their 60-second dry formulas, which is a BIG FAT LIE!  This is a shimmery, almost frosty, plum/mauve duochrome.  It is nowhere near dry in 60 seconds.  And it dents and smudges horribly even after a coat of FDTC.

I tried to get the duo to show up on the camera, but I couldn't.  Maybe if I had gotten a picture outside?  Doesn't matter.  This didn't stay on my fingers long enough for an outdoor picture.  Good thing I only paid a buck for this!  Oh...and it came with matching lipstick, but the color is much too dark for me - it makes me look like a clown with purple lips.  LOL

Now...on to a bit of a redemption, but not involving this polish.  A while back (a long while back, now) I won a giveaway from Libby's Pink Vanity.  In the box 'o goodies, I received Milani's Dot Com.  It's an interesting shade: royal purple with irregular copper flecks.  It's really kinda pretty in the bottle, but I didn't care for it all that much once it was on my fingers.

So, to see if I could redeem this kinda blah polish, I grabbed my bottle of Hidden Treasure.  I brushed a good thick coat on top of Dot Com and I got a really pretty golden effect - it made the copper flakes show up more, too.

I'm not totally in love with this, but it was a lot prettier than it was initially.  You know Hidden Treasure - depending on the light, it shows up gold, green or pink.  I need to use Hidden Treasue more - I think I'll start slapping it on top of a mani I've been wearing for a day or two to see if I can create something I totally love.  Who knows?  Maybe I'll find that one color that I've been searching for but never knew it.

So there ya go: one FAIL and one notsobad.  I hope your weekend doesn't have any FAILS and it's better than notsobad.  Tune in some time this week - I'll be sharing my PHD Just Tips challenge mani (love it!).

I just saw that I've reached 100 followers!!!  THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU!!!  You guys make this whole blogging thing worth it.  You know what this means, right?  I'll be announcing my 100 follower giveaway in the next couple of weeks. :)


Listening to: This Love by Maroon 5
Mood: redeemed