ILNP After Midnight

Today's polish is one that I hemmed and hawed about for months, ILNP order after ILNP order, putting it my basket, taking it out, looking at swatches and putting it back in, reading reviews and taking it back out. Was it worth the indecision? Short answer: no.

Isn't After Midnight beautiful? Yes, it is. It's a deep, sapphire blue with big sparkly scattered holo fragments and gold flakes that you can sort of see in pictures but that don't stand out that much in real life (under daylight bulbs, anyway). ILNP makes such exquisitely lovely scattered holo jellies, I've collected most of them and I think they're just stunning on the nail and in the bottle. 

 What I'm not so crazy about is the formula. I'm pretty sure ILNP was the very first brand I tried jellies from; I think I got Lulu in my first order, which has an unusually good formula and which is still one of my favorite polishes of all time. Sadly, quite a few of the ones I've bought since have had the same problem: dragging. The second coat sticks to the first coat and as you brush, the dry polish gets pulled off the nail and the result is bald patches. This is supposed to be preventable by letting the first coat of polish dry completely before applying the second, but for some reason this doesn't work for me with ILNPs. The third coat always goes on fine and evens the whole thing out, so it doesn't affect the look of the final mani unless you've overworked the second coat trying to cover the bare spots and made gloopy globs, which I tend to do. I get this with quite a few ILNP jellies, sad to say, and  After Midnight is one of them. I still won't hesitate to recommend ILNP, I'll never stop wearing and loving their gorgeous polishes...but basically, Pahlish has spoiled me on jellies.

These were actually the first macro pics I took with my phone, which is why they are blurry as heck. I mostly just wanted to show the little gold flakes. They're the same burnished gold as in Mountain View (another troublesome jelly) and Storytelling (another favorite of mine with a very fine formula). All in all, I do like ILNP After Midnight, and I'm not sorry I bought it, but I'm not super into it, either. Join me on Friday for a polish that I looooved and can't wait to wear again!

Halloweek Spooktacular Day Five - Sinful Colors Nice Guise

Tonight's post is a comparison. When I was picking out colors from the Guys and Ghouls collection, I hemmed and hawed over this one, Nice Guise. I thought, "Doesn't this look kind of a lot like Zoya Remy? No wait, isn't Remy greener? I've never even worn Remy so maybe I should skip this one."

 In the bottle, it does look a lot like Remy. The base color is a really similar deep blue, and it has a similar golden shimmer. Despite the claims of its sticker, Nice Guise doesn't really have any magical color-shifting chameleon properties. Still, I decided it would be worth it to buy it and compare the two. As it turns out, they're the same color but far from dupes.

In these pictures, I'm wearing Nice Guise on my index and ring fingers and Remy on my middle and pinky. Here they are at one coat; you can see the shimmer in Nice Guise is sparser, and while the base is pretty equally pigmented on both, Nice Guise applies a bit patchy.

 At two coats, Remy's shimmer is so built up that it looks like a completely different polish. It's very much a shimmering glass fleck, while Nice Guise is more of a sparkly jelly. Being so packed with shimmer definitely makes Remy look greener, too.

Here they are in their final form: under a coat of NYC Matte Me Crazy. Remy gets a glowy, mermaidy quality. Nice Guise, lo and behold, actually does do a little gold-to-green color shifting! Is it worth it to buy both of them? I mean, Nice Guise is only $2, so...sure?
For nail art Saturday, I've got a whole bunch of random nail art, a franken, and one last Halloween Sinful Colors. Come by tomorrow for the last day of the Spooktacular!

Saturday Nail Art - Are You Plaid to See Me?

So first off, you might notice in this nail art something I alluded to earlier in the week: a change in my nail shape. Yep, I filed 'em square. I did this for a few reasons; I had a peelie on my left hand that looked like it was going to get worse, I had a hard time filing my points evenly and wanted something neater-looking, and even though I never hear anyone talk about this, it's been my experience that pointy tips get tip wear faster. Your mileage may vary.

 As you probably guessed from this post's hilarious title, this week I was inspired to do some plaid nail art. Remember last week, when I inadvertently switched Zoya Bay and Cupcake Bat-chelor Pad? It actually worked out for the best this week, too. I started out by hand-painting striped of Bat-Chelor Pad and Wet N Wild Be More Pacific over a base of China Glaze Bend Over Backwards, which would not have gone as smoothly if I'd been trying to use a texture.

 I love this color scheme, makes me think of old wool blankets. I stamped with Konad White, as usual, and the plate was from Born Pretty.

To me, this is probably the most successful nail art I've had on the blog yet. I only did it on four fingers, but I would definitely recreate it maybe as an accent nail. Next week might get a little awkward, as I have three holos to swatch and the weather is starting to turn gloomy. I'm about to get daylight bulbs and invest in a second lamp so I can take better indoor pictures, since that's what I'm going to be stuck with starting in a month or so. Fortunately, next week's polishes are super sparkly, super holographic, and gorgeous in any light!

Cupcake Polish Bat-chelor Pad

So you might notice something about today's polish: alphabetically, it comes before Zoya Bay. I had both of these when I started this blog, so it's not a matter of getting added late; I plan these posts out weeks in advance using Google calendar, and I had them on there in the correct order. Why did Bay appear last week? Well, remember the weird nail art I did using Balinese Bay and Regular Bay after I'd peeled them off? I guess I thought that was such a good and natural idea that I put Bay into the wrong week just so I could create it. I only bring it up to reassure everyone that yes, I am sticking to my loose, mostly alphabetical structure, and I do indeed know the alphabet. Anyway, here's Bat-chelor Pad.

 Bat-chelor Pad is from Cupcake's Fall 2015 Modern Vampire collection along with Bloodhound, which will be making an appearance here soon. This is a very dark navy blue linear holo. Like all of the Cupcakes I have, this polish has a super thick but very workable formula and dries rapidly.

This is a really beautiful polish! This tone of blue is not my absolute favorite to wear, but this is such a sparkly rainbow-fest on the nail that I love it. These pictures are with base and top coat (unlike Wednesday's polish...you'll be able to tell the difference, trust me) because I wore this as a full mani, but I don't remember how long I had it on for or what the wear was like. I'm assuming it was good. Come back Wednesday to see...Actually, if you want to skip Wednesday's post, that's probably for the best. Definitely come back Saturday to check out the nail art, though! It turned out pretty well this week!

Saturday Nail Art - In 3D

This week's nail art is either my greatest triumph, or my most abject failure. You be the judge, hypothetical reader.

OK, so I forgot to take step by step pictures of this nail art. I'll just describe what I did. For my base coat, I'm wearing 2 or 3 coats of Sinful Colors Bali Mist. For the...uh, let's call them "sculptural elements," I took my peelies of Revlon Balinese Bay and Zoya Bay and cut them up with a pair of scissors. I then used an old, gooey bottle of NYC Grand Central Station to stick them onto my nails in a random arrangement. So there you go.

The peel-off base coat I used was NYC Strip Me Off (two coats), and the pieces were fairly stiff. Still, it was possible to shape them to the contour of my nail, and they stayed on fine. I've never seen this style of nail art before, and I surely don't expect it to catch on because it's sort of gross, but if you want to try it out and put it on Instagram please let me know if you're able to come up with a clever hashtag, because it's just not happening for me tonight.

Zoya Bay

Oh boy, Zoya Bay! Remember a while back when Zoya said they were discontinuing the pixie dusts? They didn't! Summer 2016 saw the release of six pixie dusts (the "seashells" portion of the Sunsets & Seashells collection), and I have all of them. Bay is one of my favorites.

Zoya Bay has a regular pixie dust finish, so it's slightly gritty and very, very sparkly. Contrasting shimmer has been a big trend this year, and I think Bay falls into this category with its golden sparkle. It stands out brilliantly in the sun. I think this is three coats of Bay; like a lot of the pixie dusts, it's a touch sheer and dries rapidly.

I have all six of the seashells because of a Good Morning America sales code, so that's awesome. I thought it was so cool that I had a whole collection (well, half of one), and these were the first polishes I ever swatched. If you want to see the original swatches, many of which were taken with flash because I am such a pro, you can check out my Instagram. I loved Bay when I swatched it the first time, kind of forgot about it, then got to swatch and love it all over again.

One thick coat of Seche gives a glassy finish and makes the sparkle just explode. I absolutely adore this shade of sky blue, and the golden glitter in it gives me a Cinderella feel. This is a summer polish, but I really think it's delicate and pretty enough for spring, and icy enough for winter.

Even though pixie dusts aren't super awful to remove, I did wear a peel-off base coat under this and Balinese Bay earlier in the week. Come back tomorrow to see how peel-off base coat inspired some avant garde nail art.

Saturday Nail Art - Chevrons

So, against all odds, the nail art I made from this week's polishes turned out...kind of OK?

 Nina Ultra Pro Art Walk, if you recall, is a hot pink creme with bright blue microglitter that just doesn't look right. Revlon Artsy has quite noticeable large bright blue glitter, and it seems like the colors actually go together (in a tacky sort of way). The subdued pink of Astra separating the two saturated colors ties it all together. I actually kind of like this.

I didn't remember to do a step-by-step for this art, but basically, I started with a base of Astra and then I used Scotch tape. Pretty simple. Join me next week when I finish up the A's!

Revlon Artsy

First off, I'm just going to apologize for the poor quality of this post: I'm sorry. I'm sorry about my bad retouching...

 The lighting isn't so great either...

There's some really inconsistency in the photo editing...

And what a lack of variety in the hand poses!

Overall, a really inferior post, even for this blog. But you know what? I can't bring myself to reswatch this polish. Monday I mentioned the mental garbage pile? Yeah, this one is in there, too. I'll be generous and say this polish was "challenging" to apply. Lots of pushing glitter around in a thick base. This isn't a polish you brush on; you dab it, or better yet, you don't buy it in the first place. It does look pretty cool matte, I'll give it that. Join me Friday for this week's good polish, which happens to be my favorite pink.

Saturday Nail Art - Stamped Textured Gradient

Welcome to Saturday Nail Art! I used two polishes from Holiday 2013 collections (OPI All Sparkly and Gold and China Glaze All Wrapped Up), but I used them to make non-holiday nail art.

I ran out of liquid latex, so I used NYC Strip Me Off as a barrier

All Wrapped Up was a bear to apply with the brush, and it dried matte but not exactly with the pebbly feel I think a polish needs to qualify as a texture. Sucking up the thick purple base with a sponge made application a lot easier, and the microglitters stood out enough to turn it into a proper textured polish.

I guess I must have been pleased with how this turned out...

...Since I took so many pictures.

After I'd done the gradient, I decided to stamp over it with Konad White. I used one Born Pretty plate and one Ejubias plate. I really like stamping over textures, I feel like it's kind of a rustic look.

I think this is one of the more successful nail art combos I've done on the blog so far. Of course, two of the polishes just happened to be textures, and I didn't try to work in Bonita All Things Blue (I thought that would be a recipe for disaster). Next week, I'll be swatching my first duochrome...well, sort of.

China Glaze All Wrapped Up

I've said before that one of the reasons I started this blog was to rediscover polishes in my collection. I had worn this polish, China Glaze All Wrapped Up (which, like Monday's polish, also came out Holiday 2013), once before, and I remembered that it was a microglitter that was hard to get off. I wore peel-off base coat to help with removal. What I didn't remember was how much I hate the horrible sludgy formula.

Seche Vite on first two fingers, no top coat on last two

I bought this polish last December at my local TJ Maxx, brought it home, and put it away to wait for the inspiration to wear it. That spring, I picked up one of my favorite cremes, Revlon Irresistable. I thought All Wrapped up would make a great accent, so I took both polishes out and set them on the end table next to my boyfriend's and my bed (I didn't have my workstation set up yet). Disaster struck when my boyfriend knocked a pillow onto the table and sent my polishes flying. I found Irresistable quickly, but All Wrapped Up seemed to have disappeared. I searched the whole bedroom, under the bed, under the mattress, I used a flashlight, a dowsing rod, I consulted a psychic...no trace. I found All Wrapped Up on Amazon and was totally going to buy another bottle just so I could do this mani I had in mind.

Fortunately, I didn't have to buy the other bottle, because I found this one. I used to keep my purse in front of the end table (which eventually lead to my boyfriend spilling an entire drink into it, because he is a hazard), and I had searched it repeatedly since it was the obvious place for the bottle to have fallen. One day I turned my purse upside down and the bottle fell out; it had dropped into a pocket I never used and forgot was even there. Awesome story, right? Did I mention that this polish has a horrible, unworkably goopy formula that dries dull but not textured and is just generally obnoxious? Thank god I didn't buy that other bottle. Stop by on Saturday to see if I can redeem this mess.

Bonita All Things Blue

Today's polish is another neon, again without undies. It's Bonita Salon All Things Blue, and it's three coats of lovely summery loveliness.

Bonita is kind of a mysterious brand. I only ever see it at Rite-Aid, and these Bonita Salons showed up in the summer season. They are a "gel-like" polish, but unlike every other gel-like polish I can think of, there was no top coat sold with them. They do have a top coat, I've just never seen it on display. Even without a gel-like top coat, I got good wear out of this polish; I wore it as a pedi over vacation and went a week without chips.

You can actually buy Bonita products online at http://www.bonitacolors.com/ (not affiliated). Even though I've always thought of them as cheapo impulse buy polishes, they actually do have some neat polishes (unfortunately, awesome golden holo glitter Golden Girl is not on the website). I also want to note that this is the first time I've had trouble capturing a polish's actual color. It's actually darker and not as sky-blue as it photographed. Check out Friday's post for another blue polish.

Saturday Nail Art - Marbled Marble

Have I mentioned how much I love my Simply Neat mat? Well...I love my Simply Neat mat. For today's nail art, I used it to make some dry-marble decals.

I marbled Cirque Acid Wash, Nina Ultra Pro Ahoy Matey, and Essie All Access Pass together using a small brush, and sandwiched the marble between coats of Wet N Wild Clear Nail Protector. When I make decals, I always make a few extra because I know I'm going to screw up some of them. I only needed four usable ones, and here they are.

The one thing I don't love about making decals is cleaning up. I need to get some of those little curved scissors so I can trim the sides, because dissolving a large amount of decal with acetone is gross. I put down a peel-off barrier to mitigate the dryness, but I still always end up with a goopy mess on my fingers. 

I wasn't sure that All Access Pass would look good with the other two polishes, since they're blue, but I think it turned out surprisingly nice. I also did some stamping over this art, check out my Instagram if you want to see it.

Nina Ultra Pro Ahoy Matey

Ahoy, mateys! Today's polish is a runny blue creme from weird brand Nina Ultra Pro!

I found this polish randomly at Sally on clearance. Sally Beauty Supply is the only place I have ever seen this brand, so I have just a few of them.

3 Coats

 I haven't been blown away by any of the ones I have, but I am impressed by the ginormous brush. I love a wide brush (like the Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure, Wet N Wild Megalast, or Baroness X brushes), but this one is as wide as a Swiffer. 

I needed to use three coats, because the formula is quite sheer. It applied well, though, and it's a pretty dusty blue. Aside from the enormous brush, there's not much to say about this brand or this polish. 

Cirque Acid Wash

Today's polish is from spring of this year, part of Cirque's Speckled & Sparkled collection.

It's actually the only one I had left untried

I had heard good things about Cirque, but had held off buying any until this collection. I picked up all four of the speckles, which are all crellies with little pigmented and metallic flecks in them. Acid Wash has blue and silver speckles in a white base, and it resembles a fancy countertop. 

I love this finish so much, and Acid Wash has a beautiful color scheme. All the speckles are among my favorite spring polishes. 

One downer about these polishes is they all have kind of a chunky formula. The base is slightly thicker than it should be, meaning that doing more than two coats is useless, since the flecks stop showing through. At the same time, it's almost always necessary for me to do three coats to get the polish even. These have a quick-drying (as in, "dry while you're applying them" quick) formula, and they don't self-level as well as I'd like. I think it's worth wrestling with them because they look so awesome.