Monthly Archives: May 2014

Manicure Monday on Tuesday: Pre-Vacation Celebration in Blue

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Manicure Monday is a little late this week, what with the craziness of work, upcoming boyfriend’s birthday, and packing for vacation. I’m also going to have to re-learn how to stick with the same manicure for seven days. Anyway, I’m wearing Wet ‘n Wild’s I Saw A Comet over Sephora by OPI’s Mermaid to Order; I’ve got on two coats of each with two coats of Seche Vite.

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Mermaid to Order is a gorgeous shimmery turquoise. Actually, I hesitate to call it a turquoise, because it leans either blue or green, depending on the viewing angle and lighting conditions. It goes on easily and smoothly, but with very visible brush strokes. Even adding the glitter to it wasn’t enough to hide the brush strokes. I chose this polish as an under coat because it’s the same color as the jelly base in I Saw A Comet. I wish I’d chosen a creme polish for this, though, so that the glitter can stand on its own without added effects from the base color.

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I Saw A Comet is a faint teal jelly with fine iridescent glitters. As gorgeous as it is in the bottle (I admit I bought it because I was totally hypnotized by the glitter), I expected a little more of that look to transfer to the nail. Last week I encountered the extra-wide W&W brush, which gave me a horrible glitter payoff and just made a clear polish mess on my fingers. This week, I tried it again, and my results weren’t too much better. The brush is actually wider than a few of my nails, which left a lot of glitter stuck in my cuticle; you can see there are still a few bits of it I just couldn’t get off. For the minimal glitter look I got, the cleanup effort wasn’t really worth it.

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Outdoors, sunlight

Outdoors, sunlight

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I’m going to try to keep up with Manicure Monday while I’m travelling, whenever I can find the time to actually paint my nails. We’ll see how it goes.

Swatch Saturday: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Out. For. A. Walk… BITCH.

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I’m really excited about this week’s Swatch Saturday. It’s red, it’s holo, and it’s absolutely beautiful. It’s Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Out. For. A. Walk… BITCH. I’m wearing three coats of it under two coats of Seche Vite.

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BEGL described this as a blood red linear holo, but I don’t think it looks very red on me. It’s more like a raspberry, or a burgundy. In any case, I have nothing to say about this polish but gushing and incoherent mumbling. Just look at the pictures and mumble with me.

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In the studio, the holo rainbow is quite strong compared to some other holos I’ve reviewed recently. Usually I don’t get a visible spectrum in the studio like I do here. Even indoors, the holo effect is stunning. I can’t believe there was ever a time I didn’t like holos. I was so wrong. I am so sorry. This next set of photos was taken outdoors in sunshine. This is the good stuff. Look at all this holo goodness! Also, the redness is much more apparent in the outdoor photos. It looks less like a berry or burgundy out here.

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I have nothing else to say about this polish, other than I am dead. Also, unfortunately, it’s been discontinued. Hopefully you’ll get lucky and find it somewhere. If not, BEGL is restocking a lot of the gorgeous holos from the Once More With Feeling collection, the Buffy-inspired collection this one is from, on May 17. Get on that.

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One more thing: this is the last Swatch Saturday for a couple of weeks; I’m taking somewhat of a hiatus while I go on vacation. I’ll try to keep up with Manicure Monday while I’m travelling, but apart from that, I won’t be doing any more swatches until June. See you then!

Wacie Wednesday: Psychovamp

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I hate to admit it, but my Wacie Nail Co. experiment this week is another case of too much glitter. I just hate the sound of those words together. This is Psychovamp, a purple jelly with various sizes of red holo glitters. I’m wearing three coats (no undies) and two coats of Seche Vite.

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To start with, I love the look I got. It’s a bit like the jelly sandwich I did a couple weeks ago; the deep jelly and holo glitters make it look very similar. What I don’t like, though, is that it looks completely unlike my intention. The red glitters kind of take over the purple polish, so much so that you can barely tell it’s purple. This could probably be remedied with adding less glitter; regardless of how the glitter affects the color, it needs to go anyway. You can see the stray bits of fine glitter I just couldn’t get out of my cuticle. I hate that.

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The photos in the sun are a little more true to what the polish looks like away from the studio. The purple is a little more visible in the studio than anywhere else. In the sunlight, though, you can really see all the glitter and the depth from the jelly, so it’s got that going for it, which is nice.

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Also: no offense intended for psychos and vampires. Just saying.

Manicure Monday: Red Glitter on Green

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It’s another crazy Manicure Monday glitter feast! Today I’m wearing Wet ‘n Wild’s Club Cabaret over Essie’s Navigate Her. It looked different in my head for sure, but I’m still into it.

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First I put down two coats of Navigate Her. This is a shade I’ve worn a lot lately for various swatches and things; it’s so soft that it looks good as undies for any glitter. I chose it for this mani because I wanted a green to complement the red in Club Cabaret, and this was the only green that didn’t challenge the darker colors for dominance. It also seems to look different at different angles; in the photo where I leaned my nails back, you can see it looks a bit more yellow there than in the others, and I’m not sure why.

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Club Cabaret is a lightly tinted base with black, silver, and red hexes of various sizes. I’m not sure if it’s tinted on purpose, or if the red glitters bled a little, but it seems kind of suspicious. I didn’t get much of a payoff; these W&W bottles have these really wide brushes, and while they pick up a lot of glitter, I don’t get much of it on my nails. Instead I just get clear polish flooding my cuticles. To achieve this look, I brushed the glitter onto the end of a makeup wedge and rolled it on, the way one might roll on a stamped design. I could have gotten this look trying to brush or dab it on, but it would have taken a long time to do, and there’s no guarantee it would have been applied this evenly or cleanly. Cleanup was a pain, but it was worth it.

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Seeing as I planned this manicure months ago, it’s accidentally festive for Cinco de Mayo. I love it when that happens.

Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Watch the Walls

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For Swatch Saturday this week, I’m wearing a neon glitter explosion from Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer called Watch the Walls. I’ve got one thick coat of it over Essie’s Fiji, Navigate Her, and Mint Candy Apple. It’s like there’s a party on my nails, we invited the president for funsies, and he actually showed up. I absolutely adore BEGL glitter toppers because they’re so fun. They really are like dance parties.

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I think my cuticle oil melted the logo off the bottle. :(

I think my cuticle oil melted the logo off the bottle. 🙁

The blue-to-pink shift in the shimmer is the most evident here. Look at it!

The blue-to-pink shift in the shimmer is the most evident here. Look at it!

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Watch the Walls is a clear glitter topper with loads of different glitters; there are so many I can’t list them all. There are stars and butterflies, dots and squares, hexes big and small. There’s even a blue-to-pink-shifting shimmer that adds the right amount of sparkle to an already visually stunning polish. While this polish wasn’t made for me, I almost feel like it was, because it has everything I love: bright colors, big shapes, tons of things going on at once. It’s perfect for me. I felt a little weird putting it on over pastels, though, but I think it works. It definitely looks great over Mint Candy Apple.

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For once, I’m reviewing a BEGL that, as of my writing this, is still in stock in the BEGL store. Not only is it in stock, but it’s on sale! Grab it before it’s gone.