Monthly Archives: September 2014

Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Discontinued Limited Edition

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All right, I know it’s just barely September, and I know it won’t be Halloween for quite some time, and yet I’m wearing Halloween polish. As I’m going down the Polish List, I’ll be running into some seasonal confusion. It’s going to happen. It’s only going to be weird if we let it be.

This beauty is called Discontinued Limited Edition, and was part of Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Nail Polish Frights collection from last fall. As you can guess, this polish was a discontinued limited edition, which is truly horrific. I’m wearing three coats of Discontinued Limited Edition with one coat of Color Club’s clear coat.

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Discontinued Limited Edition is a black linear holo with orange shimmer. It’s gorgeous, right? We all know black holos are amazing and perfect, but this one has a little extra, this bit of orange peeking out from the center of the linear rainbow. It’s not always obvious, and it doesn’t appear in all lighting conditions, but it’s glorious when it does. It’s just enough to make it subtly but unmistakably Halloweeny.

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I found the consistency to be a bit thick, but this means it was opaque in two coats, and was still quite easy to work with. It dried quickly. It dries with a bit of a shine, and the holo effect was still pretty strong without the topcoat, but the topcoat really brings out the orange shimmer.

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I only took outdoor photos today. Holo photos in the studio never turn out well, so I decided to not to bore you with them. It’s been mostly cloudy all day, but there was one somewhat-sunny patch in the backyard, so I went for it. It served me well, but I really want to see that orange shimmer in direct sunlight.

Wacie Wednesday: Sweetleaf

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Sweetleaf is the Wacie Nail Company polish of the week. This shimmery green polish contains superfine gold holo glitter, giving a bold color a subtle sparkle. I’m wearing three coats with one coat of Color Club clear. All photos were taken indoors.

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Sweetleaf, most of the other polishes I’ve made and worn on the blog, were experiments in polish making. In this case, I wanted to see how well the glitter and pigments would blend together. Next time, I’ll thin it out a little; I could still work with it, but it’s much too thick. Also, brush strokes show up on some nails, and that annoys me. It dried matte and with very little texture.

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The glitter doesn’t shine as much in the studio, but it looks amazing in the sunlight. Unfortunately, while I was waiting for my camera battery to charge, the sun went down and I totally missed out on outdoor photos. I don’t like how early it’s getting dark now. I tried a photo with flash; the glitters are somewhat shinier, but the flash mostly obscures any details on the nail. It’s a terrible photo, but I love how the color looks. I’m pretty sure it’s just the pinkness in my skin complementing it.

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Final word: This is a gorgeous color to end the summer with. I know it’s still technically summer for a couple more weeks, but I miss it already.

Manicure Monday on Tuesday: Celestial Gradient

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So it’s been a while since I did a manicure like this; I haven’t been into nail art much lately, just doing the accent-nails-with-glitter-is-easy mani. I swatched Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s Weary Traveller a couple months ago and wanted to wear it in a new way, so I did a glitter gradient thing with it. The colors in my gradient are Sally Hansen’s Black Out and Essie’s Urban Jungle, with Weary Traveller sponged onto the tips.

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I wasn’t sure how to do this at first; I definitely wanted a look that would show the jelly properties of Weary Traveller, so I thought the best way to do that would be with a nude and black gradient. The first time I tried this, I couldn’t get the jelly sheer enough to show the nude without streaks. I kind of wish that had worked out. I also didn’t get a fantastic gradient since my nails are so short.

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I used Color Club’s clear coat again this week. So far, it wears well, but it doesn’t smooth glitter out very easily. I don’t want to use more than one coat on a mani like this, since there are already so many layers. I’m also afraid of shrinkage.

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I should really start doing nail art again. I forgot how cool gradients look.