Wacie Wednesday: Bridal Bouquet

Posted on January 29, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It’s the first-ever Wacie Wednesday! This is the part of the week where, if I have a new product to share, you’ll get to see it. Yeah, I told you I was serious about making my own polish. This first entry is a little rough, since I’m still missing things like branding, labelling, and a way for you to actually buy it. I’ll get on that soon, I promise. In the meantime, have a look at the very first Wacie Nail Company polish, Bridal Bouquet. It’s awesome, but don’t take my word for it.

Bridal Bouquet is a glitter toppper in a clear base; it contains pink flowers, green shreds, and iridescent hexes. I’m wearing one coat over The New Black’s Black, Essie’s Fiji and Navigate Her. It dries quickly and is easily smoothed down by top coat. I don’t really know what to say about it, other than it’s awesome and I love it. I can’t stop staring at it. The green-to-gold iridescent glitters really stand out on the black polish, and the flowers look great over the green. The light pink flowers blend in a little, but I think that’s okay. I think it still evokes the image of its namesake: soft petals, soft colors, fragrance and beauty. I think I started a nail company just to make this polish.

It’s really exciting to be one step closer, you know? I had the time of my life making this, and I hope I’ll be able to keep doing it for a long while. It would be amazing to have a career where I get to sit in a room with glitter and sparkles and just create things. I almost don’t even care if I make my investment back, just the satisfaction of doing it was, to me, worth the money.

I did a test to see what it looked like over blue. The verdict: awesome! From left to right: Sinful Colors’s Midnight Blue, Essie’s After School Boy Blazer, Julep’s Bess, Color Club’s Chelsea Girl, China Glaze’s For Audrey, Essie’s Turquoise & Caicos, and Bridal Bouquet worn alone.

Yeah, this is the best thing I ever did. If you’re interested in buying a bottle, or just interested in reviewing it, I’ll get the store and press form ready soon. I am absolutely dying to share this with everyone.

Swatch Saturday: Black Bird’s Only You

Posted on January 18, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Here’s a polish I’ve wanted to review for a long time. This is a polish I got in a Reddit gift exchange exclusively for makeup and nail polish. My gifter was in Germany, and she sent me a a lot of good German cosmetics. Now I’ve developed a taste for it and I can’t get it in America. Surely this is what hell is like. It’s probably no surprise that I’ve wanted to review this one for a long time. Here it is, finally, in three coats, topped with three coats of Seche Vite.

Black Bird’s Only You is a cool blue creme. I think it’s what Neptune would have looked like if it had just a bit more pigment. The formula is a little on the thin side, but still easy to use and apply. The color goes on evenly and covers well; I used three coats, but I could have gotten away with two. It has a shiny finish when dry, but I’m worried about the wear. This may just have to do with my nails not being long enough to wrap the tips, but I didn’t expect to see worn-down tips this soon after putting it on. Maybe it’s top coat shrinkage. I don’t know. I’m kind of embarrassed to post them like this, but not embarrassed enough to redo them.

Verdict: If you can get your hands on it, I suggest you try it out. I really want more from this brand. The formula is lovely, the coverage is nice, and I adore this bottle design. If you’re German and you like me, please help me get a few more bottles.

Also, for funsies, here it is with accent nails. The glitter is a Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer one-off prototype with white shapes and blue to purple shift. Oh mama.

Manicure Monday: Shine of the Times

Posted on December 9, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Oh my holy crap. I’m really excited about this week because I got to use a polish that is well-loved and sought after by basically everyone. Yep, Shine of the freaking Times!

This is one of my favorite purchases. I mean, it’s obviously a gorgeous polish, but I scored it on Amazon, and only paid $1.41 because I had a gift card to cover the rest. I think this was also my 200th polish, so it’s significant to me for that reason, too. Yeah, I care about that stuff for some reason.

The iridescent flakies shift from red to green, and even though it’s easy to see with the naked eye, but a little more difficult to capture with a camera indoors. I managed to get a few that do, but I also went outside to see if I could get better results (not really). It didn’t occur to me until just now to try to use the flash, but I think what I got is good enough.

The blue I used this week is Blue Me Away from Sally Hansen. I’ve used this before (you can see the bottle is already about 1/3 empty), and while it’s semi-opaque after one coat and ready to go after two, it stains my nails blue every time. I used a double dose of base coat under it this week, so hopefully that takes care of that.

Sally Hansen’s Blue Me Away, Essie’s Shine of the Times

I can already tell this is going to be one of those manicures I’m going to stare at all week. I can’t even tell you how excited I am.

Swatch Saturday: American Apparel’s Neptune

Posted on December 7, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Okay, so I’m starting a new thing for the blog this week. This started somewhat out of necessity; my Manicure Monday mani would start to show signs of wear: chips, cracks, peeling, and some would have to be totally redone. At the same time, I would have a new polish or two or five I’d want to try, so I’d scrap the mani altogether at the end of the week and try out something new. I’ve come to the point now where I have nearly five hundred polishes, and if I polish my nails once a week, it would take me almost ten years to use every polish (a number that increases every week or so). This new feature, Swatch Saturday, is a way for me to use some of these polishes that I wouldn’t get to use in my normal manicure routine for quite some time, and to represent them more accurately, away from the confines of nail art. I’m going to start at the top of the polish list and work my way down.

This inaugural Swatch Saturday kicks off with a glow in the dark polish from American Apparel called Neptune. I bought it when I was Atlanta visitng my boyfriend for my birthday. For whatever reason, my city doesn’t have any American Apparel stores, but I’ve seen their polishes all over the nail polish internet, so when I went in, I didn’t even look at the clothes. I went right for the polish, bought six bottles, and walked out.

All photos were taken indoors with sunlight.

All non-glowy photos were taken indoors with sunlight.

Neptune is shown here with three coats, covered by three coats of Seche Vite. As you can see, even with three coats, my nail line is still visible, and another coat would probably have given me more opacity. Apart from that, the color is really nice for a glow in the dark polish.

Monster teeth.

I am kind of ashamed of these.

I read the manual for this.

I had a hard time getting these glow in the dark action shots, but I had to try. I shut myself in the darkest room in my house — my bedroom closet — with my camera. Well, first I had to read the manual to find out how to change the shutter speed. Then I locked myself in the closet. Then I got a bunch of horrid pictures. Yeah. I even got the tripod out for this, and they’re still bad. It doesn’t matter, though. You can still see the glow. I got it close enough.

To be honest, I just really missed having glow in the dark nails. I wore this once over a blue glitter polish for a Halloween party (with orange accents, we’ll discuss this next week), and when I went to bed that night, my boyfriend just laughed. “Your nails are foolish,” he said. I don’t care what he thinks. It’s fun waggling my fingers around in the dark. Also, I think I like them best when it’s only sort of dark, when I can still see the blue, but they’re just slightly glowing, like I have uranium on my nails. I love the novelty of it. Thankfully, I have like two more of these to do.

Manicure Monday: Neon Orange Dotticure

Posted on December 2, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Nothing says December like neon orange!

Those bows are freaking cute.

I had a lot of fun doing these. It was a lot of work; first I needed three coats of white polish to make a underwear layer without any bald spots (I still had some), then I needed three coats of the orange to make that color solid. Adding the dots was tough; left hand looks awesome, right hand not so much, my toes are even worse (no, you don’t get to see them). I then put on three coats of Seche Vite for rigidity, a matte coat for a finish, then applied the bows with a healthy dot of super glue. Yeah. I didn’t finish these nails until like eight o’clock last night. I started them at noon. Overall, I like the look I got. And I thought a dotticure would be boring.

Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get, LA Colors’s Spat!, Julep’s Bess

The orange is LA Colors’s Spat!, which is an awesome orange so long as you have the appropriate white coat beneath. The formula is so watery and thin that it would be pretty tough to get the neon effect without it. The blue is Julep’s Bess, which dotted better than I thought it would. I thought it was going to be watery and thin, too, but this one held up quite well. I got the bows from Claire’s, and they made it through the night and this morning’s shower. I wonder how long they’ll hang on before they get snagged on something and come off.

Manicure Monday: Kickass Glitter Accents and Blue

Posted on November 25, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Today’s manicure is one of my favorites. I haven’t had a favorite in a really long time now.

My two colors this week are Sephora by OPI’s Skinny Jeans and Digital Nails’s Wibbly Wobbly. I really love how it came out. I thought the nails without the glitter would be too plain, but the colors actually work really well and I don’t feel like the rest of my nails are too plain. This is a fantastic match. Something else I worried about was the glitter going on too thick and making the nails fat. That didn’t happen the way it did with this glitter. I brushed the glitter on instead of dabbing it, so maybe that made a difference. I could have just Wibbly Wobbly as a glitter topper, but I really wanted that multi-layered glitter look. I’m pleased as hell with how it turned out.

Sephora by OPI’s Skinny Jeans, Digital Nails’s Wibbly Wobbly

So, a little something about Wibbly Wobbly: I think it’s the polish that sold me on indies. I saw a Reddit post with Wibbly Wobbly over black, and I’d never seen anything like it before: all those different glitters, the huge dot glitters… I needed it. I went to buy it immediately after, but I reigned myself in somehow, even though there was like one bottle left and it seemed like destiny. I couldn’t bring myself to pay ten dollars plus shipping for a bottle of polish. When I got a prize for being a finalist in a game design contest, all that went out the window. Ultimately, it’s this polish that led to my delightful indie polish problem.

Manicure Monday: Red Crackle over Blue

Posted on November 18, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

There isn’t much to say about this manicure that I didn’t say the last time I used a crackle top coat. I got a very cool, very unpredictable, very 2009 manicure.

The red stained my cuticles.

I’ll say a word to Dianna, the blue base I used. Usually Julep polishes have varying degrees of quality, and I’m happy to report this is one of the better ones. It was nearly opaque in the first coat.

Julep’s Dianna, Nicole by OPI’s Red Texture

I used to think solid creme colors were boring. If it didn’t have shimmer or glitter, I wasn’t interested. I suppose less is more with them, and that’s a cliche that never quite found itself into my practical life advice files. There’s something about bold, shiny nails without anything to distract from the color. Maybe someday I’ll try it.

Manicure Monday: Hearts of Gold Over Blue

Posted on November 11, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I waited until the coffee kicked in to start this entry. Best coffee is best best best coffee best.

Note the blue cuticle on the middle finger. I had a hell of a time getting my cuticles clean.

This week I faced two challenges: having a polish that stained my cuticles to hell, and trying to get large glitter out of a bottle. My blue polish, Orly’s Witch’s Blue, is a beautiful jewel color. It’s dark and mysterious and dramatic. I knew the holo gold hearts in Revlon’s Hearts of Gold would stand out nicely against it. What I didn’t count on, though, was the fine gold glitter overpowering the background color, or the haphazard way the hearts landed. I did manipulate them a little with a toothpick, but mostly wherever they are is where they landed. Also, I really had to work for these hearts. A little further down, you’ll see that the Revlon bottle is about a third of the way empty. Yeah. I wasted a good bit of it just trying to get the hearts out.

I went back and traced my cuticles after I took that first photo. It’s better now.

I love the colors in the hearts, though. Holo glitter is beautiful! I just keep looking at my nails and fanning them back and forth to watch the rainbow.

Rainbow!

Not the rainbow.

Orly’s Witch’s Blue, Revlon’s Hearts of Gold FX

They’re kinda messy, kinda sloppy, but I’m into it.

Manicure Monday: Blue and Silver Gradient

Posted on November 4, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

This week I have two fantastic polishes and a beautiful shiny gradient.If it wasn’t so gross and cold and overcast outside, these nails would be absolutely blinding.

I started with two coats of OPI’s Austin-tatious Turquoise. It’s a bottle I’ve had for a few years now, acquired in that legendary Ulta haul where I had a ton of reward points and left the store with like ten bottles of OPI. I don’t know, the bottle count changes each time I remember it. It’s like a fishing story. Unfortunately, I had a lot of problems with this color. The first coat was thin and uneven; the second did not cover or improve anything. I was only able to gain opacity when I started sponging it on to create the gradient. I was really disappointed by it, because it’s beautiful in the bottle. It takes a lot of work to get it to look good on my nails.

This is me trying to demonstrate the duochromatic properties of Austin-tatious Turquoise. It almost worked.

Shine is the total opposite. Opaque in two coats, it makes this gradient reflective and, well, shiny. There isn’t a better name for this polish. I liked the silver so much, I added a rhinestone to each nail to add more. Overkill? Probably. Pretty? Totally!

OPI’s Austin-Tatious Turquoise, Orly’s Shine

Manicure Monday: Blue Crackle Over Copper

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I was looking forward to this manicure for a while. I bought Essie’s Penny Talk a few months ago, when I was just climbing onto the Essie bandwagon. My boyfriend and I were grocery shopping and I found the supermarket’s small section of nail polish. I flipped and grabbed as many bottles of it as I could hold (like four). My boyfriend caught me, made me put them all back, and literally dragged me away from the shelf. I didn’t put them all back though. I sneaked this one.

I’ve never shown swatches or pre-cleanup pictures on the blog before, but I knew I needed to photograph this one before I finished. I mean, look at this. I didn’t expect this metallic finish at all, and I am blown away by it. I’ve seen the other Essie metallic colors in stores, but I was never interested in them until I put this on. This is just breathtaking.

This is two coats of Penny Talk with no topcoat.

Dat shiny.

Unfortunately, it’s not very forgiving if you don’t have perfectly smooth nails. I have some nail peeling and dents from peeling off polish, and you can see every ridge and crease through the polish. I’ve never had this happen before. It may be time to invest in a ridge filling base coat, because I plan to buy more of these.

The actual manicure.

I know crackle toppers are long over, but I still like them. I like how unpredictable they can be, and how each nail is its own unique, chaotic piece of art. This particular crackle topper was sent to me from Germany, so I’m really excited to finally try it. I really love the way the metallic finish shines through the cracks. The crackle itself dries matte, but when I put the topcoat on, I get this incredible shine from both. I didn’t think I would like a crackle manicure so much.

Essie’s Penny Talk, P2’s Crackling Top Coat in Blue Bomb. I really love that German sticker on the bottle.

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