Wacie Wednesday: Opulence

Posted on August 27, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

The Wacie Nail Company polish I’m using this week was a fun experiment. I’d gotten some very fine glitter, practically dust, that I wanted to play with. I got two colors, holo gold and holo silver, and mixed them together, just to see how it would come out. The final product is a full-coverage glitter that is insanely, gloriously sparkly. This is Opulence, and I’m wearing three coats with one coat of Seche Vite.

I actually took photos of the polish with and without top coat, just to see how they photographed differently. The left photo is with Seche Vite, the right photo is bare. They look pretty similar, and there’s a ton of sparkle either way, but I feel like the top coat really brings out the beauty of the holo glitter. It becomes so much brighter and sensitive to light. I definitely prefer it that way.

Left: Finished with Seche Vite. Right: Polish only

Opulence is an absolute joy to wear. It was very easy to apply; due to the density of the glitter, the polish was very thick; very little mistakes were made in application, so in that regard, it was a bit like applying a textured polish that’s heavy on the glitter. For as thick as it is, though, it dried very quickly. It did dry with a bit of texture, but it gradually got smoother with each coat; the first coat was the grittiest. It still wasn’t glassy smooth by the third coat, but it wasn’t grainy, either.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to forget there are two different colored glitters in there. The gold is definitely more visible, and you can see the silvers if you really try, but only in certain lighting conditions and viewing angles.

In the sun, this is incredible. In the studio, I couldn’t get my camera to focus on the glitters well, so all you see is sparkle and not much individuality among glitter particles. You can see them in the sun. It looks fantastic out there! All that shine, all those little rainbows… It’s just beautiful. I love it.

I do apologize for the lateness of this post. I spent all day playing video games.

Manicure Monday: Summer Bronze and Gold

Posted on August 25, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

For Manicure Monday this week, I’m wearing one of the super-gorgeous Naked polishes! Every time I get one of these out, I think about how foolish I was to buy this Urban Decay set, and how glad I am that I did, because it’s nowhere to be found now. This is Smog, and I’m wearing two coats topped by one coat of Seche Vite. My glitter accents are Orly’s Too Fab.

Smog is a bronze polish with a rich golden shimmer. It’s wonderfully opaque in two coats, dries quickly enough, and delivers even color. It reminds me of chocolate ganache, just rich and sweet and shiny. Delicious. I want to wear this so much more often, but the bottle is so small and scarce that I never want to run out.

Too Fab is the opposite. Orly bottles are enormous, and I’ve had this one for a pretty long time. This is like the metallic gold glitter topper that never stops giving. My bottle is a hair more than halfway full, but I will be using it until the end of time, probably. I didn’t expect to get so much glitter on my accents; this is one coat, after all. I wanted to be able to see the Smog through the glitter. It’s still pretty, though. I think the gold and the bronze complement each other very well.

Outside, this is just blinding. The gold shimmer in Smog is really visible here, and the glitter throws so much light it’s insane. You can see the light flaring off of it. It’s crazy.

Handcare rave: I got this cream the other weekend from Ulta. Le Couvent des Minimes Soothing Night Hand Creme has the most delicious lavender scent, and it makes my hands pretty soft. I use it right after I wash dishes in the evening, when my hands are the most dry. It absorbs well, smells incredible, and feels very light after application. The price is a little steep; it was something like $8 for a .8oz tube, but oh my gosh, it was so worth it to me.

Final word: these are the perfect polishes for the end of summer and the beginning of the school season. I could not have chosen better.

Manicure Monday: Heavenly Jewel Tones

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

For Manicure Monday this week, I got to use a glitter topper I absolutely love. Revlon’s Heavenly is a beautiful mix of iridescent glitters. It looks incredible over dark colors; I wore it over black about this time last year. I decided to try it over jewel colors for a fancy, muted look. My under-colors this week are Zoya’s Envy, Revlon’s Persuade, and Ulta’s Moody Blues; I’m wearing two coats of each, two coats of Heavenly, and one coat of Seche Vite.

I don’t know what to say about Heavenly I haven’t already said. It’s nothing short of amazing. It transforms any polish into a shining beautiful mermaid. It’s so cool how so many colors can come from two different glitters. The first coat of it was kind of lacking, so I went for a second, and made a bit of a mess with it. That’s why my cuticles are so rough-looking. I’m a little embarrassed by it.

A quick word to my under-colors: Zoya’s Envy is a dark green creme that is the perfect base for this glitter. I almost used this color only until I started to wonder how it would look over blues and reds. Moody Blues is a dark blue creme that dries with a matte finish. Persuade, the wine creme, flooded my cuticles because it was so thin, but I’ll chalk that up to being a brand-new full bottle. All three cremes look fantastic in two coats, and all three work very well beneath this glitter.

One more thing: I did some shopping this weekend at Ulta, and I grabbed a lot of new hand creams to try. My dishwasher has been broken and washing dishes by hand every night is destroying my hands, making them red, flaky, and itchy. I fully admit to buying this Anatomicals cream because it made me laugh, but I really like the cream so far. I put it on before I go to bed, after I finish my skincare routine, and it makes my hands really soft and smells fantastic.

I almost chose pastels for this instead since it’s still summer, but I’m so glad I didn’t. I love this look.

Manicure Monday: Glitter Explosion over Orange

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Manicure Monday is so fun this week! I’ve got two fun polishes, Wet ‘n Wild’s Orange Smoothie and Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer‘s St. Nick’s Sweet Treats. I love these together so much. I have on three coats of Orange Smoothie, one brushed coat of Sweet Treats on my accent nails, and one coat of Seche Vite.

Orange Smoothie is a sheer orange with golden shimmer. I like it, for the most part: the consistency was about average, and it dried pretty quickly with a nice shine. The brush was stupidly wide and made a mess, so application wasn’t terribly easy. It is still pretty sheer; I can see my very thin nail line through three coats of it. However, it looks so nice when the light hits it that I don’t even care.

St. Nick’s Sweet Treats is a veritable glitter explosion. It completely makes this manicure. This is the glitter topper to end all glitter toppers. The glitters are mostly white, red, and gold, with smaller glitters in different colors and silver micro-flakies. I am not exaggerating when I say there is a little of everything in this bottle. It applies beautifully; what you see here is one brushed coat. There was no dabbing here, no blobbing, no sponging, no nonsense. The lacquer-to-glitter ratio is perfect. I had no trouble with this at all.

Unfortunately, it stormed all day, and so I don’t have any gorgeous sunlight photos to post. I know this would be a stunner outside for sure.

Manicure Monday: Plum and Glitter Surprise

Posted on July 21, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It feels like forever since I’ve done a real Manicure Monday post. For this week, I’m wearing The Golden Age from Sephora by OPI over Essie’s Devil’s Advocate, topped with one coat of Seche Vite.

I really like Devil’s Advocate. Like really. I adore these dark, dramatic, vampy colors because you can never quite tell what color they really are. You can’t tell this is a deep plum unless you look at the very edges of it. If I didn’t know better, I’d assume it’s black. Devil’s Advocate goes on a little thin on the first coat, but evens out to full opacity on the second, and dries with a beautiful shine. It’s really easy to apply.

Unrelated: I put Devil’s Advocate on my toes when I wore Vesper earlier in the month. They’re very similar in color and I really didn’t want to experience the joys of taking Liquid Sand off my toenails.

The real star of this manicure is The Golden Age. It’s a clear glitter topper with various sizes of metallic gold and silver hex glitters. The distinction between the colors is pretty difficult to see in some lighting conditions; in my office it’s impossible to tell, but in the studio and in the sun, it’s clearly visible. It’s also very easy to apply; the consistency is thick so as to accommodate all that glitter. Also, I think this polish has my perfect glitter-to-lacquer ratio: one brushed coat is all I needed for full, even glitter coverage. It’s so easy to work with. I love it.

Sunlight! The sun came out long enough for me to take these photos. The clouds came back when I went inside.

So, there you have it: a glitter topper with secret differently-colored glitters over a black that’s really purple. I love surprises.

Summer of Untrieds Day 18: Green

Posted on July 18, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Day 18 of the Summer of Untrieds Challenge is green. I chose to wear Butter London’s Swinger, a full coverage green glitter polish. I’m wearing three coats with one coat of Seche Vite.

It was really hard to focus on all those tiny glitters.

Swinger is loaded down with fine metallic green glitters. From what I can tell, there’s a fine olive green and larger kelly green hexes, as well as maybe some others. I really love polishes like this because there’s always so much dimension in the glitter. This was easy to put on; the glitter spreads evenly across the nail in one go, but there’s so much of it that it’s not suitable to use as a glitter topper. You’re free to try it, but you’ll have a very dense coat of glitter, which is why I think it works best as a full-coverage polish.

This looks incredible in sunlight, too. You can see the diversity of the glitters here, and how the look changes from a kelly green to an olive. This is just an amazing polish. I absolutely love it.

I love that I’m accidentally on a green polish kick, too. Greens are some of my favorites. They never fail to be beautiful.

Summer of Untrieds Day 15: Pink

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Day 15 of the Summer Untrieds Challenge calls for pink, so I went with something I’ve had for ages and have never tried: My first-ever China Glaze! I grabbed a bunch of these vibrant glitter crackle polishes during a huge Sally Beauty sale last summer (or maybe the summer before?), and I’ve only used one of them until today. This is one coat of Glam-More over two coats of Ciaté’s Amazing Gracie, topped with one coat of Seche Vite.

As you can see, Glam-More is a glitter crackle. It’s pink, pretty, and totally passé. I just can’t say no to glitter, though, in any of its forms. This was actually quite thick when I opened it, but I took care of that with some thinner. It went on easily after thinning and the crackle effect occurred almost immediately. I think it’s a bit pinker in person; it looks purplish in the studio. That’s a bit misleading.

I’ve never used Amazing Gracie before today, so I’ll say something about it, too. It’s a soft, sheer nude that’s perfect for a French mani. It dries quickly and with a nice shine. I fear these polishes a little, because they always come out streaky, and since they’re so translucent, you can never correct it with another coat. That happened to me a little, but isn’t noticeable under the crackle.

I really love how dense the glitter is in Glam-More. It’s basically a clear crackle with glitter; there’s no pigment at all, that’s all glitter! This is especially obvious in the sunlight/outdoor photos. I regret using such a delicate base color, though; I feel like a darker color would have done more for it. Actually, looking back, I made that mistake the last time I used one of these crackle polishes. Why didn’t I learn?

I feel a little weird wearing this. I know I’m late to like every nail trend ever, but this is crazy. It’s like a nail polish time capsule.

Manicure Monday: Monochrome with Accents

Posted on July 14, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It’s Manicure Monday! Today I’m wearing Lost Soul from LA Colors, and my accent polish is L’Oreal’s The Sparklicious. I have on three coats of Lost Soul, one sponged coat of The Sparklicious on my accent nails, and one coat of Seche Vite.

Lost Soul is a cool gray polish with a faint silver shimmer. I’m always a little afraid of these LA Colors polishes; the quality is hit or miss. I’m happy to say this one is pretty good. The consistency is thin, but even; this actually looked pretty nice at one coat. That said, I still went for three coats, because I wanted it to be very opaque to support the glitter.

The Sparklicious is a clear glitter topper with holo silver bars with black and holo silver hexes. The glitter didn’t brush on well, and left behind a lot of clear lacquer. I don’t like to dab glitter on with a brush, so I brushed it onto a sponge and applied it that way. It’s not very even, but that’s not noticeable at first. The black and silver glitters complement the gray polish well.

I was hoping the baby shimmer in Lost Soul would be more apparent in the sunshine; it is just barely visible, but still more visible in the sun than in the studio. Those holo glitters just blow up, though.

The one thing I don’t like: when I apply the glitter this way, no amount of top coat can ever smooth it down. There’s still a lot of texture there. I’m okay with some texture, but having it on only a couple nails is kind of annoying.

Manicure Monday: Minimalism with Color

Posted on July 7, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

I really love this week’s Manicure Monday. I paired these two together on a whim, not really knowing if they went together or not. This is one dabbed coat of Literary Lacquers‘s My Secret Garden over three coats of Revlon’s Barely Blush, topped with one coat of Seche Vite.

As you can see, Barely Blush is a polish I’ve had for a long, long time. I’ve raved about Revlon’s Sweet Nothings collection before, and how easy they are to wear; even though they can be layered over anything and still look amazing, I’ve only ever worn them alone. I love the pearly, subtle shimmer over bare nails so much. Barely Blush is a sheer nude with a pink-to-purple shift and tiny iridescent glitters. I love it. I can’t get over it.

My Secret Garden from Literary Lacquers is a clear glitter topper with pink, lavender, blue, yellow and green matte hexes with iridescent sparkles. I was afraid the glitter would overpower the softness of the base color, and that the base color wouldn’t be a strong enough foundation for it. I’m so glad I was wrong. The bright glitters definitely stand out, but I don’t think it takes too much away from the rest of the manicure. It also looks very nice over Barely Blush: the twinkly glitters in My Secret Garden and the pink pearl shimmer in Barely Blush lift each other up quite well. It’s like a marriage made in polish heaven.

Outdoors, sunlight

I’m also going to say this counts for the Summer of Untrieds Challenge, since this is the first time I’ve used My Secret Garden, and it’s the first time I’ve featured Literary Lacquers on the blog. Everybody wins.

Summer of Untrieds Day Four: Red, White, and Blue

Posted on July 4, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

When I saw the order of the day today, I knew exactly what polish I had to use. 1776 by Different Dimension is a patriotic-as-hell glitter topper with red, white, and blue stars, white bars, red dots, and tiny white glitters throughout. I bought this on sale last year, and it’s my first-ever Different Dimension polish, so I’m excited to be using it today. I feel like I cheated a bit on the challenge today, because I’m seeing a lot of intricate and ornate nail art pieces for this day of the challenge, and I just put glitter over yesterday’s creme polish. This is two coats of 1776 over three coats of Butter London’s Bumster, with one coat of Seche Vite.

I did a pretty poor job applying this. I put it on in a hurry and didn’t expect the star glitters to be so tough to get out. I managed to get one star on my left hand, but it looks great there, so it’s got that going for it. Next time, I will definitely turn this bottle over and let the glitters redistribute themselves a bit better.

It looks crazy awesome over Bumster, too. I loved Bumster on its own, and I felt a little bad painting over it, but I think these polishes compliment each other well. I love glitter over nudes, it’s such a simple look.

I thought I did a pretty good job cleaning up my cuticles, and then I went into the sun and took some photos. Nope!

Now that I’ve done this, it’s time to dive into July 4th festivities.

Wacie.com

Home of Wacie Nail Company

Tag Archives: glitter