Swatch Sunday: Elevation Polish’s Pitaraq

Posted on February 15, 2015 by Stacie Wacie

Hello, reader! For Swatch Sunday this week, we’re going to look at Pitaraq by Elevation Polish. I’m wearing one coat of Pitaraq over two coats each of Maybelline’s Poolside, OPI’s OPI… Eurso Euro, and Marc Jacobs’s Midnight in Paris with one coat of Digital Nails’s Ain’t Nobody Got Time for That top coat.

Pitaraq is described by Elevation Polish as a shimmer topper; it consists of a clear base packed with blue, silver, and white flakies and blue shimmers. This topper is very easy to apply; one brushed coat is enough to cover the nail in wintry shimmer. The consistency is perfect; it’s not thick or goopy like toppers sometimes are. Drying times were good; I didn’t notice any excessive or prolonged periods of wetness or stickiness. It’s really easy to put on and use.

Inspired by the icy winds of Greenland, Pitaraq evokes, to me, the fierceness and cruelty of nature, as well as inclement weather and extreme conditions. It’s like an ice storm in a bottle. The cremes I used for undies were completely transformed; they are now shimmery, metallic, artcic versions of themselves. This is such a fun topper; even though it looks tame and demure in the bottle, but it really packs a punch.

Because spring is coming, we’re getting more sunshine, and so I’m able to start taking outdoor photos again. Look at this in the sunshine! It’s crazy. Every flakie reflects light and makes it super shiny. It’s absolutely mesmerizing.

As of this publication, Pitaraq is for sale at the Elevation Polish shop, though it has been discontinued. Act soon if it’s something you’re after.

I bought this polish myself.

Manicure Monday on Tuesday: Post-Vacation Pink Moons

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

I’m back from vacation, and the wacie.com hiatus is over! I had a blast while I was on vacation, but I felt a bit guilty about ignoring the blog. I actually took my laptop and some polish along with me, thinking I would have time to update while travelling. I seriously overestimated the amount of free time I would have. I also didn’t take a whole lot of nail pictures while I was gone, even though I painted my nails; painting my nails while tipsy in a hotel room at 1 AM does not make for good manicures. Anyway, I’m still trying to get my groove back, so this week’s post is not only late, it’s probably also deviating some from the usual format a little. I was gone so long, I actually forgot how I normally take pictures.

I decided to do something easy this week, just to celebrate being back in my natural habitat. I neglected my usual hand and cuticle care, and also suffered a lot of breaks while I was gone, so I spent a lot of time just soaking and taking care of my nails, and after all that, I just didn’t feel like doing something intricate or time-consuming. Also, I’d had a plan for these two polishes before I went on vacation; I have no idea now what it was. This week, I’m wearing a mystery color from Maybelline, and Sephora by OPI’s Dear Diary….

I expected Dear Diary… to be much more sheer than it came out on my nails. The first coat was sheer and pretty streaky, but the second evened it out. There are still some places that are thin and bald, this is most evident on my thumb, if you’re able to see it at all. On every other nail, it’s mostly opaque.

Sunlight

I have no idea how to identify this Maybelline polish. It’s a shame, because even though it’s an oldie, it’s a gorgeous color. It’s a rosy mauve with a pretty shimmer. It doesn’t seem to wear well; I put it on yesterday; this isn’t even 24 hours later. I’ll chalk this up to my nails being so short I can’t wrap the tips.

This bottle comes from a time way back when I had a problem peeling the stickers from things, so that’s how it came to be a nameless mystery color. I’d really love to know its name. If you can identify it, please help me out!

Manicure Monday: Neutral Gradient

Posted on April 8, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Here’s another entry into the “I thought this would turn out better” files. Generally, I like the colors, and I always like how my gradients turn out, but I kind of expected more from this color combination. The brown is too cool for the nude, and looks purple in direct sunlight. That’s not really what I was going for.

This is another case where the quality of my polish is far lower than the quality of my top coat. I don’t even know the name of that Maybelline polish; it lost its labels long ago. I think I got it in that same outlet shopping excursion as last week’s old-as-dirt Maybelline polish; it’s all goopy and thick and was hard to coax out of the bottle. I used Seche Clear this week because I couldn’t get the Bonder bottle open. I bought Seche Clear by accident, thinking it was Seche Vite, but it’s not a bad base coat. This is the first time I’ve used it in a full manicure.

I don’t typically do neutral colors like this. They’re understated and don’t pull much attention, completely the opposite of my personality. I keep telling myself that nudes and neutrals don’t have to be boring, and even though it’s a nice change from the bright colors I usually wear, it doesn’t really feel right. One thing I do like is how shiny they are. I can see myself in them. Thanks, Seche Vite.

Manicure Monday: White, Brown, and Orange Dot Gradient

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

After last week’s accidental Italian food manicure, I knew one thing was true. I probably couldn’t do much worse than pizza nails, and if I did, I would really have to screw up for that to happen. I was in a tricky spot, though. After seeing many of the nail artists on Reddit doing designs with dots, I wanted to try one. I wanted this magnificent waterfall of polka dots cascading down my little nails. After searching for tutorials, I found a tutorial from Chalkboard Nails and followed it as well as I could. It’s not quite there, but it’s not bad for my first attempt.

It kind of looks like animal spots, now that I think of it.

These are some of the saddest looking bottles of polish I have. The Claire’s polish doesn’t have a name, but it’s chunky and thick and even though there’s some light glitter in the bottle that doesn’t apply well to the nail, making it bumpy and coarse instead. The old Maybelline polish was an outlet store find about eight years ago; I can’t believe I even still have it. Wait, yes, I can, because I use everything until I lose it. The orange/yellow LA Colors is part of my paint your nails so you don’t go crazy shopping binge. It’s kind of watery, kind of uneven, but it looks nice against the white. I was worried it wouldn’t show up well at all.

I always feel weird using Orly and Seche Vite with these old and cheap polishes. It’s having Dom Perignon with my Big Mac. Earlier manicures with that white polish were never successful; it would always slough off in flakes like dandruff by the second or third day. Of course, that was before I discovered that there was a purpose for top coat after all.

Manicure Monday: Red Gradient

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I spend a lot of time doing my nails. Basically, I set aside my entire Monday for it. It wasn’t so bad when I stuck to solid colors, I could be finished in an hour. In recent months, I’ve gotten into more intricate and time-consuming methods and techniques of nail art, so it can take all day to finish them, but when I do finally finish, I have a beautiful manicure and a fantastic sense of accomplishment.

This manicure was against me from the very beginning. In theory, it was a great idea. When I tested it on my mannequin hand, it looked fantastic. When I started, I had to fight it every step of the way. The dark red with glitter polish is very old and thick and refused to drop off the brush the way I wanted it to so I could sponge it on. By the time I finished, I’d actually emptied the bottle. When I added the matte top coat, I felt like I had sucked the life out of it. This morning, while I was in the shower, I picked at the cuticles a bit and took too much off, and when I tried to smooth it down with acetone, I just made it worse. On top of that, it’s raining this morning, so I didn’t have any natural light to help my photos. I also don’t know what that bump is on my middle nail. Even after all of that, though, I’m pretty happy with it. It didn’t turn out quite the way I wanted it, but I love the gradient. I keep staring at it.

Yes, my desk is ugly. Yes, that’s polish on my keyboard. Yes, that’s a burger sticker.

There’s the stuff I used. That Maybelline bottle is so old that all but the front sticker has come off, so I can’t tell you the name of the shade, not that you could probably buy it anymore. Also, I used to have a real problem with peeling the stickers off of bottles.

There’s another reason I’m writing this. Five years ago, I stopped biting my nails. When I was younger, I’d watch my mother paint her nails, and then I’d feel bad about my own nubby nails, so I’d stop biting. My nails would grow and be long and gorgeous until something stressed me out, and that was it, they were gone. I went through many such phases as a teenager. It wasn’t until I was in my early twenties that I finally managed to stop for good, and now that I think about it, it’s probably because I was able to turn to alcohol during stressful times instead of just biting off all my nails. Save your nails, drink a beer? That’s really bad advice, don’t follow it.

Wacie.com

Home of Wacie Nail Company

Tag Archives: Maybelline