Swatch Saturday: Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Self-Satisfied

Posted on August 30, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

Swatch Saturday this week is glitter chaos! I’m wearing Self-Satisfied from Blue-Eyed Girl Lacquer, a smorgasbord of neon glitters. I’m wearing one dabbed coat over Eaton Terrace from Nails Inc., and Saltwater Taffy and Skylight from Cover Girl, topped with one coat of Color Club’s clear coat.

BEGL describes Self-Satisfied as a glitter topper “predominantly yellow and green neon glitters with pink, blue, orange, and purple neon glitters, baby blue holo moons, fuchsia dots, and silver holo butterflies”. I’m not sure it’s possible to count every size, color, and type of glitter in this bottle. Attempting to do so would probably result in some kind of head-clutching space madness.

Since I dabbed this polish on, I’m not sure how long it took to dry, but it seemed dry enough after a 15 minute drying period. The glitters spread evenly enough, but I will admit that I placed a few here and there, just to cover some bare spots. Application is pretty typical for a glitter topper like this, but the look you get is so unique and so worth it.

This isn’t the first time I’ve worn Self-Satisfied; I brought it on vacation with me a couple months ago. I took a picture of my nails with the Washington Monument. I’m wearing it over Julep’s Cody.

Self-Satisfied, and well as its insane pink counterpart, Watch the Walls, are on sale at the BEGL store for $6 each. I adore both of these polishes, and I definitely say they are worth grabbing.

I’m going to hijack the end of this post to say goodbye to an old friend. Last August, I bought a four ounce bottle of Seche Vite. Everyone thought I was crazy to buy so much at once, but I was living alone at the time, I couldn’t get to Sally Beauty whenever I wanted, and I got tired of having to buy a new bottle every few weeks. It was so worth the $15 I paid for it. Last Wednesday, I used the very last of that giant bottle. That giant bottle of Seche Vite has gotten me through nearly every manicure in the past year. Good night, sweet prince.

This is the day I got it. My polish is OPI’s Get Your Number.

My interim top coat is Color Club’s clear coat. I’m not sure if this is a full-fledged top coat, but it dries quickly and leaves a nice shine, and that’s enough for me. This is my first time using it, so I don’t know how well it’s going to wear, but we’ll find out. Either way, it’s fun using something new.

Manicure Monday: Vesper

Posted on June 30, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

It’s Manicure Monday again, and I’m excited because it’s a wacie.com first: textured polish! I’ve been buying these up like mad, but this is the first time I’ve ever featured one on the blog. This is OPI’s Liquid Sand in Vesper; I’m wearing three coats of it without topcoat.

Vesper is a deep plum polish with black grainy glitter. You can’t see much of the purple, except around the edges of the nails. The first coat presented more purple, but multiple coats makes it harder to see. It dries with a coarse, gritty texture, as is intended. It sparkles a bit more in lower lighting; in the studio, it just kind of looks like spray-on truck bed liner. I couldn’t capture that in the studio. I probably could have in the sunlight, but I was late taking pictures today and it was pretty dusky by the time I got outside.

This isn’t to say I don’t like this polish, because I do. Nothing says summer fun like a plum, right? However, it’s not my favorite Liquid Sand. My favorites are still the ones with more emphasis on the glitter than on the texture. In any case, it’s a cool look, and I’m not sure if textured polishes are passe yet, but I’m happy to finally get around to reviewing one.

Manicure Monday: Garnet Jelly Sandwich

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Stacie Wacie

This week’s Manicure Monday was so much fun! I know I’m going to hate taking this off in a couple of days. I rarely get to do jelly sandwiches, so I’m happy about having the chance, and doing something besides slapping glitter down on polish and calling it art. Today, I’m wearing two coats of OPI’s Which is Witch? between coats of Disney Villains Varnish Mother Gothel.

Mother Gothel is a deep burgundy, and when I got it, I had no idea it would make a jelly sandwich like this. I swatched it once and I put it away until I started playing with it, planning a future manicure with it. I don’t remember when or how I decided to see what it looked like over glitter, but after I saw it, I couldn’t not do it. To me, this is the perfect translucence for a jelly sandwich: you can still see the holo shine from the glitter, but not the glitter itself. This is a look I love a lot. On its own, Mother Gothel is very shiny, like it could do without a top coat shiny. With top coat, my nails just look like tiny little garnets.

OPI’s Which is Witch? is special to me because it’s one I had my friend in New York send me. She has a local salon that sells OPI for half the price Ulta does, and even after shipping, I still paid less than I would have at Ulta. Also, I don’t even think I knew what this one looked like when she bought it; I don’t remember asking for it, and I think it was comparable to something else I was looking for that they didn’t have. I love it, though; there are so many kinds of holographic silver glitter in it. A couple of the bar glitters didn’t want to play nice; you can probably still see a couple of them I couldn’t get off of my cuticles.

Regardless, I am amazed at how this turned out. Note to self: do this more often.

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 On the Road: Birthday Cupcakes

Posted on October 7, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

It’s my birthday week, so I’m visiting my boyfriend in Atlanta for the week. Unfortunately, this means I have one photo of my manicure, taken with an iPad. Unfortunately, it means I had to type this blog entry on an iPad as well.

They look kinda melted.

I used a lot of colors in this manicure, as you can see. Here’s a list:

Green: Sally Hansen’s Mint Sprint
Blue: OPI’s Eurso Euro
Pink: P2’s French Kiss
White: Sally Hansen’s Hard to Get
Accent nails: Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer’s Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!

Several days before I left, I packed everything I would need for this manicure. I put all five polishes into a bag with my dotting tool, pointed cotton swabs and acetone, striping tape, tweezers, and whatever else I would need to successfully complete this mani. When I started, I ended up peeling off my old mani, which took off a bit of my natural nail, but it also meant I didn’t disturb my boyfriend’s six housemates with bad acetone smell. Also, since it was a mani with rhinestones, it also meant I didn’t have to go through the kitchen hunting for foil or anything like that. So I’d already started on a bad foot. Then when it was time to start the dotting, the dotting tool wasn’t in my bag. I went through it twice, I looked in other bags several times, and it was nowhere to be found. I ended up making all my dots with the end of an unwound paper clip. It definitely shows. While this isn’t some of my best handpainting, it’s not my worst, either. Actually, it may be my best. I’m awful at handpainting.

So, the polishes. Eurso Euro had a really weird smell, somewhat different from the usual OPI smell. Now that I think about it, I have a dark blue P2 crackle with the same weird smell. Do these dark blue pigments just smell differently, or what? It had really nice coverage, and was easy to work with, but that smell. I can’t get past it. The mint green Sally Hansen is an Insta-Dri, so of course it was opaque in one coat and ready to go right away. I didn’t use the P2 for much, other than the cherry on the top of the cupcake, but it’s probably just as nice to work with.

I think the glitter crelly, Floppy. Hoppy. BUNNIES!, kind of stole the show here. Yes, that’s butterfly glitter you see there, as well as stars in a couple different colors, squares, and hexes. It’s a limited edition polish from Blue Eyed Girl Lacquer, and you only get it by ordering the whole Buffy the Vampire Slayer-inspired collection. Holos aren’t really my style, so they felt bad for me and gave it to me anyway. It’s an excellent polish, and I kind of dislike how exclusive it is, because it’s the best one in the collection, in my opinion. If you want in on this or any of their other polishes (you do), here’s the link to the BEGL store.

I really hate typing on an iPad, so I guess I’ll end it here. See you guys when I get back from vacation!

Manicure Monday: Blue Marbling Over Gold

Posted on September 2, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Today I have two colors: one I absolutely love, one that’s kind of meh. I also have a new technique that gave me a result completely unlike what I expected, and not in a good way.

Quite some time ago, cutepolish posted a tutorial for water spotting. It’s done much the same way water marbling is; you drop polish onto water, but this time, you spray it with alcohol, which makes holes in the color. You dip your nail in, and like magic, you have this cool effect. Well, I got something completely different. It’s not bad, but it’s not what I was going for. I think the alcohol product I used may have been the culprit; I used a body spray that had been in the fridge for a while, so it’s probably my fault.

My two colors this week are Teal the Cows Come Home by OPI, and Amelia by Julep. Amelia looks beautiful in the bottle, but is rather sheer; I have on two coats, and you can still see my nail line. Teal the Cows Come Home is gorgeous after two coats, but after the marbling technique, the light color beneath, and whatever effect the alcohol may have had on the polish, the color is thin, barely visible in some places.

Julep’s Amelia, OPI’s Teal the Cows Come Home

Having said all that, I like these colors together. The summer is ending, the last days are fleeting, and I feel that urge to preserve it, to capture it in any way possible. I dislike autumn; I dislike the cooling temperatures, the leaves, having to wear a jacket, the muted colors, all of that. Well, autumn itself isn’t so bad, but it’s really just a stepping stone to winter, and winter and I aren’t friends.

Manicure Monday: Matte Gold Sparkles

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

Here is another great manicure ruined by cheap top coat.

It started so well. I used two coats of this very dark, very opaque OPI shade called We’ll Always Have Paris. It looked purplish in the fluorescent supermarket lights, and when I got home with it, it was like a deep brown. It still looks purple in direct sunlight, but it’s brown enough that it worked for my purpose this week. I’m still not entirely sure what color it even is, and I’ll admit it I just bought it for it’s name, because I’m kind of obsessed with France. I love these dark, vampy colors, though. They remind me of middle school, when I wasn’t allowed to wear black nail polish (or black lipstick, or dye my hair black), but I could get away with just about any other dark color. As a result, I wore lots of of dark purples and silvers and browns to get the same effect. I still love how it makes my nails look.

The notch on the ring finger is from picking at dried polish around the cuticle. Entirely my fault.

The gold sparkles are As Gold as It Gets by Essie. This is one of the first Essies I ever bought myself, way back around Christmas when I’d gotten some money, and I had to walk the whole mile to Walgreens to get a bottle of acetone because the nearer store was out. While I was there, I checked out the nail polish. I’d come all that way, right? I didn’t yet own any Essie polishes, I had money rolling around in my pocket, I splurged and bought as many as I could carry. I spent literally every cent I had on Essie polishes and acetone. Anyway, I love the Essie LuxEffects line, and I like this one in particular. It gives any color an iridescent warmth and a unique finish, one that’s different from gold leaf or glitter. Adding the matte top coat to it guarantees you can see every piece of gold.

OPI’s We’ll Always Have Paris, Essie’s As Gold as It Gets, Revlon’s matte top coat

Somehow, I don’t know how this happened, the top coat completely smudged my tips. Somehow, it ate through three layers of polish, even though I’d given it ample time to dry so as to avoid this. I am so mad at myself for using up all my Seche Vite. I think I’m going to just buy one of those mega large bottles and be done with it.

Manicure Monday: Orange Jelly Sandwich

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Stacie Wacie

I have nothing to say about these nails, except that they look like pizza and I can’t get past it.

The orange polish is called Y’All Come Back Ya Hear, and it’s from OPI’s Texas collection from 2011. I got it and a few others from the collection for free some time I had a rewards coupon from Ulta. I was pretty unhappy with them because I didn’t expect them to be translucent, which is my own fault for not testing them first. It wasn’t until recently that I learned of the jelly sandwich and gained a new appreciation for these sheer colors. I did my first jelly sandwich with Too Hot Pink to Hold ‘Em from the same collection, and I loved it. I had the same high hopes for this manicure, but things kind of fell apart when I couldn’t find the right glitter.

My test nails started with a coarse holographic glitter that looked okay, but was missing something. I tried almost every glitter I had, and none of them gave me that Eureka! moment I get when I know I’ve found the right one. At least, not until I saw It’s a Trap-eze sitting on the top of my polish box. I picked it up and tried it on my mannequin hand. This was the one.

In tests, it looked great. In practice, on my actual nails, it looks like pizza. It looks like vodka sauce. There was more white color in the glitter polish than I thought there would be, which is why the orange looks creamy and tomato-ish. The orange cancels out most of the colors from the glitter, which is why only the greens seem to stand out. I just don’t know about these. I mean, I’ll live with them for the week, they’re not that awful, but I wanted something like the pink ones that got a lot of attention from everybody.

This is the first full manicure I’ve done with the Seche Vite top coat. I used it instead of the Top 2 Bottom I usually use because the glitter went on kind of thick and I’d wrecked one during my frog hunting adventure yesterday. I knew the Seche would dry faster and prevent any other accidents, so I used it instead. I never want to use another top coat.

So yeah, this week was a nail fail, but it’s okay. It was a good experiment.

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