A girl and her love of nail polish

Archive for the ‘NOTD’ Category

30 Day Challenge Day 1: Red – Savina Ruby and Hearts

Here we go! Today I’m embarking on my first-ever blog challenge, and actually not just one but two. I’m going for both the 30 Day Challenge and 30 Days of Untrieds, inspired by Rachel from Polished Criminails, who is doing the same.

Savina Ruby, Savina Hearts

Day 1’s theme is Red. Not only does this manicure include untried colors for me but also an untried brand, Savina, which is available at Nordstrom Rack. This mani includes:

  • Savina Ruby (untried)
  • Savina Hearts (untried)
  • NYC French White Tip (untried)

Savina Ruby, Savina Hearts, NYC French White Tip

Savina Ruby, Savina Hearts
For my nails I used two coats of Savina Ruby, followed by one coat of Poshe fast dry top coat. On the accent nails, I used three coats of NYC French White Tip, one coat of Savina Hearts and one coat of Poshe.

I didn’t think of myself as a fan of red nail polish, but I actually liked this one quite a bit once it was on. It’s more of a jelly polish with a red shimmer. It went on very smoothly and seemed to dry pretty quickly, though the finish was a little bit bumpy. Definitely needed the Poshe.

Savina Ruby, Hearts

White polish can often be tricky, and NYC French White Tip was no exception. First coat was extremely streaky, second mostly covered, third did the trick. I was a little disappointed with Savina Hearts. Since the bottle is jam-packed with heart-shaped glitter, I hoped it would go on with decent coverage. But that wasn’t the case for me. I had to fish out and place the glitter.

I tried dabbing; that didn’t work so well because I was just getting lots of the base with none of the hearts. In the end I grabbed a toothpick and used that to place them on the nail. It turned out a little messy.

Savina Hearts

Next time I will try to apply a coat of Savina Hearts that has no glitter at all, just so I can build up a good base of the iridescent shimmer first, and then fish out and place the hearts.

What do you think? Any tips and tricks for applying polishes with large glitter?

Please visit some of the other bloggers that are participating in the 30 Day this month. I know we will need a lot of encouragement to get through!

30-Day Challenge, 30 Days of Untrieds

Click here to see all of the other bloggers that are participating in the 30 Day Challenge:


Category:

30-Day Challenge, NOTD, Swatches

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Zoya Lotus With Pahlish Your Silver Lining

I recently nabbed a new indie, Pahlish’s Your Silver Lining, and have been dying to try it out. I bought it earlier this month at the end of a crap day not only because I liked it very much but also because I took some higher meaning from the name since I was at that very moment trying to find some silver lining in the midst of a bad situation. It felt like kismet.

Your Silver Lining is a shimmery, sheer, milky white polish with small holographic hex, square and bar glitter.

I paired it with another new-to-me shade, Lotus, from Zoya’s True Spring 2012 collection. Zoya describes it as a “dusty blue-toned amethyst purple with colorful shimmer that reflects pink, red and gold.” I’d say that’s a dead-on description.

The application on Zoya Lotus started out nice, but I swear that it got goopier as I went along, so it was a little challenging for me. This was a brand new bottle, first use. Still, I love this color; it has a lot of depth to it and isn’t a bright in-your-face purple.
Here’s Zoya Lotus by itself, two coats plus a top coat:

Zoya Lotus swatchZoya Lotus swatchZoya Lotus swatch
Your Silver Lining is a great shade for layering, but it did take a few tries to figure out how much I needed on the brush for optimal application. I had to fish around and dab to find and place the glitter where I wanted. As a result I ended up with much thicker coats than I intended on some nails, but I got better at it. You can see that my ring finger looks milkier than my middle finger.

The (male) trainer at my gym described this manicure as “whimsical but elegant.” I thought that was pretty funny, but I think it is an apt description.

Here’s Zoya Lotus  with one coat of Pahlish Your Silver Lining on top plus top coat:

Pahlish Your Silver Lining over Zoya LotusPahlish Your Silver Lining over Zoya Lotus

Pahlish is scheduled to launch today at Llarowe at 3pmET and again at 9pmET, so you might be able to grab Your Silver Lining there. Pahlish also has a shop on Etsy.

What nail polishes have you purchased recently more because of the name than the color?

Category:

Indies, NOTD

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NOTD: Mermaid-ish Manicure

Summer’s in full swing here, and the heat’s been rolling in. Thank goodness we have a pool! Just looking at that inviting blue water is enough to cool you down, which is what led to this water-inspired mani. This color combo of turquoise/green/blue brought mermaids to mind, especially with the sparkly aspect of the glitter.

This is two coats of Zoya Wednesday topped with a coat of Poshe. Zoya says Wednesday is best described as a “faded dirty medium turquoise with green undertone and an opaque cream finish.” Well ok then.

On the accent nails I added one coat of Color Club Fly With Me, a lime-green shimmer, and then I dabbed Revlon Radiant on the tips to about halfway down the nail. Radiant is a mix of micro and medium hex blue and turquoise glitter plus silver medium hex glitter in a clear base. Topped everything off with another coat of Poshe.

You can see from the pictures that I didn’t do the best job with the application of Fly With Me on the accent nails, but I don’t think it was as bad as depicted here. I think there was a fair amount of shrinkage near the cuticles overnight (did this at night, photographed the next morning). There’s just no way I was that off.

That aside, this was a really fun manicure to wear. I really love this color combo for summer.

What colors are you having fun wearing this summer?

Category:

NOTD

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NOTD: It’s Candy Sandwich

“It’s candy!”

That’s what my husband said when I showed him this manicure, so hey, let’s go with it for the name.

The basic premise here was to do a manicure that combined a white base with a colorful glitter, and somewhere along the line I decided to make it a sandwich.

Actually I had a hard time figuring out where to stop with this one. I started with a base coat and two coats of Revlon Colorstay Calla Lily, which probably would be classified as a sheer rather than a jelly (hence I’m not calling this a jelly sandwich manicure). Calla Lily is a translucent white polish with a very subtle gold shimmer in it. This manicure was a much better use for it than my earlier, ill-fated water marble attempt .
Then I added a layer of glitter, in the form of Ulta’s Pinata-Yada-Yada which is a mix of small and micro hex glitter in a clear base. It’s got a ton of colors in there, but my eye mostly sees silver, gold, turquoise, green and hot pink.

Macro of Ulta’s Pinata-Yada-Yada

I followed that with another layer of Calla Lily and a layer of Poshe topcoat because I thought I was done, but then I decided I wanted a little more opacity on top so I added another layer of Calla Lily and another Poshe. Again, because I thought I was done.

But then I couldn’t leave well enough alone so I did accents on my ring fingers and thumbs by brushing on a bit of Pinata-Yada-Yada from the tips to about halfway down my nails, just to give a little sparkle.

Ulta Pinata-Yada-Yada

Detail Of Accent Nail

In retrospect, I probably should have stuck to just a single top layer of Calla Lily, but I still like the way it came out. What do you think? Should I have stopped earlier?

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NOTD

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NOTD: Sneeze Breeze Tips

I was dying to try out The Hungry Asian’s Sneeze Breeze and knew I wanted something simple that would really show it off and let it shine in all its glittery glory. I was inspired by this Black Ice New Year’s Eve nail art from Polish and Pearls, but in the end I chickened out and ended up with something much more basic. This is two coats of Orly Black Vinyl with two coats of Sneeze Breeze on the tips, plus one coat of Poshe.

Image

Category:

Indies, NOTD

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