Mummy Mani

Nailside posted more awesome pics on Tumblr, and the next thing I know, I'm cutting strips of Scotch tape. :) This is Zoya Raven over butter London Victoriana. It turned out pretty well. There were a couple of places where the tape pulled up the polish, but I think it's because I wasn't careful.

butter LONDON Victoriana

Just for you, Gail! :)

Let me start off by saying that Victoriana was not what I was expecting. Pictures I'd seen online looked like the base was lighter, and more blue-green. Not the case irl. At least not for my bottle, but that's okay. I love it anyway!

Victoriana's base color is almost a Wedgewood blue. Similar to Rescue Beauty Lounge's Catherine H from the Tudors collection. There is also a very obvious, in-your-face silver shimmer. I like the shimmer a lot and find it to be the thing that makes this polish different from other blues.

The formula was great. It is thin, but very pigmented so I was able to get great coverage with 2 coats. I switched it up and used Zoya Anchor base coat and am finding much less shrinkage with Seche Vite. Also wrapped my tips this time, so I'm sure that helped as well.

butter LONDON Bluey

This is the first polish I got from the ULTA bogo free sale. It caught my eye as soon as the press releases for the Fall 2011 collection came out. Knees Up looked fab, and Wallis was very pretty... But Bluey? Bluey! Then I saw the British slang dictionary on butterlondon.com and decided I had to have it. Cannot turn down a polish named for porn. :)

butter LONDON describes Bluey as a peacock blue. I would definitely agree. I've seen some bloggers note that there is much more green to the polish in the bottle than on the nail, and I would agree. Still beautiful and I'm glad I was able to snatch it up. Especially since the online store sold out of all the polish in about 2 hours.

Below is 3 very thin coats over Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps and under a coat of Seche Vite. I didn't wrap my tips and got horrible shrinkage. I think it's the SH. No worries though because Victoriana is mocking me every time I see it. She's next. :)

Zoya Reece

I didn't put this on last night because of the OWWWP thing, but hey, it's Wednesday and I'm wearing pink! A fabulous pink if I say so.

Bestie sent a package of goodies a couple of weeks ago, and threw this in as she wasn't crazy over it. Yay for me! Zoya's formula is so wonderful. I had near-opacity at one coat, but 2 gives a great depth and let's the duochrome (pink & gold) really pop.

Just realized that Wendy Torrence would love this polish... Yay for random movie references.

I took a pic of my other hand this time because I took a chunk out of my L ring finger when I was shaving, and it's super obvious. I have gotten ridiculous shrinkage with the Seche Vite and this one. Given the fact that I have 19 Zoyas, I think I'll invest in their color lock system.

China Glaze Loft-y Ambitions

This beauty is included in the Fall 2011 Metro collection from China Glaze and was gifted to me by Bestie. It has a lovely silver shimmer that disappears (sadly) on the nail. Application was a dream. 2 thin coats worked just fine. The color sort of reminds me of a grape Jolly Rancher. Mmmmm... :) Also, as you can see, I decided to matte-ify the tips of my nails with Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love.

Explosion manicure... Sort of.

Got bored and decided to try a scotch tape manicure I saw on Nailside's tumblr. (Tutorial here)

I decided to go for butter London Yummy Mummy after I took off DS Mystery. It was a nice, neutral palate cleanser, but then I decided to try something new. I used Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne for the explosions. Needless to say, I love it. I've gotten several compliments at work.

You should check out Nailside's other tutorials as well. They look easy, but very cool.

OPI DS Mystery Matte-ified

I was talking with Bestie last night about matte polishes and decided to see what Mystery looked like with a coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love. I love it! This is a pretty accurate representation of the color and the shimmer.

OPI DS Mystery

I tried sooo many times to get a good picture of this polish, but it keeps coming out way too dark.
Mystery is a blackened purple with small, irregular gold and red glitter. Beautiful, vampy, glittery. I didn't let dry well between coats and got some drag on my thumbnail. Waiting a minute or two solves that problem. It dries little bit satiny, but a coat of Seche Vite solves that.

Thanks to Bestie for sending it to me. She also sent some other polishes you'll see here soon, and a copy of The Warblers. :) (currently listening to them covering Maroon 5 - it's like Bestie is here!)

Layering! Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice

I picked this polish up over the weekend at Meijer. I had recently seen it floating around the blogosphere, and knew it was a rather hard to find LE, so in the cart it went. Honestly, I'm a sucker for fall and pumpkin anything, so I'd have gotten it even if I thought it was ugly. Which I don't. :)

It's very sheer. Round orange glitter suspended in a smoky jelly base. I put two coats over China Glaze Brownstone and lookit!! I swear it makes me want to jump into a leaf pile. I love it! The finish is very smooth. I used a coat of Seche Vite for the quick-dry-ness, but didn't need it to smooth things out.
I remember seeing someone layer this over Essie Super Bossa Nova and it was fab. If I can find it again, I will link.

UPDATE: Laura from LaquerWear is the brilliant lady who layered this over a bright fuchsia polish. See it here.

China Glaze Brownstone

This polish is from China Glaze's fall collection - Metro. There were lots of great colors (which you can find swatches of all over...) but this one fills a hole in my polish box.

I love browns and bought Zoya Cola a while ago because I loved the brownish brick red color of it, but the formula was uncharacteristically horrible and didn't look good on my nails. Brownstone, however, is fabulous. Below is 2 thin coats that went on beautifully. I really like China Glaze's brush. I did no clean up at all on this mani, and it looks pretty good.

I want to keep it on longer, but I also picked up Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Pumpkin Spice this weekend and am excited to wear it. I just might be all matchy-matchy tomorrow. :)

China Glaze Peace on Earth

I think this color may have been the first mani I actually posted on the blog. It looked way too yellow under our eco-friendly lights, so here's another (and much more accurate) look.

This was part of last year's holiday collection from China Glaze and I was lucky to get it for 50% off of 50% off at Sally's in January. This is 2 coats over Zoya Anchor and under Seche Vite. I've found that the combo of Anchor and Seche Vite works really well for me. I've gotten at least 4 days of wear from every mani I've used it with.

I was talking about nail polish with the PA student who's doing clinical at my office, and told her that I use a great fast dry top coat. She asked what it was called and I told her it was a french name and I'd probably butcher it, but it's called Seche Vite. She started laughing, but said it's because it means "dry fast" in French. How original...

OPI Steady As She Rose

Behold! I lemminged this sucker for months before my pal hooked me up. I saw all the Pirates preview pics and was pretty unimpressed, but decided that this one looked nice. I don't have many pinks and the ones that are in my collection are much brighter.

Stephanie's post on Short n Chic made me really WANT it. I didn't want to pay shipping on one polish though, so I tried my hand at frankening. I came close, but not nearly dirty enough.

Application was wonderful. I used 3 very thin coats over Zoya Anchor and slapped a coat of Seche Vite over it. I wore it for six days before I got a chip, and there was very little tip wear. This is unheard of for me. I usually have a chip within the first 3 days.

I'm very happy with it. The color is lavenderish pink with a dirty look to it. I really hate the candy look that light polishes can give. It's very distracting when I type on a black keyboard at work. I had such an awful time getting an accurate picture of the color. Please ignore my horrid cuticles. I've done a shit job of taking care of my nails lately.