Attempting to Curb My Thermal Lemming

I've loved the look of thermal polishes ever since looking at the beautiful photos from this post but wherever I looked they were sold out or about $15 per 10 ml bottle. It took a few months, a heap of unused/unblogged polishes and a low budget to realise that I would have to settle with a simple gradient to recreate that glittering polish. In December last year I acquired some most of the L.A. Girl 3D Effects polishes that are all jellies with scattered holo flakies, perfect for duplicate the look of the thermal polish I had seen.

Ok, maybe it's not an exact copy but it's inspired. I started with two coats of Dazzling Pink, a very sheer bright pink, and let that dry and then sponged on three coats of Dazzling Pink and Sparkle Ruby. I finished it all off with one coat of HK Girl top coat.

The sun was nice to show the holo but it was too bright to show the gradient properly. It looks a little too dark on these pictures.

The  gradient is a little  more visible on the photos below. Kind of... I didn't take photos in the lightbox before stamping over it but it still is noticeable, right?

I used Essie's Penny Talk to stamp what-I-think-may-be a vine motif from Moyou's Fairytale 02 plate. I like how the negative space of the stamping almost reflects the pattern in gold. It's the little things...

Did this mani fully satisfy my lemming? Yes, for a while. I'm still planning to get my hands in some thermals when the right time comes.

Till next time, 

Laura

Sunny Holographic Mani

Hello, hello! I was feeling inspired outside the GOT challenge and the Revlon Parfumarie range; this stimulus arose by looking at some pretty holographic polishes in the sun and let's face it, who doesn't like holo on their nails?

I started with two coats of Union Jack Black by Butter London in all but ring fingers, let it dry and applied on two dabbed coats of L.A. Girl in Supernova on the prepped fingers. While that was drying, which btw took forever, I applied two coats of the silvery holographic goodness that Ozotic 509 is and let it dry. I then stamped what I would like to call the stained window pattern from MoYou's Suki 04 plate with Konad's Black Special Polish. I topped all fingers off with one coat of HK Girl topcoat that helped the drying time of Supernova.

I ended up getting a lot of shrinkage on the black nails and usually I would point the finger at Seche Vite for that terrible trait, but this time I'm pretty sure it was Supernova's clear base and my piling of it on the nail. It ended up looking very thick and I actually had  a couple of the black nails pop off in one piece in the shower. :(

It was really pretty while it lasted and very rainbow-y. Blurred photo for effect.

And some  photo spam because you can never have enough holo!

Yeah, that's it from me. I'm just hoping more inspiration comes my way.

Till next time,

Laura

GOT Polish Challenege: Purple

My purple Golden Oldie polish without doubt would be B Collection by Bloom in Dubai (which is no longer in sale!!!). I have done a few posts praising it and showing it as a base and part of nail art. Since I got Dubai, I have gotten a few other purple shimmers by different brands that may have their own qualities but this one has a very special place in my heart. 

For today's challenge, I wanted to create a white based purple gradient with glequins but that turned out to be a terrible experiment. Then I had recalled this post from Penny Pinching Polish, where she tries a heap of polishes for stamping over black and white to see what works. I never really though of using sheer-ish polishes over black thinking that they wouldn't show up. Dubai as a stamping polish never crossed my mind so today was a good day as any to prove that this was a good all-rounder polish. 

The base was done with two coats of Union Jack Black by Butter London and once dry, I stamped it using Dubai and two patterns from the MoYou's Suki 04 plate. I topped it all off with one coat of HK Girl Top Coat. 

I was stoked with the way this turned out. The stamping gives the black a very subtle depth in the shade/artificial lighting but once it comes out to the sun this mani really lights up.

I didn't think I would be able to love this polish anymore but I just can't stop looking at the multicoloured shimmer. Isn't it pretty?

I had some trouble photographing the shiny version of this mani so I matted it to make it easier. Unfortunately, the matte top coat killed the shimmer and left some  bad brushstroke marks so I went back to shiny after taking the following photo.

Yeah, I like the shiny better.

I'm pretty sure Dubai is gonna stay on my 'favourite' pile until it runs out. 

Till next time, 

Laura

Revlon Parfumerie in Surf Spray, Stamping and Colour Matching

I'm gonna include three bits of information in this post so I'll try to keep it as concise as possible. 

First and foremost, I'm gonna show you another one on the Revlon Parfumerie polishes I have recently acquired. Surf Spray is a slightly-leaning-towards-aqua blue shimmer with light blue and purple almost flakie-like, tiny glitter. It is a rich colour on the bottle but it doesn't fully translate to the nails; not that's a bad thing, it looks different than expected but it's still pretty nonetheless. 

Surf Spray is very sheer and it can take 3-4 coats to reach full opacity; I may have cheated a little and put some undies on to make sure this dried quickly and I didn't use too much of the polish.  Can you tell I used two different polishes for the base?

There's not a lot of difference but if we must, I used Max Factor Mini Nail Polish in Candy Blue on my middle finger (left in the below photo) and Essence's Let's Get Lost on my ring finger (right). I could see a very slight darker duochrome effect with Candy Blue but that might have to do with the fact that CB was the darker base.

After all that, I used one coat of each base colour and one coat of Surf Spray on each nail. There was no change on the depth of the polish whether it had the 4 coats or the undies on. The formula is pretty good and stays where one puts it with the brush. It can get a bit streaky but careful application can solve the problem, if that's something that bothers you.

Oooh! I forgot about the scent. Surf Spray could be interpreted in a lot of ways but these guys seemed to go along the way of washing powder and marine scented hand wash. It's one of the scents that has grown on me and it's not overpowering, so leaving it on makes me feel like I have clean hands when they may not actually be. :/

Now for the stamping, I used an old Sally Hansen in Antique Bronze that I bought for stamping about a year ago because of the colour but it turned out too sheer; now that time has passed, it has gotten a tad thicker and it starting to stamp well on certain colours. The design came from MoYou's Suki Collection - 04 plate and I'm not sure if you've noticed but my pinky and ring fingers mirror the pattern on my middle and index fingers. Super revolutionary, right? I topped it all off with one coat of OPI Mate Top Coat. 

Now for the last part of the post I'm gonna keep it super positive. I am rubbish at picking colour combinations. I usually have to consult a trustworthy colour wheel to see what may look good together and pray that it actually turns out OK. That was until today. Looking for colour wheels on Google, I went past the first couple of results and discovered this interactive colour wheel by Adobe. I would have never thought of the combination above by myself so I was super happy that I could choose a colour close enough to the base and discover that a brown would be a good combination. Considering the base was a shimmer, I figured a simmer would be good. Voila! A good combination.

I've been playing around with it all afternoon and picking polishes from the rack to see future combination and I'm pumped to get some those out. Thank you whomever come out with it!!! I'm hoping by putting this here it might help someone else, maybe...

That's it from me, I wanted to keep it short and I'm still babbling on.

Till next time, 

Laura

Revlon Parfumerie in Espresso

I'm kinda bummed. I did this awesome mani for the GOT challenge last night and it was so sparkly I knew I had to wait until this morning to take photos in the sun. I'm not great with alarms and mornings so my plan of photographing nails went out the window. I went on with my day and by the time I was ready to snap some pics, I had some major tip wear on all my fingers. No crying over spilled milk, right? I'll recreate it again later when I feel super uninspired.

After that little episode today, I decided to keep showing you guys the Revlon Parfumerie polishes I bought recently. I chose Espresso out of the 23 I now own from that line, a black creme with green undertones that is opaque in two coats, the formula and drying time are fairly average. From the name, one could gather that this would smell like coffee and being a lover of the brewed beverage scent I was super excited to try it out. When the polish dried and the scent popped through, I could only smell rubber-burnt sugariness. Not at all what I was expecting... or pleasant, to the point of being nauseating. 

I also had some issues with bubbling but that could be contributed to me not waiting for my base coat to dry or the second thicker coat I applied on some fingers.

The one good thing I can say about this polish is that it dries fairly shiny. I am showing it with a coat of Seche Vite out of habit but it's OK without it. I think the top coat had better smell than the polish and luckily it toned it down a bit.

I know swatches of a black polish wouldn't make for a very interesting post so I added some of Ulta3 in A Lister on the tips for the glitter gradient and combined some of Essence's Let's Get Lost and Essie's Blue Rhapsody on the stamping plate. I used MoYou's plate 4 from the Sailor Collection and I think the design didn't quite come as crisp because I tried to mix the polish on the plate and not beforehand. Lesson learnt.

I never say 'don't go buy that polish' because everyone has different tastes but this not worth the money for a black creme that we all know can be bought for way cheaper than $15.95 they retail for. Unless you are into smelling burnt rubber... then maybe, but that's probably not healthy. 

I really don't know what I am going to do with it, if anyone wants to try it let me know. I'll be happy to send it anywhere in the world.

Till next time, 

Laura