Essie Shine of the Times Luxeffects over Orly Lollipop

Essie - Shine of the Times (Luxeffects) 1 coat over

Orly Lollipop (2 coats)

Seche Vite on top, Essie - Grow Stronger as base

Prepare for some serious picture spam! I just couldn't limit myself to only a few pictures with this one. Shine of the Times was just too gorgeous! Keep reading for more pictures and a review of Shine of the Times and Lollipop.

I can't believe this is my first time wearing Shine of the Times. I was so excited about it when I first got it and then never ended up wearing it. I love the flakie look but don't like when Shine of the Times flashes dark green/orange/brown like it does over black. Yup call me crazy but I hate it over black. Maybe I should get a cool toned flakie instead. Anyway I  picked up Lollipop and love these two together. I finally found a color that I love under Shine of the Times. Shine of the Times flashes mostly a coral color over Lollipop. It does still flash a bit of green but it looks like a lighter green. I don't know if Lollipop underneath has changed the color of Shine of the Times or if the color contrast is just creating that illusion. It flashes more light blue/purple in low light. I can't stop staring at my nails! Here is some bottle shots and pictures taken in different lighting around my house.

Shine of the Times formula was consistent with the rest of the Luxeffects collection. It has a thick, gel like formula that was very easy to control and spread. It has many small flakes packed into a clear base. Wear time with all the Luxeffects is quite good. Usually around 5 days with only minor chip wear.

Before removing this manicure, I wanted to see what it would look like matte. I put one coat of Deborah Lippmann's Flat Top on my ring and pinky fingers to show the difference. Personally, I don't like this matte. I feel like the flakie effect is already quite subtle and matte the flakie effect almost disappears entirely.

Lollipop has been overshadowed by Shine of the Times in this post but it is quite a nice polish as well. It is very  pigmented especially for a pastel creme so you could probably get away with one coat if you are really careful and don't go over spots twice. I had issues with the brush dragging away polish if I went over the same spot twice and creating bald spots. If you want to try for only one coat paint both sides first and then a final stroke down the middle. It also helps to apply the polish "floating" like you would Seche Vite. This means that you have lots of polish on the brush, so that you are not touching the brush to your nail when you are spreading the polish. My first coat was quite lumpy, but I realized after the first coat that part of the brush was looped over. I tried to pull down on the loop and straighten it but it was stuck and wouldn't budge. I think I got a defective brush where some of the bristles were folded over when the brush was attached to the handle. I snipped the bottom of the loop and straightened out the brush before my second coat which went on much smoother. I think now that the brush is fixed, Lollipop would probably be a one coater with careful application. The other Orly polish I bought at Sally's, Snowcone (a light cornflower blue creme) is a one coater so I'm hoping this will be too when I try it again.

*EDIT: Orly Lollipop is unfortunately too thick and lumpy to be a one coater even though it is really pgimented. I have tried it again.*

Leopard and Zebra stamping with OPI Fly over CG For Audrey

Base color: China Glaze - For Audrey (2 coats)
Stamping polish: OPI - Fly
Stamping plate: Konad m57
Top coat: Seche Vite, base coat: Essie - Grow Stronger

This manicure was inspired by this manicure from konoobi

She used OPI Fly and Essie Mint Candy Apple. I wanted to do an accent nail with the colors reversed (light on dark instead of dark on light) but I don't have Mint Candy Apple and For Audrey wasn't opaque enough to show up nicely when used for stamping.

This is my first time doing more subtle tone on tone stamping and I really like it. I haven't been using my stamping plates much because I haven't had as much time as I would like for my manicures lately. But stamping was actually easier and faster than I remember it being somehow. Definitely more convenient than glitter anyway when you consider the removal! Time to try out some other polishes in my collection and see which ones work for stamping. Also maybe time to buy more stamping plates :)

I was originally going to do mostly zebra print nails and just do leopard as an accent nail, but ended up with bubbles/dents on a few of my nails so I used leopard print on those nails to hide the imperfections. There isn't any pattern to which ones ended up being zebra or leopard. I think the zebra print looks much better with this color scheme than the leopard print. At arm's length, I felt like the zebra was much easier to see than the leopard.

I'm really behind on posting right now so there will probably still be summery manicures in the fall... will try to catch up though!

Nars Kutki + Revlon Whimsical

Revlon Whimsical (1 coat)
over Nars Kutki (3 coats)

I wore this mani a while ago. I wish I'd at least written some notes on it earlier because I don't remember much about it now. Next time I wear Whimsical I'll try it on it's own. Layered over an opaque light blue I think the glitter loses that suspended, jelly sandwich effect. It just looks like light pink and blue glitter over light blue. Not that it isn't pretty like this, I just feel like it's not as special or unique looking. Also, I wish the blue glitter was more visible. Over a different color or on its own I think the blue glitter would have been more visible.

I'm not too happy with my Nars Kutki right now. I bought it back in... maybe April? and worn it maybe 4 or 5 times and now it's thickened and kind of goopy. I think I only used 2 coats the first few times I wore it and now I need 3 coats and it's still lumpy. It's too thick to self level much which is annoying. I bought a bottle of polish thinner at Sally's today so I'll try that and see how it goes.

For the sake of experimenting I guess I made this mani matte. I don't really like this mani matte. It flattens the layers even more and takes away that jelly sandwich glitter effect. I used Deborah Lippmann's Flat Top to make this matte. Although I didn't like the matte effect this time, I did like that Flat Top made this mani last quite a long time. I think it was 6 days before I had a major chip which is nice when you don't have time or are too lazy to do your nails.