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.

The Best of You: Interview at Sweet Sugar

Gwenn from Sweet Sugar is on vacation and is posting guest posts and interviews from other nail bloggers in her absence. I entered her interviews and ended up appearing on her blog! Thanks again Gwenn for featuring my little blog! :)

Here is the mani that I ended up submitting, my personal favorite best mani

Products used: OPI Black Onyx, Deborah Lippmann Flat Top, Konad m57, Seche Vite, Gelous (to stick on chains), OPI Nail Envy. Chains are from a random nail art stall at the night market. 

Click here to read my interview at Sweet Sugar!

Original post of this mani here

JENsations - Sticks n Stones over China Glaze - For Audrey

 

China Glaze - For Audrey (2 coats)

JENsations - Sticks n Stones (1 dabbed on coat) Etsy store here

Essie - Grow Stronger as base, 1 coat of Seche Vite on top

For Audrey applied flawlessly in 2 coats with absolutely no application issues! Sticks n Stones is another Indie polish very similar to the famous Connect the Dots by the now infamous Lynderella. It consists of black and white glitter in a variety of shapes: very small circles, small hexes, medium squares, bars, and large hexes. It required some dabbing in order to get good glitter coverage. The base is clear with some subtle shimmer, which you can see a bit in the macro shot. I had some trouble applying this polish. I kept getting way too much base on the nail when I was trying to dab on the glitter. Then when I would try to wipe away the excess base the glitter bits would move around with it. Some of the glitter also ended up with a kind of milky looking layer over it because it was covered in too much shimmer. I think maybe this is just me being OCD though I don't really think people would notice in real life. 

I also had issues with the large hexes staying down. Several of them were curled right after application, and over the course of the next few days, more them started lifting up. A few of them peeled off before I even took these pictures the next day. Most of the glitter pieces left a hole/crater looking thing behind when they fell off. I wouldn't really mind that much if the glitter just fell off, but it bugged me that the base color came off too so it was more noticeable. I don't know if this was to do with using Seche VIte or something with my application. On my right middle finger towards the tip a piece of glitter did fall off without leaving a hole in the polish (just a slight indent), but on my left thumb and right index the base color polish came off also. I did my nails on Saturday afternoon and these wear pictures below were taken on Thursday, so 5 days later. I was really happy that there is almost no tip wear and no chipping. The only visible "chips" are actually from the glitter peeling off and taking polish with it. If I could figure out how to get those pesky glitter bits to stay down I could easily leave this on for over a week I think. I'm considering buying JENsation's Shimmer FX polishes. If the formula is the same and doesn't have any chipping or tip wear without the glitter bits falling off, it would be the perfect polish to wear for an extended time!   

 

 

Hole left from glitter peeling off. The silver piece was actually a large black hex I tried to peel off when it was bugging me at work and it somehow split into layers and became silver. The silver layer was stuck down well though.

China Glaze - Flip Flop Fantasy

More color accurate picture. Sorry for the blurriness!

Glows under black light! Doesn't glow in the dark though

I was really surprised by how many people commented on and complimented these nails! I mean it is a beautiful color (and very bright and in your face) but I just wasn't expecting that many random people to take notice! Shown here is 4 coats with Seche Vite on top, Essie grow stronger as base coat. 

Formula wise this was easy to spread and control but was a bit thick and not very pigmented. I needed 4 coats to fully cover my nails without any visible nail line. In the black light picture you can see that it does look streaky/lumpy although it isn't noticeable in normal light. I'm not sure if I just have a bad bottle or maybe didn't mix it well enough before use (I rolled it between my hands a bit but didn't shake it because I was scared of getting bubbles). My coworker always wears this on her toes and said she only uses 2 coats. I did a quick search to see how many coats other nail bloggers used. Pointless cafe used 2 coats, while Rebecca likes nails, All Lacquered Up, Temptalia, and Swatch and Learn all used 3 coats. Since this is neon polish it dries extremely fast which is always nice. It dries semi-matte, not glossy but with a slight sheen that looks kind of like plastic. This chipped faster than average. I had it on for 4 days without any major chips (but 3 of those 4 days I didn't have work so I wasn't really using my hands much). My manis usually stay on for 5-7 days depending on when/how badly they chip although I do lower my standards somewhat when I get lazy haha.

What makes this polish even more awesome is that it glows under black light! It doesn't glow in the dark though unfortunately, only under black light. In the picture, my hand is under the black light we have at work to make sure the cash we receive isn't fake. My coworker told me that her nails did glow when she was at a club so this should glow under those black lights too although I haven't tried myself. I'll definitely wear this polish next time I'm at a club!

Essie - Mesmerize, China Glaze - Fairy Dust, Revlon - Stunning

One very thick coat of Essie Mesmerize followed by one coat of China Glaze Fairy Dust and Seche Vite.  (indoors)

I probably should have done 2 thinner coats of Mesmerize instead of one really thick coat. It was such a thick coat that I went over the nails twice. Not sure why I thought it would be a better idea to do that rather than just do 2 thin coats haha oops but I was really rushing. I used OPI drying spray in between Mesmerize and Fairy Dust since the  polish was so thick, but I still ended up smearing my index finger after Fairy Dust. I used a tip from Chloe's nails to fix it. Basically just lick your nail (yeah it sounds really gross but usually if its gone to the goopy stage it won't taste like anything) and the polish kind of becomes like dough and you just use your fingers to mold it so its flat on your nail with no bare spots or noticeable dents. It worked pretty well with this mani. I ended up with fingerprints in the polish but Seche Vite covered that up. The spot does look like it's missing a bit of glitter in my pictures but it isn't noticeable in real life.

Blurry picture to show holo glitter better. Probably should have taken one in the sun but didn't get a chance before it chipped.

Was going to add a coat of Revlon Stunning to all my nails but I didn't end up liking the look (way too much glitter) so I only did my left hand. Somehow it chipped way faster than my right hand, even though I'm right handed. This picture was after one day of wear (the other ones were also taken after one day of wear). (outdoors)