I hope everyone had a safe and fun Memorial Day. The hubs and I stayed home and didn't do much, but that didn't stop me from making a patriotic mani. I started off with two coats of OPI's Manicurist of Seville. This is a beautiful creme red that is completely opaque in two coats. Since I was going to do a bit of scotch tape mani, I used Seche Vite to get it to dry faster.
I then taped off each nail, one at a time, at a diagonal and applied OPI's Light my Sapphire.
I topcoated that, then used China Glaze's Crackle Glaze in Lightning. Now, I'll be honest, I fully expected it to look like crap. This is the third time I've used this partitcular color of Crackle, the first two times looking awful. I had read that people had had better results if they had topcoated before using it, and I had starting doing this with other Crackles/Shatters simply because I'm too impatient to wait for my base/s to dry. I pleasantly surprised on how the white turned out this time, but I'm still glad I have OPI's White Shatter coming to me since it's supposed to be better than China Glaze.
Now, lately the texture of Shatter/Crackle has been making me a little OCD, so I used two coats of SV after the Crackle.
Ok, now I have to talk about my previous mani. I got a little lax this last week and didn't post it, and went au naturale over the weekend. I absolutely love the color I used as a base for this; it reminds me very much of a gemstone called Alexandrite. Alexandrite is a color changing gem that will look like an emerald in daylight and ruby at night. It's beautiful and horribly expensive xD
OPI's Not Like the Movies is, I believe, a duochrome. This amazing color will look like a few different colors, depending on the light. I think I had read that there a slightly different formula for this color, but I believe mine is the original since I had gotten when it was first released.
The first pic is inside with a flash.
You can see even the color looks different from the bottle to the nails, as if it were two polishes. This is 3 coats, by the way. Second pic is inside without a flash.
Third is outside.
And since I hadn't done it before, I used Black Shatter over it and topped it with 2 coats of SV.
Looks like Blogger ate my post that I had all set last Friday. So, here we go, again >.> I'll redo Friday's post and go on to today's.
For last Friday, I had posted about my latest layering mani. I used OPI's Suzi Says Feng Shui and Sea Ya Later Sailor! I first did two coats of Suzi Says, which was completely opaque in 2 coats, without any streaking.
Then, I applied 2 coats of Sailor. I prolly could have left it at one, but I wanted a little more shimmer. The resulting color was so much prettier than I thought it would be. It reminds alot of a doll hair color that I've used. Yes, I dabble in customizing dolls ._.
After reading about the Summer collection that Fingerpaints has available, thanks to Chloe's Nails, I went out and picked up Outta Sight Orange and Psychedelic Sunshine. First thing I noticed was the consistency differences between the two. Orange is a nice, workable formula while the yellow is...... gross. Thick, goopy, hard to work with. I added 3-4 drops of lacquer thinner...... maybe half a dozen times to try and thin it out. That worked a little, but it's still quite thick. I love the color but I doubt I'll use it much because it is a pain. I did a pedi with Sunshine, and it didn't turn out so well.
This past Sunday, hubby and I went to see the new Pirates of the Carribean. In honor of that, I wore OPI's Sparrow me the Drama and Silver Shatter. I didn't take a pic because I'm sure most of you know what those two look like by now lol.
Now, for today's mani. I'm a day early with my pink mani, but I think that's ok :P I kept it pretty simple this week, just the polish and a bit of nail art. I chose OPI's Do You Think I'm Tex-y? Now, I know alot of people have a problems with the sorbets from the Texas line and regret buying them, ect. All I can say is, why buy something and not read up on it a little? They're not difficult to use, they're meant to look a little sheer. This color reminds me of watermelon, especially after 3 coats, which is what I did.
So, for today's Pink Mani, I wanted to try something a bit. I'd seen this suggested a few times along with some nice looking pics: layering different colors of Shatter. Since I finally have two colors, Blank and Silver, I gave it a whirl.
I started off with my absolutely favorite pink polish in the world, OPI's Santiago Sangria. Sadly, it hasn't been available for years. Mine's almost out, so I'll have to look to Ebay again to get. This was, like, the second OPI color I'd ever bought. I get so many compliments when I wear it.
I topcoated over my second layer of SS, so it would dry faster. Dry is the key when using Shatter. Then I added one layer of Silver Shatter and topcoated that. Before long, I'm gonna have to get a second bottle of Silver, I'm using it so much lol!
The Silver I applied like you normally would polish: cuticle to tip. Once it was dry, I applied the Black Shatter side to side to create more depth, then two layers of topcoat. I'm really pleased how this mani came out, and can't wait to finally get other colors.
Firstly, this wasn't the color I was going for. Don't get me wrong, this is pretty and summery (since it's as hot as friggin' summer here!), but I was trying for VW Beetle green. What I got is a little more yellow than that green.
Second, i'm surprised this mani lasted until today, Saturday, since I did it on Thursday. Just couldn't post until today because Blogger was being retarded. The reason I'm surprised the mani lasted is this: I started off with 3 coats of OPI's Fiercely Fiona. If I had known it would still have alot of streaks after the second coat, I definitely would have used a ridge filler as a base. Even after the third coat, you can still see some streaks -.- Not happy about that.
Since I was going for a shimmery look, I added two coats of OPI's Sit Under the Apple Tree. It's a pretty, shimmery, sheer lime green that's perfect for layering. I could gotten away with just one coat, but meh. I did two anyways.
Lastly, I added a little Fimo flower to my ring finger as a finishing touch.
I've been taking notice of this trend for quite awhile. It started some years ago, in clothing first. Then in last several months it went to hair trends. I myself managed to take part in that, although not intentionally. What happened was, as you can tell from my profile pic, my hair was black. I decided on New Year's to bleach that out and go red. Three bleachings later, I ended up with light blond (prolly close to my natural color) roots progressing to orangey red ends. When I colored it with the red I chose, it was ombre shaded. Looked really cool, too :P
Now this trend has moved to nail fashion. I've seen some very pretty combos, and decided to do this for Pink Wednesday. I chose 5 cremes: Alpin Snow, Got a Dat To-Knight!, Sparrow me the Drama, Shorts Story, and Dim Sum Plum, all from OPI. Except for DSP, I used 3 coats of each, mainly because I'm OCD about streaks in creme polishes. Please ignore the airbubble in 4 of my pics; I believe the only reason I got that was because of the butterfly on my ring finger xD
So, last week I had posted about getting 2 colors and the Silver Shatter from the Pirates of the Carribean collection from OPI. One of the colors was Mermaid's Tears. It's kind of a darker, drab mint green in my opinion; very pretty for spring and summer. I did 3 coats of Mermaid's Tears, because even though it pretty opaque in 2, I still had streaks.
I then added one coat of I Juggle...Men and topcoated with Out the Door. You can't see it real well in the first pic, but more so in the second.
And finally, one coat of Silver Shatter.
I was supposed to get this up yesterday, but that didn't happen >.> My husband got into an accident going to Walmart and that just completely screwed up the evening.
I was so excited on Thursday. I got my order from aveyou.com. What did I get?????? Two of the Pirates of the Carribean colors and Silver Shatter from OPI! The Silver Shatter is amazing; I'm thinking I should have gotten two bottles, lol. I went with a color combo that I had seen suggested on OPI's fan page: I Vant to be A-Lone Star and Silver Shatter. I Vant to be A-Lone is a pretty light blue frost that's perfect for spring and summer. I did 3 coats of it and 1 topcoat because I was about to have dinner :P
Now, I've been reading and watching the tutorial for the Silver Shatter, and it's been suggested that you want to apply it a little thicker than you would the Black. I already apply the Black pretty thick, to get a chunkier effect, so I just applied the Silver at about the same thickness. I love how it turned it out! Then I did two more coats of Seche.
So, I've been rather busy since my last post. It seemed like one thing after another, capping it all off with losing my internet Monday and not getting it back until yesterday afternoon -.- This was AFTER we had waited 3 MONTHS for the phone company to come bury the all important landline so we can use our internet. Yeah, not happy. I actually did today's mani on Monday night, because I had nothing better to do (hubby goes to bed early in order to be up early =/), so these are the pics.
I started off with 2 coats OPI's Shorts Story. Imo, this is THE Barbie pink. A very pretty medium pink, not too bright. I really think this a pink that would look good on anyone; I myself am very picky about the pinks I buy.
Apparently Photobucket is completely retarded today >.> In spite of my editing, it's cutting off a quarter of 3 pics, even after re-uploading and editing again. So on to the next.
Now, I've seen many complain about Teenage Dream and Last Friday Night chipping badly, even with Shatter/topcoat. I find that using a base color helps it last longer. Yes, I know they both are pretty on their own, but to reduce chipping, you might want to do that. I added one coat of Teenage Dream and one coat of Seche, because I was impatient and wanted to go to bed soon :P
Then Black Shatter and two more coats of Seche. I was really hoping to get the Silver Shatter over the weekend, but none of the stores/salons I checked had it yet. I ordered it from aveyou.com along with Mermaid's Tears and Sparrow me the Drama. Hopefully, I'll have that in a few days so I can get pics of it.
