NoTE-China Glaze Ruby Pumps

Ruby Pumps: a classic glam red glitter.

I trimmed my nails short last night, because I wanted to wear Ruby Pumps. Such a luscious color really deserves nails that are even in length, don't you think? Since I can't lengthen the short one,  I shortened the rest. I think it looks great.

Ruby Pumps, for those that don't know, is a gorgeous red tint packed with red glitter. It's really awesome, and a polish I wish I would wear more often. I used three coats over Orly Bonder, and finished with Seche Vite. Usually glitters have a rough texture, but Ruby Pumps didn't, so one coat of Seche Vite was enough.

I can't stop staring at my nails.

NoTE-China Glaze Gamer Glam

I'd been wanting to wear a holo for a few days, and with Hayden showing a bit of tip wear, I decided to do a polish change. ChG Gamer Glam is a light/medium purple holographic color. The holo isn't strong in this collection, which is a big disappointment. Still, GG is a great purple, and I'm all about purple.

One coat Orly Bonder
Two coats Gamer Glam
One coat Essie Good To Go fast dry top coat.

GG applied well, and dried quickly, as holos usually do. I don't know what else to say about it. I had no problems with it, and it's purple. What's not to like? :D

NoTE-Dorothy Who?

Last night...late last night, I got the crazy urge to polish my nails. So I did.

1 coat Zoya Get Even Ridge Filling basecoat
1 coat China Glaze Midnight Mission (my fave blue)
2 coats China Glaze Dorothy Who? (blue glitter)
1 coat Poshe fast drying top coat

I've used Dorothy Who? before, and it was sheer enough, despite the glitter, to require three coats. I've had good results from layering a coordinating color under glitters before, so decided to do that here. Perhaps I should have chosen a different color base, since Midnight Mission is darker than Dorothy, but it's not bad. Not what I was expecting, but not bad.

Dorothy by itself will produce a somewhat bright, eye catching blue glitter look. Layering it over MM produces a darker, subdued look. The glitter looks flat, somehow. The texture IS flat, which is not how it is on its own. On its own, it's the typical bumpy glitter feel, which requires one or two coats of Gelous or very thick top coat to cover.  Blue glitter-awesome. :D

NoTE-China Glaze 108 Degrees-again

One coat of Zoya Get Even Ridge Filling Basecoat.
Three coats of China Glaze 108 Degrees.
One coat of Poshe quick drying topcoat.

This was tonight's mani while watching Zombieland for the third time. Love that movie, and the rules are good ones to use even when there aren't zombies roaming the earth.

The Zoya base coat is my favorite. I never have problems with application, and am on my second bottle. My first bottle was perfect, but this one has a tendency to get little lumps in it, which I have to brush off with the brush. Not a big deal, considering how well it works for me.

Three coats of color, because 108 Degrees is fairly sheer, like I said in the last post. :) It's also VERY bright, so if that's not your thing, put it down and back away slowly.

This polish is packed with shimmer/glitter particles, and looks amazing in the sun. It's not too shabby in indoor lighting, either. Hot pink with fuchsia/hot pink shimmer, that reflects a little bluish in bright light, and looks more golden in low light. The formula is great, and gives no problems at all in application. It flows smoothly onto the nail and levels nicely. The brush is wonderful to work with; it fans out perfectly on the nail and doesn't do anything strange. I can't say anything bad about this one at all. :)

NoTD-China Glaze 108 Degrees

I know, it's middle of the day. At least, it is here on the west coast. I had some time today, while the man was out gallivanting across the countryside, to watch some TV and do my nails.  Let me just say this color is bright and amazing, and glitters like a fiend in the sun.

Started off with one coat of Orly Bonder.
Three coats of 108 Degrees. It's rather sheer, so three or even four coats will give you amazing depth of color and good coverage. However, it looks very pretty, though sheer, at two, so it's up to you.
One coat of Sephora by OPI top coat, followed by Qtica drying drops.

Now, I have to call out the top coat on this one because it was absolutely awful. Very thin and watery, and the brush did not spread on my nail at all. Difficult to work with. Also, the combo of this top coat and drying drops is a recipe for nail dings, scratches, bubble, and an overall janked up mani. I have never had my polish scratch and get dinged up when using a quick dry top coat, or even Zoya Armor with Qtica drying drops. This OPI top coat is going into the "don't ever use this stuff again" section of my polish storage. I have a feeling I'm going to be removing this color tomorrow and trying something else, it's that bad.

Love the polish, hate the top coat.

Edit: I've removed the polish. 4 hours after doing my nails, the polish was still dentable, and a chunk of it had come off my right thumb nail. It was a bad situation all around.

NoTD-China Glaze Tronica

This evening's  mani is Techno Teal and Virtual Violet, on alternating fingers. It looks surprisingly good together. Okay, not horrible.

I'm doing this to test the durability in order to determine which polish will be returned. I've already decided to return the two pinkish shades from the China Glaze Tronica collection. I don't love the colors, and space is too limited to keep colors I don't love. The last time I wore the teal shade, it chipped within 12 hours, which is unacceptable.  I might take it back regardless because I'm not loving the color. It's verging on this weird aqua shade that doesn't look right to me.



The results of the wear test: After 19 hours and one shower, both polishes show excessive wear, with the purple one showing multiple chips and one entire corner missing. Both colors are going back. I'm very disappointed in this collection.

China Glaze and Essie

Last week I bought a couple nail polishes from the new China Glaze Anchors Away collection from Head2Toe, and got them just a couple days later. I purchased Ahoy! and Below Deck. I wore Ahoy! first. I wasn't blown away by it, but it's nice enough. Raspberry pink with microglitter. Kind of a jelly finish, and the application was smooth. As usual, it started chipping on me by the second day, so I took it off and applied Below Deck, which is one of the trendy colors these days. Mushroomy, grey, purpley, taupey color. Strange, but strangely pretty. It changes hue depending on what it's near. If it's near purple, it looks more brown; near brown or gray, it looks more purple. The formula was a little on the thick side, but that works to its benefit I think. Fully opaque in two coats, and pretty glossy on its own. I wore that for almost three days, but it was chipping on me, and had to come off.

In my shopping today, I found the new Essie display at Walmart, and bought Dive Bar. It's a dark, nearly black polish, with strong blue/green shimmer. Gorgeous in the bottle. I put that on this evening. Formula: thin and kind of watery. Has a tendency to pool in the brush, then suddenly flood the nail with polish. Difficult to control. Thin coats look watery and streaky, so I ended up doing a thick coat for the first, and following up with a relatively thin coat for the second. Good opacity and color in two coats. *sigh* I just notice I have some crud stuck IN my ring fingernail. It looks like this mani will be very short lived. I'll have to do it again, probably tomorrow. Hopefully I can manage it better next time. I've never dealt with a thin formula and a sparse brush at the same time.

I'm still wearing First Class Ticket. Applied it Friday, and am just now seeing some tipwear. It's worse on my right hand, of course. Sadly, now that it's wearing, there are also a couple of small chips, and the wear is worse than it was this morning. This one might benefit greatly from color wrapping. I really really like this color, and am not quite bored with it yet. So gorgeous. A deep, inky blurple. (blue + purple)

L'Oreal Studio Secrets Professional Magic Perfecting Base-utter crap. It's advertised as the #1 primer, but the fine print says that's from drugstore and grocery sales, excluding WalMart. There really aren't that many primers in those venues, so it's pretty easy to be the top dog. Anyway, I have a sample from a magazine and thought I'd give it a try today. It's heavy on the silicone finish, does not do a thing to my pores, and my mineral foundation is simply sitting on my skin, and is easily scraped off. At first it felt weird, then I got used to it. However, I'm distinctly unimpressed with the feel, the application, and the results. I most definitely will not be buying this product. I'll stick with my BE primer, which works quite well.

NoTD-China Glaze First Class Ticket

One coat of ChG ridge filling base coat. Every time I use it, I dislike it more. It takes a long time to dry, and stays tacky.

Two coats of First Class Ticket. I think three coats would have been perfection, but two is pretty good. The first coat looked like thick grape concentrate. The second coat covered well and brought it to near opacity. In ordinary light it looks nearly perfect. It's only when you shine a very strong light on the polish does it look less than perfect. The color, at two coats, is gorgeous. Deep reddish purple base, with a blue purple overtone, and multi colored shimmer with some blue in it.  It seems to change depending on the lighting. At one point, reddish purple, then bluish, then just an amazing purple, and the blue shimmer comes and goes. It's a lovely color.
One coat of Essie To Dry For. It seems to be an excellent top coat. So happy I bought it.

I bought the new Maybelline Eye Studio gel eyeliner the other day when I was shopping at Target. I almost put it back, telling myself I already had a gray gel liner, and that I certainly didn't need another. At the last moment, I figured what the heck and tossed it into the basket. I've used it twice, and so far I like it. The gray is just the shade I've been wanting, the texture is nice, application is easy, and I actually like the little brush that comes with it. The bristles are just the right length and stiffness to make application smooth and easy. It doesn't smudge, and lasts for at least 7 hours, so far.

I received these China Glaze polishes the other day; Emerald Fitzgerald, Midnight Mission, First Class Ticket, Bogie, and a ChG ridge filling base coat and Poshe quick dry top coat.

I had some time tonight, so instead of using the next to last untried Zoya, I decided to go with Midnight Mission, and use the two base and top coats. First impression of ChG's ridge filling base coat: it goes on as a nude shade, unlike the Zoya, which goes on sort of milky. ChG takes about three times as long to dry, and seems to cover as well as Zoya. Two coats of Midnight Mission, then a coat of Poshe, which did a great job of drying the polish quickly. It seems to be a little thinner and smell less than Seche Vite.

Right after applying the second coat, I severely smudged a finger, and had to enlist the man's help to remove the polish from that finger. Poor guy had no idea what to do, so it took quite a while. One of these days I'll have to show him how to do it quickly, just in case I need him again.

I was polishing in the bathroom because there's better light in there, but the awkwardness of the counter height made it very difficult. I ended up with polish all over my fingers. I won't be working in there again.

So...thoughts on Midnight Mission: It's gorgeous. It's been described as a navy blue with silver shimmer, and that seems a very accurate description. It's definitely a fall/winter color, but I couldn't wait. I'm also anxious to see it in sunlight, as that will bring out the color and shimmer so much better than lamplight. I swear I see a bit of tip wear already, but I'm not sure. It could be a faulty application, or freshly filed nail edges. I'll keep this on for a couple days to test things, then probably get bored and try a different color, like always.