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.

Moonstruck, part two

Friday night I painted my nails with Confetti's Moonstruck. I was initially unsure how I felt about the color, but after wearing it for nearly two days, I kind of like it. It's an interesting color: grayish one moment, brownish the next, changing depending what color is near it. I AM noticing moderate tip wear. This seems to be normal for me these days. I guess I should start wrapping the color over the tips to see if that will help.

This afternoon I started getting bored with the color and drug out my Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure. This is an opalescent, flaky polish. The flakes flash mostly gold with some green showing depending on the angle of lighting. One coat over Moonstruck, then a layer of top coat. Voila, a new color!  It's settled down into a steady brownish tone, and the flakies, shining gold, give it a lovely orangey/coppery flash, almost like a foil overlay. I'll probably mattify them tomorrow to see how it looks. Experimentation is fun.

Nail of the day: Moonstruck, by Confetti

Confetti is a newish polish brand I read about on a nail blog, and found in CVS. Was it $2 or $3? I can't remember. Fairly inexpensive. Moonstruck is a gray, brown, mousey taupe shade with a bit of a purple tinge in some lights. Creme, no shimmer at all. I applied one coat of ChG ridge filler base coat, two coats of Moonstruck, and one coat of Poshe. The first coat of color was streaky, and there were some bald spots where the brush had pulled most of the color off the nail. I applied the second coat a little thicker to make up for it, and it was really nice. The polish leveled out nicely, and everything seems covered. I'll know more tomorrow, in the sun, of course. I'm not sure how I feel about the color, but tonight I like it well enough.