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

108 Degrees update

While the polish is holding up very well, I'm going to remove it tonight. It's not the polish, it's me. I was fiddling with a metal pail and chipped two nails, one of them quite badly. I might be able to fix it and squeeze another day out of it, but one nail is very bad off, and the color will have to be removed tomorrow anyway.

Wrapping the tips in at least one coat of color and one coat of top coat works quite well, and really extends the life of a mani. If you don't mindlessly ruin it by fiddling with things and trying to use your nails as a pry bar.

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.

Delphinium Part Two

I've been waving Delphinium around on my nails for four days. Four! That's an astounding length of time for me. I'm pretty sure I could have gotten at least another day of wear if I hadn't started picking at it today. Unfortunately I picked at a corner at the tip, and a large chunk peeled away, so I had to remove all of it.

Overall, I'm very pleased with the wear time, and tip wear was minimal. There were a couple tiny chips, but nothing I couldn't either ignore or fill in and continue on. My normal wear time is 2-3 days before it either gets all janky or I get bored and need to change it.  I'm impressed.

Now that warm weather is here for at least a few days, it's time to bring out some brights.

I need to take the time to write up a reasoning behind this blog, my stance for the moment on pics, and a purchase disclosure. That'll be a blog post, and most will be copied to the "About Me" section. Soon.

NoTE-Sally Hansen Delphinium

Delphinium, light, lavender with a gray undertone. It's a bit dusty, and leans a bit reddish on the purple spectrum, but not too much. It would be a great spring time color. Oh, wait, it's still spring! Score!

Formula was good, spread on the nail well, and leveled wonderfully, though it wasn't very pigmented. I used three coats to get full coverage. I'm not a fan of the brush, but it's manageable. It's a little thick and bushy, and if you don't use a light touch, you can wipe the polish right off your nail.

In trying to open the Poshe bottle, I smudged a pinky nail. I remembered reading something on a nail blog fairly recently about fixing polish smudges with top coat, so I quickly applied the Poshe, and it smoothed out right away. Phew! Disaster averted.

I was up in Sacramento the other day, and went shopping. I only get up there once or twice a year, so I took blatant advantage and hit up Ulta, Sephora, and the BE boutique. I scored ChG 108 Degrees at Ulta. $6.99 though! Highway robbery. AND I forgot my 20% discount coupon. Bah. Still, it's such a gorgeous color that I'm trying not to hold its price against it. 108 Degrees is next on the list, unless we still have gloomy, chilly, damp weather, in which case I might get all gloomy with my color choice.

Update: Victoriana

Sadly, I've had to remove it. I noticed a couple small chips after today's shower, which I could live with, but a few hours later I saw a larger chip, then the polish on one of my pinkie finger nails started to separate and peel. I've never seen that happen. When I polished them, I used two coats, with Poshe top coat, and the tc and upper layer of polish peeled off. I can't go around with janky polish. No way.

I'm disappointed with the wear, but next time I use it, I'll try to wrap the tips to see if that helps. I usually forget, and my nails are usually pretty short, so there's not much room to do it.

It looks like I'm going "into town" tomorrow, and have plans to hit up an Ulta, so we'll see what I can score. :D

NoTE-Butter London Victoriana

I debated whether to do Sally Hansen Delphinium or Victoriana. Obviously Victoriana won.

I'm not sure if I love it or merely like it. I'll have to see it in sunlight and wear it for a bit to decide. The formula and application were frickin' amazing. Seriously. The polish is so easy to apply, it practically did it without me. Wow. Just. Wow.

The only thing I can complain about is that the brush is rather short. While that bothered me at first, once I finished the first nail, I forgot all about the length and just polished like a fiend. It was amazing. The polish flowed well onto the nail, leveled right before my eyes, and even covered the far side of every nail perfectly, which is something I've been struggling with lately. I'm completely impressed with the formula. If they're all like this, I want more!

I'll keep the blog updated on how it wears and any other thoughts on this one.

Edit #1: There are some things I should have mentioned last night instead of gushing. Vic, like the Zoya Flame collection, and the OPI Suede collection, has heavy shimmer, and needs to be placed with care. Otherwise, during clean up, you'll end up taking off the top layer of color, and leaving a lot of silver shimmer behind.

I still haven't seen the color in direct sunlight, but in indirect light it's very pretty. The weather's kind of iffy today, with intermittent sun, and quite a bit of wind. I don't feel like going out there.

Edit #2: Polish going strong, and wearing very well. Normally I'd have some visible (to me) tip wear, but it's barely visible. I'm my worst critic when it comes to polish, and I see tipwear when it's miniscule.

We had a tiny bit of sun yesterday, so I examined the polish in the light. It's pretty, and I like it, but I'm not in love with it.  Despite that, I can see using this often.

Update on Ski Teal We Drop

Still loving this color, though I discovered a couple of chips this afternoon. I've repaired them and applied a new layer of top coat, although the top coat I used left bits of "stuff" on some of my nails. I'm not sure if it's bits of dried up top coat or what the heck it is, but I'm not happy about it. It also didn't level well, left ridges on a couple nails, and some nails are scratched already. Not good. I'd classify this as a moderate top coat fail.

NoTE-Ski Teal We Drop

If I were to sum up this polish in one word, that word would be Amazing. Yes, with a capital A.

Opaque in two coats. It flowed onto the nail smoothly, leveled like a dream, and was perfection. I simply can't say enough good things about the color and the formula. I wish all polishes applied this wonderfully.

Ski is a dark teal blue creme, for anyone who didn't know or couldn't remember. It was released in OPI's 2010 Swiss collection. I wish I'd bought it then, instead of wasting so many months without it. I think this will be a year-round staple for me. Gorgeous!