NoTE-Zoya Charla

Gosh, has it been a whole WEEK since I did my nails? Yeah, it has! Lemme tell you, time flies when you're up to your neck in problem after problem. Lemme also tell you this: the VA is NOT your friend, and someone needs to light a fire under their collective backsides. *grump*

Anyway, I'd been wanting to do my nails, but just couldn't find the time to do so. I had time tonight, so took advantage of that. At first, I was going to go with a bright pink, like ChG Ahoy! or maybe Nubar Honeysuckle, but thought I felt a bit more blue-green, and not so much into the pink just yet. Charla is bright, and summery, and sparkly, and will help me track where those pesky free weights are so I can get my form right. Yes, I've become something of a gym rat lately. I've got mini muscles now! lol

One coat of Zoya Get Even,
Three coats of Charla,
One coat Essie To Dry For.

Charla is a little sheer, so you need to build it a bit to three coats, where it gets pretty opaque. The formula is nice, fluid, and levels well. I love the foil finish on it. It doesn't dry textured, so you don't need a thick top coat, and it just looks fantastic.

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 YMOMC and thoughts on Castle

I have a chip on my right index finger. This saddens me. I'm not seeing a lot of tipwear or shrinkage, however.

The green shimmer is starting to get to me. I love these colors in the bottle, but not so much on my nails. It's like the sheer jelly pinks: I love the look on other people, but loathe it on myself.

Yodel has a teal blue base, which I'm in love with, and the shimmer appears green. I'd bet it's actually silver particles that reflect green under the base color. I'd love to have a polish that's the same shade as this base color. It's fabulous. Maybe Ski will be close enough.


Okay, Castle thoughts after the jump.

NoTE-Yodel Me On My Cell

Before I get into YMOMC, I feel compelled to say  how much I enjoyed Winter Wishes. I didn't want to remove it yesterday, but there were so many layers of Gelous and top coat that it was peeling away from some of my nails. I will definitely thin it some more and try again. The color is too amazing not to try.

I bought Yodel Me On My Cell a few days ago at CVS. It's what I call a gray market polish, because the serial number has been filed off. I have no doubt it's authentic, but no way to prove it. In any case, it doesn't matter to me. That store had a few other shades from the Swiss collection, and I was torn between this one and Ski Teal We Drop. I put Ski back because it's so much like Blue India, but darker. Ski has been weighing on my mind ever since, and I bought a bottle at the mall today. Figured what the heck. :D

Anyway! Yodel was today's color. The first coat was a little thin and patchy, but the second coat covered well. To be safe and really build the color, I did three coats in total, and it was well worth it. Excellent opacity, and a pretty short dry time. Finished up with one coat of Seche Vite. Gloriousness. Even the man liked it. He hated Winter Wishes for some reason. I think it was the glitter in it.

I'm not a fan of OPI's brushes. They're generally too wide, and for some reason, I have difficulty reaching the far side of my right hand nails. I have to reload the brush and paint over the skin to make sure the nail is covered. A small pain, but a pain nonetheless. Also, with this polish being so thin on the first coat, you have to use a very light hand or get major bald spots, especially near the cuticles. I don't think it would be as much as an issue with a thicker polish, such as Done Out In Deco. I don't have the bald spot problem with that one, but I do have the same problem with reaching the nails properly. No problem with Zoya or China Glaze brushes.

I like this color very much. Ski Teal We Drop is up next. Can't wait!

NoTD-Zoya Apple

Last night, despite feeling a little ill, I did my nails using Zoya Apple, a bright apple green, like its name.

One coat of Orly Bonder
FOUR coats of Apple
Zoya Armor
Qtica drying drops

Yeah, four coats of Apple. That's nuts. It's still not opaque, but I don't think anyone else will notice. I got tired of polish shrinkage with the fast dry top coats, which is why I chose to use the Armor/drying drops combo. Right away I can see a difference in glossiness. Armor isn't as thick and glossy as Poshe or Seche Vite.

The man does not like this color. I don't like its sheerness, but am not sure if I like the color.

Edited to add more info and further thoughts.
Apple's base color is a pretty turquoise shade. All the gold shimmer added turns it into that bright green you see in the pics. It's nice enough, but after two days, I got tired of it. I doubt it'll be a color I wear often, at all.

Using Armor with drying drops resulted in no shrinkage, but minimal shine. I did get less tip wear, but I'm not sure it was worth it, overall. I'll try it again with other Zoya colors.

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.

NoTD-Zoya Edyta

Dark, golden green, with gold shimmer. Very pretty, very seasonal. Does not wear well. I've had it on for about 48 hours, and I have noticeable tip wear, and a couple chips already. Also, my beloved To Dry For by Essie is not making me happy. I've been talking it up because I was so happy with the quick dry time and the glossy finish, but it failed me miserably on my FingerPaints mani, and didn't fare well on this one. It looks dull, as if I didn't use a top coat at all. I don't know what's going on with it, but at this rate, it'll quickly become a has been.

The FingerPaints mani was...interesting. The color was surprisingly bumpy and thick, and just swallowed the Essie top coat. I ended up putting seven layers of stuff on, and then it all peeled off. The color is gorgeous, and I might put a drop of thinner in to see how that works. Next time I'll go straight to the Seche Vite top coat. It's thick, so it works better with bumpy polishes.

Next up is Scrangie, by Rescue Beauty Lounge. I just received this the other day, courtesy of Saucey, who's utterly fabulous. :D After that I'll revisit the FingerPaints color, in honor of Kerry's visit to NorCal. I'm going to test something first, however. I'm curious how close the FingerPaints color and $OPI Queen of Everything are. I'm thinking about doing an accent manicure, but sort of a reverse. Most people do a "normal" color, and then choose either their ring fingers or their thumbs to apply the glitter color to. I'm going to switch it up, and have the accent color be Queen of Everything. That's the idea, anyway. I'll have to test to see how it'll look.