Random Manicures - The Sequel

Hello everybody!

Hope you all are having an enjoyable week. Sorry for that lame excuse for a post I left you a couple days ago, but I feel so bad that I don't have a lot of time to post. I am in the 8th week of my Spring semester, which means I'm pretty much exactly at the midpoint. Mid-semester is always the busiest time, excluding finals, so I'm trying really hard to keep up with my school and work commitments, and sometimes blogging gets pushed aside unfortunately. Friday starts my Spring Break though, so I'll definitely have more time to do some swatching and posting! =] You can look forward to seeing some of the SOPI Glee polishes (if they ever arrive in the mail), my 3 free Zoyas, some Viva La Nails decals and accessories, and some e.l.f. cosmetics, all of which have been sitting in my house waiting for me to get home.

That's my little song and dance. =P I'm sure I've told you something similar before, but it's true. Onto the pictures!

These are all manis I've had on my computer since fall semester. I did find my memory card though, so hopefully I can get some more recent pictures up soon.

This is one of my favorite manis ever and I got so many compliments and questions about it. It's really simple - NYC Skin Tight Denim Creme, and after two or three days, I topped it with one coat of Essie Matte About You. No shiny pictures, sorry, just matte ones. When I first discovered the nail blogging world, seeing pictures of Russian Navy Matte drove me crazy, so I bought Skin Tight Denim Creme specifically to be used with Essie MAY and recreate the look =p. I loveeee this!









The NYC polish is just two coats (could get away with one), formula was great, and at 99 cents, it's a great way to fulfill a lemming.

Moving right along, next up is Pure Ice Iced Copper, an orange-leaning copper polish with a finish between shimmer and metallic. I bought this to fill the copper polish hole in my collection, and this one is really really pretty. Two, maybe three coats? I really like Pure Ice polishes! (Sorry for the one lonesome picture!)




And next is China Glaze Ingrid. Holy crap, my nails are so long. They actually look fake. Ahem, anyway. The first couple pictures are the only ones that are color accurate. In the last two, the color is pulling oddly green. Hm. But I believe this was three coats. Taupe/brown with pretty gold shimmer.











HOW RIDICULOUS do they look?! I don't think I could grow them that long, especially in this weather, even if I tried.


And finally, since I noticed how long my nails had gotten when I was wearing Ingrid, I pulled out Claire's Calm/Wild, because I figured the color change would be very obvious on my long nails. This is three coats, and since my hands are cold all the time, the polish most of the time was a uniform magenta color, but after I washed my hands the color change would be very apparent for a few minutes.


Midpoint color.


"Warm" color.



Ditto.


"Cold" color!



Midpoint.



Midpoint. Flash.



Midpoint.


Thank you so much for reading! You guys are amazing!

Janna

What Would Have Been an Awesome NOTD

Good morning =] It's 12:01 here, so I can say that.

Here's a little bit of a recap: On Sunday afternoon, I finished my PHD Challenge entry and decided to change my nails for a bowling party fundraiser thing. I decided on China Glaze Purple Panic (neon), a gorgeous very pink toned purple with subtle pink shimmer. I did my manicure in 3 coats and it dried matte, and while I liked the look, I still topped it with Seche Vite so that maybe my nails would be more protected from breaks.

Got home from the party having broken my thumb, middle, and ring nails on my right hand and chipping my pinky. =[ Guess that was the price for bowling with long nails. I didn't fix them for the next day, but instead I just topped them with two more coats of polish, skipping top coat this time, and now I can show you how they turned out.

Here's my left hand, which used to be my short one but now it's my long one =P (All of these are without topcoat)





I really love this color and this was the first time I've ever used it. That little pinkish flash you can sorta see is really pretty with topcoat.

Andddd my poor right hand (WARNING: THESE ARE ALL EXTREMELY OUT OF FOCUS, and I have no clue why. I need a camera with a real "macro" setting and not just a "close up" mode):





My thumb was the first to go, and as soon as I lost that one (I cut it down before taking this picture, to sort of even it out), I switched from an 8 pound ball to a 6 pound ball. I'm a weakling, I know this. Anyway, those are my poor nails, and I cut them down this morning and tried to lift my spirits with a glitter polish. You get to see which one tomorrow =]

Talk to you soon,

Janna

My Icing Polishes

This is sure to be a quick post, since I only have two Icing nail polishes.

Here they are!


Paparazzi and Chase Me

These are definitely unique in my collection.

Paparazzi. This color is AWESOME. Kind of a rosey copper base loaded with shimmer, glitter, and chunky holo glitter! Click to enlarge!!!



I really like how this one (above) came out. HOLO GLITTER!



You'll pretty much be blinded by this polish. This is three thin-ish coats. The formula was chunky, but what else can you expect? It wasn't a huge pain to remove, but I think some of the holo glitter stayed stuck to my skin for at least the whole rest of the day. BUT WORTH IT!

Chase Me. Cute name, pretty color. This one is a dark teal matte polish, much darker than the bottle picture shows. At first I thought it'd be close to Orly's new polish from the Plastix collection, Viridian Vinyl, but this is darker and bluer. (I don't own VV, but this is what I can tell from swatches by others.)





Dried really fast and showed every application flaw, as mattes do. I thought this would be more opaque; this is three coats. I'd say it's more of a satin than a super flat matte finish. I definitely want to wear this a lot come fall, but I may have to either put it over another polish or practice better application skills (or both).

That's all for this time. I purchased these (obviously) at a store called Icing in my local mall for $4.50 each. What do you guys think?

Janna