Christmas Manicure: Julep Leighton and Vanessa

Christmas manicure time! I know I'm behind (perpetually), but since it's technically the 6th day of Christmas today, I'm not that far off. In my family, probably one of the most important parts of Christmas is just being with each other, in addition to church, food, and of course gifts. We draw from the Scandinavian side of our heritage and so Christmas Eve is a big deal-- we have a big meal and open presents and then go to church. Of course, we pretty much do the same thing again on Christmas Day (except for the church part-- we like to spend the whole day in pajamas). I wore the same plum colored dress I wore to a wedding in October (we had a huge debate as to what the actual color of the dress was, though I am currently forgetting what we decided on). Here's the mostly final look:

Since it was Christmas, I decided to go with a silvery manicure to match my jewelry and the wintery feel of the season (as opposed to when I wore it in the fall, which was more gold/bronze). To do this I decided to use Julep Leighton and Vanessa, which I had just bought during one of Julep's sales as part of the "Silver Belles" collection, along with a dark charcoal grey shimmer, Kim.

Leighton is a basically a liquid silver polish. Julep, in fact, describes it as a "pure liquid silver will have you shine at any holiday party." Vanessa is round multi-color iridescent glitter in a clear base. Unfortunately, I had issues with both these polishes. Leighton is decently pigmented, but like many metallic polishes, it's easy to see the brush strokes in the polish, especially if you have too much polish on your brush. I felt like I had a lot of difficulty controlling this polish-- I either got too much on my brush or too little and I couldn't get either one consistently. You only need about 2-3 coats, depending on how thick of a coat you use, but I wanted to tear my hair out in frustration while applying this polish.

Sadly, Vanessa was also a pain in the butt work with. Gorgeous, yes, but the formula was extremely thick and almost gluey. Yuck! I'm also fairly certain it started to eat away at Leighton when I layered it, which is annoying. However, I can't tell if it actually ate away at the base polish, or if it's just glitter sitting on the polish that hasn't caught the light and so just looks flat. Since Vanessa is such a thick glitter, it eats top coat and you'll need at least two layers of top coats to give this a smooth, glossy finish. 

I used the Julep base coat and Essie Good to Go top coat.

First up, I've got Leighton by herself.

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Natural light:

And then Vanessa layered over Leighton.

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Natural light:

I was really enamored with the idea of this manicure, so I'm sad that the polishes I decided to use were so frustrating. Boo! I think it looks alright, but it was annoying that there seem to be pits in base color, even if maybe there weren't actually. I have the feeling this might look better over the other polish I received in this set, Kim, which is a darker grey. When I swatch Kim, I will try again with Vanessa. I'm not giving up yet! In hindsight, this manicure also seems maybe a little more like a New Year's Eve manicure, but I still think it's pretty-- for either holiday!

Football (Non)Friday: Alamo Bowl Edition

Hey football fans!! Tonight is the Valero Alamo Bowl, featuring the Washington Huskies against the Baylor Bears (and current Heisman winner, RG3). The game kicks off at 6pm Pacific time, so this is officially late. Whoops! Nothing like waiting until the last minute! This is Washington's first appearance in the Alamo (which just became a Pac-12 bowl last year when we were still the Pac-10) and also the first time Washington has ever played Baylor. UW faces an uphill battle as Baylor is on a five game winning streak and their quaterback, Robert Griffin III just won the Heisman trophy. The Dawgs are kind of in a lull-- they managed to win the Apple Cup fairly decisively, but otherwise had a very lackluster finish to the regular season. It should be a high scoring game if both offenses are firing on all cylinders. But enough football talk, let's get to the polish!

Tonight's football manicure features Rescue Beauty Lounge Mismas and Essie Luxeffect top coat As Gold As It Gets.

Mismas is seriously the be-all and end-all of purple creme polishes. Take from a purple polish lover, folks! While I don't own every single purple polish out there, I do own a lot of them, and Mismas is perfect. That's right, I said it. PERFECT. Mismas was created for RBL's Fall 2009 Blogger Collection for Michelle Mismas, whose blog All Lacquered Up could also be considered the be-all and end-all of nail polish blogs. Mismas is a deep purple grape polish and seriously, pretty much has the best formula on a polish I've ever encountered. It's insanely well pigmented and goes on super smooth and shiny, even without a top coat. Mismas is almost a one coater, though I did notice some balding with just one coat, so two is perfect. It dries quickly, so that's really not an issue at all. If you are looking for the one perfect purple creme polish for your collection, this is it. I'm not even joking. The price tag is a little steep at $18/bottle, but seriously, this polish is purple perfection and in my opinion, totally worth it. Mismas was sold out when I first became obsessed with nail polish, but has recently been re-released through one of the RBL Bring-It-Back votes and is still for sale on the RBL site.

Of course, my camera did not capture this totally accurately and the pictures all lean a little more blue than the polish actually is in real life. Also, I used my mom's Ottlite for a few of the artificial light pictures to see if I could get a slightly better picture of the true color of Mismas-- it wasn't entirely successful.

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Natural light - shade:

Gorgeous, right? I was a little loathe to change it, but I recently picked up one of Essie's new Luxeffect top coats-- As Gold As It Gets. This is a clear polish that is chock full of golden flakies in various sizes. The polish is a bit on the thick side, but not too unmanageable.

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The gold flakies give this an unusual finish and it's pretty cool looking. My camera makes them look more iridescent, but they're pretty much straight up gold in real life. I will have to try this over some other polishes, but I think it's really cool and I'm glad Essie has stepped up their game with some cool top options, similar to the other big name brands out there.

The score currently stands at 21-14 in Baylor's favor. LET'S GO DAWGS!!

Revlon Mistletoe

The next polish I have for you is Revlon Mistletoe, from their Spice It Up 2011 Holiday Collection. I saw Mistletoe featured on a couple other blogs and it was one of the few polishes that jumped out to me in the display when I saw it. To me, Mistletoe is a unique color and there aren't many out there like it. The base is a deep greyish pine green with a golden shimmer through out the polish. I've seen several bloggers compare it to L'Oreal Owl's Night, which I swatched here. They are similar in terms of shimmer, but the base colors are definitely not the same.

Mistletoe is a nicely pigmented polish, but I found the formula to be a little on the thick side. I only needed to use two coats, but I had to be careful to avoid gloppy polish. You'll see from my pictures that I had a little bit of trouble controlling the polish and it got a little sloppy. But that was pretty much the only issue I had-- Mistletoe is from Revlon's relatively new Top Speed line and the polish did dry pretty quickly. At least, I certainly didn't notice that it took an inordinate amount of time. (I think Revlon promises these polishes set in 60 seconds, but I didn't time it.) I used Cult Nails Get It On base coat and Essie Good to Go top coat in these pictures.

I'm not real thrilled with the pictures below... I think I need to go back and reswatch this at some point in the future. I put Mistletoe on as a fully manicure for yet another holiday party and I do think these pictures really show you the true color of this polish. I think you can tell there is a greenish tinge to the polish, but my photos make it look kind of grey and brown. I think the pictures in natural light are the best.

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The only polish that I can think that might be in any way similar to this polish is Rescue Beauty Lounge Anne, a polish that I just received (!!) because it was recently brought back. Now that I have all the polishes from the Tudor Queens collection, I will be swatching those soon and you can decide for yourself! In the meantime, while I don't necessarily gravitate towards green polishes, Mistletoe is a very unique color and so I needed to have it for my collection.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Black Russian

Merry Christmas to everyone! Hope you have enjoyed the holiday! I will have my actual Christmas manicure in a couple days... for now I am enjoying my time off and my family. 

For my second holiday party I decided to pull our Rescue Beauty Lounge Black Russian, at the suggestion of my husband (who rarely voices an opinion about my nail polish).  I was wearing a red, black and white colorblocked dress and I think he thought that Black Russian was sexy and vampy-- in addition to sort of matching my dress. Which, of course, it is!

The RBL website describes Black Russian as "short, dark and gutsy - layers of ruby red flecks are suspended in this black polish for fathomless depth of color. It's goth, all grown-up and very sophisticated." Hard to argue with that, right? The idea of this polish is sort of similar to Wet n' Wild's Behind Closed Doors (you can see my post here) but Black Russian was created first (though I'm not sure exactly when) and originally sold out and was brought back in a recent vote by the RBL fans-- and you can still find it for sale on the RBL website! Also, the two polishes are both black bases with red glitter, but definitely not dupes! The red glitter is small and round, and fairly subtle in the dark base color. The "black" base is not quite opaque and also not quite pure black either and so you need at least two coats to get full opacity. The polish also dries to a matte gritty finish and so you definitely need a top to make it shiny and smooth. I used the Julep base coat and Essie Good to Go top coat in my original manicure.

Just as a note-- I took these pictures after I had been wearing this for a day and so I put on another coat and use the Julep top coat. As you can see, the top coat did its job and is nice and shiny, and also dried fairly quickly. However, it smelled TERRIBLE! I opened the bottle and my nostrils were invaded by this horrible skuny scent. Yuck!! It's a shame, because the top coat seemed to work fairly well and at least didn't dry with any sort of scent. I don't know if I can get over the smell, though, to use it on a regular basis.

But on to the pictures! Unfortunately, I feel like these picture didn't come out very well and don't do Black Russian any justice, but you can get a feel for what the polish is like.

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I was a little disappointed the red glitter didn't come through more-- it looks gorgeous in the bottle but is much more difficult to see on the nail, especially in low light. It's there, of course, but in low lights the black base and red glitter sort of blend together to make a dark reddish brown looking color. But it's still a really awesome polish and doesn't really detracted from the coolness-- the red glitter is small and subtle-- delicate while being dark and vampy at the same time! I feel like I was probably expecting something closer to Behind Closed Doors, which isn't the fault of poor Black Russian! 

a england King Arthur

Moving right along, I now have another polish from a england to show you: King Arthur. The polish is named after the legendary British king (most likely an amalgamation of several different historical figures) but has given us many familiar stories and myths-- Guinevere and Lancelot, the Holy Grail, the Knights of the Round Table. I love Arthurian legends, and there are a lot of books out there I still need to read!

King Arthur is described as a "tungsten, steel gray with subtle diamond shimmer" by the a england website. This is a pretty apt description-- my much shorter description would be a shimmery charcoal grey. King Arthur is insanely well pigmented and was practically a one coater. I did find the polish to be a little runny-- make sure to avoid having too much polish on your brush or nail, otherwise it could get gloppy. Because of the metallic quality of this polish, you do need to be a little careful of brushstrokes and streaks of pigment, especially if you apply thicker coats of polish.

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Natural light:

I wore King Arthur to my first holiday party with a cute plain skirt:

While King Arthur may not immediately stand out as a "holiday" color, but the shimmery grey color seems appropriate for winter in general, especially with all the grey skies around Seattle at this time of year. I love grey polishes, so the shimmer in King Arthur makes it a winner in my book.

Julep Trina

Ok, this is the last Julep polish I'll have for you for awhile, promise! I have more on the way, but will move on for a little while in the meantime. This was the last polish in my November Maven box (along with Diane and Michelle). Trina is a gorgeous polish! Julep describes it as a deep aubergine, and apparently the polish is named after Trina Turk, who happens to be a Seattleite who picked this color for Julep's collection. After some research, I discovered that Trina Turk is a designer-- if you're interested, you can visit her website.

While Trina is a definitely deep aubergine, it's so much more than that! Trina has an aubergine base, but is full of gorgeous shimmer-- under the light it sparks with both red and blue shimmer. Not noting the shimmer is a crime, because the shimmer makes this polish. I only used one coat in the pictures below, however, two coats probably have been perfect-- Trina was fairly opaque but I noticed some imperfections when I photographed it. I used Julep's basecoat and no top coat-- it's a little bumpy on my ring finger. Even with no top coat, Trina is still pretty shiny, which is awesome, but I always put a top coat on my finished manicures. 

Artificial light. You can really see the aubergine base as well as the shimmer in these pictures: 

Artificial light with flash. You can really see the shimmer with the flash, but the base turns much more purple than it really is: 

Natural light - shade. It was difficult to capture the shimmer in these pictures, but gives you a good idea of how dark the case is:

So Trina is a gorgeous polish-- I think this could be a great holiday polish due to the deep, velvety color and the shimmer.