Some interesting nail related links

Some links to share with you!

First up, a brief history of nail polish over at Beautifully Invisible. Considering all the other stuff that gets published-- why is there no book on the history of nail polish?! Some interesting tidbits in article-- very cool if you're interested in history or nail polish or both!

Then, for any science nerds out there, Zara over at Never Unpolished is starting a series called "Learned and Lacquered", focusing on what makes up nail polish. Her first post is up and is on nitrocellulose. Fascinating stuff! The would-be chemistry major buried inside me is loving it!

Essie - Fiji

I saw this on another blog awhile back and decided to snag it for myself. This is a very pretty pale pink, very chic. I was singing in my church's Hymn Festival last weekend and decided to wear something neutral and flattering-- so it wouldn't stand out to much. I also feel like this polish color would look excellent with a nice tan. This is the first Essie polish I've ever actually used and I do have to say, the experience wasn't great-- but I think that's mostly on me. The brush is fairly small, compared to most of the brans (OPI, China Glaze, etc) and so I struggled with that a little bit. Also, I think the polish, which was nicely pigmented and covered my nail very well, needed a light touch to prevent dragging. I used three coats to even everything out, but probably could have gotten away with two if I had been better about applying it!

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

 

Natural light:

Sephore by OPI - Gleek Out

I'm a huge fan of the show Glee and so when I saw Sephora was coming out with a line of polishes inspired by the show, I was very excited. I went ahead and bought their mini 6-pack which included three exclusive polishes that weren't a part of the regular line up. Gleek Out is one of the regular polishes that was included in the 6 pack. Sephora describes this as a "sheer lime with fine gold glitter" and this is what they think it looks like:

Sheer is definitely right-- I used three coats and still had some weird bare patches on my middle finger--probably my own fault during the application. I believe you could get this to be opaque if you use thicker coats or more thin coats.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade):

Natural light (sun):

 

Because I was wearing China Glaze's Cha Cha Cha last week, I decided to layer Gleek Out over it because it seemed like they were slightly similar. I suppose apple green is not quite the same as lime, but it was pretty much the closest polish I had. I think they worked fairly well together. This is one coat of Gleek Out over Cha Cha Cha.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade) - you can really see the gold glitter:

 

Natural light (sun):

China Glaze - Cha Cha Cha

Another polish from China Glaze's Island Escape collection! This is Cha Cha Cha, which is a bright green polish with gold shimmer. To me, this falls squarely in the "apple green" category. It looks like a Granny Smith apple painted on your nails. Despite it's beauty, this polish was kind of a pain to work with-- this is three coats and the polish was extremely streaky.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

 

Natural light (shade):

Natural light (sun):

China Glaze - Blue Iguana

And here we have another polish from China Glaze's Summer 2011 Island Escape collection, Blue Iguana. Personally, I think they should have called it something like "Blue Lagoon"-- this is a beautiful bright (almost electric) medium blue glass fleck polish. The color is gorgeous and definitely reminiscent of tropical waters. This polish was a bit tricky for me compared to 108 Degrees-- it was a lot thicker and goopier than I anticipated. I tried to do some thin layers but I am still working on technique (always!) so my later layers were a little thick and I had some issues with bubbling, but the sparkle and a top coat helped cover that up.

Artificial light (taken in the early morning, so there's some sun as well):

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade-- look at that shimmer!):

Natural light (sun):

A really beautiful polish-- I just wish it had applied better! Or... I need to need to work on my application technique.

Sephora by OPI - Cab Fare and China Glaze - Lighthouse

In honor of the beautiful, bright sunshine that Seattle has had the past couple of days... I bring you a lot of sunshiney yellow goodness. This manicure I did last weekend, because I was going to wear my super cute orange and white sundress with yellow shoes to church and I needed a manicure to coordinate. So I decided on a sunny yellow to go with the shoes and not clash with the orange of my dress. And then it decided to pour down rain starting Sunday night, but I still had my pretty nails.

Anyway, after viewing swatches online, I knew Lighthouse by China Glaze was a little sheer, so I decided to layer it over another yellow so I didn't have to build up too much polish on my nails. Going through my stash, I stumbled across Cab Fare by Sephora by OPI, which I got on sale awhile ago. Since I hadn't actually tried it out, I decided it would make a good base for my manicure.

Cab Fare is a beautiful shimmery daffodil yellow. It was a little sheer and a little streaky, but it evened out fairly well in two coats and since I was going to be putting another color on top of it, I decided not to pile it on too much. It's still a little sheer and you can see my nail line, but all in all, it's not such a bad color!

In artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade):

Natural light (sun):

So that's my base! Now to add Lighthouse, which is a very pretty yellow jelly-based glass fleck polish-- lots of gold flecks in this one. This is from China Glaze's Spring 2011 Anchors Away collection (I'll get around to more of those later, promise!). I also apologize that I don't have a picture of Lighthouse alone to show you-- I'll get that when I redo this manicure this weekend as I do take two on my outfit.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade):

Gives it a nice bit of pop, doesn't it? Even though I apparently can't wear yellow at all, I love the color and I loved this on my nails (whether or not it looked good is another question) and there is something so cheerful about the color yellow, especially in this dreary weather that is passing for spring right now.

OPI - Silver Shatter

When I purchased my bottle of Black Shatter, I also decided to snag a bottle of Silver Shatter, part of OPI's Pirates of the Caribbean collection for this spring. Though I haven't tried it out yet over any of the colors from that collection, I decided to pull it out and try it over my Sally Hansen Gray by Gray. Like before, it was fun, but definitely not something I would pull out all the time.

Artificial light:

Natural light (this photo makes me think of Wedgewood porcelain):

Sally Hansen - Gray by Gray

Like I said, I'm sucker for any sort of blue nail polish and I have a secret passion for grays too. This polish was recently review over at All Lacquered Up and when I saw it, I decided I had to have it. After scouring the city for it (Walgreens, Bartell Drugs), I finally found it at the Fred Meyer a block away from my house. D'oh!

Gray by Gray is from Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure line, and claims to be 5 steps in one: base coat, nail strengthener, nail treatment, color, and top coat. I decided that I would use my own base coat and top coat as well, to prevent staining and making sure my nails dried very quickly-- especially since I decided to do this manicure on a Friday morning before I had to go work. What was I thinking?!

The polish was excellent and went on very smoothly in two coats. The brush was a little hard to work with-- very wide and firm-- more like a paddle than a brush. But with my wide nail beds, it only took 2-3 strokes to cover my nails.

Now... pictures! I apologize for the crappy quality-- I think I've been lazy and so I haven't been getting very good pictures. Also, the weather here was sucking, so the light hasn't been great either. Lastly, as I mentioned above, I did this manicure on a Friday morning before running off to work. I was so careful and the manicure set wonderfully and looked great all day-- until I got home and somehow managed to scratch my middle finger. Argh!

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade):

Really liked this color and I would be willing to buy more of these polishes.

China Glaze - Orange Marmalade

So after my hot pink and black crackle/hot pink manicures I decided to continue the trend and go for something else bright-- trying to inject some spring/summer into the dreary weather here in Seattle. Is spring ever going to come? Anyway... what's a nice chaser for hot pink? Orange, of course!

I decided to go with China Glaze's Orange Marmalade from their Summer 2009 Summer Days Collection. It was a collection of six glass-fleck polishes, and I have wanted them ever since I saw them reviewed over at All Lacquered Up. In fact, I already have one, Watermelon Rind, which I reviewed as part of my St. Patrick's Day greens.

Orange Marmalade is a beautiful orange polish with yellow-orange glass flecks. So pretty! I personally love orange, but I don't actually have that many orange polishes. Love it!

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade, as per usual, sigh):

OPI - Black Shatter

If you pay any attention to nail polish trends, then you know that crackle (or shatter) polish is huge right now. Practically every brand is making them-- China Glaze, OPI, Sally Hansen, etc. And they're extremely popular-- in fact, they've been selling out like hot cakes. If you don't know, basically crackle/shatters are polishes that dry extremely quickly and then crack as they dry. You apply them over another color of polish and when they crack, you get to see the color of the polish underneath.

I'm not really sure where I stand with crackle polish-- I tend to prefer just plain nail color. However, I finally managed to get my hands on OPI's Black Shatter and Silver Shatter. And this past week I decided to take Black Shatter out of a test drive, just for the hell of it. Why not, right?

Since I was already wearing China Glaze's 108 Degrees and it was such fun color, I decided to layer Black Shatter over it. Crackle polish drys matte, so I added another two layers of top coat to even things out. In my picture, I applied a slightly thinner coat of shatter than my pointer and middle finger, resulting in the slightly different shatter patterns.

Artificial light:

Natural light (shade):

Natural light (sun):

 

The hot pink and black combo is a little 80's, but a lot of fun! I don't think I'd use the crackle/shatter all the time, but I think it's going to be fun to pull out every once and a while.

Summer 2011 Nail Trends

Refinery29.com has a guide to nail trends for this summer. If you're looking for some ideas for what to wear on your nails, this has a lot of great suggestions!

China Glaze - 108 Degrees

After some pretty neutrals, let's get back to something with some zing! This is 108 Degrees, from China Glaze's Summer 2011 Island Escape collection. Yowsa, this is some pink. It's basically a hot pink (leaning towards magenta/fuschia) glass fleck polish, with pink and gold shimmer. It's very fun and summery-- and very, very pink.

This polish applied really well-- I used two coats here. It's a little sheer and in certain light situations you can see a little bit of visible nail line, but it didn't bother me enough to apply a third coat.

Artificial light with flash:

Artificial light:

 

Natural light (shade):

Natural light (sun, for the five minutes it was out the other day):

This polish was just a lot of fun to look at-- so happy. Even though I generally tend to gravitate towards blues and purples, I could have worn this polish for days.

OPI - Femme de Cirque Collection

This year, OPI released four new shades as part of their Soft Shades line-- soft, neutral, pretty much universally flattering. And sometimes, even I will admit, you don't want to wear something bright and bold (or dark and vampy).

First up is So Many Clowns... So Little Time. This is a creamy beige colored neutral, with hints of pink. It is a little streaky in the first coat, but I didn't help the situation by doing some overzealous brush strokes. I used three coats in the end, and you'll be able to see it's still a little streaky, but I think that's mostly my fault  and not the solely on the polish formula.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade):

 

Sunlight:

 

Next up is Step Right Up! This is a very very barely there light pink. This is also sheer, like So Many Clowns, but this time I had a bit better handle on the formula and so this time I had much less streaking. I used three coats here.

Artificial light (this looks almost exactly like So Many Clowns, but that's something with the camera-- there is more pink in it, honest):

Artificial light with flash (you can see the pink much better here):

Natural light (this is all in the shade, because it literally went from being sunny to raining in the span of 20 minutes. Seattle, you suck!):

Finally, there is In The Spot-Light Pink. This is also sheer polish, but the most "colored" of the three neutrals. In fact, this polish has a jelly-ish feel to it. I also used three coats here.

Artificial light:

Artificial light with flash:

Natural light (shade again, it literally start raining when I went out to snap a photo):

To top it off (see what I did there?), OPI included a sheer top coat packed with iridescent shimmer called I Juggle Men. I've shown you guys pictures before, but it's so pretty that I'll share it again:

Unfortunately, the weather was so changeable that even though I put the top coat on all of the colors, I don't have a lot of great pictures of them. I've got a decent one of I Juggle Men over In The Spot-Light Pink:

 

The top coat adds a nice subtle shimmer to the neutral to make it a little more interesting, but still appropriate for settings and occasions where you need to wear something a little quieter. Definitely worth having and if you're looking to add some neutrals to your collection, these are pretty nice.