Football Friday: Boise State Edition

Hey all! This week has been really busy but we have important business tonight-- it's my first Football Friday of the year! Tomorrow kicks off the Husky football season in our brand new, remodeled stadium-- we haven't see the inside in a year and a half!! So it's really exciting. We're throwing a big tailgate to celebrate and while I know it'll be a lot of fun, I also know I'll be exhausted when all is said and done! In any case, the Huskies take on the Boise State Broncos, who we last faced in Maaco Las Vegas Bowl-- a mere 8 months ago! Since this is a big game-- not only are we looking to avenge our bowl loss, but also to break in our new stadium the right way-- with a win!! So to celebrate, I wanted to do something fun and new, so I decided to try a saran wrap manicure. I hate saran wrap because it always wants to stick to itself, but that quality it what makes it perfect for this manicure!

For my manicure, I broke out two of the polishes from my Zoya LE Zang Toi trio and used Peterhof Palace (also known as Zoya Ziv), a gold foil and Imperial Russia, a metallic purple. I put down two coats of Peterhof Palace, let that dry and then put one coat of Imperial Russia. Using a balled up piece of saran wrap, I then touched it on my nail to create the final design.

Artificial light - flash:

Natural light:

I'm really happy that this technique worked out-- I love it when that happens! It was really easy to do and I love the way it looks on the nail. I'll definitely be using this technique again in the future with other color combinations.

Go Dawgs! Beat the Broncos!

Butter London Jack the Lad

I feel like there have been a lot of neutral colors on the blog lately-- it's time for some color! Today I have one of the polishes from Butter London's holiday collection, Jack the Lad. This polish is described as an "opaque, moss green shimmer with gold, turquoise, and green microglitter." There is a lot going on in this polish, and it's gorgeous. I edited my photos down to the best ones to showcase all the different colors that  make up this polish. It's truly stunning.

Jack the Lad has a sheer, blackened base so the first coat was a little on the sheer side but it built up quickly. I've used three coats here. This is super pretty and perfect for the holiday season. I'm sorry it took me such a long time to get around to swatching it, but hopefully I can work it into a manicure as we head into this holiday season.

Artificial light:

Natural light:

Jack the Lad is currently on sale for $10 on Butter London's website, and this might be your last chance to snatch it up. I would highly encourage you to get it, especially if you love green polish or Butter London polishes-- this one is particularly unique and gorgeous!

Julep Bunny

Today I have an add-on polish from my Julep Maven box from June. So only a few months behind, hah. It seems, at least according to the internet and Instagram, that white mani/pedis are "hot" right now so I figured I give it a try and pulled Julep Bunny out of my box of unswatched polishes to try. Julep describes Bunny as a "crisp white linen with fine gold shimmer."

Bunny is generally your typical white polish-- it has a tendency to be streaky, and certainly didn't want to self-level on the nail. I actually didn't have too much trouble with the first coat, but the second coat gave me trouble-- I felt like the polish wanted to thicken up. I only needed two coats to get opaque coverage, but you can tell it's not perfect. The gold shimmer ends up getting kind of lost on the nail, but you can specks of yellow on the nail when you examine it up close.

Artificial light - flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light:

 
Sorry for the wear and tear in last couple of pictures. Since I have generally been too tired or too busy to swatch, I have been trying to photograph  my manicures while I wear them, because that's easier. I am so behind it's ridiculous and with two babies on the way it's only going to get worse! So I'm going to try and do both so I can build  up a library of some swatches otherwise this might be on a very long hiatus.

Side note: it cracks me up that this polish is named Bunny and was inspired by Nantucket. The whole collection was so preppy and reminds me of "The Official Preppy Handbook" where they talk about girls named Muffy, Missy and Buffy. Hilarious!

Maybelline Clearly Spotted

Today I have a relatively new polish to share with you-- and one that I had actually been stalking the local drugstores for. This is Maybelline Clearly Spotted, which is part of Maybelline's Polka Dots collection, which is a collection of five black and white glitters in different bases. I really wanted Clearly Spotted because it was the one with a clear base (the others all have colored bases, which seem fairly easy to duplicate). It seems like a lot of mainstream brands are following the footsteps of indie brands and trying to make some more unique polishes-- there are a lot of black and white glitter polishes out there, but they're each a little different. It's nice to see the bigger brands doing something different. In any case, as I was stalking various drug stores, I saw a lot of miscellaneous bottles from the collection, but I had to wait until a brand new drugstore opened up two blocks from my work location before I managed to get this.

As I said, Clearly Spotted is a mix black and white glitter (large and small hexes) in a clear base, so you can wear it over anything. Here I have it layered over my Essence Cafe Ole and Cult Nails Mayhem manicure. Here I used one coat, and that was good enough to get plenty of glitter onto my nail. I found this polish to be generally easy to work with, though the larger pieces of glitter did want to migrate around on my nail so I had to be careful of that. This also was a little bit of a top coat eater-- I used one coat of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri and when it dried down it wasn't completely smooth-- but definitely not lumpy or textured enough to really bother me, so I only used one coat. This might not be an issue with other top coats, but just a head's up.

Artificial light - flash:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

This is actually my first black and white polish, and I'm glad I finally managed to snag one. This probably won't be my last, either! I really like this over the neutral base color, and that some of the holo sparkle is still visible! Plus, it was a nice way to perk up my mani and make it last a few more days. What's really great about these black and white glitters is that they are extremely versatile, so I'm looking forward to trying this out over other colors.

OPI Lights of Emerald City

Tonight I have the other polish from the OPI 2013 Soft Shade collection, Lights of Emerald City. I'll be honest, I mainly bought this polish because of name-- and the fact that I live in Seattle, also known as *drum roll* the Emerald City. I had read about some people having issues with the formula of this polish, but grabbed it anyway. Lights of Emerald City is a clear polish with large white square and smaller iridescent squares.

Here I just used one coat over OPI Glints of Glinda. The formula is kind of a pain in the butt. The polish is on the thick side, and it's a little difficult to fish out the white glitters, though not impossible. I found putting the bottle on its side was helpful, and then carefully dabbing the glitters on the nail.

Artificial light - flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

I love the way this looks, despite the somewhat difficult formula. I think it would look really pretty over a variety of base colors-- perhaps something dark, like a blue or plum.

OPI Glints of Glinda

Today I have a semi-recently released polish to share with from OPI called Glints of Glinda. Even though I tend not to wear nude shades very often, but this one was calling my name very time I looked at it.  Glints of Glinda is from this spring's Soft Shade collection, which was based around the movie Oz The Great and Powerful. Confession: I want to see this movie because I have a huge girl crush on Rachel Weisz, but still haven't gotten around to it because a) I don't watch a lot of movies and b) I heard it wasn't that good. Maybe I'll get around to seeing it before the twins make their appearance! Glints of Glinda is a tan/beige jelly that just leans a little yellow and is a sheer. 

I'll admit that I tend to have issues with the OPI Soft Shade collections-- mostly because I feel like the formulas tend to be streaky and they bubble (on me, anyway). However, in the case of Glints of Glinda, I found the formula much easier to work with it. It is a little streaky, but if you use a light hand while applying it, it's really not too bad. I used three coats here, which might have contributed slightly to the streakiness-- but really, this looks good in one coat as a "your nails but better" look, especially if you need something clean and professional. It dries quickly and to a nice shiny finish.

Artificial light - flash:

Artificial light:

Natural light - shade:

Natural light - sun:

Surprisingly, despite the fact that I don't tend to be a fan of tan polishes because of the yellow undertones, I actually thinks this works pretty well with my skintone and I like the way it looks. It's not a perfect match, but it's certainly not terrible-- I would probably wear fewer coats, as I did buy this knowing it was sheer and intending to use it as such. I wouldn't waste the time making trying to make it opaque-- you can find similar nude shades with better coverage out there. I do like this, though, and I am glad to finally have a sheer beige jelly in my collection

Ozotic 506

Tonight I have another multichrome polish from Ozotic, 506, which is a multichrome that shifts from blue to purple with maybe just a hint of green. Similarly to 505, I decided to layer this over A England Camelot to bring out the shift. Personally, I had trouble seeing the green but the blue-purple shift is very strong. Here I used two coats of 506.

Not a lot of words tonight, but definitely lots of pictures!

Artificial light - flash:

Artificial light: 

Natural light - shade:

Gorgeous polish! This has also been discontinued, sadly, but you may still be able to find it out there.

Wedding Manicure

This weekend my husband and I attended the wedding of a dear friend-- my husband was one of the groomsmen and we've been looking forward to this wedding for awhile. In addition, we got to see our whole group friends and party, which is always fun! Shopping for a dress for a "formal" occasion when you're pregnant is a bit of a challenge, though-- it's pretty much just like spinning a roulette wheel and hoping whatever you get still fits by the time you need to wear it. Luckily, even though I bought my dress in June, I didn't have a problem fitting into it yesterday.

Since the dress had a print I decided I wanted to keep my nails simple so they wouldn't fight with it (though I'm sure anyone else would have cared or noticed). But given that it's summer and we've been having some beautiful weather, I couldn't resist a little bit of sparkle either! I decided to use Essence Cafe Ole as my nude polish (a review is coming!). To give it some sparkle I decided to use Cult Nails Mayhem, which is a sheer holographic topper that I conveniently just got. The result was a nice subtle manicure with the right amount of sparkle to keep it interesting! I love this look!

Artificial light - flash:

Natural light - sun:

I decided that I needed to get a pedicure for the wedding as well, mainly because I can't actually reach my toes anymore. And getting a pedicure feels great! With the colors of my dress, I decided that doing a mint or turquoise pedicure was calling my name. When I got to the salon, I pulled China Glaze For Audrey off the shelf. Why do I not own this? It's such a pretty shade and I love it on my toes. Such a soothing color! Here's a pic with the dress I wore to the wedding so you can see the print/colors (sorry, feet/toes!):

So we had a great time at the wedding yesterday and have spent today recovering (my husband from drinking, me from just being up so late). I can't believe it's Monday again tomorrow! Hope everyone had an enjoyable weekend!