Swatch: L'Oreal Masked Affair

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

Hey gang! Happy Friday the 13th! Anyone have any fun plans for Valentine's Day? Our car's in the shop, so we'll probably spend tomorrow taking the bus to the grocery store. :-P

So today I have a polish that you've probably seen a billion times on the Internet by now, but I was in a Rite-Aid the other day and just couldn't help myself. That's right, it's L'Oreal Masked Affair!

This is a silver linear holo with hints of lavender (although the lavender only shows up in certain lights). The holo effect is extremely strong, even indoors! There also seem to be some larger holo particles mixed in, which add texture and visual interest, so it's not just your average silver holo.

L'Oreal Masked Affair. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

After reading several reviews of this polish, I prepared myself for a bad formula, but it actually turned out much nicer than I expected. It applied easily and stayed in place on the nail. (Just use thin coats.) Once the polish dried, I did notice a bit of streakiness, which you can sort of see here, but honestly it didn't really bother me. Overall, I found Masked Affair quite glamorous, and a very impressive effort from a drugstore brand!

Are you also lusting after this polish?

The product in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

He Picks My Polish: Grandma's couch

Hey all! I'm really happy to join in with He Picks My Polish for this month! In case you don't know how this works, you have a guy in your life pick three polishes from your stash, and you have to do a mani with them. You can't add any other polishes besides neutrals. It's fun and potentially hilarity-inducing. (Feel free to join in this month!)

If you've seen my previous installments, you know that my husband likes to pick colors that match his favorite fictional ladies. I was expecting a similar thing this time, but he surprised me by going a different route. The polishes he chose were L'Oreal L'Orange (orange, of course), Nails Inc. Bruton Mews (a dark green), and OPI You're So Vain-illa (off-white). After I gave up trying to guess, he informed me that the colors represented one of his favorite foods: orange chicken. (The green stands for broccoli.) Yes, he's a weird dude.

With orange and green, I at first naturally thought of doing a pumpkin design, but changed my mind and went for a floral pattern. It turned out kinda vintage-couch, don't you think? It still looks very fall-like to me.

Check out the other manis for this month!

An InLinkz Link-up

Today's mani: Sunset gradient

Hi all! Boy, I've been a bad blogger lately, haven't I? The truth is, I've barely done my nails at all lately. I sometimes feel like it's not worth it, because my mani will be ruined by either 1) making nail polish or 2) packing up orders. Yesterday I decided I had to do something because I had a tutoring job to go to. So I threw something together which I'm not 100% happy with.

First I did a gradient using Picture Polish Citrus, L'Oreal Orange You Jealous?, Revlon Passionate Pink and Zoya Audrina. I can't remember the last time I did a 4-color gradient (have I ever??) and it turned out nicely. I just keep forgetting that orange looks better in the bottle than on me!

The stamp is what really annoys me. I first wanted to do a cloud stamp, but after I finished the gradient I realized the stamp I picked wasn't going to work (it stamps the sky, not the clouds themselves). So I switched to this sun stamp (Winstonia plate W111), and of course I didn't manage to center it properly. Bleh. Plus I have shrinkage on my tips.

Today I've been grouchy too (lip balm making is giving me trouble, plus the endless stress of trying to find a job). But I'm going to try to perk up and do my nails more regularly. He Picks My Polish is coming up in a few days, and Mr. ALIQUID already knows what colors he wants!

FingerFood's Theme Buffet: Under the sea

Hi! Hope you're having a good weekend! Today I finally managed to get my FingerFood mani for the week done. The theme is under the sea. I decided to do jellyfish! (Apologies for the kinda ragged picture...I was in a rush.)

I started with a black base and used the watercolor method to make a watery background with several shades of blue polish, including Revlon Indigo Night and Plunge Pool, China Glaze Hanging in the Balance, and Sephora by OPI Ocean Love Potion. On top of that, I made white dots for the heads of the jellyfish and dabbed them with a Q-tip dipped in acetone to make them translucent. I added the tentacles and topped everything off with a coat of L'Oreal Miss Pixie, a blue jelly.

See ya tomorrow!

2014 Blogger Challenge #11: My polish stash...photographed!

Good morning! I'm finally returning to the 2014 Blogger Challenge. You might have noticed that I haven't done it for a couple months--there were some prompts I didn't have much to say about, then I kinda got distracted. But I thought today's topic would be a perfect place to get back on the horse. The prompt is collections. What do I have a giant collection of? Nail polish, of course! If you like to see pictures of organized stuff, you will like this post!

This will obviously be image-heavy, so click the jump to see it all!

The Neverending Pile Challenge: Jelly

Hi all! It's time for another Neverending Pile Challenge! Today's theme is jelly. I only have a few untried jellies and they're mostly nude or pink. I decided to do some nail art with two of my not-pink jellies, L'Oreal Miss Pixie and China Glaze Creative Fantasy. I knocked out a third untried by adding some glitter with Sephora + Pantone Universe Silver Jewel Dust.

I started with two coats of Miss Pixie, added a coat of Silver Jewel Dust, then sandwiched it in with two more coats of Miss Pixie. I finished by sponging on Creative Fantasy on the tips for a gradient effect.

Now, thanks to my dumb camera, Creative Fantasy is barely visible in my photos. In real life my tips look indigo/purple. You'll have to take my word for it! One day I'll have a camera that can photograph more than one shade of blue...

You can see the gradient slightly better in this crappy pic:

One day I'll have to swatch Creative Fantasy by itself, because it is very pretty!

Total tried untrieds: 11


 

Swatch: Alter Ego Sun Goddess, Vintner and Girly Girl

I won the products in this post in a giveaway. All opinions are my own.

Happy Valentine's Day! I hope everyone had a lovely day, with or without an S.O.!

I recently won three polishes in a giveaway from Alter Ego Nail Enamel, and I decided to swatch 'em all! The theme of this indie brand is that every polish is named after a job or some other identity (hence the name of the company). I think that's really clever! I won Sun Goddess, Vintner and Girly Girl.

All of these polishes dried very quickly to a matte finish, so you could wear them without topcoat if you prefer. The brushes are on the wider side and a little too floppy for my taste; I didn't feel I had enough control over the polish at all times.

Sun Goddess is a bright warm yellow jelly with red and orange microglitter and small orange hexes. Look how cheery it is!

Alter Ego Nail Enamel Sun Goddess. Two coats with Out the Door and Gelous topcoat.

I love this shade of yellow! As you can see, at two coats this polish is still sheer. The formula was thick but easy to spread; my only trouble was in getting enough of the larger hexes on my nail. The dabbing method would definitely come in handy here. It was also pretty bumpy--I ended up using three layers of topcoat to get it smooth enough for my liking.


Next up is my favorite of the three, Vintner (it's purple, of course I love it!). This is a mix of several shades of purple glitter: magenta, lavender, and dark purple. There are also some green hexes thrown in, which make me think of grapevines! It's definitely an aptly-named polish!

My camera, as usual, freaked out at purple and eliminated some of the variety of colors in the mix, but I hope you'll get a decent idea anyway. I layered this polish over L'Oreal Safari Chic. The first photo is with glossy topcoat and the second is matte.

Alter Ego Nail Enamel Vintner. Two coats over L'Oreal Safari Chic. Out the Door topcoat.

Alter Ego Nail Enamel Vintner. Two coats over L'Oreal Safari Chic. Revlon matte topcoat.

Can you tell why I love this one? It's like a grape explosion! I just wish there was a little more green glitter, because it makes such a nice accent to the rest. I had no problems with the formula; I just needed to shake the bottle before use to get the glitters distributed. This one actually dried a lot smoother than Sun Goddess, and I only needed one layer of topcoat.

Finally we have Girly Girl. Oh, this polish...it gave me such a headache. First the picture, then I'll explain. This is a cool-toned medium pink with lots of pink flecks and shimmer, plus some blue sparks that are pretty hard to see. (I had to crank up the color balance to get this photo color-accurate, hence the yellowy background.)

Alter Ego Nail Enamel Girly Girl. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Now, this is a very pretty polish (and perfect for Valentine's Day!), which is why it's so unfortunate that the formula was problematic. I found it to be lumpy and sticky, and it was very hard to spread evenly. I added a ton of polish thinner, which didn't help much. This also required two layers of topcoat to make smooth.

To make matters worse, after about three hours the polish started popping off my nails!

This hasn't happened to me since I stopped using Seche Vite (like a year ago!). I don't know if it was a reaction to Out the Door, or if the polish just dried too rigid for my nails. But in total I lost six nails' worth of polish in twelve hours. So the loveliness of the polish just isn't worth the hassle to me, and I probably won't wear this one again. :-/


My top pick of these three is definitely Vintner--if you love purple you'll like this polish! All three are available at Alter Ego's shop ($8.50 for 15 ml). You can also follow the brand on Facebook!

I won the products in this post in a giveaway. All opinions are my own.

Today's mani: my birthday nails!

Today's my 28th birthday! I'm looking forward to aging for one more year, after which I'll be 29 for the rest of my life (that's what happens to women, right??). I got some great gifts, including Nails, Nails, Nails!: 25 Creative DIY Nail Art Projects from my husband. He knows me well! My celebration started out this morning with a bowl of Lucky Charms, my traditional birthday cereal. Then I did my nails!

For my birthday mani I wanted to use Revlon Whimsical because it reminds me of cake frosting!

My base colors are L'Oreal The Palace Life (pink) and Wet 'n' Wild I Need a Refresh-Mint (blue). Revlon Whimsical is very sheer, so I was able to put two coats on without messing with the base colors too much. I just wish the glitter was more dense!

 OK, I'm off to enjoy the rest of my day! Don't forget I have a birthday-themed collection of polish for sale in my Etsy shop!

Today's mani: water-fall

Hey all! Man, I've been a slacker lately, haven't I? I'm gonna try to get back on the horse with blogging this week, I promise!

Today I felt like doing another waterfall mani like the one I did for the 31-Day Challenge. I decided, naturally, to use fall colors (hence "water-fall"! How clever am I?).

For the base color I used Revlon Stormy Night, and for the stripes L'Oreal Spice Things Up and Eiffel For You, Essie Sand Tropez, and Revlon Gold Coin. It reminds me a bit of turkey feathers!

Today's mani: Halloween jelly sandwich

This is the first decent-looking jelly sandwich mani I've done!

I used two coats L'Oreal The Bigger the Better (black and silver glitter) in between three coats of Zoya Coraline. Halloween orange is pretty much the only shade of orange that looks good on me!

Swatch: L'Oreal The Muse's Attitude

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

(Psst--have you entered the giveaway? It ends tomorrow night!)

Oh man, I've been a bad blogger this week, haven't I? I've actually been spending a lot of time on a super duper top secret project that I can't tell you about yet. ;-)

Here's a few pics of my current nails; I'm wearing L'Oreal The Muse's Attitude, which I also picked up at Rite Aid last week. It has a blackened base with a pretty green-to-teal shifting shimmer.

L'Oreal The Muse's Attitude. Two coats with Out the Door topcoat.

Pretty, no? This could be a nice Halloween polish if you're dressing as a witch maybe! I actually couldn't capture the full spectrum of the color shift--in normal indoor light this polish looks fully green with no blue undertones. I had no problems with application.

I grabbed The Muse's Attitude for $5.99 (11.7 ml) at Rite Aid!

The polish in this post was purchased by me. All opinions are my own.

31-Day Challenge #27: inspired by artwork

I was initially nervous about this challenge, because I didn't think I had the talent to reproduce any works of art (except for maybe some really minimalist abstract art). I hope you like the inspiration I eventually came up with...

It's Lascaux Cave art--the original artwork (over 17,000 years old)! I love the style of the animals. Here are the pictures I used for inspiration:

 Here are the polishes I used:

• Julep Otte
• L'Oreal Creme Puffs
• Sephora by OPI Thyme for a Mani
• Revlon Stormy Night
• Revlon Timeless
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• OPI My Vampire is Buff
• Revlon Stiletto
• L'Oreal Spice Things Up
• L'Oreal L'Orange

I sponged several colors on the background to get a "rocky" look. At the end I used Revlon's matte topcoat.

Don't forget to admire today's other artsy manis!

31-Day Challenge #24: inspired by a book

For this challenge I chose one of my favorite books, Tolkien's The Silmarillion. The book covers the history of Middle-Earth before the events of The Lord of the Rings, and is basically full of elves being badass.

I attempted to paint the Two Trees of Valinor, which shone silver and gold. They were killed by a giant spider but before they died, their last flower and fruit were taken and became the sun and moon.

For the silver tree I used Zoya Storm, Julep Harley, L'Oreal Eiffel for You, and Color Club Wild Cactus (unfortunately the picture doesn't show that the trunk and branches are a slightly different color than the silver leaves--I mixed silver with brown); for the gold tree I used L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight, Maybelline Bold Gold, Revlon Stormy Night and Revlon Sassy.


Here are today's other literary manis!

31-Day Challenge #23: inspired by a movie

I don't know about you, but my favorite Disney movie of all time is The Lion King. I've watched it probably at least a hundred times, and I've seen the musical twice. I gave myself a very ambitious (for me) goal for this challenge, which was to recreate this scene from "Hakuna Matata":

I was terrified the whole time that I was going to do something horribly wrong and have to start the whole thing over, but miraculously that didn't happen!

OK, Simba's expression looks more doofy than carefree. But all things considered I'm pretty darn pleased with myself. :-D

I used a zillion polishes for this (in many cases I mixed two or more colors together):

• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• Revlon Stiletto
• Julep Otte
• L'Oreal L'Orange
• L'Oreal Spice Things Up
• L'Oreal Caught Red-Handed
• OPI My Vampire is Buff
• L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight
• Essie Sand Tropez
• Julep Parker
• Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!

Don't forget to check out today's other movie-themed manis, and remember...ya gotta put your behind in your past!

31-Day Challenge #22: inspired by a song

OK, can you guess what song I was thinking of?

(The answer is Here Comes the Sun by the Beatles!) For this mani I was experimenting with "drawing" using dots. I do like the way the sun came out, but I can't decide if I should have used a base color or not. I used Sally Hansen Lightening, Revlon Sunshine Sparkle and Sinful Colors Snow Me White for the sun and L'Oreal Not a Cloud in Sight for the sky.

Here are today's other musical manis!

31-Day Challenge #16: Peruvian patterns

Well folks, today I'm officially more than halfway done with the 31-Day Challenge!! Just gotta keep that momentum going!

Today's prompt is "tribal". Can I just say first that I really hate the term "tribal"? It's often incorrect and just kind of racist. :-(

*gets off high horse* Anyway, I'm assuming "tribal" means "a pattern used by non-white people". I chose to reproduce some Peruvian textile patterns I found--I love the bright colors they use!

I picked four patterns from this lovely picture to attempt (hopefully you can tell which ones):

I'm pretty impressed with myself, I must say! I'm especially proud of the pattern on my ring finger.

I used a ton of polishes for this one:

• Revlon Impulsive
• Sinful Colors Snow Me White
• Deborah Lippmann On the Beach
• Revlon Plum Seduction
• Sally Hansen Lightening
• Essie Play Date
• Essie DJ Play That Song
• Essie The More the Merrier
• Wet 'n' Wild On a Trip
• Julep Meryl
• Julep Nan
• L'Oreal L'Orange

Whew, I think that's all! Oh, and I mattified everything because, you know, it's fabric! :-D

Don't forget to look at everyone else's "tribal" nails!

31-Day Challenge #11: dotted spirals redux

You may remember that a little while ago, I attempted to do a dotted spiral mani but didn't quite pull it off because the dots were too far apart. I knew today's 31DC prompt would be my big chance to redeem myself.

Definitely better. From a distance this mani looked like a mosaic, which was pretty cool! The base color is Indigo Bananas Halcyon (has a nice shimmer which is just barely peeking through) and the dots are L'Oreal Creme Puffs and OPI You're Such a Budapest.


Look at all these dotty manis!

31-Day Challenge #5: blue sea

Recently I got an aquatic-themed stamping plate (MoYou Sailor 04) and I thought the blue nails day would be the perfect time to use it!

The fish are so cute, no?

I did the gradient background with four colors (though you can really only see three):

• L'Oreal Now You Sea Me
• Color Club Endless Summer
• Revlon Plunge Pool
• Revlon Beguile (looks black here, but has a blue-to-purple shimmer)

The stamping was done with Sinful Colors Snow Me White. I finally have a decent white for stamping!

While I was photographing this mani, Trudy tried to butt in on the action.

Check out today's other blue manis!

31-Day Challenge #1: red strawberries

It's here...the 31-Day Challenge!! I'm really excited about this, as I'm not very experienced at nail art, so I want to use this as an opportunity to practice lots of different techniques. I'm an extremely left-brained person and not very creative, so I'll be taking inspiration from others' art for a lot of the prompts. But imitation is the best form of flattery, right? I'm hoping that this will be a springboard for me to start coming up with more unique nail art of my own.

Day 1's theme is the color red, and I thought what better way to celebrate summer before it's over than with a strawberry mani?

Fun and easy! I started with a base of L'Oreal Caught Red-Handed, then added the seeds with a dotting tool and L'Oreal Creme Puffs. I painted the leaves with a short nail art brush in Julep Mackenzie. I think these turned out really cute (and my husband was able to identify what berry they were on the first try).

Check out all the other participants in the 31-Day Challenge (thanks to More Nail Polish for setting up the InLinkz)!

Today's mani: polka dot "spirals"

Hey all! I haven't posted in a few days because I've been working on a proceedings paper for a conference I presented at in March. But now my paper's submitted, so I can (momentarily) kick back and post my nails!

As the post title suggests, these dots are supposed to make spirals, which you can kind of see on my index finger, but I think I put the dots too far apart. Oh well, live and learn! I do like the color scheme though--the base color is OPI My Vampire is Buff, and the dots are L'Oreal L'Orange and Sephora by OPI Ocean Love Potion. One day I'll redo this pattern but BETTER!

BTW, anyone else thinking of preordering any of the I Love Nail Polish Ultra Chromes? They look pretty fricking amazing, I must say!