Revlon Devil's Candy + Lynnderella Connect the Dots

Happy Saturday! Today is a hair dyeing day, so I'm sitting here typing this with a plastic bag on my head. Cute, right? It's ok though, because I have red nail polish to go with my red hair dye.

Revlon Devil's Candy is a bright red jelly from the limited edition Masquerade Collection, which is for Halloween, if I recall correctly. It's the exact color of the candy coating on candy apples, but I've had such erratic lighting all day that I couldn't get a decent picture to show you today. I'll post that one separately later on. It's really great though; if you like red jellies you need this one! Very smooth formula, 2 coats for opacity, and insanely glossy, even for a jelly. Until I tried this, my favorite red jelly was Essie Jelly Apple. Not anymore!

I layered this with 2 coats of Lynnderella Connect the Dots. Like pretty much all of Lynnderella's creations, Connect the Dots is very special. It's packed with different types of white and black glitter, from bars to squares to small hexes to giant hexes, tied together with subtle white, speckled shimmer. Now, I usually loathe bar glitter, because it reminds me of bacillus bacteria. Not cute. Connect the Dots, on the other hand, reminds me of Jackson Pollock's paintings! I don't really like his work, but on the nail, it's a really cool effect. Check it out!

At an angle:

And here's a macro of my thumb!

Of course, since it's a glitter, I had to see how it looked matte. I absolutely love the result! I think I prefer it matte.

The speckled shimmer looks kind of like dust in that picture, but don't worry, in person it doesn't and you can tell that it's shimmer. And because I love giant macro shots of my awkwardly-shaped thumbnail, here's another one:

Time to go wash the dye out of my hair. Have a great weekend!

Illamasqua Rampage + Lynnderella All Hallow's Eve

Good morning! Today's post is a little bit out of order, considering I haven't even shown you Illamasqua Rampage (which is so amazing it deserves its own post) on its own yet, but it's worth it! I am so ridiculously excited about this one. It's a Lynnderella. If you haven't heard of her, where have you been? Google her, NOW. At any rate, All Hallow's Eve is a truly spectacular green glitter. It's my first green glitter, and honestly? I think it will be my last. I am a green lover, but I don't think that there are any other green glitters that will pique my interest quite like this one.

I love the look of glitters suspended in jelly bases (eg. Deborah Lippmann Ruby Red Slippers and Revlon Facets of Fuchsia), but rather than tamper with All Hallow's Eve, I elected to layer it with Rampage, a deep green jelly. It's an open-faced jelly sandwich of sorts. I layered in this order: 1 coat of Rampage, 1 coat of All Hallow's Eve, 1 coat of Rampage, 2 coats of All Hallow's Eve (though I really could have just gone with one). This way, I still get the look of glitter embedded in jelly, and it's still super sparkly. Now, enough with the talking. I have photos to show you!

A picture in my usual style:

In indirect light. This one's a bit blurry (sorry about that), but it gives you a pretty good idea of how this mani looks indoors:

At an angle:

At another angle:

And here is a macro shot of my thumbnail. This one is not color-accurate, but the colors are edited such that it is easier to see the different types of glitter in this amazing polish!

And now, I'm off to do Chemistry work...have a great week!

Sephora by OPI Slushied

Good....morning? It's 1:30 AM and I can't sleep, so here I am updating my blog! Today Tonight I have a really nice creme to show you. Because I am lazy, I will henceforth abbreviate Sephora by OPI as $OPI (since they cost more than regular OPI).

I was, however, lucky enough to find this one on clearance for $4! When the promo pictures for the Glee collection came out, this one caught my eye, but...I loathe Glee. I also hate paying $9 or $9.50 for a simple blue creme. But this color is so pretty...as soon as I saw it on clearance, I snatched it right up, and let me tell you, it did not disappoint. This is 2 coats, no top coat:

It's so vibrant and cheerful! And look how glossy it is. Each coat applied very smoothly, and dried very quickly. I have to say, I love the $OPI brush. It's so much better than that ridiculous OPI Pro Wide brush that does nothing but muck up my careful application. I didn't even have to clean up this mani!

That's it for tonight. I have class in 6 and a half hours, so I need to sleep, lol!

P.S. My Lynnderellas came in the mail, so you can expect pictures of Very Pretty Vampire, All Hallow's Eve, and Connect the Dots in the near future!

Sally Hansen Dorien Grey + Pumpkin polish

Good morning! I don't know about you, but it's 10 AM and I'm still not completely awake, so I'm brewing a second cup of coffee as we speak. In the meantime, I have a fun combination to show you!

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Dorien Grey is from the brand's Fall 2011 collaboration with designer Prabal Gurung. On a (slightly) pedantic side note: this should really be Dorian Grey! It's definitely not spelled with an e. 

Apparently this is very very very similar to Eel Skin, one of the Tracy Reese colors from this spring...interesting. Reviews of Eel Skin are generally very favorable; people raved about the smooth, opaque formula. I'm afraid I can't say the same for Dorien Grey. It was very watery and more prone to streaks than I would like. Honestly, if I didn't love Oscar Wilde's work so much, I probably would have returned this. It is definitely a 3-coater, if not a 4-coater.

Edited to add: The formula of Dorien Grey improves a LOT after a couple of uses. It just needs to thicken up a bit.

I've never worn a light grey, and I'm not really sure how I feel about it on its own. Luckily, when I found Dorien Grey, there was a display of pumpkin polishes right next to it! I saw one with tiny silver hex glitter and larger black hex glitter, figured it'd go well with the grey, and grabbed that too. This is 1 coat of the pumpkin glitter over Dorien Grey:

I think I was right! I got loads of compliments on this mani. Glitter makes everything better. It's a little tricky to get the right amount of black glitter, but I think this one is worth it. Here's a macro shot of my thumbnail:

So freaking cool. 

OPI Planks a Lot + Last Friday Night

Today's mani is one that my friend has affectionately dubbed "unicorn puke." Sadly, it has nothing to do with Clarins 230, but it sure is sparkly!

Pastels like this usually aren't my cup of tea. The brighter pastels make me look weird, so I need them to be a bit greyish - like China Glaze Sea Spray - in order for them to work with my skintone. I've been wanting a lavender or lilac creme for a while, and settled for Planks a Lot. It's just OK. The formula is watery, so it definitely needs 3 coats. There are also two versions of this. I have the warmer one. The other version is dustier and cooler-toned. What the heck, OPI? Is it really that hard to keep colors consistent? Let's not even get started on the trainwreck that is OPI My Private Jet...

Anyway, the version of Planks a Lot I have is a bit too warm to flatter my skin, so I layered OPI Last Friday Night on top in the hopes that the blue jelly base would cool it down. It worked! Last Friday Night is awesome. This is 3 coats of Planks a Lot with 1 thick coat of Last Friday Night. I smoothed it out with a coat of Gelous before snapping this picture.

And here's a macro shot of my thumb so you can see the detail:

Look at all the differently-colored bits of glitter! Such fun.

Franken Friday!

Finally, it's Friday! Unfortunately, that means I only have 3 or 4 days until my remaining exams, but it's okay because I have more glittery things to show you! 

This is a very simple one that I mixed up after swatching NARS Galion at a Sephora. I always figured grey wasn't my thing, but Galion is such a pretty, inky dark grey that I knew I needed it....but then I remembered that it's a NARS polish, and therefore costs $17. Yikes. That is definitely NOT in my college-kid budget, so I mixed up about half a bottle of Wet n Wild Black Creme, 1/3 of a bottle of Wet n Wild French White Creme, and a light blue creme that I had frankened a few months ago. It's not exact, but it's pretty much what I wanted, so no big deal. The best part? Because so much of the franken is comprised of Wet n Wild's Black Creme, this grey is a smooth one-coater. Look!

It's really shiny too. However, I am easily distracted and have a hard time leaving cremes alone, as much as I love them, so I've tried a couple of different layering combinations for this one. Here it is with 1 coat of Love&Beauty Teal:

Love&Beauty nail polish is repackaged L.A. Girl polish, so this teal is the same as L.A. Girl Glitter Addict Nostalgia. I also have Euphoria and Purge, but Euphoria didn't look so good over this one. It was such a weird combination that I didn't even bother photographing it. Here it is with 1 coat of Purge, AKA Love&Beauty Green:

I actually really liked this combination, even if it makes my hands photograph a little red. The L.A. Girl Glitter Addicts have a really nice formula. The glitter is easy to place, and it's dense enough that one coat is perfect for layering, but they also work really well for glitter gradients!

Milani Silver Dazzle

Good morning! It's midterm season...boo. 2 down, 2 to go...le sigh. I have been on a huge glitter kick lately, which is funny because when I started wearing nail polish (about a year ago), I absolutely hated glitter. Hated it. I thought it was ridiculous and tacky, ESPECIALLY full-coverage glitters, but here I am, wearing a full-coverage glitter. I love it! I still hate glitters like OPI Mad as a Hatter and Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday, but I am really enjoying these Milani One-Coat Glitters.

They do require 2 coats, not one, but the formula is really easy to apply. It's not at all thick or gloopy like many glitters can be. Silver Dazzle is a bit of a misnomer; the glitter is definitely grey or gunmetal-colored. Regardless, it is so awesome! I layered it over a grey creme franken that I'll be showing you later this week, but that turned out to be superfluous, because Silver Dazzle is so dense. This is 2 coats of Silver Dazzle over 1 coat of my franken:

It's sparkly enough on its own, but top coat makes it super glossy and even more sparkly! Here's a blurred picture so you can get some idea of how awesome this is:

So shiny! So amazing. Glitter is such a pain to clean up, but that goes for all glitters, not just this one. Of course, before I took this off, I had to try wearing it matte, and I absolutely love the result:

As you can see, I used Essie Matte About You, and the result looks almost like granite! It's got a really interesting texture, and it's completely smooth, but still sparkly, and has loads of depth. I'm the type to repaint my nails after only a day or two, and I wore this matte mani for 3 days. I had this nail polish on for a total of 6 days, and I got absolutely no chips, and a hardly-noticeable amount of tipwear. 

China Glaze 2NITE

Yay, it's Saturday! I don't know about you, but even with my relatively light undergrad schedule, I am super tired....no energy to paint my nails at the moment, so I've got an older one to show you today.

The OMG collection was China Glaze's Spring 2008 offering, and has been discontinued for at least 2 years...unfortunately, most of these colors have become rather hard-to-find, and unless you find them dustying or in swaps, you'll have to pay ridiculous prices on Ebay for them....do not want.

Anyway, here is 2NITE! It's a really nice dusty, medium blue with a touch of periwinkle, but this polish is completely unique because of the prismatic effect. China Glaze calls this effect "holographic," and as a result so do most nail polish aficionados, but I guess technically it is prismatic. In many different lightings, you can see strong linear rainbows across the nail, and it is just so cool! In artificial light, the rainbows disappear, but the blue base is still really pretty.

The formula on this one (and on pretty much all the OMGs) is a little interesting. If you use a base coat (save for Nfu Oh's Aqua Base or similar products), you will get SO. MUCH. STREAKING. It drove me insane when I first got this. Luckily, before I chucked it out of frustration, I decided to try it without a base coat. You wouldn't believe how smooth the application is without a base. 2 smooth coats, and it's perfect. Some top coats dull the rainbow effect, but I used Out the Door and it's perfectly fine.