Top 30 of 2012! (part 3)

I don't post a whole lot of layering combinations, but that's mostly because I don't get around to photographing them. Here are the colors that I've reached for the most. First up, the base colors.

Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure Dorien Grey

A nice, simple, clean light grey creme. It's so versatile!

Ruby Kisses Regaled Out Blue

Dark blue goes with a lot of things, and I can't resist a nice jelly.

China Glaze VIII

An excellent basic eggplant creme. Smooth formula, dries quickly, completely solid in 2 coats.

Nails Inc. Kensington

Inky teal jelly, almost black. Works really well for water marbling, too!

New York Summer Hot Sky Blue

Another squishy blue jelly! This is great for jelly sandwiches, and also looks awesome under flakies.

And my favorite layering polishes:

Lynnderella Connect the Dots

Yep, it's on two of my lists. It's that good. With black and white glitter, there are so many layering possibilities!

Nails Inc. the Wyndham

This has the distinction of being my first flakie polish, and it remains my favorite. The green is so vivid, and there is a very evident blue shift.

Finger Paints Asylum

It has blue flakies!! I have been lusting after a flakie with just blue, but since I loathe Nfu Oh bottles and find Inglot to be too much of a hassle to get ahold of, this is as close as I will get for a while. It is lovely though.

Essie As Gold as it Gets

Sheer gold flecks. This is really delicate and pretty, especially over dusty, mid-toned colors.

Essie Shine of the Times

A basic orange-green flakie. It's very dense, so you don't need  much at all for a single manicure.

So, there you have it! My 30 favorites from last year. Thoughts? Do you like layering too, or do you find it troublesome?

Nails Inc. The Wyndham Duo

Happy Thanksgiving! Or, if you don't celebrate, happy Thursday! Today I have a ridiculously awesome combination to show you.

The Nails Inc. Wyndham duo is one of three flakie/creme pairs being sold at Sephora right now. The Wyndham is a green/blue flakie paired with Kensington (a dark, greenish teal creme), the Old Vic is a blue/indigo flakie paired with Taxi Black (a plain black creme), and the Donmar is a gold/green/red flakie paired with Chelsea (a dark plum creme). I considered picking up the Donmar pair as well, but the flakie looks a lot like Nubar 2010 and its assorted dupes, so I decided against it.

Although I love teals and already own two teal cremes (OPI Ski Teal We Drop and SHCSM Fairy Teal), Kensington is completely different. It's a very dark, inky teal, and it is far more green-toned than the other two. I'll post Kensington later on, and include a comparison to the others. The formula is very very nice though! Very smooth, self-leveling application, which is great because dark colors like this are a pain in the neck to clean up.

Now, the Wyndham has an equally awesome formula. It takes slightly longer to set, but this is an advantage since it gives you a little extra time to place the flakes if you'd like. This is 2 coats of Kensington, 2 coats of the Wyndham, and 1 coat of Revlon Quick Dry Top Coat:

You can see in the photo that the green flakies have a blue duochrome too! Here it is at an angle so you can see the effect a little better:

And since the Wyndham is such an awesome glitter, here's the obligatory macro shot of my thumbnail!

Have a great holiday!

Revlon Royal Cloak

Good morning! Today I have for you a polish that is not so excellent.

Revlon Royal Cloak is from the Masquerade collection, just like Devil's Candy, but unfortunately the formula is nowhere as nice as Devil's Candy. It's a shame, because it's really a very pretty color. It has a royal purple base with grey/silver flaky shimmer.

3 coats for opacity, which isn't bad, but this was depressingly difficult to apply. Lots of streaking and patching. I got it even with a final thick coat, but that could result in some pretty nasty bubbling. Luckily, I didn't have that issue with this mani, but I'm still really disappointed in the formula. Look at these weird marks in my thumbnail:

Of course, the marks were gone once I added top coat. I guess Devil's Candy set my expectations a bit too high, but I like this color enough that I think I'm going to try it again later on and see if I can make it work.