Depend 188: Swatches and Layering

Not many words today, I’ve just about run out!

This is Depend 188, a cute mini bottle of pretty milk chocolate brown polish. You can get these from some pharmacies and Postie Plus Shop, Lani from Lani Loves sent this with some polishes I bought from her. And I do love brown polish…

And Depend has a lovely formula.

This was two coats, no top coat. It did need the third to be even, but it was pretty close, I didn’t see the streaks until the macro shots 😀

Then I added another cute polish gift from Steph from Nail Juice this time, which is one of those gorgeous Japanese polishes – by Winnimax, the only other writing that I can read is Light Color Nail Enamel. Its iridescent blue/green shimmer in a clear base.

One coat over Depend 188, topped with China Glaze Fast Forward.

This had a lovely subtle effect…

And a WHOLE heap of sparkle and shine.

Thank you, lovely ladies!

Have a great day

Ami 🙂

Day 27: Inspired by Artwork

My amazingly artist sister, sister V in this case (I have two sister, both of whom are incredibly talented artisitcally!) suggested I take inspiration from Van Gogh’s  Starry Night or Monet’s Waterlillies. To paraphrase Shrek: oh yes, like that’s going to happen. My ‘skills’ are nowhere near being up to that! Instead, I chose to be inspired by this artwork by Piet Mondrian, from this awesome art website here.

Why did I choose this? Well, I was going to paint my nails black with a white line and just be lazy, but thought I’d go a bit further with the black and white theme, and while google searching modernist images this caught my eye – something about the splashes of colour and random sized grids, I think. And I thought it might be easy…

Well, I was wrong. I’m very often wrong, so it didn’t suprise me, but still! I painted my nails black with China Glaze Liquid Leather, then taped off the lines with striping tape. At about that point I realised it wasn’t going to be easy… parallel lines and I aren’t good friends. Then I tried to add the colour squares.. and that didn’t work so well. The blue was Kleancolor Sea Ice, the red was Depend 36 and the yellow was Depend 210 – and they’re both jellies! Over black! Argh! The white was CR 58.

Right in the middle of this, we had a man come around to give us a price for chopping down two of our huge pine trees – they’re too close to the house and damaged in a wind storm. So, during all of that the polish was drying – and collecting dog hair – and getting bumped… so when I did get a chance to pull off the tape the lines weren’t that clean. I topped up the colours a bit, so the red and blue is more colour accurate and a LOT more lumpy, and the yellow looks a bit like a boogy hehehe

Looks a bit odder when holding my hands normally!

Topped off with a coat Orly In A Snap, took a photo, took it off 😀
Have a great day!

Day 22: Inspired by a song

Thanks to Sister V for all her help with these!

Brown Sugar, Little Red Rooster, Feilds of Gold, Blue on Black 🙂

Little Red Rooster: Kleancolor Boogie Nights for main colour, comb and red neck feathers = a Rimmel polish (red with gold shimmer, no name), gold neck feathers = Kleancolor Gold Bright, eye = Color Club With Abandon
Brown Sugar: Color Club With Abandon, brown sugar
Feilds of Gold: Base color Kleancolor Gold Bright, dotted over with Gold Bright, NYC Filthy Rich, and Color Club Gingerbread.
Blue on Black: Base colour China Glaze Liquid Leather, free hand striped with Depend 41 and Essie Coat Azure.

Just a note – the Blue on Black was dry almost instantly. There was only one coat of Liquid Leather, but the other colours covered up any patchy areas, and I took this off as soon as I had finished all my nails and photographed them, so within a 5 minute time frame. I couldn’t budge that nail polish without proper remover. Good to know!

Have a great day!

Ami 🙂

Darling Diva Polish BzzBzz: skittles

One of the things I like to do when choosing a top coat glitter polish is to sit and think about what that particular top coat would look good OVER. This is quite important to me, not only does it make choosing more fun, but it also means I get a lot more wear out of the polishes I buy. And with 4 people, 1 cat, 1 dog, and 37 chickens on 1.3 incomes, I can’t afford to  buy everything I want, so I do put a lot of thought into my purchases. Mostly hehe.

See? Lots of colours work with this top coat!

BzzBzz by Darling Diva Polish hit a lot of my ‘buy now!” triggers – the base was clear, the colours were yellow gold and black, so theorectically I could wear it over a lot of colours. Yes! It’s true! I could! Here is my skittle mani, 10 colours I thought should go well with BzzBzz:

Left hand polishes (left to right)

• China Glaze Let’s Groove – 2 coats
• China Glaze Harvest Moon – 2 coats
• Color Club Pardon My French – 3 coats
• China Glaze Drive in – 2 coats
• Misa Grey Matters – 2 coats (on thumb)

Right hand polishes – left to right

• OPI The One That Got Away – 2 coats (on thumb)
• Kleancolor Metallic Aqua – 2 coats
• Depend No 210 – 3 coats
• Orly Nite Owl – 2 coats
• China Glaze Re-Fresh Mint – 2 coats

BzzBzz was 2 dotted/placed coats, and it was finished off with a coat of Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry

I wish I could have got a flower on all of the nails, it sort of seems unfair that I couldn’t. Also, sorry about the blurry photos and raggedy cuticles on my thumb and right hand, I guess I don’t take as much care of that hand as it’s not photographed very often at all! I loved the yellow flower and gold hex’s over the deep purple (smooookee on the waaaatterr… ahem) – China Glaze Let’s Groove, little finger left hand. Shame I lost the black…

I also wore a mani of A-England Dragon, and I just can’t take that polish off the next day. It’s a stunner. However, I put on last Wednesday (the first school visit for my eldest son) and I chipped one nail pretty quickly in my nervous neurosis, so thought it would be a nice idea to layer another polish over it – yes, BzzBzz!

A-England Dragon with DDP BzzBzz on accent nail

I loved this, remind me of flowers on the grass. The holographicness of Dragon peeped through and the gold and the flowers were stunning against it.

Which of these would be your favourites?

Darling Diva Polish BzzBzz – Swatches

I bought my mother a bottle of Dreamy from Darling Diva Polish’s Etsy store, and couldn’t walk away without grabbing a couple of polishes for myself. This is BzzBzz, a funky top coat featuring at least three sizes of matte black glitter, hexagonal (and the odd strange-but-fun shaped ) gold holographic glitter, and large yellow flower glitters in a clear base.

Darling Diva Polish Bzzz Bzzz

I’m going to have to ask your forgiveness, as once again I didn’t realise the camera settings had been changed to small, so most of  these aren’t able to be made large if you click on them. Still, I think the prettiness of this polish comes across!

Bzz Bzz

Because it’s bee themed by the name, I layered it over Depend 210, the yellow polish with silver shimmer (3 coats), and then one coat of BzzBzz – with two coats on my little fingernail. I used one coat of Orly Sec ‘n’ Dry to top it off, and most of the glitter was smoothed out by this, but another coat would have made it perfectly smooth.

None of the glitters curled, and it was pretty easy to get the glitter out of the bottle, although I did have to fish for flowers – and then three came out at once hehehe. I did have to use the ‘dab and place’ method of application, but that’s pretty standard for glitters containing large size particles – and the pay off is so worth it.

When I bought it, I also bought this little bee ring off Ebay, because I knew it would look good with Bzz Bzz. 😀 I love it! Although… it has no antennae and that’s a bit creepy. But hey.

It did take a little while to get these polishes, but the communication was excellent – and I hope Carrie  and her furbabies get well soon – stressful times. 😦 I just read on her Facebook page that she is getting some help from her husband now with the business, and has a 4 day turn around time for posting. That’s awesome! I have my eye on about 5 more of her polishes, and can’t wait to be able to buy them!

Bad photo, with flash. Taken the next day, please forgive the tipwear!

I’ll be showing you more of this polish (with better camera settings!) shortly, over different colour bases 🙂

Have a buzzy day!

Ami

Depend No 41 – Swatches

Another cute wee Depend bottle, and this is a  super pretty one! Electric blue with a fine blue shimmer.

in the shade…

The polish was quite thin, but applied well, although some cleanup was needed. The good news is, it doesn’t stain – not in cleanup, or on removal. I did use a base coat on my nails, but I think I would have been alright without one, with this polish. It was also really quite sheer – and took three coat to reach bottle colour, and I didn’t think it would make it – it went on very, very teal. But it made it! See?

In the sun..check that shimmer out!

And heres a creepy photo – I just lifted my fingers off the table and the sun shone through my nail tips. What a strange photo. But yes, you see that although it looks opaque at three coats, it is a sheer polish in disguise 😀

Then I added dots from my Glitter Gal Fuchsia 3D holo… on ring finger, and thumb.

I could only get a really blurry photo with my thumb in it, as my camera batteries died RIGHT THEN. Sheesh. I quite like this photo though, in all it’s fuzziness!

Whole hand on the curtain photo..

And there you go. Depend 41 with Glitter Gal Fuchsia accents. 🙂

Red Crelly Comparisons – swatches

Turns out I have 4 red creme/jelly nail polishes (crellies, I like to smoosh words together). That’s heaps, I think, and definitely enough for a comparison!

So… here they are.

From right to left:

• Little finger/pinky = OPI So Hot It Berns (2 coats no top coat)
• Ring finger = L.A. Colors Cranberry Red (2 coats no top coat)
• Middle finger = Miki No.8 (3 coats with top coat, would have the exact same finish and depth of colour as the others without it though)
• Pointer/index finger = Depend 036 (2 coats no top coat)

The LA Colors stands out by miles as being much darker and heading towards burgandy-ville compared to the others, that much is obvious. OPI (little finger) is a very classic red, but I would call this one ‘blue based’ compared to the rest, as it has that depth and cool tone that the other two don’t.

Of the other two, I would say the Depend polish is a true red, crayon or primary red. The Miki definitely has a bit more of an orange tone to it.

So, no dupes, and I like them ALLLL! 😀 I realise that the Miki and the Depend look very similar in these photos, so I took a bottle shot to show that difference between them a bit clearer.

Miki at the top, Depend on the bottom. heh heh heh

Have a great day!

Ami

Depend 209 – Swatches

Another quick polish post! This is, so far, my final Depend polish. I’m quite a fan of this brand despite the teeny size, all three polishes have had great formula, they stay where they should, they flow nicely, and self level well. Moderate dry time, nice and shiny, easy to remove.

This is a sort of berry/burgandy colour, with – ooh, I’d call it microglitter (too big and shiny to be shimmer, but smalllll particles) in silver, blue and purple. It reminds me of  a lighter version of the base of Orly Fowl Play, before they put the flakies etc in. This is three coats and top coat – it did need all three coats to reach bottle colour.

I don’t have a lot of berry type shades, in fact, this is my first. Why, I don’t know. I guess I’m drawn to some colours more than others and tend to have heaps of certain kinds – eg blue based purples with interesting features, rather than red based shades. I found this was very flattering on me though, and I’m happy to add it to my stash. Wear time is good too, on day three after some intensive cleaning, and I have noticeble tip wear, but no chipping. That’s good!

Indoor lighting..

Have a great day, everyone!

Ami 🙂

Depend Nail Polish 210 – Swatch

This is the first yellow I have ever bought. I have an Anna Sui yellow – but that was a gift. And I don’t use it, as it takes 4 years to dry. Smells pretty, though.

Let me bore you with a gratuitous explanation: my mother is Hungarian. I have inherited, from her, a very olive based skin tone. Olive to the point my (then) 2 year old neice who was learning her colours would point to all our hands going ‘pink’ (my sister), ‘pink’ (my other sister) ‘yellow’ (me). So.. yellow polish = scary beyond all reason.

And unfair, look at this little bottle of pretty silver microshimmery sunshine. (click any photo to enlarge if you so desire!)

And you can see the silver microshimmer.. pretty.

And then look at it on me..

These swatches are three coats, no top coat or base coat (am lazy today). This polish applied like butter *snigger* ok, I am just saying that because it’s butter coloured, this polish was a streaky streaky streak, but mostly levelled out at three coats. I have read that most yellows are streaky, so it’s a pigment issue, not a brand issue. Other than the streaks, it was really easy to apply, and didn’t run anywhere.

Whole hand photo… see? YELLOW! BAD! *yellow alert, yellow alert*

‘Tis the Return of the Olive Lobster…

I’m keeping it on, though. I am stubborn, and I want to not be scared of this colour.

I have, however, put some top coat on it…

All nails have Cover Band Sticks and Stones, except the ring fingernails which  are Color Club Wish Upon A Rock Star – with a clear car paint top coat (love that stuff, wish you could all try some!)

It hasn’t helped, much. Now I feel like I have exploded emoticons on my hands. My nails are the Secret Emoticon Burial Ground (well, it’s not secret now, we all know. oooops).

Next time I use this polish I am putting happy faces on.

I’m still glad I have this polish, and still in love with the Depend formula. Fast drying, easy applying, easy removal … I do want a bigger range from them, though. Postie Plus just doesn’t have that much… anyone else know where I can get them from? Its a great way to try new, scary, colours. 🙂

Depend Nail Polish 009 – Swatch

My friendly fellow NZ blogger and HUGE nail polish addict Delindel from Domestic Minxes recently told me about her Depend purchase of this very nail polish (009). She hearted it, apparently. Well, that was good enough for me: along I trotted and picked up 009 (the resentful and about to turn nasty agent brother/friend of James Bond, I guess.)

*Actually, wasn’t the baddie played by Sean Bean 009?? I only remember that movie because Sean Bean = hot *

Back to the polish, and here it is!

I’d describe it as a deep peach with fine silver shimmer.  This was the exact polish I was looking for when I was 14. I saw a lady wearing this colour (wouldn’t have been this brand way back then!) and I longed for nails like that. Subtle, yet glam. I nagged my parents, and eventually they let me buy the closest I could find… which was orange. I’ve been scared of orange since, though I  am taking steps to get over that. I would have been wrapt to find this colour at 14.

But… add 20 years to that age, 20 years of hard-ish work and sun exposure.. and this polish is no longer my friend. It gives me instanto old lady hands.

I do like the colour, I just don’t like it on me. Sorry, Del! However, I am glad I got it, as now I have that colour in my stash and can cross it off the list. These pics are three coats, no top coat. It was very sheer, still some VNL at three coats, nice and shiny, and had a great – though thinnish – formula. No running or streaking.

I did decide to go top coat crazy,and see what that would do.

Pinky is L.A.Girl Glitter Addict in Flamboyant, ring fingernail is Cover Band Sticks and Stones (suprised? Didn’t think so!)

Middle finger is Color Club Wish Upon a Rock Star, and index fingernail is Darling Diva Polish Dreamy.

Out of all of these, I liked Dreamy the best. It made it even more subtle; softened up the peach colour, and added a nice holographic effect. So, for a super safe ‘play-it-by-the-80’s-book’ with an almost invisible twist, I’d pick that one. 🙂