Revlon Emerald City – plus dots :)

I saw Jessie’s swatches of Emerald City, and then when I saw the polish for sale at the local (Palmerston North) Postie Plus, I had to buy it. I normally avoid Revlon, as they have started animal testing after being anti – cruelty for a long time, but want the China market. I won’t go into how angry and sad that makes me. And yet – I caved with a few Revlon polishes recently. I’m nowhere even close to perfect, and that just proves it! *guilt*

Ok, here it is!

Revlon Emerald City, two coats. In the bottle it’s a lovely deep green with shimmer, and on the nail it dries completely matte. So, yeah, I love it. Here I added dots of top coat, to give it the effect you see here. Easy nail art! As easy as it gets, really.

This is inside, no good lighting. The colour is pretty true to life!

I did enjoy this, however it chipped really fast (as mattes are prone too) so it’s more of a special occasion polish, or I guess I could put top coat over the tips for a funky french / anti-chip and tip wear look. 🙂

Have a nice day

Ami

Day 31: Recreate a Manicure I love (with link!)

Day 31! The End of the 31 Day Challenge

Recreating a manicure I love, with link. There are so many awesome nail artists out there, it was hard to choose. But in the end I went with dotting, because my children are going MAD and I know I can dot despite distractions. Although, I did have to redo this twice thanks to my youngest throwing himself into me. This is from Top Coat It, an awesome WordPress nail blogger – and her link is Red and Black Dotticure . Wow, so pretty! As I didn’t want to directly try to copy it, this is a Yellow and Black Dotticure!

I used Mode Say Cheese as the base – two coats. Then I dotted on the 9 black dots using China Glaze Liquid Leather, and then another dot of Say Cheese over each black dot. I didn’t go back and put the centre black dot on, but I just didn’t have the time.

Although I much prefer her Red and Black dotticure, I did like this! I’ll definitely try it again when I get a chance, and a moments peace. 🙂

This challenge has been so interesting! It definitely challenged me to try new things, and I loved that – but I am glad it’s over – so hopefully I can try on some of my other polishes and keep them on for more than a day 😀

Thanks for reading!

Ami 🙂

Day 30: A Tutorial

Day 30 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge: A tutorial.

Now, it wasn’t until I had already taken the photos that I thought this could be INSPIRED by a tutorial – but too late. I made a tutorial for you instead. This tutorial is How To Go Crazy With Glitter Polish! 😀

First up: Base coat. Use PVA glue – it removes all the fear from glitter polish – as you can safely and easily peel if off. Effortless!

You can see it goes clear as it dries – which takes the guessing out of the occasion. It’s ready to paint on when it’s all clear 🙂

Then apply your first coat. I used Color Club Ruby Slippers. Pretty, huh? It does dry matte-ish, but with a top coat it’s Sparkle City!

Then, add another glitter! Match! Contrast! Whatever! I contrasted with Kleancolor Starry Purple – and really liked it.

Dot on more uber glittery polish: First, put a few dabs of polish on some non-absorbent paper – I used Color Club Gingerbread.

Dabbing polish onto paper to use for dotting…

Then dip your dotting tool (or end of an unwound paperclip!) into it, and dot onto your nails.

Admire effect.

Add another glitter! Go on, why not? If you hate it, peel it off! This is all about the crazy … I used L.A Girl Glitter Addict in Animate.

There you go! Of course you can keep going, or stop just a bit before step 1. Its a free world! Basically, sometimes I feel it all gets a bit ‘serious’ in the world of nails. I’m not all that serious a person when it comes to colour and paint on my nails. Go hard, have fun!

Have a great day

Ami

Day 26: Inspired by a Pattern

Sister V – source of much of my inspiration for this week, suggested spirals as the pattern for day 26 of the 31 Day Nail Polish Challenge. Ok!

I was also inspired in part by Simply Rins, who did the most gorgeous blue rose manicure (check it out, seriously! She’s AMAZING!), and it made me think about changing the colours in the spiral. I wish I’d chosen more colours, and a more opaque light pink, as it wasn’t visible really except as a texture over the light pink base. Next time!

This is Mode Sweetness as the base, which is a brand new to me polish, with OPI The One That Got Away dotted in the middle part of the spiral, and OPI Who Needs A Prince on the outer part of the spiral.

Have a great day!

Ami

Day 11: Polka Dots

Good morning on this morning of Day 11 of the 31 Day Nail Challenge: Polka dots! (my my my polka dots my my polka dots…)

This was two coats of Color Club Rev’d Up, dotted with Julep Melissa. I used two sizes of dotting tool, then put a smaller dot of Rev’d Up on the larger Melissa dots. Finished up with a coat of Kleancolor Top Coat, and called it done!

Plus, it looks like it could be alien eyes. That’s always fun – though not necessarily on one’s fingernails. Bar brawl at the Mos Eisely Cantina?

I like the way the blue shimmer in Rev’d Up interacts with the iridescence of Melissa – very pretty 🙂

Have a great 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. 🙂

Miki 15 (Orange) and Dotty Mani

Three coats of Miki No,15- fanta orange with gold shimmer. Very pretty, lovely wide brush, great formula though a teeny bit sheer, covers well at three coats though.

It didn’t suit my skin tone, so I added dots for interest and to break up the orange. The dot colours were inspired by the labradorite ring I’m wearing.

Dotted Kleancolor Cobolt, then over dotted in the alternate line with CR 115 (the dark teal colour).

Then put random bits of glitter in green or blue on the dots for added interest, and top coat (Orly Sec n Dry).

I quite liked the finished effect, even with the orange! I liked the sparkle, and every time I looked at my hands I’d laugh – it looked like ladybirds on drugs had landed on my hands 😀

Color Cosmetic 19 – Swatch and Nail Art

CR nail polish (from the Dollar Shop for $2 each) is a weird little brand. You can never guess what colours will be there, and what it will actually look like on the nail. More fun, says me. Lately there has been a run of shimmery metallic almost foil finishes, and number 19 here is no different.

It’s an apple green with a gold oversheen (they call this oversheen ‘flip’ in car paint. I think I’ll call it that, it has less letters than ‘oversheen’ hehe). It’s not a duochrome, you see both colours at all times. It’s a very spring-esque colour, I think. I also don’t follow trends – by choice as well as by budgetary necessity – so I’ll wear seasonal colours whenever I want 😀 These swatches are two coats over Revlon Color Stay base coat – and they dried fast, with only a few bubble on my pinky nail. No top coat here.

Please ignore the splitting nails! I dealt to them shortly after taking this photo – didn’t notice until the macro. Argh! 😀

I liked this colour on my far more than I thought I would! Something very fresh about it, and it didn’t give me lobster hands at all.

And… in a nice coincidence, the dotting tools I ordered off Ebay turned up! I blame Sugarmitten – she does magic with dots, and I think I’m hooked. I thought I’d try this with a variety of top coat effects, and see which I liked best.

So.. pinky nail had the Rokk96 Emerald shimmer – this was very subtle but had a nice effect (one coat). Then ring finger had rows of dots with Dreamy – the holographic top coat from Darling Diva Polish – this was also very subtle, but I really liked it too.

Then middle finger was Sticks and Stones by Cover Band (from Ninja Polish) – love love LOVE this – esp as the black bar glitter formed a twig pattern! There’s no way I could make it do that, but cute! Then I used ye olde dotting tool again to make flowers on my pointer nail – two goodish flowers and one Chernobyl Rose hehe. I think I liked this one best of all, talk about Spring-y! Its a nice day today, but we’re certainly falling into winter at great speed: this nail art makes me smile. The petals were China Glaze Make Some Noise, and the centres were Anna Sui 803. Ironic using a rose scented polish to make flowers with…

What are your favourites? I enjoyed this nail polish (and mucking around with the nail art) quite a lot. More than $2 worth, probably!