Layering with Revlon Moon Candy: Galactic

Happy Hump Day!

 

I couldn't leave my little blue manicure alone so after a day or so I got out a bottle of Revlon Moon Candy to apply a colour coordinated topper for a bit of added...umm...flakiness?? I mean that in the best possible way of course. I'm just struggling with my creative vocabulary today!

 

This is the second time I've experimented with Revlon's Moon Candy polishes.  I struggled the first time and I struggled again here.  The issue I have is with the flakies - those lovely iridescent flakes refuse to play nice and sit flat on the nail and can't be tamed with a thick top coat either. Hmmph! End of verbal tantrum.

 

Like all of Revlon's Nail Art polishes Galactic is a double ended polish: very deep, almost black, blue cream polish at one end with the ethereal iridescent blue flakes on the other end for the topping.  I'm sure the Revlon combination would be very effective but I decided to let the flakies compliment rather than contrast by applying them over a similarly bright blue base.

 

All pictures taken in cloudy conditions:

 

 

 

What are your thoughts on these?

St Patricks Day mani: L'Oreal - Wasabi Mint & Sally Hansen - Scale Up

Happy St Patricks Day! 

 

It's the day when everything has an excuse to be green - including nails...and beer!

 

I didn't have time to be too creative this year so went for a simple accented mani.  I opted for two coats of L'Oreal Wasabi Mint over all of my nails for the vibrant creamy green base and finished off with two coats of Sally Hansen's green flakie polish Scale Up on my ring and pinky fingers.  Both polishes are newish in my collection and both performed well - Wasabi Mint could have easily been a one-coater and Scale Up with its green, gold and blue sparkle was just the right flakie for the job.  Because it's late and I want to get this post up before we end St Patty's here in Melbourne I'll stop right here!

 

All photos taken in indirect daylight

 

 

 

Until next time!

 



Revlon Moon Candy Nail Enamel: 240 Eclipse

Hi everybody!!!

I'm finally back where I belong, and in front of my trusty keyboard! I have genuinely missed doing this.

The next few posts will be fillers while I get all my vacation pictures - including all the goodies hauled from Hong Kong and Singapore - organized and ready to share.

Okay let's start with a manicure featuring a polish from Revlon's newish Moon Candy nail art line.  I had high hopes for this polish duo but it didn't really deliver.  The Eclipse duo features a dark purple cream base shade and a blue-pink flakie topcoat to be applied as the topping for added bling and texture.  I'd seen an advertorial where the flakie was only applied to the nail tips and gave an opaque, glittery coverage so I've attempted to replicate the effect here. What can I say? I tried. I applied two coats of flakie topcoat to the tips, got a rough, lumpy mess but nowhere near as opaque a glitter coverage as was in the ad pictures, which I cannot find ANYWHERE to give you the comparison.  To smooth out the transition from base to tip I applied two coats of regular top coat. Oh well. Here are my results.

  All pictures were taken in cloudy, wintry Melbourne conditions:

Have you tried Revlon's Moon Candy polish? 

What was your experience?

Until next time.

Spam post feat. OPI - The Man With The Golden Gun

This is my first spam post and it took weeks in the making (not that I'm complaining)!

The star of this post is OPI's 18KT gold leaf top coat The Man With Golden Gun.  This decadent top coat was recently released together with the current Skyfall collection.  There was no way this little duck could resist the temptation of wearing real gold leaf on her nails, and since trying it for the first time I fell in love with the luxe speckled effect it added to my manicures.  As a result I've been adding this gilt top coat to almost every mani I've been wearing lately, using either one or two coats depending on my mood.  Now I can share my small, slightly haphazard collection of spam pics with you taken over the last few weeks.  I think this indulgent top coat has the ability to lift any base polish except of course gold!

China Glaze - Electric Beat

(My favourite combo)

Wet n Wild - Ferguson Crest Syrah

Lime Crime - Once In A Blue Mousse

OPI - The Spy Who Loved Me

OPI - It's All Greek To Me

What's your favourite combo?

Until next time.

Vita :)

Layered NOTD: Essie As Gold As It Gets + OPI German-icure

After more than 500 posts this is the first time I've worn an Essie polish!

I was in one of my layering moods and Essie's flakie As Gold As It Gets, from Essie's Luxe Effects collection  looked like it would be a complimentary topping for OPI's German-icure.  (The Luxe Effects collection was launched as a holiday collection in the Northern hemisphere late in 2011 but they've only appeared down here in Australia over the last couple of months).   As Gold As It Gets is a fairly self explanatory title as this polish is of course a dense mix gold flakies floating in a clear base - A single coat of this made German-icure look a lot more textured, a lot more autumnal.  I was originally going to do the quick 'swatch and remove' thing but liked this mani enough to keep it on for the weekend.  As always, I've added a layer of top coat for added shine.  See what you think of this combination...

Sun

Shade

That's all for now.

Vita :)

Gosh Rainbow take 2...

The last time I tried the perfectly named Rainbow flakie polish by European beauty brand Gosh I didn't do it justice at all (see my flake fail post here). 

This time I applied Rainbow over the dark blue Alkaline Blue and I was much happier with the result.  I know it would look even better over a high gloss black base but these pictures aren't too bad.  The flakie did soak up my top coat and for a perfect glassy finish one or two more layers of top coat would be needed to tame the texture.  Well, here's my second offering.  All pictures were taken in cloudy conditions so the effect is a little subdued...

That's all for now.

Vita :)

A flakie fail :(

First of let me say it's not the polish failing in this post - it's my colour choice!

I've had European brand Gosh's gorgeous and aptly named Rainbow flakie polish in my collection for a few years now. It's been sitting there patiently awaiting its turn in the limelight and I've not done it any justice at all here.  I'd thought this green and orange flakie would leap out from my golden green base (L'Oreal Majestic Green ) but the expected contrast didn't happen.  The colours complimented each other a little too well so they've pretty well blended into each other. This is flakie polish camouflaged.  Lesson learnt - flakies need to go over a dark base to get that spectacular rainbow effect...

Now for the evidence:

A reswatch is definitely in order here!

Vita :)

Layering: Green with gold flakies

Hi and Happy Tuesday to you! Here's a post dedicated to layering using one of my favourite layering polishes - Inglot 205.

I'm not a nail artist but I like to have a bit of fun with polish.  I love Inglot's 205 green/gold flakie polish because by adding one coat it easily transforms a simple manicure into something a little bit special. 

Here I've applied a single coat of 205 over Orly's Green With Envy (see original manicure here ) and it added just the twist I wanted.  I think it looks a little like gold leaf on my nails:

Do you wear flakie polish?  What's your favourite flakie layering combo?

Until next time.

Vita :)

100th post! OPI Austin-Tatious Turquoise + Inglot 205 with guest nails

I really don't know how I made it to 100 posts so quickly!  Thinking back to when I first started out I figured I'd be posting about once, maybe twice per week on average so I have well and truly exceeded my expectations.  Somehow I've managed to keep up with daily posts and I'm still enjoying it!

Anyway here's a little bit of manicure fun I had with my close friend Wendy and her daughter Georgia the other day.  Stand by for lots of pictures!

First up my layering experiment.  This is two coats of Inglot 205 (green/gold flakies) layered over Austin-Tatious Turquoise.  I was really pleased with the result.

Shade

Sun



Georgia's nails:

2 coats of OPI's Bring on the Bling...

...and one coat of Black Shatter

Up close & blurred to show the sparkle

Wendy's nails:

Essence Space Queen over Essence Gold Rush

Finally a mother and daughter shot:

It was a fun girly afternoon!

Until my next post.

Vita :)

Flakie layering: Inglot 205

Happy Friday!

So this is how I saved my bubbling manicure - with a bit of flakie layering!

Inglot 205 is my first Inglot make-up product.  Inglot is a Polish cosmetics brand that's been around for 25 years.

Anyway, I wandered into their store last year at my local Westfield complex and was immediately taken by the glitter and flakie polishes.  This polish is amazing as it changes from orange-gold to green and has an emphatic duochrome effect on the nails.  This is my first flakie top coat and it was a 'wow' for me. It looked great layered over Revlon's Champagne Shimmer. I achieved this effect in two coats:

Have a great weekend!

Vita :)