OPI DS Royal over China Glaze Spontaneous (flash)
China Glaze Spontaneous, which you can see in more detail here, is a midtone creamy warm purple and it matches the base color of OPI DS Royal fabulously. Royal has got that jelly purple base with an almost foil-like blue shimmer with a purple flash. I have only used Royal before over black, which is a sight for sore eyes, but pulls mostly blue. I wanted to bring out it's purple without having to put on 4 coats, so I layered it over Spontaneous. I love the contrast between the creamy base and the bright blue flecks that seem to float on top, and I really like that it cools down considerably in indoor indirect light. I love this combination!
Click for a few more photos!
Index to pinkie: Zoya Roxy, Claire's Chunky Purple, Zoya Roxy, Zoya Astra
Zoya Roxy: This is what I refer to as my "party in a bottle." Roxy is pure magenta glitter goodness in a bon bon of a bottle. Three or four coats of this and the nails are a deep sea of outrageous vibrant glitter.
Claire's Chunky Purple: I originally picked this one up because it reminded me off-hand of Roxy and boy it's close. Aside from the obvious addition of silver hex glitter and the fact that the "other" glitter is smaller than Roxy's, the base is the same and the end result is so similar. It's jazzed up a bit, but still just as awesome. The hex glitter adheres to the nail well, and you get good coverage for this one in about three coats. it's also SMOOTH on the nail with just a coat of topcoat which is a feat for such a "chunky" polish
Zoya Astra: Astra is a bit lighter and more pink than the others. You also see a fair amount more glitter than the others per coat of polish. It's ultra blingy and a happy unique warm pink that I haven't seen anywhere else. I love the addition of a little silver in the glitter.
I am so sorry, I totally forgot to take a bottle comp photo!!! I'll see if I can remember to get one soon.
OPI DS Diamond is like the dusty lilac version of DS Fantasy. It's got this weird pseudo-holo. It's like "holo interrupted." There are holographic shimmer pieces sort of camouflaged inside some sort of strange textured pieces inside the lilac base. Like Fantasy, it's pretty opaque, and regardless of the stunted holo effect, it's gorgeous. I love the dusty creamy lilac aspect of it which reminds me of China Glaze Light as Air. This would make a great office polish for the lacquer head because it's understated and lovely, but still different and fun. Can you see the weird gold discoloration at the base of the bottle? I don't know what's up with it, but the polish doesn't seem to be coming out of the bottle discolored. *Shrug* You got me, I keep my polishes in drawers inside a closet in a temperature-controlled room and obviously away from sunlight, so beats me what's wrong with it. Still works though.
China Glaze LOL is getting increasingly harder to find, so if you want it, get it now where you can find it. It's a midtone true purple with a very fine holographic finish. Honestly, I find that this, as well as the other polishes from the OMG collection, apply best without a topcoat. I feel like I get a lot of lifting of polish at the cuticles while applying when I put it over any kind of base coat. If I go sans base, these apply very easily and look great. If you put one on and then top it with a top coat and feel like it has killed the holographic effect, never fear, wait a few minutes and it'll be back to normal. These also make great polishes for Konad, and (I've heard) for water marbling. Ask Nihrida, she knows more about that than I do. But I digress, I love the OMG polishes, especially this one and DV8 which is a deep teal holo. Whoo!
Index to pinkie: (all China Glaze) Cherish, Metallic Muse, Adore, Cherish
Cherish: The yellowest of these greens, Cherish is from the Romantiques collection of frosty metallics. Careful application can negate most of the brush strokes when using this alone as a nail color, but it definitely has that tendency. When used as a Konad stamp, it is sublime; wonderful crisp images and gorgeous reflectivity.
Metallic Muse: This one is from the Khromes collection and these were a bit more smooth in application and a bit more reflective. It's the most minty of the three and is slightly lighter as well. It's sort of delicate. This one also makes an incredible Konad polish. I ran out to Sally to look for it when the Nail Art Contest prizes came in and I saw in the prizes how amazing it looked. I had to have it, too. And luckily now i do!
Adore: I love this blue-green polish so much it's not even right. It does show brush strokes if you're not incredibly careful, but the vibrant ocean-like hue is so worth it. It makes an amazing stamp, just like the others.
Zoya Astra - $7 at zoya.com
Astra was the only one of the three Ultra Glitter polishes I purchased when they first came out a few months ago. I originally bought it because of my all-consuming love of Zoya Roxy and thought this might be something like Roxy Lite. Turns out Astra is as gorgeous as expected, but she dances to the beat of her own drum. The base here is much more sheer than Roxy. Where Roxy has a deep-yet-vibrant magenta base with which to support the oodles of matching glitter, Astra has a sheer jelly raspberry base with warm pink and silver glitter. There's more glitter in Astra, to be sure. In order to avoid seeing the base color, you'd need four coats. This is three on otherwise bare nails. I've worn this a couple times already as you can clearly see from the level in the bottle, and it wears pretty well. It's on par with Roxy which is the only other Zoya glitter I've tried. Overall, this is such a neat polish, and I love it, but I admit I still love Roxy more. I recommend both polishes though, if you're dying for some bling and/or some Zoya.
Click for another photo
Our hometown WVU Mountaineer basketball team are in the Elite Eight, so I had to celebrate and support the boys for their game tomorrow night. So I used China Glaze Passion as a base and then used OPI DS Fantasy and Konad plate m78 to make this design . The blue is a bit more navy in person, which works out lovely. I also thought the stamp looked sort of like the WV "logo" with the W sitting on the V.
Click for another photo
I went into Sally Beauty on Wednesday night to get a backup of China Glaze Millenium, my go-to silver polish for Konad-ing. I was also hoping to find 2030 still on the shelves, but no luck. I did, however, find Metallic Muse which is a minty green sort of metallic polish from the same Khrome collection as Millenium. I brought it home and tried to figure out what I wanted to do with it first, and I started to imagine it over Essie Mint Candy Apple, so that's what you see here. Three coats of the Essie and then Konad plate m63 with China Glaze Metallic Muse made this simple design. What I like about matching a shiny metallic over a similarly colored creme polish base is that while in some lights, the contrast in finish is very dramatic, in others it's very subtle and you can't even tell there is a design. It's very evident in these flash photos, but in person it's quite a chameleon.
These gold studs are available for $1 for about 33 pieces at dollarnailart.com. I applied them off center in a line down each nail to the black Color Club polish while it was still tacky, and than as always sealed it with Seche Vite topcoat. I had originally tried using the studs as an almost French-tip type thing but my nail curves far too much and they didn't really work because these are quite flat. I didn't have any luck bending them either. But either way, I dig the gold studs on patent leather look.
What say you lot? Would you try metal studs on your nails? Click for another pic
One week from today, the Beautopia Nail Art Contest will officially begin receiving entries. If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen a few tweets about this but I've not let the cat completely out of the bag... Until now.
Starting on April 1st, and running all month long, you can submit photos of your nail art to be entered to win some awesome prizes. You can enter as many designs as you like and it will be open to international friends. You don't have to have a blog, the only requirement is creativity! Use whatever sorts of products you like.
The Grand Prize alone will be worth nearly $200 and include amazing prizes from China Glaze, WowSoCool.com, Nailene and more, plus some fun things I've picked out for you. So get your creative juices flowing because the contest officially begins in one week, on April 1! All details, rules, and prizes will be posted then. I am so excited to see what everyone comes up with!
