Work appropriate glitter - Lynnderella A Neutral Party

Work appropriate glitter, they're a couple of words I never thought would be strung together. A nail polish themed oxymoron.

For the last two days I've been up in Sydney for work.  I had hoped to post from my hotel room last night, but I'll be damned if I can work out how to do a blog post from my iPad.  It only lets me put it together using HTML, and I didn't have the patience to do that on the iPad.  The blogger app didn't help either.  Let me know any tips if you have successfully blogged from your iphone or ipad.

Anyway, as I was away representing work, I thought I should wear something work appropriate rather than my regular full on glitter bombs.  Just a few days ago I received the only polish I wanted from the OPI Germany collection Don't Pretzel My Buttons.  Every swatch I have seen of that polish looked like the perfect nude.  After I applied Don't Pretzel My Buttons I loved it and it was the perfect nude for me too, but I decided that it was simply too plain on it's own.  

I grabbed out my bottle of Lynnderella's A Neutral Party and applied one dabbled coat to the tips, pulling a little of the shimmer and some sparse glitters down to about half way on my nails.  Perfect, just enough sparkle without being in your face bling.  It was still work appropriate enough for my environment, but clearly may not be for others.

A Neutral Party has various bronze, gold, copper, brown, black and white glitters in different shapes and sizes.  There is bar glitter in this one too, I say that cause I know bar glitter is either love or hate.  I did end up grabbing some tweezers to pull a long black bar off one finger that was hanging over the tip of my nail.  It was just hanging over enough to feel like a ragged sharp bit of nail and to catch on things.

The golden shimmer in A Neutral Party is pretty strong, which can make the polish look a bit frosty in full sun, but in regular lighting it's just a gorgeous shimmer.  I'm really looking forward to wearing A Neutral Party again with more coverage on each nail.

OPI Black Spotted

Thanks to a few amazing ladies from France *waves - hi girls* I have been able to obtain a couple of bottles of OPI Black Spotted.  This polish is a French exclusive and nearly impossible for anyone outside the EU to obtain, which of course means they are being flogged on ebay for prices far above retail.  But a few of my lovely french readers did a custom purchase for me and shipped them all the way down under. Thank you again!

OPI Black Spotted is one really interesting and strange polish.  After seeing Leslies awesome spotted mani over neons over at Polish Art Addiction, I knew exactly what my first spotted mani would be.

Before I put on my neon base for this mani, I tried black spotted over my existing mani.  I didn't take photos of that because it was a complete FAIL!  The bottle says to apply a very thin coat.  I thought I knew what a very thin coat was until I put this on.  My first hand was pretty much just completely black, no spots formed at all.  The next hand got progressively better as I wiped both sides of the brush so there was basically nothing left and then I painted my nail. That seemed to worked much better.

I've not yet been able to get large spots on my nails, only these little small ones after wiping the very empty brush over my nails a few times.  I also found it dried really quickly, but I have read others saying it dried slow enough for them to play around with the polish to get good spots. I definitely need more practice.

Another thing I read was that clean up is a bitch with this polish.  I can understand why given it is so pigmented.  I was very careful in my application of black spotted so I didn't have to clean up my cuticles very much - especially as my dry cuticles soak up pigmented polishes like nobody's business!

This is what my neon nails looked like to start with.

After the base colour I put on Seche Vite and allowed my nails to dry for 30 minutes.  I then applied the black spotted and then topped it with another coat of Seche Vite.

I found that the black spotted chipped of very easily at the free edge, even with top coat applied. But because of the patchiness of the design you don't really notice that its peeling off.

I love this effect over bright base colours and I'm looking forward to trying it over some other brights.  I like shatter polish but I think this is so much more interesting.  Just when you think there isn't any more finishes that can be created for nail polish, out comes this fun and unique effect.  I wonder what else there is that could possibly still be invented for nail polish.

OPI Ink with Chemistry 205

Ahhhhhh. Who doesn't love a bit of gorgeous purple shimmer?  Today's combo is the very pretty OPI Ink, which looks a murky dark blurple in the bottle, but on the nail it has a stunning purple shimmer.  Looking at swatches online it seems to be a lot more blue in most photos, but it's definitely more purple in real life.  

This polish was released as part of the OPI Night Brights collection in 2007, the very same collection that had the original My Private Jet in it.  I don't know if this is in fact hard to find these days, but thanks to the lovely Alanna from Pretty Purple Polish that picked this up in Sydney for me.

Hummmmmm. Bar (or string) glitter.  You either love it or hate it.  Me? I love it, except when I get one placed vertically down the nail and it hangs over the free edge.  I always make sure there are no bars too close to the free edge, or else I just know I'm going to pick and fiddle at that bit until I get it off.  I also hate bar glitter that curls up.  That is just wrong.  Luckily I only have one polish that has some curly bar glitters in it, and I'm willing to forgive that shortcoming cause it's such a dang awesome polish (I'm talking about you She Lived in a Swamp!)

Anyway, this is Chemistry 205, which has a lightly tinted purple base, fine silver glitter that spreads out perfectly, and silver holographic bar glitter, which doesn't curl and lays perfectly smooth on the nail. Thanks go to Kristy from The Polish Haven for sending this awesome polish my way!

Two coats of OPI Ink, one coat of Chemistry 205, one coat of Seche Vite top coat.

I'm totally in love with this combo.  How about you? Yay or Nay on the bar glitter?

OPI Warm & Fozzy

I filed my nails down last night.I'm surprised how much I prefer them short at the moment, looking back at my early blog post my nails look like talons.

This is OPI Warm & Fozzy.  Another stand out from the Muppets Collection.  The general feel of the polish in normal light is brown.  Blah, doesn't sound great does it. But trust me when I say this is sure is a sexy and multidimensional brown!

Zing - look at this in the sun, my eyes, my eyes.  It reminds me of our old 1 and 2 cent pieces, when you found a brand new one!

The different coloured flecks in this almost make it duo-chromey. At least I think it's duo-chromy, not my seared retinas from the sun shot before.

Here you can see some of the different coloured flecks that make up this polish. Mainly the bronze and pink pieces.

Hummmm, me likey you Mr Warm & Fozzy!

And while I think of it, Aussie gals, I'm going to do five straight days of Aussie themed nail art leading up to Australia Day on the 26th.  And when I say nail art, I mean stamping, stickers and decals too! So why don't you join me a get your Aussie on!

OPI I Lily love you over black

At the end of November I saw a swatch of OPI I Lily Love You over very dark purple on Shatter me Claire's blog.  I hadn't realised until then what an amazing flakie and irridesent glitter polish this was.  I'd seen swatches of it on it's own, but it really grabbed my attention over the dark colour.  So because of her blog post, off I went and grabbed this polish.

The base to I Lily Love You is a really sheer pink jelly.  I don't think you would be able to get it opaque on it's own.  Here is two coats, layers over a black base. 

The particles in this are so varied and complex.  There are irregular shaped pieces in various colours,  smaller square pieces, and even smaller round glitters.  All of the glitters and flakes are iridescent and really pop over a dark base

.

Thanks to your blog post Sarah Claire, I now have this beautiful polish.

Do you have I Lily Love You?  And have your tried it over a dark colour?

Excuse Moi layered over Metallic Red

It's my birthday tomorrow and I've got an early birthday present to show today.

I'm proud to say that my mum and I recently converted my muggle sister-in-law to the world of polish.  I was so totally excited to received one of the OPI Muppets polishes from her and the family when we caught up last weekend.  I love this so much that I'm going to have to grab a few more of the Muppets polishes.  Watch out Warm & Fozzy, Rainbow connection and Designer, de Better (I'm coming for you!)

I wore one coat of a dollar shop polish brand called NURY in Metal Red.  This is a gorgeous colour, but I didn't remember to photograph it on it's own.  I then layered two coats of OPI Excuse Moi, then gelous, then Seche Vite top coat.

This layering was so pretty.  My photos just don't do it justice. 

Excuse Moi is such an interesting polish.  It's opaque enough to wear on it's own in two coats, but it also is perfect for layering too. Because of it's pink base, I didn't realise there were so many interesting glitter colours in this polish until I got the macro shot.  I think that is why it looked so pretty on the nail.

I only took this off cause I scored a bottle of Essence Blue Addicted at Target yesterday and I had to kill that Across the Universe lemming immediately!  I will be putting this laying combo back on again soon. Love it!

One extreme to the other

This week at work, I went from one extreme to the other with my nails.  

On Monday and Tuesday I wore Gosh Holographic in all it's amazing silver holographic shiny awesomeness.  Luckily I work in an office where I can get away with 'out-there' looking nails, cause this is so *not* a work appropriate nail polish.  However, it was the perfect polish to be wearing when I told the woman at work about my nail blog!  It made her instantly look at my nails, and what better polish to be wearing than this!!

I got three good day's out of Gosh Holo! I used Orly bonder as the base coat, as I had heard it was just a good as Aqua Base.  Two coats of Gosh Holo, no top coat.  I did have some flakey bits wearing off on the corners of my nails, but it was still ok.

Wednesday night I switched polish, and I really went to the other extreme.  I tried a mattified mannequin mani.  Apologies for these less that stellar pictures of it.  It was taken in the drizzly morning light before heading to work early this morning.

This was OPI Samoan Sands and Essie Matte About You.  I totally love it.  It's so quite and neutral and so unlike my usual manis.  It makes my fingers look strangely long and alien like.  It's very cool.

OPI DS Original

A quick one today cause my little bubby is not feeling well and just wants cuddles.  I'll quickly post this while she sleeps.

When I posted about my favourite purples, I said this was at the top of the list.  OPI DS Original.

This was the first holographic polish I ever purchased and it holds a special place in my heart, I love it.

This is one of my 'go to' polishes, which goes on like a dream, dries super fast and looks fabulous with anything you wear.  It always makes me feel happy when I wear it.  Do you have a HAPPY polish?

Plucking chickens

Today I'm sharing with you OPI Meet & Jingle with Nubar 2010 layered on top.  This did look very pretty, but I'm afraid I have a problem with red polish, and it goes back to my Granddad.

My Nana (my Mums Mum) who passed away more than 20 years ago, had beautiful nails.  My mum always comments how I inherited her nails.  Nana loved to paint her nails, and unfortunately I never got to share that experience with her. But one thing I do remember is what my Granddad used to say to her when she had red nail polish on.  So what was it?  "You've been plucking chickens again".  Isn't that just awful!

So now, whenever I wear red polish, it kind of jumps out at me and I always think of that phrase. So I'm just not sure that I like it on me.

Anyway, here are a couple of up close pictures to show the beautiful flakies in Nubar 2010.

I'm looking forward to applying 2010 over some other dark colours, probably blue tones though.

OPI Absolutely Alice

As you would know, this polish was released last year as part of the whole Alice in Wonderland collection.  What you probably don't know is that the actress Mia Wasikowska, who played Alice is from my home town, Canberra.  In fact she even went to the same high school as me. Except I was at school there about the time she was born - tee hee, now I'm showing my age!!

Anyway, Absolutely Alice is glitter polish perfection.  It's almost all blue micro glitter, but with enough gold glitter in there to catch the sun and glint in your eye.   I love that this glitter was so dense that two coats gives 100% coverage.

Alice up very close.

This is the only polish I got from the collection.  I was wondering about getting Mad as a Hatter.  What do you think?

OPI - I Get A Kick Out Of Gold

I bought this polish AGES ago, probably the beginning of last year, and yesterday I was going through my boxes to find polishes that I hadn't swatched and I found this one.  I can't believe I forgot about it and it got lost amongst my stash.  I didn't even include it in my gold foil comparison.  I'll have to do another one now.

The above photo was taken in the sun, below indoors under artificial light.  OPI - I get a kick out of gold is an older polish, but you can still get it on ebay.  But, given that there are so many gold foil polishes out there that would be almost dupes of this, it's not one that you need to go out and get.  What I like about this gold is that it is a cool tone (like Orly Lux and Jessica Palladium). This was three coats + one Seche Vite.

To mix it up a bit, last night I added two coats of LA Girls Rock Star Double Platinum.  I love this polish but have never been able to get it opaque enough to do a swatch of it on its own.  LA Girls Rock Star Double Platinum is a holographic glitter in a slightly smokey, almost clear base.  Here is the full sun pic from this morning.

Under artificial light last night.

And the obligatory blurry shot to show the glitter.

It makes me smile looking at my nails today, what a shame I have to take it off to put on the green magnetic polish that turned up in the post today!! 

OPI Designer Series - Glamour

I'd been lemming this polish for sooooo long.  Then just two weeks ago, there it was on ebay and the listing had two bottles.  Including postage it still cost me less than if I had to purchase them in store here in Canberra (not that I would ever have found this discontinued lovely here). YAY.  One happy camper.

Glamour is a smooth and opal like peacock blue holographic polish.  I have already described the finish of these polishes in my post about OPI Opening Night Gold, so I won't go into that again.  This was three coats.  Wear wasn't quite as good on this as it was on Opening Night Gold or Desire, but still better than China Glaze or Nfu Oh holos.

Again, a close up of the holo awesomeness on this glorious blue polish.

Mmmmmwah - big kiss for you OPI Glamour.