NOTD: Zoya Emme

I'm not sure I like this color yet. It's one I got from the free Zoya Facebook giveaway. I guess I'll see if it grows on me.

all my base are belong to experiement

I have this week off from work due to illness, so what a better time than do a test on some of the different basecoats I have. I started each nail with Essie beam up. On my pointer finger I used NailTek Foundation II,  middle finger got Zoya Anchor, ring finger has Nail Life Gripper, and the pinkie has Essie 3-way-glaze.


I didn't take pictures, sorry, but for me the best are the Nail Life Gripper and the Essie 3 way. The NailTek and the Zoya had chips in them in day. In all fairness I am out of CND Stickey, which I have had good luck with, so I will keep that on my to buy list.

One Less Lonely Glitter swatches

So the only other color I got from the Justin Bieber collection was one less lonely glitter.

The Finger on the left has 2 coats of OLLG, the middle finger has 1 coat of SH Xtreme wear in Lacey Lilac covered with 2 coats of OLLG. The finger on the right has 3 coats of OLLG.

I didn't use a top coat with these and without it it totally feels and looks like sandpaper. It's really thick glitter with coarser pieces mixed in.

When I wear this again I will probably just wear it alone with the three coats.

Another thing, in the photos you can see these really dark pieces of glitter throughout. When I was wearing it whether inside or outside I never saw that. It all blended together well.

Justin Bieber One Less Lonely Girl Collection

First of all I felt like such a dork buying polish from a Justin Bieber collection, but it's nail polish and when it comes to that sometimes I just have no shame.

I got 2 colors from the collection, One Less Lonely Glitter, a nice purple glitter that was impossible to photgraph correctly:

It's a much more royal purple in real life

and My Lifesaver:

I tried My Lifesaver first, and here are the pics:

I thought this one was pretty easy to apply and I do like the new brush they have. The closest dupe I have in my collection is China Glaze For Audrey, My Lifesaver is just a touch mintier green.

Essie Matte about You vs. Hard Candy Matte-ly In Love matte top coats

I wanted to test these on light and darker colors. The orange is Sephora by OPI How Cute is That and the green is Revlon Scented polish in Ocean Breeze. The pointer finger is without any top coat, the middle finger has the Essie matte top coat and the ring finger has the Hard Candy.

Overall, there is not much of a difference.. Though I will say a few times the Hard Candy has left a milky film on my polish. I've never had any problems with the Essie matteifier.

Sorry I messed up the green with the Hard Candy getting impatient moving some nail polish into my new storage system. :(

Pure Ice - French Kiss

Until now my nail collection has been pretty much anything in the pink family. If it's glittery, even better. If it's not, I have several glitter top coats I can put over it.

I have been out of work after surgery so I don't have a huge budget right now. Once I do I will be getting new shades from new various collections to review. But for now I am doing what I can on a budget to get out of my comfort zone and try some new things.

The first thing I learned is that taking pictures of certain polish colors is not easy!

And here is the picture on the nails...2 coats. It's obviously blue in this picture, but in real life you have to look closely to see that it really is a dark blue.

Next I'm going to jazz it  up with some of what I have in my collection right now, including my oldest bottle of polish, which, interestingly is one that is in the best shape. I've tried to find out when this line was released but haven't been able to, so if anyone happens to read this and knows, please tell me.

One disasrous nail day.

First, today was just a bad mani day at my house. First I used For Audrey by China Glaze. I don't know if it's always like this but it was so hard to deal will. I could not get it smooth, even smooth-ish to save my life. It was streaking everywhere, globbing everywhere else. I love the color and thought it would be really cute with some Konad stamps. But I got so frustrated I took it all off in a fit.

Then comes the next attempt. I was using Essie cote azure from the Essie collection at Walmart. I've never been a huge Essie lover, I don't hate her stuff and I have a few pinks that I really like but this stuff was a nightmare.

This is the best I could get my left had even after starting over a second time. Yes, I look like an even worse manicurist than I am. In these pictures my frustration was so built up, but if it turned into what I wanted it would have been great and I'd have cleaned up everything around a little more.

Now the pinkie and pointer finger weren't terrible, but the middle and ring were soooo bumpy!! Adding to my frustration you might notice that I spilled my bottle all over the floor and the bottle itself. Ugh. But I am coming along learning how to Konad so that's cool. I just have plates 2 and 3 and I am about to order 4 more and some more special polish.

Then I feel asleep for a while and woke up a punk Papa Smurf with a Mohawk who either made his beard a goatee and died it blue or is throwing up blueberry rum.

 

Happy Nail Days to All!!