Illamasqua Wink + Crackle

A quick post as I have to start getting ready for a wedding this evening!

Gorgeous pastel purple. Applied itself in two coats. After a few days I added a China Glaze crackle in Broken Hearted:

The thumb was my favorite. I really liked this mani. I believe I had this on for Easter and it was a hit.

Vacation Mani Fail

I'm home! My vacation was great, and I picked up a few polishes that I'll post later this week. For now, I thought I'd share what I've had on my nails for the past week.

Two coats of Nicole by OPI Shell Me the Truth. Pink with gold shimmer. Almost a glass fleck. Pretty, but pulled more gold on me. I'm not a fan of gold. I wanted to add something special, so I decided to layer Essie Nude Beach on top of it. This is where the problems started.

Look at the bubbles! I've never had a polish bubble this bad on me before. It looks lumpy and gross. I used two coats of Nude Beach, and the base is kind of milky, so it dulled down the sparkle of Shell. The green shimmer was barely noticeable, but I was able to capture it a bit on my cell phone:

See?! It was totally awesome. Just poor execution, I guess. Also, this mani never dried. I did it at 1am the night before I left, and I could still dent it when I landed in LA the next morning. In fact, if I press hard enough, I can still dent it now.

Shell Me the Truth is going in my purge box, at least for now. Maybe I'll try it again on its own, but that won't be for a while. Although I'm 85% sure the problems arose from layering, I'm not a fan of the brush, and the polish pulls more gold on me.
I'm giving Nude Beach another shot. The green micro shimmer is too unique to me. Plus, I'm generally a fan of Essie, so I'm in denial that she would ever make a poor polish.

A Short Absence

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! I'm popping in for a quick update. We had a huge sale at work this past weekend and I wore myself out. Today was filled with homework and packing, because tomorrow I leave for California! I wanted to get some posts scheduled before I left but I don't think I'll be able to get around to it. I'll probably be awake for a while yet (what can I say, I'm a procrastinator!) so I'll try to schedule a quick post or two, but I can't promise anything. I'll be back late Monday night, so don't be alarmed if you don't see anything from me til Tuesday! Have a good weekend!

Recent Haul

I recently picked up a few lemmings so I thought I'd share them with everyone.

First, the entire China Glaze Surf Collection. I'm most excited about this. China Glaze makes some amazing glass flecks. I think this collection is circa 2008.
From left: White-Kwik-Silvr: White with white flecks. Similar to ChG Frosty.
Yell-O-Neil: Yellow with yellow flecks. Similar to ChG Lighthouse.
Pink-Rox-E: Pink with gold flecks.
Orange-Pacific: Orange with orange flecks.
Red-Curl-Grl: Red with red flecks.
Blk-Bila-Bong: Black with blue flecks.
(They really love their hyphens!)

From left: Glacier, GR8, & Side Saddle
Glacier is from the Specialty Collection. It's similar to Snow Globe, which I love, except with smaller glitter.
GR8, as I'm sure we all know, is from the OMG collection. It's a dirty golden-yellow with linear holo. Great for stamping with, too.
Side Saddle is from the Rodeo Diva Collection. I originally wasn't interested in it, but then I saw Rachel's swatches, and I fell in love. I love Wagon Trail too, but the others in Rodeo Diva are pretty, but don't wow me.

From left: Glass Slippers & Ruby Slippers
Glass Slippers is a sheer white polish with silver glitter/flecks. I'm not really sure what they are. It's gorgeous though.
Ruby Slippers is a glowing red glitter polish. You've probably seen this one and know how gorgeous it is.

From left: Worth the Risque & Ultra-Astral
Worth the Risque is a silver holo polish. What can I say, I love holos. There's been problems with duds from Color Club as of late, but this particular bottle is just fine. I'm not sure if it was produced before or after the duds started appearing, so I can't comment on if the problem has been fixed.
Ultra-Astral is a bright pink with round holo glitter from the newer Starry Temptress Collection. All the colors were unbelievable, but this was the only one that was extremely unique to me, because the glitter turns kind of blue-ish on the nail, at least in swatches I've seen. I'll have to swatch it myself to see the results.

Nfu Oh 61

Hope nobody in Chicago melted over the past two days. The thunderstorm last night was way cool, though. Some of that lighting was so bright, it lit up our entire room! On Tuesday, some friends and I went to the beach (I know, are we nuts or what? It was about 100 degrees) and I figured it was a perfect time to pull out a holo.

This is Nfu Oh 61, a silver linear holo. I used one coat of Nfu Oh Aqua Base underneath this to make application smoother. I then applied two coats of 61 and China Glaze Fast Forward top coat. The TC seemed to have killed the holo a bit, so I added another coat of 61. I had minimal patchiness and the polish dries very quickly. The manicure is pretty wrecked now because of the sand and water, but I also didn't use a normal base coat, so it's partially my fault.

You can buy these at fabuloustreet.com. Nfu Oh's are $12.50 a bottle, but there's free US shipping, so it evens out. The holos are a hot commodity, though, so they're usually not in stock, and when they are, they sell out fast. Nfu Oh makes lots of other great polishes though, including flakies and jellies. Those will have to wait for another post.
Edit! Awesome bottle pic: