Subtle Zebra

I picked up another bottle of Manhattan after using the other one in a franken. But this bottle seems slightly different, thinner less pigmented formula. Nooo! Oh well.This is two coats New York Color Manhattan stamped with New York Color East Village. Pardon the nicked index finger. At some angles it looked like this.
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And at other angles the design was barely noticeable. Secret design so I don't get yelled at -- at work.

Another Franken Skittles Experiment

I don't like Skittles candy but I love nail skittles! Maybe someone has caught on that I also love frankening. Everything is two coats except the thumb and index which are three.

Index is Sally Hansen Purple Pizazz
Ring is China Glaze Ruby Pumps
Middle is a mix of Ruby Pumps and a little Purple Pizazz
Pinkie is a mix of Purple Pizazz and a little Ruby Pumps
Thumb is Purple Pizazz, Ruby Pumps, and OPI Simply Smashing

Lamp:

Natural light, shade:

I love successful experiments. Happy polishing, everyone!

Jelly Franken Matte and Subtle Stamping

This one didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I mixed N.Y.C. Manhattan, a dark plum creme, with lots of clear. The rule of thumb for jellies is one part creme to two or three parts clear. It's that simple. Manhattan is crazy pigmented so, what you're seeing is one part creme to six parts clear. Crazy! I poured some into my palette and added more clear. The ring finger is splotchy. I have that problem with single-batch frankens. I was actually trying to avoid this problem by mixing a whole bottle. Boo! Once I use up some of the bottle, I will add more clear because this still isn't jelly enough for me. This is three coats plus topcoat.

I added a coat of matte. This is weirdly suede-like. I don't know why.

And stamped with clear and a design from plate m63.

OPI Grape Set Match

OPI Grape Set Match (I'm going to ignore the ellipses) from one of the England Glam Slam sets. I love this color! I took a hundred pictures but I'm not loving any of them. Bugger. But at different angles it's violet, purple, or blue. This is going into the top 20 of the year! and I'm sorta bummed more people aren't talking about it. A consequence of an oversaturated market.

Three coats plus topcoat. Under the lamp:

Sunlight:

GSM comes with a holo topcoat but I don't really like the combination. It just looks too busy. But I decided to play right before taking off the polish. Pointer and middle are one layer of Servin' Up Sparkle, ring and pinkie are one layer LA Colors Sparkling Diamonds.

And I'm almost, almost caught up on email and everything else. Almost.

Not Like the Movies, Stamped

Apparently we had an earthquake and now we're getting a hurricane chaser. Not like the movies indeed... Originally I wasn't going to buy this because really, how many bottles of purple green duochromes do I need? But then I saw it on Paillette's blog and I succumbed. Grr! Actually, I'm really glad I got this. I heard there's a dud version of this floating around and luckily this doesn't seem to be it. And the duochrome should keep me entertained for a couple days if the power goes out. Ha!

Three coats OPI Not Like the Movies stamped with OPI Ogre-the-Top Blue. A really good blue polish for stamping, if you were looking for one.

Aww, the winds and rain are starting to pick up and the mailman just pulled up. It's days like these where I feel bad for them. Well, staying dry doesn't seem to be an option, but I hope everyone on the east coast stays safe!

Better Together + Not So Blueberry

Okay, I started off with three coats of Essie Better Together, no topcoat. I generally avoid pinks but I love milky polishes.

I stamped with Revlon Not So Blueberry and mash plate m78. The lovely Kris from http://mylucidbubble.blogspot.com/ gave this to me but it doesn't want to photograph correctly so I haven't done a proper post on it yet. x.o

 

For whatever reason, my camera caught the  purple and mild teal duochrome this time. Yay! Oh, that gives me an idea.

 

 No topcoat. I like the contrasting finishes.

Wet n Wild Soulmate + Watermarbling

 Last holiday season, Wet n Wild repackaged sixteen of their discontinued polishes in bottles from their Flirt line and sold them in two collections of eight. I bought one because I wanted to re-purpose the bottles for frankening. How cute are the bottles?! Anyway, it turns out that five of the eight colors are too awesome to clean away. This is Wet n Wild Soulmate. Two coats of awesome metallic neon purple.

 

At one angle it's violet with blue shimmer.

I wanted to try some water marbling, and I had this idea for just two colors. This is LA Colors Art Deco Black + clear.

Erm, I didn't really like the result. Other than the thumb, I find it too black shatter.  But look, glowy purple! It's a bit soft-looking, just like in real life. Too bad WnW discontinued this shade.