Sinful Courtney Orange

Apparently I can't bump off polishes off my untried list if I've only used them for a franken, because in my head this was a light orange with gold shimmer. I even recommended it as such in passing to Kimberly from http://libbyspinkvanity.blogspot.com/.... but thought I'd check with a quick swatch... DERP.  As you can see, red-orange, vividly so. Not exactly neon but still so bright it made my skin look almost grey in real life. Pointer and ring are two coats, middle and pinkie are three. As you can see, there's barely any VNL even with two coats.

Okay, see the gold glitter shining in the bottle? That's what I thought the polish looked like when I bought it. DERP.

 Sunlight pushes this closer to what I thought it was.

This polish is eye-searingly out of my comfort zone, but at the same time it's such an awesome color! Thank you, Kimberly, for piquing my interest in this and helping me discover an amazing and cheap gem in my stash!

I'll have to bust this out again for Halloween.

I've Got the Blues - Franken

Actually, I've got the mean reds today but that is neither here nor there.

So, I've got a super duper easy franken to show today. So tempted to call this multichrome, but it's not. It's just neon pigments refuse to be ignored. My application was a bit funny. Everything is three coats except the pointer finger and thumb which are two. Yeah, it took me three fingers to realize two coats was no different than three.

All natural light (shade):

This ridiculously composed picture in sunlight is the only one that came out color accurate so I'm going to pretend this one was intentional. Every time I think my camera skills are improving the universe shows me how wrong I am. Pfft.

"Recipe"/Polish ratio: roughly 4 parts Sinful Love Nails to one part pink neon (I'm using China Glaze Pool Party).

Thoughts: I read in MUA's review section that Love Nails is a duochrome. What?? I've had this languishing in my stash for a while now and I never noticed. And hey, it is! It's a metallic electric blue in one direction and metallic teal in the other. The color shift is very strong but since it's blue to blue-green, I never noticed. So, I added pink because pink + blue = some kind of purple.  Neons always dry fast and have a tendency to chip fast and this did dry fast but I got about three days before there was tip wear. Yay!

That's all the rambling I'll do for now. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed this one heh.

Ruby Pumps Gradient

 Hi folks! Long time no see. /sheepish shifty

Yarr, I made a gradient with China Glaze Ruby Pumps and Sinful Black on Black.

natural light:

artificial light:

I really, really love how Ruby Pumps looks under the fluorescent lamp. I just wish the combination of red and black didn't remind me so much of The Twilight Saga...

 

 

And I've been playing around with watermarks. Let me know if it's obtrusive or something.

Batik!

I filed my nails really weirdly this time, and accidentally very short to boot! I shouldn't be allowed to operate heavy machinery... lol But I'll fix it once my nails grow out a bit. -.-

Anyway, this is Sinful Black on Black (one coat!) and stamping with an oldie, Essie Shifting Power. I did the reverse on my thumbs and ring finger (two coats Shifting Power).

Sunlight:

Shade:

 

It reminds me of Batik. :D

Orange Pink Franken

Oops, hi. I meant to post this Friday, but I melted instead. /wicked witch of the mid Atlantic
I took these pictures a few months ago, but if I don't post this now I may never post it. haha

All of these were taken in natural light except the second one which was taken in sunlight.

Two coats + topcoat.

Facing the light source:

 

In the other direction it's pink... Okay, this one didn't photograph well. The pink is all in the shimmer which you can kind of see if you click and enlarge. Anyway, the shimmer doesn't hide in real life.

The rest of the time it's an orangey coral.

This is roughly 45% Sinful Colors' Bali Mist, 45% Sinful Colors' Courtney Orange(a shimmery orange-red), and 10% Wet n Wild Goldmine (gold shimmer).

Sinful Colors - Bali Mist

Sinful Colors - Bali Mist, 3 coats + topcoat.

This looks really purple and green in the bottle but on the nail it's like a metallic/opalescent pink. Actually, for whatever reason, this finish makes me a little bit nauseous lol.

See, purple green bottle. So pretty!

Even in low light the duochrome is weak. Luckily I read the MUA reviews and already knew about this, and I bought this intending to exploit its weakness. More on that tomorrow.

But first, just curiously, I stamped this over yesterday's mani. Subtle, but I like it.

*Blogger flipped my photos so they aren't all horizontal. I'm finding this rather disorienting. Anyone know how to fix it?

Dusty Purple Grey Franken

It's been such a long time since I've posted a franken.

I mixed Color Club Get A Clue with a little bit of Sinful Black on Black (about seven parts GAC to one part black), two coats. It's mauve grey, neutral grey and purple grey at different angles. Not duochrome but still neat.

 

Sorry to be so vague on the recipe. This was a single manicure batch. What happened was I accidentally glopped 3 drops of black into my palette, and I just ended stirring in more and more of Get A Clue in until I was satisfied with the color. But the notes with my test mix indicate that this was 7 parts to 1.

Thoughts: Get A Clue is a light pink creme that leans a bit blue. Any standard light pink would work by adding a little blue creme or jelly. Sinful Black on Black is a very neutral (and highly pigmented!) black. Sometimes black polishes have a blue base. In which case I would have had to use a standard light pink. I really should do a swatch and comparison of Get A Clue to show what I mean. On it!

Anyway, I was trying to dupe Sally Hansen Concrete which is already hard to find and it was released less then a year ago. SH should really rethink their distribution method/business strategy!  I've never seen it in person so I don't know how close I got, but I am satisfied with my franken. I patted myself on the back and ordered a bottle of Nubar. :D

Is this work appropriate?

This is one careful coat of Revlon's Copper Penny, but the middle finger could have used two because I am not always careful. Plus stamping with Sinful's Black on Black using Mash plate m57 and topcoat. Pardon the slight (only 3 hours :(...) tip-wear.

Ahh, but I didn't use a base-coat (I wasn't planning on wearing this as an actual mani) and there was no staining and no chips even after five days!

Anyway, this probably isn't work appropriate but no one noticed (or at least no one said anything) but we were in the middle of launching a new project last week. Though I did get called out for wearing dark blue polish a few months ago. /pout