M: Mystery, OPI Designer Series

Hey ladies!

Sorry I've been missing for a bit, but life has just been a bit crazy.  First for today's ABC challenge, "M" I chose Mystery by OPI, part of their designer series, number 037 if your a collector.  I'm in the mood for pastels, but I don't have many M polishes so I apologize if this really isn't spring appropriate.  Below is two coats.

Mystery is a dark purple jelly with gold flakies.... supposedly this has "diamond dust" in it.... whatever, I'm NOT impressed.

I missed the letter L, last week.  I spent a few days in Montreal, Canada for my birthday.

View from our hotel room.  We stayed at Auberge du Morency, St. Hippolyte, Quebec.

Hubby and I in front of Notre Dame, Montreal, Canada.

Me at the biodome.

I caught a nice picture of two beavers swimming in the water together.  Also at the Biodome.  Here they come.

There they go!

Yes it was cold but we had a nice time. I've been back for several days, and it still feels like winter down here too.

How's the bedroom coming along? We are stuck at a stand still, waiting for miter saw parts. When it rains it pours.  Aside from going away, and working.... we have been distracted with a three broken toilets, (yes three), a leaking water heater and malfunctioning water pressure valve. The water heater and toilets are all 28 years old, so it was just a matter of time that they all stopped working, at the same time! Not to worry, we got a plumber in and he fixed everything, for $2400. So now I have three brand new toilets, and when ever I turn on a faucet, or flush a toilet, I don't hear a fog horn sound, and thankfully I have hot water too! Gotta be grateful right?

Plus my wireless router started to die and I did not have internet access for a few days. I bought a new router which took me 10 minutes to install and work, but the printers were not picking up the signal, so I spent four hours one evening to get every piece of technology in sync with the new router. Let's just say my patience has been tested the last couple of weeks.

I installed a Linksys N900 dual band router.  If anyone has that router, I'd love to hear your thoughts.  I went from a single band 802.11g to a dual band 802.11n, but I haven't noticed any improvement in speed or range. I'm thinking I should have gotten a cheaper one. ??

Well that's it for today!

Essence - #116 Gorgeous Bling Bling

Hey there!  Long time, no read!

I apologize for missing in action.  I will explain at the end of this post, but first I have a simple work mani to show you, a nice terracotta with gold flakies from Essence.  This one is called Gorgeous Bling Bling.... below is two easy coats.  I thought this was a nice polish, it stood out in a sea of reds, pinks and neutral nail polishes, yet, is tasteful/respectful.

I got my 8 ml bottle for $1.99 at Ulta.

My husband's mother passed away, in her home, and on her own terms on November 16th. I wasn't going to say anything but decided maybe I should since she let me do a post on her nails last year.  So we travelled down to Florida for her funeral and my husband and I stayed down there for Thanksgiving as well.  Needless to say, I was on the road for two and half days and had spotty internet along with a hectic schedule so... that is where I have been.  Although we are all saddened by her death she is in a better place. 

Well, that is it for now.  Thanks for stopping by.

Barielle - Elle's Spell

Hello out there!

Today I have another jelly polish to show you, except this one has fiery mylar flakies in it.... Elle's Spell by Barielle, which was released in 2010.  I found this little bottle at Marshall's for $2.99!  Here it is, two super easy coats topped with INM Out the Door top coat.

In this photo, you can see the flakies shift from orange to green.

You can see my remove this polish with soy based polish remover in this previous post.

That's it for today.  Hope you are having a nice weekend!

Update:  Transdesign.com has this for sale, for I think $3.60.

Zoya - Chloe - Layering experiment - Part 2

So here is part two.  Orly's Rock the World was another polish I thought would go well with orange-green mylar flakies.  Rock the World's base color is purple where as Space Cadet's is green, so I thought it might be better with Sinful Color's Fig. 

Zoya's Chloe

Orly's Rock the World - purple base with strong gold shimmer.

Overall.

Macro shot.

Instead of two coats of Chloe this is just one coat.  Topped off again with Seche Vite, and the base is still the same, Sinful Colors Fig.

Between the two I liked Chloe with Space Cadet better.  The flakies stood out more against the purple shimmer and more color shifting was apparent.  Rock the world was more monotone with gold being very prominent and the orange shifting was lessened.  Its not too terribly different from yesterday's post but small differences sometimes are noticeable. 

Click on yesterday's post to see part one, in case you missed it.

Are you going to try this?

Zoya - Chloe - Layering experiment - Part 1

This post will be part one of two series on my layering experiment with Zoya's Chloe. Its pretty sheer and I don't think its intended to be worn alone.

Chloe's mylar flakies shift from mainly green to orange, but sometimes you can spot some aqua blue in there.  I picked up Chloe because I don't have very many flaky polishes.  However, when I got it home, I did not know what I was going to do with it.   So it sat for a couple of months while I hemmed and hawed over what to do. 

What looks good with something that looks like a clumpy oil slick?

I know, Orly's Space Cadet!?

Two coats of Chloe on there.

At a sharp angle.

Space Cadet.

Up close.

The base color I used was Sinful Colors Fig, but any medium purple underneath Space Cadet would produce the same affect.

So here's what I used, 1 coat Cult Nails Get it On base coat,  2 coats Sinful Colors Fig, 1 coat Cult Nails Wicked Fast top coat, 1 coat Orly's space cadet, 2 coats of Zoya's Chloe, 1 coat Seche Vite.  Eight whopping coats of nail polish. 

I didn't do all of this at once.  I was wearing Sinful Colors Fig for a couple of days alone.  So this was an easy recycled mani.

Side note: For those readers who are big 3 free, Seche Vite is not, it contains toluene. 

Please feel free to comment.  I love comments!

Sinful Colors - Green Ocean

Okay people, brace yourselves, as you are about to see a GORGEOUS flakie from Sinful Colors named Green Ocean.  One coat layered over Sinful Colors, Exotic Green.

On the pinky finger, some of the flakies are pretty big.

View at a sharp angle. Duochrome flakies shift from blue to aqua.

See some hex glitter in there?  Macro shot.

Green Ocean is a duo chrome flakie polish in a light green translucent base with some hex glitters. The flakies shift from aqua to blue depending on the light and angle.  Green Ocean is unspectacular alone and was definitely intended to be layered over a solid color.

This was easy to apply and a great way to recycle an old mani.  I just touched up some tip wear with Exotic Green and applied one coat of Green Ocean and one coat of Revlon's quick dry top coat.  Some of the flakies were sticking up so I had to gently push them down with some tweezers and applied one more coat of top coat.

I have to say removing this was similar to removing a glitter polish I had to use pure acetone and wrap my fingers with saturated cotton balls and wait a few minutes before wiping.  I always unravel cotton balls and turn them into strips to remove polish.  That way there's more surface area to use, thus less waste.  Also I completely saturate the whole ball so that there isn't any "lint" that is left on the nail.

Zoya makes a similar polish but the flakies aren't as big.  Plus Sinful Colors is only $1.99 vs. $8 for Zoya.  BARGAIN!  I have Zoya's Chole from their flakie collection it looks to me like the flakies are smaller, there are no hex glitters, and the color shifting might be different.

I got Green Ocean at Walgreens in a St. Patrick's day display, way after the holiday, so it might still be around.  Judging from other bloggers this might be available year round???

If you are interested in Exotic Green, the base color, click on yesterday's post.

Thoughts?