LOST Frankens, holo jelly and indigo shimmer

Hello all! After being re-turned-onto LOST by a Cracked.com article here, I decided to name my newest frankens after one of my favorite (although confusion-induced headache producing) shows, LOST!

First up is DHARMA Initiative. This franken was created because i was super disappointed by China Glaze Rose Among Thorns. I thought the China Glaze polish was supposed to be neon red, but it only ever looked pink to me! So I did about 1/4 Rose Among Thorns with 1/2 Wet n Wild Clear, and a 1/4 (or less) of TKB's Glamour base, and about two tiny scoops of coarse Spectraflair. I've been continuously frustrated by this Spectraflair, it never shows up enough for my taste.

And here's my next franken, Smoke Monster! This one was super easy, I just took a half bottle of Wet n Wild Clear, put in two scoops of Fyrinnae's Mephisto eyeshadow (purple with red/orange shimmer), and filled the rest with Revlon Royal and topped it off with TKB Glamour Base.

Ohhhhh I love this one so much!

Orly Synchro multichrome from Fall 2012 Electronica collection

Holy multichrome, Batman! This color is cuh-razy! In the bottle it's a molten fire-y rosey gold blue purple glass box of emotion. Totally gorgeous in the bottle. On the nail it was a pain in the ass. But still gorgeous. I spent at least an hour last night trying to decide whether to wear it on its own today or over black. When I laid it over black, it was too streaky to wear at one coat, but at two, it kept the blue shimmer from being as prevalent. When the polish is more opaquely layered, I feel like the blue shimmer ends up clashing a bit (and greying out) the color shifting frosty-goodness underneath.

The base of this polish is a super sheer reddish rose pink that I wasn't really a fan of because it just wouldn't get opaque at a reasonable amount of coats. But all the multichrome made it worth it! So much beauty, totally unexpected! It reminds me of the classic Sally Hansen Nail Prisms multichromes. It's like SH Garnet Lapis with a different color base. 

This is four dang coats over two coats of nude polish underwear. This polish bubbled and dented forever, and I almost gave up and changed my mani... and then I added french tips in Finger Paints Black Expressionism!

 

And here I swatched it over black (no topcoat), 2 coats, 1 coat, 2 coats, 1 coat.

I know! So many pictures! But I was chasing that gold edge of color that I just baaarely caughty in the 2nd to last picture, but you can see it in the bottle! What do you think? Are you going to pick up any Orlys from this collection? Are you willing to deal with Synchro's mess of a formula to get this sweet multichrome effect?

Cover Band Sticks n Stones + Zoya Zuza & Orly Preamp art

Gonna keep this post short because it's midnight and I've gotta work early tomorrow. But I wanted to show you my last two manis because I loved both so much that I didn't want to take them off!

Zoya Zuza is a goooorgeous addition to the Zoya line. Zuza is hard to describe. It's kind of foily, kinda glass flecky. But it's crazy gorgeous and crazy pigmented. So pigmented that it stained my nails green! Poop. The formula was also super thick, but the color was so pretty that I got past it.

And overtop I had to choose between my Lynnderella Connect the Dots or Coverband's Sticks and Stones. I chose S&S because of the few specks of iridescent glitter in it that I love so much. And I don't want to dwell on the Lynn drama, I love some of her polishes and I will leave it at that.

Here is Zuza at two coats plus one coat of Sticks and Stones w/ Cult Nails Wicked Fast topcoat. Rach recommended I use their topcoat with Zoyas and it seemed to work well! Previously Zoyas neeever dried on me. Go Rach!

And here is an updated mani (current mani), using Orly Preamp (WHICH I LOVE SO MUCH) with a stamping in Color Club Wild at Heart and then flakies from the Finger Paints Collection - Twisted.

I loves it soooo much! Props to Orly for this gorgeous Fall color that is so un-Fall to me but perfect for Summer!

Orly Electronica Collection Fall 2012 "Preamp"

I went to Sally's yesterday for nail polish thinner (which I ended up forgetting :/), and left with my first Orly haul. I got two from the Electronica Fall 2012 collection, and I picked up Mysterious Curse on clearance, and Mermaid Tale from the new Flash collection. First swatch I have for you is Preamp from the Electronica collection. I had to ask the Sally's lady to look in the back since the collex wasn't displayed yet, and I'm so glad I did!

Preamp is a gorgeous blue tinged pink creme-y base with small pink and gold flakey shimmer. SO PRETTY.  The formula is pretty thick, but I'm getting used to that from Orly. I just love the color of this with my pale weird skintone. Just slightly purple toned but the warmth of the shimmer just pops this polish like nobody's business. It also has a hiiint of dustiness to it that keeps it from being fuschia. Love.

I tried to take pics in different lighting so you can see the cool tones and the warmer tones. Here is 3 coats of Preamp with one coat of Poshe topcoat. 

Lynnderella Attitude Adjust-mint & Gradient nails

Hello all. I saw a little tennis dress at Macy's that had this gorgeous gradient/color blocking of pastel aquas and greens. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to put that on my nails! I couldn't quite get the colors exact, nor did the tape method work this time for me, so here is a freehand gradient.

I used China Glaze Aquadelic, Milani Dressmaker, and China Glaze For Audrey as the stripes, and then I did 2 coats of Lynnderella's Attitude Adjust-mint. I've been waiting to receive Attitude Adjust-mint since February from Llarowe's wishlist system, I got all the other's months ago. When I finally got it, it disappointed me a little bit. The glitter is really sparse, and the most numerous glitters are green metallic hexes that curled up on the edges. Taco glitter as we call it on the Nail Board. Otherwise though, AA has a gorgeous blue microshimmer and I love the scattered iridescent glitter shapes. Here ya go!

Cult Nails Captivated

Finally! I've been lemming this polish foreeever. I've gone through all kinds of ordeals tracking down supposed dupes... but now I've got the real deal!

Captivated is a sparkly orange masterpiece. This polish has a sheer orangey coral jelly base chock full of orange and gold twinkly glitters varying from micro to small sizes. It reminds me of gold bullion for some reason. Little treasure coins suspended in lava. I love it! I swear I see some little melted glitters in there... but no one else can see them apparently. Haha!

The formula on this sucker is unfortunate though. It's thick and goopy and chunky. Noooot an easy application here. But I was surprised that I was happy enough with the coverage at two coats. The amount of glittery sparkly goodness gives a pretty good opacity to Captivated. But even with a coat of Gelous and another of Seche Vite, it was still bumpy and a little dull. But with two more coats of topcoat it became shiny and gawgeous! Overall on the nail it is a fire-y coral glitter bomb that just begs to be noticed! I got quite a few compliments on this mani at work. I will totally add this to my glitter rotation!

I'd say the first three are most color accurate, but I like the last one because you can see all the sparkles! Yum.

My First Cult Nails haul!

I've been wanting to try some polishes from Cult Nails for forever! Ever since I saw swatches of Captivated I was in lust. Then when Icing came out with Tiger's Blood, I do believe they discontinued Captivated and I was sooo sad. But they brought it back and so I finally ordered and got a few new pretties. I picked up Captivated, Iconic, Seductive, and the Wicked Fast topcoat (recommended to me by Rach). I don't have much self control, so I started with 3 coats of Iconic... but then kept adding.

Iconic is pretty neat. The base polish is a purple-y red with heavy golden shimmer, with gold/green flakes throughout. Sooo pretty, but I wish it just had a little bit less of the gold shimmer. It almost looks a bit frosty and covers up too much of the flakes. I might thin it with some clear, but either way, it's gawwwgeous! And something about the color reminds me of OPI La Boheme, maybe I'll franken some color morphing powder into it. I used the Wicked Fast topcoat and I was pretty impressed with how quickly this dried, but it's not as shiny as Seche Vite, which is my love.

And of course I did a layer of Cult Nails Seductive on top, a limited addition jelly flakie polish. Gorgeous translucent purple sheer base with red to green flakes and blue flakes. I like that the layering made the base polish a little more violet tinged. And then I busted out a holo konad on top using China Glaze GR8. Ya know. Cuz that's how I do.

China Glaze Orange You Hot? and a franken

After my love connection with China Glaze Pink Plumeria I wanted to love Orange You Hot?, the neon cheetoh orange from the Summer 2012 collection. However... it didn't really live up to my expectations. The formula was super thick, and the color is a little on the frosty side. It's also a pain in the ass to photo, all my pics came out really yellow. In the bottle, this polish looks really pretty, bright light orange with pinky orange shimmer. On the nail however, the pink tint gets lost and just goes frosty. Here is four coats of cheetoh-y-ness.

 

And because I couldn't stand to wear this on its own, I added a frankened holo topcoat. I've noticed that if I use a clear holographic topcoat, it tends to wash out the color underneath. So I've decided I'm gonna create a tinted holo topcoat in all the colors of the rainbow, first up is my orangey coral tint, which I shall dub my La Bamba topcoat.

China Glaze Pink Plumeria Summer 2012 Neon

This is my new favorite! Ohhhh it's so pretty. The whole China Glaze summer 2012 neon collection is gorgeous, but I made sure I limited myself to two. Must control the exponential growth of my stash!

I have found my perfect neon polish, finally. The other ones that I've tried have had super sucky formulas, and just not worked with my skintone. However, Pink Plumeria is just a slice of summery heaven. The formula on this one is a bit thick and gummy, but I made it behave with a little bit of thinner. This color is definitely a new take on a neon, it's a pastel leaning neon! In the bottle it looks like a corally pink with light golden shimmer, and on the nail it just glows!

Swatches I've seen online tend to make this color look really light, but at least on my skintone it had a lot more pow to it. I messed with the color settings to get these to look more true to life. Shown here I've done three coats and  like most neons, it dries matte, so a coat of of Posh shined it right up. One thing to note, this took foreeeever to dry and was super denty for hours.

And here I did a Konad on top with China Glaze Electric Beat.