A Lot of Catching Up!

I apologize, I've been MIA, but I assure you I'm still alive. Life always has the tendency to get in the way, and although I've been keeping up with painting my nails often, I slacked with updating the blog. Once I get a couple posts behind, it's just harder and harder to catch up. I've taken pictures of all my manis and I just have to sporadically update them in bulk. Although I fell behind in updating the blog, I have been regularly posting on instagram. My account name is ihatebaconn (completely random, I know, and I just came up with the name on a whim just because bacon is one of my non-preferred foods). Give me a follow on there if you'd like to see frequent nail posts. I'd like to thank everyone for remaining loyal followers, and I'm going to try harder to get back into the swing of things.

First up is Revlon-Sparkle Aplenty. I believe I purchased this one around fall of last year. It's very similar to OPI- Metallic 4 Life, only the silver hexes are somewhat mattified. It is suspended in a black jelly. There are also black hex glitters in this mix. The formula was great on this, and it only needed two coats! 

Indoors without the flash. This is such a great pre-made jelly sandwich in a bottle shade.

Indoors with the flash- if you look carefully you can see some of the black hex glitters. I really like what Revlon has been releasing lately.

This one is an oldie! This is Loreal- Fatigues. I have no idea how old this one is, but judging by the packaging, it looks like early 2000s. I got this one from a lot on ebay. It is a olive-green shimmer. It was absolutely gorgeous and long-lasting. 

The formula on this was a little bit on the thin side, and it needed three coats for even application. 

Here's a shot taken in my car (which I pretty much live in for work). Absolutely stunning! 

This was a nice layering combo. It is Sally Hansen- Multi-Faceted layered over Revlon- Peach Smoothie. Multi-Faceted is a very unique glitter. It was released in the Diamond Strength Jewel Overcoat collection around Spring 2012. It consists of silver, black, and irridescent medium-sized hex glitter.

Here's what it looks like with the flash indoors. You can see all of the different colors in the iridescent hexes. Unfortunately my Seche Vite had a lot of bubbling with this combo, but this is the only complaint I have. 

Here's Revlon- Peach Smoothie by itself with the flash indoors. I believe this only needed two coats. The best thing about this polish was that it was scented! It held true to its name and smelled like a delicious peach smoothie. The scent lasted for the whole two-day span that I wore this mani!

Here's Peach Smoothie without the flash indoors. You can see the subtle hint of shimmer. I really like this peach shade! It's practically nude and so elegant, even though it doesn't exactly match my skin tone. 

The next combo up is ORLY- Sashay My Way layered over Wet n Wild- 450A. Sashay My Way was released as part of the Flash Glam FX collection in summer 2012. It is a glitterbomb for sure! I'm talking so concentrated with glitter that this is only one coat of it! It's filled with gold prismatic medium hexes as well as gold prismatic bar glitters.

Here's a picture taken indoors with the flash. I just love all of the different dimensions of color Sashay My Way has!

Wet n Wild- 450A is definitely an oldie! It's so old that it was before Wet n Wild started giving actual names to their polishes and instead a combo of numbers and letters. I believe I purchased this one from a blog sale. It is a unique shade, almost a light bronze. I am only wearing two coats of it, and although the formula seemed kind of thin, it built up nicely. This picture was taken indoors with the flash.

Indoors without the flash. It kinds of has a mix between a frosty and shimmery finish, but the brushstrokes weren't terrible.

The last combo for this entry is Revlon- Heavenly layered over ORLY- Unlawful. Heavenly is a rather new release and I believe I purchased it around December. It is a pretty close if not exact dupe to Deborah Lippmann's Stairway to Heaven, but I do not own it since I have this one. The names are even similar. This is an ideal layering polish and it's filled with iridescent glitter. 

I only used one coat of Heavenly over Unlawful and it looks amazing! I'm always intrigued by all the different colors shown through iridescent glitters.

Here's ORLY- Unlawful by itself indoors with the flash. It was released in ORLY's Holiday 2012 Naughty or Nice collection. It was practically a one-coater but I added two out of habit. It had a great formula, but I own so many reds so I wasn't really impressed with how unique this shade was. It's just a typical red creme to me.

Indoors without the flash

A Couple Dark Shades

I went with some darker shades! This is OPI- Midnight in Moscow. It is from the Fall 2007 Russian collection.

This shade is super vampy! It is a black jelly filled with red shimmer particles! I really liked the formula and it only needed two smooth coats.

Red shimmer!

I took this one in my car. I think it's neat how this polish looks with sunlight opposed to without it. Midnight in Moscow reminded me of Wet n Wild- Under Your Spell, only with a much better formula.

Next is Dong Dong- 17 I believe that this one is from China. I received it in a swap. I chuckle at the name of this brand!

This has a "sandy" finish, so I did not use topcoat with this. The formula was a little thick, and it was practically a one coater, but I used two coats to make it more gritty.

I love that it looks mostly black with a hint of silver shimmer.

This lasted very long also! I wore it for three days without any chips.

Here is a picture taken indoors without the flash.

I thought I would make a meme. I think these crystal sand polishes have been around for a while, and now you see that OPI and Zoya are coming out with sandy texture polishes. 

Zoya Storm

Zoya- Storm is absolutely amazing! It is a black filled with scattered holo particles. These holo particles reflect a prism of color!

Storm was released recently as part of Zoya's Ornate holiday collection. I've seen holo particles in shades like this get lost in the base color, but it did not happen with this polish at all.

Storm needed two coats to be completely opaque and it was so shiny!

Here's a picture of Storm indoors without the flash. The holo effect isn't as strong, but you can still see it.

Indoors with the flash. The removal of this was a breeze too! I was thinking that since it was black and had holo particles, that it would be difficult. I think I only needed one cottonball.

Heeere's Johnny!

Even though October is over, I still wanted to do just one more mani for Halloween. Due to the weather, many Halloween events have been postponed to this weekend. I layered Lacquistry-Heeere's Johnny over Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers- Black. Heere's Johnny is composed of large orang and silver hex glitters, and small and medium sized prismatic glitter. This picture was taken in artificial light without the flash.

Indoors with the flash, I took this picture to show the prismatic glitter better. I just love the label on this bottle! The Shining is one of my favorite movies of all time. I used two coats of Heere's Johnny and application was very smooth.

This is Wet n Wild- Black before adding Heere's Johnny. This is just a standard black creme; nothing special. The name "Black" is just as common as this shade. It did come from an older Fantasy Makers Halloween collection. It applied flawlessly in two coats.

Frankensandy Halloween Nails

In honor of Halloween, and to reflect the Hurricane Sandy/Frankenstorm/Frankensandy that has been terrorizing the East Coast, I chose colors that reminded me of Frankenstein. This is Lacquistry- I Love Halloween! layered over Wet n Wild Fantasy Makers- Nightscape. This picture was taken indoors in natural lighting without the flash. There has not been much sunlight for the past few days.

This picture is indoors with the flash. I Love Halloween! is composed of various sizes of black and orange hex glitter, orange bars, black and orange hearts, tiny pieces of silver glitter in a slightly orange-tinted base. I am only wearing one coat of it because I really liked the green base color. The glitter distributed evenly for the most part, but I had to do a little bit of fishing to get hearts out. 

Here's Wet n Wild- Nightscape. It is a sage green shimmer with a frosty quality to it. This is from an older Halloween collection, but I'm not sure which year it's from. I was surprised that this only needed two coats because I've noticed that the formula on many older Fantasy Makers is really thin and runny. This built up pretty well. 

Bad Moon and Pretty Polish

This is a layering combination of Candy Lacquer- Bad Moon over Eyeko- Pretty Polish. Bad Moon is filled with black shards, and green hex glitter and moons. Its' really unique! It is pretty concentrated with glitter, so I'm just wearing one coat of it dabbed around.

Eyeko- Pretty Polish is a light, pale pink creme. The formula was a little bit thick, but I still needed three coats because the color kept dragging as I was applying it. This picture was taken in natural light as well as the first one.

Here is Pretty Polish with the flash. I purchased this polish in a blog sale a long time ago, and sadly Eyeko does not make polish anymore. I always thought their packaging and design was really cute.

Halloween Manis from the Week

I have a week's worth of manis to share. This week has been busy in the sense that I was either always out of my house or my fiance has been using the computer for grad school homework. (I prefer his computer over my slow PC) Enjoy!

This is Lacquistry- Witches Warts layered over Cetuem- 76. Witches Warts is part of the Halloween collection Lacquistry recently released. It consists of various sizes of glitter. There's black matte hex glitter and various sizes and shades of green glitter- some of it is prismatic. There are some tiny and large hexes in the mix also. Layered over Cetuem- 76, it was very Halloween! The glitter was so concentrated that I'm only wearing one coat of it. 

I've had Cetuem- 76 for a long time. I purchased it from a blog sale over a year ago and just never used it because it's kind of an odd color. It's like a muted dirty orange creme. The formula was amazing and I really liked the brush! I'm wearing two perfect coats. The only issue I had was that it got tipwear pretty quickly, but that's no issue if you change your polish as often as I do. I do not know a lot about the Cetuem brand, just that it's British.

 I received many compliments on this one. I am wearing Candy Lacquer- Autumn Leaves layered over Sinful Colors- Mesmerize. Autumn Leaves has various sizes of shredded red and yellow shards. Very fall! This was recently released in a Halloween collection. 

 These went together so well! I used two coats of Autumn Leaves and dabbed it around a little bit in order to evenly distribute the glitter. 

I took a picture of Mesmerize on its own before the layering, but it looks navy here. Instead it is an eggplant creme. It had a nice formula and needed two coats. Sinful Colors are pretty good quality for the price. 

Here's a flash picture in which you can see how purple Mesmerize is. In darker areas, it looked almost black. It was very vampy! 

 Last is Pretty & Polished- Them Bones. This is the final one that I had yet to wear from this year's Halloween collection. It's pretty unique! It has large white hex glitters, matte shards, and tiny bar glitter particles suspended in a murky black jelly base. 

I am wearing three coats of this. The way the glitter looks suspended in the jelly is amazing! The effect is so three-dimensional. The glitter was not gritty at all and this mani did not chip. It definitely looks like bones! My one criticism is that the larger hexes were difficult to get out of the bottle, but they were fine after I turned the bottle upside down for five minutes.