OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte and au revoir for the week! :)

I'm off to France today. Love conferences in cool places. I also love that the NSF came through with $1500 funding to cover travel and lodging (which is JUST enough, given the really high prices of plane tickets to Europe from the US lately). Let's hope that they'll allow me to carry on my poster tube because I do NOT want to lose this thing.

OPI La Paz-itively Hot Matte

It's flat on the nail at a distance but it's gorgeous up close. The multicolored shimmer is lovely. Applied really nicely for a matte; the above is two coats. One coat is ideal because with more than one, you run the risk of clumping. This was taken on day 3; it's pretty tenacious!

La Paz-itively Hot Matte closeup

No, I am not wearing this to the conference...

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Color Club Wild Orchid

(2 coats)

This is one of the best grays ever. The formula is fab too. Applied in 2 very easy coats and it dried like lightning!

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Oodles o' purple: Butter London HRH & Nfu.Oh 51

OK, long pic-heavy post - so I'll try and keep it light on the text.

Butter London HRH. Nice standard royal purple, red-toned base. I did two coats but it could probably have done with three since the base is a little jelly-ish. Me being me and compelled to fiddle with things that ought not be fiddled with, I put Nfu.Oh 51 over the top and the result really wasn't pretty:



Urgh. Sooo, that lasted all of twelve hours before I took it off. But I wanted to try 51 over something else because the real draw is the amazing blurple jelly base colour, which was totally lost over HRH. So I swatched it over (L-R) Orly gogo, illamasqua wink, illamasqua force, and OPI dim sum plum. And the result was much prettier:



Orly Gogo is just a total PITA to apply and not worth the 7 coats of polish (4 orly, 3 of the flakies) but 51 looked lovely over any of the other three. Two coats on force and dim sum plum, three on wink. I will definitely give this a full outing soon, because I really like the duochrome pinky colours in the flakies (just not over HRH...dear God not over HRH). Do click to enlarge this one, it's a doozy.



As Borat would say: 'naaaaaaice. Vairry naice.'


Edit - the UK Nfu Oh retail site has now launched. It's at Nfuoh.co.uk. Enjoy!

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Hints of Marimekko - Essie Silken Cord

Essie Silken Cord is really from Essie's most recent winter collection, but I see it more as a summer colour.

It's a juicy pop of red-pink with a hint of orange that for some reason reminds me of Marimekko fabrics, which are my absolute favourite. (My baby blanket was even made out of Marimekko!) I love anything Marimekko, and I love this polish! I've been really enjoying brights this summer far more than I usually do. They seem perfectly suited for sitting back with a cocktail and watching some tennis...

kittytokaren

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Essie Smooth Sailing and OPI Navy Shatter

I never thought that eBay would be my preferred outlet for buying any nail polish but gotta say, it does me well for Essie. (The trick is to, um, buy a lot and order from a seller who has a great combined shipping deal.)

Essie Smooth Sailing

Photos just don't do this justice. It's actually a kind of chunky iridescent shimmer that sparkles blue and pink and purple and is so very, very, very pretty. Great application, two coats. This is the third day of wear.

Closeup of Smooth Sailing

You can sort of see the great shimmer in this photo. Just imagine it all over the nail...

Essie Smooth Sailing and OPI Navy Shatter

Am loving the jelly crackles. Some people might be annoyed that there's such a difference between one and two coats of the polish -- the discrepancy is most obvious on my middle finger -- but I kind of like the variation it gives to the polish. At one coat, it's obviously a blue jelly; at two, it turns more into dark navy (almost black but not quite).

Closeup of Smooth Sailing and Navy Shatter

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