Polish or Perish

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

OPI Spark de Triomphe

***Update - my Blog Sale has been updated with Fire Sale pricing***

Everything everyone has said about this is true.

(3 coats)

Glorious.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Late Start - Essie Over the Top

I first bought this over a year ago when Chanel released a bunch of dark polishes with shimmer for Fashion's Night Out 2010. This one reminded me of Chanel Steel in the bottle, so instead of splurging the price of 'ridiculous + ridiculous shipping', I opted for this.

Then, it sat in my collection. Waiting, longing to be worn. And when I finally did...let's just say I owe it an apology.

Essie Over the Top is a charcoal with pearlescent, but never brushstroke-y, multi-coloured shimmer that just GLOWS. I've seen reds that do this, but never something this dark. This is just flat out gorgeous and I can't believe there isn't more hype surrounding it!

I'm sorry Essie Over the Top - you are my new winter staple. I definitely regret not pulling you out last year. Shame on me.

kittytokaren

Sunday, October 2, 2011

Vamps for October: OPI tease-y does it

God, I LOVE October. I can finally wear my (extensive) collection of coats and boots! I'm pulling in teaching money! My supervisor isn't abroad! Life is good. And after ruining my nails decorating I've been taking the opportunity to file them down and pull out the vamps. I don't like wearing dark colours when my nails are long because it makes me feel like a try-hard. But I love them on shorties, and October is the perfect season to start wearing them!

So first up, OPI tease-y does it from Burlesque. I was never really sold on this colour, but everyone went so cuckoo over it that I had to see what all the fuss was about it. I can understand it but I don't fully share it. This is two easy coats, with a finished result that looks like a dark blackberry colour with fuchsia flaky glitter. But I kind of hoped that it would all be a little more...va-va voom than it is. It's pretty, very work appropriate, and subtle. What can I say, I'm bad at subtle! It chipped the next day though, so as much as I liked the respectability of it, chipped dark polish isn't so great.

Saturday, October 1, 2011

Nail Shape Experiment Failed

So I went on vacation to Central Europe for a few weeks. My general rule for vacations is to not wear polish at all. Bring a nail file and some cuticle cream and call it a day. I love nail polish, but not enough to lug around all the equipment and chemicals I need to keep my manis looking presentable.

Still, that means that my nails come home looking worse for wear. Cuticle cream is not enough to protect my forever weak talons from the elements, peeling, my teeth/mouth.

Upon my return home, inspired by

a lady on the subway with THE MOST PERFECT almond shaped nails I have ever seen (so elegant; I swear the look was flawless),
Adele's nude nails at the VMAs, and
the peels going on in the corners of my nails,

I decided to try almond shaped nails.

First came the round phase, which I quite liked. Then, as my nails grew away from the nail bed, I tried ever so slowly to fashion them into a more pointed shape.

This is what they looked like after 3 weeks.

(1 coat Essie Waltz, 1 coat Essie Vanity Fairest)

Yikes. It was even more insanely creepy and weird in person. Turns out, VNL does have the ability to sicken me.

I also hated wearing dark colors with them, drawing attention to these monstrosities. But the nails looked better all hidden away.

(2 coats BBCouture Erotic Night)

My most obvious problem is that my nail beds are too short and flared for this look to work after just one month of trying.

The fact is, I would have needed at least another 3-4 weeks of unbroken nail growth (impossible) to properly pull the look off, and I wasn't willing to deal with the ugly duckling phase in between. Especially since (i) I didn't know if the end result would look good on me and (ii) it would have been impractical anyway, given my keyboard-focused job.

Oh well, back to normal squoval nubs. (And back to regular posting!)

Maybe I'll go oval like K2K. I did quite like it.