Beauty Misanthropic

They just didn't mesh with each other at all.  Desert Haze is all class and safe choices and formality, while Bury the Hatchetfish is grunge and dressing down.  I like both colors but I won't wear them together again.

e.l.f. Desert Haze was easy to work with, and goes opaque fast.  Hare Bury the Hatchetfish is such a fascinating and unique polish, but it went on kind of lumpy and there is just something "off" about the formula that I couldn't quite put my finger on.  I sort of felt like I wanted the base color to be either just a little lighter or darker (though perhaps then it would not be an accurate representation of a Hatchetfish).  Still, I love the experimentalness of the color.  It definitely makes me think of the deep ocean, fish, and mud.  I will try it again by itself, and maybe use some Glitter Food to see if it lies more smoothly.

1 coat Essie Ridge Filling Base Coat
3 coats Sinful Colors Love Nails 282
2-3 coats Julep Carly on accent nails
1 coat Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food
1 coat Sally Hansen Ultimate Shield

Sinful Colors Love Nails is a drugstore budget polish in a transparent dark teal semi-metallic.  Not a great formula, 3-4 coats for opacity, goes on streaky and a little thick (even though it's so see-through).  Considering you can buy Sinful Colors polishes for $2 or less though, I'm happy enough with it.

Julep Carly is a dark teal (leaning more blue than green) glitter polish in an essentially clear base (it may be a bit blue-tinted, but it goes on transparent from what I can tell).  Small and very small hex glitter, medium to high density.  3-4 coats will be mostly opaque, but you may want a base color to make it easier to remove as well.  Formula is pretty good for a dense glitter, but also a little thick.


Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food is a top-coat for smoothing out the appearance of glitter polish.  It can also be poured into bottles of glitter polish that have "gone flat" to make the glitter suspended evenly again.  So far I am finding it effective, it did significantly smooth out the top coat, and may have done even smoother with another coat.

I love aqua colors and Julep Carly is a very bright, seductive color. Super flattering and pretty on anyone.  It's a cheerful, very showy manicure in the sunlight, but I think it really stands out as an evening color.  Fabulous pick for a dressy night out, it looks amazing under artificial light and I personally like it better as a nighttime polish.

1 coat Essie Ridge Filling Base Coat
1 coat Sally Hansen Ultimate Shield as base coat
3-4 coats Julep Vivien, OR Julep Harper as accent nails
2 coats SH Ultimate Shield as top coat

Julep Vivien is a champagne gold superfine glitter with medium gold hex glitter chunks, medium density.  Even 4 coats did not achieve 100% opacity, maybe about 90% opacity.  I usually don't care for gold polishes, but this is a very flattering color.  A little classy.

Only annoying thing was the hex glitters wanted to clump on my nails, and go onto the edges instead of the middle, impossible to spread around evenly.  I have a love/hate thing with glitters, but they are super popular this season.

Julep Harper I was actually a bit dubious about when I saw the bottle at first, but I actually really like it.  It's like Julep Portia turned way the hell up - a dense glitter mix of mostly medium aqua, a bit of light gold and bright cobalt, in a aqua jelly base.  Opaque with 3-4 coats.  Definitely "mermaid nails".  A lovely color.  It is bright, yet milky.  This might be fun to try as a matte next time.  It ate up my top coat, as glitters tend to, more than Vivien, but definitely do multiple top coats on both.

Even with all these extra base and top coats, this one is peeling off faster than usual for me, these pics are about 4 days in and I'm probably taking it off tomorrow before I start picking at it and ruin my nails.  Usually SH Ultimate Shield will let me wear a manicure for 7+ days (sometimes over 10 if I don't use my hands much), which is why I use it even though it takes FOREVER to dry compared to other top coats.

Dec 2012.  This is another manicure my camera did not want to photograph.

A nice simple Christmas season manicure.  Base of Julep Diane, a glossy dark Christmas green, most nails coated further by Serum No. 5 Love Lacquer Forest Lights, a multi-size transparent glitter with sparse big chunky green glitter, small green and white glitters, superfine gold glitter and even finer dark sage green dust base.

10/24/2012   Base color is Color Club Revvvolution, which is a black (or dark grey if you prefer) holo, with one coat of Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black on top.

Indoors, the glitter is quite visible (while you cannot really see the holographic-ness), but in direct sunlight, to my surprise, it completely disappears and all you can see is holo.

09/24/2012  Kleancolor Metallic Green, the base color seen here, may be my favorite nail polish so far.  Pictures cannot convey the sheer intensity and glow of this awesomely apocalyptic color.  I adore it immensely.

 Thumb and pointer are additionally coated with Kleancolor Chunky Holo Black.  Chunky Holo Black is a chunky glitter that color changes from orange to bright green (that blends in very nicely with Metallic Green), in charcoal jelly base that actually comes on pretty clear.  I haven't used it by itself though, so it might manifest color if you just painted on a lot of layers of this polish by itself.  It's not super dense, so you would likely need a LOT of layers for opacity.

Pointer is also coated with Cherimoya 2012 Crucify, which is a matte emerald-green crackle polish.  Issue with this last one, however - I just went to check on the bottle (01/03/2013) and have found it completely dried up into a lump inside the bottle even though it is closed tightly and does not appear to have any cracks in the bottle.  This is unfortunate since I only used this polish twice - once to swatch and once on this manicure.  It is a budget brand, but not so cheap as to be okay for just one use.  The other 4 bottles of 2012 I own appear to be okay, but now I'm worried.  I will be sure to report on how things go with those other bottles.  I am really irritated, both by the potential huge waste of money, and because that brand has a lot of unique crackle colors.

Steampunk Nail Experiment 9/12/2012.  Sorry about the blurryness, the camera did not like taking these images no matter what I tried.

This is my first try with nail brushes.  Did not turn out too great, I'm not much of an artist, but it was fun to try.  Base was Ulta Salon Formula Chocolate Kiss.  Hand painting was Julep Rachel (which blended in maybe too much) and Konad Special Polish Light Bronze.  Nail decals were a "steampunk" butterfly set off eBay that didn't look anything like what was advertised and is not recommended, and the silver ones are from here and I like them.  Easy to use and looked good.

Close-ups of the nails that turned out better -








 Bonus - Steampunk Nail Experiment #2.  10/07/2012

I'm having trouble remembering exactly what I used here *headdesk*, I'm almost positive the base was Julep Rachel, with accent nail that was silver (not sure which), the silver accent water decals listed above, and a few touches of Serum No. 5 Love Lacquer Forest Lights (find here).  The Forest Lights was quite good on the brown.

This week, I applied 2-3 coats of Nicole by OPI My Lifesaver over 1 base coat of Essie Ridge Filling Base Coat, with one light coat of Julep Portia on top.  I think I might have gotten a bad or tampered-with bottle of My Lifesaver from drugstore.com because it was like trying to apply Elmer's Glue, thick and gummy.  Bleh.  I will try to put in some nail polish thinner next time to see if I can save the bottle from the trash (lol name irony).
I kind of wish I had bought a bottle of China Glaze For Audrey instead, My Lifesaver was less of the robin egg blue I wanted, and more greenish.  It's a little too bright or something, it just doesn't have a flattering look.  The Portia glitter helps a little though, for me, gives it more of a 'day at the beach' look.  This is maybe a good polish for those trying to do more of a "doll" or "lolita" look.

I had to do 3 coats of the polish to even it out, it goes on very opaque, but shows brush strokes way too easily.  It went on very messily, despite efforts to smooth it out.  I didn't bother with much of a top coat or cleaning it up well because I plan on changing polish soon.  Can't wait to try out the new Julep America the Beautiful!

I was recently feeling nostalgic about Sally Hansen Chrome nail polish, so I picked up a few on eBay.  This particular one was a bit of a disappointment.  It's not really chrome.  It is more of a metallic that you could mistake as normal nail polish.  It's sort of a dark plum purple.  I thought it looked a bit boring by itself so I slapped on a coat of Julep Portia aqua glitter. It's a nice glitter, it seems like it would go with a lot of things.  I just became a Julep Maven this month and I will make another post on my first month's package soon.

And then one coat of Sally Hansen Ultimate Shield.  I'm hard on manicures, so I almost always do a top coat.  Also did a base coat of Essie Ridge Filling.

Much to my amusement, I happened to kind of match my manicure to my wedding ring, as you can see from the top pic.  I did not do this on purpose.  I wasn't sure what exact color I would be getting with this nail polish.  It's okay, but I'm not enamored with it.  It went on a little too thick and it was significantly streaky whether I tried to apply it thinly or thickly.  I had to do 2-3 coats to mask the streaks.  Luckily as it dried the streakyness minimized a little.