Beauty Misanthropic

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.

Sorry I haven't posted in a few months.  I've been making photos but not actually posting, so I'm going to do some quick-and-dirty catch-up posts.

These pics are from Halloween 2012, I dyed my hair just in time for my demon costume.

Hair: mixed 1 tube Joico Vero K-Pak 4FV Wild Orchid, 1/2 tube Joico VeroColor Violet Intensifier (yes that is more than the box says is okay to use, so make your own judgment call if you try it out yourself), 10% tube of Joico Vero K-Pak RRV Really Red-Violet.  It came out pretty awesome, really beautiful red-violet.  Loved it!  The Joico intensifier line really adds to the color.  Though I am going to try a slightly different mix next time (soon), more blue emphasis.  Did not last long at all though, maybe 5 weeks?  But I take very hot showers like you're not supposed to do...
Just a warning, the violet intensifier is super mega extra staining on your bathtub.  Way more than usual.  Prepare for the possibility of having to bleach out your tub later.

 Nails are Models Own Purple Blue Beetle Juice.  Metallic colorshifts from a cool purple, blue, dark red, & chocolate brown depending on the light and angle.  Sunlight seemed to bring out more red and brown, and more purple and blue indoors.

Seriously.

The Supreme Court wants to take away your right to resell the items that you have bought and paid for.  They think corporations should actually just "rent" things to you.