Nails & Needles

Of knitting and nail polish

Archive for the month “June, 2012”

30 Jun 2012

Essie Red Noveau

I found an online beauty store in Sweden that carries Essie polishes (actually several do, but this was the first I saw that did and, besides, it’s one of my favourite online stores anyway — I’m a sucker for freebies and they always include a bunch of samples of different things with your orders).

Wise from the Black Knight debacle, I actually looked up all the shades I was interested in before adding any of them to my cart. I ended up with Red Noveau and Pop Art Pink, both from The Art of Spring 2010 collection.

Red Noveau is the first one I tried on. The formula is very nice and you can get away with anything from one to multiple coats, in my opinion, depending on how strong of a colour you want. I went with three or four coats (I can’t quite remember) and then a coat of Seche Vite on top of that.

Unfortunately, I don’t think this is quite the red shade for me. I’m not sure what it is, but there’s just something about it that doesn’t seem to work entirely with my skin tone. A pity, because other than that, it really is a lovely polish.

In other news, I think I’m going to try to find OPI’s quick-dry top coat in the shops today, because I am getting increasingly annoyed with the shrinking properties of Seche Vite. I love its shine and the way it dries in a heart beat, but good god, am I tired of the white tips I end up with.

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26 Jun 2012

The Black Knight

 I recently bought Butter London The Black Knight off eBay without looking it up first. In retrospect, I probably should have. It’s not that it’s not a nice nail polish – it really is, but I think I would have been better prepared for using it if I’d read up a bit on it first.

It’s quite obviously a glitter polish and I had some issues getting it to go on smoothly. I applied three coats, and then a fairly thick layer of Seche Vite on top to speed up drying/add extra shine, and it still felt quite gritty to the touch. Not to mention it chipped! I don’t know what I did wrong — I used a base coat and everything.

Normally my biggest issue with getting my manis to last is the fact that I’m constantly poking at them and peeling even the slightest hint of a loose bit off. This time I had actually made a promise to myself not to peel, and I still ended up letting it come off after just a day and a half, because it had chipped to the point of looking quite shameful. I really expected more of it, especially since all I did to damage it was knit (which doesn’t affect the nails at all, to be honest) and sleep…

Here I am trying to hide a chip on my index finger.

Not happy with the state of my thumb nail here!

I’ve not given up on it yet — it is a really sparkly, shiny, glittery colour! — but next time I think I’ll just layer a single coat of The Black Knight over something else. I think it could add a nice touch to many darker shades, but my first try is going to be over Isadora Gothic Black (a shiny black creme).

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24 Jun 2012

Blank canvas

For once, I decided to let my nails rest a little from the colour and patterns (the fact that I only brought one coloured polish to my boyfriend’s has nothing to do with this…).

After a spell of atrocious-looking nails (I need to be more careful when I play with fake nails in the future!), they’re finally starting to go back to looking decent again. I have to say, since I started using OPI’s Nail Envy regularly, I don’t get nearly as many breaks or splits as I used to. I’m seriously sold on that stuff.

So, anyway, what you see here is as near to naked as I go: two coats of OPI Nail Envy and one coat of Seche Vite, for shine and strength.

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23 Jun 2012

Pink and blue

– 4 coats Mavala Miami (a pink creme with a slight blue shimmer)

– dots in L’Oréal French Riviera

– finished off with a coat of Seche Vite.

I’m starting to get the hang of my dotting tools and I have improved my ability to keep the polish on the nails and off the surrounding skin. Sweeeeet.

It lasted about a day. I really wish I’d get over this bad habit I have of picking at my nail polish until it’s gone. I’m sure if I didn’t do that, I could make a manicure last much longer. Bright side to the bad habit, however, is it means I get to do more designs/try more polishes in a shorter amount of time. So not all bad. ;)

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