Nails & Needles

Of knitting and nail polish

Archive for the tag “seche vite”

Blue Monday: Color Club Blue-topia

It’s Monday and you all know what that means: Blue Monday!

Today I’m sporting a ridiculously rushed half-moon nail art thing. Seriously. I was in a hurry to go to work and my nails were completely bare, but I was going to do something, or else. And then I remembered it was Monday, so I couldn’t reach for the closest polish (which was a kind of snot green colour. Sounds yucky, but I love it! You’ll see that too soon enough), which meant even less time to finish it. Oh dear.

Anyway. I applied three coats of Color Club’s Blue-topia (a lovely deep blue jelly) to about two-thirds of my nails, then one layer Seche Vite, then Broadway Nails’ white nail art polish for the accents (and the wibbly wobbly heart!), then another coat Seche Vite. Done! I’ll probably recreate it some other time when I’m not so stressed, but meh. For today, it’ll do.

Blue-topia is lovely! It does end up a little uneven even after three coats, but so much that I’m really bothered by it, and the colour is gorgeous. The formula is quite thin and the polish likes to pool in the brush handle, so I ended up with stained hands, but the colour makes it worth it. Time and time again!

Nail and Hand Care: Nails

Every nail enthusiast has their own tips and tricks for keeping their nails and hands in tip top condition. In this series of posts, I thought I’d show you what works for me. Some of these I’ve discovered through other people’s blogs, some I’ve found on my own.

There’s been a bit of trial and error before I got far enough to say with certainty that this thing or that thing is beneficial to my nails and/or my skin. Some of the items below are actually still in that testing stage, but things are looking good for them, so they’re included anyway.

  1. Mandelolja APL (almond oil). Small-moleculed oils are perfect for your nails (and not bad for your skin either!). The small molecules means that the nail can absorb them properly, which means they become more supple and springy and won’t break so easily. (Think dry wood vs fresh branches that still contain moisture. You can thank Viola for that comparison!) The bottle is a little clumsy, so I used an empty nail polish bottle and poured some oil over into it. Bonus points for the brush in the lid thus making it easier to apply! Especially when I’m wearing nail polish, I like being able to get under the nail edge, so the brush helps.
  2. Hair Volume. I’ve only been using these for about two weeks thus far, so can’t really tell if they make a difference or not. It’s a dietary supplement and “is based on vitamins, minerals and innovative hair growth factors from apples.” B Vitamins, silica and zinc are supposed to be good for both hair and nails, so can’t hurt, right? It’s one tablet a day and each pack lasts 30 days. Quite pricey, though (even with my employee discount at work), so I’m not sure if I’m going to keep using it all the time, or just do a 30-day treatment every now and then.
  3. Scratch Nail Food. This one lives in my mini nail kit. It’s the first nail oil I started using, and my favourite. It contains mainly sesame seed oil, which is another small-moleculed one, but also myrrh and lavender. Unfortunately, this is really expensive, so I’m not sure if I can justify buying a new bottle when this runs out. The only real difference to my almond oil is the scent, which is quite nice, so I’m thinking I’ll fill up the bottle with almond oil once there’s just a little bit left. That way, I should still get some of the scent with the new “batch.” I try to use this or the almond oil at least twice a day, sometimes even three times, to make sure my nails don’t get brittle and break.
  4. OPI Original Nail Envy. I’ve been using this nail strengthener for about six months now. It was the first product I bought to try and strengthen my nails. At first it worked nicely, though my nails would still split, so then I switched to nail oils for a while instead. However, using only those, I still wasn’t able to grow my nails out like I wanted to. In the end, about six weeks ago, I started using both the nail oils and the Nail Envy at the same time. Finally, I saw results I really liked. Long, strong, non-splitty nails. Brilliance! What I do is, I start by massaging in some nail oil and waiting a little while to let it really absord. Then, I apply two coats of Nail Envy and let that dry before starting with my base coat &c.

  1. ACO Sense & Care Nail Polish Remover. My favourite nail polish remover ever! And I can buy it at work! See, I’ve tried a few other removers, but all of them leave this yucky, oily film that I absolutely cannot stand. This one doesn’t! Plus, it’s the best of the ones I’ve tried at the actual removal of nail polish too. Double win!
  2. Medical compresses (non-sterile). Another thing I buy from work. They come in different sizes and I use them for both nail polish removal and when cleaning off my make up. They’re super soft and don’t leave fuzz behind.
  3. NailTek Foundation II. Another thing I first heard about on nail blogs. I buy it off eBay. It’s my favourite base coat so far and the first one that actually makes my nail polish stay on. My current bottle is almost all out, though, so I need to buy a new one. I’m going to wait until I’ve properly tried out #4 in this picture, though.
  4. Seche Base. Another base coat. Reminds me a bit of NailTek, but it dries shiny with a bit of shimmer (as opposed to matte like the NailTek). When it dries, that is. With some polishes, it seems like this never properly dries, so I’m not quite friends with it yet. When I have managed to get it to work, though, I’ve been very impressed, so I’m going to give it some more chances to prove itself.
  5. Seche Vite. This is pretty much everyone’s favourite quick-drying top coat, and for good reason! It dries super fast and gives massive shine. For a while, I didn’t quite get along with this, but then I learnt the trick of “tucking” your nail polish under your nail and then doing the same with this. Once you know to do that, this top coat is hard to beat! The biggest beef I have with it now is that it does tend to chip, especially in conjunction with some polishes.
  6. Essie No Chip Ahead. This is my most recent acquisition and I bought it to see if it would help with the chipping issue I sometimes have with Seche Vite. I’ve had mixed results so far, but then one of those times, it was with a Butter London polish, and those don’t get along with Seche stuff to begin with. But yes, still a trial run with this one.

And this is what my naked nails look like now! Slightly discoloured, I know, but a lot better than they used to!

Isadora Polar Nights

I missed last week, but now I’m back on form for Blue Monday!

For Isadora’s Holiday 2012 collection, they have released three new nail polishes. One is a gold glitter, one is a silver glitter and one is a deep blue jelly loaded with silver and blue microglitter and larger hexes. I’m betting you can guess which one I decided to pick up?

Polar Nights is the aforementioned deep blue jelly. As a jelly, it does require three coats to cover completely (though three coats is not bad as jellies go!), but because of the glitters, this adds depth to the hexes, especially. It’s like a jelly sandwich without all the work.

Like most of Isadora’s polishes, this dries super shiny even without a top coat (though in the photos I am wearing a coat of Seche Vite on top).

I have to say, this is one of my favourite blue polishes and I’m so glad I got my hands on it (this was the last bottle left in the store!).

Blue Monday: Peacock

Quick one today for Blue Monday, run by Mrs Data målar naglarna (a blog well worth a visit even if you don’t read Swedish!). I promise I’ll try to be back with more as soon as I get a working internet connection in the new flat.

Anyhoo, for my first Blue Monday entry, I decided to try out a new Isadora polish from their fall 2012 collection. Peacock is a very shiny blue metallic. It covers well in two coats, though behaved a bit wonkily with my current base coat combo. That could be due to my own impatience in painting, however, so I’m not willing to count it out just yet.

Go check out the other entries for Blue Monday here!

Perle de Jade

I think I’m almost (almost!) caught up with older manis I still haven’t shown off now. I mean, there are still a bunch I have photos of, but no way am I going to blog them, as they are from the time before I learned the virtue of a good, clean cuticle and how not to get nail polish all over myself. ;) I mean, yes, I don’t always have perfect cuticles now either, but dear god, are they not nearly as bad as they once were. (I promise I’ll try to get better at cleaning up my cuticles! Just, time. Is something I don’t always have a lot of. Also, I’m kind of lazy, so I try to get them decent enough from the start, and skip correcting smaller mistakes.)

Anyway, this mani. It’s from right after I started knowing what I was doing a bit more, but in retrospect, it did really need a bit of a clean up even so.

I used two or three coats of L’oréal Color Riche in Perle de Jade as the base and then, after that had dried a bit, I applied one coat of Kleancolor’s Silver Star (and dug around a bit in the bottle to get a decent amount of stars). I finished off with a coat of Seche Vite and then waited for aeons for it all to dry, because holy cow, Kleancolor polishes just really don’t want to dry. Ever. They’re really pretty, but they take forever to dry and they smell weird, so I don’t know that I’m a very big fan of them in the end.

Silver Star has micro glitters, big star glitters and medium-sized hex glitters, all with a very pretty holo effect, that is, unfortunately, very hard to photograph well.

I was going to say that this many reminded me of the beach, and how I couldn’t figure out why, since last time I checked, sand isn’t usually green! Then I realised that yeah, the reason I thought of beaches is because often-times the ocean is kind of a jade sort of green and the glitters could easily be starfish and various sorts of shells. So the ocean. This reminds me of the ocean! And you don’t have to question my sanity with my green sand theory… ;)

House colours

I am a huuuuuge fan of the Harry Potter books (and fond enough of the films, especially the later ones), so a while back I decided to do a Harry Potter inspired mani.

I started off with a coat of OPI Nail Envy as a base coat and let that dry thoroughly before taping off a half-moon on each of my nails, except on my ring fingers. Next, I applied two coats of Butter London’s Slapper (what did I say? Still a favourite!) and then removed the tape while the polish was still wet. I then used my Broadway Nails Nail Art Paint (which, by the looks of things, is exactly the same as Kiss Nails’ ditto, only under a different name) in silver to outline the half-moons and draw patterns on the nails. On each of my ring fingers, I drew an S, for Slytherin, which is my favourite house.

This was my first mani to include blank spaces, but I very much doubt it’ll be my last as I really liked the outcome!

 

Butter London Queen Vic

 This is the fifth, and last, of the Butter London polishes I’ve tried so far. That it took me as long as it did to try this on is probably because of the fact that it is, inarguably, purple. I’m not normally a big fan of purple, so it’s never the first colour I reach for when I’m about to paint my nails.

With that said, though, I LOVE this colour. It’s the prettiest purple I’ve ever seen and I’m sure I’m going to wear it a lot.

The formula of this is quite similar to Saucy Jack, which is one of my all-time faves in terms of application. Cannot recommend it enough!

Maybelline Forever Strong Pro Ceramic Blue

This is my first ever Maybelline polish. For some reason, the bottles never appealed to me before, so I never ended up buying any.

Lately, though, I’ve obviously become more daring in my nail polish explorations (for a set value of daring, I guess: I’ve yet to go indie or attempt to franken anything), so the other week I figured it was time.

I ended up picking this really light, soft, almost grey, baby blue. Or at least that’s what it looked like in the bottle. It’s gorgeous in the bottle.

On the nail, I kept getting the impression that it was more purple than blue, and it wasn’t quite my cup of tea at all. The formula was so-so as well, I think I ended up having to use four coats to get a decent cover.

I don’t know if it was just this colour that behaved that way, or if it’s a general thing for Maybelline Forever Strong, but I wasn’t at all smitten, so I think I’m going to keep away from Maybelline polishes in the future. There are so many other (better!) brands out there, that it’s not like I’ll have trouble finding things to try anyway…

Butter London Slapper

(Oh dear god, please excuse the cuticles! They weren’t nearly as bad as the photo makes it seem, I promise!)

I’ve mentioned Slapper before, so I figured it was time for it to get its very own post!

If a polish was ever deserving of its own post, it’s Slapper. I cannot stress enough how much I love this colour. It’s the colour I reach for now when I don’t really have anything particular in mind, but just want a quick mani. If I’m careful, I can get away with two coats of it, though usually I end up using three, just to be sure it’ll look good.

In my line of work, I meet a lot of people, and I don’t think I’ve ever gotten as many compliments on my nails as when I wore this the first time. I loved it, my co-workers loved it and the customers loved it. It’s an all around success story!

Depend holographic polishes

Depend has a collection of holographic nail polishes out at the moment, which I knew about, but hadn’t actually seen anywhere until I stepped foot in a Matas a few weeks back. I decided to pick up three of the shades right then and there (and later went back for a fourth), even though they come in teeny tiny bottles (even smaller than the Mavala mini polishes!) and so end up quite pricey. I have not regretted it!

Upon application I found that they require at least three, sometimes four, coats to get rid of that pesky VNL, and that they dry quite matte, so a shiny top coat is really of the essence for maximum effect.

Unfortunately, this summer has been a bit lacking in good ol’ sunshine, so I haven’t been able to get a whole lot of pictures of these polishes where you can really, really see all the holographic glory that they are capable of. Because, in the right light, they sparkle. They sparkle a lot in a whole spectrum of colours. And it’s awesome. Boo for bad weather!

This (and, obviously, the first photo of this post) is #2034 Steel Blue*. Here it’s layered over Butter London Slapper (and I swear that polish will get its own post one day!)), which (I suspect) makes it look more teal than it really is. I’ve not worn it on its own yet, so I’m not quite sure how much bluer it is then.

Here’s #2027 Raspberry* with one of my disastrous first attempts at stamping. I think this is quite possibly my favourite of the four colours I picked up. I didn’t get this at first, but regretted it so much I went back a few days later just for it.

#2026 Sand Grey* is a close second to Raspberry. It’s almost nude on me, but with a holographic sparkle. Awesome!

#2029 Charm Pink* was the last one I tried and I just wish the weather had been better so the holo effect could have shown up properly. I guess this is my excuse to try it again soon… ;)

*The bottles are marked with numbers only, not colour names, but the display case in the store had names on it as well.

First time for needles!

Though this is supposed to be a combined nail polish and knitting blog, the knitting bit has been rather absent so far. I promise this will change with time — I just haven’t had a lot of time for the knitting bit lately (for example, as a comparison, my latest FO was a pair of socks I started in early May and didn’t finish until late July. Back in February I knit an entire top in just a little over a week).

For now, this is the first post that truly does combine the blog’s both subject matters, and that’s always a start, right?

The socks I mentioned above were knit with this absolutely gorgeous sock yarn I bought from the North Atlantic Yarn Co. (easily my favourite yarn dyer ever. She gets her inspiration from sailing and old naval themes and the yarns are super soft and lovely. If you don’t fall in love with her stuff, I will think you are slightly insane! Anyway…). It’s Stevedore Sock in the colourway Tropic of Capricorn, which I’d already used to knit a pair of socks, but had some leftovers from. I combined it with some white Drops Fabel (not nearly as nice a yarn, but what I had at hand) to make a pair of lovely, fresh and happy striped socks.

While I was nearing the finish line on the second sock in the pair, I thought it might be fun to match my nails to my knitting, so I did!

I started with a couple of coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls and some Seche Vite to let that dry, then went absolutely crazy with striping tape and a gradient in the two colours from the yarn (Mavala Blue Curaçao and Mavala Pistachio). This being my first real attempt at using striping tape, you can see where I fuddled it a bit, but I was still very, very pleased with the results. It was like I had the sock on my nails, not just on my needles!

Saucy Jack

More Butter London! This time it’s Saucy Jack, but before I talk more about the polish specifically, I have to gush a bit about where I bought it, because it was such a stellar example of excellent customer service!

Right, so, after eBaying myself a bottle of The Black Knight, I decided to go for a beauty shop for my next Butter London polishes. After a quick google search, I landed at E-beautyshop.com, a Swedish online beauty store (there is an option for viewing it in English, though, and they ship to Europe). I looked around a bit before deciding on four polishes (Trout Pout and Slapper, which you’ve seen, Saucy Jack and Queen Vic) and went on my merry way after finishing the order. There was a notice on the front page about the store owner being on vacation and that no orders would ship until the week after, but this didn’t bother me.

Fast forward to about a week later, and there’s an e-mail in my inbox telling me that my items have shipped. Standard procedure and all that. But! Susanne, the owner of the store, also said that since I’d bought four different Butter London polishes, she was throwing in a bottle of bL Handbag Holiday Cuticle Oil AND, as an apology for the wait on shipping, a promo code for 20% off my next order.

This, ladies and gents, is what makes me a returning customer! (Okay, so I haven’t actually returned yet, but I am currently eyeing up a few more bL polishes I wouldn’t mind adding to my collection, and when the day to order comes, it’ll be from this shop!)

Now for a few words on Saucy Jack! I have been extremely fascinated by Jack the Ripper from a very early age (though the first time I remember hearing about him, I was scared to death for the rest of that day and could not fall asleep, because I was convinced he would come to slit my throat in the night! I was full of anxieties about anything as a little one…), so when I saw that one of the reds I was choosing between had taken its name after the old, still unidentified, serial killer, it was a clear winner. And I have to say I don’t regret it in the slightest!

It’s a lovely dark brick red sort of colour that needs three coats for full cover. Since it’s a jelly, I’m pretty sure it would look lovely in a glitter sandwich as well, but for now I’ve just worn it on its own. It’s the third Butter London I’ve tried (fourth if you count Slapper, which I’d only worn with Trout Pout at the time I tried Saucy Jack) and the first one I fell completely and utterly in love with. I didn’t quite “get” the Butter London hype before, but I am definitely sold now!

(Oh, and that purse? Is my new purse and I love it! It’s obviously from River Island, but I bought it from ASOS.com.)

Trout Pout meets Slapper

My second experience with Butter London polishes involved Trout Pout and Slapper. I was originally just going to try out Trout Pout, but while the colour on its own is absolutely lovely, I do get bored quite easily if there’s no shine or sparkle to keep my interest alive. Trout Pout does apply with shine, especially if coupled with a coat of Seche Vite, but in the end I couldn’t resist freehanding a bit of a design with Slapper.

It took three coats for Trout Pout to look non-streaky, which is not out of the norm, so not too disappointing. It lasted a lot longer without chipping than The Black Knight did, too, but I don’t know if it’s just because this is a “simple” cream, whereas TBK is full of glitter, or if it’s because I’ve learnt a few tricks since then. (You’ll notice, for example, that I no longer suffer from Seche Vite shrinking at the tips. I decided to google it, rather than try to find a different quick-drying coat, and I now know how to apply my polishes for maximum lasting power!)

Look! I was even able to get a second day’s wear out of this mani!

On the second day, I added a coat of BK Super Matte to keep my interest alive until I could get home and paint my nails a new colour. ;) Because now, that I know the tricks for making things last, I find that I start itching to re-do my nails anyway! I still haven’t broken my habit of picking at my polish, but unlike before, when a mani lasted no more than half a day before looking icky due to my picking, I now reach at least a day and a half before reaching that stage. Improvement, in other words!

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.

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).

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.

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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