Drumroll, please...

My friend GG has a brand new blog, Shiny Stuff and Things!

China Glaze Fault Line swatches

Since I already did a review of Broken-Hearted, I will say that this is the same formula and move straight to the pics.

This is one coat of Fault Line over two coats of China Glaze Light as Air, no topcoat:





With China Glaze Matte Magic top coat:



I like it matte just as much as I liked the Broken-Hearted with shiny top coat.

China Glaze Broken-Hearted review and swatches

I really like this type of polish. It's fun, it's different every time you wear it, it lends itself to all kinds of combinations. I used Nubar ridge-filling base, two coats of China Glaze Something Sweet, one coat of Broken-Hearted and two coats of Nubar Diamont. Broken-Hearted dried as quickly as a matte polish, so it was necessary to work quickly, and it dries to a matte finish, so I added the top coat for shine.



Just to make it fun, I added a coat of NYX Girls Special Polish with white hearts and kept hearing "Unbreak My Heart" in my head when I looked at my nails. :)

Inque Nails review

As soon as I saw flinty's post about Inque Nails on Polish or Perish, I knew I had to try them. I ordered five sets last Thursday, and they were in my mailbox on Monday.

The first set I tried on was the pink camoflauge and I love them. They're cute, detailed, girly but edgy, and have gotten me four compliments today alone.

Right hand:


Left hand:


Left hand holding a BPAL bottle since I didn't need to hold a polish bottle:


Since I have short, wide nails (and hands, thanks, Grandpa!), I got the Medium nails and will probably get the Short nails for my next order. They were easy to apply, although I may have used the blowdryer a little too long, because my fingers felt uncomfortably hot. I used a pair of nail clippers to trim the decals to fit after I'd positioned them on my nails, and that worked like a charm. After the blowdrying and the smoothing steps, I filed with a medium-grit (180) file and got the results you see above.

You can pick up your own set at the Inque website, but I'd recommend getting them soon, before the 5 sets for $30 deal ends!

Polish or Perish is having an Inque design contest, and ya'll are welcome to enter, although I'm pretty sure my designs are the awesomest! ;)

I haven't tried to remove them, but I've been told that the decals should simply peel off the nails and to start with lifting an edge of one nail with either an orange stick or another nail.

The big test for me will come tomorrow night when I do my hourlong workout in the pool. If they can withstand sixty minutes of chlorinated water, I will know it's true love!

Update 2/12/11: The nails lasted four days and two water workouts with just some wrinkling at the tips, and were easy to remove. Love this product!

Linear vs. scattered holo

This was intended to be a post comparing linear holo polishes with scattered holo polishes. I much prefer the former, because the holo effect to me is much more powerful when it is clean and linear as opposed to when it is scattered. I checked my stash, found two holos that look like dupes in the bottle (China Glaze BFF and Nubar Brilliant) and swatched my left hand.

Surprise!

At one coat, there was a huge difference in opacity:


(middle and pinkie are Nubar Brilliant, all the other fingers are China Glaze BFF)

What about two coats?



Four?



It took SIX coats of the Nubar to match the opacity of the China Glaze:



Not only do I like the linear better, it's cheaper and has better coverage! I'm glad I didn't pay $9.50 for Nubar Absolute but instead grabbed a bottle of China Glaze 2nite from 8ty8beauty.com for $2.99!

The trend I just don't get

Because I am job hunting, it is sometimes necessary for me to wear bland colors I would not otherwise bother with. Today it was Desert Haze, a mushroom beige from e.l.f. cosmetics.

I do not understand the whole "edgy neutrals" trend. Frankly, if it's a putty, taupe, beige or similar color, it looks boring to me rather than edgy. Maybe I'm not young enough or hip enough to get the idea, but all these neutrals just put me to sleep. Give me a strong color, or a holo, or glitter or something interesting, but please stop boring me!

That said, I will not be buying anything else from e.l.f. While Desert Haze was semi-sheer, it was fairly easy to work with, and I had minimal VNL after three coats. However, all of their products appear to be made in China, and after the multiple contamination problems, it just seems too risky to be putting something made in China on my face. And since what I mostly bought from e.l.f. with my first and last order was eyeshadow and powder, I probably won't be getting any more polishes from them either. That was my own fault for not reading their website more carefully and checking with customer service if necessary.

Here's Desert Haze on its own:

And then saved from neutralhood with one coat of Nubar Opulent Pearls and one coat of CND Copper Shimmer:

I think I can live with the latter look for a day or two.

Cute polish story

Two weeks ago, I took an assortment of nail polish up to the lake house for my nieces. The weather was so gorgeous that they were not interested in staying inside to have their nails done, but Mom fell in love with Zoya Zara. She did her toenails with it that weekend, and asked me to leave it at the lake so she could re-do them after the MS bike ride.

Mom called me tonight, apologized for sharing my polish without asking, and explained that my aunt admired Mom's pedicure and said she had never had purple toenails.

So tonight in a cozy blue and white cottage on Lake Erie, there are two adorable senior citizens with matching purple toenails. Yay Mom and Auntie!