Jesse's Girl-Midori

First of my latest haul polishes. I picked this up at Rite Aid (for $2.99) going with the logic that I wanted a color outside of my comfort zone. Midori is a metallic bright green color that dries matte. It’s very streaky and even after three coats (which is what I’m wearing) you can see some bald spots and brush strokes. Booo. The good thing about this polish is that it dries fast. Like, faster than anything outside of mattes fast. So it has that going for it.

indoors, natural light. this is the truest color i could get.

I don’t know how to feel about this one. Someone told me it looks good on me (which is debatable in my opinion) but man do I hate how streaky it is. And that I had to use three coats. I’m sorry, but I really think it shouldn’t have to take someone four coats to get opacity. Is that so wrong? I don’t know, I’m all over the place.

w/ china glaze black mesh (ignore me chipping on my middle finger please)

w/ china glaze cracked concrete

 As you can see, to switch it up a bit I added crackle. Used China Glaze Black Mesh on one hand and Cracked Concrete on the other. I like it better, but still don’t love it. Someone, tell me how I should feel about this.

China Glaze-Below Deck

The second color I got from the China Glaze Anchors Away Spring collection was Below Deck, the purplish/grayish/taupish color that is supposedly a dupe of the infamous Channelesque. I have no idea if it's a true dupe (I was on my nail hiatus when it was released) but it does look similar based on others pics. The formula was once again smooth. I only used one semi-thick coat which I love. I could have done two but I was being lazy.

I feel the same way about this as I do Sea Spray. I don't know how good it looks on me, but I love the color. It dried a bit darker on my nails than in the bottle (no matter how the flash picture looks) and that was one coat. I like it. I really really like it.

And you guys know I had to crackle it, right? This is Lighting Bolt, from China Glaze once again. I don't know if I like this particular crackle experiment; maybe Below Deck isn't meant to be crackled. I did put this on a bit heavy and don't think I'll do that again. You see more of the crackle polish than the base color. But I'm still not crackled out. Still need more experimentation!

(Ignore how wet my cuticles look. I used quick dry drops and...yeah, there's a learning curve there!)

China Glaze-Sea Spray

Finally back to painting my nails. :) I just bought a mini China Glaze haul from Trans Design and one of them was Sea Spray, from the latest China Glaze Spring collection, Anchors Away. Being honest, only two of the colors really called to me at the time so I only bought those two. The first is Sea Spray. It’s a light/pale blue creme with subtle shimmer. In fact, I’d say you can see the shimmer better in the bottle than on the nail. This is two coats and while the first coat, thin and thick, is streaky, it works itself out like a dream with the second coat. I don’t know how well it goes with my complexion, but I love it all the same. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those colors that I wear no matter how it looks cause I just like the color.

The next couple of pictures is with crackle! I used China Glazes again-Black Mesh and Cracked Concrete. I only used CC on one just to see what it would look like. I guess a psuedo crackle accent. I like the looks of both. The black is a more dramatic look while the gray is more subtle. Yeah, I’ve completely bought into the hype of crackles. :)

I'm Hooked

I just got my three China Glaze crackles (the three neutrals-Cracked Concrete, Lighting Bolt, and Black Mesh) and I'm hooked. I'm in love I think. My self-constraint is barely (and I mean barely) keeping me from ordering the rest right now. Or taking a quick trip to Sally's or Ulta tomorrow to see if they have them yet. I'm not going to play around with these until next week (I got the Seche Rebuild for my horrible peeling problem and I'm going to follow their directions for the next four days) but I must say that I'll be crackling the crap out of my next couple of manis. :) A few pics below on my current mani, Zoya Bela.

More OPI Crackles

So I have been sitting on the crackle fence since we first saw the promo pics of OPI's Black Shatter last fall. I didn't have the old Cover Girl crackles (although I do remember them) and I wasn't in love with the look. After seeing it in action so to speak on almost every blog I follow, I decided that I wanted Black Shatter, but by that time it was sold out everywhere I looked and, no offense, but I'm not paying over $15+ for it on ebay.

Anyway, I say all this because I did just buy three of the China Glaze crackles (shipped today woo!) and because of the post on Addicted to All Things Pretty-more OPI crackles and the Serena Glam Slam collection. (Sidebar: Tennis is a passion of mine. Well, watching it is. And Serena is one of my favorite players.) I...I want these. I really really want these. I'm not a big red person, but I want the red crackle, and definitely the blue, navy, and turquoise ones. Oh, and the Silver one in the new Pirates of the Caribbean collection for this Spring/Summer.

Oh OPI, just when I thought I was over you you pull me the hell back in. Just take all my money why don't you.