Butter London Spring/Summer 2012 Knackered

Today's manicure is Butter London Knackered. Knackered is a silvery blue/purple duochrome frost base with holographic glitters. With two coats there is still VNL, so it is somewhat sheer. I didn't have any exact dupes, but it is in the flavor of Lippmann Wicked Game (similar duo base without glitter) and Barielle Jess' Champagne Toast (no duo in the base, but otherwise similar). I did include a bottle comparison photo.
This mani is one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of Knackered, one coat of Revlon Quick Dry tc, and one coat of Seche Vite.

Photos taken indoors in artifical light:



Photos taken outside in natural sunlight:

Maybelline Scene on the Runway 2011 Part 2: Bad Mister Frosty

Today's manicures are two more slightly less awesome colors from the most recent Maybelline collection.
Be Scene in Green is a quite frosty sea green with a delightfully obnoxious name. Notorious Navy is a frosty dark blue shimmer.
While I did buy four of the six colors in this collection, I didn't purchase the boring mauve creme or typical gold shimmer.
These manis are one coat Spa Ritual Lacquer Lock bc, one coat CND Stickey bc, two coats of polish, and one coat of Seche Vite tc.
These pictures were taken indoors with artificial light.

Hard Candy Mermaid

It's been awhile. I think I have SAD. It's so dark, cold, and gloomy in Southern California lately that I just haven't been motivated on the nail blog front.
I do have an indoor photo setup, but I love sun photos much better.
I'm working on my dedication issues...
Today's manicure is Hard Candy Mermaid. Mermaid is from the OG Hard Candy line that has been discontinued for a few years.
Mermaid is a frosty green teal metallic shimmer. It does have obvious brush strokes up close. I actually HATE frost finish. It's pretty much always an instant deal breaker for me, especially with brush strokes. That said, I give every HC polish in my collection a chance since they are my Pokemon.
This polish IS pretty. Frost finish (despite its immense defects) can be the most vivid and light reflective of all the finishes.
I don't have much in my collection to compare to (since I do hate frosts) but this color is much deeper than China Glaze Metallic Muse from the Khrome collection.
This mani is one coat SpaRitual resurface base coat, two coats of polish, and one coat of SpaRitual tout de suite top coat.

China Glaze Out on Safari

Today I bring you China Glaze Out on Safari. This is an old formula China Glaze from the Winter 2001 African Safari Collection. It was not the easiest to work with, but it is a very unique color. It's a soft khaki/green duochrome (really it's khaki with green sparkle).
This manicure is one coat of NailTek Foundation II (an anti-peeling treatment) with one coat of Creative Stickey (a base coat that is supposed to prevent chips). I topped this with three coats of Out on Safari (it only requires two coats to achieve opacity). The top coat is Seche Vite (which works best with older China Glaze because both are not big 3 free - in fact, as you can see from the label - it has all 3 - toluene, formaldehye, and DBP).