How To Block A Zombie

Today I have a quick and easy mani refresh with China Glaze Zombie Zest and NAME. I was getting some slight tip wear but wanted to get a bit more mileage out of my mani so I did some colour blocking. I did this for the same reason this past summer and have been wanting to try it again ever since. It's super easy to do, I literally did this 10 minutes before leaving the house!

The most important and time consuming part is sectioning off the nail with striping tape, although it didn't take that long. I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Black Out to full in the space. Always remember to remove the tape right after application for a crisp line and to avoid having the polish drying on the tape and peeling off. Tweezers are hand in application and removal of the tape.

I sealed it off with Ask Cosmetics top coat and was out the door! I really love this look. I love how something so simple can make something look more than it actually is.


Annnnd... Incase there weren't enough photos in this post, I decided to add a matte topcoat after a few days, which I think I loved even more than the glossy look!

The Butterfly Effect

Today I have a quick refresh of my previous mani of Layla Ceramic Effects, 51, or The Butterfly Effect. I was totally inspired by the polish name and decidd to do some subtle stamping.

I chose Bundle Monster plate 424, from the Design It Yourself contest, the butterfly wing to be exact. This design is pure genius! I have always wanted to try the butterfly winged nails freehand but it looked difficult and time consuming. I only wish there was the reverse of the wing included in the set as well for the opposite hand.

The image stamped perfectly. Since the base polish is so dark, the wing stamp was subtle in black, but super pretty with the flakies shining though. I kind of want to try monarch butterfly nails now, such a great stamp!

Speaking of this collection of Bundle Monster plates, they just announced they are running another create your own promo for a new set of plates! I can't wait to submit some new designs!

Doppelgängers Layla vs. Nfu Oh

I mentioned that I picked up Layla Ceramic Effect 52 at Winners a few weeks back and how much I knew even before purchasing that it looked to be close to a polish I already owned, Nfu Oh 51.Both gorgeous flakies are comprised of a blurple jelly base, multi-chomatic shimmer and opalescent flakies. I decided to buy it anyway and LOVED every bit of wearing it, but how does it really stack up to Nfu Oh?

In the bottle the two polishes appear to differ in a few ways. First of all 52 appears to have a slightly darker base. 51 appears to have larger flakies. Does this translate to the nail? Not exactly. Since the formula of 52 is thinner, on the nail once built up to opacity the purple jelly base appears to be very similar to 51. That being said, 51 only requires two coats for opacity, where 51 requires at least three, or to be layered over a base colour. Below is a close up of the polish in the bottle. Totally reminds me of a nebula in space.

Can you tell the above macro shots apart? The one on the left is Layla 52, and Nfu-Oh 51 is on the right. The flakies are more dense and larger in 51 than 52, both in the bottle and on the nail, however they are both the same colour and give the same opalescent, multichrome effect. Below is a look at  52 in direct sunlight and shade at two coats:

Bellow is a look at 51 in direct light and shade at three coats.

So should you buy one over the other or even both? Seeing how both of these polishes can be hard to come by I would say no. They are similar enough that whether you have one or the other you will still get the same effect on the nail. 51 is probably best worn over a similar coloured polish for the best effect, where 52 is good on t's own at two coats.

Fancy Pants

Another Spring China Glaze shade to share today from the Avant Garden collection. Fancy Pants is a very interesting shade, in the bottle it appears to be a deep indigo with a flash of magenta shimmer. On the nail I feel that the shimmer actually makes the polish look more of a deep purple.

At first glance the shimmer is not really noticeable, but on a sunny day it shines. Looking a little more closely I noticed that the shimmer is actually made up of tiny irregularly shaped flakies!

I used two coats to achieve full opacity and the formula was pretty easy to work with as long as you use quick, long strokes with a decent amount f polish on the brush. If you go over the same spot twice to try and even out a spot on your first layer you may end up with some balding. The first coat was a little streaky, but the second coat evened everything out well. I was disappointed with the finish of this polish, I'm not sure exactly how it dries because I add top coat right away, but even with Seche Vite once dry it isn't as glossy as it should be. It is visible in my photos, it has a shine, bit not too glossy.

Flakie Friday

Happy Friday! It's finally the end of the week, woohoo! Today I have a fun flakie for Friday and a bunch of photos to show you the cool colour shift.

I layered Funky Fingers Motley over Orly's Le Chateau. I applied 2 decent coats. Once coat affered a good amount of flakies but I really wanted my nails to be packed with them so I added another coat. I finished this mani off with a coat of Seche Vite for extra shine.

Lamp Light

I had originally thought that the flakies were just blue, but straight on they are blue and green. On different angles you can see light turquise, deep indigo and purple. I have included MANY photos in different lighting to show off the colour shift as much as possible.

Natural Daylight, Overcast

Super cool, huh? not too much more for me to say here, I think the photos speak for themselves! This next one was a bad pic, it was actually accidentally taken with the flash but it shows off the depth nicely, so I chose to include it even though it is super overexposed!

The rest of the photos were taken while waiting for the bus on the way home from work lol.

Hope you have a great weekend :)

Doppelgängers! Featuring OPI Merry Midnight

A festive comparison today, Orly's Fowl Play vs. OPI's Merry Midnight. I was shocked when I saw that Orly's had released this polish, I mean, come on! Why are there not more dupes for amazing hard to find discontinued polishes?

I would describe both of these polishes as a purple jelly base with irregular duochome flakies, tiny blue shimmer and random pieces of opalescent blue glitter.

I swatches these both side by side to show you just how they compare to one another. The photo below shows 1 coat, left to right Orly and OPI.

At one coat I could see a difference right away, the base of FP is more blue than MM, which is more red. It is a slight difference, but noticeable to me I'm so glad it shows in the photo! Sometimes when I do comparisons the differences are more apparent in person.

Other than the slight base colour difference, I also noticed that the flakie size differed. MM has larger chunks where as FP has smaller flecks.

Here they both are again at two coats...

And three coats.

Different angle from the light to see the base shade better. Top to bottom, Orly, OPI

Left to right, OPI, Orly

Natural sunlight, left to right, OPI, Orly

The verdict
These differ slightly from one another so I wouldn't say that they are dead on dupes. However, if you couldn't get your hands on Merry Midnight when it was available, Fowl Play is a great substitute!

Flakies

Happy Friday! To celebrate I have an abundance of flakies!

Flakie polishes, they have been around for a while but are starting to get big again. I got in the flakie mood the other day so I layered Maybelline Coloramas Pink Piñata over Zoya's Neeka for a quick refresh. I decided to also take this opportunity to show you my flakie collection!

First off let's start with my mani, this is one coat of Pink Piñata over Neeka, this flakie is very similar to Sally Hansen's Hidden Treasure, the only differences are the base colour and overall density of the flakes. The colour shift is pretty much dead on.

I love how the shimmer in Neeka plays with the flakies, it actually turned out much better that I thought it would.

Now on to the flakies I own. I have some older Coloramas, left to right Ruby Rays and Pink Piñata. They are basically the same with different sheer bases, I prefer Pink Piñata for layering since the base is pretty transparent. Ruby Rays would be better suited for layering over a similar colour such as pink, red or orange. I kind of want to try this one on it's own to see how many coats are needed to build it up.

I also have these older L'Oreal's that are referred to on the bottle as "Crystal" shades. Two of them are pretty much the same as the Coloramas with different bases. The bases are pretty sheer for the most part so they all have the same colour shift.

Left to right, L'Oreal Jet-Set Shine in Rock On and Raise the Roof.

The other 2 I thought were pretty interesting when I first found them. Crushed Opal which is a multi coloured flakie very similar to Twisted by Finger Paints, and I deep blue flakie with a purple shift, Life of the Party.

I also have some NYX ones which were a bit of a disappointment because the flakes are not dense enough in the base and do not show very well in one coat. I actually forgot to take pictures of them, just a couple of the "Ave." colours (Blue, and 2 versions of purple).

Lastly I have my Finger paints, but I know you have seen enough of those by now! The only dupe I found in my collection out of all my flakies was  Crushed Opal  and Twisted. Asylum can be recreated with any of the "Hidden Treasure" flakie polishes and Life of the Party blue flakies layered.

Are you in to the revival of flakies lately? Did you own any in the past? What's your favorite?

Holiday Hauling

Today's haulng was spread out from before Christmas up until January 2nd. I'll just get right in to it, the first polish I picked up was before Christmas and was glad to find it half off :) I finally found Pumpkin Spice, super glad to have it!

The next couple of polishes I picked up for an amazing price through a group buying site, at the moment I can't remember the exact one I used. The promo was basically 5 polishes for $15, best deal for American Apparel I have found. I love their formula, so I was super excited to find this deal.

From left to right I have Army Jacket, Mount Royal, Coney Island, Mannequin and one of the new glitters, Meteor Shower.

Just after Christmas I went to the mall and found Zoya's Neeka on sale at Trade Secrets for about half off which I was really excited about. It's this gorgeous greyed out purple with these tiny gold flecks, sooo my kind of colour :)

Later that day I passed by Sephora and picked up some polishes with some gift cards I got for Christmas. You've already seen Looks Like Rain, Dear, but I also picked up Sugar Plum Faries Gone Wild. That was an impulse buy while I was in line to pay. It looks cool, but I didn't get a chance to swatch it in store so I'm still on the fence about keeping it, that's why it's still sealed.

I got a good amount of money in giftcards for Sally's so this is what I picked up just after new years. I got some good deals there too! I picked up some holiday colours and one I had been lusting over for a while. Plus they had  a buy 3 Orly get $5 off. Left to right I picked up Au Champaign, Bailamos and Le Chateau.

Sally's also had another promo going on, buy Seche Vite, get a China Glaze Free, so I picked up White Cap. Pretty good deal, they came out to around $4.50 each with the discount!

Lastly at Sally's I picked up some of the new flakies from Finger Paints, from left for right I have Twisted, Flecked and Asylum.

The last polish related purchase I made was at Wal Mart, all of their holiday gifts/gift sets were half off, so I picked up these two mini polishes. They both came with rings, I just happened to be wearing one at the time ;) It's weird that in Canada the polish is the only beauty product we don't get in the Hard Candy display. This polish reminded me of Lava, I picked up 2 since they were minis and 50 cents each. I couldn't find the actual names for these ones.

That's all for now, I'll have another haul post coming up tomorrow. I've had that post ready for a while, can't wait to share it with you, it includes my OPI holos!