All My Teals

I've had a recent hankering for teals. I like the idea of blue-green toe nails.

I've watched for this year's "shade," the warm aqua that Pantone has released as Color of the Year - Pantone 15-5519, turquoise.

I would say that China Glazes's "Passion in the Pacific" is closest. I have VNL at two coats, so some lacquer ladies would not approve.




















From Left to Right (Green to Blue):
Pointer - Barielle Sweet Addiction
Middle - China Glaze Passion in the Pacific
Ring - Barielle Decadence
Pinky - Illamasqua Muse


Two coats each. I was very surprised at how quickly the Illamasqua dried. None of these were slow driers.








































Illamasqua Muse























Barielle - Decadence




















China Glaze - Passion in the Pacific























Barielle - Sweet Addiction

More OhNos from the give away pile

I'm not against light or "neutral" polishes. But I am strongly opposed to boring polishes. And most of these are boring neutrals that don't work for my skin tone. Too orange a lot of them.


The next two photos are of SpaRituals "Solid as a Rock"




























Not exactly a bad color, but the silvery undertone blew it for me.

If Solid had been gold or copper undertoned, we'd have gotten along better.





The next two are Zoya Dea


































Zoya Dea is a dark orange, and it clashed badly with my skin. It would be a great neutral ... for someone else.





Zoya Flowie

















Zoya Flowie - There's a lot of -ish in this here polish. It's a tanish, mauvish, pinkish color depending on the light source.

It was pretty thick and I got bad coverage from two coats. After thinning out the bottle, the third coat "flowed" very nicely. Ha!

It was fairly quick to dry, but it is a funky little color. I can't decide if I like it or not. It got a drab, work camouflage vibe going.

There was some noticeable tip wear following day two, but nothing as bad as my recent RGB or RBL lacquers.

RGB Cognac Review

Another high priced polish with lackadaisical longevity. Some tip wear and cracktastic nature revealed before two days were up.

Beautiful application and fairly quick drying ... though not too. It was amazingly easy to fix boo-boos.

This is a gorgeous, though dark, color. A deep rust, or orangey-red color. It dried darker on the nail than the bottle color.

Layers:
1 OPI Envy base coat
2 lacquer coats
1 CND air dry coat

These pictures are from 36 hours wear at the most, and this is how they looked after only 12 hours wear. I guess that means after the first days wear, this polish settles down and you don't have further wear the next day.

As such, tip wear is a concern within hours of application. I had a minor chip at the nail edge. This just doesn't fit my needs for longevity.

I'm getting sick of buying high price point polishes that give me crappy wear times. I'm now concerned about the Illamasqua and Barielle polishes I've ordered. I read great reviews on products, but I'm having a poor experience with them.

Not recommended for office wear due to poor longevity.

This would be beautiful in a warm brown gradation ... but should I bother keeping it for such a rarely used reason?

Rescue Beauty Lounge Bruised Review

Rescue Beauty Lounge's Bruised Swatch and Wear




















Bruised is just gorgeous in so many ways. Beautiful reddened deep plum color. Much darker than I expected from other swatches.

No pulls and very little streaking. You could get by with one coat IF you were in a hurry. I had excellent coverage with two light coats.

Awesome formula, crappy brush. This is only the second or so bad brush I've come along. It made application near the cuticles a nightmare. I need to figure out how to replace the brush.

If was very glossy with a top of CND Air Dry.

HOWEVER, the downside is that I had horrid chipping within 5 hours. ON. BOTH. HANDS.

Before I write it off, I will have to try again because my nails are going through the winter peelies. I want to figure out if that is causing the chipping, or if it was the two coats of Nail Envy I started with, or a severe dislike of Air Dry TC. ???

It does make me thankful that I don't like most of RBLs polish colors. I hope longevity is better next time around. Compared to my $3.00 China Glaze polishes, so far, not overly impressed.

The Recent OhNos Polishes

For lack of great swatches, rotten to non-existent descriptions, and/or manufacturer blobs, every polish order inevitably reveals some OhNos upon package opening.

OhNos are polishes that make you want to cry because they either: 1) are so totally NOT your color, OR 2) are so close but still lots-o-ugly on the nail.

I'm packing up my latest OhNos collection for delivery to the local nail salon, so without further adieu, that which made me cry ...



















Nubar Dark Plum on pinky and middle.















Zoya Kierra on ring and pointer.

Both of these were a thin streaky mess to apply. The first coat was atrocious, but they both settled (mostly) with coat two. I suspect polish addicts would want a third coat.

I can't see myself in either the way too purple leaning Dark Plum nor the magenta of Kierra.



















SpaRitual Pinks: Love Your Mother (darker middle and pinky) and Weathered the Storm (the carnationy color on pointer and ring)

These both applied nicely but had the typical slow dry of SpaRituals.

Weathered the Storm is a slightly "warmed" pink that I would never be caught with on my fingers. A real clash with the yellow.

Love Your Mother is a mauve that I'm iffy over. I still can't see myself reaching for it. So I should get rid of it, or should I? Maybe the name is giving me trouble. I have a good relationship with my mother, so I can't donate "Love Your Mother?" It could be 100% psychological.























Nfu-Oh 31, a peach ... with pink shimmer. Ick.

Great application from what I remember.

No longevity reading since I pulled it off after 5 minutes.





















One coat of Nfu-Oh 46 ... magenta base.



















Nfu-Oh 46 with two coats.

I ordered this after seeing it described as an "orange" based red. So totally NOT orange based.

The lacquer base is a deep magenta, which places this firmly in the "cool" portion of the red spectrum.

However, having worn several Nfu-Oh flakies, I have come to the conclusion that there are two flakie types: cool flakies and warm flakies. The cool flash blue and green. The warm flash green and orange.

The flakie of Nfu-Oh 46, as well as most of the other non-blue/purple colors, is the warm based flakie that flashes orange and green. As such, I suppose I can see why someone would label this a warm polish, though I disagree.



















Zoyas Demi, Ciara, and Coco ... all red-violet based colors ranging from very purple to very red, with the muted Coco reaching the plum definition.



















Zoya Ciara, a very red leaning red-violet. I would be comfortable calling this a berry color. Pretty, but also pretty bright, and not a color for which I would ever reach.



















Zoya Demi, a very purple leaning red-violet. Again, another pretty, though bright color. If it will only collect dust in my own drawers, why not give it a chance to live on another nail?











Zoya Demi on left, Ciara in middle, and Coco (the one I kept) on the right.