Stash Swatch Initiative: Nicole by OPI Love Your Life

Hello!

Since today is Valentine's Day, I thought this polish was appropriate. This is Nicole by OPI Love Your Life.

Nicole by OPI Love Your Life. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

Love Your Life is a clear-based glitter topper. It has a bunch of pink, satin heart glitters swimming with some small iridescent glitter. For swatches today, I've used one coat of Love Your Life over Pure Ice Love, which is a light pink with hidden shimmer (that you'll be seeing soon).

Nicole by OPI Love Your Life. Outdoors, sunlight, no flash.

The formula on this isn't the best. The base is a bit thin, so the hearts settle. Once you shake it up, they are suspended, but still hard to get out of the bottle. They get on the brush just fine, but they end up sliding off before your can get it out of the bottle. I had to work a little bit to trap them on the inside of the bottle neck, let excess base drain off (which would otherwise wash the hearts right off with it) and then pull them out. Not the most difficult thing to do, but a little extra care is required.

Nicole by OPI Love Your Life. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

This added a nice delicate, extra touch to my already girly base polish. Perfect for today!

Nicole by OPI Love Your Life. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

If you celebrate, enjoy! More soon!! ^_^

Stash Swatch Initiative: Color Club Wildflower

Hello!!

This bit of gorgeous  is Color Club Wildflower.

Color Club Wildflower. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

Wildflower is a vibrant, deep coral creme. Or is it a red-orange? Pink? Coral? I'm not sure where this one falls, actually. Whatever you classify it as, it is beautiful.

Color Club Wildflower. Outdoors, sunlight, no flash.

Swatches today are a base of Seche Clear, two coats of Wildflower, and one coat of Seche Vite. The formula on this is super smooth. It is extremely pigmented, and I have had great success using this as a stamping polish.

Color Club Wildflower. Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

This polish is so lovely! It was a random buy for me, and I'm so glad a picked it up! I think I found this at Bed, Bath, & Beyond quite awhile ago. Happy hunting if this is one you want!

Color Club Wildflower. Indoors, artificail light, no flash.

More soon! ^_^

Crumpet's Laid-Back 31DC: Pink

Hello~!

Today's prompt for the Laid-Back 31 Day Challenge is "Pink"! I love me some pink polish! I started out with a base coat of Sinful Colors Nail Hardener, then layered on two coats of OPI Bubble Bath (a very light pink jelly), and topped that with one coat of Seche Vite. I stamped the "heart spirograph" design (Remember that toy? Anyone else know what I'm talking about? This stamping image reminded me of that, anyway...)  from Bundle Monster plate BM-317 with Pure Ice Crimson. I finished it off with a coat of NYC's In A New York Minute.

Indoors, artificial light, with flash.

I tested out quite a few different stamping polishes on paper first. The outlined heart shapes in this image are very fine, and not all of the polishes I tried to use picked them up well. Thicker stamping polishes were a no go, so I settled on Pure Ice Crimson, which is a pigmented metallic red with normal polish consistency. Happily, this appears pink once used to stamp with, but in the bottle it is definitely red. The image didn't transfer cleanly every time, but I was pleased with this result. I only wish I had thought to rotate the image before stamping to create a little more variety in the pattern. Lesson learned here: Test out stamping polishes before using them on your carefully applied and dried mani -- You'll learn which one is most likely to give you the best result with the image you want to use.

Indoors, artificial light, no flash.

This was the final mani of the weekend, and what I chose to wear this week. I had an epic swatch session spanning two days, which I think accounts for the crazy wrinkled fingers. Lol -- off to moisturize!

More soon! ^_^