I've pretty much been changing my polish every day lately (I have the time and about a million untrieds..so why not?) Anyways, I'll start with the easier ones.
This ancient China Glaze is Tropical Ice. It's probably the only pink I own that I actually really really like the color of. It's a really beautiful warm pink that I wish I had a matching lip color for. Too bad the formula is a PITA. I tried 4 coats to smooth this out and it didn't really smooth out super well (It's opaque in 3, just oddly streaky for me) Out the Door topcoat smoothed it out really well though. The bottle that I have is in China Glaze's old formulation so maybe that has something to do with it? The color's discontinued, but Victoria Nail Supply still has this for sale so I figured I'd post the pic since I couldn't find a swatch of this anywhere else.
Next up is Icing Mint 2 Be. I'm not sure why, but I'm really obsessed with mint green polishes. There was no sun this day or the next day, so the picture is taken in cool natural lighting. In reality, this polish is greener than depicted below and contains no blue tones as this picture might suggest. This is my standard 3 coats, though it's opaque and smooth in 2. This was my first mani with Icing's polish and I'm definitely happy with the color and formulation.
From the Alice in Wonderland collection we have OPI Thanks so Muchness! is a nice, shimmery red. I'm not sure why I didn't manage to take a picture of this in natural lighting, but here it is. I didn't find this a particularly special color, but the sun also didn't come out this day so maybe it's much prettier in sunlight. This is 3 coats, again. The polish is fairly opaque in 1 coat, but the color lacks depth and is kind of flat. 2 coats gives a much richer color, and 3 coats is the same as 2 coats, so doing 3 coats was just due to my own preference. I chipped it on the other hand building a TV stand, so I decided to change it.
Now we've come to the duochromes. I got this baby (Savina Black Pearl) at Nordstrom Rack for $3.97, and it's pretty much the most amazing duochromes I own (though I think a more accurate description of this would be multichrome as it changes to multiple colors depending on how the light hits it) I did 3 coats again. 2 was fine, but I felt like 3 increased the complexity of the color.
Here it is in cool, natural lighting. Here it looks blue-grey with a hint of purple and green.
In warm, dimmer lighting this polish is green or teal (couldn't capture the teal well)
Here it is in more regular indoor lighting. you can kind of see the pinky-purple flash here
as well as some blue and green
In some lighting it's blue
and a picture with flash
Wasn't that cool? I probably should have used a shinier top coat, but I still find the color pretty amazing. I've been wrestling with the thought of picking up a backup.
The 2nd duochrome this week was Nina Ultra Pro Molten Gold. This is probably the one polish I own with a really strong duochrome effect to it. It flashes pink and God and all the colors in between (different shades of pink and peach) Again, I used 3 coats, though I think 2 was fine as well. Here it is in natural light:
Indoor lighting...here it is at a slightly peachy pink. It can get pinker than this, but it was hard to capture on my camera.
It can also go very gold colored, though I think it's closer to an orange here.
Anyways, that's all for now. I'll try not to be so lazy and swatch you guys some makeup soon, but I lack any sort of motivation to play with makeup lately, as well as the general lack of sun here lately, so we'll see.
As with the previous posts, if you want to see anything swatched, let me know..I might be a bit slow about it since I just started a new job, and I'm not allowed to wear makeup, polish, or jewelry at work..though I'm starting work in the afternoons for a while starting tomorrow, so it may get done anyways. (I've been cringing at my natural nails the last two days...they're ugly to me, but I can't stop staring...even after buffing them, they're still kind of stained/yellow) I did start swatching the Nubar Fortress collection, with comparisons, but I'm too embarrassed by the state my cuticles were in when I swatched them, and annoyed with the fluctuations in my light source to feel like posting what I already have, so I plan on redoing them. I think I may cave and maybe buy an OTT light if I can find them on sale/coupons. I've been holding out on this since I'd be getting this specifically for the sake of blogging and I'm not entirely sure I could really justify that in my head. More than likely I'll cave on this within a few weeks (bills come first though of course).
