Very Denniee Nails :): June 2012

Wednesday, June 27, 2012

77. Zoya - Cassi

Cassi is a wonderful peachy-pink creme!  As you all know, I normally don't wear pink, but the peach tones in this polish make it way more wearable for me!  It also helps that it has that gold shimmer I love so much!  I didn't like this polish so much in the bottle.  The shimmer looked like those iridescent shimmers that make polishes look more cool toned; however on the nail, the shimmer is a lovely gold that gives the polish a flattering warm tone!

Shown with Poshe topcoat.

Other swatches online indicate that this is a really sheer polish, but while I thought it was a little on the sheer side for a Zoya, it reached opacity for me in 3 coats.  However, my nails are tiny nubbins right now, so I don't have any problems with VNL obviously.

76. Wet N' Wild - Cost is No Issue

Sorry about the long delay of this post!  I went back to SF this week, and when I go home, I generally don't bring polishing materials.  But don't worry!  I'm back!

Here's a mani from before I went back to SF.  Sadly, I got a chip on my thumb after one day, but the rest of the nails held up for a good couple more days.  Cost is No Issue is a finer teal glitter with larger circular dark blue glitter.  Unfortunately I was not able to find all of the ColorIcon Ice Baby collection polishes, but I'm definitely glad I got this one.  In person, the polish looks completely opaque, but of course, macro pictures are so unforgiving.  I promise the glitter isn't this sparse!  Even with a layer of Seche Vite on top, the polish was still bumpy, so this polish definitely has some grit to it.  I originally wore Cost is No Issue because it vaguely reminded me of Mermaid's Dream, but I've come to the realization that they are no where close to each other. (I really want Mermaid's Dream...)


I believe this is 3 coats shown, with 1 coat of Seche Vite.  Sorry for the messy application, I was doing this mani in a rush.  There was a bit of drag with this polish, but a little patience goes a long way.

Monday, June 18, 2012

75. China Glaze - Grape Pop

Grape Pop is what's been on my nails for the last couple days, and it is an awesome, perfectly-grape blue-toned purple.  It's surprisingly dark on my nails, not that I mind; I suspect I'll have a lot of staining to clean up come time for removal.  Like with Green-wich Village, my camera refused to cooperate with Grape Pop either.  Pictures came out sadly unsaturated and far too red-tone.  So I also color-adjusted this picture.


It may look like there's bald spots, but there really isn't!  Imagine this picture darker than it is, and maybe not quite so bright.

Application was a breeze, the formula was perfect.  This was almost a one-coater, but there were a couple of bald spots that bothered me, so I did 2.

Sunday, June 17, 2012

74. OPI - Green-wich Village

Here's a swatch of Green-wich Village, a slightly dusty grass-green cream.  It's very similar to Orly Fresh, but dustier. Great summer color right here; I have it on my toes now!  However, this polish did not play nice with the camera.  The color came out waaaaay too blue-toned on every single picture I took, so this picture is adjusted for color.  This is my first time doing this on Photoshop, so the color's not quite right, but I think it comes pretty close.  Compare the color of the bottle and the nails!  What do you guys think?


Application was easy, OPI's formula tends to be on the runnier side of things, but that's fine.  This is 3 coats of Green-wich Village, no topcoat

Saturday, June 16, 2012

73. Sinful Colors - Paris II

One day I was wandering around my local Rite-Aid's nail polish section, and I picked up this beauty.  This version of Paris is a slightly sheer white base with multi-colored glitters in it.



Shown here layered over SH Xtreme Pacific Blue.  Sinful Colors Hottie on ring.

Looking around a bit more, I see another polish by the name of Paris.  Now I was awfully confused, considering that these polishes were not even remotely the same.  I bought both, just for the sake of hoarding oddities.  I'm assuming this gold glitter is the original version of Paris, since it was on the permanent Sinful display rack.

Ehhhh??? o_O

Both of these polishes are awesome, but so obviously different.  I wonder if Sinful is planning to discontinue the gold one or something o_o

Friday, June 15, 2012

72. Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Pacific Blue

Hey, today I have Pacific Blue to show you guys!  Pacific Blue is an electrified version of a cornflower blue.  What I mean is that it has the color tone of cornflower/periwinkle blue, but it's so bright!  Not subdued at all.  Amazingly, this polish is a genuine one-coater!  Not one of those "oh, it's a one-coater if you're REALLY careful" one-coaters, but a "this polish just jumped onto my nails" one-coater.   It's wonderful :)


Formula was good.  Only thing I have to note is the freaking bad smell.  What's up with that?

Until next time!

Thursday, June 14, 2012

71. Zoya - Wednesday

Hey guys!  This is Zoya Wednesday (quite fitting because I put it on Wednesday...hahah).  Wednesday is a very green-blue (more green than blue) dirty cream.  The color is kind of similar to turquoise, but with more green and grey in it.  It's a very understated, yet pretty color.  It kind of gives me lobster hands, but I love it regardless!


Formula was a bit thick.  I was surprised by this polish's formula; usually Zoya has excellent formula.  I felt like the consistency was a bit thick, and I had a lot of trouble applying the polish.  I kept getting streaks and baldspots.  I suspect that whoever used this polish last (I let a lot of people use my polishes) at the polish party probably didn't close it tight.  The polish bottle's threads (the screwy part) was also very caked with polish and someone dropped polish on the side of the bottle :( ... Oh well, I'll just add more thinner and hopefully everything is fixed :)

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Teal Tips

It's amazing what you can do with a bit of tape!  Blargh, all the clean lines got smudged by the topcoat.  Since my Poshe and Seche Vite are both gloopy and useless, I used a random Color Club clear coat I found laying around...


This look:
1 coat China Glaze Icicle (base)
1 coat SH Insta-Dry Teal-y Fast (tips)

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

70. American Apparel - Hassid

This is Hassid, an awesome black cream.  Possibly just as good as WNW Black Creme.


This is 2 coats, no topcoat.  Formula was a bit watery, but very smooth.

Monday, June 11, 2012

69. Zoya - Uli

Uli is a pink-toned nude with golden shimmer.  Looking at it in the bottle, it looks nowhere close to my skin tone.  However, when it's on my tips, it's like I have mannequin hands...I think I've found The One!  Yayyyyyy!    The gold shimmer really gives a warm tone to this polish.  Uli is kind of similar to Fast Track and Irreplaceable, but I'm not sure how close.  I guess I'll do a comparison later.

 A bit warm toned, but shows off the shimmer perfectly!


Sorry about the dry cuticles!  I think these pics were taken during midterms season; handcare time is very limited...

Formula was a tiny bit runny and streaky, but nothing a little careful polishing can't prevent.  This is 2 coats of Uli, no topcoat.

Drugstore Mini-Haul - June

Hey guys!  Here are my latest acquisitions!  I picked these up one day when I was out practicing with my longboard.  I needed somewhere to go, so I went to Rite-Aid and bought these pretties :)

Sinful Colors:
Paris
Paris (??? more on this later.)
Mercury Rising
See You Later!
Hottie
UFO

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear:
Golden-I
Pacific Blue

Finally Finished Organizing!

I finally finish categorizing my stash, so if you want to take a look at what I have, go ahead and navigate to the 'Stash' page :)

Another post coming up tonight, so stay tuned!

Sunday, June 10, 2012

68. China Glaze - Passion

Sorry about the sporadic posting, but it is finals season, and finding time to edit pictures and posts is a bit scarce!  But no worries, my last final is on Tuesday, and I will have time for my beloved blog.  Here's a post that has been long in the making.  This here is Passion, a perfectly metallic gold.  I've had this on my toes for a good month (I get a bit lazy on pedis).


Application was a bit brushstrokey, but the formula is excellent and very easy to control.  Shown is 2 coats Passion over 1 coat Essie fill the gap!

Thursday, June 7, 2012

67. Color Club - Love Em Leave Em

Love Em Leave Em is a gorgeous nude HOLO.  That's right, it's both nude and holo!  Amazing!  In most lighting, it's a subtle touch of color to your tips, but in the sunlight...BAM in-your-face-rainbow!  Just posting a little pic of this on my facebook got lots of compliments! I'm slightly disappointed though; none of these pics really turned out that well.  The rainbow is really hard to see.


Formula was great on this polish.  I used 2 coats, no problems with streaking or bald spots at all!  Great polish from Color Club!  More pics after the jump!

Wednesday, June 6, 2012

It's a Sad Day....

I'm almost out of Poshe topcoat!  The one I have right now is 1/3 full, and it's gotten really thick and goopey.  I don't know how much polish thinner I can actually add to thin it out again.  It's stringy and holds air bubbles like crazy.  It's messing with my swatches :(   Hopefully I can find a cheap bottle on Amazon...otherwise I won't be able to get another bottle for 2 weeks (when I can go to the nail supply place in SJ).

66. Color Club - Worth the Risque

I wore Worth the Risque last week when it was sunny out.  Sunny weather is great for wearing holos!  You get an eyeful of rainbows with every glimpse of you nails.  This is a decently strong silver holo.  It's probably not as strong as anything from the China Glaze OMG collection, but Worth the Risque is much cheaper than those anyways.  I'll settle for this; I'm not quite ready to part with that much money on one bottle of polish.  I also suspect that this polish will be good for stamping.


Shown is 2 coats.  The formula was a great consistency and very easy to control.  This is also a relatively easy holo, as there was no dragging like other holos may be prone to (without a special base coat).

My pictures really do this polish no justice; in real life, there is much more "wham-in-your-face-rainbows." I have many more pics after the jump, if you want some eye candy.

Monday, June 4, 2012

First Attempt with Striping Tape!

This mani was pretty simple, but it looks so clean!  Love it!

Colors Used: 
Tips - Zoya Kelly
Base - Zoya Uli
What I did:
Paint 2 coats of the base color
Tape off the bottom half of my nails
Paint 2 coats of the darker color over my tips
Apply striping tape

When you do this kind of manicure, make sure you let your nails really DRY.  I always have a problem with this kind of mani... I kept pulling off chunks of nail polish each time I applied tape. T-T

Polish Organization: Swatchicles

 While I was building my nail polish rack, I also worked on swatchicles to pass the time.  After all, you can only watch glue dry for so long...  These aren't all my swatchicles obviously, but some of my favorites that I wanted to show you.  Right now, I have them all together in a box, and they look so pretty (not the box, but the swatchicles)!




Look at the pretty colors!  And these are just some of my creams in my favorite colors :)  Swatchicles are very useful once your collection reaches a large amount.  Making these definitely help me figure out  which polishes are dupes, what colors go good together, etc.  And looking at them definitely provides a lot of inspiration when I don't know what to do with my nails.

To make these, I bought a pack of acrylic nails from BornPrettyStore and popsicle sticks from Amazon.  I probably should have went for thinner sticks, but what's done is done.  I used hot glue to stick the tips onto the sticks (remember to wait a few seconds before putting the nail on the HOT glue...the nail will melt if you don't).  Then I painted the nails in batches, grouping by color and then brand.  After that, I wrote the polish name on one side of the stick, and the coats used on the other side. However, I found that the swatchicles required more coats than was necessary on my own nails.

My inspiration for this project came from Emily at VeryEmilyPhotography.  Go check her out; she always posts lots of great nail art, and her pictures are amazing!

65. Zoya - Kelly

Sorry for the slightly messy pic and the kind of sporadic posts!  This is Kelly, a gorgeous dusty grey-blue creme.  I think I've been lemming this color for the longest time, but I could never find it in my nail supply store...  This was such a nice color to actually wear; it's not too dark, but perfectly dusty.  I think these pictures lean a little bit grey, actually, but there definitely is some blue in this polish!


This was a quick and dirty swatch from a little while ago, not an actual mani (gods forbid I go out without cleaning up a bit).  Formula was a little thick, with a tiny bit of dragging.  This is 2 coats, no topcoat.