Very Denniee Nails :): July 2012

Saturday, July 28, 2012

30DC: Day 5 - Blue

Today I tried something I've wanted to do for a long time: a gradient over striping tape!  It didn't quite turn out how I wanted to (I wanted a much smoother gradient), but it still looked nice nonetheless.  This mani kind of reminds me of fading denim.  I also think I chose a color that was too opaque for gradients.

Colors Used:
China Glaze Snow
American Apparel Passport Blue

Thursday, July 26, 2012

NOTD: A Subtle Sparkle

So this is definitely not a combination I'd usually think of, but the other night, me and some other DRD ladies (+Patrick) had a nail night.  I tried to do a purple nail for the 30DC, but it kinda flopped.  So I went for something easy, a gold foil.  However, I can't just leave it at that.  So I look at what colors the other ladies have out, and I see Shine of the Times, and I thought, "why not?"

Glad I decided to layer these, it looks pretty damn cool!  There are little red flecks subtly showing on top of the gold foil, and at some angles, it looks green.  It's a very blingy mani, but with a little something else.  I don't know if the flakes come across in the pictures, but in real life, this mani is really interesting!

Subtle red flecks

Duochrome-y :)

Look at that green flash!

Colors Used:
WNW A Show at the Palladium
Essie Shine of the Times

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

30DC: Day 4 - Green

I couldn't really decide on a single design for all my nails, so I went with a bunch of tape designs!  Hope you like them (I know I did :)  This was a really fun day to do!

Colors used:
WNW Black Creme
Zoya Ivanka
OPI Jade is the New Black

Friday, July 20, 2012

85. OPI - Jade is the New Black

Considering that this green is such a cult-favorite, I just had to buy it and try it for myself.  I admit, this is a very pretty green cream.  JITNB is a blue-toned medium green, and for some reason the color reminds me of crayola crayons!  The color payoff is very good, this color is nice and saturated.  I now can see why so many people like this color!


Application was very good.  I haven't swatched or used any OPIs in a love time; I forgot how much I love the OPI brushes!.  They fan out so easily and pick up just the right amount of polish.  You're seeing no cleanup on this swatch!  The formula was nice and smooth, and this swatch was 2 easy coats over Essie Fill the Gap, topped with Poshe.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

30DC: Day 3 - Yellow

Originally I was going to do full-on polka dots on the entire nail, but I liked the look of the double line of dots.  Pastels are so cute with polka dots, don't you think? :D


I used China Glaze - Lemon Fizz for the base, white acrylic paint for the dots.  I think if I do dots again, I'm going to do it with nail polish.  The dots are a little too 3D for my taste.

84. China Glaze - Lemon Fizz

Lemon Fizz is a very light pastel yellow.  At first, I thought the color would be too light and yellow to look good on my tanned Asian skin, but it actually doesn't look half bad.  It's the perfect pastel yellow you would see in a baby's first bedroom or something.  I don't know if there are still some slightly streaky spots, or if I'm imagining it... This is a cute color! Quite cheerful and uplifting, but not so in-your-face.


Application was iffy.  This is a careful 3 coats, and while my left hand here looks pretty decent, my right hand has a lot of streaky spots.  Formula was a little bit hard to control and watery.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

30DC: Day 2 - Orange

Today's challenge was to use the color orange, so here are oranges!  (I actually think they look more like orange strawberries)


I used a striping brush and dotting tool to do the leaves and dots, using acrylic paint.  Base color is Zoya Arizona.

Monday, July 16, 2012

Comparison: Zoya Jancyn vs. Zoya Arizona.

Hey guys!  Today I'll be doing my first comparison post.  This is a comparison I saw immediately off the bat, from the first instance I picked up Arizona during one of the Zoya promos.  Zoya Jancyn and Zoya Arizona are both orange creams.  They're the typical orange color.


In the bottle, you can see that Arizona is the slightest bit darker.  But you have to look really carefully to see it in real life.

Arizona on thumb, pointer, and ring
Jancyn on middle and pinky.
THEY LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME, DON'T THEY?

Application:  Jancyn was quite a bit more watery than Arizona, and a little bit hard to control.  Despite my earlier doubts about the opacity of Jancyn, I have now determined that both polishes have about the same coverage.

83. Zoya - Arizona

Arizona is a creamy medium orange.  I'm not sure I liked this color on me.  Either I'm getting more tan, or this color is emphasizing the tan.  It's a nice color though :)


Formula was a little bit thick (as most of the recent Zoya creams seem to be), but pretty manageable.  Topcoat smooths out everything.  Here is 3 coats of Arizona.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Drug-store Mini Haul - July

Hey guys!  Yesterday, my friend Seel dragged me off to Rite-aid...something about nail polish strips.  When we got there, there were sooooo many polishes on clearance; I couldn't help but get some!  Most of the polishes were half off their retail price :D  Here's what I got:

Wet N' Wild Chromes:
Hog-Quartz School
A Show at the Palladium
Stay Outta My Bismuth
Penny for Your Thoughts

Jesse's Girl - Glee
Sally Hansen Salon Effects - Purr-fect Harmony
Sally Hansen Diamond Strength - Infinity Band

Man, I tried to snag a bottle of White Veil, but it looks like the last of the SH LE's are gone :C  I really wanted White Veil too...  At least Infinity Band looks like a really nice gold!  And I'm really excited to use the nail strips too; I've never used any before.

30DC: Day 1 - Red

The first day of my first nail challenge!  Hopefully it'll be fun.  I'm going to try to do actual nail art for every day of the challenge!  So forgive me if the posts aren't actually every day.  I AM working on it everyday, I just can't do nail art in one day (needs time to dry)! xD

I don't really dig the look of red polish alone, so I did a red-black gradient for the first day of the challenge.  It ended up more black than red, but I really like this!  It kind of reminds me of the vampires from Vampire Knight.

I think it looked better in real life than this picture makes it look.

I used Diamond's The Naughty Intern and Wet N' Wild Black Creme.

82. Diamond - The Naughty Intern

Hey guys!  So for the first day of the 30-day challenge is a mani featuring the color red.  This is the base I used for the nail art (yes, there will be nail art, so stay tuned for the first official challenge post).  This here is The Naughty Intern, a dark, vampy red cream.  I don't normally go for reds, but this one is pretty wearable, due to its dark color.  I don't think I could really take myself seriously with fire-engine red nails.  This polish kind of reminds me of Lust from Fullmetal Alchemist (if you haven't seen FMA, you should go watch it!  It's seriously awesome).  Probably since this is such a sultry, sexy color.


Formula was okay, a little bit runny.  There were no problems with streaking or balding with this polish.  I have 2 coats on, and these pictures look fine; but if you look on my right hand, there are still a lot of sheer spots, so I'd say 3 coats would be best for this polish.  

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

81. Orly - Royal Navy

STILL NOT PART OF THE CHALLENGE.  I know, I'm procrastinating, but life's still pretty busy, even though it's summer.  I'm taking a class, working a part-time job, and researching in a chem lab, essentially working 8 hours a day.  Bear with me though!  I'll make it worth your while :)

Royal Navy is a gorgeous royal blue jelly with a bright blue shimmer.  I first heard about it from Kittytokaren at Polish or Perish, and once I saw the swatch, I knew I had to have it.  It's quite a curious polish, since it could either be a plain jelly or a shimmery jelly.  By that, I mean that the shimmer settles quite a bit, so if you let it settle all the way, the polish will come out as a plain jelly.  However if you shake it (a lot), the shimmer comes into play.  Quite gorgeous either way.

Rich, gorgeous color!

Application was wonderful on this polish.  Here shown is 3 coats, since the polish is a little on the sheer side.  It was quite easy to apply, with very little clean up needed.  Wear time is excellent; I've had this polish on since Wednesday, and I'm still wearing it as I write this post (Tuesday).  There is only tipwear at this point, no chips.  Since Wednesday, I've gone through my daily routines normally, except for Sunday, which was race day.  Dragonboat races usually mean I have my hands soaked in salt water half the day, so the fact that this polish didn't chip was quite the achievement!  I actually have a lot of pictures I like from this polish, so there are more pictures after the jump!


Tuesday, July 10, 2012

80. Zoya - Midori

NOTE THAT THIS IS NOT PART OF THE CHALLENGE.  Still haven't gotten on it, it's been a busy weekend.

Midori is a bright green with gold shimmer running throughout it.  Such a gorgeous color, and easy to apply, as well.  It makes me very happy looking at it!  Seems like a very summery color, fitting since it is definitely summer up here in Davis.

This picture's kind of overexposed.  Imagine a more yellow, more saturated green.

Application and formula were good.  I had no problems with balding or streaking.  Shown is 2 coats.

Saturday, July 7, 2012

30 Day Challenge

I will be doing these when I get back home (Monday) :D  Keep your eyes peeled!


Friday, July 6, 2012

Early Summer Haul!

Hey guys!  Here's another haul post for you guys!  Before the usual trip to San Jose, I totally said that I probably would not buy any more polishes, considering that the last time I visited my store, I bought almost every polish that I wanted (that, and lots of polishes from the Zoya sale in April).  But life threw me another curveball and it turns out that the store I usually frequent started carrying different polishes.  They changed up their China Glaze Collection, and started carrying Nubar and Jessica!  There were also a few from some more recent collections that I had my eye on to begin with...the total of my haul was 31 polishes!  Yikes!  So with no further ado, onto the pictures (after the jump)

I wonder what's inside the boxes? :D

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Old Nail Art

Happy 4th of July!  I don't have a specific 4th of July mani (I don't really do holiday-specific manis...), but i have some picture spam for you guys.  I just wanted to compile these pictures from my tumblr, since I have a special little place for my nails now.  Behold: nail art I've done before this blog was started!

Random experimentation with nail art pens.


Sunny sky to celebrate summer!

Cleancolor chunky holo topcoat.  Looks like lanterns floating on a lake at night.

First successful water marbling.

Ombre mani with glitter topcoat.

Gradient mani with glitter accent nail.

Blue french mani with glitter gradient topcoat.

First attempt at galaxy nails.

First successful stamping!

Mattified glitters.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

79. Jessica - Stark Naked

Hey guys!  Today I'm showing you guys my mannequin hands!  Aren't they lovely? (LOL I'm kidding, they're alright)  I would have been more comfortable if this color was a bit more opaque, but it kind of looks nice sheer.  I'm going to call this polish a jelly, rather than a sheer, just judging by the opaqueness we see here.  I'm glad I found my mannequin color; even though I don't really go for these neutral kind of looks.  This color is definitely a good color to have, just for occasions where you want your hands to look clean, but you can't wear an outrageous color.


This is 3 coats of Stark Naked over Essie's Fill The Gap basecoat, no topcoat.  It dries rather shiny and squishy looking on its own.  Formula was good, there was very minimal streaking and balding.  However, I feel like the polish is not completely dry, despite the fact that it's been an entire day since I did this mani.

Monday, July 2, 2012

78. Essence - a lovely secret

Hey guys!  Today I'm wearing "a lovely secret" (there were no capital letters on the bottle label), a blue-toned lavender with shimmer.  I was quite disappointed by this polish.  In the bottle, there is this bright flash of warm-toned purple shimmer, but it falls completely flat on the nail.  What I see is a bunch of dark specks on the base color, instead of the lovely purple shimmer that I was expecting.  Unexpectedly, the pictures show more shimmer than I see in real life (which is none).  It looks kind of like a bird's egg, and while that's a cool look, it's not really what I want in a polish.  So looks like this one's going to the swap bin!

Under diffused light, so you can see the 'specks' better.  And a slight hint of that lighter shimmer!

The polish is actually a little more blue-toned and greyed out than this.

Formula was good on this polish.  It was very easy to control, but a bit on the sheer side.  What I'm wearing is 3 coats of a lovely secret topped with Poshe.  Right now, the sheerness is kind of hard to see since my  nails are still nubbins, but if I had free edges, I'd bet that there'd be some major VNL.