125. Sally Hansen - Lava

Hope everyone's having a good Friday!  Today I'm going to show you Lava, the only shade from the Lustre Shine collection that I felt compelled to buy.  Lava is an awesome duochrome, flashing from a coppery orange to magenta.

At most angles, Lava is predominantly pink.  However, the copper shift shows up at the edges without having to move your hand at strange angles. It looks pretty cool!

The formula was a little watery.  I had a little trouble getting the polish to cover the edges of my nails opaquely (especially troublesome over black), but if you're wearing it on its own, 2 coats should be sufficient.  What I've shown here is 3 coats.  I tried to get a picture over black, but it just wasn't cooperating.

Catching Up on the 52 Week Challenge!

Hey guys!  Sorry I haven't posted in a while.  School and work have gotten really busy lately, and it's approaching finals soon.  I've still been polishing my nails and everything, just haven't really had the time to go through and edit pictures.  Only 2 more weeks until the quarter's over and then I can do some soul-feeding with nail polish, Assassin's Creed, random DIY crafts, and some self-pampering.  And I need to clean the house...but that's another story.

Anyways!  Onto the nails :)  Previously, I was behind on the 52 Week Challenge, but now I am finally up to date :)  Since I haven't posted in a while, I just decided to let everyone see what I've done over the last couple weeks all at once.  So enjoy!

Week 9: Rainbow

Week 7: Black and White

Week 8: Saran Wrap

More details after the jump!

52WC:Week 5 - Giants Won the World Series!

Hey guys!  This week's challenge is orange.  It's especially appropriate because it was just Halloween...AND THE GIANTS WON THE WORLD SERIES!  Ahem, sorry for my outburst there.  Normally I'm not a huge sports fan in general, but my boyfriend follows sports, so I've picked up a few things.  That, and it's my hometown team,  how could I not support them? :)

So for this week's challenge I did a slightly-Giants' themed mani.  I'm a tiny bit late in posting this, but here it is.  I did the SF symbol using a striping brush as an accent nail, and an orange over black gradient on all my other nails.  To make the orange pop more, I did the SF symbol and a gradient in white over the black, and then I filled in the symbol and did a gradient of orange over the white.  Then I coated the orange parts with glitter, because glitter makes everything better! XD

Colors Used:
China Glaze Liquid Leather
Zoya Arizona
Sinful UFO

Inspired by a Sunset

As I was driving home from Ranch 99 a couple weeks ago, the sun was setting, and the sky was the most beautiful I've seen it in a while (either that, or I don't get out enough, which is completely true).  It was orange near the horizon, fading to a blue and then to an inky dark navy/purple, and there were wispy clouds scattered throughout the sky.  And that's how this manicure was born.

To achieve this look, I first painted on a coat of Arizona.  Then on top of that, I sponged Natty and Monica. I topcoated each nail immediately in order to smudge the gradient (making it smoother).  After all nails were dry, I took a small section of sponge and dabbed Marshmallow on top.  Poshe on top and ta-da!  Pretty nails.  (I do wish the transition between orange and blue was a little smoother, but hey, what can I do?)

Colors Used:
Zoya Arizona
Zoya Natty
Zoya Monica
Essie Marshmallow

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.

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.

54. Zoya - Myrta

This beauty here is Zoya Myrta!  This is a very red-orangey coral, much like the pantone color of the year.  I actually wish it was a little shinier, but it's nice and bright without being too blingy.  I'm actually on the fence about whether or not I like this polish on me.  Strangely, I think I might like it if there was a little more pink in this color.

Application was beautiful.  No streaks or bald patches, and the formula flowed smoothly.  Very pigmented; here is 2 coats with topcoat.

46. Zoya - Jancyn

Jancyn is a beautiful orange cream.  It's nice because it's not too in your face; it's a little more muted than that.  It's not orange like a traffic cone, it's more like a cantaloupe, but a little more saturated.  I think it looks pretty nice with my skin, and it's such a happy color for spring!

Application was iffy.  This is three coats of Jancyn, and it could use a fourth; it's still a little bit uneven.  I was surprised at the amount of coats needed for this manicure, since Zoya creams are usually opaque in 2 coats, three if you want more pigmentation.

Just at first glance, Jancyn and Arizona (from Zoya's Beach collection) look very similar; I had to do a double-take when I first got my bottle of Arizona from the Zoya Earth day promo.  However, upon closer inspection, Arizona is the slightest bit dustier (colored).  I will do a comparison later

43. Essie - Ole Caliente

Ole Caliente is a very orange-toned coral cream.  At first, I thought it didn't really look good on me; it made me look really dark.  However, as the day's going by, I like it more and more!  It's such a fun, bright color, and I never really wear anything this bright (it's currently blinding me).

Application was a dream, 2 easy coats here.  There's a bald spot on my pointer finger, but I was being really careless during application...it's not very noticeable anyways!  Formula's good, typical of Essies.  It's also pretty fast drying, YAY!

37. Color Club - Wild and Willing

Wild and Willing is like taking a sunset and stuffing it into a bottle!  This is an absolutely gorgeous yellow/gold/rose/orange multichrome.  In the bottle, there is a little green that shows up at the edges, but it doesn't seem to translate to the nail, as far as I can tell.  On the nail, the polish seems to have a little less depth, but it is pretty nonetheless.  In most indoor lighting, the main color is this rose color and the edges are orange.  At certain angles, you'll get a flash of a really yellow-toned gold.  Wild and Willing is a very interesting color.  It's colored like a neutral, but it's too flashy to actually be a neutral.  I don't think it's really a good  match for my skintone, but it's a pretty enough color for me to keep it and wear it anyways :)

Formula on this polish was a bit strange.  It was kinda stringy, but application did not suffer at all from that.  It's a little sheer though, sheerer than I'm used to from Color Club.  This is 3 coats of Wild and Willing, one coat of Poshe on top.

23. Zoya - Elke

Zoya Elke is one of those coral-toned polishes that were really big last year.  With the nice spring weather coming back, I felt like wearing something bright and warm, and Elke definitely fulfills those qualities.  Usually this isn't the type of color I reach for (I normally go for the slightly dusty, greyed-out tones), but when Zoya had their BOGO promotion, I decided to try something a little different.  I'm really glad I did :D  Elke is a coral-toned polish with gorgeous gold shimmer.  In indoors light, this polish seems to lean red on me.  However, the pink tones come out to play in the sunshine, and the shimmer like...explodes! XD  It makes my nails look like they're on fire!

Application was good on these polishes.  Shown is two coats, but you could get away with one slightly thicker coat for full opacity.  Elke is a little brushstroke-prone, but doesn't require too much effort to get it to look awesome :]  The wear time is pretty good too!  I think it's been a good 3 or 4 days, and so far, only tipwear (and one chip on my thumb, but I'm gonna say that's a fluke).