Falling Through the Rainbow - Red Art and a Comparison

Today starts  a challenge I am hosting for the Facebook group Nail Art Challengez.  First day and I am already late!  But if you let me take a moment I will give you my excuses, and boy howdy, they are good.  Don't want to hear about my crappy day?  Scroll down to the pics.

I consciously do my best not to put my personal life out here on my blog, but sometimes it just calls for it.  I am just so....frustrated....pissed....lost some of my faith in humanity.  I generally think of myself as a generous, kind and positive.  I know that not everyone is like that, but I find that it makes my life, and hopefully others around me, easier and more pleasant.  So what happened to me today just floored me.  Someone cut the catalytic converter right out from under my van today as it sat in the parking lot at work.  WTF!  Sawed it right off and now I have a vehicle that sounds like a Harley and is blowing exhaust right under where I sit.  I still am in shock.  Who would do such a thing?  Hubby says that he just recently heard on the news about this happening around the Twin Cities.  And it's not like we can afford it.  Who can, right?  But I am not going to bitch about my finances, that is not what this is about, it's about the total disregard of personal property and f***ing audacity.....Please forgive me, I am just so....I can't even find the words to express what I am feeling.

So, when I got home from work we had dinner and then I took a 4 hour stress nap.  Hubby took his frustration out by baking and cleaning the kitchen.  Yes, I love my hubby!  Now I am taking it out by eating what he baked.  Yes, those are oatmeal cookie crumbs in my lap :)

Now on to the more pleasant stuff, NAILS.  Not only do you get nail art today, you also get a comparison.

Some of you may be asking "What the hell is that?".  Well let me explain.  I am a HUGE Supernatural fan, you know, the show with the two hottest brothers on TV, not to mention their angel sidekick.  If this show is not on your radar, you need to head over to Netflix.  Not only does it have hot men, but it walks the fine line of taking itself seriously AND making fun if itself.  Whoever would have believed that a show about ganking monsters would make me laugh and cry so often.  Did you see the premier this season?  Cass without a shirt?  Be still my beating heart!  He can be my pizza man any day (tee hee).  My son and I have recently been having Supernatural marathons on Netflix.  He just discovered the show last season, so we are watching from the beginning so that he knows what is going on and I don't have to explain so much :)  We are already to season 6, so needless to say I have had a bit of vampire killing, demon kicking and monster hunting on my mind.

When I saw the Apipila Supernatural plate the first time, I knew it would be MINE!  How could I not love it?  If you haven't seen the show, here is a little breakdown of the images I did on each nail.  I will try not to fangirl to much.

The index image is the symbol that, when written in human blood, can banish any angel nearby.  Why would you want to do that?  Well most of the angels on this show are bad ass, and not in a good way.  Let's just say that the sword wielding (or in this case knife) God avengers from the old testament are all over the place and they don't particularly like that we humans are loved by their Father.

Source: Here

Let's talk some angel wings, shall we?  If I ever found myself in purgatory, this is the angel I would want to pull me out.  Seriously, this stoic/hilarious, good/eviI, power hungry/self loathing emotionally stunted angel really does it for me.  Don't care how many times he comes back from the brink, I will love him when he is good and mourn for him when he is bad.  

 

I didn't like any of the wing images on the plate, so I went searching through my plates.  After a thorough search I asked my hubby, "How can I have so many plates and not a single angel wing image?", so I improvised.  I used the stamping decal method with Bundle Monster BM03 and cut out the heart (seems appropo) to create my own angel wings.  By the way, after receiving the Bundle Monster Create Your Own plates this week, I know have a wing image :)   

Source

The ring is the symbol used to keep demons from possessing you.  Yes, you don't want those little devils taking control of your meat bag and using you up until there is nothing left.  Plus it gives us fans the chance to see some chiseled chests :)

Source

Pinkie is the infamous knife.  Before discovering the demon killing knife, the only way to get rid of demons was to exorcise them.  Tee hee, I typed "exercise them" first, I crack myself up!  Of course, once there was a demon knife, there had to be an angel knife too....and a kill anything gun, etc.

 Finally we have the thumb where I show where my heart really lies.  Yup, Dean and his baby.  A man who takes care of his car is a total turn on, right?

Okay, now that I have spent hours finding the perfect gifs and being distracted by all the Supernatural awesomeness out there, let's stop fangirling and get to a little comparison.

I don't have a whole lot of reds in my stash, but the number is growing.  I recently purchased OPI Lost On Lombard, a red I felt I could really get behind.  Shortly after I got some mystery polish sets from OPI and Essie, both of which contained very similar reds and I realized that these are the reds I go for, not the tomato reds or the orangey reds or the bright reds, but these darker, blue leaning reds.  So I picked out 4 that I thought were very similar to do a comparison.

•  Index - OPI Lost on Lombardo 2 coats
• Middle - Essence Do You Speak Love 1 coat
• Ring - Essie Raisinnuts 3 coats
• Pinkie - OPI Just a Little Rosti 2 coats

Under artificial lighting these all look similar, with the exception of Essie Raisinuts.  With the flash, however, the differences show up.  

Essence DYSL (middle) seems to be sheerer, but look at the list above and you will realize that I only used ONE coat.  It seems orangish in the flash pic, but I think that is only because of the one coat.  The artificial light pic was more color accurate.  Not only did it give full coverage in one coat, it also had the best formula, not streaky and not too thin or thick.

Of the OPIs, Lost on Lombardo (index) would have to be my fav.  It had a little bit better formula with full coverage in two coats, whereas Just a Little Rosti (pinkie) needed three coats to get rid of any streakiness.  JALR also leaned a bit bluer.

My least favorite is Essie Raisinnuts.  It is a lovely color, kind of a dusty raspberry red, but the consistency was horrible.  It was thin, streaked like a mother (or one of those idiots running across the field at football games) and a total cuticle flooder.  It's only saving grace was that it wasn't a huge cuticle stainer, which made clean up easier.

So there you have it, a fangirl mani for my first challenge host and a little comparison.  Kind of like an enchilada of nail blogging, all kinds of goodness rolled up in one package (tee hee).  Don't forget to check out the other reds.