A Return of the Double Challenge Manicures

Heellooo!  As I type that, I hear it as Robin Williams doing Mrs Doubtfire.  Cracks me up!  You may (or may not) have noticed that I have been scarce, not only here but on all the other social media sites.  I have been a busy girl!  I am back, however, with one manicure for two challenge prompts, Nail Challenge Collaborative's stripes and Crumpet Nail Tart's three dark colors.

I have mixed feelings about this one.  I love the color combo and the design, but my execution of it is a little sloppy, at best.

I am using a flash pic here because in all the others, the maroon color was showing black.  Here are the colors I used.

• Cuticle - Spa Ritual Deep - A gorgeous blue leaning grey with a purple shimmer.
• Middle - Spa Ritual Freedom - Greyed purple with a blue shimmer.
• Tips - Spa Ritual Twilight - Dark maroon shimmer

I love these colors together, the perfect fall combination.  Of course, I see all my little imperfections, the biggest being that I wish I would have put a second coat of Freedom in the middle.  Twilight could have used a second coat too, to deepen the color.  My lines....weelll, let's just not go there.

In real life, all these little mess ups just weren't noticeable and I ended up loving it!  For some reason it felt very work appropriate, like it would have gone really well with a dark grey pinstripe suit.  I look at these pics, though, and cringe.  Damn DMPs!  Oh well, I enjoyed it while it lasted :)  Thanks for looking and commenting and don't forget to check out all the other stripes and dark colors.

A Little Nail Art for a Break from Comparisons

Are you tired of comparison posts for the BLOG SALE yet?  I know I am and there is more coming, so I took a break and did some nail art!  

This is my favorite time of year.  I love October and November better than any other months of the year.  The air turns crisp and so do the leaves.  Pumpkins show up on doorsteps and in pies.  Pumpkin spice all the stuff!  Latte, creamer, cream cheese and candles.  Whatever it is, I want it.  No, I need it!  I have been on the lookout for Ben & Jerry's pumpkin ice cream, but haven't found it yet and I am on my own personal crusade for pumpkin spice oreos.  Just imagine ginger cookies (instead of chocolate) with pumpkin Double Stuff.  My mouth is watering!

Of course this means pumpkins on my nails too!  I recently (like early summer) purchased some Chocolate Vanity plates through a AIS group buy and one was almost strictly for this image.  I love Mickey in the pumpkin!

Pic from Chocolate Vanity Source

Isn't it cute!  I am sure the Pooh and Valentine images will get use also, but that pumpkin!  Love it hard!

I used the stamping decal method to reverse color the image then applied to the nail over Two coats of China Glaze Lug Your Designer Baggage.

If you are a brown polish lover, like me, this is a must have IMHO.  Rich chocolate brown filled to the brim with warm flakie goodness?  Yes please!  It applies so smoothly and makes me want to lick my fingers.  Sorry if I just grossed anyone out!

I added a funky french tip with Messy Mansion MM19, again using the decal method.  Wish I would have placed them closer to the tips, but the first one was high, so they all had to be high, right?

Despite the flaws I can so clearly see, I LOVE this!  The perfect non-scarey Halloween manicure!

What do you think?  Do you like brown polish, or are you like my sister and think it looks like something that should come out of a diaper?  Is this your favorite time of year too?  If not, what is?  Are you happy to see some nail art?

As always, thanks for looking and commenting!  You guys are what makes blogging worthwhile!  And don't forget to check out my BLOG SALE.  NEW POLISH was added just yesterday and there are a bunch of discontinued indies just waiting for new homes!

Blog Sale

 

Purple Texture Dupes

BLOG SALE

There are several colors I have a weakness for and purple is one of them.  Throw in some texture and I am hooked.  So today I am going to do a BLOG SALE comparison post on two purple "sand" polishes.

On the left is Milani Purple Gleam.  On the right is Zoya Carter.  Purple Gleam was one of my early drugstore purchases and I really love it.  Then I saw swatches of Carter and wanted it too.  You can see that they are different colors with Purple Gleam more red leaning and Carter blue leaning.  On to the nails!

This is one coat.  You can see that Purple Gleam is a one coat glitter, if you wanted.  It has a black base crap filled with purple glitter.  Carter, on the other hand, is a purple jelly base with a much less dense spattering of purple glitter.

Here we have two coats of purple gleam and three coats of carter.  Again, the color is in the same family, but more like cousins rather than siblings.  Purple Gleam has a smoother texture than Carter, if that matters to you.  Do I want to keep both of these?  Yes.  Am I going to?  No.  Head on over to my BLOG SALE to pick up the one that did not make the cut.

Blog Sale Dupes

Today I have a comparison of two gold with pink glitter combinations in my BLOG SALE process.

Left Finger Paints Go Baroque -- Right Milani Golden Romance

On the left is Finger Paints Go Baroque.  On the right is Milani Golden Romance.  In the bottles they look different.  There seems to be more gold shimmer to Golden Romance.  The beauty of these was really hard to capture with my camera.  Only the last picture, taken outside, gives you a real sense of their majesty.  Let's see how it looks on the nails.

Here we have one coat over my horribly stained nails.  Index and ring are Golden Romance.  Middle and pinkie are Go Baroque.  Both have issues with clumping of the larger glitter. They look pretty much the same here.

Two coats above.  a little bit more distribution of the larger glitters, but basically the same.  Golden Romance may have a little bit more coverage at this point, but it is only the keen eye that would notice.

Three coats.  Most of the bare spots are covered with both.  Golden Romance may be a bit more yellow gold than bronze, but again, it is barely perceptible.  

Finally four coats.  Um....Dupes.  Total dupes in my book!  They both applied pretty much the same.  Dry time and removal was the same.

This gives you a bit better sense of how gorgeous these are.  Gold shimmer with rose and gold glitter.  It doesn't get more vintage than this!  So which one did I keep and which went into the blog sale?  Check out my store HERE to find out!

Blog Sale!

Welcome one and all!  So many exciting things happening in my neck of the woods!  I won't spill all the beans yet, not wanting to jinx things, but know that I have been very busy!

With time on my hands and very little money, I have decided to jump into the world of blog sales.  I have been wanting to whittle down my collection for awhile, but it is difficult.  So I decided, being the organized person that I am, to do some comparisons of similar colors/glitters to narrow things down.  I am going to be sharing my findings with you and, at the same time, showing you some of what is in my blog sale.  Just know that there are lots of goodies over there, including some discontinued indies!

Today we have a comparison of a couple of holo glitter toppers.

Left Pahlish The Clock is Striking Twelve's - Right Finger Paints Peacock Portrait

On the left we have Pahlish The Clock is Striking Twelves, heretofore known as TCIST.  On the right is Finger Paints Peacock Portrait.  In the bottle they look similar, but not dupes.  Of course, my pictures do not capture the beauty of these glitters as the holo bits like to hide from the camera.  Let's see some swatches.

This is two coats of both over my horribly stained bare nails.   Index and ring is TCIST.  Middle and pinkie is Peacock Portrait.  There is a definite difference on the nail.  The glitter in TCIST is larger, where as there are small holo glitters in Peacock Portrait.  In addition to the holo glitters, they both contain black matte glitter, but TCIST has the addition of white squares and Peacock Portrait has teal glitter.  Lets Move on from my ugly nails :)

Here we have two coats over grey.  TCIST is chunkier and more full coverage.  With both of these, I tried normal application on the first coat.  I was somewhat successful with TCIST, just needed to go back and daub some bare areas.  Peacock Portrait, however, needed full daubage as the brush strokes draged the glitter down to the end of the nail.  I swiped on the second coat of TCIST, with success, and tried the same with Peacock portrait, but, again it needed daubage.

  
Finally, two coats of each over black.  I think this is where you can see the greatest difference as the white shows up in TCIST and the teal in Peacock Portrait.  Similar, but not dupes.  I think TCIST might succeed full coverage with three daubed coats, whereas it would take several more with Peacock Portrait.

These are both lovely glitters in their own rights, and it is tempting to keep them both, but I am thinning down, right?  Can you guess which one I kept and which one went to the blog sale?  Hop on over to see which one didn't make the cut....or was cut....or whatever.  See you tomorrow with another comparison!

HERE!

 .(