Today's franken, as promised, is totally boring, except... I like it a lot! I totally didn't expect to... but then I realized, I've never seen anything like it, so... without further ado, may I present to you: Royal Terracotta!
It's a really lovely caramel/terracotta/leather color, somewhat lighter & less red than shown here. Ring finger is pretty accurate... but you know me, this happened...
Shine of the Times looks GORGEOUS over it. I love it so hard... it's so glowy & autumn & I'm totally jonesing for a caramel latte now. Good thing there's one in my future! ;-)
Decided to randomly pick a polish out of my box of untried polishes... babam!
It's a slightly lilac toned silver foil type polish. I love it, but... you know. I gotta glitz my shit up, yo! Enter the dragons:
'scuse my nubbined middle finger... it had been growing back nicely after it got torn off at work one day... & then last night while on the way to meet up with a friend, my phone decided to not work. So I planned on doing a hard restart by taking the battery out, but it's SUCH a pain in the ass to get the case off, that I tore it again. I'm pretty sure I muttered obscenities for about 3 blocks after that, despite the fact that the phone suddenly decided to work again.
Tomorrow is Franken Friday #2! I've got a totally boring color for you, hahaha. I bet you can't wait...
Dude. DUUUUUUUUDEEE. If you ONLY get ONE polish from this collection, let this be it. It's so shimmery, silky, redyelloworangegoldpink gorgeous, I can't even. Pictures could never do it justice.
Do it, get it! I love this polish sooooooo much, I might need a back up bottle...
Nothing terribly groundbreaking... it's a lot like OPI Just Spotted The Lizard, except the color in the bottle is much closer to what you get on your nails as opposed to JSTL, which seduces you with the promise of blue... *sigh* Formula was dreamy and silky, but this was a lot sheerer than the other two I've tried. Two coats here. Tomorrow will be the last swatch from the collection, Lava... unless I decided to be a very bad girl sometime in the future & pick up more...
First of all... welcome to my new followers *waves* I love you guys! Teehee. If you're *not* following, but you've been checking me out repeatedly, well, what in tunket are you waiting for? Get on that shizzle, yo!
er... yeah. So, onto the polish!
My ring & middle are covered by a coat of Shine of the Times. I know, I'm so predictable ;-)
You can probably tell from my pointer and pinky that this polish has a base of copper that shifts purple in different lights. It's quite fascinating, really... I don't own anything like it and I've never seen anything like it! What's even stranger is that there are clearly veins of a verdigris-like green in the bottle... yet they don't come out in the polish at all! Shown here is one coat- much like Scarab, it's very opaque, & the formula is a superstar. I love this polish so hard, & I'm looking forward to doing Plume tomorrow. Or later tonight, if I'm feeling restless enough. So far, I totally recommend this collection, between the formula & the gorgeous colors. If you can find it, get your hands on it quick! Something tells me it's going to be a quick seller...
First of all, I gotta gush about the concert on Saturday. Korpiklaani was pure folk metal ecstasy, not to mention Metsatoll, an Estonian band also on the bill. Dude... the bagpiper played like, 10 different instruments, & even played the bagpipes BEHIND his head. Somewhere, Jimi Hendrix is slack jawed. The place was super packed... & at a few points during Korpiklaani's set, THE WHOLE CROWD turned into a mosh pit. It was divine <3.
So, onto the nail polish! I love this polish so hard, it's a dream to apply & it's way more duochromey than you can see from my photos. The blue is just a magnificent peacock blue... & I'm not even a fan of green/blue/teal polishes in general, but this is stunning! I highly recommend you buy this. Two coats, although only one was needed for opacity.
Obligatory knitting shot... I'm knitting a seafoam stitch scarf in Tahki Flower, if anyone's interested ;-) I'm knitting two actually, in different colorways, but one is at the fella's place as my weekend project.
More Lustre Shines to come... I've also got Copperhead & Plume to review. Stay tuned!
I'm so excited, I get to go see Korpiklaani today with mah fella! I've had this mani planned for a while. First, it was this, Owl's Night from L'Oreal:
Sorry for the shitty picture, ahem. While I love Owl's Night & always will, I was pretty underwhelmed by it.
So... what does one do when one is underwhelmed?
You whip out some Shine of the Times & go crazy, whoo hoo!
I've got to rush into a shower & get ready to go as we're having dinner first, but before I do, if you don't know Korpiklaani, you should. Who DOESN'T love Finnish folk metal?!
I've decided that since I have so many polishes I've frankened (& more being made all the time!) that every Friday will be dedicated to them. So, first up, Mr. Mackey's Khakis!
It's not really a khaki, more of a gray, & he always wears jeans anyway I think, right? It's got sparse glitter in it, but goes on pretty smooth.
Excuse my rough ass cuticles, ugh. So yeah, there's franken numbah one! Except we all know by now that I can't just leave my polish alone, right? M'kay, so yeah, then this happened...
... I layered QRS Cotton Candy over it, just to see what the iridescent purple/white combo would look like. It's much more of an iridescent periwinkle purple than you can see here, but I like it. Of course, I also had to add some goddamn glittah ;-) I had a ding in my ring finger, what was I supposed to do? hahahahaha.
I've also decided to go along with the 13 questions tag from nouveaucheap.blogspot.com. Ready, set, here we go!
1.) What's one thing that most people don't know about you?
I'm deeply philosophical. Deeply. I prefer solitude to company most of the time, & wind up contemplating all facets of issues big and small as I paint my nails, which is one of my favorite ways to unwind.
2.) What's your favorite quote?
"Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding." Khalil Gibran
3.) What's one food that you can't live without?
Red meat. So not kidding. I love beef with a passion.
4.) What's your song of the week?
Well, I've had this song stuck in my head for the last few days. Goddamn, Peter Steele was HOT.
I've got him singing, "Red water..." over & over again in my head.
5.) What movies could you watch over & over & still love?
Old school Disney movies, specifically Sleeping Beauty, the Labyrinth... Jawbreaker... The Crow (LOVE that movie!)
6.) Can you change the oil on a car?
Never had to, will probably never need to... thanks to the subway ;-)
7.) Favorite kind of sandwich?
Roast beef & mozzarella, with gravy. Mmm.
8.) Can you knit or crochet?
I can do both, & I do both often & quite happily! I also dye my own yarn, & recently learned how to spin. Just started a new scarf tonight, actually, a knit one :-)
9.) How many languages can you speak?
English & a lot of Spanish... its pretty mandatory here in Harlem. Let us not forget though, my own language of grunts & sounds... oh god. Sometimes I forget when I'm in public, & I make the sounds as I bend to get something, and... yeah. Whatevs, sometimes you just gotta say, "UHJUHJUHJUHJUHJHUHHHHJJJJUUHHHHHHHH" really loudly man, you know? ;-)
10.) Reusable shopping bags, do you ever forget them?
The plastic bags I get are used as trash bags, so... they're totally reused.
11.) Favorite type of pie?
Chicken pot pie. Not a fan of sweets, generally.
12.) What do you wear to bed?
During summer, often nothing, as it's so damn hot in my room. (No a/c.) Otherwise, a ragged gray lace/tulle nightgown that I love. Right now, it's polka dot pjs & a gray tank top.
13.) Ever been in love?
Never more so than I am right now <3 Seriously. I've never been in a healthy relationship before. The man is so damn good to me... not to mention he's friggin' hot. I must have been reaaaallllly good in my last life!
Speaking of the man, I am off to see him now :-) Toodle-oo!
I started off with this color, Vacation Time, from Sinful Colors. I have a weird love/hate with this color. Formula was alright, very opaque, super thick & drying would have taken foreverrrr without Dry Kwik.
I wanted something fairly neutral, to take a break from all the color & glitter I've been wearing. LOLLLLLL... well, it started out innocently enough.
But... it was just this plain color. I have a hard time leaving things plain. So I thought, well, maybe tomorrow I'll do a couple of random gold triangles. But as I reached over to the dresser to get my clean up brush, babam! I dinged my pinky. So I thought... I'll do triangles now, after clean up! However, maybe it's because I'm using the cheapest dollar store scotch tape imaginable, the triangles (painted in OPI Just Spotted the Lizard) came out sloppy on my first two attempts. So then I said whatevs, I'll freehand that shit. We all know where this is going, don't we? ;-)
Suffice to say, it was TERRIBLE. So, so so so so bad. I tried to fix things with my gold striper brush. I didn't think it was possible but... yeah. It looked worse.
Enter the glitters: Pure Ice Spitfire & NYX Girls Mushroom Glitter.
While it still looks pretty sloppy & random, I gotta say it's pretty damn gorgeous compared to what it was before. Sure, it's pretty uneven since not all nails have the OPI on them. But the bling factor kinda makes up for it, no?
Two coats of this super awesome polish, La Splash in Forbidden. Seriously, the formula was flawless, & the color, being a dark, vampy red black, is to DIE for. Drying time wasn't bad either... 15 minutes between coats, maybe? I decorated each nail with a KISS stick on nail stud, & finished off with two coats of my beloved QRS top coat. I think it's a perfect autumn manicure :-D & Did I mention how freakin' SHINY this is in person?!
I bought my Forbidden at Duane Reade (a drugstore) here in NYC for $3.99. You can also find them at lasplashcosmetics.com, and apparently, Ulta.
Well, it's not the rain that's so bad I guess, but the wind is insaaaane! & somehow, without knowing what the forecast for today was, I created a perfect rainy day manicure last night after I removed that god awful egg salad nonsense off my nails.
The base is L'Oreal Safari Chic. The reason I bought it was nostalgia, actually... I remember having a similar color, if not the same one, about 8 years ago. Totally different bottle though, but the name sounds familiar. It's a lovely sage color, a dusty gray green but my god! The application was HORRENDOUS! What a streaky, goopy, awful mess.. may have been because I was sitting in front of the fan, but still. I'm going to try thinning it & see if that helps. So two coats, & then because we all know glitter fixes anything, I slapped some NYX Spot Lights on top... 2 coats.
I'm starvin' like marvin, but dang it, I don't want to go out into that nonsense out there! Grrr... wish me luck!
Uh... so my first attempt at a glitter sandwich is more of a glitter salad, I guess...
I must confess, that although I love the color yellow, I can't seem to find one that I like on my nails. They're either too bright, too pastel, too light, too shimmery, too obnoxious, or just look baaaaad on me. This is one coat of Wet N' Wild The Wonder Yellows, under one coat of WnW Party of Five Glitters, then a coat of Sinful Colors UFO, then Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Rock Candy... then the yellow base again. I have faith though that one day... One day, I will discover the perfect yellow polish for my skin! This one is currently in my frankening pile. I've already mixed it with something else, but it's not quite done yet. I'll figure it out.
My last mani wound up looking like this, ultimately:
after I added a coat of Milani Gems on top. Despite the incredible glitteriness, I was just so fucking bored by it all weekend at my fellas place... I was itching to get it off! Now I've got egg salad on my nails... my fella agrees it's the kind with scallions & a dash of red pepper ;-) Needless to say, this shit is coming off later, as soon as I can decide what happens next!
What's *your* favorite yellow? are there actually any good ones out there, or am I on a fruitless search?
Before I get into the gory details of how I sometimes can't leave well enough alone & why you shouldn't paint your nails in bed while you're super tired (nail polish on your pillow, anyone?) I wanted to show off how lovely the water marble looked with this shirt I have:
Sure, I felt like a total hippie chick. But whatevs, man. Deal wit it ;-)
Now, onto my new nails! I started off with three coats of Downtown Brown from the Maybelline Color Show collection. It's a pretty brown/teal duochrome (or at least, that's how it looks in the bottle!) & the color combo reminded me of Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies. Yum. Now, I only needed two coats for opacity, but I thought maybe a third would bring out the shimmer more... (& if I remember correctly, it was during the third that I spazzed & dropped the brush, leaving lovely schmutz all over my black satin pillow case). NOPE. Instead, my hastily painting, impatient ass wound up with bubbly nails. See here:
also? That cute little metallic star, from KISS? Pain in the bum to lay down. Though I'm sure if my polish wasn't three layers thick & still goopy, it might not have been an issue... ahem. You can see a tiny bit of the teal here, but honestly, when not in direct sunlight it's either just brown or translates to a weird olive green.
So then, I thought, "Fuck it! Glitter covers a multitude of sins, right?" & grabbed my never been used bottle of Sinful Colors Hottie, a gorgeous blue sheer jelly glitter, with tiny holographic glitters. Blue & brown go together well, right? Well, here they certainly do!
Hottie certainly lives up to it's name, I think. But now, I'm thinking about how sweet it might look if I add some orange glitter, in the form of Sinful Colors UFO over it... same principle as Hottie, but orange.
I need someone to babysit me, I swear!
edited to add: Ok, here with UFO on pinky, middle & pointer. Hard to tell the difference...
Well, it seems I've been bitten by the nail polish bug so damn bad, I'm gonna have to start blogging about it ;-) I've already invested hundreds of dollars & hours of time into my addiction & it's only getting worse... so, may as well share what I've learned & have come to love with everyone on the interwebs, right? *coughnotthatI'mtryingtojustifyanythingherecough*
ahem. So anyhow. Yeah. The title, you may have noticed, is slightly unusual, but it fits... I'm a rock n' roll junkie, I've been working in the Manhattan music scene for a few years now. I'm a salty bitch... my language and attitude are colorful, to say the least. & nails... well, I think that's pretty obvious! It's also a reference to one of my favorite songs, sung beautifully by Joan Baez, which has been on loop in my head for some time now.
To start, here's a picture of my current mani, which has been my first ever successful water marbling attempt. (a huuuuge thank you to Colette at mysimplelittlepleasures.blogspot.com for her amaaaaazing, gorgeous pictures & tutorials on the subject. Turns out my previous attempts failed because I had a fan on behind me... d'oh!)
Polishes used are Sinful Colors Thimbleberry (the pink), QRS Yellow Tulip, & QRS Caribbean Turquoise. I used KISS nail stickers to accent & hide a few dings/ bare spots. I've had this on for FOUR WHOLE days now, with only the smallest chip on my right index finger. Four whole days... this is mind boggling for me. Usually polishes chip like crazy on me, because I'm not gentle with my fingers. But, since I've started using the QRS top coat, it's not even an issue... & while I'm on the topic of QRS polishes, can I just tell you they're freaking wonderful?! They're cheap, they're incredibly well pigmented, & the formula is simply butterific. (Yes Google, that's a word now ;-) You can check them out & buy them here: www.qnail.com
Even my fella was entranced by this mani... & while he's quite supportive of any of my frivolous endeavors (knitting, crocheting, my african violet/ other plants collection, nail art, etc) he was double wowed by this. I did it Tuesday night before I went to his place, since we were going to see ZZ Top on Wednesday (seriously, the coolest band on the planet. You don't have to like them as much as I do, but you gotta admit they're cool!) and all night he just kept looking at my fingers. Of course, I was guilty too ;-)
So, now that I've accepted the fact that I have a nail polish problem addiction, it's only going to get worse. Rather than try to limit myself, I've decided to go with the flow & try new things, in the name of "research". Yes, research. Right, I'm a nail polish scientist, you guys! *rolls eyes*
Ok, I'm headed off to re-paint my nails. This is lovely, but the bright candy colors are something I can only stand for so long before I feel slightly ill... still, I'm super duper proud of myself for accomplishing it!
