Mardi Gras Nails!

Hi dolls!  Merry Mardi Gras!  =)

In case you didn't know, Mardi Gras means "Fat Tuesday" in French and is the last hurrah before the liturgical season of Lent.  If you are so inclined to learn more about that particular facet of this holiday, feel free to Google it, as I'd rather not lecture.  =)

I love Mardi Gras, you just do not understand.  It's so colorful and boisterous and fun!  I would kill to go to New Orleans during Mardi Gras.  It's not just about the beads, you guys, haha!  There's dancing and masks and parades and copious amounts of drinking involved.  And FOOD!  Cajun food is probably the best thing in the world and the only authentic Cajun restaurant near me stopped taking reservations a week ago.  But Mardi Gras also means pancakes to me.  So you will probably be able to find me at IHOP stuffing my face.

Thumb and ring fingers: China Glaze Liquid Leather with dots in the other colors

Index finger: Orly Wandering Vine

Middle Finger: Zoya Pippa

Pinkie finger: Nicole by OPI...Justin Bieber purple that I can't remember the name of.

On top of all: Sally Hansen Disco Ball

This was really fun to do, even if I obsessed about the dots and then got mad that my pinkie finger smudged at the top.  The dots I realize are a little difficult to see on the black, but nude or white would have just been wrong.  The entire time I did this manicure I was listening to The Civil Wars and zydeco music.

Laissez les bon temps rouler!

Da Bush and Stranger Tides

Happy Thursday!  =)

So I realize that this color comparison is waaaay late from the release dates, but I honestly just realized it myself.  I've had these two colors sitting my hoard collection and saw them next to each other.  Then I thought, "Hey, that looks exactly the same."  The colors I'm talking about are Essie's Da Bush and OPI's Stranger Tides from the Pirates of the Caribbean collection, both of which are from last year's summer collections.

Yeah, I know, my bad.

In the first picture I have Essie Da Bush on my index finger and OPI Stranger Tides on my middle finger.  Please correct me if I'm wrong, but to my eye they are exactly the same.  There might be a fraction of a shade difference, but that must might be from lighting in the photo.  These are perfect dupes for each other.  They're both a murky gray toned sage greens, and they're both cremes.

The second pic is of the two in the bottle side to side.  I figured Da Bush would be more different because Essie tends to dry darker than what you see in the bottle.  But I was wrong.  Granted these are minis of the shades, so I didn't end up spending a gob of money on two bottles of the same thing, but still.

Formula wise, the OPI is thinner and more watery than the Essie.  In the picture I used two coats of Da Bush and lucked out with two thick coats of Stranger Tides.  Normally I'll choose OPI over Essie, but in this comparison you get more bang for your buck with Essie.  Essie normally has very cute names for the colors, but OPI's are more bitchy and interesting.  So if you're deciding over marketing and presentation between the two, go with OPI.

I have no idea if either of these are still available en mass at, say, Ulta, but OPI Stranger Tides retails for $8.50 US and Essie Da Bush retails for $8 US.

In The Limelight (Neon)

Hello everyone!  Today I bring you something obnoxiously bright!

I wore this manicure before the holidays and just never got around to posting it.  I'd had a particularly irritating day at work and needed something bright to help cheer me up.  If you have ever worked in retail before, you completely understand where I'm coming from.  Holiday season makes me hate the holidays.

Here is China Glaze In The Limelight (Neon).  This was very interesting to me for a few reasons.  The formula was very thin and watery, so I ended up using three coats just to get even coverage, but what I found to be most intriguing was that this shade dried matte.  I like matte polishes, some people don't, but I do.  It makes it look like suede to me.  But this looked like a caterpillar was on my hand as a matte.  So maybe another day.  A top coat made it shiny, so I was happy for the time being with that.

I had used a no chip top coat by Sally Hansen, which has never given me any problems before.  But, the next morning when I woke up and looked at my nails there were huge chunks of the polish completely missing.  Not as in, I hit my hand on something and the tips messed up.  There were huge flakes missing from the middle of my nail.  This mani didn't even last 12 hours before it quit on me.  So disappointing.

But here a pictures of it while it was whole anyway.

Obnoxiously bright, yes?  It did help to lift my mood, so it served it's purpose.

Orly Wandering Vine

Christmas is almost here!  Yay!  Except I work in retail and the holidays make me kinda miserable.  But 'tis the season.

I did some very simple nail art in honor of Christmas being only 2 days away, even though I wore this manicure at the end of last week.  I used Orly Wandering Vine, which is a very dark pine green cream polish and Essie Size Matters with Nicole by OPI Orna-meant For Each Other for some sparkle.

Wandering Vine had a very watery formula, which I'm not exactly used to.  I used three coats of it just to get full coverage.  From what I had gathered in my own research of reading other blogs and fashion magazines, earthy greens were a very big trend for the fall.  I had gotten this shade with the intention of doing a green fall manicure, but never got around to it.  I thought this one was more of a winter because it reminded me of Christmas trees.

I used Essie Size Matters with a dotting tool to make something that kind of looked like clusters of holly berries on opposite corners of my ring fingers and thumbs and then put Orna-meant for Each Other on top to make it sparkle.  Before I put the glitter polish on the red dots they kind of blended in with the green (if you can imagine that, since they're on opposite sides of the color wheel) because they were both so dark.

Over all, I was very pleased with the results and it lasted for a good 3 days.  This was almost impossible to get off of my nails though.  Took almost an entire jumbo sized cotton ball per nail.  Such a waste.

I got my mini bottle of Orly Wandering Vine for $3.50 US, Nicole by OPI Orna-meant for Each Other for $7 US, and Essie Size Matters full sized bottle for $8 US.