Lubu Manicure

This morning I was sitting at the breakfast table thinking about the manicures I’ve been wanting to do that I haven’t had time to do lately (a Lubu manicure, for one). Then I started admiring how long my nails had gotten, and I decided to file them down some, because really it’s just tempting breakages when they’re that long, plus I just like the look of them better when they’re a tad bit shorter. Anyway, so there I was halfway through when I realized, YOU DON’T SHORTEN YOUR NAILS UNTIL AFTER THE LUBU MANICURE, DUMMY.

Sigh.

So here it is! This was actually kind of interesting. I did the red under-tips first, using a tiny little flattened square nail art brush, and it went on fairly painlessly and pretty neatly. I think I got to three coats before deciding I’d achieved the opacity that I had in mind. As I always am, I was startled by how beautiful Ruby Pumps is – it really is probably one of my favorite polishes ever. Man, that shimmer!!!!

Then, the Lubu Heels. I sit under a lamp to do my nails, so I was directly under a light source, and the red glitter was sparkling like crazy. And I considered rethinking my opinion that this polish sucks – until I walked across the room out of direct light and my nails just looked black again. 😦 I think that for me, Lubu Heels is nice in theory but not so great in actuality. Vampy black polish with secret red shimmer/glitter!!! That sounds awesome!!! But, the glitter just isn’t noticeable enough for me. If I want a black polish, I will wear black polish!

When I was all done, I needed a little something extra. It just wasn’t awesome enough yet. So, I painted the edges of my nail tips with Ruby Pumps, and I think that kicked it up a notch, at least from 5 inches away!!

I think that I really did need longer nails for this. with there not being too much nail to paint the underside of, I went down as far as I could, which, as I found out when I tried to remove it, was a total mistake. I’m left with little lines of red polish deep under my nails that I just can’t seem to get out.

Cover Girl – Go Go Green

Go Go Green is a Nailslicks polish that I got loooooong ago – look, there’s no writing left on the label! It has separated or something  though – it was very difficult to work with. Very verrrry thin. Odd – I can fix thickened old polishes, but what’s up with thinned ones? I’ve noticed the same thing with a couple of other Nailslicks I have, though. Three coats and I still never achieved anything near the opacity I wanted.

Two Chartreuses (Chartreusi?)

Here are two very similar polishes that my eye always passes over whenever I’m scanning my collection for a polish I feel like using, because – well, they’re kind of ugly. They’re just so bright and not really me. They’re both very old also – notice the slightly different bottle on the Pure Ice one!

Wild Thing is a yellowy chartreuse that took four streaky, draggy coats. Yuck.

Twist And Shout is much greener than Wild Thing, and I like the color much better. Still four coats, and still streaky and draggy, but it applied better than Wild Thing.

Borghese – Rossi Apple

YAYAYAYAYAY I love Rossi Apple. It’s an orangy pinkish red, and the shimmer is gorgeous! I bought two Borghese polishes at Walgreen’s the other day, and only because because they were in the clearance section for $1.99. I am NOT going to pay, what, $8 for a drugstore pink? That is insane.

I think I like the brand a lot though. Coverage is good, the brushes are nice and huge and rounded at the bottom, and the bottles are very nice and dignified looking.

Here’s another bottle pic cause they’re adorable!

Sally Hansen – In The Navy

In The Navy is actually a pretty inoffensive dark polish. It is very dark, but it’s also most definitely BLUE, not BLACK. I hate dark polish that are black in most lights. This is shimmery, pretty, and of course it’s an Exxxxxtreeeeeeme Wear polish, so it applied great!

NO time to change my polish for a few days, so I tried to change it up some with a glitter topcoat – this is China Glaze Fairy Dust. Eh. As with most glitter topcoats that I’ve tried that aren’t by Sinful Colors, the glitter sits flat on top of the colored polish and looks silly.

Orly – Blue Suede

Oh wow. Wow.

This is TERRIBLE.

I hate this polish so much. The general opinion on this Orly collection (and Blue Suede in particular) seems to be pretty bad, but I just thought the pictures I’ve seen were so pretty anyway that I had to have it, and it’s been on my wishlist for a while now. It looked like such a pretty, dusty blue, and it is I guess. But…this finish is AWFUL. It’s like I painted my nails with acrylic paint or something.

Big smudge on my ring finger cause I splashed my polish remover and didn’t care enough about this manicure to fix it.

Even Seche can’t save it, it darkens it up several shades and now it’s very close to one of those “might as well be black” polishes that I despise.

After a day of wear I tried to fix it up a bit by adding a coat of Sinful Colors Hottie. It’s much better now. Lucky, because I have no time for a real manicure right now!

It was very gritty, I had to use two coats of Seche on top of Hottie, which will effectively glue the glitter to my nails for the rest of my life.

I like how Hottie contains more than one size/color of glitter, because that creates much more depth than throwing a normal glitter topcoat on top of polish. It looks like it’s sitting on top of the polish, whereas a glitter topcoat like Hottie is much more interesting. However. There’s not a ton of tonal color to it, is there? I thought this would be a good topcoat for blue polish since it looks so blue in the bottle, much like Call You Later is for greens, but it’s just not really all that blue. Drag! Still pretty though.

Color Club – Sultry (Diva?)

I wore this the other night for Halloween when I was Cleopatra, and I’ve decided it deserves a second chance after my last bad review of it. I do like this color! This is 3 coats, and I dunno, maybe I just wasn’t careful on the coverage last time? I seem to remember there being bare spots before.

I’m having trouble with the name of this polish, though – is it Sultry or Sultry Diva? The bottle says Sultry, but I keep finding it online as Sultry Diva. Annoying.

I have been slacking so much lately! I just haven’t had much time to even paint my nails, let alone do anything interesting or take pictures and post them! Blogging is extremely time consuming. And as a result of having no time to do anything with them, my nails need some serious love – I’m off to go take care of that now!

Barielle – Razz-Berry

Ew. This is a perfectly fine color I suppose, and I actually got a compliment on it today, but it’s just not me.

As in a lot of my pictures, you can see the fibers from my Orly Nail Armor nasecoat hanging off the ends of some of my nails. It’s annoying!

China Glaze – Strawberry Fields

I love China Glaze shimmers!!!! So much!! As I said about Grape Juice, which is from the same collection, if they would agree to make these in every color, I would buy them! This is so loaded with gold shimmer, and I like that it’s a darker pink instead of a light one.

In other nail news, I’m so happy with the patch on my index finger!! I think I’ve just gotten used to using them better, because this one has been staying on for 1-2 weeks with no problems, and hasn’t been giving me any issues at all.just might be able to save this nail!!!

Tiffany Blue Comparison

And now for the zillionth tiffany blue polish comparison currently on the internet!

Here we have the regulars: Nina Ultra Pro In A Tiff, China Glaze For Audrey, and Diamond Cosmetics Oh, Tiff!

For Audrey provided the best coverage, of course (China Glaze yay!), with Oh, Tiff! providing the worst.

In A Tiff – 3 coats, a hint of shimmer

For Audrey – 3 coats, could’ve easily stopped at 2, creme

Oh, Tiff! – 4 coats for complete opacity, creme

This is more color accurate than the picture above: