Orly Preamp, pink glitter gradation & nail art stickers

 

Orly - Preamp, pink glitter gradation & nail art stickers

Hi all... I'm trying to make a comeback after several weeks' hiatus. Here we have Orly Preamp, a super pretty pink with tiny duochrome glass particles. Lately I've been obsessed with gradations, and this is Pretty Woman PW9 sponged over Sinful Colors Forget Now plus nail art stickers, which is another staple of mine.

H&M Notoriously Beautiful & glitter funky French

H&M - Notoriously Beautiful, 1 coat

H&M - Notoriously Beautiful & glitter funky French

Cherry blossom nail art

Cherry blossom nail art

The colours I used:
- Nude base - Ruby Kisses Cream White
- Pinks - Nubar Pink Crème & Revlon Grapefruit Fizz
- Turquoises - Model's Own Top Turquoise & Barry M Aqua Blue
- The branches were painted with Nubar black striper & Nubar Swiss Chocolate
- Topped with Orly Love Each Other

Original idea shamelessly stolen from HERE. :P The bottom picture is the most colour accurate of the bunch.

Orly Polo Princess & nail art stickers + French pedi

 Orly - Polo Princess, 2 coats & nail art stickers

In August, my younger cousin got married and I got to attend my first wedding in over a decade! My outfit, accessories and mani/pedi were all very matchy-matchy: a linen dress with black & white oversized floral print, a light pink shrug, a black satin clutch and a silver toned necklace + earrings with pink plastic roses. You can see my sandals in the pic below (if you dare to take a peek at my footsies). I chose Polo Princess because it was matched the colour of my shrug perfectly, and of course I slapped on a ton of floral stickers. :p


Pedi warning, feet ahead!! :p

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 French pedicure with rhinestones

I swear this pedi wore like iron - I had no chips at all for three weeks! I layered two different pinks over my base coat, then painted the tips, applied a coat of white jelly and finished with a thick coat of SH Insta-Dri. I waited until the next day before placing the rhinestones, topping them yet again with the Insta-Dri (I didn't lose a single one of them during the three weeks! Thank you Sally!).

Orly Galaxy Girl & Sally Hansen Byte

Orly - Galaxy Girl, 2 coats

Galaxy Girl has teal to pink duochrome flecks of foil in a murky brown/purple base. I almost gave this the "ugly" tag, it definitely isn't my favourite polish - I don't dig the murkiness. I desperately need to file down my nails, but it's such a chore ("wah wah"). I really don't like wearing my nails this long anymore, and I'm very self-aware and feel kind of ashamed if other people (mainly kids) notice them.

Orly - Galaxy Girl & Sally Hansen - Byte, 2 + 1 coats

I like this one way more with a coat of Byte over Galaxy Girl, which gives it a purple boost. Time to go dig up my small arsenal of nail files... *sigh*

Orly Catch The Bouquet & nail art stickers = FAILSAUCE

 Orly - Catch The Bouquet & nail art stickers, 3 coats

Catch The Bouquet... three coats, about 20 mins of drying time between them + SH Insta-Dri, yet it never dried. The colour is super cute though, perhaps I'll have better luck next time with another base coat? As for the stickers - they're cr4p. $hite. P00. I don't know what level of Hell did they crawl out of, but it's where they should have stayed. >:( The edges started curling up as soon as I had applied a coat of clear polish over the stickers. I tried pushing them down gently but no dice, I think that even nail glue wouldn't have helped here.

Orly Rio Nights & Pure Ice Heart Breaker

Orly - Rio Nights, 3 coats

Rio Nights is a dark purple creme who wishes she were a jelly, but she's just faking it. You can see that she is super glossy, though. Err... I don't really know what else to tell about this polish since it's been so long since I wore it and - typically - I didn't write down any notes. :T

Orly - Rio Nights & Pure Ice - Heart Breaker, 3 + 1 coats

I wore these on my birthday this year because purple and green are my favourite colours. :] This is by far one of my very favourite layering combos - the green to blue duochrome effect on purple reminds me of those über awesome (and long discontinued) Liquid Euphoria polishes! You must try this yourself if you own Heart Breaker!

(10 old NOTDs down, 16 more to go...! x.O Urrgh.)

China Glaze Tempest & Orly Lunar Eclipse

China Glaze - Tempest, 3 coats

Ah Tempest, you're one of my very favourite lacquers. ♥ The formula was watery but not especially runny and I had to do three thick coats to get full opacity. Tempest has a very shy duochrome side to her but it's there alright!

China Glaze - Tempest & Orly - Lunar Eclipse, 3 + 2 coats

I tried to stamp some snowflakes over Tempest but that was a big fat fail, so I grabbed Lunar Eclipse and hid the offending designs with two coats of this liquid loveliness.

Stuf. 56 Beam & Orly Space Cadet

 

 stuf. - 56 Beam, 3 coats

This stunning purple to orange to green duochrome was yet another of my eBay bargain finds along with another lacquer by stuf., a blue to violet iridescent glitter which is a dupe for Sinful Colors' Pearl Harbour. Incidentally, 56 Beam is a dead-on dupe for another HTF lacquer, Rimmel's Zeitgeist, which I also own. The only difference between the two is that Zeitgeist is more opaque, requiring two coats whereas the stuf. lacquer had thinned down probably due to its age and needed three coats to eliminate VNL. Stuf. were an Australian brand who closed down years ago so eBay is your best bet if you wish to hunt this pretty little gem down.

 stuf. - 56 Beam & Orly  Space Cadet, 3 + 1 coats 

Since the Orly is also sheer I layered it over the stuf. lacquer. They're identical in their duochrominess with the execption of Space Cadet being a glass fleck foil and 56 Beam a shimmer. Me likes! Pics taken with mum's Canon PowerShot S95 (I still prefer my G6 over it, the S95 messes up the colours and I had to do a lot of colour correcting).

Blue, teal & turquoise spam! Pt. 3

Franken - Envy Me, Carl, 2 coats

I mixed half and half of H&M Envy Me and Spending Cash With Carl to get this unbelievably gorgeous deep teal shimmer.

Franken - Envy Me, Carl & Precision - After Dinner Mints, 2 coats

 Orly - It's Up to Blue, 2 coats

Orly - It's Up to Blue & Nubar - Blue Silver Glitter, 2 + 2 coats

I was disappointed by It's Up to Blue - it looked horrible against my skin - so I topped it with Blue Silver Glitter from Nubar. OMG sparklefest! The glitter is tiny and two coats gave just enough coverage the green-ness of the Orly to shine through.

 Franken - Under the Sea, 2 coats

 DICI - 046, 2 coats

HOMG this is the most metallic polish EVER, it's incredible and must seen with one's own eyes! DICI is a Chinese brand available on eBay and is chock-full of toxic ingredients judging by the smell. It applied beautifully, probably thanks to all the carcinogenic stuff that's in it.

 Maybelline - New Year's Blues, 2 coats

 Revlon StreetWear - Midnight & Models Own - Blue Sparkle, 2 + 1 coats