Oriental Nail-art

Bonjour! La semaine dernière, Miss Louboutin 59 se posait des questions existentielles sur "être une bloggeuse vernis", et je lui ai dit qu'il était important de blogger sur ce qu'on a envie (bon en évitant de présenter 50 fois le même vernis de la même façon si possible). Donc, hier j'avais envie de mettre un vernis que vous avez déjà vu ici.

Mais pour changer un peu, j'ai voulu le décorer (j'aurais peut-être pas dû vu mon absence de talent et surtout d'entraînement pour le stamping). J'ai donc sorti ma plaque BM 214

 

 

 

C'est pas trop frappant en photo, mais je ne suis pas très satisfaite du résultat, les motifs sont mal centrés, faut encore que j'y travaille. Mais j'aime beaucoup l'idée!!

Et après, j'ai voulu prendre des photos au soleil, y'avait un p'ti chat au soleil, alors j'ai pris des photos avec le p'ti chat!

OPI Rally Pretty Pink

On Saturday, I showed you Pros & Bronze from the last instalment of the Glam Slam series, and it reminded me that I had not shown you Rally Pretty Pink, another beauty from this series. OPI was the first to release this colour, but since, it's been seen in Zoya's Summer Collection with Faye, and declined with some changes in the base colours in OPI It's My Year and Orly Rock the World (see this post from the PolishAholic).

So six months or so after its release, this colour doesn't look new at all, it's one of the big ones of 2011, but it really lovely nonetheless. A tea-rose pink overloaded with fine golden shimmer, it's at once delicate and completely crazy!! The only downside of this beauty is that it stains really badly. My nails were so tattooed after the first time I wore it that I still have some kind of "phobia" to put it on!!! But with my Orly Bonder base (OMG, I  have to finish my "manicure routine" posts with the base/topcoats!!), I can now safely wear it!! Here it is in two coats with top-coat.

Final thought on the Glam Slam! series

The Glam Slam!  series is now completed, and we can take a look back on this very original project: born from a cooperation with Serena Williams, it came in four instalments, each corresponding with a tournament of the Grand Slam series:

Australia

France 1 & 2

England

US

At first, I was quite unimpressed: Black Shatter never made me blink and the yellow-green Simply Smashing was not likely to steal my heart. With the French instalment and Rally Pretty Pink, my heart started to flutter, but the constant association of a beautiful shade with a shatter annoyed me (I'll tell you what I think about the whole shatter craze some other time). The England sets broke that trend and gave us Servin'Up Sparkle as a layering option on the two other colours and I was "almost" won: I admit that the difficulties of application for Servin'Up Sparkle disappointed me, I was ready to love this holo glitter top-coat. And the final set had no layering option only two gorgeous colours. So I'm not counting the shatters in my review since they were all gathered in the "Shatter Collection".

I have to say that the Glam Slam! Collection displayed a versatility and originality that hasn't been seen in a single OPI collection for a while: the fact that it was released by twos or threes worked as an obligation to keep buyers interested. All polish-addicts can sometimes fall prey to the wish of wanting to have a complete collection, even if not all the colours have the same interest and appeal, and as a result, many collections contain "fillers". But the special format of the Glam Slam! collection made that easy solution impossible and for me there's not a signle uninteresting polish in there. Sure, I don't like them all, matter of taste, and there are some I passed because my limited budget only allowed real crushes, but I'm quite amazed at all the colours. I don't know if OPI will make another collection by instalments in the future, but I sure hope so!!

OPI Pros and Bronze

It can sometimes happen that after seeing dozens and dozens of new polishes every year (I did a quick count of the number of polishes that OPI release/will release over the year 2011, it comes close to 80 o.O) you feel like nothing new can come up and it's always new versions of old things. And yet, once in a while, you find an utterly original and fantastic colour. Such was Pros & Bronze. It's part of the last set from the Glam Slam collection, the US release. While the other one, Love is a Racket is a red and reds don't really appeal to me, I couldn't pass on this one. 

It's not quite a glass fleck nor quite a foil, all I can say is that it's an amazingly glittery and mesmerizing mix of bronze, gold and pink. It has gone straight in my top ten list!! I took a lot of pictures under different lightning to try and capture the many aspects of this jewel, so now get ready for photo overload!! You see Pros & Bronze in two coats with Seche Vite.

Silver Holographic Glitter comparison

I finally received my Zoya order!!! I think the parcel went back to the US and was sent again, there were two stamps on it, which might explain that an order from June 23rd arrived on August 9th! Anyway, it's all fine now and I can show you the "silver holographic glitter" comparison I had in mind. Today, I'm presenting you OPI Servin' Up Sparkle, from the Glam Slam collection, China Glaze Nova and Zoya Luna. Of course, they're all very different, I never had any doubts about that, but they still fall in the same category. You see them in two coats.

from left to right: OPI Servin Up Sparkle, China Glaze Nova, Zoya Luna

from left to right: OPI Servin Up Sparkle, China Glaze Nova, Zoya Luna

from left to right: OPI Servin Up Sparkle, China Glaze Nova, Zoya Luna

Luna is the densest and most opaque, it's the only one you can wear alone in two coats. It has no holographic particles at all, and the base isn't clear, it's a bit milky, which helps the opacity. Nova is made of fine holographic glitter in a clear base but two coats is not nearly enough to give a full and even coverage. I usually layer it on a silver base, it's a very bling manicure but quite mesmerizing.

As for Servin Up Sparkle, it's clearly not made to be build on its own. It's made of two different types of particles, both larger and smaller than the ones in Nova. I didn't find it particularly easy to work with, the base is quite thick and the large glitter are hard to place on the nail. But it's a very nice top-coat if you want to bring some bling to any colour.

Servin'Up Sparkle is part of the Glam Slam UK sets, together with either Grape Set Match or Your Royal Shine-ness, but you can find it on its own on Ebay if you don't want to buy the others (but come on, who could resist Grape Set Match???).

Week 3 Debriefing + OPI Grape Set Match

Hi. It's that time of the week again when I give you some updates on how I'm doing in the blogging world. It might be the last time I do this, since now I feel like I've found my marks in terms of pictures, which was the big problem at first.
Hand-wise, everything is fine, so I'll soon be making a couple of posts on manucure products, especially since I've had the opportunity to test quite a lot of them over the past year. My nails were showing signs of weakness and I couldn't bear the ridges any more, so I filed them down a bit, but it didn't stop two of them from breaking: my left pinkie, always a source of misery, and my right pointer. I really don't have the heart to file everything down to the maximum, my nail plates are super short, so I'll be keeping the length I have until every nail has the same length. I'm gonna clear out the pics I have with my long nails, in the days to come and then the blog will be up to date with my current hands.
Which brings me to the polish of the day...

Long time, no OPI! Today I have for you one of the three polishes of the Glam Slam series England Edition, Grape Set Match. As you know by now, I love purple polishes, and this one struck home from the very first promo pics I saw. I love that OPI is firmly aboard the glass-fleck wagon because it's definitely one of my favourite finishes (right now I'm getting crazy because I ordered some Zoya polishes more than a month ago and they're still not home!!). The two polishes from the Glam Slam series that I was eyeing were this one and Rally Pretty Pink. I also got Servin'Up Sparkle along with Grape Set Match as I was too eager to wait until I found it individually!

So Grape Set Match is a beautiful purple glass fleck, packed with pink and blue particles. And now to the pictures.

It's OPI, so it means flawless application, perfect shiny finish and opacity in two coats. The pics are with top-coat, but with OPI, I apply more out of habit and to speed up drying time than to make it more shiny. I guess you've seen dozens of swatches of this polish with Servin' Up Sparkle on top, so I'm not gonna do that. Instead, I'm putting up a "silver  holographic glitter" post with comparisons and a lot of sparkly pictures! I have to wait for my Zoyas to arrive first though, so that won't be tomorrow's post, but I have many of other pretty things to show you...

That's all for today folks!