OPI Excuse-Moi + Mat

Bonjour tout le monde! Pour commencer, quelques nouvelles du front ongulaire, j'ai toujours quelques doigts en très mauvais état, dont un avec l'ongle qui s'est littéralement arraché de 3 mm dans la matrice, je souffre le martyr. Pour cette semaine, je vais donc utiliser des photos d'archives et les ongles de Minnie si elle est d'accord, d'autant plus que j'ai pas mal de boulot, donc ça m'arrange de  pouvoir programmer les articles. Aujourd'hui je vous montre un vernis que je me suis offert pendant mon shopping parisien avec la jolie Sam de FashionPolish, quand nous avons enfin trouvé le Culture of Colour du Marais (gros fou rire sur la quête de l'institut!!). Il y avait quelques restes de soldes dans un coin, dont le Excuse-Moi de la collection Muppets, un peu trop rouge à mon goût pour que je l'inclus dans ma liste à la sortie de la collection, mais à 5€, ça me va bien! C'est donc une base rose foncée / translucide remplies de paillettes argent et holo. Vous le voyez en deux couches.

 

Alors vous le savez, j'suis pas une petite joueuse de la paillette, il en faut beaucoup m'effrayer en la matière, mais là, je ne saurais dire pourquoi, j'ai trouvé ça too much. Sans doute parce que je ne suis pas très rouge, je ne sais pas. La solution? Matte About You pour un fini velouté, et comme ça on prolonge l'effet SNB d'hier!

 

OPI Designer & Fozzie

Bonjour! En guise de pause entre le nail-art d'hier, que je trouve fort mignon, et celui de demain pour la SundayNailBattle, dont je suis raide dingue, je vous propose aujourd'hui un nail-art loupé, enfin, j'aime pas du tout le résultat. Mais bon, pas de chichis entre nous, je vous le montre sans pudeur.

Tout a commencé par une envie de reporter un de mes chouchous de l'hiver, le Designer de Better d'OPI de la collection Muppets, et de refaire un swatch, parce que je crois que mon swatch précédent était un des plus pourris de la blogosphère: mes ongles étaient déformés et ratiboisés et il y avait à peu près autant de lumière que sur le cercle polaire un 22 décembre... Donc, voici Designer de Better version 2012:

 

 

 

 

Comme vous pouvez le voir, ce vernis est une tuerie, un foil champagne composé d'argent, de cuivre et de rose, pour un fini sublime. L'application est facile avec opacité en deux couches. Bon, jusque-là, tout va bien, c'est après que ça se gâte. Designer de Better a un frère dans la collection Muppets qui répond au nom de Warm & Fozzie, fini similaire mais dominante marron avec des touches de vert, de cuivre et de rose. J'ai voulu fait un nail-art associant les deux, avec du scotch. Vous jugerez vous-même, mais je n'aime pas du tout, mais alors pas du tout le résultat final...

 

 

 

OPI Muppets - Rainbow Connection & Divine Swine

I'm finishing my OPI Muppets with the two glitters I chose out of the available six. The Muppets glitters consists of four shades similarly built up: very small colored glitter (in purple for Divine Swine, green for Frog of Bel-Air, blue for Gone Gonzo and red for Gettin' Miss Piggy with It) with large silver glitter. The other two are Excuse-Moi (candy pink and holo fine glitter) and Rainbow Connection (multicolored medium and large glitter). I'm presenting you Divine Swine and Rainbow Connection, only on one finger each because removal is a major pain with those.

I'm usually ok with removing glitter, especially with remover box like Sally Hansen's Kwik Off or Sephora's (well, with my Sephora's, I threw away the remover and replaced it with my usual one, since it's well-known that the Sephora polish remover is really bad for nails), but honestly, those ones are really, really bad. You'll see on some pics that I had glitter all over my fingers!

So this is Rainbow Connection on the pointer and Divine Swine on the middle, two coats each, no top-coat. Application was not as bad as I feared, provided you don't try the usual way, brushing over the nail, but instead, go for light dabs to place the glitter evenly all over the nail.

As you can see, coverage isn't bad in two coats, though to wear them alone, a third would look better. It might be a bit tricky because while the dabbing technique helps to place the glitter, it does make thicker coats than usual. I would probably do two coats dabbing, wait until they're dry and then a final one brushing.

The finish isn't even so bad for a glitter, though of course it's not glossy and smooth and would need top-coat to be perfect.

Since I don't usually wear glitters alone but as layering polishes, I tried some combos. With Divine Swine, I tried a silver base and a magenta purple base. Pointer is Zoya Trixie with one coat of DS and middle is one coat of OPI Pamplona Purple with one coat of DS.

I thought the silver layering would turn out great, but DS actually dulls the base and the end result is quite disappointing imo. On the contrary, layering over Pamplona Purple makes a beautiful combo, I love it!!

With Rainbow Connection, I used Zoya Trixie as well, and I find it looks quite great, so I think I found great combos for both!

Edit: After writing this article yesterday, I decided to try a full Rainbow Connection manicure, so here's three coats of Muppets crazy glitter, with two coats of top-coat (I think I actually had nightmares about the removal last night!!), in the pale autumn morning sun. As you can see, there's a bit of shrinkage because of the amount of coats but in real life it barely shows. If I manage to grow my nails for Christmas, I'll give it another try!

Friends' Friday - Alizarine Claws with OPI Meep-Meep-Meep

As I'm still trying to catch up with everything I have to show you, I'm gonna shamelessly find a way to make my FF post AND post a new polish. I'm almost not ashamed :p.

So, today I'm presenting you Alizarine Claws, from the Swedelicious Feline. First awesome thing about her is that she's Swedish (yeah for Northern countries!), second is that she changed my blogger's life by making tutorial on camera settings that enabled me to take better pictures, and third is that she uses a pen to clean her nails up after manicures, and I do that too in spite of everyone saying they use a brush. Joking aside, she makes awesome pictures and teaches us Swedish words, and while her blog is quite a recent discovery for me, it was an instant crush.

Just like many English-speaking bloggers, Feline doesn't do much nail-art so I chose a polish to present her, OPI Meep-Meep-Meep. First because it does give alizarine claws, or sort of, and second because this polish showed me what a lovely lady she was: when she presented the Muppets Collection on her blog, I sent her an email asking how MMM compared to Let Me Entertain You from the Burlesque collection. Feline's blog being quite popular, I really didn't expect her to answer my request right away, but she did, how nice is that?

So here is Meep-Meep-Meep in two coats without top-coat:

On the picture below, you will see that MMM suffers from the same defect as Pepe's Purple Passion (is it because both polishes have thrice the same initials??? is there a code there?): the shimmer is made of some small plastic particles that gives it an uneven finish.

In spite of Feline's super comparison job, I decided to do one as well, adding Zoya Alegra to the other two. Alegra and Let Me Entertain You are absolute dupes, and the main difference with MMM is that the latter is not as glossy. In the bottle, MMM seems to have gold particles but they don't translate on the nail. So if you like this kind of color and finish, I can only advice you to go for Alegra or Let Me Entertain You.

If I don't tell you which is which, it's impossible to tell! Alegra is on my pointer, MMM on my middle finger and LMEY on the ring.

OPI Muppets - Warm and Fozzie

Here's the second star of the Muppets collection, the brown Warm and Fozzie. This Designer de Better dark brown brother and just as I loved the first one for its complexity and subdued foil finish, I also adore this one. On the pictures below (all with two coats without top-coat), you can first see it's brighter golden side in full light, then the pink particles on the third pic (remember that you can click to make the pics bigger), and finally, with the flash, the warmer copper undertones.

OPI Muppets - Pepe's Purple Passion... with a twist

In spite of persistent fog, I did some intensive swatching this morning so I can now resume my presentation of the OPI Muppets I have in my posession. Today's polish is Pepe's Purple Passion, or rather what I did with it. As it happens, while I was waiting for my order to come from the USA, I had some time to read reviews from this collection and everyone seemed disappointed by this polish, saying that the shimmer in the bottle didn't translate on the nail. And then I stumbled upon this article:

http://oncebittenblog.blogspot.com/2011/10/opi-muppets-collection-swatches-review.html

So that's what I did, clearing out my polish with 1/4 of clear polish before trying it on, and here's the beauty I came up with: 

As you can see, the pink and golden shimmer does translate on the nail. However, it's quite a strange shimmer, made of small plastic particles instead of the usual glitter or shimmer particles. As a result, the finish is not glossy or smooth, and top-coat is absolutely necessary. You can see the difference below, first picture is without top-coat, second picture is with tc.

But on the whole, I'm really happy to have meddled with my bottle and extracted a very beautiful polish from a disappointing product :).

OPI Muppets Designer de Better

We're starting the OPI Muppets Collection with the colour I was most eager to lay my hands on: ever since I saw it on Helen's blog, I wanted it! I'm really, really bummed because my nails are short and bad-looking, I don't feel like I'm doing justice to this beauty and to top it all, the light was über crappy all week and I had to do three sessions of pictures to  have "acceptable" shoots (which I find quite hideous!!). So here is the champagne-copper foil that I feel I've been waiting for a long time, perfect application in two coats, and a super classy result. You see it here without top-coat.

Indirect light

(I'm trying new angles for my pictures, this is backlit, don't know if I'll keep it, I have to see if it contributes to something!!)

Shade

Direct light

Flash

Designer De Better is a very complex shade with silver, gold and pink that gives it beautiful depth. You know how I love foils, and I always had a soft spot for pinkish gold/ copper shades (even for jewels, don't come near me with yellow gold, but pink gold, and even white gold are things I can consider!!). The first Orly polish I bought was Rage from the Foil FX collection, but somehow, I didn't warm up to it, and now that I have the OPI to compare it with, I think the Orly is too "sparkly" for my taste. I like OPI foils (and Zoya's) because they have this subdued soft look that makes them super classy. I took out Orly Rage and China Glaze Hi-Tek to compare. You see CG on the left (pointer), OPI in the middle and Orly on the right (ring finger):