Today's choice was a hard one for me. My favourite patterns aren't necessarily the easiest - watermarbles, tape manis - and so I thought instead I'd do what I'm probably best known for.
I'm probably Queen of 2 things - the splodge, and the splatter - both of them random excuses to make a lot of mess! Nothing was calling to me splodge-wise, so I decided to do an autumnal splatter using some of the Mentality polishes I was sent for review.
On base we have the utterly superb OPI My Vampire Is Buff, the perfect neutral, and then I splattered, from dark to light, with Allure, Sexy, Flirt and Enlighten.
I broke one of my cardinal rules though - never splatter with shimmery polishes! Gah, clean-up was a biatch! Splatters always involve a lot of clean-up, but it seems like there is some evil rule of the universe, that the more shimmery a polish is, the further it will travel and the harder it will be to clean up!
There's something indefinable about the overall effect here - it reminds me of a gateau for some inexplicable reason - cream, raspberries, hazelnuts and peaches. Lol. My mind is weird.
Don't forget to check Mentality out HERE - you won't find better value for money.
This is one of the few patterns I actually love from this challenge. As you know, I feel I have underwhelmed myself with the 30 manis so far, but this stamp and these polishes - yes! Oh, apart from Beth having moved my lamp and me not realising til too late! Oh, and all thoughts of clean up apparently ignored. Sheesh.
This is another awesome MoYou stamp, this time from Artist Collection 03. I love that it looks like - a fingerprint, a loose timewarp, a blob, a blob within a blob, a wobbly bubble, tree rings. Yup, like this stamp A LOT.
I did a colourful skittle as my background and stamped with w7 black to prove you don't have to have a Konad to get good results. Plus, I'm finding the Konad really hard to clean off lately, especially if I have a piece of broken skin.
Thumb - OPI First Date At Golden Gate Index - Too Fancy Lacquer -Fallen Too Deep Middle - Mentality - Brute Ring - OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia Pinkie - Mentality - Charm
Ok, this is *half* the post you've been waiting for :) I know a lot of you are eager to see how glorious Champagne Cocktail is on the nail. If that's you, tonight's your night.
I know another group of you are DYING to see how it stamps. If that's you, tonight's NOT your night, but you should be happy by the weekend. Oh, and by the way, the answer is - "like a champ".
In a word, Champagne Cocktail is spectacular. I wasn't really expecting to like it, as gold is a colour I never wear except for nail art, but this is some very special gold.
CC is a gold to copper holo, opaque in one coat. There's a duochrome quality to it too - look how it flicks rose gold in some lights, and cools to lemon in others.
I adore the photos of this polish, and can't stare at them enough. This is going to be on my nails a LOT over the holiday period.
If you haven't yet, you can buy Too Fancy Lacquer HERE and follow on Facebook HERE.
Firstly, I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has sent me messages or comments over the last couple of days. I'm on the little black cloud again, but it helps that this time I know my depression is caused by a Thing (redundancy) rather than .. well, who knows what. I'm just going to listen to my body, and sleep and slob when I need to, and potter along when I can - like tonight :)
I am way overdue posting the 6 gorgeous holos from Too Fancy Lacquer, and I thought that these particular 2 were very appropriate tonight. As some of you may know, green is the international colour for Depression Awareness and red, well, red just helps bring me back to life.
So, the greeny. Yup, happy to be wearing it. Isn't it emerald-intense?
This is, would you believe - A ONE COATER! Utter perfection, and it stamps great too.
I love that this is a pure grassy, classic green. There's no sludge in here, no breakaway colours around the edges, just a pure, perfect green prism.
Holly is a red holo, with sprinklings of green shimmer. They're easier to see in the bottle than on the nail, and sadly my camera has done a useless job of spotting them.
Also - this polish is not quite as intensely fiery as some of the photos would have you believe. It's what I call a whitened-red - it's a little bit pinky, with some of the depth washed out, but still utterly beautiful.
I think I would have made this red darker to make it more classically Christmas, but then maybe it's nicer that it's that little bit different? Either way, as you can see, it's exquisite.
I wore 2 coats, though again you could probably wear one, and again, this stamps like a champ. A word on the formula too. Usually, the more opaque a polish is, the harder it is to make it holo, so Charlene has done an amazing job here getting the balance so right. I have done 2 awesome stamping manis with these polishes, and I WILL have those up soon.
In the meantime, there are 3 more babies to come - the grey, the indigo and the gold - and I'll get them up hopefully by the weekend. You can buy Too Fancy Lacquer HERE and follow on Facebook HERE.
