Zoya Jules with Zoya Blaze

ALIIIIIVEEE!

Its finals week! Plus, I get a week off between finals for Winter term and the Spring term. So I am blogging. Hurrah! I am going to try and spend my 15 hours not studying to line up a few weekly blog posts by at least doing photos. I hope to get enough posts in the next two weeks to publish once a week until the end of Spring term (in July). That is the goal at least. I will reevaluate time when my husband graduates from the local community college in May.

Today's nails are two toned. Zoya Jules is a grayed champagne metallic. It was from the Spring 2011 Intimate collection. Zoya Blaze was part of the holiday 2012 Ornate collection. It is a mulberry red with micro holo glitter. Sorry I didn't get a good photo of the holo.

I have been busy in the garden. Its finally warm enough for the green weeds to show up. I took photos outside because I could. Look at that green!

Jules was like most metallics from Zoya. Sort of runny. So watch out for cuticle flooding. I ended up with 3 coats. The lighting and contrast with the red make this look more like it might be a manicure hand color for me. It is not. It looks like it would match some pearl finish beige pumps I had almost 20 years ago. So I guess that is why people call it 'vintage' or 'old lady.' Not the most flattering neutral for me, but it is a nice finish that goes well with lighter spring neutral wardrobe options.

Blaze was a different type of formula. It left no brush marks and the finish was more like a jelly. Shiny! I did two coats and I could see a bit of visible nail line. in the right light.

Overall Imrepssions:
Love them both! But, I think I won't wear them together again. The gold shimmer in the Jules seemed to compete with the silvery holo glitter in Blaze and distracted from both at least in certain lights. In the bottle, Jules was far more gray looking than on the nail. Now if I was staying indoors the whole time, it works pretty well together. But bright light and outdoor light pulls out the gold.

China Glaze Sci-Fi

I thought I had posted on this one before, but I couldn't find the post. So, here it is.

China Glaze "Sci-Fi" is a metallic purple. Its from the 2009 Khrome collection which is a bunch of crome metallic colors. I actually thought it was more of a gray until I started playing around with the color and toppers and the lavender really came out.

Its a one coater, except that it tends to drag if you don't paint really fast and then let it fully dry.  >.<  So paint each nail fast, and don't go back to it until its fully dry, even if you miss a spot. If you do, you will see what happened to my middle fingernail. Not a killer, but if i weren't planning on layering this later in the week, I would add a second coat to that nail.

The color looks gray on my hands. Maybe its because its cloudy (snow is rolling in and by the time this post goes live Monday morning we should have at least an inch on the ground. It can pull off a metallic silver almost gunmetal color if you don't have gray next to it. It would be excellent for people that want a neutral that love wearing purples. Its just a Hint of color.

Disclaimer, I bought this myself. I got it online at a discount store (TonyNail) over the summer. It might be a bit hard to find since its a little older. But since it is in a discount site, I am guessing it might not be *that* hard to find.

Lancome Mystery polish

Ready for a no-name mystery polish mani? Here it is! This is Lancome mystery in a warm gray shade. Its not on Lancome's website, and the bottle shape is different. Its a mini size (8ml).

I got it in a blog sale mystery box, so it likely is an older bottle style or possibly was part of a kit/set since it a small size.

Its shown with a freebie mini from Kawaii Nail Lacquer on the ring finger. I didn't realize the Kawaii was so orange and black until it was on the nail. The orange glitters change to red plus there are purple to blue holo glitters so it can be deceiving at certain angles. I thought it would be more rainbow of a glitter, its not. Its nice, but felt a little Halloween to me. If it wasn't the week after Halloween I wouldn't think Halloween so hard.

 Above is in the shade and morning sun. Its also after 24 hours of wear. It wore really well considering I didn't wrap the tips. Oops!

 Here are the bottle shots. Looking at this photo I don't know why I didn't think the Kawaii would be orange, black and white. Sometimes I just don't really think before applying polish.

Disclosure: I buy all my polishes. The Lancome is one of those random not made anymore things. You can buy other colors online or in select department stores. The Kawaii was a freebie with purchase. She runs specials like this on occasion. Check out her Facebook page for flash sales and deal alerts.

OPI My Pointe Exactly

The worst part of mommy being sick is that the house gets trashed. My house is a nightmare. My kids haven't been sleeping well. As a result no one has been sleeping well. And its been cloudy and gloomy for days. Don't get me wrong, I love rain. We need rain. But I am feeling a little cabin fever. We went out today and picked a TON of pears. Well most of them were on the ground, after all the rain storms. But pears. Out. The. Wazoo. I look forward to the pear sauce, preserves, and cinnamon spiced pears this winter. The water bath canner will be getting a workout this week!

Now on to the polish. And I think my nails will always be short and that is ok.

Natural light.

My Pointe Exactly is a sheer jelly. This took 3 coats to be this opaque. There is some nail line visible, but I used very thin coats to encourage fast drying. It has been humid here lately. Thicker coats or a 4th layer would probably take care of it. Application was really great even in the super humidity of open windows and Midwest thunderstorms.

The color is sort of a brownish shade of gray or maybe more of a nude meets gray. Makes me think of gray pantyhose more than tights or thin fabric blouses where you can just see the hint of skin beneath it.And dang its so shiny. This is top coat free and it doesn't need a top coat. OPI is usually nice and shiny, but I just love the shiny finish on jelly polishes.

 Flash photo.

 I love the NYC Ballet collection, (what I own and I want Pirouette My Whistle which is the only one I am missing). The colors are all simple, sheer, and classy, but they can be a nice background for something bold. It would also probably make some nice jelly sandwich manicures, but I don't really care for those. I like my glitter more sparkly.

But, here is the bad news for me at least. I was sitting here in poor lighting typing this up, and looked down at my nails and didn't like the color. It seemed sort of dead/zombie. I don't know why. Maybe its the slightly brown tint to the gray, maybe its the jelly base keeping it semi sheer. So natural light = love. Dim indoor late night is blah and makes me think of frostbitten finger or dead hands.  I might be watching too many creepy shows thanks to Halloween.

This nail polish was purchased by me and all thoughts/reviews are my own. OPI retails for $8.50 and can be found at large retailers like JCPenny, Beauty Brands and from many salons. Find a reputable retailer near you at www.opi.com