Ariadne and The Minotaur Nail Art

A little while ago Shades of Phoenix announced they were having a nail art challenge on Instagram. I don't usually take part in nail art challenges because the competition is CRAZY, but since this one had the theme of Greek mythology, I couldn't possibly resist.

Mythology is my jam

I decided to attempt to portray the story of Theseus and the Minotaur - particularly the part where Ariadne saves Theseus from certain death, and gets little to no credit for it. If you haven't heard the story before, here's a quick and dirty version.

Love Thy Polish - I Sure Do!

This blog has been very thinky this week, so I want to break it up with some pretty pictures before continuing my series.
Today I have yet another marvelous Australian indie polish maker to show you - I don't know what's in the water here, but we really do have some of the most talented creators! Love Thy Polish is run by Em, who blogs about polish over at Nails In The Desert, and she has a wonderful variety of different styles of polish in her Etsy shop - but you guys know me, I went straight for the glitters!

First up is a beautifully delicate white and purple glitter called Miss Bossy Pants - this immediately reminded me of my little sister, since she was the bossiest little child you could possibly imagine. She didn't seem to find this as funny as I did, so I think I'll have to get her a bottle for her birthday.
ANYWAY, the polish is gorgeous. It's quite transparent, so you could layer it over just about any colour you like. Em reccomends layering it over purple, so I put it over my trust Illamasqua Baptise.

Second up is one called Drained, a dark vampy red-black jelly with tons of red micro glitter packed in. Out of habit more than anything else, I layered it over black first.

I was really happy with these results, and spent the next two days wiggling my fingers under every available light source to make the red flecks spark in the deep, dark base. When I came back to it later, I thought I'd try a red base just for something different. And WOW, I just fell in love. I haven't loved a red polish this much since I first got OPI I'm Not Really A Waitress, which is incidentally what I layered Drained over this time.

 The dark pigments in the jelly base tone down the brightness of the red, making it a little bit more vampy, and the glitter just GLOWS in this combination. I'm just annoyed I only got a mini bottle of this one!

You can pick yourself up some Miss Bossy Pants, or Drained, or any of the other beautiful colours Love Thy Polish carry at their Etsy store.

Femme Gone Wild

You may have noticed from reading thus far that I have a tendency to just throw myself into things, once I've decided I'm going to do them. I find it very hard to do things halfway - this is not always as helpful a trait as you might think. I get it into my head to put more effort in at work, and then I turn around and find out I haven't taken lunch in a week. I then decide I have to chill out more, and turn around a week later to find a really important document hasn't been posted because I wasn't paying any attention at all.

I've noticed this tendency particularly flares up when I am trying to do something I find counter intuitive - like staying out late at a party with lots of people, or having a "girly" day. I'm very bad at tempering the "oomph" I put into something in order to push myself to do it, and can end up in some very unfamiliar places just by virtue of overshooting.

My mother was in town yesterday, which is of relevance to this post because my sudden enthusiasm for all things femme and "girly" has given her a foothold to relate to me from. We haven't always gotten along well, not for lack of trying on either side. But for a long time we just didn't have anything in common, nowhere to even start conversations from. She's currently in the middle of a "Doing Things I Wouldn't Have Done Before" phase too, co-incidentally, and so she suggested we go get a mani pedi together, since this is something neither of us has ever done.

Well, technically, I HAVE had a pedicure once, but it was enormously grudgingly. A group of friends wanted to get one together, and then have cocktails, and I thought the whole thing was just appallingly "girly". I went, but seem to recall flailing and rolling my eyes a lot and generally being a dick about it. Neither my mother or I are particularly fond of having people touch us unless we know them well, or we're prepared for it. You can see then, why letting a stranger mess with our feet was such a challenge. But if she could do it, dammit, so could I. This time, I was determined to just jump the fuck in.

This meant that when they asked me to pick a colour, I deliberately found the girliest, most ridiculous colour they had - OPI "Let Me Entertain You."

Fuschia. Fuschia Glitter. Fuck. Yes.

There was this little voice in my head, bouncing around like a boxer gearing up for a big fight. "Yeah! Come on, do it! Let's be GIRLY! Let's be GIRLY AS FUCK! Let's FEMME THE SHIT OUT OF THIS!! YYEAAAAAHHH!" ...and so on, and so forth. This is how my brain gets me to do things I'm not entirely sure are a good idea, like letting a stranger mess around with my feet.

My mother looking deceptively calm.

To our credit, we made it through without kicking anyone reflexively, or being overly rude. I did have a moment when the manicurist picked up the clippers and asked if she should take any length off my fingernails though. I said what I hoped was, "No thank you, just shape them please," but I'm pretty sure it came out as "NO!" in the voice I use to tell our cat off, because she dropped the clippers VERY quickly.

After making it through without really ruining anyone's day, I was pumped.
"YEAHH!," said the voice in my head. "FUCK YEAH, let's do some more shit! Let's go buy NAIL POLISH!! Let's get our HAIR DONE! LET'S FEMME THE FUCK OUT!!!"
So I did.

Every time I saw something and thought automatically, "Oh, that's not me," this roaring Femme Hulk in my head screamed "BUY IT!! DOO IT!! WHY THE FUCK NOT!?" I got...I got a little over-excited, it's true.

Pro Tip - Paddy's Markets is a surprisingly rich nail polish mine

When I got home and unpacked all the things I bought, I did have a moment of doubt. I wondered if I had gone too far in the name of challenging myself - if I'd wasted a bunch of money on stuff I would never use, just because I got all over-excited about being so different to how I used to be. It was pretty late by then, and I was pretty tuckered out from a long day of being quite amped up, so I decided to think about it some more in the morning.

I got up today, and was packing away all my new purchases, when I pulled out this lovely little thing.

The Boy was disappointed the glitter wasn't shaped like Hello Kitty's head

A Hello Kitty chunky holographic glitter? Really!? Firstly, I've never been a fan of Hello Kitty as such. I always liked her sidekicks better. Secondly, I've been quite vocal lately about my disinterest in chunky glitters. But if I remember, these are exactly the reasons Femme Hulk used to make me buy it.
"Meh, Hello Kitty?", I remember thinking. "That's so cliche. Everyone likes fucking Hello Kitty."
"BUT YOU WANT IT. Your excuse is STUPID", she replied.
"But I don't like chunky glitters," I thought.
"Do you not like them because everyone else likes them?" she replied.
"Maybe," I thought.
"BUY IT. MAKE IT YOURS!! Give in to the GLITTER!!" she bellowed. So I did.

And you know what? I fucking love it. Heaven help me, I'm in totally uncharted territory here, but I love it. I especially love it over my fuscia glitter base.

I got this colour thinking to myself, "Heh, it'll be a bit of fun, and I'll take it off when I get home." But I LOVE IT. I don't want to take it off. I see my nails twinkling out of the edge of my vision and it makes me smile.

When I started this whole femme kick, I was totally unprepared for how much what I wear could change my sense of identity. I figured that what I wore on my nails, or how much effort I put into my hair couldn't change who I really was. And in some respects, it hasn't. I'm still writing this sitting on the couch in a slouchy jersey dress that hasn't been washed for a week. My nails look fabulous, but my hair is bundled up on top of my head. But in other ways, I feel totally adrift. I tweeted yesterday that if I time traveled to that salon from five years ago, I wouldn't have recognised myself. And you know, I really wouldn't have. That is a very...unsettling sensation. But I don't hate where I am. I LIKE wearing mascara to the markets just because I feel like being pretty. I LIKE having sparkly nails, even though I'm just slobbing around the house. Getting my hair cut yesterday made me feel more relaxed than I have in a week. I am really enjoying all this "girly" stuff. I just have to come to terms with the fact that I love it.

I'm sure I'll have deeper analysis of this for you all once it's filtered through properly, but I just wanted to share my initial impressions, and the fun of my Femme Day Out.

The Awesomeness of Smaug

I went and saw The Hobbit the other night, and much to the dismay of almost every Tolkien fan I know, I really rather enjoyed it. I thought it was good fun, and enormously pretty - but I wasn't really expecting a totally faithful recreation. ANYWAY, the point is that my current nail obsession has reached the point that when we finally see Smaug, the great and terrible dragon, for all of two seconds right at the end, I had two thoughts. 1) COOL 2) I could do a great manicure based off that.

In case you haven't seen it yet, here is a gif of the shot I mean.

Of course there's a gif. There's ALWAYS a gif.

The camera swoops in over a huge room covered in great mountains of gold, and one of the mountains shudders a bit, sending coins flying. You get a glimpse of bluish tinged red dragon scales, and then screen fills up with a closeup of his enormous eye. It's brilliant. When they showed Smaug rolling around in his big piles of gold like Scrooge McDuck, I immediately thought of my OPI The Man With The Golden Gun topcoat. It's perfectly, delightfully decadent, and suits this image to a tee.

Happily I also have an enormous array of reddish blues, and blue tinged reds, and purpley reds because I am totally obsessed with duochromes, so it was just a matter of choosing which one screamed dragon skin. I eventually settled on Illamasqua Scarab as a nice coppery base, then put a layer of Sally Hansen Prisms in Ruby Sapphire over the top. The Prisms take foooooorrrreeeeeeeevvvvver to dry, so I almost always end up fucking them up, but they're just so damn pretty! I only put one coat over the base colour, and it still shows up as a really clear duochrome (meaning it shines different colours under different lights)

Illamasqua Scarab, courtesy Illamasqua website

Sally Hansen Prisms Ruby Sapphire, courtesy NailXchange

I then attempted to let this concoction dry by playing some Saints Row 3, but lost patience too quickly and slathered on an enormous amount of The Man With The Golden Gun. This means the whole thing has bubbled like crazy this morning, but fuck it. There is enough glitter and shit going on that I don't think anyone is really going to notice some bubbles. Anyway, that's enough words, I know what you're here for - pretty pictures!

Out in the sunshine!

Inside, under a lamp

Also inside, under a lamp. I love lamp.

Inside, diffused window sunshine. I love the colour here, it looks
so dragony.

Inside, diffused sunlight. You can really see the duochrome here.

Inside, diffused light, angled so you can see the gorgeous coppery red shine.

So I'm pretty damn happy with these results. What do you think?

OPI Skyfall Review - Is That Silva?

My most excellent and wonderful little sister got me two exciting little bundles for Christmas, both from the OPI Skyfall collection. I am now the ridiculously proud owner of The Man With The Golden Gun real freaking gold top coat, and one of the magnetics called Is That Silva?

I won't bore you with how excited I was about Man With The Golden Gun just yet - I have  plenty to say about that another time. Today I wanted to let you all have a look at Is That Silva?

I've held off on getting any of the magnetic polishes that have been coming out recently because I just got a real "meh" feeling about them. They're nice, but it just seemed so fiddly for a not-so-spectacular effect. But I was willing to have my mind changed, especially when one so graciously landed in my lap.

Unfortunately, Is This Silva will not be the polish to change my mind about magnetics. The holographic sparkles are lovely, but the contrast with the dull, brushed aluminium looking silver just makes them look out of place. I wanted to like it, I really did. But overall, it's just enormously bland. The other thing to note about the polish when you don't use the magnet is that it dries like there are little bits of grit all through it, which isn't particularly appealing.

Of course, to be fair, it's not really intended to be worn without the magnet pattern, so I tried that out too. After reading Anthea from NailedObsession's review of Morning Moneypenny (another polish in the same line), I made sure to leave the magnet over the nail for at least 20 seconds rather than the box reccomended 6-7. And yet, the results were still pretty poor.

I couldn't for the life of me get the pattern to go the whole way around the nail, which annoyed me enormously. I found myself wishing I could just get a polish that's the neat black colour this goes when magnetised, and be done with the nasty dull silver crap on top. The silver particles also drag quite a bit when you put the topcoat on if you're not really, really gentle with it. Actually, even if you are they still drag, and honestly, I would expect more from a polish this pricey.

On the whole, Is That Silva? was quite disappointing. Knowing me, I'll think of some neat design to use it for though, so it's not all bad news. More polish is never bad polish!

Work It, Princess - Part Two

So yesterday we had a look at some princesses from folklore that show a different side of princesses than the one that is normally portrayed. But it's not just in stories that princesses are more than just selfish, silly twits - history is full of examples of inspirational princessing.

For a real historical under-rated princess, I always like to look to Marie Antoinette. All the cake quotes and bullshit covers a deeply fascinating story of a woman stuck in a terrifying, deeply complicated political situation, who was subjected to enormous amounts of pressure over things she had no way of controlling. It would be a more inspirational had she survived – but I think there are still interesting examples to be found in her story. This is one of the reasons I’m one of the five people who saw and loved Sophia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. I feel like she really captured a lot of the complex motivations and really human feelings behind the actions that became famous. There is a fantastically moving scene where Marie has spent most of the film thus far attempting to convince her husband not to be such an uptight, terrified virgin and get it on with her in order to make the heir that is more or less Marie’s job to produce. She gets a letter from her mother tearing her apart for her failure, and threatening that there could be war over her uselessness, even though it’s a situation that is largely her husband’s fault. It’s a heartbreaking example of the kind of pressure she was under from the moment she set foot in France.

Antoinette was widely criticised for “wasting” money setting up a summer home of her own, complete with a working farm, where she would spend great chunks of time just chilling the fuck out. A lot of this criticism stems from the fact that France simply couldn’t afford to be supporting her in this manner at the time – but there is no way she  could possibly have had access to those numbers. For someone who is known to have been wildly irritated by the ridiculous ceremonies of the Court at Versailles, I think her farm was a brilliant compromise. She would play the stupid Court games when she was at home, but then she would fuck off with her daughter and play with the ducks for a while to keep from completely losing her mind. 

So how do these stories relate to femme, and fashion, and my newfound obsession with pretty dresses and putting shiny things on my nails? I’m glad you asked.

All the stories I have come across regarding princesses, be they “good” or “bad”, or selfish, or selfless, there is always a common thread running through them – the idea that a princess is inherently special. Even if she starts out as a peasant girl, or is reduced to the station of a gooseherd because her serving girl is a total bitch she is still inherently a princess. It’s something that she is, something special and wonderful and irreplaceable. Historically this is linked to the idea of the divine right of kings, the theory that the royal family is the royal family because God has blessed them with everything they need to be kick ass rulers. But in folklore, this special “thing” that princesses have crops up in even in cultures that aren’t really based around the Christian god as such. There is something special about a princess, and that can never be taken from her. She deserves good things to happen to her – in the stories I’ve read it’s only the “evil” character that begrudge the princess the handsome husband, or the tons of gold, or whatever it is she’s rewarded with in that particular story. Everyone else recognises that simply by being who she is, she deserves the good things she wants. In Cinderella, it’s only the wicked stepsisters who refuse to see the innate worth in Cinderella – everyone else accepts happily that obviously she was SUPPOSED to marry the handsome Prince all along. Marie Antoinette stood fast to her belief that she deserved the things that would make her happy, no matter how unfashionable (or unfortunately unaffordable) those things were.

I’ve noticed that a lot of women have trouble convincing themselves they deserve the things that they want, or the things that make them happy. Someone else deserves it more, I don’t have time, the kids need this other thing more, it’s alright, I don’t really need it, it’s only for me, it’s a waste of time....the excuses go on. I find myself doing it a lot, especially at work. My boss will ask why I’m not going to lunch, and I’ll explain that someone else in the company needs something done right now, so obviously I can’t go to lunch. At home I catch myself doing it when my boy asks what movie we want to watch, what we want for dinner. If I’m a little down, I will almost unconsciously default to the position of “Whatever you want,” like it’s an enormous favour to ask of him to watch something or eat something I want. If I had children, I imagine I would be even worse. 

One of the fascinating things I’ve noticed from trawling around the nail community is how many of the bloggers I come across are mothers. Their lives are so centered around the needs of other people, that often their nail blog and the whole nail “thing” is the only excuse they have to do something just for them – and I think this should absolutely be encouraged. As Virginia Woolf observed so long ago, everyone needs a room of one's own. Everyone needs something  that they do simply to make themselves happy, and that can be hard to find when you’re in a situation at home or work where so many other people have things they need from you, and so much of your life is effected by the decisions of others. But the thing is, whatever it is that makes you happy? You deserve it. Even without a crown, or a handsome Prince, or a castle, you can be a princess. The divine right of Kings and royalty in general has long ago been thrown out the window. We all know that the people who become princesses are the people who want to be them. But I don’t think you have to marry a prince to be a princess . If you’re smart, and resourceful, and kind, and concerned with those around you, then you are a princess. You can be a part of a long tradition of resourceful, awesome women who changed the world around them.  You deserve a happy ending. You might have to work for it, certainly. There are actually surprisingly few traditional stories in which the happy ending just happens to the princess. There are a lot more where she has to travel, or sacrifice, or come up with a plan to make her happy ending come true. But a princess deserves a happy ending, and so do you. 

And this is where it comes back to femme fashion for me. Indulging in pretty dresses and pretty nails makes me feel beautiful, and reminds me to celebrate the kind of power that I DO have. Instead of lamenting my lack of total control over my professional life, I celebrate the fact I can make things happen without anyone knowing it was me, like the Clever Peasant Girl. I rejoice in the kind of dogged strength I have, where I won’t give up until things are how I want them to be, like the Pigeon Bride. I celebrate the confidence that allows me to make sure I have the things that make me happy, like Marie Antoinette.  The things in question don’t have to be expensive – it’s the frivolity, the impracticality of frilly dresses and holographic nail polish that remind me that I am a princess, and that there is something in me that is unique, and powerful, and deserves to be celebrated.

Take this polish for example – it was a gift from my sister for Christmas, and it absolutely makes me feel like a princess when I wear it. Not because it’s the prettiest polish I own – but because it’s ACTUAL BLOODY GOLD. How ridiculous is that? How gloriously ridiculous! It’s so amazingly over the top and frivolous and totally Marie Antoinette that I fucking LOVE it.

Wearing things like these reminds me that I am a princess, and that being a princess is something that can’t be taken from me. I can’t reach the light fittings to change the bulbs, or beat off a horde, but I can make my kingdom/office run so smoothly that it looks like magic, and that's something worth being proud of. I can’t decide when I am going to get to work every day, but when my boy asks what I want to watch, I can tell him I want to watch the Little Mermaid, AGAIN, and he can deal with that. I can’t help everyone, but if someone in my kingdom is having a bad day, I can reach out to them to try and help even if it’s only to cheer them up. Dressing like a princess reminds me that I am strong, and clever, and allowed to treat myself like a princess once in a while.  It helps me hold my head high, and believe that even though my power isn’t as sexy and bold as it could be, it’s still mine, and I can still reshape the world with it.

Life's A Beach - On My Hands

Aussie Nails Christmas Challenge 17/12 - Beach

Now this theme WAS a challenge. I hate the beach. Like, seriously, hate it. All summer my friends try and drag my pale, pasty self to the beach with them, only to be met with wailing and knashing of teeth from me about how I'll burn, it's too sandy, there are too many people, there are THINGS in the water and please PLEAASE don't make me goooo!! I wasn't really sure how to paint despair in a manicure, so I decided to try and emulate the one thing I like about the beach - the ocean.

 

 I think this turned out MUCH better than my first attempt. Turns out if you're going to do a design, it's best to go all out, because subtlety just gets lost on a canvas so small and shiny. However, I am still absolutely rubbish at keeping my left hand steady, so I went with a much simpler design on my right hand.

 

And of course, if I'm going to do something summer themed it HAS to feature a Slushie. As soon as it gets hot I start living on these things.

For the left hand I used Revlon Top Speed in Ocean for the base, then drew the "waves" on with Rimmel I "Heart" Lasting Finish in Azure, and Chi Chi Salon Formula in Show Me The Money. I put a dab of OPI in Austin-tatious on the ends of the left nails to try and add some oceanic sparkle, but as before, the results were pretty disappointing. Even putting a whole layer over the right nails didn't really do anything but dull the colour differences. I am SO glad I didn't pay full price for that thing- it is literally good for nothing.

Overall though, I'm really proud of this result. Be sure to check out what the other lovely ladies have made of this theme!

Darling Diva Review - Holographics Are a Girl's Best Friend

Have you ever looked at a nail polish and thought, "It's nice, but I really wish it was more holographic. More glittery. More...fabulous." I know I have, and these polishes from Darling Diva have answered a need I only just recently realised I had. 

I have a real thing with my makeup that it has to be noticeable - if I'm going to spend time spreading this gunk on me, I want people to NOTICE dammit. But at the same time, I have also always been deeply uncomfortable with the idea of drawing attention to myself - one of the reasons my personal style has always been relatively conservative. The most outrageous my wardrobe ever became was deep in the middle of my goth phase, where I somehow found the courage to go out in outfits like this;

Excuse the share house background

I fucking LOVED that coat. It swept the ground when I walked, and I had dip dyed the hem on it deep purple. I'd wear it with my PVC top that I'd brought home from Paris, and PVC pants, and just go NUTS with the eye liner, as you can see. It made me feel Fabulous.

But somewhere along the line the self consciousness overwhelmed my sense of fun, and I decided I couldn't wear things that drew attention to me if I wanted to be taken seriously. As a short, fat, geeky girl who suffered from bouts of depression, I figured being "wacky" with my wardrobe was just another obstacle I didn't need. 

It has taken me until...oh, about last week, to realise this is nonsense. Sure, I couldn't have worn my full length white satin coat to work. But my self conciousness had gotten to the point where I was uncomfortable wearing COLOURS for goodness sake - I have two perfectly lovely red dresses sitting in my closet that I haven't worn once in the two months I've owned them because I keep getting stressed by the idea it might be "too much." So I decided it was time to do something about this, and stop letting my concerns about what other people thought ruin ALL my fun.

Holographic nail polish has turned out to be a wonderful stepping stone for a tentative diva like myself, and Darling Diva came up as a recommendation on just about every review of holographic polishes I came across. It's also an "indie" brand, which means it's one woman show. Given the enormous variety and amount of glitter in her products, I like to imagine her living in some sort of fairy castle, where she just has to dust in order to get the sparkles for her polishes. I have a real soft spot for supporting people who start their own businesses. so I threw down my money, and one day a little package of pure sparkle showed up at my desk. 

Shiny, cap'n!

Because I have a tendency to get all over excited, I ended up getting three different polishes when I probably really could have been perfectly happy with just one. While these three look very different in the bottle, on the nail the differences are pretty slight.

Space Beetle has some copper glitter which is quite unusual, but while the listing claims it's a duochrome (meaning it changes colour in different lights) I haven't really been able to make that come up. In a certain light the copper glitter does seem to turn bright gold though, which is a nice surprise.

Bitch Panties doesn't seem to have much base colour at all, which is actually quite neat because it means you can put it over anything. And honestly, the amount of glitter in this, I don't really see how you could actually put in any colour pigment without making it into some sort of Tardis polish. Dangerous Driver has a relatively strong purple base, but not so pigmented that you could really wear it without something solid underneath. Like Space Beetle, it's listed as a duochrome, but like Space Beetle, I couldn't really get that aspect to show up. To be honest though, I wasn't really that disappointed - the duochrome isn't why I bought them. I was there for the SHINY, and shiny they bring in ABUNDANCE.

To show you how versatile these polishes are, I whipped up what is called in nail circles as a "Skittles" manicure, for fairly obvious reasons. 

Taste the rainbow! Actually, don't, it tastes pretty dreadful. 

For the sake of completeness, the polishes I used were; Revlon Top Speed in Ocean, Revlon Top Speed in Violet, OPI in I'm Not Really A Waitress (which I reviewed here), OPI in Every Month is Oktoberfest, and Sally Hansen Insta Dry in Uptempo Plum. 

While we're at it, where is my damn jetpack?

Then, I had to wait for it to dry. I make a point of almost always getting the fastest dry stuff there is and still find myself sitting there flapping my hands and whining impatiently like a toddler needing to pee. Remember Total Recall, when the girl had that wand she just tapped on her nails and they were changed? Why don't we have that yet? This is supposed to be the future!

ANYWAY, after approximately a million years, they were dry enough to put the shiny stuff over the top. I used Dangerous Driver on the index and ring finger, Bitch Panties on the middle and thumb, and Space Beetle on the little finger.  

And lo, it was FABULOUS.

The one negative thing I have to say about this polish is pretty neatly illustrated by these pictures - I really do feel like you only need to pick one. While Space Beetle is a teeny bit different because of the copper sheen, the difference between Dangerous Driver and Bitch Panties on the nail is pretty negligible. But hey, now I have LOTS of it, so it will be ages until I need to restock. 

Call me cowardly, but I also like that the sparkle tones down the brightness of the colours. These pictures were all taken to show off the rainbow holographic effect, but in less flashy light it basically ends up looking like a paler version of the base colour, because the sparkle is so densely packed. It's a great way for someone like me to get used to wearing something flashy and attention getting. I would feel comfortable wearing any of these colour combinations to work - so long as I wore it with a black dress. I know, I know. But baby steps, okay?

What's your favourite subtle diva touch that makes you feel fabulous?

OPI, Revlon, Rimmel Review - The Dissapointing Date Manicure

After the last post, I felt like it was time for something a little more lighthearted. And so, I bring you my own creation, the Disappointing Date Manicure!

Da-DAH!

This manicure is made up of three different polishes - Revlon Top Speed Nail Enamel in Ocean, OPI Austin-tatious Turquoise, and Rimmel I Love Lasting Finish in Azure.

So why is this called the Disappointing Date Manicure? The thing about these polishes, is that only one of them really comes out on the nail the way the bottle promises. The others are....well, I'll show you pictures.

This is the Revlon Top Speed. You'll have to forgive the slight blurriness of the photos - I'm still getting the hand of taking pictures of my hands. Revlon was the first company to sell modern nail polish, and they have the whole thing down pat at this point. They're not amazing, but they're good, reliable (as in every colour, of every range, goes on exactly the same), and you can get them anywhere for a reasonable amount of money. Plus, what you get when you use it is actually what you expect from how the bottle looks - a rarity with nail polish, as I am sadly learning.

This is the Rimmel I "heart" Long Lasting blah blah good LORD is that a bad name for a product. I specifically bought this one to go with the Revlon, because I wanted to be able to make it a bit bluer without covering the shiny. From my terrible experiences with Rimmel eyeshadows (that had so little pigment in them I had to virtually grind them into my eyesockets to get any colour to show up) I figured this would probably be pretty short on actual colour pigment, but that would work just fine for my purposes. It's actually a little more colourful than I expected, but you can still see through it at two coats. It's also CRAZY runny, so you have to put it on really carefully if you want the colour to come out in any way even, and not like you've taken a marker to your nails.
BUT it's stupid cheap, and available at virtually any chemist. So there's that.

This one was the real let-down of the trio - I picked up this bad boy because it looked SO damn pretty on the shelf, but once it got on my nail...bleh. It's totally see through, it's not nearly as shiny as I thought it would be, and there is none of the tantalising blue-purple sheen you see in the bottle. In summary, it brought very little to the table.

Let me describe for you how I came up with the idea for this layering by telling you a story.

Let's imagine, that the Revlon polish a girl. A girl who's not too flashy, but gets things done, and what you see is what you get. (Plus, it's cheap and easy to get - har har). Feel free to go ahead and imagine me dancing the bottles around like a kid with action figures, because that is totally what I am doing in my head.
Let's imagine Revlon goes out to a bar one night, and across the crowd she sees OPI. She wanders over and starts talking to him, because DAMN he is pretty. He's dressed nicely, and his friends are eager to tell her what a great guy he is. Revlon isn't really sure there's anything inside that shiny exterior, but he's so pretty, and he's right there, and the cab would be like, ten bucks, so she takes him home.
Once she gets him home though, she opens his lid and looks down and...has to shut her mouth very, very quickly lest she let the thought, "But you're so tall!" slip out and ruin everything. It's not...bad. It's just not exactly what she was expecting. I mean, it'll do. But she was hoping for...more.

So what does Revlon do? Does she kick OPI out? But she's already spent all this time talking to him, not to mention the ten bucks on the cab. Revlon is clever - Revlon knows how to make the best of this situation.
"I have a friend, Rimmel" she says. "A cab here would only cost maybe five bucks, and he's always available. I think he would really help make this a night to remember. Do you mind if I call him over to join us?"
"Of course!" says OPI, because he's an adventurous, open minded guy.
You see, there are some nail polishes that you wouldn't want to put with others - it would just ruin the whole experience. Some are totally satisfying all on their own. But sometimes you can get one good polish, and two polishes that are only okay together, and suddenly BAM!!

Awwwwww yeah. That's the stuff. There's variety, there's depth, there's sparks, and if you take it outside it's even better.

Just remember, when playing with new nail polishes always use protection - a good base coat will make sure you can have your fun without any nasty surprises hanging around once you're done.