Finally! A good duo-chrome!

Let me introduce you to Orly's "Space Cadet":

...I know, right!?

Space Cadet is a peacock (purple w/ green flash) duo-chrome micro-glitter in a transparant terquoise base. So not only is this the duo-chrome to end all duo-chomes, it is also a metallic foil! I know! Check it out!

Maybe it's the run of disappointing duo-chromes I've tried lately, OPI's "Not Like the Movies", Wet n' Wild's dupe "Gray's Anatomy", and Zoya's "Ki" all want to be "Space Cadet" when they grow up. Pun intended!

Here's the best part; not only is the flash evident even in soft white light and office florecents, but the whole nail flashes at the right angle! More importantly, you can see all colors in this polish's spectrum just by looking at the nail, without movement. This might be less noticable on people with a flatter nail-bed than mine, but most of the time the sides appear mossy-green, the dead center of the nail is a deep purple, and everything in-between is a pinkish-copper. On top of that is a light sparkle from the micro-glitter.

This is also the first duo-chrome I've seen that is able to portray really vibrant hues instead of muted pastels. Just look at this purple!

Unfortunatly it does have it's drawbacks. The turquoise jelly Orly uses for the suspension base dyed my nails through 2 coats of Nailtien base coat, which was even more annoying since I had just sanded off the stains left from Wet n' Wild's "Teal of Fortune". It was also a huge pain in the ass to get off, and wound up using the soaking method (with pure acetone) to remove it, and still had copper microglitter in every microscopic imperfection of my hands.

Ratings:

Application: 8 out of 10. Kinda blotchy during application, but a coat of Sally Hansen's "Megashine" evened it out.
Color: 10 out of 10. Everything a peacock duo-chrome should be.
Clean-up: 5 out of 10. Pure hell.
Appearance: 10 out of 10. The end product is just beautiful.

I would say that the result is well worth the few drawbacks. Congrats to Orly on making one of my new favs!

Frrrrrench Manicure

Let me begin today's blog by saying that I am not a french manicure type person. I cringe whenever I see the standard issue acrylics with stark white tips, and automatically think "Soccer Mom".

I can, however, appreciate how nice a french manicure can look when it's not on 2" plastic nail beds. I'm in a play this weekend, in which I am required to appear somewhat "innocent" for the better part of the show. I toyed with the idea of frosty pinks and lavenders, but nothing says "school girl" better than a french manicure with OMGGLITTER!

While I wanted to give the scotch tape method a try, I simply don't have the time to let the base color dry completely. So I free-handed the tip to varying degrees of success.

I began with a base of Nailtiens (because Thursday's application of Sinful's "Hottie" kicked my ass!), folowed by two coats of Sinful's sheer pink shimmer "Social Ladder", and the tip was two coats of Sinful's "Snow Me White".

I had some problems with "Social ladder streaking over the Nailtien, which I think can be blamed on the Nailtein and not the color, as it's usually very smooth when used without a base coat. This is also the first time I've tried any amount of detailed work with one of Sinful's brushes, and I was less than enthused. It seemed to have a way of grabbing clumps and strings that clung to the brush, no matter how often I scraped it against the lip of the bottle.

After about 10 minutes of dry-time, I applied 2 coats of Wet n' Wild's "Kaledoscope", which is a holo silver glitter in a clear base.

I had some serious problems with glitter clumpage.

It was nearly impossible to get an even coating of the glitter, and I couldn't play with it too much for fear of the white streaking. Some of my nails came out quite streaky:

Overall I give this manicure a 7 out of 10. While I was really pleased with the french tips themselves, and pleasantly surprised at my ability to free-hand, the holo glitter pissed me off enough to be bitter about the time spent on this look. Next time I'll choose a better brand, or skip the glitter entirely.