BB Couture Midnight Malibu and new toys!

I had a really hard time getting this color to show properly! Midnight Malibu is a dark bluish purple jelly, with irridescent green glitter. It applied well, though it has drying time issues like the other BB Couture glitters - just give it extra care and you will be fine! It's slightly bumpy, but nothing that an extra coat of (non quick dry) topcoat can't fix. Since quickdry tops sink through the layers of polish to dry them, I find that a coat of regular top before the quickdry helps to keep glitters smooth.

And look what I got today!


Yes, I swore I would not be sucked into konad, but here I am! I got a few full nail designs, some small ones (including the cute Halloween one!) and one fancy french tip plate. I'm sure there is going to be a learning curve, but I can't wait to try it out (maybe tomorrow!) I got excellent service from wowsocool.com - one of my plates is out of stock, so they sent me a free plate to make up for the delay!

China Glaze Fly

I was not exactly overwhelmed by China Glaze's summer collection this year. Lots of toned down neons that are all similar to each other? No thanks. I got this color and Custom Kicks (I do love Custom Kicks, I'll show that sometime!) Both colors I got from this collection were thick and hard to apply. I thinned them, and that helped, but they were still tricky. Fly is a magenta with pink shimmer, making it hard to photograph. It goes more pink in photos, but in real life it is rather more purple. Fly is prettier on the nail than in the bottle - the shimmer comes out a bit, where in the bottle it just looks dull. I did have trouble applying it - China Glaze's brush just doesn't fit my nails - it's too thin, and I have giant nails. It remains to be seen whether it's going to dry or not - sometimes (often) I will get smudges hours or days later with this brand. I love the colors, so I keep buying them, but I am just not thrilled with the formula. Ah well!

I'm trying to get through my summer colors before Autumn arrives - I am ready for fall, but I don't want to leave anything untried! I prefer fall and winter colors. I am over brights at the moment, so I'm less than thrilled with all the brights in the fall collections.

Sinful Colors - Let's talk

2 coats, direct sun

After yesterday's post about Sinfuls, I decided to try one as a full manicure today. Let's talk is a fabulous blurple. Unlike many, it is clearly purple. It verges on metallic indoors, but outside you can see the shimmer. I added 2 drops of thinner to this polish, as it was thicker than I would have liked. I often add thinner, because I prefer a thinner consistency. I don't think this was really overly thick to start with.

Zoya Ki and giveaway order

My Zoya giveaway order arrived today! I ordered one polish in addition to the 3 free ones. I was able to get my 2 biggest Zoya lemmings - Hope and Kalista. Both are gorgeous! Hope is totally unique to my collection, and Kalista is the warm brown shimmer I've been wanting for fall. Everyone is doing brown cremes, but I only like those if they are taupe-y. I threw in Ki because I was curious about it, and Evangeline because it looks pretty in photos.

I went with Ki today - I was curious to see the duo chrome on my nails.


Generally speaking, I don't like duo chromes. The 2nd color is usually a sickly greenish gold that gives me corpse hands. This is, for instance, why wildfire is the only color in the Nubar green collection that I didn't buy - it's like an entire bottle of that unflattering color! I can't say I think Ki is the most flattering color ever, but it is better than most duos. In indoor light the purple is prevalent, but outdoors it looks green. My bottle was a tad bit thick, and I did experience major shrinkage from my topcoat (not obvious in this photo.)

I just love zoya - their selection is enormous, and every new collection brings interesting new shades and effects. They also do great promotions like this one and the polish exchange. I know their strategy worked for me - before the exchange I would never have tried them, but I'm a customer for life now! I do wish the brushes were better (wider) but they're still better than Essie.

Wet n Wild Wild Orchid

2 coats over black

I don't usually like to layer - if a polish requires layering, I dismiss it as too sheer and move on. But this beautiful holographic purple was too awesome to miss! It was b1g1f too, so it cost me about 45 cents. I layered over 1 coat of Milani Black magic (my favorite black because it is opaque in one coat.) It's actually very holographic for a sheer, but I had a hard time capturing the sparkles. I got a bunch of the new Craze polishes at the same time, so I will have swatches of those later this week.