Franken Time! Amalthea (As seen in Laura's contest)

Hello ladies! (And gents if there be any <.<) I've been mia but I have a good reason I swear! My husband and I were taking Scuba diving lessons and we are now Open Water certified, which is super fun and exciting! We live in one of the best diving spots in the world so I'm really happy we are getting out there to take advantage of it :) Unfortunately, spending a lot of time in the salt water like that is hell on my nails. I did a super cute mani last weekend but didn't have time to photograph it that day, then we went diving the next day and it was shot. Tip wear and chips all over the place, very sad really.

Aaaanyways, enough about that! I've entered in another franken contest (I do love those!) and now it's voting time. Am I trolling for your votes? Why yes I am! However, there's some super awesome frankens in there so I'd understand if you voted for someone else (I did :P). The contest is being hosted by Laura over at Laura's Lacquers, and she made it a theme contest called As Seen In Theaters. You can check it all out here. I loooooved the theme for this one and I really enjoyed making my franken. I will admit though, I had another movie in mind partially that I'd considered making one for but I couldn't decide what color to make for ROUS's hehe.

And now onto the franken! This little beauty is called Amalthea. I was a huge The Last Unicorn lover in my childhood and as I said in my blurb on her post, this movie popped into my head complete with a franken idea so I had to go with it. I'm really glad I did as I love how this turned out! So, without further ado, here she is!

I hope you like Amalthea! I could do a whole set for The Last Unicorn now, I mean the Red Bull is pretty obvious but I also have an idea for Schmendrick which I'd have to name Magic, Magic, Do As You Will. I have to work on these :)

Again, go check out Laura's post and vote for your favorite here and seriously consider following her if you don't, she's got a great blog!

Thanks for stopping by,

Meeka :)



My Private Jet

So, I told you guys that I had a good one for my 51st post and now I get to show you :) I'm sure everyone knows all about OPI and My Private Jet, I own two versions of it myself. Happily, I love both my versions even though my slightly scattered holo brown one usually gets looked down on online.

The one I have to show you today is the real deal holo version. I had actually bought my other one first at a Chatters salon in my old hometown, wore it and loved it. Maybe one to two weeks later I stopped in that same Chatters on my way home from work and was browsing. I think I had just read all about the different versions of MPJ and so took another look at what they had. Sitting right in the front of the row was one lonely rainbow bottle, so of course I snapped it up. I sifted through the rest of their bottles but all of them were the same as the first one I had bought. I have no idea how this one ended up in there but I'm quite happy for it!

Anyways, this version of MPJ is a brown based charcoal color with strong linear holo. I used two coats when I wore it as I like it brown moreso than black. I didn't use any base either for the same reason. It actually covered very well in two coats and wore like iron. I love when a beautiful polish does that :) I did put a third coat on after a few days as a touchup to take some pictures. Most of what I'm posting is only two coats but I do have a couple pictures of it at three for comparison.

Enough talking, on with the polish, right? :P

I don't know if that's the bottle or my camera fogging up but this is the only picture I managed to get where the rainbow showed up.

Two coats, this is the brown base I'm talking about. I'm sure many people won't like it but I love it!

Still two coats, still brown :)

Three coats here. Now it looks black. And it's still gorgeous.

Two again.

And three again. It's almost hard to tell the difference between these last two pictures.

So tell me, do any of you have MPJ? If so which version do you have and do you like it? I think they're all quite interesting and beautiful in their own ways. If OPI hadn't messed up and named them all the same thing I think they'd all have their own followings. But of course now it seems most people covet the holo because it's very hard to find. I got quite lucky with mine. If I had to pick a favorite between the two though... I don't think I could :P

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :)



Dark & Stormy

Hello! This is my 50th post and I feel a bit like I should have worn something a bit more special for it but I didn't actually realize it until just now lol. That's ok, I have a really good one for my next post :) I also feel like I should have done this one a couple weeks ago when the typhoon hit, the name would have been really apt for that haha!

Dark & Stormy is an Icing polish I picked up sometime last year, this is my first time wearing it though. I do love blue polishes but for some reason I don't think they look right on me. They give me corpse hands so I rarely wear them. This is a gorgeous deep blue/green (green/blue?) that makes me think of the ocean. It almost has duochrome tendencies though I wouldn't actually call it one. Application was great, I used three coats as is usual for me.

I think part of the reason I hadn't worn this till now was because I found China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic shortly after I bought this and they are quite similar. They aren't dead on dupes though, at least in the bottle (I haven't done a comparison swatch). Dark & Stormy has a much heavier green flash than Rodeo Fanatic though I think it would be a decent substitute if you can't find the China Glaze.

I may actually come back to this and post a comparison of Dark & Stormy vs Rodeo Fanatic, partially to satisfy my own curiousity. If I do I'll probably do a new post and put a link in here.

Also, I've actually compressed my photos this time which I don't normally do, though I have posted them large. My blog loads quite slowly and while I'm mostly clueless on things like this I assume it's due to picture size. I'm undecided if I should go back through previous posts and compress them or not. I'll have to think about it.

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :)



Ki

Hello! So the past week has been something of a wash for nails. We had Typhoon Muifa drop by and it decided to stick around for 3 or 4 days. We aren't even supposed to leave our houses when there's a typhoon here according to the military, I guess they don't want any of their employees to decide to play in the storm and get hurt. Either way, with 90mph winds and driving rain for 3 days straight you don't much want to go outside anyways. Thankfully we only lost power for about 8 hours, I can deal with that.

On to the polish! Zoya Ki is one that was on my wish list for a long time before I finally bought it. I have Nubar Peacock Feathers which is gorgeous but quite dark so it can be hard to see the duochrome effect of it. I had heard Ki was similar but lighter so I had to have it. I picked it up in the Earth Day promo and only just now wore it.

Ki is a gorgeous purple and green duochrome that looks like an oil slick on the nails. I am not disappointed with this polish at all. I'm wearing 3 coats in these pictures, you can almost get away with 2 if you don't require complete opaqueness. I doubt anyone but you would notice :) The bubbling you see in these pics is my fault not the polish.



Franken Time! An Unnamed Holo

Hello! It's been a while since I've posted a franken, I haven't had any balls for a while so I haven't been able to make any. My husband very sweetly ordered some for me last week so I should have some soon, yay! I made this one a while back, the same time as I made my Rainforest Mist franken but I haven't actually worn it till now.

This franken is a dusty purple (gravender if you will :P), the holo isn't overly strong in it but it's definitely there. I don't remember at all what I used for this sadly. In low light it looks like a purpleish grey, in brighter light it looks definitely purple. One thing I like about holos is that almost grainy look they have, they may not be in your face sparkle but they always have some visual interest that a plain creme doesn't to me.

I took two sets of pictures again, one with the good camera and one with the regular camera. All of these should be regular on the left, SLR on the right. Also, you should be able to enlarge them all if you want to take a closer look :)

If anyone has suggestions for names I'd love to hear them! The things that come to mind for me are dusk or twilight, that greying purple sky when the sun is setting. Right now it's making me think of this:

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :)

Random China Glaze Swatches

So, I'm a fail blogger. It's been nine days since my last post and I didn't even get pics of my last mani. Since I haven't changed it yet (that's tomorrows project) and it's not remotely in photographic shape I figured I'd throw a few quick swatches at you instead.

I haven't posted many China Glaze polishes as I've been working my way through my untrieds. They are one of my favorite brands and I do miss having easy access to them. They never shy away from crazy or weird colors and the formula is generally great and they're affordable. As an ode to China Glaze here are a few from my stash.

The classic raspberry Heli-Yum from the spring 2010 Up & Away collection. I don't often do pink but this one I love. It's not truely pink, I can't decide if it's a red toned pink or a pink toned red lol. Either way, it's a 1-2 coater and super hot.

Unplugged, from the spring 2008 Ecollection. Such an insanely rich brown, I love how much this one glows :)

 Tempest. I think this is just part of the core collection. It's a very pretty blue with heavy purple flash. I think purple with blue flash is much more common but this is quite nice if a little sheer. Oh well, it still covers well enough with three coats :)

This is VII from the 2007 X collection, celebrating China Glaze's 10 year anniversary. This is an awesome eggplant purple. I don't wear it often but it is gorgeous. China Glaze does spectacular cremes, so smooth and buttery!

I hope you guys enjoyed my mini swatch fest, hopefully I'll have a real manicure to show you in the next day or two.

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :) 

Parijenne 467

Hello! Today I have for you a french polish I picked up in a 100Y store here. It's the only polish I've ever seen from this brand and in fact was the only bottle in the store where I found it. It seemed really strange to be the only bottle there but it was such an interesting color I couldn't pass it up :)

Parijenne 467 is a medium-dark blue toned grey packed with teal shimmer. The shimmer in this polish absolutely glows and there is a ton of it in there! What I'm showing you here is three coats plus top coat. It is thin but easy to apply and I could have gotten away with two coats easily, but as I said before I'm a habitual three coater lol. I think you may have to enlarge these to really see the shimmer, I assure you it's worth it, this is a gorgeous polish!

The downside to this one is that it's obviously not B3F, this is one smeeeeeeeelly polish lol. Otherwise, I'm in love, this is now one of my favorite greys!

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :)



Sweets NL41

Hello! Not quite a week this time lol. I've been slacking a bit lately on doing my nails (and posting my pics too it seems :P). Right now they're naked *gasp* as I can't decide what I want to put on next, I'll have to decide in the morning, I'm too tired now lol. Also, I'm super happy, my husband is home :D He was gone nearly 3 weeks so I'm very happy to have him back safe and sound!

Before I went nekkid last night I was sporting Sweets NL41. This polish is an exact dupe for Zoya Apple near as I can tell. I don't own it but they sent the color chips with my earth day order and it's spot on to that. Sweets had put out three polishes that were dupes for the Zoya Sunshine collection, I already showed you the Rica dupe and I have a Tanzy look-alike to post too at some point.

NL41 is a gorgeous apple green glass flecked polish packed with gold shimmer. It goes on really smoothly and I think this is three coats. I'm a habitual three coater so I assume it is haha. If I recall correctly it needed three to really become opaque. This also wore really well. Besides a little tip wear after 2-3 days it didn't chip until about day 5. Considering I usually change polish after 2-3 days regardless, I'm very ok with that lol.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :)

Electrick

Hello! I feel a little fail for not posting for a week lol. I'd like to give some good excuse like life got in the way or whatever but the reality is, I was being lazy :P Well, also the polish I have for you... I did not feel enthusiastic about posting at all. I hated it when I put it on, I didn't even want to take pictures of it which I had to wait till the next day to do, then I didn't feel like going through the pictures or writing a post about it. This is possibly the first polish that I have definitively said DO NOT WANT. Oddly enough it stayed on for almost 3 days. Please tell me I'm not the only crazy one who that happens to? I disliked it so much I didn't even want to deal with taking it off. Yeah, it makes no sense to me either lol!

So, the concept of the Del Sol polishes is cool. I picked up two of them on a cruise in December, however I bought them on the ship and they only had a few colors, otherwise I don't think I would have even bought this in the first place. Electrick is a sheer, frosty, brushstrokey mess. The blue base color is so unflattering on me and the seafoam green it turns to in sunlight is not much better. At least it wasn't difficult to apply, if you can ignore the brush strokes and the four coats it took to almost reach opacity. Which is probably the nicest thing I'll say about this lol. Anyways, I put the pictures side by side so you can see the shade color and the sun color together.

Does anyone else have any Del Sols that they like? Have any of you tried this one and liked it? I'm leary to try the other one I've got now though I'm sure I'll eventually suck it up and give it a go hahah :P

Thanks for looking!

Meeka :)



FuchsiaRama

Happy 4th of July everyone :) I'm not yet an American although my husband is so I should be celebrating it but as I mentioned he is not here this week so I am not lol. It's actually been a nice relaxing day, it's so incredibly gorgeous outside, I took my book out on the deck and read for a while this afternoon. I definitely need to hit up a beach this week!

On my nails right now is Wet n Wild's FuchsiaRama (I always want to spell it fuschia, I'm pretty good with spelling and I actually had to look it up to convince myself that I was wrong and not them lol). I saw this at the BX the other day and it just called to me. I have never been much of one for pinks but something about how insanely bright and obnoxious this is made me buy it. I think because I like unusual colors the only type of pink I really like has to be unusual, or at least not the nice normal sedate girly pink. I had to try to explain to a guy that I didn't want to buy something in pink because I don't like pink while I was wearing this, I'm not sure he believed me haha!

FuchsiaRama is a very loud pink neon jelly that dries to a matte satin finish. It reminds me of a cross between the OPI Texas sorbets and the Orly Plastix collection, like if Too Hot Pink To Hold 'Em and Retro Red got together :P. I used 3 easy to apply coats although it still seems slightly patchy when you look close. Maybe patchy isn't the right word, it's darker in some spots than others. I still love it. I also chopped my nails down to nubbins just for this polish lol. For some reason I feel like something this bright goes better with short nails on me.

My right hand making an appearance, I like this butterfly better. I did the left hand first and the blue butterfly went on too far off to the side but it stuck on there good so I couldn't take it off, hence the little yellow one in the bottom corner. Ironically I managed to get the one on my right hand centered better. I picked these decals up, along with a couple others, at the 100 yen store behind my house a few weeks back and decided a pink like this deserved some girly butterflies lol.

Thanks for taking a look!!

Meeka :)

Enchanting

Hello again! I hope everyone is doing well :) I'm feeling a little lonely as my husband is away for a little over a week. I actually like my alone time very much but I miss him too. I think partly I'm also feeling sorry for myself as he's not back till end of next week. That means that not only am I missing out on Canada Day celebrations (since no one else here cares about that lol) but I'm going to be alone for July 4th which all the Americans here will celebrate. Oh, and he's going to be in Las Vegas celebrating with his brother, yeesh lol. Oh well, I will survive :) I'll have to go explore and find some way to entertain myself :P

Anyways, enough complaining! This is the layered polish I promised you the other day. This is LA Girl Essentials in Enchanting. I think this is a very comparable color to Orly Fantasea though I don't have that so I can't say for sure. This is one extremely sheer polish however. I'd originally tried this on its own but after 4 coats and a still very apparent visible nail line I gave up and decided to layer. I initially tried it over black but rejected that idea as the polish completely changed to bronze. Even after trying it over a few other colors I found the same thing, it lost all the purple and just showed bronze. I tried it over a few purples (I really liked it over Buffy the Violet Slayer though that wasn't at all true to this polish color, I'll do that another time) and finally settled on the one I showed you in my last post.

  In the bottle you see the purple and a very strong bronzey-gold flash, which I'm not sure my bottle shot really captured sadly. I had thought this may be a duochrome when I bought it but on the nail this is not duochromey at all. Ironically, in my photos the purple is the stronger color whereas in real life it looks much more bronze. I don't know if I love this polish or not but it is very interesting.

When I look at this polish, especially in the sun, it makes me think of this:

Photo borrowed from here. If it is yours and I should take it down, just let me know.

And I think I like it for that :P

Thanks for stopping by!

Meeka :)