Christian Louboutin Scarabee Collection

The Scarabée collection from Christian Louboutin contains three nail lacquers in duochrome shades.  From 2015, the lacquers - Scarabée I, Scarabée II, and Scarabée III - were designed to be reminiscent of the relics of ancient Egypt, featuring jewel-toned colors and gold-toned lids in heavy-weight glass bottles.

First in the collection is the gold-to-red multichrome.  In most lightings this polish is a duochrome featuring a burnished red-copper color with a strong orange shift.

no base coat, 3 coats Scarabée I, no top coat

In low lighting, this polish really shines.  The strongest multichrome shift out of the three lacquers in this collection, in the shade of midday, the yellow-gold, orange, and red of this polish are all clearly visible.  In the photo below, the only changes that were made to color were to color-correct the white background.  That is the actual multichrome color shift you can see in real life!

no base coat, 3 coats Scarabée I, no top coat

While Scarabée III is a multichrome in the bottle, it is very hard to capture the gold-to-blue shift.  Instead, the main gold color is what is seen in most lightings, with a hint of green around the edges.  (The blue is almost visible if you hold your nails at unnatural angles.)  Still a very beautiful polish featuring a true gold color.

no base coat, 3 coats Scarabée III, no top coat

The second polish in the collection, Scarabée II, features the weakest color shift of the three lacquers.  This is a teal-blue polish that shifts to darker blue around the edges.  The purple shift that is visible in the bottle is never quite visible on the nails in any lighting or at any angle.  What is nice about this teal-blue color is the bright blue-green shade that sparkles in the sunlight when under direct lighting.  The darker color seems to make the blue-green glow from within.

no base coat, 2 coats Scarabée II, no top coat

There is something about the bottle design that not only makes these lovely lacquers to have in any collection, but the longer handle makes wielding the brush easier, thus making nail polish application easier.  The quality of these polishes is good and tends to be consistent throughout the whole collection.  Scarabée II only needed 2 coats to be opaque, while Scarabée I and III needed 3 coats, but none of the polishes need a dark base color for any of the duochrome/multichrome color shift to be visible.

Unfortunately, these colors are no longer available through regular retailers like Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Christian Louboutin stores.  You can still find them on eBay and other online resale avenues, so check there if you're interested!

Awesome Mix Vol. 1 (Or, Guardians Of The Galaxy Nail Art)

Have you seen Guardians of the Galaxy yet?  If you haven't, you should go now.  Today.

In fact, if you still have your safe-for-work beige polish on, skip to Step 2 (and then while you're waiting for Step 3 to dry, you can buy your tickets online), and you'll have some awesome nail art to go along with the awesome soundtrack that you'll soon be hearing!

Here's a list of the Things You'll Need for this nail art:

1. ScotchBlue Painter's Tape
2. Beige Nail Polish (that matches the look of aged parchment) - Used here is You're So Vain-illa by OPI
3. Red Nail Polish (or an orangish-red to be more precise) - Race Red by OPI from the new Ford Mustang Collection matches perfectly for this occasion
4. Sharpie fine point Permanent Marker in Navy
5. Guardians of the Galaxy: Awesome Mix Vol. 1 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (but an image of said soundtrack will suffice if you have not yet purchased this great collection of music)
6. Groot - You will need to buy a Groot.  No, really, you will need him later…. Ok, not really.  But he is adorable.  So having a Groot handy is fun 
7. (Not pictured) Scissors
8. (Not pictured/optional) Cardstock - to stick the painter's tape on once it has been used
9. (Not pictured/optional) Tweezers - to pull the painter's tape off your nails (see Step 3 below for a better understanding)

"You will need to buy a Groot."

Step 1 comprises of the base color.  Above is pictured 1 coat of base coat + 3 coats of You're So Vain-illa by OPI + 1 coat of quick-drying top coat.  Wait for this to completely dry before moving on to Step 2.

"Step 1 comprises of the base color."

Here is where you will need to have your painter's tape handy.  Start by cutting 3 different sizes of strips of painter's tape.  You will have 3 different "categories" of thickness, where each category should have 10 strips of tape that are all roughly the same thickness.  After all the cutting you will have a total of 30 strips of painter's tape (provided you have 10 fingers which you are painting).

• Category 1:  Will be placed at the bottom/free-edge of the nail.  Also, these strips of tape are the thinnest out of the 3 categories.
• Category 2:  Similarly thin compared to the width of the tape strips in Category 1.  Consider these the "middle strips" as they will go between Categories 1 and 3 on the nail.
• Category 3:  The thickest strips of painter's tape you are cutting.  These pieces of tape will be used to mark the highest point on your nail where the second color will reach.

Now to place the painter's tape:

Start by placing a Category 1 strip of tape at the bottom/free edge of your nail, but far enough up your nail so the bottom stripe of nail polish you will be layering on in Step 3 is thickest at the bottom of your nail than it will be for the other two stripes that will be painted (scroll down to Step 3 for image reference).

Move on to placing the strips of painter's tape from Categories 2 and 3 on your nail.  Category 2 will go above Category 1, and Category 3 will be the top-most strip of tape, being placed a sliver above Category 2.  The end result will be 3 strips of tape for each nail.

The easiest way to make sure the gaps/lines will line up evenly between all of your nails is to go nail by nail, starting at the bottom/free-edge of your nail and working your way up your nail.  Repeat on the next nail, making sure that each strip of tape for each Category lines up with the same Category strip on the other nails.

"...3 strips of tape for each nail."

Step 3 consists of layering on your red polish.

The faster you pull off the strips of tape after painting, the less likely you are to have "strings" of polish, where the polish has become tacky and sticks to both the nail and the tape, and leaves a tiny string of polish in the gap where the the tape once was.  For this reason, only paint one nail at a time.  After painting one nail (up to the bottom edge of the Category 3 strip of painter's tape as mentioned in Step 2), quickly pull off each strip of tape on the nail.

Pull the strip of tape off the nail in the same horizontal direction it is laying on the nail.

Repeat the painting and pulling-off process for each nail until all 10 nails have been painted.

 "...only paint one nail at a time."

Step 4 is the simplest step, but you need to wait the longest amount of time before starting.  You will be painting a top coat on top of your newly-created stripes.  If your stripes are not dry, you will get streaking…and then you'll have to start all over at Step 1 (after taking off your almost-completed nail art creation), so wait a while before painting on the top coat!

"...wait a while before painting on the top coat!"

Adding the text is the last step!

Grab your Sharpie (in Navy, because the regular Blue hue comes across a bit too vibrant for the aged parchment look).  As "Awesome Mix Vol. 1" is the name of the album/mixtape/soundtrack (and a very important part of the movie) split the title across all of your nails to get your art spread out along a larger canvas!

Don't add top coat after writing!  Yes, this makes the overall manicure more temporary, but unless you are sure your top coat will not cause streaking of the lettering, skip the top coat and wear this art tonight!

"Don't add top coat...!"

There you have it!  You're ready to go see Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy!  Or watch it again!  And again!

Extra picture of Nail Art + Groot!

Woot, woot!  Groot, Groot!  Dancy, dancy!

Can you guess what's written on my right hand?  If you've seen the movie you should have some idea.

Have you created nail art for a movie recently?

Formula X for Sephora in Demolition, Thunder, and TNT

Hello!  Have you heard about the new collection of polishes Sephora has released?  Now that Sephora is no longer carrying the Sephora by OPI colors, they have reformulated their small release of the Sephora X line.  Read on and you'll see why you need these in your life (and your helmer).

 no base coat, 2 coats OPI Alpine Snow - Matte, 1 coat Formula X TNT, no top coat

Let's just pause for a minute and consider how momentous these new polishes by Sephora are.

The line of "Xplosive Top Coats" are all mixed shape matte glitter polishes in a clear base.  They range from a single color of glitter in a clear base (like TNT shown above and below), to multi-colored glitter in a clear base (like Demolition and Thunder seen further down).  They even have a number of polishes that are a mix of black glitter with other colors, besides the ubiquitous black and white matte glitter in a clear base.

  no base coat, 2 coats OPI Alpine Snow - Matte, 1 coat Formula X TNT, no top coat

TNT is a bright cobalt blue glitter topper made up of large, medium, and small hexagonal shaped glitter in a clear base.

  base coat, 2 coats black creme, 1 coat Formula X Thunder, no top coat

And now on to the multi-hued polishes!  The fact that Sephora has released a line of permanent polishes that all contain various sizes and colors of matte glitter really shows they are up on the trends.

Thunder is described on the Sephora website as containing "turquoise, lime, periwinkle, and white confetti" in a clear base.  I'm not quite sure what color they are calling the extra-large hexagonal pieces of glitter, but they appeared light pink to me.

 base coat, 2 coats black creme, 1 coat Formula X Thunder, no top coat

Last of the three I picked up with glitter is Demolition.  This was the first of the three I tried on when I was swatching, and I instantly fell in love with this one.  What do you think?

 base coat, 2 coats black creme, 1 coat Formula X Demolition, no top coat

Demolition is described on the Sephora website as "blue, turquoise, lime, and orange confetti" in a clear base.

base coat, 2 coats black creme, 1 coat Formula X Demolition, no top coat

And for one last photo, I have put both Thunder and Demolition over a white polish so you can see the comparison of the two and the overall color output these two each give off.  Thunder definitely leans more blue, while the orange micro-glitter in Demolition contrasts against the larger white glitter as well as the even larger blue and green glitter pieces giving it a general feeling of a mixture of pastel colors.

no base coat, 2 coats OPI Alpine Snow - Matte, (from left to right in image) 1 coat Formula X Thunder, 1 coat Formula X Demolition, 1 coat Formula X Thunder, 1 coat Formula X Demolition, no top coat

From my experience swatching these three, each glitter topper has an amazing payoff of glitter, and you don't have to go digging in the bottle to get the larger chunks of glitter.  I would recommend doing both a dabbling and brushing method to jointly push the larger glitter pieces to where you want them on your nails.

The Formula X line contains 62 creme/metallic polishes that are packaged with a white cap and are under the label "New Classics," as well as the glitter polishes mentioned above, along with other black capped polishes such as a small line of holographic polishes (called "Holograms," there are 5 of those in total), and the usual foil/metallic glitter polishes.

Along with the change up in bottle shape and name from the Sephora X line, these lacquers also cost an additional dollar (so the "regular" polishes with the white caps are $10.50US instead of $9.50US, while the black capped bottles that include the glitters and other "special effects" are $12.50US instead of $11.50US).  Now while price increases in nail polish annoy me and I tend to buy way less of a brand when they've increased their price more than 50 cents in less than a one year period, these polishes are definitely worth the price.  Not only are there special glitter lacquers that are unique colors that you will be hard pressed to find somewhere else, but the bottles themselves are made of nice weighted glass and feel larger than the Sephora X bottles (at least giving the illusion of containing more polish).

I bought these three lacquers along with two others that I will hopefully be sharing sometime soon this past Thursday.  The first Sephora I went to was just stocking them at 11:15 in the morning, so I got a pretty good view of half of the collection, but the store I went to in the evening to look for the holographic polishes said they were setting up their display that night to be ready for Friday.  So what that means for you is that you can hopefully find these in stock at your local Sephora this weekend.  Do call ahead as it seems that different stores have different arrival times for their packages, and some stores may not have their display up yet.

At this point I would just like to mention one extra thing: customer service.  I have almost always had great customer service at Sephora, but Thursday the people working at both stores I went to were exceptionally wonderful and went above and beyond what is probably normal protocol.  At the first store where the display was in the process of being set up, the sales associate there began opening boxes and pulling out one lacquer from each box that was still unopened for my individual examination (and I didn't even ask her to do this)!  At the second store I went to the sales associate warned me that the boxes were piled together in their storage rooms but went to dig out a mixed bag so I could at least get a look at some of the polishes.  I only mention this because I find great customer service is worth the cost.  I like spending only a dollar on Wet-n-Wild polishes at my local Walgreens or Rite Aid, and where I live the sales personnel at those stores are both friendly and helpful, but I definitely feel that it makes it a lot easier parting with $50 for 4 polishes when I have been treated like a customer rather than an interloper that no one wants to deal with.  So I would just like to say "kudos" to Sephora (and their employees) for making me feel like a valued customer.  If you've never been into a Sephora, I definitely recommend it.  Even if you just want to try on nail polish, the experience and service there is top notch.

Nails Inc Feathers Collection

Was this your most anticipated Spring Collection of Nail Polishes?  The promo pictures sure were intriguing!  Bright colors, densely packed, and smaller than normal bar glitter makes these polishes stand out from the crowd!  And now the collection is out and available at your local Sephora store.

 Edinburgh (2 coats), base coat, no top coat

When the promo pictures first came out Edinburgh was not one of the original colors shown.  Instead, Chester was the color that most people that got press samples were given.  I guess Nails Inc wanted people to go to their website to pick up that color?  Either way, I am glad to have Edinburgh.  The pale blue and peach fine bar glitter is a great combination.  It's pale enough to be perfect for Spring and colorful enough to be perfect for the coming Summer months.

 

Cornwall (2 coats), base coat, no top coat

Cornwall is probably the boldest color-combination of the collection.  The stark white against the royal blue is a fun combination to wear - because of the fine quality of the bar glitter, from far away this polish looks like you're wearing speckled white and blue polish on your nails.

 OPI Eurso Euro (2 coats), Cornwall (on accent nail, 2 coats), base coat, top coat

The dark blue glitter in Cornwall matches a lot of blue-toned polishes that have come out in the last year.  One such color combination is OPI Eurso Euro and Cornwall.

 York (2 coats), base coat, no top coat

The lightest color-combination of these four polishes in this collection, York incorporates the same shade of peach glitter that is in Edinburgh, but against the white the orange glitter looks brighter.
Maybe because the orange is relatively similar in shade to white rather than the deep blue in Cornwall, the overall effect of this polish is a peach sheen - from far away, the polish looks like shades of orange rather than a stark white and bright orange combo.

 Brighton (2 coats), base coat, no top coat

At my local Sephora, this color is the one that has sold out, and it is not surprising it is popular!  Described as "teal and yellow" bar glitter on the Sephora website, this is the punch of spring-turning-to-summer every nail polish collection needs.

 (From left to right:) Floam, Brighton, Floam, Brighton (all 2 coats each), Elmer's Glue base coat, no top coat

The overall color-combination of Floam looks darker and greener than Brighton.  Because Floam is made up of tiny particles rather than little rectangles, it covers the full nail bed more thoroughly than Brighton.  (If you enlarge the photograph above, you can see the blank spaces in Brighton appear more prominent than those in Floam.)

 Brighton and Edinburgh (3 coats), base coat, top coat

To see if I could achieve the same look that Chester has, I layered one coat of Edinburgh over one coat of Brighton, then topped it with a thin coat of Brighton to blend the two color together a bit more.  The combination does not come off the same as Chester because Chester is only made up of pale blue, peach, and yellow glitters (there is no teal glitter like there is in this layered combination above). 

NYX Hieroglyphics (middle and pinky fingers, 1 coat), Cornwall (index and ring fingers, 1 coat)

All layered over OPI Ogre the Top Blue (2 coats), base coat, no top coat

The photograph above is meant to show a comparison of "regular" bar glitters compared to the bar glitters in the Nails Inc Feathers polishes.  Most glitter polishes with bar glitters contain large pieces that are often considered "hairy" in terms of glitter polishes.  Not only are normal bar glitter polishes filled with larger pieces of glitter, but the glitter in those other polishes are less dense than than the Feathers bar glitter polishes.


So now that you've seen the whole collection, what do you think of it?  I really like the attention to details on the bottles: the color-coordinated birds on each cap that match the color of the glitter in the bottle is a great detail.  The color choices are nice, but I know I've already picked out my favorite of the bunch.

Unfortunately there is at least one down side to the polishes; because they are made of glitter they are impossible to remove without a ton of scrubbing with an acetone-based remover.  This is the standard for any glitter polish, so this comes as no surprise.

There are already duplicates that are showing up in the nail polish market (like the Sally Hansen Fuzzy Coat polishes), and at a better (lower) price.  On that note, I would like to mention the fact that I am so happy these polishes were the same price as the rest of the Nails Inc core line at Sephora.   I think this may be one of the only mainstream lines that did not increase their prices on their Spring collection. 

Christmas Lights

Days 5 and 6 of the Condensed Twelve Days of Christmas manicure marathon is a simple Christmas Lights look.




Do you put up Christmas lights? I confess, I have an artificial Christmas tree that already has lights on it (built in), so I never have to worry about stringing the lights around the tree after having to set up the tree itself. Less stress...more time to paint nails.

image from thatsprettywhack.blogspot.com

For the actual Christmas light bulbs of this design, I decided to incorporate some of those glass-fleck polishes we've see often this past year. They reflect light nicely, so it's almost like having an actual bulb on your nails when you're looking at your nails in an illuminated atmosphere.




From left to right: Rimmel in 606 Dazzle, OPI in Obscurity (from the 2010 Halloween mini set), OPI in Take the Stage, OPI in The Show Must Go On!, Zoya in Mimi, and Zoya in Charla





Step 1 is laying down the base color. I chose a soft gold shade with small glitter particles in it that I thought would make a nice festive background for the lights.




If you want to keep with the glitter-flecked theme (like the polishes for the bulbs), a background of a shade like Orly Winter Wonderland would work nice and would work well to layer over since it is white.




Step 2 is where the blue painter's tape comes in. Although I did not take a picture of the actual tape, the idea is fairly straight forward:




Taking a strip of painter's tape from the roll that is at least 2 inches in length, using a permanent marker, draw a wavy line down the middle of the tape from one cut end to the other (rather than top to bottom).


I didn't take a picture of the actual tape on my nails because this step will differ a bit for each nail length. The longer the nails, the more height you want your curves to have. Once you've decided on a height pattern and drawn it onto the tape, cut along the line you have just drawn. You will need both pieces of tape, wherein you will use each half of the the original piece to mark off the top and bottom of the wavy "light cord". Cut both pieces of tape together in chunks (from the whole piece you've drawn and cut) that span wide enough to cover the whole nail straight across. This will leave you with five separate sets of top and bottom pieces for each nail on one hand.





Once you have painted on your wavy "light cord" in Step 2, you can move on to Step 3.


On a new piece of painter's tape cut from the roll, draw little light bulb shapes at the edge of the tape, so the bottom of each bulb touches the bottom of the tape. You will use these shapes to fill in on the nail, by placing each bulb shape with the open end against a curve in your wavy cord, and then close the form by adding a single newly cut strip of blue painter's tape, so no nail polish seeps where it was not wanted.






And after adding top coat, here is the final look.





The only thing I wouldn't recommend is using a matte polish for the light bulb cord (the black wavy line) like I did, because the lines were more rough than they would have been had I used a regular black polish (that dries at a regular speed).


This is a fun look that everyone can try at least once (even if it's just to then decide this look isn't for you). It's bright and cheery just like Holiday lights are.


This concludes Days 5 and 6 of the Twelve Days of Christmas.


On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
FIVE GOLDEN RINGS
four calling birds
three french hens
two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree.

On the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me
six geese a laying
FIVE GOLDEN RINGS
four calling birds
three french hens
two turtle doves
and a partridge in a pear tree.

Black and White for Halloween and a Nail Tip

As a Halloween Manicure, this is way past due, but I wanted to use this as a Nail Tip, so I'm sharing my Halloween Manicure as well!

This Nail Tip is more of an addition to water marbling, rather than an explanation or a How-To. Now I know there are a few preferences out there for how to prep for a water marble, but this was my first attempt at a water marble manicure, and I found the prep I did helped so I had none-to-a-little clean up, so I thought I should share it.




When I think of Halloween, my mind irrevocably goes to black and white Horror films. Forgetting the fact I've seen very few Horror films, I still connect the two. And thus the inspiration behind my Halloween manicure.

image from lauragrandefilm.blogspot.com

The 1922 black and white film Nosferatu is not only considered the "original" vampire movie, but also a classic horror film.


No bottle pictures here. Why? Because this isn't about the colors used specifically, it's about the manicure and how to achieve a similar look. So let's jump into Step 1!




To prep your nails for a water marble manicure, I definitely suggest laying down a base color. While I did just mention that the exact nail polishes don't matter, I do have a preference for layering, and it works well for me so I'll share it here, too. My choice: Alpine Snow Matte by OPI. The matte dries very quickly and you get great coverage in 1 - 2 coats without it being goopy or streaky (which is great for a white)!






Here is the step that you may or may not have read on other blogs. I've heard people recommending using different mediums to protect their fingers from getting covered in the nail polish left on the water's surface after dipping your nail in, and I've found using blue painter's tape to be quite helpful.

While being a tough sort of surface, the tape itself is papery and bends and flexes well, so it seems to mold better to the finger than other tapes I've used before (such as clear "Scotch" tape).



The best way to go about applying the tape would be to cut some medium-to-thin strips from your tape roll and then cut each of those strips into short segments so you have a bunch of small rectangles.

This part is important so that there is less clean-up at the end point. Taking those little rectangles, start at the side of your finger and line up the edge of the tape so it touches the edge of the bottom coat of nail polish. You'll want the tape to do this to cover your cuticle and sides of your finger where the nail polish can pool and trap, making clean-up harder than it has to be.

Going around the edge of the base color of nail polish (the matte white in the picture above), use your little rectangle strips to angle around the nail bed, until all edges are covered with tape. If you see any big gap where two strips have left an angle where the polish might stick to the skin, go in with a small strip of tape and cover that up.

Next, take one of the longer strips of tape and press it down under your nail, so it covers the underside of the nail along with the underside of your finger. It is okay if the tape strip surpasses the end of your nail and sticks out a bit, that will not interfere with your water marble effect on the nail.

Now, cut a few larger pieces of tape and wrap them around your finger so that your finger is covered up to the second joint/knuckle (or anatomically speaking, where your middle phalanx and proximal phalanx meet). Using larger pieces of tape at this part makes it faster and easier to put on and take off the tape.



Here you can see that the tape from Step 2 really did keep my middle finger clean. If for some reason you have a bit of excess nail polish from the water marble on your finger, this would be the step to clean off your finger.



Keeping with the Halloween theme, I added a dash of color to my nails by painting my ring finger a neon orange over the matte white (which helped so I needed less coats of the orange polish). (Also, the orange shade is Sinful Colors Summer Peach if you're wondering).



And add a top coat!




In terms of a water marble, I liked how this one turned out, and with how easy the clean up was with the blue tape, I'll definitely be doing this again! Have you tried water marbling before? Do you do prep beforehand to make clean-up easier? And if so, what? (I'd like to know if there are any good ideas that could also be incorporated into this Nail Tip to be helpful for everyone.)

While I'm certainly not a pro at water marbling, I searched YouTube and looked at water marbling videos there to get ideas. I also looked at a few videos on Colette's blog My Simple Little Pleasures. She has some great videos on how to water marble and shows how to swirl the colors around in the water so you can get a preferred design.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this Nail Tip/Halloween Manicure, and if you haven't tried water marbling, consider diving into it, it's really not as horribly detailed and messy as it first seems! Bye!