Christian Louboutin Loubichrome Collection

The Loubichrome collection from Christian Louboutin came out at the very end of 2016/very beginning of 2017.  Three lacquers in beautiful heavy glass bottles with rainbow colored handles in stiletto shaped points.  These are smaller than normal Christian Louboutin lacquers, at only 0.2 oz while other Christian Louboutin polishes are 0.4 oz.  This also changes the price point, so each of these lacquers are only $30US instead of the regular price point of $50US a bottle.

The second these were available, I bought them from Nordstrom's website.  I got them as soon as possible (with free shipping)...and then immediately set them on top of my desktop to stare at them for a month.  Or five....

These beautiful bottles hold frosty flecked lacquer that is a unique blend of a foil-like finish featuring a frosted, silvery look.  The rainbow-lidded glory of these lacquers may have one thinking that the lacquer inside would also be rainbow-like and feature holographic polish, but that is not the case.  None of these polishes are holographic.  They are neither holographic, duochrome/mulitchrome, nor are they opalescent.  Instead, the frost/foil finish adds an extra dimension to the yellow, red, and purple color of the lacquer.

no base coat, 3 coats of Loubichrome I, no top coat

Above is Lubichrome I.  It is the most sheer polish out of the three lacquers, and needs three or more coats to cover any visible nail line (VNL).  

This yellow is an interesting hue reminiscent of lemon-lime, with a tinge of green that makes this polish unique in any collection.  The frost look in the frost-foil finish of these polishes seems to also be the strongest with this polish, where the visible brush strokes are present on the nail far after the polish has dried.

no base coat, 2 coats of Loubichrome II, no top coat

Second in the collection is the red lacquer, Loubichrome II.  The frost/foil finish makes this red-hued polish look very pink on the nail in certain lighting.  Visible brush strokes were minimal, and the foil-effect is much stronger than any frostiness that this finish may have, making this polish more wearable than Loubichrome I.  The pink-red hue is suspended in a silver, foil base, giving the metallic particles within the polish a high shine through the pink-red base.

no base coat, 2 coats of Loubichrome III, no top coat

The last in the Loubichrome collection is Loubichrome III.  This purple hue is such a nice, vibrant color.  The finish of this polish is very similar to Loubichrome II, where the foil finish shines through to create a metallic purple polish that consists of silver microparticles in a purple base.  The final effect when this polish dries is a sparkling purple lacquer with a high silver shine.

One word of advice I will give with this lacquer is that you definitely need to wear a base coat with it.  When swatching I tend to try out most colors without using a base coat to see how they work by themselves without some type of smoothing base underneath.  After swatching this polish, I wore it for three days straight, and when I took it off my nails were stained yellow-orange wherever the polish had been.  This is why a base coat is vital.  You don't have to buy Christian Louboutin's base coat to use with these polishes, but I do recommend using your own favorite base coat to prevent staining.

As I've found with other Christian Louboutin polishes, these lacquers were very easy to apply, helped on by the long handle of the bottle.  Furthermore, I found these to be the easiest handles to wield because of the smaller handle/bottle size.  This makes me wish that more Christian Louboutin lacquers were available in these 0.2 oz sizes!

As of posting, on 10 June 2017, these polishes are still available to buy on the Saks Fifth Avenue website!  No need to pay scalpers on eBay for exorbitant prices, when these are still available from an official retailer! Yay!

Nails Inc. Floral Collection Swatches

The Floral collection by Nails Inc. is one of the new Nails Inc. collections that just released this Spring.  There are 4 polishes in this collection that each consist of flower shaped glitter in various color combinations.  At the time of typing this post, these polishes are now available in store and online at Sephora.  If you are not in the United States, the Nails Inc. website has these polishes listed, although it says they are currently unavailable.

base coat, 2 coats My Turn by Sinful Colors, 1 coat Daisy Lane, no top coat

This is Daisy Lane.   An adorable name for an adorable polish!  Featuring white, pink, and red flower glitter with small white glitter, and light pink micro glitter in a clear base.

base coat, 2 coats My Turn by Sinful Colors, 1 coat Daisy Lane, no top coat

Below is Floral Street Mews.  The clear base holds a multitude of glitters.  Besides the white and blue flower shaped glitter particles, there are 5 different sizes of glitter pieces.  There are orange and white micro glitter pieces, followed by slightly larger white and light pink glitter glitter pieces (that I will refer to as "small" glitter pieces).  Next up from the small glitter is the medium sized hexagonal glitter in light pink and white.  Following that in size are larger glitter pieces that are hexagonal in shape that only appear to come in white.  The largest size of hexagonal glitter pieces (that I would consider the "extra large" pieces of glitter in comparison to all the other sizes) come in white and the same blue hue as the flowers.  

 base coat, 2 coats My Turn by Sinful Colors, 1 coat Floral Street Mews, no top coat

Because Floral Street Mews has so many different sizes of glitter and in differing color combinations, this one looks a bit more "exciting" to the eyes, when painted on top of a bland black or white (or gray, as done below), even though all the glitter within this polish is pastel in tone.

 base coat, 2 coats My Turn by Sinful Colors, 1 coat Floral Street Mews, no top coat

Below is the last polish I picked up from this collection: Richmond Gardens.  Upon first inspection, the glitter colors in this polish appear to be a turquoise-blue, a light green, and a white, but that isn't completely correct.

 base coat, 2 coats My Turn by Sinful Colors, 1 coat Richmond Gardens, no top coat

The smallest glitter (the "micro" glitter) is yellow/chartreuse in color (it looks very much like a green-leaning yellow).  The larger sized glitter (which I will again refer to as "small" to differentiate from the other sizes of glitter), is either a turquoise-blue or light pink.  The hexagonal medium sized glitter comes in a plethora of colors, including that same yellow/chartreuse color seen with the micro glitter, light green, turquoise-blue, and light pink.  The medium sized glitter is the largest glitter in this polish besides the flower glitter (which is giant by comparison).  There is, in fact, no white glitter in this polish (the photos make the pink glitter look white).

base coat, 2 coats My Turn by Sinful Colors, 1 coat Richmond Gardens, no top coat

I would consider the glitter in all of these polishes to be matte glitter, even though it almost has a pearlized finish (as seen especially in Daisy Lane with the white glitter particles), but I attribute that to the clear, shiny base that the glitter sits in.

Instructions on how to apply (or how to not have to fish the flower shaped glitter pieces out with an orange stick or tweezers):
1) After you apply your requisite base color (or no color if that may be the case), have a piece of scrap paper near you.
2) When you first open the polish bottle, dip the brush into the center of the opening (without brushing it against the sides of the bottle, taking off excess glitter), and begin brushing the glitter on the brush onto the scrap paper.  It is likely that all of this glitter will be of the micro, small, medium, large, or extra large variety, and will not be a flower.  The flower pieces are heavier and so they tend to sink just a bit in the clear base.
3) Repeat the process in step 2, continuing to dip the brush into the center of the opening, working to not scrape off the excess glitter that would just cling to your brush the next time you put it back into the bottle.
4) After repeating step 2 (and 3) a few times, you should eventually get a flower glitter piece to appear. Warning: once you have had one flower-shaped glitter piece cling to your brush, your are likely to have a bunch of flowers cling to the brush at the same time.  This is when you can dab those flowers from the brush on multiple fingernails, without having to reinsert the brush into the bottle to get more flowers.
5) If you have come to the part where each time you pull out the brush you get multiple flowers, now you just have to work at getting the right amount of other glitter pieces you want on to your nails!

And there you have it!

If you think the flower shaped glitter looks familiar, you may be thinking of the newly released Formula X for Sephora Cherry Blossom Top Coat.  I am almost certain that the flower glitter in the Cherry Blossom Top Coat is the same shape as the flower glitter in these Nails Inc. polishes.  The only differences I see between the two are the price (the Nails Inc. are $11US and the Formula X is $12.50US), and the color variations that are available in the Nails Inc. polishes (that are not available in the Formula X, which is only pink in color).

So, what do you think of these polishes?

ND4: Golden Stripes of Sunshine aka Cheshire Stripes

Nail Design 4 is an alternating pattern of two different colors, with three stripes of each color. The final design reminded me of golden sunrays, so that's where the name comes in.

image from physics.unlv.edu

This basic pattern was used in the Cheshire Cat inspired nails (shown HERE), but this design can be used in a simplified format, if both colors used are cremes that are completely opaque, or if the purpose of this design is to have the color on top overlapping the original color, for a more unique look.



Step 1 is to completely cover the nail in the base color. The color used here is Orly Spark (an old formula polish), that translated as a light yellow creme.




If you are short on time and would like to move onto Step 2 right away, you can use your favorite fast dry top coat or quick dry nail drops to speed up the drying process.




Step 2 is where the blue tape comes in. Depending on the nail length, cut three even strips of blue tape and layer it at even intervals over the original color, making sure to press the tape down firmly so there is no gap where the second/top nail color can leak under and leave a mark.




After painting the top color, immediately pull off the strips of tape in the direction the tape was laid down, so no pull will occur from the top polish and the lines should be straight and even.


Here is the final result:




Now this same design can be used with Jelly polishes that you don't want overlapped, and that follows a slightly different format. These are the first 3 steps to the Cheshire Cat nail design.


Step 1 is to cut three even strips of painter's tape and layer them evenly along the nail, then painting on the first color over the base coat/natural nails.





After pulling off the tape used in Step 1 and letting the first color dry, cut a total of 5 slim strips of blue tape, where 4 of the strips should be slim enough to not completely cover the original color, but wide enough to be overlapped with another strip of tape to then completely cover the original color.


When laying down the strips of tape in Step 2, make sure each strip of tape just barely touches the edge of each side of the original color of polish, so there will be a barely visible overlap, otherwise there is the possibility of a gap occurring between the two colors.




And this is the final look for the alternating stripes of color when using Jelly, transparent, or sheer polishes.




There are extra details that can be added to this look, such as painting a glitter top coat over the dried stripes, but this look can be left alone to wow the crowd.

So, what do you think? Would you try one of these looks? Or both? What colors would you use?


Thanks for looking! Bye for now.

Easter Inspired Nails

I thought I'd do something Easter inspired for a nail design. Not eggsactly egg-inspired, but quite close.

image from eHow.com

I wanted to use light colors, keeping Spring and all its light and bright it brings to mind. From left to right, I used Tattoo You Want Candy? by OPI, Sun Kissed by Sally Hansen, Spark by Orly, I Love Mummy by OPI, and Witch Arm? by OPI. (Note: The mini OPI polishes are from the Tattoo Ta-Boo Halloween Kit from October 2009. These polishes are said to be comparable to actual OPI colors - like I Love Mummy being the same shade, consistency, and quality as Alpine Snow.)




Step 1 was a complete coat of a creme white polish. Because it was the tops of the nails that were going to be layered over in other colors, the white polish did not have to be painted all the way to the beginning top of the nail.





Step 2 begins the use of blue tape. The size of the small strip of tape that is layered over the white first, is the one in which size matters, since that piece is meant to divide between the painting of the yellow and orange polishes.





For Step 3, after the yellow and orange stripes have been laid down on the thumb, middle, and pinky fingers, the tape for the design on the index and ring finger must be cut. To achieve the zig-zag/wavy line that looks like a cracked egg shell design, pinking sheers (craft scissors) can be used. If you do not have craft scissors, you can draw a wavy line on a piece of paper or cardstock, adhereing a piece of painter's tape to the other side, then cutting along the wavy line (which is what I did).

image from Adorama.com

After the tape is placed on the bottom-half of the nail with the wavy edge facing up, the yellow polish is layered onto the top of the nail.





Step 4 consisted of adding the detailing to the image of the baby chick for a face, on both the index and ring fingers. First, a triangle was made using small strips of tape to mask off the area of the beak, then the tape was pulled away, and the polish brush from the bottle was used to dot on two eyes.





So the final product is as follows:




An alternating pattern of stripes and baby chicks in bright/pastel shades to represent both Easter and Spring.


The little baby chick was inspired by a nail design I saw on the nail blog Katrina's Nail Blog. Check out the design HERE to see my inspiration.


Thanks for looking at my Easter nail design. Bye for now.

ND3: Pie Day

So 3/14 is Pie Day...or rather, Pi Day, for 3.14....




In honor of pie and pi, I decided to do a manicure inspired by both Pi(e)s.

image from collectingtokens.wordpress.com

To start out this Pi(e) manicure, I thought of a peach/cherry pie. A little mix of bright orange and red. The colors that fit this idea perfectly were OPI's The "It" Color for the yellow background, followed by OPI's Brights Power for the orange circle, and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Cherry Red - perfect for red cherries!






For Step 1, I simply covered my nails completely in OPI's The "It" Color, followed by a top coat.






Step 2 is where the blue tape appears! For this design, you'll only need a regular hole punch. I used a three hole punch, but it worked just fine.


To make sure the tape does not stick to the hole puncher, cut a square of tape from the role, then stick it down to a card (I used a neon colored index card I had sitting next to my computer - really any type of cardstock will work). The great thing about painter's tape, is that it is meant to peel off from a surface, so the tape comes right off the cardstock and still sticks nicely to your nails.







Step 3 is a repeat of Step 2, with the same process for the blue tape occurring. Just cut out circles from the blue tape (if you have the time and the will, you can always use a drafting compass to draw a circle the size you want, and then use an exacto knife to cut out each circle, but that would be more labor intensive).




Just paint the second color, making sure it layers opaquely over the other color(s). For the design I chose to do for PiDay, I wanted the circles to be offset from each other. Depending on the width of your nail, you can slant the circles (in the line/angle they are layered over each other) as much as you want.




The final step: Just add top coat!



I hope everyone had a good Pi(e) Day! Did you celebrate with a manicure? And if not, did you at least eat pie?


Thanks for looking! Bye for now.