For your reading and (mostly) viewing pleasure, I present yesterday's deep space nails on MATTE.

 I used two coats of Essie's Matte About You.  I realize that they still don't look 100% completely matte in all places.  I think the lesson learned (thanks to asking friends on MUA) is to not be stingy when using matte top coats!  :)

 You probably know me well enough to understand how much I like the shiny and the sparkly, yet for reasons fully unknown to me, I felt compelled to try this matte.  

My camera chose to focus only on the bottle in the picture above.  Not a total loss.  I'm mesmerized by all that glitter in the bottle!

My overall verdict?  It's pretty cool!  I'm intrigued by how the glitters appear frozen in time...and space.

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Here are the newly glorious nubs! I wanted them to feel super fabulous, so I picked Deborah Lippmann Candy Shop for them.

I used two coats and it is shown without top coat here.

For being so glitter-packed, it is actually rather well-behaved in application.

The hardest part of application, as you may imagine, is being mindful of the tips, where the larger glitter pieces like to hang halfway off the ends. :)

When that happens, I usually take the end of my small nail file and just gently push them all the way onto the nail.

Candy Shop definitely makes me happy, even if it feels like it's missing some beloved square glitters.

I decided to mattify it! I used a coat of Gelous, a coat of Poshe, and then a coat of Essie Matte About You.

They are quite smooth and even.

The overall effect is somewhat matte yet shiny all at the same time.

I did end up with some shrink at the tips, which you don't see in these "fresh" photos. I think it was probably inevitable, since the base formula of the pink polish is a jelly. I can live with it, though. It's really quite minor.

Well, originally I had planned to get Candy Shop and Forget You (which is my current pedi) when then came out separately. When I saw the Lippmann "Get This Party Started" trio set at Nordstrom last week, I kind of caved. I'm a sucker for those "value of" signs!! Makes me feel like I am saving money somehow. :)

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I have only one picture of this, taken in my bathroom. I did two coats of Orly Viridian Vinyl, no top coat.

The picture doesn't look too terrible, but the application was rather dreadful for me. The polish was thick and goopy and I felt that it was hard to control and went on unevenly. I was so unhappy about the application and overall appearance that I took this straight off even before it dried. Maybe I'll give it another shot sometime...after thinning it?

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It's been entirely too long since I've posted. I apologize for my absence! I'm not sure why I've been dragging my heels about blogging lately. Maybe just a rut? Maybe just tired from work. I n any case, I'm still around, still painting my nails...oh so frequently! So I do have lots of catch up pics to show you. :)

This is the Claire's Mood Shy/Flirty. I left it matte and actually used a coat of China Glaze Matte Magic as a top coat because I couldn't bear not to put any form of top coat on my mani. Apparently the little white specks are from the Matte Magic and I should've cleaned off the lip of the bottle and/or my brush better (or so I'm told). :)

After hot water.

After cold water.

Now this was a wacky combination that looks very unassuming. I did Claire's Mood in Bored/Excited. Then I topped it with Claire's Mermaid.

That's the Mermaid bottle above. It looked very streaky and uneven, so I threw on China Glaze Shooting Stars, which has a way of making everything look better! (And it did!)

The color change was fairly subtle and showed just like french tips that were a bit more corally than the rest of the nail.

This mani was super duper girly frilly frou-frou for me and it kind of freaked me out at first! But then I embraced it whole-heartedly and had lots of happy thoughts including snowflakes, sparkles, unicorns, icicles, snow cones, ballerinas, rainbow brite, etc.

I think it was Morgan who had asked for tips on how I apply polish in general and I am still going to post that for you soon! Again, I apologize for the delay and thank you for staying with me. :)

EDIT: I have to laugh at myself - it's been so long since I've posted that I conveniently forgot what size photos I normally show. These are quite a bit bigger!! Do you care? Do you like this size better? Let me know if you have an opinion on the matter. Thanks!

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I was super excited to get this polish - Lippmann Wicked Game. I lurve duochromes and this one is nothing short of spectacular. I believe I did three coats here, but it may have been four.

It's like sexy cool liquid metal!

I think it's going to be really rad over darker colors, too.

Smooth like buttah.

Now, a departure from the norm. This was a laughable experiment. I'm not sorry I went there!

Lippmann Happy Birthday over Illamasqua Ruthless. I did one coat of Ruthless and three fairly thick coats of Happy Birthday. It's clown slaughter!!

I put China Glaze Matte Magic over it the following morning and I feel like it looked a bit better matte. It reminded me of some kind of Italian food festival. :)

Happy Birthday is fun and unique, so of course I had to have it. I think it's a great addition and I look forward to trying it again over different colors.

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Behold my first ever matte finish mani! I used one coat of Hard Candy Frenzy (it was opaque and perfect), one coat of Hard Candy Sugar Daddy, and then did a Konad with m61 and Special Polish in Dark Purple, finishing with a coat of China Glaze Matte Magic! Please disregard the blue skin - ha ha!

This design transfers and stamps so easily for me - hooray! My only challenge is in getting the placement and pressure right, hence some waviness. But boy it's nice to have a stamp that is super easy to work with. Oh, and I never thought I could get into the matte finish craze, but I guess I was wrong. I like how it looks over shimmahs! And it's just kind of fun and different.

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