Green and copper water marble

Sooo... Another WATER MARBLE!

I'm loving the water marbles. They're just so easy, and look so fancy!



This is one coat of WnW Hard as Nails Black Out, topped with a three-color marble of OPI A Woman's Prague-ative (a coppery bronze-orange with fine golden glitter), WnW Fastdry Sage in the City (a lime green with very fine shimmery particles), and WnW Wild Shine Blue Moon (a subtle blue/teal shimmer).



Love, love, love it.

COMPARISONS: First Mate vs Keeping Suzi at Bay, and I Need a Refresh-Mint vs Gumdrop vs For Audrey

So here are the swatches for China Glaze First Mate and OPI Keeping Suzi at Bay.  I had a dickens of a time trying to get these to photograph in their true colors.  In this picture (on my monitor), the polish color is fairly accurate, even though the background is overexposed.



They are close to a match, but not exact.  First Mate is darker and more grayed, whereas Keeping Suzi at Bay is a clearer blue.  I like them both, but Keeping Suzi at Bay has edged into the lead for my favorite blue creme polish.

And also, because I can, here's a shot comparing Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint, Orly Gumdrop, and China Glaze For Audrey.



I Need a Refresh-Mint is obviously bluer, but Gumdrop and For Audrey are very, very close.  Gumdrop is very slightly grayer, but they're almost indistinguishable.  I think I marginally prefer For Audrey; however, I have a full size Gumdrop and a sample size For Audrey, and I don't think I'll be getting a full size For Audrey until the Gumdrop is gone.

New Blue!

Did another mani last night. I like this one!



This is two thin coats of OPI Keeping Suzi at Bay, topped with one generous coat of Orly Shine on Crazy Diamond. Really sparkly and pretty.

The Shine on Crazy Diamond is similar to China Glaze Fairy Dust, but the particles are slightly larger and it's a bit more aggressively sparkly. I like them both a lot.

And THAT BLUE!

I love this blue. It's a medium navy or dark cobalt creme, and may possibly be that blue I was looking for. I think it's a shade lighter than China Glaze First Mate, which I bought thinking it was the one I was looking for, but ended up being a touch darker than I had hoped. The Keeping Suzi at Bay is light enough that it still looks blue when it's on my nails, not black.

I haven't worn First Mate in a while, so I'll have to swatch both together and see the difference. I seem to have a lot of blue polishes. I'm always on the lookout for THE ONE, which I suspect will be a TARDIS blue.

Second Water Marble!

I did another water marble last night!



This is a base of one coat of Wet n Wild Megalast I Need a Refresh-Mint, topped with a three-color water marble of I Need a Refresh-mint, China Glaze Grape Juice, and China Glaze Rainbow.

I really like Rainbow in water marbles.  I just got it this week, and it adds a nice opalescent sheen to whatever color is underneath.  And the Grape Juice, also new to my stash, is a great medium purple with sparkly glass flecks.  Really pretty.

First Watermarble

I did my very first water marble yesterday, and it's so cool!



This is two coats of China Glaze Deviantly Daring, which I wore by itself for a day before topping it with a water marble made of China Glaze Liquid Leather and China Glaze Rainbow.

It came out really nice for a first try, and I'm looking forward to doing more water marbles!

End of Year Roundup!

Gosh.  It's been a while.  I've been keeping my nails polished, and having great fun with it, but just haven't been recording them.

So yay! Giant catch-up post!  Mostly pictures!  Probably not many polish names!  Oh well!

I'll start from where I left off and give the dates if not the manicure details...

3/25/14, pink and blue sparkles over lime green.


3/27/14 black (or dark blue?) stamping over purple.


4/8/14 dark green stamping over sparkly green metallic
 

4/14/14 Navy stamped over brick red.
 

4/16/14 Light green stripe over white, stamped with dark green, topped with China Glaze Fairy Dust.


5/31/14 Rainbow skittle, stamped with citrus.  LOVED THIS ONE.


6/3/14 Turquoise stamped with navy.


6/11/14 Turquoise stamped with white.


7/1/14  Purple/blue duochrome stamped with silver.


7/3/14 Very light green stamped with dark green.


7/10/14 Navy stamped with silver.


7/16/14 Pink and orange stamped with white.  I was excessively pleased with how well this matched my skirt.


10/6/14 Green stamped with navy.


10/25/14  Rainbow skittle! (And repotting an orchid...)


11/4/14 Coppery orange stamped with black.


12/1/14  Purple with red and purple glitter topper.


12/6/14  Sparkly blue with stamped silver snowflakes.  I love this stamping plate from the Born Pretty Store.




12/8/14 Silver with green sparkles.  This was my mani for my company's Christmas party.


12/22/14  Teal blue with white dots.  I made the gradually decreasing dot sizes by repeatedly dotting from one dip in polish.


So that's all the rest of the manicures for 2014 that I have pictures for.  There were lots of others, I just didn't take pictures.  :-(

I may or may not revisit this post to fill in all the polish names and stamping plate numbers.  At this point, it may be wiser to just enjoy the pictures as they are, and move on....

Argyle!

I surprised myself by changing out my mani this morning.  I really liked the last one with the Essie Shine of the Times, but I had a little free time this morning and decided to switch.



This is two coats of Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Purpelling stamped with China Glaze First Mate and the argyle pattern off the Konad M-60 plate.



The Purpelling could almost have been a one-coater, but I did two to make sure since I was originally going to leave it as plain purple.  Then at the last minute I decided to stamp, and the First Mate was still sitting right there beside my chair from a couple days ago, so before I knew what was happening, I had argyle nails!

On a side note, my cuticles have been atrocious these past couple weeks.  I really need to keep after them.  I've been using Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, and it's very nice.  I just need to remember to apply it multiple times a day.  That's easy during the week when I'm sitting at my desk at work and it's directly in my line of sight next to my tea mug, but on the weekend I forget!  It makes a huge difference.