American Apparel Peacock

6:31 PM Laura 3 Comments

Okay guys, so, as far as titles go, I've decided that I'll use mostly straightforward titles since they're easier. However, that won't prevent me from throwing in a cheesy title here and there! I'm not going to go THAT boring on you.

Aaanyway, today I have just a plain color for you today. I know, it saddens me too. I kept noticing how plain my nails were! People were like, "Oh, your nails are boring today..." My public needs me! My nails are legendary!

Never fear, citizens! I shall pump up my nails tomorrow! Maybe I should have a superhero name. Lacquer Lady? If you have any ideas, feel free to share. Alliteration is always welcome.

So! This has become quite a tangent. Let's abruptly get back on topic.

Peacock was much easier to capture on camera than African Violet. This one is pretty color accurate, except it's a shade or two darker in real life.

 This is outside, no sun today. Again, it's the right color, it just needs to be a smidge darker. 

Inside, lamplight. I don't have an indoor window pic because they all blurred. Phooey.

This was another one coater. Love! Although one coaters are kind of a double-edged sword because you have to be super careful to cover everything in one coat, especially a dark color like this, otherwise it'll be pretty noticeable!

This was a dark, blue-leaning teal. Although in most lights I would actually say it's dark blue with a bit of teal, it appeared almost evergreen at one point. Can't remember what lighting that was, but it only happened once.

So, this is only my second American Apparel polish, but it's safe to say I really like these! They're super opaque (I tested a lot more of them in the store, so I think this is a pretty safe assumption to make), dry quickly, and wear well. I took pictures of African Violet and Peacock after a full day of wear, so this was good! And I have no idea why, but I really like the look of the bottles. I'd definitely like to get more of these. Hopefully I can work up the guts to wander into American Apparel again...

Also, I was going to compare this to Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal, but I forgot to before I took it off. However, just looking at them in the bottles makes it evident that there are no dupes here.

While Fairy Teal is more of a green-leaning teal, Peacock is more of a dark blue with a little bit of teal.

Phew! After my Cajun Shrimp fiasco I am much more wary and mentally go through my stash to make sure I don't have dupes.

Are you guys liking American Apparel?

3 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**

American Apparel African Violet

7:38 PM Laura 6 Comments

I couldn't think of a snappy title for this post, so I just decided to tell you what it's going to be about. Is that disappointing? Do you enjoy the weird titles? Or would you prefer that I use self-explanatory titles regularly? I'd like to know what you think.
 This picture isn't very color accurate. It makes African Violet look much more blurple than it is.

This one's better, but not completely color accurate. It's a leeeetle too reddish.


 Inside by a window

 Laaaamplight

 Outside

This was very nice polish. I only used one coat! I also really like the way the bottle looks, not sure why. I might have to go back into American Apparel, no matter how creepy, just to get some more of these!

 Then I did this with Milani Gold Lame (too tired to find the accent key. It's la-MAY, not lame.)

 Aaand this with Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Fairy Teal.

But these colors were a little too Mardi Gras-esque for me, sooo... I put Sinful's Love Nails over Fairy Teal.


 Inside by a window

Outside

So! American Apparel is doing well so far, tomorrow I'll have Peacock for you. I'm excited! Are you?

6 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**

It could always be worse...

4:57 PM Laura 4 Comments

Whenever a character says that in a cartoon, a piano falls on their head. Bad things seem to cluster together like screaming fangirls at a Justin Bieber concert.

Last night while I was taking my contacts out, I noticed that my reworked version of Gemma matched the color of my eyes, so I snapped some pictures to show you. But this morning, after I had removed Gemma 2.0, and I was going to take new pictures, I discovered that the stupid camera had deleted all of them! What the heck, Casio Exilim? My eyes aren't good enough for you or something? I think you're just jealous!

Then, I was going to use Sally Hansen Nailgrowth Miracle in Precious Pearl.


I was HOPING it would be a nice, clean color for when I was in a mellow mood.

Um, welcome to Sheer City, first stop: Precious Pearl! Ugh. All you could see was the pink shimmer.

So I put a coat of OPI Alpine Snow over it, then another coat of Precious Pearl. However, it wasn't really what I wanted, so I slapped a coat of Silver Shatter over it.


I wasn't really feeling it, and I then proceeded to destroy it while putting pants on. Great. So I removed the whole thing like a madwoman.

Then I went to Buffalo Exchange with some friends. I brought a buttload of clothes to exchange. Mostly they had old, retro-y stuff. But not retro in that "Man, where'd you get those groovy digs?" way, more in a "The power's out in my house, and I had to get dressed in the dark, so I couldn't see what I was putting on" kind of way. But I did find some cute things, so I went up and they looked through all my clothes and then said "Yeah, we don't want your stuff."

WHAT?

"We're looking for really trendy, current things."

Are you SERIOUS? Have you LOOKED at the clothes on your rack? Trendy is the last word I would use to describe your store.

Their stuff wasn't even that reasonably priced! They had some shirts for $17.50! So I refused to buy anything since they didn't take any of my clothes, angrily thwacked everything back on the racks, and huffed out of the store.

Then we went to American Apparel. I've never seen one before, so I'd never been in there. And... it's weird, guys. They sell gold tracksuits. I'm not sure I really understand it. The only reason I went in there is because I saw nail polish. I hastily tested out as much as I could.

Malibu Green, L'Esprit (I think), Coney Island, Peacock.

Passport Blue (over Butter), Rose Bowl (over Summer Peach), Rouge, Mount Royal

I ended up getting Peacock and African Violet, but now I'm kind of missing Coney Island.

And then our car got towed.

So, not my best day.


Since this has been kind of a depressing post, here's my polish drawer. In the front I have all the polish, in the back I have supplies. Whee. I'm going to need more space pretty soon.

Aaanyway, I hope you had a better day than I did!

4 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**

Gemma 2.0

3:43 PM Laura 5 Comments

I was a little miffed by Gemma the first time around because the blue flash was reeeally subtle and barely visible, and she was kind of an unflattering olive color in some lights.

I was also let down by Dharma because she was suuuper sheer, even though she had a beautiful blue flash.

You can see where I'm going with this, right?

I seriously can't believe I didn't think of this earlier. I just needed to layer them! The universe knew what it was doing when it guided my hand on the Zoya website.

I forgot bottle shots. D'oh! I WILL edit these in later. *writes post-it note to self to take bottle shots later*

EDIT:
Look! I actually remembered! Zoya Dharma and Gemma.

Anywho, here is Gemma revamped:

Inside

Inside

Outside

Outside

Outside

Outside

Lamplight

The blue flash is MUCH more prominent and Dharma washed out Gemma a teensy bit, which I like. I'm very happy with this and I'm so glad this combo occurred to me! I did two coats of Gemma and one coat of Dharma.

Also, my brush on Gemma was wonky.

Before

After!

But some scissors took care of that. :)

I also bought some cuticle remover today. I've never used it before so I'm a teensy bit scared. It's this blue Sally Hansen gel stuff. So tomorrow I'll try that out. Wish me luck!

5 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**

Crack Addict

5:43 PM Laura 2 Comments

So here's some more Silver Shatter for you, since this stuff is frickin' awesome. I don't have a lot of time, so here are a bunch of pictures.

I started with 3 coats of Sinful's Boogie Nights

Outside, shadyish

Outside, sunnyish

Inside

Lamplight

Sorry for the hideous chip on my index finger. I smooshed it last night when it was still soft. :(

I tried applying a thicker coat of shatter this time, but it still cracked nicely and I liked how much space was between the cracks. I got a lot more comments on it this time, probably because it was more visible over the pink.

I like this stuff! And now I need to shower. I hate to post and run, but...

2 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**

Leslie's Glitter All Up in my Air

7:37 PM Laura 4 Comments

Are you ready for the surprise today?

You may know the lovely Leslie from Nail Polish Art Addiction. I fell in love with her beautiful GitA franken, which she shared with the world here, and she was sweet enough to send it to me!

Look! She even gave it a cute li'l name!

And look at these stickaaaahs! THE SWEETNESS IS TOO MUCH FOR ME.

And did you think I would forget BOTTLE SHOOOOTS?


Look at all the glittaaaah.

I took an obscene amount of pictures of this. Peruse them. Enjoy them. Salivate over them.









I don't remember all the different lightings, I took so many pictures. You get the idea, right?

This is three coats of faux-GitA goodness. I prefer this to GitA because it's more opaque and has more colors of glitter, but this is totally gorgeous in its own right, GitA doppelganger or not.

Leslie was obviously a master frankener in a past life. I just can't believe how good she is at this! Maybe she sleep-frankens? The formula was perfect and though I accidentally gooped up my right hand a little bit, it settled out nicely. The glitter distribution was also good, I didn't have to do a lot of work to get it where I wanted it to go.

Leslie, you are da bomb. I can't say enough great things about you and this polish. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

4 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**

See the rainbow

7:54 PM Laura 3 Comments

Good afternoon, gals. Sorry for the abnormally late post, I had a loooooong day today, but this polish helped me through it!

Milani Cyberspace

I have a lot of pictures. It's amazing. I urge you to click on all of these to large-ify them! It's so gorgeous!

Outside

Shady

Indoor, flash

Indoor, flash

Flash-a-rific

Spaaaaarkly.

Umm, fluorescent light, I think...

Lamplight

Fluorescent again.

Outside

Suuuun

Inside by window

This stuff is a-may-zing. It's not like, in your face holo, but you can see the rainbowy sparkle in most lights. This was my first holo so I was SUPER excited. It did not disappoint. This was three lovely coats of subtle holo hawtness. Even in the few instances that it wasn't holo-y, it was a nice, opalescent blue that was very flattering on my pale skintone. Color me happy.

And... tomorrow I have something special for you. Something veeery special. I was planning to do some more silver shattering, but that will have to be postponed in lieu of a very unique treat. 

Here's a hint:

Intrigued? You'll have to come back tomorrow to find out!

3 comments:

Yay comments! Whenever you leave a comment, a triple rainbow happens.

**I don't like having to say this, but I must: Do not link drop! I don't care if you tell me you want to send me a million dollars, if you leave a link in your comment, I'm deleting it. I work hard for any and all traffic I get, and stealing it is a major no-no! Follow blogging etiquette, please.**