31dc2013 Day six

31dc2013 Day six: Violet nails

       Hello again! Today I have a little bit of a nail art fail and a swatch for you guys. I'm going to start with a description of the purple nails you see above. I like how the pointer, middle, and pinky came out but I think the thumb and ring finger could have been better. First i'll show you the base colors for this look:

    The photo above was taken outdoors in the shade, The one below was taken in direct sunlight.

   As you can see from the photos, the polish on my pointer and middle finger are painted with a polish that changes from a lilac shade to a dusty mauve when exposed to uv light (natural or not). It's made by ruby wing polishes and is called "zen garden" applies a little thin on the first coat but a second coat evens it all out. One thing I noticed about this polish is that after a few days it fades to an almost light grey and no longer changes when exposed to light. On to the other nails, on my thumb and ring finger is a coat of Julep "Charlotte" which is a dusty matte purple that could easily be a one coater. It dries with an almost rubbery finish. On my pinky I used just one coat of NYC "Wine bar" which is a really pretty plum jelly, I really love this color it's juicy and squishy and applies very nicely for a cheaper polish. Now onto the "art"!

     On my pointer and middle finger over the ruby wing "zen garden" I wanted to try something new.
So I grabbed a coffee straw, Julep "charlotte" (which I used as the base on my thumb and ring finger), Julep "kylie" (which is a very pigmented bright purple with shimmer because it is a magnetic polish) and NYC "wine bar". I took turns dipping the straw in the 3 colors and dabbing them on to the nails. I think these colors compliment each other nicely and gives my nails a swirly fun look that was really easy to do! Excuse my lovely hang nail.

     I reversed the look for my pinky starting with NYC "wine bar" as a base and then stamping with Julep "charlotte", "Kylie" and ruby wing "zen garden".   For my thumb and ring finger I went over Julep "charlotte" with two coats of Spoiled "checkin into rehab" which is a lovely dark purple jelly with small flakie glitters. I then made a moon with a sponge and some white polish added some litte stars then tried my best to do a silhouette of a tree.

    Up close it's pretty messy, but from a distance it looks okay. Overall I like how the coffee straw stamping worked out but I'm not such a fan of my thumb or ring finger. Oh well.

    That's not all folks! I have a quick swatch and review for you as well! I recently purchased a bottle of Maybelline Color show "Plush Plum" which is apart of the limited edition fall 2013  vintage leather collection.

      In the bottle it looks like a beautiful rich plum jelly polish with some flakies in it. On the nail I wasn't so pleased. It took three coats to be opaque and was very streaky and lumpy. It was very difficult to apply evenly. I still like the color and it is very much a jelly polish, but it dry's to a matte finish.

    You can see kinda how lumpy it looks when dry. Also the flakies get lost when this polish dries to become matte. Since it was a jelly consistency I was curious what it would look like glossy, so I added some top coat.

I like how juicy it looks when glossy, but i still wasn't pleased with how uneven it laid on the nails, so I put on some fast dry top coat so I could perhaps add some matte top coat to see if evening it out made me like it more. When I applied the fast dry top coat something weird happened.

    The fast dry top coat for some reason gave it a frosty satin like finish. It must of somehow reactivated the matte effect? It wasn't very even though so I still added a coat of matte top coat.

    I liked it much better this way then how it dried and applied on it's own, but takes far too much work and polish to achieve. All in all this polish was just not for me. It was only $3.99 at my local CVS so the price is nice, so if you can get past the lumpiness give it a try because it is a very pretty color, but otherwise I think you would be better off picking up NYC  "wine bar" if all your after is a nice plum shade.  Thanks for reading!

Steady hands to all!