Zoya Angel

I found few older pics of some pinks in my hard drive. Zoya Angel is one of my favorite pinks, very soft and super flattering to my skintone. The base shade is dusty rose with a hint of mauve in it. The polish is packed with shimmer that seems to be a mix of pink and perhaps pale gold or silver with warm tinge. The overall impression is grayed rose in my eyes. In the bottle the shimmer is very dominating, but on the nail this color can be surprisingly cremelike, especially in indirect light.

The light in the picture is warm indirect evening light and it gives a little too warm impression of this color - although it really has a beigeish nature in warm light. The bottle image gives a good impression of the color in more cool light.


This polish can be used with just one sheer layer or 2 to 3 layers for more opaque look. The consistency is thin and fast drying, easy to work with if you don't try to make thick coats.

Half moon mani attempt with Opi Time-Less is More and Color Club Fast Woman

The half moon manis have been bubbling around - at least in burlesque circles. Dita von Teese has been sporting the style quite a lot.

And lately the half moon circles have been seen in the runway, too: in Dior, Thakoon, Ruffian...

The manicure definitely has the retro vibe in it. The origins of this style are on 30's and 40's. Personally I remember seeing it first long time ago on Imelda Marcos in some magazine. Images of Imelda, her perfect manicure and several thousand pairs of shoes was contrasted to strong photography from Manila protests for 1986 election...

As you can see, my first half moon attempt was not an immediate success, but I definitely learned something in the process.


I started with two coats of Opi Time-Less is More, this is nice cool but soft shade of white. The two coats i used here were perhaps bit too sheer for this purpose. The red polish is Color Club Fast Woman, a rich deep cool red. For some reason this polish is really hard to photograph, it easily looks brown based.

On the pinky I tried freehand application - a total disaster, I did not even bother to clean up the mess. On ringfinger I tried a paper guide - it bled. On middle and forefinger I went back to freehand method, but this time I rolled the finger I was painting instead of trying to achieve the shape with brush stroke. This provided quite decent results.

For line painting it is essential that there is not too much polish in the brush. But after creating the arch shape you need quite a thick coat of color to disquise the stroke painted to vertical direction. Add the top color immediately after the stroke so that the vertical stroke still blends to the color area. A thick coat can be easily applied close to the color border, the vertical stroke will act as a light barrier for bleeds if you are careful. The blending is not perfect in the previous image, but I made another round with better success. I'm sure that practise will help with this.

And few random thoughts and ideas about this kind of mani. For top colour I would pick shades that are decent looking with just one thick coat - the half moon circle will not get prettier with several applications of top color. The classic way is to use pale base and strong contrasting top color, but I quess that inverting the colours could be nice effect. I can easily see the half moon mani done with more subdued shades - or bright contrasting ones - and different textures could be utilized as long as the base shade leaves a surface smooth enough to work with - a rough glitter base might not be the best idea. I would not try to paint the moon over the main color, but with steady hand and small decoration brush even that could be possible.

Glamour magazine has a clever trick for half moon manis, the editor uses the paper hole reinforcement stickers as guides for the half moon. I certainly will try this, although I think that the guides usually create a little too harsh edge between the colors. Plus one has to wait the base color to be completely dry before applying the stickers, otherwise the stickers will ruin the base.

I guess that the best results could be achieved by shaping the arch with small, sharp brush and remover afterwards leaving the half moon area bare (that's the classic way to go) - but of course then I could not use two polish colors for this. And I quite enjoy the strong contrast that the white base creates... Maybe I just purchase a separate precision brush, perhaps a small slanted one for painting the first line with dark polish? Or maybe a thin one with long and flexible bristles would be even better? That kind of extra brush might also help with french tips and cuticle cleaning... ...perhaps I should take a closer look to my artists brush collection!

NYX Hawaii & Seche Vite in test

There are some polishes those I wished they would work - but they just don't. One of them is NYX Hawaii, a beautiful pale blue that leans slightly to aqua. I'm a bit confused about the finishes, in the past I would have definitely called this kind of color pearl, but I see that many brands call them frost.


I like pastels in general and this particular shade of blue always catches my eye. The problem with this polish is that it is awfully sheer. With one coat I get a subtle layer of shimmer that looks almost white. I could use this as part of funky french manicure, I think that the effect might be quite cool.

Streakiness is typical for this kind of colors and this is not an exception. I'm not skilled enough to avoid it totally, but very thin, carefully applied coats keeps the streaking in acceptable levels...


Second coat starts to build the color a bit, but this is still far from the bottle color. This is probably the ugliest phase, the application looks very uneven and the pale blue is not particularly flattering in semi sheer.


Third coat helps a lot, but it is not opaque enough to my taste. This is usually my breaking point, manis over three coats are just too much for me plus the strenuous application off this particular color really turns me off. But because I wanted to test Seche Vite in real action I still added one thin coat more - and the fifth thicker coat to my thumbnail just for curiosity.


This is the result with four coats and one thick coat of Seche Vite. This polish has good shiny surface by itself, but clear and very shiny coat of Seche still adds some dimensionality to the finish. It is extremely difficult to capture that in the images, though.


Seche did excellent job with four thin coats of this polish. I got one bubble to one nail, but I had just carried the bottle in my purse and there were some bubbles in the top coat, this one I noticed too late to brush it away. Ten minutes from the application of Seche the nails were ready for light work.

On thumbnail the five coats were too much for Seche. The dryer penetrated only the top layer of polish and dried that in a snap - but now I had a dry layer of polish over completely wet layer; extremely vulnerable for dents. I added one more ample coat of Seche and witnessed a curious phenomena: the whole polish layer wrinkled to funny, organic looking micro folds. But the wrinkles started to disappear while Seche dried, and to my surprise I got almost perfect finish to my thumb, too (minus the dent, I tested the dryness too vigorously).

So Seche Vite is good stuff in my books. Of course I have to test it with other brands, too.

About Hawaii, I would love to love it.


I mean what isn't there to love in these glowing, cyborg-chic tippies? It's the application, that is just too much for me...

China Glaze Rodeo Fanatic

Old news is good news in this blog... Rodeo Fanatic is my first and only color from China Glaze's Rodeo Diva collection. I have been very hesitant to try this on, it looks all too flashy in the bottle. Shimmery, tealish blue with quite strong purple flash, from the bottle I would judge this borderline duochromatic. Ouch!

But on the nails this is fabulous, blackened enough to be stylish, but definitely blue in different lighting. The purple flash seems to almost disappear on the nail, it only makes the color less teal looking in some light. On the other hand the warm shades of artificial light brings the teal shade up nicely. This is Rode Fanatic in indirect natural light:


Sunlight really shows the beautiful shimmer.


But the best thing with this color is the application, it's flawless. I really dig CG brush, not too small, not too big - just perfect. And the best for last: this is one coater on my short nails, longer ones might benefit from two.

A polish with double personality: BB Couture Opposites Attract

Lately I have swatched all but summery colors - but today I'm happy I did. BB Couture Opposites Attract has a weird double nature that is fully revealed in full sunlight. In indirect light the polish can almost pass as cool medium gray creme. Just a hint of unevenness suggests other.

There is quite a load of glasslike crystal shimmer packed in this polish, plus some deep blue shimmer, seen as almost black dots in indirect light. The shimmer is extremely difficult to capture to photograph, but it reminds me a lot of China Glaze glass shimmers (for example White Qvik Silvr).


Nah, this does not show the shimmer as I wished it would.

Consistency was perhaps a bit watery, but the polish is well pigmented and fast drying, definitely a two-coater. I really like all BB Couture polishes I've tried so far.

My topcoat on the other hand is almost finished, thick and gooey, bubbly, annoying to apply and almost ruins the manicures. A bottle of Seche Vite is on its way to here!

Manglaze The Death Tar

Manglaze-manis make me truly happy.

After the gorgeous Fuggen Ugly I was a bit hesitant to try the black version - it's ordinary black after all, huh, can't be as beautiful and extraordinary than FU.

Well, I was wrong. Death Tar is gorgeous in it's own right. I love this less loud than shiny black, velvety, secretly shimmery, stealthily mean look. Perfect application, this is two coats.

Excuse my purple stained fingers...

BB Couture for Nails, Blind Love

More metallics! I've had Chanel Caleidoscope, a gorgeous greenish shade of silver - and I lost it. Some time ago I cleaned up my nail polish stash leaving just few favorite shades. I'm certainly sure that I was not about to banish the beloved Caleidoscope, but something strange happened and I have not been able to find it since. This spring I got an urge to find a duplicate to it - I'm not paying the eBay prices from the original.

BB Couture Blind love comes satisfyingly close. It has the same foil like finish, but the sunlight reveals a super sparkling shimmer of this color. The color is beautiful, slightly oxidised shade of silver. In my memories Caleidoscope was slightly greener, but I guess that I can settle with Blind Love.

Application of this polish is really good, it gives surprisingly smooth surface with no bad brush stroke stripes and dries fast. This is two coats without top coat. I guess that it is only the memory of beloved Caleidoscope that prevents me to use the tag "Great" in conjunction to this color.