China Glaze Tempest & Orly Lunar Eclipse

China Glaze - Tempest, 3 coats

Ah Tempest, you're one of my very favourite lacquers. ♥ The formula was watery but not especially runny and I had to do three thick coats to get full opacity. Tempest has a very shy duochrome side to her but it's there alright!

China Glaze - Tempest & Orly - Lunar Eclipse, 3 + 2 coats

I tried to stamp some snowflakes over Tempest but that was a big fat fail, so I grabbed Lunar Eclipse and hid the offending designs with two coats of this liquid loveliness.

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Stuf. 56 Beam & Orly Space Cadet

 

 stuf. - 56 Beam, 3 coats

This stunning purple to orange to green duochrome was yet another of my eBay bargain finds along with another lacquer by stuf., a blue to violet iridescent glitter which is a dupe for Sinful Colors' Pearl Harbour. Incidentally, 56 Beam is a dead-on dupe for another HTF lacquer, Rimmel's Zeitgeist, which I also own. The only difference between the two is that Zeitgeist is more opaque, requiring two coats whereas the stuf. lacquer had thinned down probably due to its age and needed three coats to eliminate VNL. Stuf. were an Australian brand who closed down years ago so eBay is your best bet if you wish to hunt this pretty little gem down.

 stuf. - 56 Beam & Orly  Space Cadet, 3 + 1 coats 

Since the Orly is also sheer I layered it over the stuf. lacquer. They're identical in their duochrominess with the execption of Space Cadet being a glass fleck foil and 56 Beam a shimmer. Me likes! Pics taken with mum's Canon PowerShot S95 (I still prefer my G6 over it, the S95 messes up the colours and I had to do a lot of colour correcting).

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Orly Cosmic FX 'It's Not Rocket Science'

I spent Friday through Sunday down in Provo, Utah for a military event. I took some basic nail supplies with me so I could do my nails and take pictures while I was gone...but I forgot my camera. So what you're getting is day four of my fabulous new polish, pardon the the damage. Also pardon the lighting, we've been having more than our fair share of gray skies so these are taken in 'sorta sunny" conditions.
I was lucky enough to pick up It's Not Rocket Science and Galaxy Girl but sadness, they had already sold out of Space Cadet at the Sally's I went to and I haven't ventured out since to look for it.
Predictably enough given that green is involved I am completely in love with this polish. The fact that I received so many complements on it doesn't hurt either. One gentleman said that he thought that from a distance my nails were beads.
I think that is a pretty good description, greeny/gold, glittery beads, heck, if they made beads that looked like this I'd snatch them up in a heartbeat.
Be still my heart, application was a breeze as well. The first coat looked like an olive green and I wasn't sure how that would turn into the glorious green the bottle bragged but the second and third coat brought out the richness.
The only problem I had was with the drying...It didn't want to.
I used Orly Bonder as my base coat followed by three coats of INRS followed by a coat of Sally Hansen's Insta Dri.
I noticed on the first coat of INRS that is was sticky for longer than most polishes and the additional coats compounded the issue allowing for some significant damage that required removal and re-doing. Even with the quick dry top coat...it was dry but it would just slide off the nail because of the unset polish beneath it. This was even with a wait time of about two minutes between coats. Maybe it was the humidity, I hope so because it's a fabulous polish. Read Full...