Grape Expectations - OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?

I'm pretty much 3.5 people at work for the next few weeks so it's been tough finding some time to play with nails, edit pics and write up posts... so this is going to be short and sweet!

[Bottle to nail: OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI? (2 coats)]

This here was given to me by one of my colleagues. My workmates are stoked to have a polish addict in their midst, and very kindly contribute to my addiction! =p This is OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI? from the Spring 2012 Holland collection.

[2 coats: OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?]

It's a red-leaning purple creme that also has subtle copper shimmer running through it. The shimmer is not particularly obvious on the nail. Mostly opaque at two coats, which is what I used here. Good formula, relatively quick dry time - a nice no-fuss creme basically.

[2 coats: OPI Dutch 'Ya Just Love OPI?]

It actually comes off looking a bit dusty purple on the nail. I don't think I like or dislike it particularly, just a nice neutral shade that... you guessed it! Would make a great base for stamping.... Wonder what next week's post will be about... =p

Cybernet - OPI So Elegant, Essie jiggle hi, jiggle low

Let's take a break from our regular schedule of stamping to talk about glitter.

[Base: Essie jiggle hi jiggle low
Top: OPI So Elegant]

I haven't played with glitter for awhile. The base of this nail polish is Essie's jiggle hi jiggle low, which is this shiny warm-silver foil. The glitter on top of that is OPI's So Elegant, which is a glitter topper consisting of matte black and grey-blue hex glitter of different sizes. 

[Base: Essie jiggle hi jiggle low
Top: OPI So Elegant]

I think I do like this colour combo between the base and the glitter. I like So Elegant but unfortunately, it's not very dense and I felt I had to fish for glitter sometimes which took a little of the fun out of it.

Copper Lightning - Hit the Bottle Burnt Orange, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away, Stamping Plate D by Cheeky

Today's stamping efforts kind of look... weird.

[Base: Sally Hansen Blue Me Away
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Burnt Orange, Stamping plate D by Cheeky]

Weird and a little creepy, for reasons I can't place. But I'm going to share it anyway, because you should get to see misadventures in nail polish as well. :P The base polish is Sally Hansen's Blue Me Away (good one, SH!), which is a nice sky blue. The stamping polish is Hit the Bottle's Burnt Orange. It's a copper-gold colour and stamps opaque beautifully.

[Stamping plate D by Cheeky]

This is jumbo stamping plate D by Cheeky, from the 2012 collection. As I mentioned in my last post, you can still buy this on Amazon. The pattern I'm using in this post is the one with a dark pink square around it and you can click on the image above for a larger picture.

[Base: Sally Hansen Blue Me Away
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Burnt Orange, Stamping plate D by Cheeky]

I usually love blue and gold/brown combinations. I thought the pattern also looked lovely on the plate. But on my nails, it just looks a little weird. I think my nails are kind of small and narrow so you couldn't see more of the pattern, which makes it look like there's just weird squiggly lines across my nails rather than a coherent image.

The stamping itself was fine. The pattern stamped easily and the Hit the Bottle stamping polish is a dream to work with as usual. The end result just wasn't what I expected. What do you all think?

Diving Deep - Maybelline Color Show Sequins Sea-quin

It's a super busy time at work right now so this is a quick post of something I bought a while ago but only wore recently.

[Bottle to nail: Maybelline Color Show Sequins Sea-quin (2-3 coats)]

This sparkly beauty is from the Maybelline Color Show Sequins collection and it's called Sea-quin. (Ha!) As the name suggests, it's a medium blue glitter polish that leans slightly teal.

[2-3 coats: Maybelline Color Show Sequins Sea-quin]

It's mostly made up of small and medium sized glitter of this bluey-teal but there are scattered hexes of a deeper blue which you can see in the photos. The jelly base is very lightly tinted blue as well.

[2-3 coats: Maybelline Color Show Sequins Sea-quin]

I used 2-3 coats to get full opacity but dry time wasn't too bad so this wasn't a chore. Formula was also good to work with for a glitter suspension. 

[2-3 coats: Maybelline Color Show Sequins Sea-quin]

The glitter lays nicely flat but it's definitely a topcoat eater! Be generous with your topcoat for maximum shine, or forgo it for a textured look if that's more to your taste.

Basket Weave - Covergirl Midnight Magic, Hit the Bottle Chromeo, Stamping plate A by Cheeky

More stamping but with old plates this time!

[My metallic weave]

The base is CoverGirl's Midnight Magic and I have stamped over it with Hit the Bottle Chromeo, a silver chrome stamping nail polish. Now as for the stamping plate...

[Stamping plate A by Cheeky]

This is jumbo stamping plate A by Cheeky which I bought in 2012 on Amazon. I looked through Amazon and was amazed that they do still sell it and you can find one here. Back in 2012, I bought it and then left it to languish in a drawer until I dug it out now to test it out. There really are a lot of patterns here! Look at how shiny this untouched stamping plate is, hah.

The pattern I chose is the one with the dark pink rectangle around it. The stamping didn't go too badly I think.

[Base: CoverGirl Midnight Magic
Stamping: Hit the Bottle Chromeo, Stamping plate A by Cheeky]

The only hard time I had with this pattern was stamping it on straight. As you can see, some of them are more diagonal than straight, oops. Oh well. I think it turned out pretty well. Chromeo is a basic silver chrome but it stamps like a dream.

As for the stamping plate, I'm not crazy about this 2012 Cheeky stamping plates. I tested some of the other designs from a couple other plates and some of the lines were just too fine. Even when you could pick up the fine lines, they were often barely visible on the nails when stamped. That's not to say that the plates are a write off. I found most of their geometrical patterns tended to be better, probably because they had slightly thicker lines.

Panning for Gold - Sally Hansen Golden Rust

A nice no-frills manicure today - by which I mean that I only used a single polish! As you can see, it's still heavy on the sparkle.. just the way I like it!

[Bottle to nail: Sally Hansen Golden Rust (2 coats)]

This polish is Sally Hansen Golden Rust from the Complete Salon Manicure range. It is a coppery-bronze jelly base packed with different sizes of gold hex glitter.

[2 coats: Sally Hansen Golden Rust]

I was a bit hesitant at first, but it just looked so good in the bottle! I'm pleased to say that it was quite easy to work with and I just ended up using two coats to get the look above. Dry time was also pretty good and the glitters lay nice and flat. You do get a bit of a textured feel, but nothing some generous topcoat won't fix.

[2 coats: Sally Hansen Golden Rust]

I have to say, this is an absolute winner in terms of jelly consistency. Opaque enough that two coats gives you decent coverage, and translucent enough that the first layer of glitter gets that beautiful muted depth that's ideal in a jelly sandwich.

[2 coats: Sally Hansen Golden Rust]

These photos are a bit dark but I wanted to show what a nice pop of brightness the gold glitter makes against the jelly base. Quite a few people told me they liked it, which is great because most non nail-people I know tend to stick to safe creme shades. Yesss, I'll convert y'all to glitter yet!

Wheeling Stars - Born Pretty Stamping Polish #9, Haru No Uta plate L008, Australis' Jeanie in A Bottle, Orly Au Champagne Stamping

I tested out this stamping plate and polish in my last post here, but I actually tried another pattern on the stamping plate too which I'm sharing today. It's less snowflakey and more like a star with a wheel in the center.

[A star-shaped wheel]

You can see the pattern I chose below from Born Pretty's Harunouta (Haru No Uta) 春の歌 plate L008 which was sent to us for review. I've included a handy arrow in the picture so you can't miss the pattern I picked. ;)

[Haru No Uta 春の歌 plate L008]

Like the other mani, I tried a white base as my accent nail for contrast to the rest of the nails. But it wasn't that great an idea considering the shade of the stamping polish.

[Dark base: Australis' Jeanie in A Bottle
Light base: Orly Au Champagne
Stamping: Born Pretty Stamping Polish #9, Haru No Uta plate L008]

It's still an interesting look but I quickly decided to stamp over the nail on my pinkie finger.

[Dark base: Australis' Jeanie in A Bottle
Light base: Orly Au Champagne
Stamping: Born Pretty Stamping Polish #9, Australis Jeanie in A Bottle, Haru No Uta plate L008]

Much better, in my opinion! The designs on the stamping plate are a little large so the pattern doesn't come together in a perfect, complete picture when all the nails are held close together. But parts of it are certainly recognisable even on the nail and they are pretty cool patterns. Overall, a pretty pattern to have!

There's currently a discount so you can get the stamping plate for the price of $2.99. You can get 10% off on other items by using the code above at Born Pretty's store!