Jme's "Frankenmarch" Entry - Verily Verdant

You should have already seen Ev's gorgeous FrankenMarch entry right below mine here. It's been so fun doing this, so I really do have to thank Sarah Claire for organising this competition!

Ok, more talking later! Here's my little green Franken polish.

Entry

Blurb

Verily Verdant is the colour of lush, rolling mountains - if your average mountain had countless hidden gems, that is! Blue-toned holographic glitter catches the eye among the bright green hexagonal sparkles. A turn of the hand into the light will reveal a mesmerizing flash of ever-shifting blue, green and gold shades from the fine triochrome bar and hexagonal glitters. All this shininess lie suspended within the mid-green jelly base, giving the polish a layered depth. This franken polish looks stunning on its own and when layered over other colours as well. One layer of Verily Verdant over black allows the green-themed glitter to glow in beautiful contrast.

All my current glittery green polishes are much darker, so my aim with this Franken polish was to create something unmistakeably green that had a variety of glitter in it, especially holo glitter as I don't have anything like that right now. I was trying for something shiny with a green and blue theme, so tell me if you think that worked out fine! :)

Recipe

Time for colourful yumminess!

Whenever I mention 'bottle' here, I'm referring to the bottle of the final product, not the original bottles. I combined the following:

- 1/2 bottle of Mio Piccolo 03 - Blue-toned holographic glitter in different sizes, within a sheer blue base
- 1/4 bottle of Orly Here Comes Trouble - Different sizes of light green hex glitter
- 1/8 bottle of Color Combos CTW 507 - Triochrome hex and bar glitter that shine blue/green/gold
- 1/10 bottle of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle - To set up the green base with additional fine glitter
- 5 drops of LA Girl Idol - To get a medium, slightly bluer green for the base.


Photos
(Click to enlarge pictures!)

[Verily Verdant on nails and in the bottle]

This is my second attempt at a Franken polish, and I hadn't done this before prior to the competition. It's a lot more enjoyable than I expected, and I just want to do moooore now! My first attempt at a Franken didn't turn out too badly either (that one is called Red Carpet Party, and I'll post it here too!).

[Left: Close-up of Verily Verdant in bottle
Right: Bottled Verily Verdant]

The close-up shows the variety of glitter held in the mid-green jelly base. I have light green hex glitter in different sizes, fine gold glitter, holo glitter, an ethereal blue-tinged holo glitter, fine blue-green-gold triochrome bar glitter, and that's just listing them off the top of my head! As you can see from the picture on the right, the blue-ish holo really shines strongly when seen from an angle.

[Two coats of Verily Verdant]

I was hoping and was very pleased that this polish dries with a semi-smooth finish, as opposed to a matte, rough finish that a lot of glittery polishes seem to end up with. Of course, I went over the nails with a glossy fast-dry topcoat in any case, just for the high shine.

You can see my nail line very faintly due to the jelly-ish nature of the polish, but I don't think it's obvious in person. Aaaah, I really do love this shade of green.

[Two coats of Verily Verdant]

It's interesting to see the holo changing on this manicure, depending on the lighting. The above picture is a little more shadowed as you can see. And then...

[Two coats of Verily Verdant]

Angling the nails into the sun suddenly brings out a flare of holo, predominantly the blue holo. It's hard to capture with my camera, because focusing on the nails dims the holo and shiny glitter, but I hope you can see the cool blue shine!

[Top: Two layers of Verily Verdant on nail
Bottom: Close-up of Verily Verdant on nail]

 Look at that blue holo! It's so bright but has this interesting translucent quality to it.

[Verily Verdant under bright lights]

The above photo was taken with my iPhone to capture that blingy shine of the glitter.

With its jelly-ish and glitter-full nature, Verily Verdant looks pretty amazing layered over black as well.

[One layer of Verily Verdant over black]

It's like green-tinged space! The glitter really looks brilliant against black. I'm going to try this over other colours in the future, to see if it spices up colours like blue or white. :D

[One layer of Verily Verdant over black, from different angles]

I just love how different the shine looks from various angles, and how there's always something new to stare at on this manicure.

[Top: One layer of Verily Verdant over black
Below: Close-up]

Seriously, shiny, shiny space!

[One layer of Verily Verdant over black]

The above, dodgy-looking picture was taken with my iPhone, again to show how shiny the glitter is. The first picture shows a greener tinge, while with just the slightest shift of lighting, the blue shine comes through instead.


Phew, that's the end of this lengthy post. Thanks for reading all of that! If you want to see the other gorgeous entries for this competition, you can find them here at Shatter me Claire's blog. If you do like Verily Verdant here, please vote for me there! :D

Jme's Past Plischtures - Catching Up Like A Boss

Here we go, these are a few nail polishes I swatched in the last few months and that I quite liked.

Most of the glossy polishes have either Seche Vite Quick Dry, or Orly In A Snap over them because I am impatient, and because the topcoat tends to make them shinier which is always a plus.



[Ulta3 English Rose]

Ulta3's English Rose is a very pretty red with gold shimmer. I find Ulta3's formula to be rather nice and I like that it isn't streaky like some shimmers.

[LA Splash Ocean Sprinkles over Zoya Tiffany]

I don't have any pictures of LA Splash's Ocean Sprinkles on its own, but it is a light blue-base jelly-ish polish with sparse gold glitter in it. I quite like it and often layer it over other polishes to get that blue hint and glint of gold.

[Orly Here Comes Trouble]

Orly Here Comes Trouble, which is an amusing name to me, consists of small hexagonal glitter among other tiny glitters! Would look gorgeous as one layer against black I think, but only needs two coats for full coverage.

[China Glaze Tarnished Gold and Platinum Pieces over Nubar Night Sparkle]

I have read that the metallic crackles are as good as the creme crackles, but I don't find this to be the case. I think China Glaze's Black Mesh (as seen below) cracks a lot better than China Glaze's Tarnished Gold or Platinum Pieces, both of which tends to be a bit thick.

[China Glaze Black Mesh over Revlon Tropical Temptation]

I do love Revlon's Tropical Temptation, because it's such a cheerful, summery colour. With China Glaze's Black Mesh over it, the mani suddenly gains a cool edge!

[XOX 24 (white-blue) over China Glaze Black Mesh over Zoya Tiffany]

XOX 24 is a sheer white polish packed with electric blue micro-glitter. I have tried it layered over all sorts of dark colours and it really does give manis a zingy, almost sci-fi look. However, XOX polishes also smell incredibly foul. Eaurgh. Use only in well-ventilated places.

[China Glaze Black Mesh over Ulta Silver Glitter]

Black crackle polishes against bright glitter ones are gorgeous! Ulta's Silver Glitter is a dense silver glitter with random holo glitters through it. Quite pretty and only requires two coats for full coverage if your nails aren't very long.

[BYS Cracked Red over China Glaze Black Mesh over Ulta Silver Glitter]

BYS Cracked Red doesn't crack much. It cracks slowly in fine spiderweb cracks as it dries. But it does make the polish easy to flake off in cracked pieces, so you can control how it looks. I think this one looks like an odd macabre goth polish. Topcoat over the lot makes the red crackle stay on.

[China Glaze Atlantis from index to ring finger, Mio Piccolo 03 on pinkie and thumb]

China Glaze's Atlantis is a holo glitter in blue-green jelly base that dries matte. Needs about three/four layers for full coverage. Mio Piccolo 03 (from Korea I believe) comes in a small little rose-shaped bottle, which is quite cute.

 

[LA Splash Embellished]

 LA Splash Embellished (which is actually spelled Embellshed on the bottle) is a very striking magenta polish with holo glitter. One of my favourites from LA Splash.

[LA Splash Sparkling Torpedo]

Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh, LA Splash's Sparkling Torpedo is another favourite. Densely packed silver holo glitter, one of the most holographic polishes I have seen. It also dries smooth instead of rough and gritty, unlike most dense glitter. The formula is a little gloopy, but the negative is well worth the pretty you get. Needs about two/three layers for full coverage.

[Essie Matte About You over Nubar's Nubar 2010 over OPI My Private Jet]

I love flakie polish, yes I do. Oh, and because I use matte polish over OPI My Private Jet, the holo disappears of course. But the duochrome (triochrome?) flakies from Nubar 2010 are still as gorgeous as ever.

[Nfu Oh Nfu 40 over Savvy Coal]

Nfu Oh's Nfu 40 (not terribly creative names here) is one of my favourites of all times! From certain angles, it has a purple tinge my camera is not picking up, and it's more blue or green depending on how you turn your hand. Blurple-green flakies are so lovely, and they really remind me of opals, so I had to do a comparison:



How gorgeous is that? Just looking at the pictures make me want to try them on again.


That's all for my catch-up post for now! Tell me what you think~