Happy Haunting - Nubar Arencia, Konad Black Pearl, Bundle Monster BM20 + BM-224

So, today's manicure... has been sitting in my folders for the last four years!
 

[The creepy part is how old these are..]

This was 2011, so pretty much the first Halloween manicure I ever attempted since I got into nail polish in late 2010. =) How's that for a throwback!

[Base: Nubar Arencia]

I obviously hadn't got the hang of colour correcting photos at that point! Bear with the odd pink skintone..

[Base: Nubar Arencia]

My base was the very lovely Nubar Arencia from the Venetian Glass collection. Man, this kinda makes me feel bad because I don't think I've picked it up since doing this mani...

[Base: Nubar Arencia; Stamping: Konad Black Pearl, Bundle Monster BM20 & BM-224]

I think this was also when I first picked up stamping. Here's me going crazy with Konad Black Pearl stamping polish and Bundle Monster plates BM20 (stripes and arrows) and BM-224 (reptile print, haunted house and pumpkin).

[Base: Nubar Arencia; Stamping: Konad Black Pearl, Bundle Monster BM20 & BM-224]

Wow, look at past me! I even added some rhinestones to top it off! Current me feels rather lacking... well, there's just under a week to Halloween, so maybe I'll get my act together in time for it... Hopefully I won't take another four years to post it... =p

Two In One - Nubar Purple Beach

I can't believe I haven't posted photos for my other duochromes from Nubar. My review of Nubar Indigo Illusion can be found here. But today, I'm reviewing Nubar's Purple Beach!

[Nubar Purple Beach indoor lighting]

Is there much I need to say? The photos speak for themselves, I believe. This is an incredibly easy duochrome to photograph because Purple Beach's colour shift from purple to green-gold is prominent and eye-catching. The two different colours are so distinct from each other.

[Nubar Purple Beach natural light]

Under natural or indoor lighting, the colour shift is apparent. I'm really loving these Nubar polishes!

Mink Sparkle - Nubar Jewel

Here's a polish I picked up a long time ago but for some reason didn't get around to using till last week!

[Bottle to nail: Nubar Jewel (2 coats)]

This is Nubar Jewel from the Prism collection way back in 2010, I think it was. Jewel is a grey-ish brown shimmer base generously filled with medium-sized holo glitter.

[2 coats: Nubar Jewel]

The glitter is very slightly muted by the base but is still extremely blingy in the right lighting. This one is two coats but may possibly need three for longer nails. Topcoat is a must! This dries a bit bumpy due to the larger particle size of the holo glitter. The glitter does spread across the nail really nice and evenly though!

[2 coats: Nubar Jewel]

The base shimmer actually has a slight pink-brown shift, but it doesn't appear obviously in my photos, unfortunately. All in all, another somewhat worksafe holo option!

Dreamy Shades - Nubar Indigo Illusion

Birthday nail polish, yessssssssssssssssssssssssssss...

[Nubar Indigo Illusion]

So cool right?? Okay, okay, it's a black and white background because I was wearing a different nail polish so it would have been confusing. Also, that photo above is so gorgeous which is pretty awesome, but it's probably a little prettier than the polish on the nails.

But the nail polish is still really lovely!

[Nubar Indigo Illusion]

Behold Nubar Indigo Illusion! I love it! It's a grayish-purple to green duochrome with a tinge of gold. As you can see, the shift is pretty obvious and the nail polish can look almost entirely purple or green depending on what angle you're looking at the nails.

[Nubar Indigo Illusion]

I have many duochromes but a number of them are actually quite streaky. Not so with this one. Nubar's Indigo Illusion is easy to apply and they're opaque with two coats of polishes. An oldie but total goldie, I love this one.

Birthday pressies to meeeeeeeeee

Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeee~~~

Ev gave these to me awhile ago but I've only managed to get around to posting photos now!

Purple purple purple woooooohoooooooooo!

Woah, new OPI nail polish, can't wait to try these out with their fancy descriptions.

How pretty are these Orly plishes??

Haha, so it's a misleading box but at least I was given a clue!

Omgggg, old style Nubar duochromes. I've tried two already and I loooooove them.

Greeny Gradient - BB Couture Studio 54, LA Girl Purge, ORLY Here Comes Trouble, Mode Vicious Venom, Nubar Meadow Sparkle

Hello hello, today I have five lovely greens to show you today! I combined them together a while ago to make a gradient/ombre skittle manicure~ =)

[Greeny Glitter Gradient Galore]

I've been obsessed with finding the perfect green for a long time (I may just have found it, but that's a post for another day!). So one day when I saw how many bottle I had of just green glitter, I decided to pick a couple to make a gradient...

[The Lineup]

Here's my pick... from left to right: BB Couture Studio 54 for my base colour, LA Girl Glitter Addict in Purge, ORLY Here Comes Trouble, Mode Vicious Venom and Nubar Meadow Sparkle.

[Bottle to nail: BB Couture Studio 54 (2 coats)]

Here's my base colour - BB Couture Studio 54. This is a gorgeous green shimmer in a slightly blued base - a bit of a muted pine green. Not super bright. Formula was good and this was two coats iirc.

[Gradient Skittles (L-R): Nubar Meadow Sparkle, Mode Vicious Venom,
ORLY Here Comes Trouble, LA Girl Purge]

I then popped on varying amounts of glitter polishes on each nail.
Pinky: Nubar Meadow Sparkle. This is a fairly fine pale green. Very neutral shade.
Ring: Mode Vicious Venom. This is a gorgeous green glitter, leaning a bit warmer than my photo suggests. Great coverage.
Middle: ORLY Here Comes Trouble. This one is very similar to Mode Vicious Venom but there are also larger green hexes in the mix so the effect is a whole lot bling-ier. Great colour and coverage.
Index: LA Girl Purge. A mix of large and small kelly green hexes. Love this one too. It's more like a topper so I had to use 2-3 coats to achieve full coverage.

[L-R: LA Girl Purge over LA Girl Blackout, LA Girl Purge over BB Couture Studio 54,
ORLY Here Comes Trouble over BB Couture Studio 54]

I didn't have a darker green glitter so for my thumb, I used a black base coat instead so it would show through a layer of LA Girl Purge (left), giving it a darker shade than the index. =)

[Pinky to index: Nubar Meadow Sparkle, Mode Vicious Venom,
ORLY Here Comes Trouble, LA Girl Purge]

... and here are both hands together! LOL... I took this photo by propping my camera up on the back of my chair and pressing the shutter button.... WITH MY CHIN. =D

Lizard-inspired Manicure - LA Splash Sparkling Beach, Nubar Verde, LA Girl Blackout

Jme and I went to watch The Amazing Spiderman in IMAX on Wednesday, how exciting!! =)

I thought it was done really well, and kept to the spirit of Spidey (the comicbook smartarse). We watched it in 3D at IMAX, and I must say, this really is one film that maximised the giant screen experience! Also, how adorable is Andrew Garfield as Spiderman in it? Aaaaaah~!

So, I thought and thought about what mani I should wear to go to the movies but really, Jme's already done TWO AWESOME SPIDEY MANICURES! So I decided not to even try and instead, go for a villainous manicure instead! So here's my villainous Lizard manicure...

[The Lizard Manicure]

... or really any scaley creature... =p Hey, last time I did a Loki-inspired mani and Jme did the Avengers-inspired one... Hmmm, I'm (spidey-)sensing a trend here...

[Bottle to nail: LA Splash Sparkling Beach (2 coats)]

I started with a base of LA Splash in Sparkling Beach. This is a pretty amazing mossy green with heavy gold shimmer/microglitter. It's hard to describe what it is really! Not quite a glitter, not quite a foil or metallic. It does dry a bit gritty but I think the texture really adds to the look. Very densely pigmented and even application.

[2 coats: LA Splash Sparkling Beach]

I got my bottle from a discount store and I don't think it's listed as a current shade. However, eyeballing swatches and descriptions online, it looks pretty similar to LA Splash Komodo Dragon so perhaps this is the old name for it!

[2 coats: LA Splash Sparkling Beach]

I originally thought the heavy gold shimmer reminded me of Nubar Verde but when I compared the bottles, Verde is much greener whereas Sparkling Beach leans more towards the yellow end of the spectrum. Now, on to the stamping!

[Base: LA Splash Sparkling Beach (2 coats); Stamp: Nubar Verde + LA Girl Blackout]

I stamped with a gradient of darker green to black using Nubar Verde and LA Girl Blackout. You can see here that Nubar Verde is a much greener shade. These two photos are pre-top coat but I thought the matte stamp looked pretty cool too! The plate I used was BM-224.

[Base: LA Splash Sparkling Beach (2 coats); Stamp: Nubar Verde + LA Girl Blackout]

And here it is with topcoat added! This is my first time using two different colours to stamp - it's super easy! I'll have to do this more often...

[Base: LA Splash Sparkling Beach (2 coats); Stamp: Nubar Verde + LA Girl Blackout]

I like how the stamp looks slightly raised. =) I got an interesting comment that it looked like spider webs! I hadn't even mentioned it was Spidey-related! This is because they focused on the lighter gold-green and thought it looked like webs stretched across the nail - how interesting!

Back to the movie, I have to say though, OH MY, the amount of bad science depicted. Noooooooo~ The Lizard was interesting as a villain but perhaps more could've been done with exposition. Although so much was spent on Peter acquiring powers that maybe it was "beyond the scope of this project". Wink wink!

Next movie... The Dark Knight Rises! CAN'T WAIT!

Ev's Past Plischtures - The Third

If you've missed my previous installments of "Past Plischtures" (here and here), briefly, they're old manis with not enough photos or poor quality photos that I don't consider deserving of their own posts! I do have an amazing range today, from glass fleck and glitter, to holo and duochrome, so let's take a look!

[Nubar Jewel]

Ah, I shall have to reswatch this some day! What a horrid photo of a gorgeous polish! This is Nubar Jewel from the Prisms collection. It's a rich cool-brown shimmer with large particle scattered holo.

[LA Girl Groupie]

A favourite purple - this is LA Girl Groupie from the Rockstar collection. A gorgeous purple glass fleck in a somewhat jelly base. Super shiny and great depth!

[Zoya Charla]

I love love love Zoya Charla but somehow I don't have a good photo of it! How terrible is that up there! It's also taken with my super old camera hence the noise and white balance. Remember to check out Jme's dupe post on NYX Advanced Salon Formula in Be Jeweled. 

[Base: LA Girl Black Velvet; Glitter: China Glaze Medallion]

Another favourite polish that I am doing absolutely no credit to.... This is China Glaze Medallion - also known as my go-to insta-bling! Here it is layered over black, a crappy iThing photo to show the blinginess.

[Milani One Coat Glitter in Gold Glitz]

This is Milani One Coat Glitter in Gold Glitz. I love all the One Coat Glitters! This one is a mix of gold and orange glitter. Gorgeous depth. I think I layered it over black (you can see a bit peeking out) but with these polishes, it's really unneccessary. (What is with that ring finger nail!! O.o)

[Milani One Coat Glitter in Gold Glitz]

Gold Glitz again in all its shiny glory! Love it!

[Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Star Opal]

Finally... A duochrome! Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Star Opal. I don't much like polishes like this unfortunately - I love strong colours and super shine so while this is very pretty and pearl-like, it's just not for me.  

[Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Star Opal]

Star Opal is a pink-peach to green-purple duochrome. Not as obvious on the nail as in the bottle but it does give a very nice pearl effect. Formula is quite thin, but that helps get nice even layers on the nail.

[Sally Hansen Nail Prisms in Star Opal]

Better shot of the duochromey-ness!

Apologies for the photo quality once again! I think I just have one more of these "Past Plischtures" posts to get through and then I'm done with the cruddy backlog!