OPI - Embrace the Gray, OPI - Fly & OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window

As I said in my previous post: Embrace the Gray is a nice canvas for nailart......the proof is in the pudding!
I combined it here with OPI Uh-oh Roll Down the Window (Touring America Collection Fall 2011)
and OPI Fly (Nicki Minaj Collection 2012) in a kind of waterfall brushstroke art thing. In real life it was a bit more outspoken but not by much: I like the muted tones even though Fly is fairly bright. It was a nice and quick tip wear cover up ;-)

OPI - Embrace the Gray & OPI - Fly & OPI - Uh-Oh Roll Down the Window

OPI - Embrace the Gray (OPI Fifty Shades of Grey Collection 2015)

The Fifty Shades of Grey Collection wasn't a very memorable one for me: there was the obligatory red creme, the these days unavoidable silver and a bunch of greys >duh<
Embrace the Gray was the one that spoke most to me, so that was the one I bought.
It is a medium grey, not too dark, not too light and neutral in tone.
Very wearable and probably lovely as a canvas for some glitter or stamping!

OPI - Embrace the Gray

OPI - Just Lanai-ing Around (Hawaii, Spring/Summer Collection 2015) & Super Bass Shatter (Nicki Minaj Collection 2012)

Slowly working my way through all the pictures a made the last few months!
Today I found this one in the archives: it's OPI Just Lanai-ing Around topped with OPI Super Bass Shatter. I know I had some tip wear on the JLA but was not in the mood to change the whole mani so I added the shatter. I kinda like the result, although I don't love shatters very much....

OPI Just Lanai-ing Around & Super Bass Shatter

OPI - Love Athletes in Cleats (MLB Collection, 2014)

Again a polish I wore last year.....OPI Love Athletes in Cleats, it's from the MLB Collection, that is it's baseball related. It was a little extra colllection that year and for me this was the only polish that was remotely interesting. The rest was just too frosty and/or boring to my taste.

Love Athletes in Cleats is a rasberry red with loads of silver/pearly white glass flecks floating around.
I remember the consistency of the polish being a bit fluffy but workable.

OPI Love Athletes in Cleats

OPI - Die Another Day (Skyfall, Holiday Collection 2012)

It has been a long time.....I know!
I haven't stopped wearing polish or making nail pics, it's just that there are just 24 hours in a day and that is sometimes not enough to do everything I would like to do.
I'll try to post a bit more frequently but I don't know if it's going to work: let's say I'll try.

To start I came upon these nails I did some months ago; OPI Die Another Day.
A lovely glowing red with a hint of orange.

OPI Die Another Day

OPI - Got the Blues for Red & Fashion a Bow & I Sing in Color gradient

Even though it is 14 Celsius over here...I made a effort to get into the holiday spirit and made this red gradient with stardust! Base colour is OPI Fashion a Bow (one of the greatest reds e v e r), the gradient was made with OPI Got the Blues for Red and I Sing in Color and I finished it all of with China Glaze Fairy Dust. It's all kind of Christmassy right?!

OPI - Got the Blues for Red & Fashion a Bow & I Sing in Color gradient

OPI - Super Star Status (Holiday Starlight Collection 2015)

After a few days I had some tip wear with my OPI Umpires Come Out At Night so I decided to add some festive tip covering glitter to solve the problem. I used OPI Super Star Status from the Holiday Collection.
To achieve these shapes I used some french nail tip guides from the Born Petty Store.
Super Star Status is a very dense glitter: the base is transparent with tiny silver glitter and there is a liberal helping of bigger pale gold glitters in the mix as well.
This is just one coat: I can totally see this covering the nails completely in two coats, so it is very wearable on it's own!

OPI - Super Star Status

OPI - Umpires Come Out At Night (MLB Collection 2014)

OPI Umpires Come Out At Night is a lovely navy blue that stays navy in almost all lights.
The formula is a but runny but workable and it covers in two coats.
The smell of this one is a bit strange though, although some blue polishes have this problem or so I'm told...
It is very, very shiny!!

OPI - Umpires Come Out At Night

Halloween nails: China Glaze - Cackle If You Want To (Ghouls' Night Out Halloween Collection 2015)

I had the right Halloween spirit this year for my nails!
China Glaze Cackle If You Want To is such a nice glitter topper, how could I not get inspired?!
It is a matte striped (!) purple (4 sizes) and black (3 sizes) glitter mix in a clear base.
It was the only polish I got from the collection, the orange (Lady and The Vamp) and the green one (Drink Up Witches) were sold out.....
For this mani I used China Glaze Cackle If You Want to (glitter topper), DURI Piranha (green), OPI Rumple's Wiggin (pale lilac), OPI Do You Have This Color In Stock-holm?, OPI My Vampire Is Buff (light creme), OPI You're So Vain-illa (vanilla creme) and Essie Licorice (black).

Halloween mani 2015

Thumbie The Mummy

p.s. The water marbled mummy thumb on my right hand is better looking than his left handed brother!

OPI Ce-less-tial Is More & OPI Cosmo With a Twist (Holiday Starlight Collection 2015)

OPI Ce-less-tial Is More, is a rose gold foil heavy with holo glitter.
2 lumpy coats gives a opaque finish (no top coat here): it is very, very gritty (like a rough liquid sand).
It is OK, but I am not a fan of the glitter in foil look.......

OPI Ce-less-tial is More

OPI Cosmo With a Twist, is a dark raisin purple-blue, with colour shifting glass flecks.
The flecks shift from turquoise to blue to bright violet, depending on the light.
The polish is watery (watch out for flooding) and prone to make bald spots (I needed three coats to make it completely opaque). For me the base colour is just too dark and too brown......love the shifting glass flecks though!

OPI Cosmo With a Twist

OPI Give Me Space (Holiday Starlight Collection 2015)

Well, it has been a while......
Life got the better of me: we adopted a puppy named Echo (a Portuguese Podengo mix found in a trashcan), I started a serious study (Law), the summer holidays, helping the kids with school etc. etc.

Echo, 12 weeks

So I am now trying to find a way to fit blogging into this picture: it needs to be quick and easy, so the next few weeks I am going to figure out how to make this happen! But it's going to be less pictures, less text and just once a week on monday.

Here we go!

OPI Give Me Space

OPI Give Me Space, from the Starlight Holiday Collection 2015.
This is one coat over one coat of Essie After School Boy Blazer: I wanted it to be less jelly blue and more midnight sky.
And LOOK: Give Me Space is a scattered holo >ieks< !!!!!
It is a sister of Zoya Dream, but that one is more blue and the holo is more fleck-like (read: bigger).

Comparison Essie - Take it Outside, Chinchilly & Berlin There Done That + bonus mani

Essie Take it Outside is by no means a extremely unique colour (lovely but not unique), so I needed to compare it with the greige polishes I have in my possession: Essie Chinchilly and (a favourite) OPI Berlin There Done That. I thought I would have more close calls....but they were all too brown.
The two Essie's are definitely family: TIO is a lighter version of Chinchilly. BTDT is a touch more brown and is again a step darker then Chinchilly.

Essie Take it Outside, Chinchilly & OPI Berlin There Done That

In my search for family and friends of Take it Outside I found Elevation Polish Aguja St. Exupery to be a very handsome friend. It is a light holo topper with a dusting of old gold and steel grey flakes and it is from the Patagonia Collection 2014. The flakes make the polish interesting in the shade and the holo does it's trick in the sun! Because of the combination of old gold and steel gray flakes it matches the greige of Take it Outside perfectly.

Elevation Polish - Aguja St. Exupery

Still very work appropriate but with a nice twist. Formula was outstanding: just one coat with an even flake distribution.

Aguja St. Exupery (the name keeps reminding me of the writer of the famous book "Le Petit Prince", Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. That is not without reason as Wikipedia explanes: "The Aguja Saint Exupery is a mountain spear ('aguja') located near the Cerro Chaltén in the Los Glaciares National Park in Patagonia, Argentina. The mountain is named in memory of Antoine de Saint Exupéry, the French writer and aviator who was director of the Aeroposta Argentina airline and pioneered postal flights in the Patagonia region between 1929 and 1931.") is still available at Elevation Polish.

Formula: 5/5

Durability: 4/5

Shine:4/5

Colour: 5/5

Overall: 5/5