An Oldie But A Goodie: OPI Not Like The Movies

This polish is Not Like The Movies, part of OPI's Katy Perry Collection from a few years ago. Not Like The Movies is a metallic purple, gray and green multichrome with a bit of silver glitter thrown in. It's a bit sheer--I could have made do with 3 coats, but I applied 4 coats because I REALLY wanted the depth of coverage and no visible nail line.

Since this collection is a few years old, I got it at the beginning of the year for half the retail price at TJ Maxx. Well, TJ Maxx sells them in two packs, so you pay the same amount, but get two polishes for the price of one. Most of my OPIs and NOPIs came from TJ Maxx or Marshall's!

I'm not sure what took me so long to use this polish, it is simply gorgeous!

Multichrome Madness with Ozotic 505!

 

I am in LOVE with this multichrome manicure! This is Ozotic 505 layered over OPI Russian Navy. Russian Navy is a classic OPI polish that's a dark navy blue shimmer with magenta tones, giving it a bit of a purple look. Ozotic 505 is a multichrome polish that shifts from dark green to dark purple to blue. It's always meant to be layered over a dark shade of polish to get the full effect. If I'm remembering correctly, Ozotic is no longer manufacturing this shade, so if you really want this polish your best bet is Ebay, of course. There may be some online retailers that still have some left in stock, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

This post is going to be text-light and picture-heavy! Isn't it GORGEOUS? Unfortunately, as you can see from most of the pictures, I smushed the tips a little bit on my index and ring fingers before I had a chance to photograph them in the daylight. I thought they were DRY! :(

An inside photo taken before I accidentally smushed the tips:

Midnight Seduction over Black Tie

So, this is my first blog post in a LONG time. What can I say, life happens. I still love nail polish, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with my blogging now.

Today I have on two coats of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Black Tie" as my base color. It's a gorgeous purply-charcoal duochrome that you can find at just about any drugstore. On top of that I have a coat of Kleancolor "Midnight Seduction", which has a clear base and is jam-packed with multi-colored micro glitter. Klean color isn't available where I live, so I bought mine from someone on eBay.

I've always had a hard time getting my camera to focus on glitter, but I went ahead and added the unfocused shot anyway, to show you how nice this combination of polishes is. Aren't they gorgeous?!

Butter London "Knackered"!

I had been wanting "Knackered" from Butter London for a few months now, but I could never bring myself to pay the $14 price tag, so you can imagine how excited I was when Coterie.com had their big promotion! For those of you who don't know, they had a pre-sale prior to the opening of their online store where you could purchase 3 Butter London colors and a matte top coat for $36, and then add a code for $25, bringing the total to $11 shipped! (I think this promo is over, so sorry to anyone who missed it.)

Knackered is a purple duochrome with a scattering of holographic glitter. The secondary color in the duochrome is a light blue. Knackered is a bit sheer, so I had to pair it with some undies. I chose "Zeus" from Sinful Colors. Zeus is a purple shimmer with a hint of pink.

I am so happy with this color combination! I'm in love. Unfortunately it was overcast this morning when I was taking photos. I still think the photos turned out good. Now for some swatch spam!

This one was indoors by the window. It's blurry, but it shows the holo glitter better.

Butter London "Knackered" and Sinful Colors "Zeus".

Winter Wonderland and Blue Frost

Today's manicure is two coats of Kleancolor "Winter Wonderland" over two coats of Scherer Chameleon "Blue Frost".

Winter Wonderland is a shimmery silver foil with just about every color of (small) glitter. I think next time I use this polish, I'll layer it over a shimmery white. Kleancolor brand is not sold in my area, so I bought this from an eBay seller.

Blue Frost is a silvery/light blue duochrome. The color itself is very pretty, even though the duochrome is not strong. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the color by itself to show you, because the formula is not very good. It went on very streaky, and even kind of clumpy. :( I would never have been able to wear it by itself because of that. Since I knew I was putting a fairly bumpy glitter topcoat that would camouflage the bumps, I went ahead and left it on. I had read some bad reviews of Scherer Chameleon polishes, so I wasn't really surprised. It's a shame, because the color itself was nice. This is another brand of polish that's not sold in my area. I got this one from Copious.

Here's a shot with my camera phone in Macro mode. It shows a close-up of the glitter better, but it washes out a little.

Color Club "Wild & Willing" over Wet n Wild "Under Your Spell"

Today I have a manicure that at first glance might come across as plain, but when you see the gorgeous multichrome effect know it is definitely not plain!

Before I get too far into this post, I want to apologize for my cuticles. They're very dry, and I have at least three hangnails this week. I tried to edit them out of the picture, but this software I have on my home computer is no Photoshop. Just don't enlarge the picture. :)  If you follow my Facebook page, you know that I haven't been able to find my cuticle cream, and I also can't find my cuticle nippers (which I try not to use, but with the absence of the cream, I could have used them for the hangnails.) I'm pretty bummed about the hangnails, because I did so good about not flooding my cuticles with polish this week. Figures.

For my base color I used two coats of Wet n Wild Megalast "Under Your Spell", which is kind of a dark burgundy shimmer with hints of black. It was somewhat streaky with one coat, but it smoothed out pretty good with the second coat. If I was planning on wearing it by itself,  I probably would have added a third coat. It retails for $1.99 at most retail stores, and sometimes you can find it on sale for $0.99.

On top of the WnW I layered one coat of Color Club "Wild and Willing". "Wild and Willing" is a gold/coral/pink/green multichrome shimmer (mostly gold). These two polishes together create a spectacular multichrome. Depending on the light you can see gold, burgundy, brown, green, or all three. I'm not really sure how much Color Club retails for, because it's not available in my area, I had to buy it from an ebay seller. I think they are a Rite Aid drugstore brand, so they're probably not expensive.

So there you have it. Successful color combination and polish application, unsuccessful cuticle maintenance.

As a side note, I was at Ulta today, and there was a color from Pixel Polish called "Oh Golly Gee!!" that looked like it could be a match for this color combination!

Kleancolor "Firework" over Nicole by OPI "Iceberg Lotus"

Happy Memorial Day!

This week's manicure features what I call "messy glitter french tips." Not messy in a bad way, but on purpose. The random nature of the glitter is perfect for free-handing the french tips without using french tip guide stickers.

The base coat is called "Iceberg Lotus" from Nicole by OPI. It's a gorgeous teal shimmer, but it took three coats for full opacity. Luckily it dried quickly. It also has a hint of duochrome in it. Some lights bring out a bluish/purple color, but I couldn't get that to photograph. If I recall correctly, I bought this one at CVS. I have a few other polishes in the metallic turquoise/teal family, and several polishes in shades of metallic blue. What can I say, they're my favorite colors. :)

For the glitter tips I used "Firework" by Kleancolor. It has a clear base with red, gold and turquoise hex glitter, as well as small gold square glitter. This glitter looks great over SO MANY nail polish colors. Kleancolor isn't sold in my area, so I purchased this in a set of other Kleancolor polishes from an eBay seller. I think "Firework" is one of the best ones from the set.

Nicole by OPI "Iceberg Lotus" and Kleancolor "Firework". You can kind of see the duochrome of the Iceberg Lotus in this picture.

Of course, to make it smooth over the glitter I have two coats of Seche Vite on top. Altogether that makes 8 coats of polish at the glitter tips! (Two coats of base, three of the turquoise, one thick coat of glitter, and two of topcoat.) Something I've read about in other blogs and have noticed myself is that the Seche Vite causes some shrinkage of the polish. Not every polish, but definitely glitter polishes. With this manicure it's really obvious on my pinky. I haven't had a problem putting it over cremes.

O.P.I. Just Spotted the Lizard!

Isn't this a gorgeous color? This is "Just Spotted The Lizard" from O.P.I.'s new Amazing Spiderman Collection. Please excuse the paint on my cuticles, as this is before I did my clean up. But really, this applied so nicely that there wasn't a whole lot of clean up to do. It was mainly just that middle nail. Just look at that duochrome, color-shifting yumminess!

As many of you probably know, Just Spotted the Lizard is a dupe for Chanel's "Peridot." I've wanted that color for months, but I can't justify spending Chanel prices, so O.P.I has made me very happy. I've read that there is also a dupe from Jessica Cosmetics, but those aren't sold in my area.

Well, I tried to take my manicure a step further and added some Kiss Nail Art stickers, but I really think I should have left well enough alone. The color was so nice by itself. What do you think?

The top photo was taken in the evening light, and the bottom photo was taken in the morning light, so that's why the coloring appears different in the two photos. This color does different things in different lighting!