mattel

Wet Paint Nail Glaze System – Inspire

Essie – Matte About You

This was my vision: Barbie-pink nails with the texture of plastic. I had it all planned out already and even swatched out different shades of pink to achieve that ultimate Barbie look.

Pictured here is about 3 to 4 coats of Inspire and 2 coats (this was a big mistake) of Matte About You. (Sorry for the little mess around the cuticles! I was quite annoyed...) Affection is a Barbie-ish Hot pink crème shade. It’s really rich, but borders on thick. Which really isn’t a good thing. Matte About You looks like a translucent milky formula in the bottle and applies slightly translucent, and dries matte to the touch. It may alter the colour of the base very slightly, but for Inspire it was barely noticeable.

Application was disgusting. The brushes aren’t even cut straight at the bristles. Though I managed it at a weird angle, 2 minutes later the surface would become uneven – BUBBLES. Fml. It’s probably the brush - it just incorporates air into the layer being applied onto the nail - but it was so annoying.

Pictured here is 3 (or was it 4?) layers of Inspire and application was an excruciating process. It’s like slowly sawing your arm off and then, letting you bleed to death. I’m sorry for the bad image but that was really how I felt.

So I decided to go on to the mattifying part. I was pretty excited about it, because I’ve heard many good things about Matte About You. I still remember a customer’s response to me when I offered her Matte About You to satiate her desires for a matte topcoat. ‘‘Essie? Eee, Essie is not matte leh, it’s more suede lor! I think Nubar V or China Glaze one better!’’

For one, Suede shades are matte shades. (OPI has a Suede line of shades.) I think the texture differs slightly (some softer and others, harder) due to chemical composition. Furthermore, Nubar V for Men is the most disappointing matte topcoat I’ve seen in pictures. It completely mattes the life and soul out of the base colour and makes our nails looks very flat, unsophisticated and extremely amateur. That’s how I would describe Nubar V for Men. I’ve not checked out China Glaze’s Matte Magic (I've heard it's pretty alright) but I would like to talk about Essie.

Matte About You is brilliant. I was quite annoyed when I tried it on a few nails because it made the base colour look sooo flat. It looked so dead. But I re-read the instructions on the box: Apply one thin coat. Well guilty as charged, I did apply a thick blob of Matte About You. So I tried again, and this time it was amazing. The colour changed slowly and had a very very very light frosted glass finish to it. I describe it as frosted glass because you know how at Christmas time, the warm glow of the fireplace through a frosted glass window witnessed from outside has that sort of luminesce effect. That’s how it seemed like to me – soft and subdued colour, not deadened.

The texture is so nice, too. Why would you want a flat out dead matte texture when you could have a softer look and texture? And to that random customer, why don’t you like the soft-matte texture of OPI Suede, or Matte About You!? It’s the one of the nicest kinds of matte you can get. I don’t understand you!

Anyways as the pictures show, I did manage to achieve the Barbie look. However a couple of minutes after pictures, white flecks appeared on the nail and I knew the bubbles would all surface given the extremely prolonged dry time. The whole manicure was extremely thick as well so I decided to scrap the whole look.

Perhaps next time I’ll try this one out again, after I thin Inspire out or use a different shade of pink! I am totally dying to use Matte About You again :-)

x, Ish

announcements

1) Head to my Facebook for some Deborah Lippmann goodness!
2) New email: Showmeyourclaws@gmail.com
3) New formspring: http://www.formspring.me/Showmeyourclaws

Tonight:
New posts! :-)

Keep your eyes glueddd!

x, Ish

space weed

Orly - It's Not Rocket Science

At some point in time there was quite a bit of hype about gross, puke colours being made into beautiful nail polishes. It's Not Rocket Science is one of them.

It's a very ugly yet beautiful polish... I can't even describe. It also has lots of colours in it! What I see is gold, dark green and some bronze shimmer micro particles in a murky olive-tinted base. It also has a bit of duochrome!! How exciting. I can't really figure out what exactly's in this polish though.

Well I remember reading about this polish on Scrangie so here's a little extract from her:

It's Not Rocket Science. It's Rocket Surgery. Hehe. But seriously... super beautiful polish. Murky warm green with gold and yellow and blue sparkle and slight duochrome with a swampy green sheer base. Strange description but the end result is fantastic! Also, this is the most opaque of the recently-released similar colors and has more blue tone to it than the others.

I guess the commentary on the colours is subjective, but I want to emphasise that Scrangie is right about It's Not Rocket Science being opaque. It indeed is rather pigmented, which is a nice thing so 2 coats would suffice :-) Furthermore, despite the crazy shimmer particles - which are actually really teeny tiny flakies similar to the 24k gold in Deborah Lippmann's Boom Boom Pow - this polish dries perfectly smooth to the touch!!!

Well I know a lot of my friends would have issues wearing this polish. Even I was pretty unsure of whether to get this polish or not! In fact (I feel quite guilty to say this...) but I only purchased this polish to complete my Orly Mineral FX Collection. But surprisingly, this polish is actually the most wearable while being interesting, considering it's the most used bottle out of the rest of my Mineral FX's. It looks especially flattering on my mom's hands.

Anyways with other pretty/ugly shades besides It's Not Rocket Science like China Glaze's It's Alive, Chanel's Peridot and OPI's Stranger Tides all floating around in the consumer market, I hope girls get a little bolder and try out these shades because they are a unique kind of beautiful :-)

Speaking of Chanel's Peridot, I really wanted to get it but mannn, the price. :-((((((( I truly cannot afford it. But well, I am very happy with It's Not Rocket Science!

x, Ish

no shit, sherlock

OPI - You Don't Know Jacques!

This colour is one of the most coveted OPI shades in the history of OPI. It was featured in the Best of The Best Minis, and indeed is a very interesting shade.

You Don't Know Jacques! is a taupey-brown, which leans very heavily on the brown side. Brown with a tinge of mushroomy taupe.

Initially from pictures, You Don't Know Jacques! looked a little lighter, just like it's pictured here. I'd wanted to match them with my other pair of Guess heels. I've included a picture below.

In real life, it's about like... 3 shades darker. But it's a lot more chocolate than this brown, so it didn't exactly match but at least I did achieve the earthy pink-taupe palette I was aiming for.

~~ On a side note, does anyone want these heels? They're too killer for me. My sister-in-law's called dibs on them but meanwhile, if anyone can offer me something I like these shoes are yours :-) US 8M (which is basically a size 8). ~~

Anyways, application for this baby was a dream. Except that the polish is such a chameleon. It looks one colour through the bottle, another on the brush, another while it's wet on the nail, and finally a taupey-chocolate when dried on the nail. Well I guess we really don't know Jacques... Haha pardon my bad joke.

Well the best part about this polish is that the colour doesn't look clayey, as if I were a potter's assistant. It's a rich creme, very shiny and very sophisticated. It takes a mature woman to wear this shade, which is why I think it looked better on my sister-in-law than it did on me. Hence I have a lot of respect for this polish, haha.

I think the cremes are out to get me on Team Creme. We'll see :-)

x, Ish

smokin'''

China Glaze - City Siren

inm - Northern Lights Holographic Topcoat (Silver)

So this is my second bottle of red nail polish. This time it's a creme.

City Siren is a Cardinal red creme polish that I actually only purchased because I wanted a polish to match my Guess sling-backs HAHAHA. The polish also has a touch of smokiness and is very very sexy.

I usually don't enjoy using cremes because they're so easy to mess up... So pictured here is 3 coats of City Siren, and I had matching toes as well.

I wish I snapped a picture of my outfit and my heels or at least my toes with my heels but I didn't. Why do I even own a camera... Anyways I paired the nails with the heels, which I paired with a black dress with gold sequin print. That dress is so old but I could wear it over and over. I won't post a picture of my dress, but here's one of my heels:

Sexy right! My feet don't do them justice... So I decided my nails and toe nails needed to, as much as they can!!!

So the first time I saw City Siren, I was like ''OMG THIS SHOUTS GUESS''. It's a very complex red creme and I love it so so much!!! Which is pretty impressive because I don't fancy creme finishes so much. I always found it so difficult to get them to dry perfectly smooth and perfectly neat. Glitters and shimmers hide that better.

Anyways I don't think I have much of a commentary on this polish, except that application is excellent, dry time is excellent and the colour is so so so pretty. I'm not sure if there's actually a dupe for this colour out there. Or maybe I'm not just not well-read enough. But anyways, well done China Glaze, another good creme!! For Audrey is the only other creme I like a lot, and usually China Glaze is better at glitter shades. So to produce amazing cremes as well... a really good job :-)

This is just for fun but here is Northern Lights Holographic Topcoat in Silver over City Siren on my toes!!! I think now that I have to trim my fingernails for training, I can use it more without it frosting up at the now non-existent overhanging tips! :-)

x, Ish

deborah lippmann, you bloody genius

Deborah Lippman - Across The Universe

Before I start, I'd like to apologize for the serious backlog... I swear I'll update more!

So on Friday I had a shoot, and I returned home with black nails. And I felt really sad, because black nails are so cliched and so boring. So I had the biggest inspiration ever to try out the ever-anticipated Across The Universe!

I've on 4 coats of Across The Universe. It has a midnight blue jelly base, filled with Bleu de France glitter and Carolina blue as well as Sea green medium-sized hexagonal glitter.

As you can tell I have tried to get creative in describing the colours within the polish ;-) (Wikipedia helped a lot)

Anyways I just want to point out how amazing this polish looks as it's layered coat after coat. JUST LOOK AT THE DAMN PICTURES. The dark hue of the jelly base doesn't eat up the glitters and in fact, gives it a very embedded and suspended look, like how seaweed and salty (haha) things float in the ocean. Or rather, with respect to the name of the polish, how perhaps stars and extraterrestrial things float aimlessly in the galaxy.

Honestly I was quite disappointed after painting the first few coats... But come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that the final look of the polish on nails doesn't really have much to do with the name of the polish. It looks so (too much so) mermaid-ish and beautiful and the jelly base reminds me so much of deep waters. It's so mysterious. Deborah Lippmann named this after the Beatle's song, and I suppose she just wanted to reflect the mysterious and somewhat haunting, lingering feel of the song and yet also its somewhat cheery tune. Not so much trying to create a galaxy-looking polish.

I'm actually listening to this song right now, for the very first time. And I... (haha I sound mad, but) I feel a sense of wholeness. Yet a hole. I don't know why I feel this way; perhaps this song just lingers and lingers and lingers till it fades out. Like it's not ended, it's just passed. So, so mysterious. Here's the song for your listening pleasure:

Amazing, huh. I'm not exactly listening closely, but I'm quite sure that the boys were high when this song was written. And hence like there's nothing very specific about the universe and the galaxy.

Again, looking at my nails... most people wouldn't think about this but how the heck does this polish allow the glitters to shine through the dark jelly base! As in... it's still sparkling!!!!! How is that even possible!?!?! It's a freaking paradox! Like how the song is like, for me.

Perhaps I'm just reading too much into things, but this is how I interpret and appreciate this polish and the whole sensory experience of listening, applying, experimenting and admiring the finished product after that. And I really think all girls should get their hands on this polish if they have a chance to, because I would love for you to experience something similar to my experience.

However, I feel too much for this polish to share my own bottle, so sorry girls... I am not lending this baby to anyone. Hehehe. Then again I believe experiences as such (or in general) are very personal, because everyone connects to things and ideas differently.

Well. This is officially my favourite nail polish of all time :-)

x, Ish

Ps, This is the worst review ever!!! I do feel that this polish has some flaws but I just don't want to burst my happy bubble right now. And for even allowing me to feel so happy, this polish is tops in my list of favourites :-)

Pss, 4 coats may be excessive but I always apply very thin coats. Perhaps 3 or even 2 will do fine.

Psss, I will do an edit for this review because I really think I do need to raise a few issues. Well goodbye, for now!

still on backlog

Nubar - Nubar 2010

I wore this look for New Years! (During which I had a smashing time, might I add.) (Literally, smashing. Think broken doors.) (In the plural.)

The image is blurred to fully capture the various colours in this polish.

Here I've layered 1 coat of Nubar 2010 over a coat of black creme. (Some brandless one my mom purchased from the States; I'm sure I've mentioned this before.)

The resultant look is, as described by my mom's friend, a beetle's back. The multi-coloured flakies reflect mostly green, yellow, orange and red from various angles. In dull lighting they appear mostly fiery orange. This differs from the ones in Clairvoyant; Clairvoyant contains blue-coloured flakies as well.

I love Nubar 2010 because it keeps me staring at my nails so much haha I just can't take my eyes off of it! I can't say I love this as much as I love Clairvoyant... but it does come a close second.

Everything was great, actually. Dry time was excellent. I love that it has a clear base! However it doesn't dry very glossy. I always need to fall back on Seche Vite for that...

The flakies aren't as concentrated as those in Clairvoyant but they do provide sufficient coverage. I've tried layering two coats of Nubar 2010 and it's honestly too much. The scattered flakies allow some of the black base to show up around the individual flakes, which creates a very random (artsy, really) and unique look - you can't ''mess up'' the look. Not really.

I'd wanted to mention how it was difficult to get an even coverage of the flakies all over the nail, but I do realise that it's difficult to do that and it kills the whole spirit of random patterning. Guess free-spiritedness is something that a lot of people need to learn. Especially for Singaporeans, we're all so uptight and stressed. In general, I suppose.

Anyways, I hope everyone has a good 2012! Speaking of which, makes it clearly ironic that I've used Nubar 2010... (I need to stop living in the past.)

x, Ish