OPI Couture de Minnie: Innie Minnie Mightie Bow

Posted on May 20, 2013 by joyluscious

I love red and I cannot resist buying red polishes. However, I never color my nails red. Why? Bright red on the hand is a statement and it has to be made for the right place at the right time. Other wise, it is just like wearing a ballgown to the grocery store.

Innie Minnie Mightie Bow is a candy apple red with gold shimmer. Super beautiful when it is wet and shiny. I really see the gold shimmer while it is wet.

The formula is great, almost an one-coater for me, but I did two coats with no topcoat for the photographs. The polish is self-leveling and perfect consistency, with no run-off. All the photograph see are taken when the polish was still a bit wet.

The dry time is quite fast for Innie Minnie Mightie Bow but the downside is that it dries very thin. I could hardly see the gold shimmer like I could when it was wet. When wet, it has so much depth and when dry, it is flat and very little sparkle. Pretty much the same thing happened with OPI Danke-shiny Red. So a nice topcoat will revived the shimmer and give the finish some depth.

I probably will be reserving this color, like most of my reds, for my toes. Somehow, it just seems more appropriate.

OPI Couture de Minnie: Minnie Style

Posted on May 17, 2013 by joyluscious

Day two, I jazzed up my OPI Chic from Ear to Tail with Minnie Style.

I actually REALLY LIKE THIS LOOK! I haven’t been super impressed with OPI glitter topcoats but Minnie Style, I like. It is full of red, hot pink, fuchsia and white hex glitter, with a little surprising twist of white squares.

The application was interesting because I couldn’t get a lot of glitter on my nails, even thought, I could see the bottle packed with glitter. If I just ‘paint’ it on, I got only a few, after some careful ’dabbing’ I got what you see in the photograph.

It is worth the work because it is very ‘Minnie Stylish‘ despite all the pink

The Harbinger

Posted on April 29, 2013 by joyluscious

Darling Diva The Harbinger is a part of the Battlestar Galactica collection, however, I bought it from a blog sale BN.

The Harbinger is a clear glitter topcoat with holographic medium hex glitters, medium red hex glitters, and some fine gold.

The base jelly is a bit on the thin side so it took some fishing around to get the glitters to go on the brush. I used two coats over Zoya Shay. I added a coat of HK Girl topcoat.

I do like this glitter topcoat, very delicate and lacy with a bit of sparkle and color.

Drug Store Texture Polishes: Milani Textured Collection

Posted on April 8, 2013 by joyluscious

I had a teeny-tiny break time from kids yesterday so I decided to stop by Walgreens to try my luck on some polish find. Low and behold, I see what I found, Milani Texture collection. I did not even had to go on a hunt for all the colors because They had all six colors!

(above: left to right, below Thumb to pinkie)
Tinted Red (901) – Strong orange undertone. Personally, I think it is a one-coater.
Spoiled in Fuchsia (902) – Bright and slightly leaning purple and one-coater, IMO.
Aqua Splash (903) – Sheerest of all six but opaque in two coat… pretty much.
Yellow Mark (904) – I LOVE THIS SUNNY YELLOW! I need Milani to make a straight one-coat creme in this exact shade. One coat is all you need, truly.
Purple Streak (905) – This dries darker than in the bottle, to a deep egg plant purple. For a lighter purple one coat, for a deep purple two coats.

Shady Gray (906) – A neural deep grey and this really makes your nails look like rough river rocks.

All the formula dried fast to a rocky texture in 10 minutes and the texture gets slightly smoother with each additional coat. It is definately coarser than OPI Liquid Sand or Zoya PixieDust.

IMO, there is a very big difference between one coat of Milani Texture polish and two coats of the Textured polish. With one coat of Milani Texture polish, it looks like sand stuck on to a thin layer of color.

At two coats, the texture became more consistant with the other ‘texture’ polish, such as OPI Liquid Sand or Zoya PixieDust.

I hope you find this review informative, and these are keepers. I love the bold color and the slightly coarser texture is bearable. I paid $3.99 for each of the Milani Texture polish and it was available at Walgreens. I am not sure if it is available at other drugstores or not.

Chyna, the Red Pixie

Posted on March 24, 2013 by joyluscious

Chyna is a blood red jelly with pixie dust and red micro glitter. Zoya describes it as a red dazzle with sugar sparkle and it is DAZZLING.

I have read one review that a fellow blogger found Chyna hard to apply but I had absolutely no problem at all. Nice thin first coat to establish the shape, the next coat provided full coverage. The formula is not gloppy or runny. Dry time is fast for the first coat and a bit slower for the second because it is heavier.

The texture is fine but provide enough roughness so the finish sparkle no matter what the lighting situation. I am dazzled by Zoya Chyna.

Also, Zoya PixieDust is easy to remove. It is not like glitter polish were the particles stay stuck to the nail bed. In my opinion, the best way to remove rough texture polish such as PixieDust or LiquidSand, place a piece of cotton ball saturated with nail polish remover on each of the nail and let it sit for 3-5 minutes. Then use another piece of cotton ball or pad saturated with remover, apply gentle pressure in a wiping motion from cuticle to free edge, to remove the polish. If you rub a cotton ball back and forth on a dry texture manicure, it would just rip up the cotton and would take forever to get the job done. Hope this helps!

At the end of the Rainbow

Posted on March 12, 2013 by joyluscious

Quick and fun rainbow skittles mani in the theme of St. Patti’s day and because I like the freehand cloud nail art so much, I added white cloud tips.

Here are the color I used five CND polishes: Rouge Red, Electric Orange, Bicycle Yellow, Green Scene, and Anchor Blue. I love CND nail polishes because they are so pigmented, consistently excellent formulas. Almost all one-coater with the exception of the yellow which required two coats.

Hope you enjoy this fast, easy, and colorful nail art.

Happy Chinese New Year!

Posted on February 9, 2013 by joyluscious

Today is Chinese Lunar New Year Eve. It is fair well to the year of the dragon and hello to the year of the snake. For good luck, I am wearing RED and GOLD.

I used Zoya Guilty over OPI Danke Shiny Red.

We are off for some traditional festivities! Xin Nian Kuai le (新年快樂) everyone!

Go 49ers!

Posted on February 3, 2013 by joyluscious

In honor of soon to be the Santa Clara 49er’s, playing in the Super Bowl, I am wearing red and gold. Simple color blocking is very effective.

The two colors used are Orly Luxe and Essie Forever Young. Both great formulas and here is Forever Young alone. This is an untry so I am still doing my best to use what I’ve got instead of buying new polishes.

Well, got to go ready for the big party, GO NINERS!

Inspired by my favorite color: Red-licious Franken

Posted on January 28, 2013 by joyluscious

As you know, I still got the flu and today is worse than yesterday, violent coughing to the point that I want to puke… sorry for the imagery. So forgive me for recycling some old pictures of this beautiful franken inspired by my favorite color, RED.

You read up on the original post of how to make this franken on your own and also how Elmer’s Glue works as peel-off base coat. I am going to craw back into bed now, my body hurts.

Inspired by my country: Stars and Stripes

Posted on January 26, 2013 by joyluscious

I bought a Wet ‘n Wild Stars and Stripes July of last year at CVS so I decided to whip it our for this patriotic manicure.

When I swatched the original Stars and Stripes, there weren’t enough glitters to make any sort of ‘design’ on the nail, so I had to franken it up a bit with more holographic bar/stripes and micro holographic glitters. Now, look how shiny! I had to use a tooth pick to move the glitters around to my liking. The WnW suspension base really gloppy and holds no glitter.

For this manicure, I used total of three untries: Wet ‘n Wild Stars and Strips, CQ Pearl (white,) and CQ Tropics (blue.) The red is Essie Really Red, my go to red for nail art.

CQ Topics is a nice rich medium blue. I was glad that I found it at the Rite-Aid clearance because I don’t have a cream this color. The formula is very nice and smooth and dried super fast. Here is shown in one coat but I do see couple bald spots, so I recommend two coats for richer and full coverage.

CQ Pearl is very delicate warm white with faint white shimmer, so faint that is in only noticeable if I turn the bottle certain angles. Very flattering white against my skin tone and it took two thick coats for full coverage. Dry time is a bit slower than Tropics because it is thicker coats. For 99 cents, CQ polishes were total steals.