Revlon Jaded

Picked this up a while ago when it was on clearance at Target. I love these mint green/blue type of colors. I just really like how they look when I look down at my hands (moreso than looking at them in photos). I think they help my hands look tan :)













3 coats Revlon Jaded
1 coat Poshe

This is exactly what I picture for Essie Mint Candy Apple, but MCA isn't this color (it's far more blue). Jaded is somewhere between a light mint and light sea foam green creme. Definitely more green than MCA. Ironically, the application was extremely similar to MCA... not really a good thing =/

Working with this polish is extremely similar to how I have to work with Essie cremes. Not the first coat necessarily, but the way the polish started reacting. First coat started uneven and patchy which made me nervous. Second coat was that uncomfortable "do I do another coat and risk it looks too puffy and thick" or "do I leave it at two coats when it's a little patchy". I went with three. The polish didn't seem to like the third coat, it kinda dragged. A top coat did help to even it out to give it a smooth finish, but it's still kinda bumpy. When I look down at my nails, you can't really tell at all, though. How to solve this problem? I have found is to let the polish rest in between nails. I have to use this "technique" a LOT with Essie polishes. Be prepared that applying this polish is not going to be a quick process. Do a nail in as few strokes as possible, then let the brush rest in the polish. You can't quickly go from nail to nail. You may be able to get away with that for the first coat, but after that you really need to let the brush sit. I think had I been more patient, it would have had looked a little nicer.

Revlon Facets of Fuchsia

I usually don't wear glitters because I frequently have silk wrapped nails. Removing glitters is laborious anyway, but it just plain SUCKS when you can't use acetone because of a silk wrap. Well, all of my silk wraps are off (not by choice), so I'm going on a glitter spree!!

















2 coats Revlon Facets of Fuchsia
1 coat Poshe

I saw people going CRAZY over this polish (and the other two that came out with it), and it looked really pretty for fall so I figured I'd give it a shot. I actually loved it and now want Blue Mosaic (but not gonna lie, I think Starry Pink is hideous).

Facets of Fuchsia is a lovely polish with tiny round and larger hex purple/fuchsia glitter appropriately suspended in a black jelly base. It's a fun balance of glitter in polish because it's not a BAM in your face glitter, but it's not so sparse that it barely looks like glitter. The jelly base is great because it really helps to give dimension to the polish. The other thing I loved was because of the depth of the polish, it isn't one that just looks black from far away. It's obvious enough that there's glitter and it's not just black.

The formula was actually great! I spent very little time trying to make sure glitter was placed evenly because it did it on its own. It was totally opaque in 2 coats and had no streaking or anything. A great formula for a pretty polish!

Revlon Top Speed Jelly... Not Really A Jelly

Keepin' this short because I wanna focus on describing this polish. I was under the impression that Jelly was a jelly. Well, I don't really know, but it's interesting.

Direct Sunlight




Shade





And here's it with Hidden Treasure


1 coat (yes, ONE) Revlon Jelly
1 coat Poshe
(Last photo has 1 coat Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure)

I usually never put direct sunlight photos first, but they were (IMO) def the most gorgeous. Color-wise, it's a bright red based pink that can appear to be red on the nails, though in the bottle it's clearly pink.

More importantly, let's discuss the finish and whatnot. So. Is it a jelly? I'd say maybe? but I don't think so. What makes me say maybe is that it does have a "squishy" quality, but it's more shiny than squishy (even without a top coat). It's not an obvious creme. But at the same time, it's just not that interesting. It doesn't have that opacity shift that jellies have that make it look almost glassy. Does that make sense? It doesn't have depth the way a true jelly does. I think that's partly because it takes only ONE freakin' coat and it's perfect.

So let's talk about formula, because it's so odd. It reminds me of a thick creme polish that was thinned. But not thick as in it was getting dried out because its old, thick like the formula was just bad but thinner made it "puffy". The consistency was puffy. I think that's what takes away from it being a jelly. Anyway, the brush seemed to collect SO much polish. That made it super prone to easily flooding your cuticle. If you're not good at doing a gap, stay the heck away from this. You'll frustrate yourself to no end because your cuticles will be so full of polish. I actually had to redo a nail. It's been like a year since I've actually had to redo a nail due to flooding... and it was on my LEFT hand!!!!! I was painting with my dominant hand!!

However, back to the one coat thing. Legit, there is absolutely no reason to do a second coat. It was so evenly pigmented, there was no streaking (you couldn't make this polish streak if you tried), it was amazing.

The other thing that frustrated me was the brush. If you have straighter, not so curved cuticles (my cuticles are fairly rounded), the brush will work fine. But for me, trying to get a nice swoop at my cuticle was not easy. The brush wanted to keep it completely straight. And because of the high risk of cuticle flooding, it was difficult to try to get it even near my cuticle without drowning it.

Ultimately...
1. The TRUE one coat factor was nice.
2. I was expecting more of a jelly, and it was disappointing to not have that.
3. I wish it looked more pink than red (because I really don't like red nails on myself).
4. The cuticle flooding was a PITA.

Pink Syrup

So maybe you wanna call this a gradient, but I'm calling it syrup because of the method I used, but mainly because this was the STICKIEST thing ever!! I don't know if it was the polish, or that I have 10 freakin' coats of polish on my nails but holy crap!! Legit like I was painting syrup on my nails.

So I had heard mention of syrup nails and started to search around to see what this was all about. Seemed very interesting. I used the method similar to this post by Nihrida. Had my jelly been as sheer as Butter LONDON Stroppy from this post by Polish Insomniac, I think the process would have been much better.
*For the record, my cuticles aren't actually dry and gross. They look a little icky because of all the polish that kinda got on 'em.







Total of 10 layers (two nails have more because they needed one more coat at the tip to make it fade better).
Started with Essie Mademoiselle and then with Revlon Take Two in Wild Garnet, alternating the two down the nail. I'd do complete coats of mademoiselle, but kept doing shorter coats of Wild Garnet.

Every 10 minutes I repeated the process. For example, at 11:30 I painted a layer. It takes me 3 minutes to paint both hands. Then I wait 7 minutes until 11:40 and do the process again. Ultimately topped with 1 coat Poshe.

What a terribly tedious process!! Worst part about it? I'm just not that happy with the way it came out. It bothers me that the lines are visible. It looks more apparent in the photos, but it unfortunately is still noticeable when you look at my nails closely in real life. I need to practice this a bit more. Looking on the bright side, since I don't like it, I won't mind taking it off despite the fact that it took over an hour and a half to do!!

Edit 8/16
I decided to add glitter to the tips to see if that helped at all. I used an absolutely ancient Sally Hansen Hard As Nails called Glisten. I actually think it did make it look a little better. I figure if you're going to have nails like this, you might as well slap some glitter on it!! Haha.







The problem is you can really see that there is WAY too much polish on my middle finger. Look how it is so raised and kinda distorted. My middle nail is already a little different shaped than my other nails, but wow does 10-12 layers of polish accentuate that!!

One More With Revlon Electric - Retro

So far this is the third thing I've done to build upon my intial mani of just simply Revlon Electric. I had added a white floral bundle monster print the next day. Charlotte Sparkle had made a comment that I should've done the orange dots in the flowers (I had left them just white). Well, she was totally right. I should have:







Closeup


2-3 coats Electric
1 coat Poshe
Stamping done with Konad white polish and BM16
Dots with China Glaze Peachy Keen

There is no top coat over the design, and this is my third day with this mani, so there is a little bit of wear. Luckily, it's MUCH less obvious in real life as opposed to the close up photos. Yesterday was the last day I planned to wear this mani, and I didn't add the orange dots until afterwards. Makes me wanna wear it for another full day with the dots... and I actually think I will. I work tomorrow so if I do a new mani today, it'll have to come off by the evening. I might as well just leave this on!!

I'm really disappointed I didn't do this sooner. I'm sorry these Electric posts have been so repeditive, but hey, at least I'm honest!! Haha. And I hope that things like this help you guys who aren't ready to change your polish but are sick of looking at the same solid color. Add something to it and keep mixing it up!! You don't always have to change your polish to make your nails look different :)

I love the retro feel to this nail. Yesterday it looked lovely and vintage, but now I'm calling it awesome and retro. Just from adding simple orange dots!! I did use a dotting tool to add them, but if you don't have a dotting tool, here is a post I did that listed some other options.

And if you're curious, the Bundle Monster plate I was using I purchased from Amazon.

Lovin' Revlon Electric So Much More!!

First, a side note:
I'm sorry that I've been rarely replying to your comments on my posts!! Blogger is being ridiculous right now, and won't let me log in when I try to post comments. But as soon as I click "Sign In", it brings me to my dashboard. Then I go back to try to comment, and it tries to make me sign in again. But then it leads back to my dashboard. So I've downloaded Firefox, which allows me to post comments, but I HATE working on Firefox. If you guys know how to fix this, please let me know. I've tried logging out and back in, clearing my temp internet files and cookies, nothing is working. And it's obnoxious. But again, I totally apologize if I did not reply to your comments!! This has been going on for a couple of weeks.

Edit to the side note -
Someone on MUA figured out how to fix this problem!! Uncheck the keep me signed in thing.

Onto the post...

I decided I wanted to do something more with Electric. I invisioned white flowers with orange dots in the middle, giving a pretty daisy feel. I went through my stamping plates, found some potential flower designs and forced asked my boyfriend to pick one of those designs. This is from Bundle Monster plate BM16.









Close-Up


2-3 coats Electric
1 coat Poshe
Stamping done with Konad white polish
I decided not to do a top coat

The photos are making the color of Electric look like it has green undertones. It doesn't. It's much more creamy yellow looking. No green. I tried like a thousand times to get a really accurate color photo, but just couldn't. It's so much more gorgeous in real life.

I'm def loving this. It's so simple, so springy, so sweet. And it's amazing because when you look at my nails in real life, it gives Electric a COMPLETELY different effect. It looks pearly, but not elderly frosty. It's just so lovely. I think that's the best way to describe it. Lovely. And kinda vintage. I love vintage.

So obviously there are no orange dots. I decided to skip that because I think the simplicity of just the yellow and white would be ruined if I did that.

I know a lot of people complain about the width of the old Bundle Monster plates (this is the old set, I don't own the new set, but I'm debating about it). I know the new set made their full nail stamps larger so they'll fit on the nail better. As I talked about before, I have skinny nails, so the width is usually not an issue. Sometimes if my nails are longer, length can be a problem, but this design worked fantastic. Even fit my thumb pretty well!!
But the full nail designs like this that do not need to be perfectly rectangular with straight edges (like a striped one), usually fair better because you don't notice that there may be a gap on either side where the print didn't transfer because the design wasn't wide enough. So overall, this worked great!!

My index finger apparently had problems picking up the design at the tip. Either that or I didn't notice that the stamper never picked up the top part of the design. But if you were curious, the design doesn't end there, I just messed up the stamping and missed that part.
Also know that some of the photos were taken last night right after I did the design, and some were taken this morning. So if there are difference in some of the designs in different photos, that's because I should've used a top coat!!

Revlon Electric

This a Revlon Top Speed polish that I picked up during the $4.99 with $4 ECB at CVS. Not gonna lie, kinda wish I had gone with another color for today. I don't really know why. I had been looking forward to this color and was all about it when I put it on, but then I realized I didn't really wanna wear it today. Eh, oh well! It's still lovely :)







Ok, super bizarre photo, right? I was taking a photo of my ring finger, but realized that this was the best photos of the shimmer close up. This is a side-ish view of my middle finger. I wasn't intending to take a photo of that nail or use it for here, but once I saw it I had to! (Don't bother clicking to zoom. It doesn't get much more clear).



2-3 coats Electric*
1 coat Poshe

*I say 2-3 coats because I ended up putting 3 coats on only the nails that needed it. Some have 2, and there is no difference in the end result opacity wise.

It's a bright (but not highlighter) yellow polish with very slight shimmer. Because the shimmer is SO fine, the overall result is the polish looks like it has a sheen to it. It's not easy to tell that it's shimmer that's giving that result, so just looking at your hand, it looks more like a creme... actually, I'm going to say it looks creamy. Weird, I know, but something about that sheen makes the polish look creamy. Strange in a good way. But I do wish the shimmer was more noticeable on the nail. I wanted a slight shimmery yellow, not a yellow with a sheen. In the bottle, it looks lighter and more shimmery, but on the nail it's darker with less shimmer. But it's actually a very pretty yellow, that's gorgeous and bright for the summer without looking pastel or neon. I've heard it's very similar to Chanel Mimosa, but yellows aren't my favorite, so I'll stick with not picking up Mimosa. Just not worth it to me. And, from comparison photos, this is close enough for me!!

The application was the problem. Now, keep in mind that yellows are just notoriously bad when it comes to formula and application. So personally, I am more lenient with a not-so-great yellow formula than I am when it comes to a pink or blue or green, etc. The biggest pain was the polish ended up getting dry and sticky on the brush, which made it difficult to apply. It started out fine, a little uneven (which is why some nails got 3 coats and others got two). You can't do super thin coats with this polish, I think your best bet is doing a couple of thicker coats. Realistically, the application wasn't HORRIBLE, but I've used better. Yellow-wise? Really not that bad. I think maybe more so than formula being the problem, it was the brush. The brush is round and kinda flares more at the tip. My nails are fairly skinny, so I wasn't able to press the brush down, I had to let it just glide over the nail. This left not a clean line at the cuticle. If you have normal sized nails, I think you'll be fine. And the dry/stickiness only started to happen towards the end of the second coat. The good thing about this polish was that it really became opaque. I'd much rather have a thicker, more pigmented yellow than one of those watery, thin yellows that you need a white base coat for or they'll never become truly opaque.

On the topic of my skinny nails, so you can understand what I mean by skinny, I have tiny fingers and hands. I know my nails look normal sized in the photos, but they're proportional to my hands. My ring size for my ring finger is a 4.5, it can even be a 4. None of my fingers, including my middle and thumb, can even wear a size 6 without it wanting to slip off. So if you have tiny hands, hopefully you can directly relate to my experiences with brushes, and my opinion of different brushes will help you. I think I'll add this to my first post just so people can reference it.

So overall do I recommend this yellow? Sure! If you're looking for a bright, summery yellow and love Mimosa but don't wanna spend the money, I say go for it. I've also heard Mimosa's application is worse, and if this is true, then I DEFINITELY recommend Electric. The drying on the brush problem I had when it came to formula/application can probably be fixed just by being more patient with application and knowing you can't quickly go from nail to nail once you start nearing the end of your second coats.

I'm listening to:
Tenacious D - Tribute

Revlon Gum Drop

So after not liking the pink based lilac that is Essie Nice is Nice, I decided to find one with a blue base. Since CVS has Revlon polishes for $4.99 with $4 ECB, I decided to grab this. Luckily, I was wearing Nice is Nice when I was shopping, so I could compare and confirm that this is DEFINITELY blue based.











4 (yes, FOUR) coats Gum Drop
1 coat Poshe

So I'm not thrilled about this being 4 coats. I don't mind 3, but 4 pushes it. And unfortunately, it really needed all 4. The first coat was SO sheer, I thought it was going to be unbuildable. But I had seen swatches online, and they were opaque, so it had to be buildable. That is probably my biggest issue with this polish. And I did learn after the fact (or maybe I knew before but it had slipped my mind), that this is quite dupe-ish for OPI Rumple's Wiggin' which has been on my want list for a LOOONG time. The fact that I love this color really makes me want to pick up Rumple's Wiggin' in hopes of it being opaque in less than 4 coats... and I'm a sucker for names with apostrophes. But overall the color is a gorgeous blue based lavender that is so flattering and lovely. And it's supposed to be scented apparently like Gum Drops. It DOES smell through Poshe if you're curious, but it's just a generic sweet smell. Not heavy, just noticeable. I love sweet and gourmand scents, so I'm all over it!!

Oh yeah, and because it took 4 freakin' (I ♥ apostrophes) coats, it dented like whoa because it took so long to dry and was so dense by the end of the layers. So if you hadn't noticed in the photos, it's because I tried to choose ones that didn't show it as much. This also meant it's not as neat by the cuticle. I'm sorry!!

Ready for the dents if you couldn't see them up there?

Crazy Week! China Glaze For Audrey with Sweet Nothings

Ahhh!! It's been 5 days since I've updated my blog! It has been an absolutely insane week for me. Wednesday was finals at school and I wore my leopard nails for that. Then I went into work for the evening, and no polish for work, so no update on the blog. Thursday was my boyfriend's graduation from the CT Fire Academy (Brag Moment: He now has his dream job as a fire medic for a city in north central CT). I wore For Audrey and wanted to update, but the graduation and after party stuff was an all day thing that prevented me from so much as touching a computer (totally worth it, though)! Friday I worked (no polish), and was going to post my For Audrey that night, but it was a friend's birthday that I went out for right after work and didn't get home until late. No blog update. Then yesterday, they were short on medics at work, so I offered to stay until 2100. My shift is 0800-1800. Well, I had a student (I love taking students), but I ended up not getting out of work until 0030!! So I spent 16.5 hours at work total. Obviously, that meant I went to sleep the second I got home, and no update again. (If you haven't read my other posts about it, I'm not allowed to wear polish to work).

So here I am Sunday morning, showing you my nails from Thursday of last week. Better late than never!! I'll hopefully put up another post with today's nails, or I may end up posting it tomorrow. We'll see how things go!







With Flash:


iPhone:


Close-Up:


2 coats China Glaze For Audrey
1 coat Poshe
1 coat Revlon Sweet Nothings in Rendez-Blue

I know these photos aren't the best. I wasn't able to upload them until now, and it was then I realized how difficult this was to capture. This is not the first time I've worn this combination, and I'm sure it won't be the last, so if I wear it again, I'll add better photos.

I don't have any photos of just For Audrey, but this is it with a gorgeous top coat. I'm not focused on talking about For Audrey as much as I am Rendez-Blue. Revlon Sweet Nothings collection was an LE collection that came out I BELIEVE in early 2007 or late 2006? What I'm basing that on it a review of Sweet Nothings on MUA. The earliest review I found was from 2007. I looked at reviews of Dark Pleasures (which seem as though they would've come out in the same collection or around the same time), and the earliest one was from December 2006.

Anyway, Rendez-Blue is a sheer, two-toned (blue and pink), shimmery polish that I think goes beautifully over other polishes as a top coat. It adds an interesting dimension to a creme polish. When topped on For Audrey, it gives FA an all over shimmer, not glitter, but with an opalescent, duochrome-y feel. I'm not one to wear a polish like this on it's own. I wish I had more info about these polishes, but I haven't found much. I'm not certain what Revlon's intention was with them. But I vote use them as a top coat.

I picked this up at Ocean State Job Lot a while ago. I believe I paid $1.99? I also grabbed a Dark Pleasures (Talk Dirty) that looks VERY similar to China Glaze Wagon Trail. But that polish is not my thing. I have it up for swap on MUA right now. Anyway, the last time I was at OSJL, I remember still seeing Sweet Nothings. Regardless, if you come across this polish, I definitely suggest it. I think it's absolutely gorgeous!!