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

Dotted Load

I know the title is a little odd. I wanted to title it something besides "Illamasqua Load with Dots" or something similar. So I went with Dotted Load. Haha.

I finally received my new dotting tools on Monday, though I planned to use them on Mother's Day (which was Sunday). Obviously that didn't happen. Thanks USPS for driving my dotting tools up and down New England for 2 days. Anyway, I couldn't use them Monday because I was at work. And on Tuesday, I had really wanted to wear Load on its own. So naturally, Wednesday means dots added to Load!!

If you saw my post with just the swatch of Load, I'm sure you noticed how similar all of the photos were. I purposefully made sure I took photos from a bunch of different angles this time around!! What do ya think??











Closeup


3 coats Load
1 coat Poshe
Larger, outer dots China Glaze For Audrey
Smaller, inner dots Orly Ancient Jade

I've already talked about Load here if you're curious about my opinion of the polish. But as for the dotting, I had no idea what I wanted to do, I just picked up the dotting tool and went for it. Kept it simple but pretty. I just dipped the tool once in polish (for each nail), and did 5 dots, allowing it to become smaller as I went along. Then I used a smaller diameter tool for the inner dots, following the same steps.

Dotting tools are very easy to use. Just take a piece of paper or a notecard or anything like that, and put a dab of polish on it. Then just dip your dotting tool into the wet polish and dot away! If you wanted the dots all the same size, just keep redipping before you do each dot. Or you can do what I did and get a gradient effect after just dipping once and dotting several times after.

Here is a photo of the tools I used:


I bought them from eBay, and if you're curious, you can click here for the auction. I wish I could tell you more about their sizes, but I really don't know. There were 5 tools that came in that auction, but it looks like only 3 different sizes. I'm a little disappointed by that, so keep that in mind if you choose to buy from that auction or the like. It seems like there are other dotting tools out there that mention different sizes and how many different sizes you'll get. Now this is definitely my own fault, as I did not research that well enough. But ultimately, I'm still happy with the tools. They seems like very good quality and they clearly work well. And they were definitely the cheapest ones I came across.

Illamasqua Load... it's EXACTLY what you're thinking.

For Application Tips For This Polish, Please Click HERE And Scroll To The Bottom

Edit!!
Ok, so I went around to other blogs after I posted this to see if other people had the same application problems I did. I obviously came across Scrangie's pretty quickly and noticed she said almost the exact same thing I titled my post!!
"Load. Yep, it's exactly what you think it is." I totally swear I had not seen this (or maybe I had, but I had totally forgotten I had seen it) when I titled this post. My intention was NOT to steal that concept from Scrangie!! I'm leaving it, though, because it still makes me laugh when I see it. I guess there's only so much you can say about an off-white polish called "Load". Back to the original post:

Load. *snickers*. Ok, not gonna lie, a fairly good sized portion as to why I bought this polish was because of how hilariously inappropriate it is. It is from Illamasqua's collection from 2011 Valentine's Day called Throb. I love how the name of the collection makes this polish even MORE risqué.

I picked this up at Sephora in Time Square. Unfortunately, Illamasqua is sold at very few Sephora stores. It is sold online, though. But I had debated between Milf, Purity, and Load, so I wanted to see them in person. When I was in NYC for my friend's wedding, I figured I'd stop in to Sephora to see if they sold Illamasqua, and obviously they did. Prior to me being aware that not all Sephora's carry this brand, I had gone to Sephora in Providence, RI and asked if they sold it. Now, I KNOW I pronounced it correctly, but the sales associate looked at me like I was an idiot, asked me what it was (and I told her it was a brand), and she told me she had never heard of it and they definitely didn't carry it. How are these sales associates not trained on brands their company carries? I know it's not sold on stores, but it's certainly sold on Sephora.com and she was just rude about it.

Anyway, onto the polish. And I have a forewarning (I love giving forewarnings!). Apparently, this polish likes to be photographed from the index finger side. So most of the photos are from that side. I actually don't think I liked ANY that were the pinkie side. I didn't really take many from the pinkie side, anyway. I think because there is no label on the bottom I was trying to show. I wasn't going to put so many because they're so similar, but then I decided what the heck? I went through the trouble of taking them! Lol. Anyway, you'll see what I mean.











3 coats Load
1 coat Poshe

I actually LOVE this color, but I'm not thrilled about the formula. Ok, trying to stay mature through this... Load is an off white, yellow tinged creme. Yup. That's Load. It actually is a pretty unique color for a polish, and is quite lovely.

The problem was the application. You really needed 3 coats with this polish. The first coat went on sheer, with VNL, but buildable. It was the consequent coats that were troublesome. It seems as if you REALLY need to let each coat dry before you do another. I experienced cuticle drag and it was overall uneven. It's not terribly noticeable in real life, but my photos do a great job at showing the flaws.
Now, I am pretty darn good at shaping the polish by the cuticle. If you didn't know, I never do cleanup. I just paint neatly. This polish was a huge struggle due to the drag. You can see how the polish at my cuticle isn't very nice. And I tried REALLY hard. Again, in real life it's not that noticeable at all, but my macro photos sure do point it out.

Yucky cuticle drag!! (Seriously not noticeable in real life, though. Promise.)

Fun, Bright Summer/Spring Water Marble

I have to start by saying this water marble will make your hands look AMAZINGLY tan.

This was the water marble I intended on doing a tutorial with. However, I only got partially done with it using this water marble. I'll have to finish it another time soon. Anyway, this probably wouldn't have been the best because I did this around 1700 in the evening and the lighting wasn't fantastic, and I had initially started outside, but then all of a sudden the wind picked up and I had to move inside. So I took about half of the photos I wanted to take. Even worse, I was dipping my clean up brush into my bottle of remover and it FELL IN. What a gosh darn mess. So I didn't use it after that because the paint on the handle of the brush was smearing all over thanks to the acetone. So be forewarned that my right hand doesn't have as nice of clean up. I'll discuss another issue with the water marble at the end of the post.









Base:
1 coat Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On
For the water marble:
China Glaze Peachy Keen
China Glaze Lemon Fizz
Orly Basket Case

So here are the two things that I was annoyed at by the end of the water marble.
1. My initial pattern (as seen on my ring finger on my left hand, which are the first photos), ended up altered from the rest. Looking back at photos I took during the process, I realized why I wasn't getting the same pattern on the rest of my nails... because I wasn't doing the initial pattern in the water. Ugh. So I only realized that after I uploaded the photos and my nails were done. Sucks because I REALLY liked how that first nail came out.
2. I had horrible, horrible bubbles with this marble. Because my technique was no different than usual, I can only assume it had something to do with one or more of the polishes I used. If you hadn't noticed, go back and look at the photos and you'll see random little white dots. Those were bubbles that were popped with the top coat was put on. I definitely get bubbles sometimes, but NEVER this bad. I'm kinda confused. But in the future, I think instead of a white base, I might do the lightest color I'll be using in my water marble. Hopefully that will camouflage the bubbles if it happens this badly again.

I might just redo this entire water marble later on. It's more summery anyway, so it'll be perfect in a couple of months.

China Glaze Lemon Fizz

Now that it's April, I'm really pushing myself to wear spring colors. I was going to do some fun nail art or Konad over OPI WWTC, but I just want to do some simple solid colors first.
I picked up Lemon Fizz on clearance last year at Ulta. It was clearance, though, because it was fall. So I put it away until spring this year and I have been dying to try it!!

Fair warning -
This polish was a huge PitA to photograph. I kept getting lobster hands, and this polish does not actually do that. So I have a bunch of photos in different lighting, and the first 3 are fuzzy.

These 3 were taken in my normal photo taking spot by a window







This next one was taken outside in direct sunlight



And these next two were taken outside in the shade





2 coats Lemon Fizz
1 coat SV

This was not that streaky at all, I'm very impressed. As you can see, after 1 coat SV, everything evened out very well. It is so pigmented and has a bright paleness. This would look amazing on tanner hands.