Orly – Androgynie

Anyone who really knows me knows that I’m a huge astronomy geek. I love it so much that I’m willing to buy any polish that reminds me of space in any way. This was one of them!

Orly’s Androgynie, from their Holiday Soirée collection, is a sheer black that has noticeable bits of gold and multicoloured glitter, as well as big pieces of hexagonal multicoloured, possibly holographic glitter. This polish looks insane in the bottle! I couldn’t wait to try it on and see the closest approximation of the universe on my nails…

Unfortunately, this polish is disappointing. The base black colour is sheer, yet manages to “eat up” a lot of the gorgeous shimmer and glitter. you see in the bottle. As a result, what you see on the nail isn’t really that impressive. The sheerness of the black base was mitigated, though, by applying a coat of OPI’s Black Onyx underneath it, which is just a flat black creme polish.

Also, the glitters somehow manage to stick themselves to the side of the bottle, but rarely find their way to the brush and onto your nail. The big hexagonal glitters, especially, make only a rare appearance on the nails. Argh. Was really hoping this would be a showstopper, but sadly, it isn’t.

Thankfully I bought it on sale at Winners, so no harm, no foul!

Canucks Nails!

In case I have readers who don’t know, I’m based in Vancouver, and the Canucks are in the Stanley Cup finals! Canucks fever is absolutely palpable in the atmosphere, and I’m loving every second of it. My celebratory walk frolic down Granville Street after our Game 1 win was exciting and nostalgic – brings back memories of the 2010 Winter Olympics. For my friends who are fans and are out of the country right now, I’m sorry that I’m rubbing it in your face a little bit. Miss you, and wish you were here to celebrate with the rest of us!

I’ve been planning to do a Canucks manicure for a while, and even tried out a few things but failed MISERABLY. I ended up simplifying the design down to just blocks of colour and stripes, like the bottom of the jersey. Simple enough? It’s really nothing spectacular. But it still took me forever. And you don’t even want to see what my right hand looks like (horrific, the white lines are not straight at all). BUT WHATEVER. At least it looks Canucks-esque.

I’ve blogged about the blue and green before – Orly La Playa and OPI Jade is the New Black, respectively. The white stripes were done with the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen. It looks like a felt pen with a narrow tip and dispenses a rather watery liquid. I call it a liquid and not lacquer because it behaves a little differently than typical nail polish. When I use the pen over top coat (which is completely dry), I am able to scratch off the white stripes without disturbing the polish underneath. This is brilliant for nail art because you can fix mistakes very easily. Obviously, you’ll want to seal in the pen’s design with a layer of top coat afterwards.

If I was patient enough, or my hand steady enough (probably both), I would have drawn in the little white hockey stick…but the stripes were hard enough as it is. I guess I’m just not cut out for nail art! But for my team, I will at least try :)

WOOOOOO CANUCKS! ONLY THREE MORE WINS! BRING IT HOME!

Runway Ruffian Nails

Okay. So I’m barely 5’1″ with a decidedly un-waif-ish figure and therefore have no chance in hell of ever being on the runway. But does that mean I can’t try the trends? Of course not!

Behold, the Ruffian Manicure! It was imagined by the people at CND and debuted on the fingertips of models at the FW2010 Ruffian show. The original manicure actually has the blue part mattified with a matte top coat (which I do not own), and I think the original colours were metallic silver and matte black. Though, I think my warm gold/copper and royal blue version complement each other well, and the glossiness looks pretty.

It was surprisingly easy to do myself, too. I started off with one coat of Revlon Copper Penny, followed by two coats of Orly La Playa (which I’ve previously blogged about here) over it. The crescent shape is accomplished by applying the polish the same way I apply it at the cuticle line, if that makes sense.

Anyway, there are a ton of brilliant tutorials available to check out if you just Google “Ruffian manicure”, so you won’t have to read my inadequate descriptions. :)

Continuing the summer(?) theme: Orly – La Playa

This colour does not remind me of summer in the least, but the name strangely does. La playa = the beach in Spanish. The only reason I know that is from our band trip to Cuba in tenth grade. Ah, memories…

I don’t know who decided to name a deep navy creme such as Orly’s La Playa “The Beach”. Does this remind you of the beach at all? Seriously now. This is from Orly’s 2010 summer collection called Viva, by the way.

Okay, this is a totally random observation, but the colour matches the Facebook favicon almost exactly. Weird.

Strange observations and naming aside, this colour really is quite lovely. It dries to an ultra-glossy finish, and has a very thin consistency. Thankfully, it is also pigmented (read: not streaky) and the brush spreads over the nail easily. As a result, the polish is easy to control and could possibly be a one-coater, but I still used two out of habit. And you know how much I love a good clean-looking creme polish! This one does not disappoint.

Bonus: A photo of me sipping a piña colada, wearing La Playa on the beach!

…in my Photoshopped dreams.

Orly – Gumdrop

So sorry for the lack of updates lately, I’ve been a bit busy/lazy! But I’m back to share one of my favourites…

Orly’s Gumdrop, from their Spring 2010 Sweet collection. Previously blogged about in my Skittles Shatter NOTD. It’s a clean-looking turquoise (blue-green) pastel creme. Love. It.

Such an adorable colour, perfect for spring! I spent a good amount of $$$ for it in Hong Kong, though. I’m sure if I was more resourceful I could’ve got it for less. Enh. I love the colour too much to care! I’ve been told it’s a very close sister of Chanel’s Nouvelle Vague, which would’ve put a much larger dent in my wallet.

However, there are some application issues. I can’t control this polish well…it’s a bit runny, yet goopy, which makes getting the right amount somewhat of an art. Longevity isn’t great either. This is one of those polishes I can easily peel from my nail in a solid layer (that’s actually how I often remove my polish – after a shower, where the steam makes it pretty easy to peel it off. Probably not great for my nails?).

Ah. It’s such a nice colour, I think I can forgive. My polish turnover is like two days anyway, so I’ll think of it as a blessing to be able to remove it so easily.

And look at how cute it is once you throw some polka dots at it! I did this a few months ago using the Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in white.

Have a great hump day!

Successful Skittle Shatter!

Whoa, I finally got OPI Black Shatter to look, well, like advertised.

I’ve been itching to try this mani ever since I’ve gotten Black Shatter, if only to see if I can pull off the cool-looking, if slightly juvenile “skittles” manicure. Skittles meaning using different (usually bright) colours on each finger. I’ve tried variations on it before (my favourite being the gradation manicure – shall post one of those another day), but have been too scared to actually rock the look. The hope with Black Shatter was to make the look more edgy and “disguise” some of the bright colour while keeping visual interest. Well, we’ll see about that…

First, skittles! Cute, right? Should have probably used a more pastel yellow but alas, I do not own one (can’t help but think American Apparel Butter would be a perfect substitute!). Let’s go through the colours:

• Thumb: OPI Lucky Lucky Lavender
• Index: American Apparel Manila
• Middle: Revlon Top Speed Jaded
• Ring: Orly Gumdrop
• Pinky: Revlon Gum Drop (yes, I used two polishes named gum drop. It was a coincidence, I swear! Also the pinky one happens to be scented. Sickly sweet…don’t think I could do a full mani with it, barf)

Time to shatter it up!

Looks like the juvenile skittles got introduced to some recreational drugs and are now looking significantly more edgy! Definitely something that I could wear without feeling self-conscious. Though I got plenty of weird looks from people today anyway (one girl especially who stared at my nails the whole time I was washing my hands in the restroom). Regardless, Shatter takes out the saccharine quality from the bright pastel colours and makes the whole look more wearable. Awesome!

Oh also, compare this to how the shatter looked over the GOSH Holographic polish I wrote about a few days ago. See how the shatters actually look fully formed rather than…weird tree branches? I don’t know if before I used layers that were too thin, didn’t let Holographic dry enough, or just the weird nature of holographic polishes in general. Just know that if you own OPI Black Shatter, here are some helpful tips:

• Let the base colour dry completely.
• If you want the shatters to be far apart, apply a thicker layer.
• Be sure to apply a shiny top coat to protect the shatter layer, as well as smooth out the wonky brush strokes.

:) Have fun!