Cult Nails Afterglow Swatch

I'm back after 2 weeks of being offline for my Christmas vacation. I wish it was more because for some reason, I am not feeling well-rested at all. Damn! Anyway, at least I got to do my nails a few times so I'm playing catch up now.

Here's Afterglow from Cult Nails. I thought it was going to be plain but it has a life of its own with the pink shimmer. It's a copper, or bronze tone and it seemed to go with anything. Most of the Behind Closed Doors collection goes well with anything. All-season, if you will. :)

Cult Nails Bitten Swatch

Growing out my nails is always frustrating. I am finding this year has been really bad with breakage. I need to be more careful. Anyway, I was done with Disiplined and itching to get back into my vampy colours. Also, I figured this would be a nice send off into vacation! I am off for a whole week and a bit! I hope to be sleeping in, painting, wrapping gifts, doing my nails of course... I'm looking forward to just relaxing. I need it!

Here's three coats of Bitten. The formula was good - it's always good with Cult Nails. You can usually get away with 2 coats with most Cult Nails polish, but I like full coverage and 3 generally ensures that.



It's a fairly nice raspberry colour with Cult Nails' signature shimmer. It's pretty, I dig it. I believe as of today, it's still available on Cult Nails Shop.

Cult Nails Disciplined Swatch

Continuing to grow out my nails again. Skyfall lasted so long on my nails, I hardly had any tip wear. I wanted to try something new as my collection of untrieds just keeps growing and it's shameful. I picked up Cult Nails' Behind Closed Doors collection during the pre-sale - which I mostly got for Coveted. I tried it for a bit but unfortunately my nails are so short, I found the flakies getting caught at the edge.

I went with Disciplined as I wear a ton of dark colours. Dark nail polish is my jam. I thought I'd try something new.

As with any Cult Nails' formula, it was slick. I find that it's better if you work quickly, rather than getting meticulous about your strokes and going over multiple times. I used 3 coats as my first coat was rather thin. Seche Vite was used for top coat.



Now, I'm still figuring out how to capture all the shimmer in my swatches but I have an underexposed photo that brings out all the colours that come out when the light hits it right:



I like how playful the shimmer is, and how neutral this polish is otherwise.

OPI Skyfall Swatch

I think I've managed to get a lighting set up that I like for now so onwards!.... Unfortunately I had my nail break so I am starting all over from the shortest point of my nails, which sucks. I saw the latest James Bond flick over the weekend, Skyfall, and I was blown away! It was so good! My tattoo artist told me that it's Daniel Craig's last but the Interwebs says otherwise.

In either case, I haven't been able to get the movie out of my head, and did a little retail therapy after that rough nail breakage... I picked up OPI's Skyfall. I initially skipped out on Skyfall when I first browsed the James Bond collection (I only picked up Goldeneye, The Living Daylights, Casino Royale, Tomorrow Never Dies and Moonraker) but it really stuck with me and I am glad I picked it up.

So here is OPI's Skyfall in two coats and topped with Seche Vite.



Asides from the horrible short nails I'm sporting, I really love it. It's perfect for the fall and winter season, but a great option when you're feeling a little vampy. (Like me, since I have been crushing on Zachary Quinto in American Horror Story.)

Blood Spatter Nail Art

I'm still toying around with how to photograph my nails better (albeit the better I get, the more flaws you see, eek!) but here's my blood spatter (proper name, not blood "splatter", hehe) nail art.

It was a lot of fun to do, even though the whole thing took almost 2 days to do. I used this tutorial from Specktor's Nails. I was really impressed at how long it lasted on my nails: a full week! This includes all the head scratching I seem to do at work when I'm stressed out. All I did was follow that tutorial and used Seche Vite as a top coat.





One thing I learned is the base coat doesn't need to be wet to apply the decal! It just has to be tacky enough to stick. I suppose that's why you can see there are some spots that look pressed in too much. Next time!

Color Club Port-Folio Swatch

First post. I figured that first posts are supposed to be somewhat special but I've been dabbling back and forth with nail photos from my main blog that I should really just hop right to it!

I just ended up with Color Club's Winter Affair in my hands this week (found it for a great deal at Winners for $14.99) so before everything turns red and green for the holidays, I'll end November with an older polish from Color Club called "Port-Folio" from the In True Fashion collection earlier this Fall.

I've got a massive stash of 'untrieds' so I should try and alleviate that here!

Port-Folio is a purple/green duochrome that has a very strong shift and distinction between both purple and green. Formula was generous and I only needed to use 2 coats for the photos below:





I couldn't resist trying out Color Club's "Snow-Flakes", which is following the popular flakie trend this year. Very close to Essie's "Shine of the Times", which appears to have discontinued! Snow-Flakes isn't as densely packed as Shine of the Times, which I think is a good thing:





And just for funsies, here's the duochrome and flakie combination matte-ified with Gosh's "Matt Effect Top Coat" (their typo, not mine!). I love the look of this, particularly because of the flakies, but unfortunately I don't think this matte top coat is as effective as a matte nail polish would be, such as Knock Out's Flatte Black.



Alright, so I guess that's it for the "first post". I'm going to have to work on improving the photos and lighting but hopefully with practise and tweaks, I'll get there.