SinfulColors Savage + Orly Sparkling Garbage

Matte polishes are sneaky. Some times they're labeled, some times they're expected because they're in a matte collection, other times it's a complete surprise. It happens most often with bright colors that don't look neon in the bottle, but must have neon pigment in their formula because they dry matte.

And then you have SinfulColors Savage. Looks like a blue on the darker, greener side of teal in the bottle. Then you start applying it and something about the application seems off. It's really opaque but a little thin, a little streaky. It dries and bam! It's a matte?! Yep, even though Savage is an older shade from the core collection, I didn't know this when I bought it.

With a top coat, it's beautifully glossy and shiny. Unfortunately, I hadn't prepped myself or my nails for matte application which requires slightly more effort. I ended up with a few thin spots and ripples where I didn't pay enough attention.

Two coats of Savage + Shiny Top Coat - mani's not bad, but it's not great

I picked up a pretty holographic topper for about two bucks at the most recent Sally's Clearance sale, so I put it on to hide the flaws.

This is Orly Sparkling Garbage from their 2013 Summer Mash Up collection.  This is a very sheer holographic glitter in a dark seafoam green base. I put two coats on over Savage to pump up the rainbow effect. Sparkling Garbage had a very fine grit to it, so I used two coats of top coat for extra glossiness and smoothness.

Here it is all blurry, so you can see the sparkly rainbow effect. This is much closer to this mani sparkled in real life than the pictures above. 

I'm really happy with this layering, which is good because I was low on time to do polish changes this week and this mani wore like iron! I didn't get tip wear until Day 5! I'm not sure if it was the base coat, Savage, Sparkling Garbage, the top coat, or the combination of them all that made it so magically long lasting, but it was incredible.

Only downside was the terrible staining from Savage during removal. Even letting the remover soak on the nail for a few seconds and pulling it all down in one swipe to minimize cuticle staining, I was still left with blue cuticles and nails. I haven't had any staining like this from any of my recent SinfulColors blues, so I don't know what made this shade so stain-crazy.

Catching Up - My Birthday!

I celebrated my birthday in July and my friend made me one of the coolest birthday cakes ever - it was a nail polish bottle!!

She took all of my favorite flavors and colors and integrated them into this cake.  The cap is chocolate, the bottle is funfetti and strawberry layers, and it's all topped in a layer of fondant.

The design was modeled after an OPI bottle, down to
the dots between the "HPI" (happy!) and the cute label name on the bottom. 

It's a shout out to our poodle - that's how we spell our lil Suzie's name

To show the size perspective, here I am with my birthday cake.  

Even with half of the cake served, it's still ginormous!!

Since I had a home-based birthday celebration (movies, pizza, hanging out with amigos), I spent most of the morning straightening up our place.  When I was done, I needed a really quick mani change - perfect time to use a matte.

I went with Harlow from the Zoya Matte Velvet Winter 2009 collection.  It's a red-based purple matte shimmer.  I was good to go in two coats and a few minutes.  The Zoya brush, as always, means there was no extra clean up needed.

Matte shimmers are one of my favorite finishes, especially Zoya's.  A matte finish is cool on its own, but the shimmer adds an extra pop of interesting complexity.  Harlow goes to show that a shade can still be special, even if it was a last minute mani choice.