Ciate - Spending Spree

Ciate is one of those brands I picked up because the color was pretty and I knew they were bunny safe. Generally I'm not branching out much on new brands these days. It's expensive enough keeping up with the ones I already collect and love. I don't need to add even more to keep up with. I have good luck with British brands and these are intriguing. I had wanted to introduce all kinds of new bunny friendly brands, and I still want to, but keeping up is so expensive. The other thing is, as much as I would love to support the independents, I can never seem to find their collections when they actually have any. That can be a real challenge when you can't be online every day. Well, not at home, anyway. So, the moral of this is, I only have a few Ciates.

This one is Spending Spree, ironically, which is a lovely rose gold metallicky almost duo-chromey sort of thing.

Unfortunately, my crap camera didn't pick up the duo-chrome effect though I did take about a bazillion pictures.

This is with flash, it's washing it out a little. This color has a curious almost dirty look to it...kind of similar to a patina, if you can imagine. As you can see here, it's really pretty, the micro shimmery goodness lends so much.

You can see some tipwear here, this manicure is really kind of old at this point. I believe this was maybe 6 days? I can't tell you how it was done, either. BMWWU did this one.

Without flash it's a little darker and I think you can possibly see what I mean about the darkness to this. It's difficult to describe.

Again with no flash. This is closer to the real color here, but it's still not quite it. I never did really capture it and I apologize. This one wasn't cooperative.

This is quite true, as close as I ever got, though I will still show you a bunch more pics!
That little bow is glued on there and so far it's stayed put.

If you look at the right corner of the bottle you can see some of that patina like effect I'm trying to describe. I was trying everything to get it to show, but it no deal.

This pic was really altered in the editing. I apologize it has such a weird aura to it. I almost didn't use it.

uh-huh! Seeing now why I gave you that side of the bottle swatch? I was trying to get you a clear view into the bottle! I kind of don't like this about this brand, actually. You have a very small window to see the lacquer color in truth.

Many More attempts to capture the color more accurately:

So what do you think? Like? I enjoyed wearing it, even though I confess I do realize it's not the best color for me. It's still pretty and was really appropriate as I went Christmas shopping right after this manicure!

Happy Talons!

New Deborah Lippmann's

I managed to order the latest polishes from Deborah Lippmann, plus a spare to get free shipping. I'm a big believer in free shipping...I might spend more than I would have if I'd not boosted my order to get it, but at least I get something for my trouble. I'd rather pay another $18 in this instance, for another polish than $8 for shipping. I can actually keep and use the polish.

Needless to say the new Lippmann's are absolutely beautiful, and so completely different from one another!

First up, I offer you Glamorous Life, a lovely "rose gold", as it's described on the website, which is a lovely metallic. It's surprisingly opaque. I really expected it to be much more sheer. That is a nice surprise! I'm not fond of sheers, they tend to show every single flaw in my nails. This is, however, not sheer. It's actually a two coater!

Pretty isn't it? I expected it to be darker, but it's a lovely metallic pale copper, a rose gold, just as advertised.

Two coats, not a hint of nail line. I like this, it's a delicate pale gold, the pink in it makes it kinder to my skin tone than a straight gold would be.

Just one more! See the shimmer? So lovely! And completely work appropriate anywhere, I would think. It's a little different but still subtle. 

The second from the new Lippmanns is Good Girl Gone Bad.  It's...well, check it out:

OOOOO. I know, right? This doesn't even do it justice. It's SUPER sparkly. It dries super fast because it dries matte, though. See the pinky there?

Click on this and look at it larger to see better. It's actually a little less amethyst than this. These first two pictures are without flash. GGGB almost has a black base....it also dried a bit rough. It wasn't my favorite look, really. I had to top coat it.

This one shows the particles at least, if not the glamour of this. It's beyond sparkly. 

Here's a top coat pic:

That's a bit better! However...not so much amethyst in real life. It's more fuschia. It's really beautiful. I'd pick this one up! This went on sheer, though. So odd. Wouldn't you think this one would be the opaque one? Nope. You want two thick coats or at least three thinner ones. It's a clear base with this micro sparkle. It's not glitter by any stretch.

To round out my free shipping I picked up Bring on the Bling. I was honestly not that sure about it. It's a sheer, which I've just said I don't like that well and that it has real diamond dust in it seemed almost pretentious. However...it's pretty and pretty is what we are ALLLLL about!

Once again, this doesn't do it justice. The index finger is showing the true nature of this.

Oooo. But it's still not quite accurate. The diamond dust actually makes this flash in several colors, it's really gorgeous. It would make a great top coat over something really dark to spice it up.

Now we're talking! Pretty! This is two coats.

This just makes me want to squeal like a little girl. Look at that. It's...**shrugs** how do you describe it?

Oh yeah. Pretty great.

This one went on well and while it dried fast, it didn't seen to have that dull quality. I should have top coated it just to see what would happen but honestly, I liked it so much I didn't feel the need.

Of course all of these applied like a dream and were easy to handle. The Cheeky Monkey didn't stand up to dishes, but I don't blame it. I did a crap job applying it so it could just as easily have been that.

Next up will hopefully be some more of those Orly Mineral FX polishes. I figured out the upload problem. It was dumb! But now I need to figure out what's missing from where I store the photos so...never ends with that collection!
I'm currently sporting the gorgeous and original butterLondon Bluey. Yum You will be seeing that soon. I'm currently destroying it while typing...duh. But it's really pretty. Peacock sparkly. Hells yeah!

I hope you like these as much as I do!

Happy Talons!