Illamasqua I'mPerfection Collection - Fragile

Let me start out by showing you the whole collection in it's boxes so you can kind of get a preview. I know Mottle was the uber popular one out there in the blogosphere, but it's not my favorite.

The first non Mottle I want to show you is Fragile. Of course this makes me want to say "fra geeee lay" but...I try not to.

Fragile is the blue member of the group and is a really lovely watery shade of bright pastel blue with those little rocker black glitters.

This is a little faded out thanks to the flash but it shows the nails really well. The watery blue is so pretty and I wanted to show you that you could use this as a sheer if that's what turns your crank. This is one coat on nekkid nails. The blue of the lacquer gives the black glitters a little but of a softer look, but they're still prevalent, and as you can see, they scatter themselves out nicely. Trust me, I lack the patience to sit and move those all around.

The label on the box. I love that it's speckled, too!

Here is two coats, you can see it's opaque. I love that these have little particles as well as those larger hex ones. It adds a lot.

Here is two coats. You can see it needs a third to really level out, the ring finger particularly is showing through. I don't personally think this is a big deal at all. Probably if I had put on thicker layers it would have been fine.
The interesting thing is that this is an opaque polish that isn't eating it's glitter. You can still see them very clearly. I also love that it spreads them out. The formula is absolutely perfect. Goes on so beautifully and yet it covers well, spreads out the glitter and still lets you see it. YOu can also see here, the texture of the glitter. If you are into those textured polishes then go for it. I personally am not loving that look. At. All. But if you like it, then great. If not, I recommend a couple coats of nice thick top coat, Gelous being my favorite right now.

Last shot of this one, and it's washed out. I apologize. But you get the idea from the other shots, this is just a better shot at the glitters.

What do you make of these? I love the look, I love the micro particles in there adding depth. These are so interesting. I love them. This still isn't my favorite, though. ;)

Happy Talons!

*groan* Deborah Lippmann Porn 498758, Santa Baby

OK, so how many exclusive sets did the Great Deb Lipp put out??? I tried to find them all. I did. And yet....trolling around the blogs I found yet another. Given that I had been trolling while, and by that I mean trolling like trolling for bass in a bass troller, not leaving vile and nasty comments to annoy people, before I found it. It wasn't in the obvious places, at least not that I found. Neiman Marcus had this one. Most of the others have hit Miss Lipp's website but this one hasn't yet. May not, as we're well past the holidays.

This one is actually really pretty. You know that I had kind of felt that they weren't terribly original, there were some real duds in the fleet, but this one is nice. Everything is pretty, they're all kind of unique and all wearable and nothing really holiday specific about them except the names.

Once again, not on my computer, not edited on my computer so I can only hope these turned out OK. I think this monitor is REALLY bright. I don't know. When I can get to see these swatches on my own computer where I'm used to the settings we'll see. You'll get the idea, though.

Sorry for the glare. I took these at night. You have an amethyst purple, a dusty red and a blue jean blue. The box is a fuschia purple and is the standard issue Lippmann gift set box.

The inside, which does a better job with the bottles, though it is a bit fuzzy. Had I been drinking or something?

This is the amethyst. It looks really blue here. I think the deal is that the camera is picking up the flash. This is a bit duochromey, not that I'm complaining, OMG, I am so not! I actually love duochrome better than even holo, it's my favoritest thing evah.

If you look around the the bottle, you will see the true purple of this. I'm sorry these weren't more color true. I was having trouble finding a comfy spot with decent light to do these. However, the blue flash makes this very special. It's unique, I have nothing like it.

This is the dusty red. It has a lot of silver in it, which you can see in the bottle, which is what gives it that dusty feel. It's really a pretty metallic red, but not a chrome. It went on nicely, as all of these did, and it has a highly pigmented feel and look. Very opaque.

This is a better shot of the polish itself, though it's rubbish of the label. This is "This Christmas". I really liked this. I don't wear a lot of reds (too obvious) but I liked this and would wear it, fo' sho'. It even looks good on my nubbins.

Blue jean blue. No, it's not called that, but that's what it makes me think of. It's nothing like the Chanel blues, really. I had been afraid it would be. I have those, I will be swatching them because contrary to popular myth, I was able to find them online from an actual retailer.

This was the thinnest of the bunch, look at the streaking there, but probably a good base coat and another coat of lacquer will even that right out. It wasn't that noticeable in person or I would have painted them again.

This has the same frosty feel as the others, but I think that's kind of appropriate in a holiday collection. I really liked this one. I love how it's darkening as my nail curves.

Very nice collection. I just wish there hadn't been 4000 of them. I do argue that even at what seems a steep $45 price tag these are a bargain. You're getting three Lippmann's for $15 each, which is a nice deal. These would be $18 individually. As ButterLondon's have gone up this year to $15 a bottle, that puts these down a half step in price.

So glad I went on my butter spree before the holidays now.

So...thinking of picking this up? Once again, Neiman's is the only one I've seen who has it. They still had it, this arrived last week. (Fast service, free shipping...I'll check out Neiman's for other things I'm looking for in beauty. Can't afford much...but I'll look!)

Happy Talons!

Rescue Beauty Lounge Cuprum

Sorry I've been gone. It's just a crazy time. That is not to say I don't have fabulous polishes for you. I do!

Cuprum was one of the latest fan collection polishes. It's listed on Rescue Beauty's site both as available and the no longer available sections. I think what this means is once they're gone they're gone.
So pick one up while you can because it's brilliant.

This is a vibrant blue with a wonderful copper fleck in it...probably in deference to the name? :)

I had a really hard time capturing the fleck...but what I can tell you wherever you see what appears to be very dark or black fleck, as you can see here, is actually a copper rose color. It's subtle and oh so gorgeous.

I just wish that those flakies had played better with the camera. I tried. I really did.

As you can see this is a really vibrant blue. It's shimmery and has tons of color. It's really eye catching.

This is after a week of wear so it performed really well. It's very pigmented, very intense color. It's not for the faint of heart. This stands up and says hello. You can see here, I think, some hint of the copper in it. It's so striking and original.

If you look at the nails, particularly the pinky, you can see some hints of the pink. This is about as in your face as it gets unless it's on your nails and you're staring straight at it. It's not there for show, like a glitter. It's there to add depth and it really does it well.

You can see some of the flakey here. Not the color, especially, but the particles themselves. Pretty cool stuff.

You can also see the minimal amount of tip wear I had. Very good for a full week.

The right hand showing very similar wear. I did have a strange thing happen with the index finger, I have a picture to try to show it. It's not the polish, but just an odd thing that happened.

See how it sort of cracked there? And then the thumb as well. That's the most blatant wear this polish came up with. 

Part of the issue, I know, is that BMWWU somehow forgot the two coats of silk protein we always put on. It's Orly Nail Armor, I know I've mentioned it before. I like it, but it is thick. So this manicure was base coat, lacquer, 2 coats nail armor, 2 coats lacquer and top coat. It was a pretty thick manicure.

Might be what helped it stay on so well, though. However, polish that thick can easily crack if a nail bends or something. Probably what happened, but it was very odd how it didn't peel. It just held tight.

HEY! Check it out! I did actually capture the rosey copper flecks. Didn't realize I got one this good. I suggest clicking to enlarge this so you can really see it. Natural sunlight. If you can get it right it's the best for showing off your polish.

YAY! You can see the flecks here as well. This is what Cuprum can look like in real life. The flecks are there but they're not screaming at you, which I personally like 

Gorgeous color, really amazing. But like I mentioned, I think it's going to be discontinued so if you want it you better snatch it up. I recommend just going straight to the source and ordering from Rescue Beauty. You won't get this stuff on sale anywhere so you might as well do the real thing.

I hope you enjoy!

Happy Talons!!

Correcting chips walk through

I've had a rough week. No censure, please. Though I did finally get through number 10? 11? In a full series re-read and now I'm all adrift. I read a whole book today. Now what? Latest Margaret Atwood or more pulp? It's about time for my annual Three Musketeers re-read. Hm.

Issues! Issues! Regardless. I do want to post how I fix chips. I know I've done it before, but honestly...are you gonna go looking for it? I can't remember if I gave you pics of the process or not, and honestly, I am not going back and digging for it, either. The Balearic Cool of Model's Own is really perfect for showing this because it is SO vibrant.

I skipped the first step, which is to take polish thinner, not remover!, THINNER, and with a finger or thumb dipped in a small amount smooth out the edges of the chip. I skipped this step because BMWWU did this mani and she always uses some Orly Nail Armor frankenstrengthener she cooks up. I have mixed feelings about Nail Armor. It has done a beautiful job maintaining and strengthening my nails but those little silk fibers in there (and yeah, I know that's an animal product but it's one they will produce on their own in nature and it doesn't harm them. I never said I was vegan, I am anti-animal testing.) stick off and can cause your nails to chip if you don't know how to smooth over the tips of your nails and blend them back into the fold, so to speak. Nail Armor is a very thick formula and pretty opaque on it's own so I find when using that as a base it's not really necessary to blend out the edges of the chip. If you are using a different strengthener or not using one at all (I hate you, incidentally) then you will want to do that.

Here's what the chips looked like:

Fill those in with a dab of your strengthener, whatever it is. Again, in this case it's Orly Nail Armor.

Do I need to tell you that you should have washed your hands first? Washed, dried...this should be common sense, but in case it isn't, before you start wash and thoroughly dry your hands. No lotion, for Pete's sake. Save that for when you're done.

Don't be shy about it. Load it up. We're filling in basically a hole here. You don't have to be terribly neat about this, either. See how I've gone over the edge? This should help create a strong bond to the nail and blend the polish in later. Obviously, you don't want to just leave a ball of Armor there, but you do want it to be enough to fill in so your repair isn't obvious.

OOO. Wow. Yeah, that middle finger is going to need another hit. As you would do two coats on your nails when doing a mani from the beginning, you will also do two here. Use your judgement on if you need another.

After two coats of Nail Armor in the chip. See how that has pretty much smoothed out? We have 4 more coats to go here, but you want this as smooth as you can get it now. If you need to, you can lightly buff out any rough spots, but you shouldn't have to.

Fill in the chip with the color. This happens to be from the last post, Balearic Cool with Indian Ocean over it. See how the cream blue is so vibrant? This was a great color to use for this. Cover up all the base coat you had to put on to fill the chip. Blend it down and smooth so it's not a bump on then end of your nail.

Just another shot at the bottom of the bottle. You can see the blue here, how it's blended in. The color here is deceptive, as is the lighting, I apologize. It's not nearly this sky blue in real life.

Here's the right hand. Remember that more prominent ridge? That's gone now. Careful application will take care of so many sins. Just be patient. If you're in a rush then you should probably take it all off rather than try to make a fix.

Hit it again, smooth it out. This looks like a glob but it wasn't in reality. It's the color and the cream as opposed to shimmer causing an optical illusion.

The right hand with two thick coats.

Now, I must have flaked out somewhere because I didn't take pictures of putting the shimmer top coat over this, but that's really...it's just another coat of paint. Maybe I figured you guys would know enough to understand how that would look.

The end result a few days later. Note that it didn't hold it forever and it won't. It just extends the life of your manicure for a few more days. As you can see, it held better than the index finger!

I hope this is a helpful post to you guys. I always try to pass on what little tricks I've learned and keep the faith that they are giving someone a tip they didn't know.

Coming up tomorrow, the manicure after this! HEE HEE! What a cliff hanger. **roll eyes at self**

Happy Repaired Talons!

Models Own Blues

OK OK. I know. I promised a post last weekend.

I suck.

But here is one now, and I have photos edited for two more so I just have to write them, which I WILL do, plus another post in my head (fat lot of good it does you there, I know) about how I kind of went a little cray-cray on Sephora.com (the work of the devil, I'm convinced) in the aftermath of the whole To Sell in China You Must Animal Test debacle.

You are aware of this, correct?

If not. Here is the thing as I understand it. China is now requiring any foreign imported cosmetics to be animal tested before they can be marketed there. This is impacting many major brands, probably many major brands you and I have had faith in as safe for us bunnyhuggers. Estee Lauder falling into this trap is HUGE and I mean...HUGE. I don't know if you all know this but Estee Lauder makes like...everything. Bumble and Bumble, La Mer, Clinique, MAC, most perfumes...pick something. HUGE. Urban Decay is also falling victim to this law. Their PR departments are going berserk trying to convince us they are still OK because hey, we're not actually torturing animals OURSELVES. Buy from us! 

I've really struggled with this and finally decided that Chinese bunnies are still bunnies. Still bunnies being tortured and made to suffer for something as, let's be honest with ourselves, banal as makeup. Can't do it. So...my moisturizer was almost gone, but I did not head to the makeup counter, I went to www.sheaterra.com and ordered something that is cheaper and, honestly, probably better for my skin. I didn't get the rooibos and vitamin E cream that I know really does magical things with my skin because they were out of it. The lovely souls at Shea Terra sent me an email offering me other options that were in stock and that had roughly the same set of promises. Let me know if you want to know what I think of Tamanu. That's what I chose. Of COURSE all this stuff smells approximately like ass on a hot day, but that does not last and what you are left with is the most amazing baby smooth skin ever. And it looks better, too. Highly recommend the Egyptian carrot seed oil if you have really super dry skin like me. 

So, the moral of this babble is that after doing some struggling with the whole "But MAC doesn't bunny test....Urban Decay still isn't bunny testing....BUT BUNNIES ARE SUFFERING FOR THEIR GREED!" argument with myself, I went searching for other options. There are some great British brands, like the one I'm eventually showing you today, and I got on a little expensive mission to try some of them. I have a list! I have a list of vegan/cruelty free companies I am going to try and I will be sure to share those results with you. I have at least one bottle of Ciate coming and some Nails Inc, and another new brand called The New Black. Those come in sets so you can do ombre manis, which I don't give a flying fu----udge about. Woo. You painted each of your nails a different color. You're...five. Of course, this could be a reflection of my being a cynical old beeyatch. Regardless, I'm not impressed with your mad painting skilz on that one. It looks like you got drunk one night or something. That does NOT mean, however, that I'm averse to wearing the colors the normal way. I did not realize this, but you can also get Julep on Sephora, which is an idea I like a LOT better than a subscription sort of annoyance so I will likely be trying one or two of those in time as well. As I do more research into this I will try more brands. There is some stuff out there I've been curious about for awhile so maybe now is the time to divert my polish dollar on to smaller and more bunny friendly companies. I did contact one I was interested in, promising that I wouldn't start a campaign against them if they aren't cruelty free, I simply won't promote them and I have heard exactly nothing, which I take as an "Aw shucks, we torture bunnies" admission, but like I said, they'll remain nameless.

I have been busy while I've been not blogging. I don't forget you, I just can't always stand to be on a computer. I sometimes read other blogs...how do you think I find some of this stuff? There are some fun trends I would love to try out there. Sponging? Looks cool. Now a sponge ombre I'd do! That's more than one color on each nail in a gradient succession and looks awesome. I found one post about cruelty free and how pretentious it is that still has my blood boiling. The argument is that the bunnies are already dead because in the US each thing only needs to be tested once so you aren't saving anything. Really? Really. So we should encourage it? I suppose by that logic we should no longer control the war machine because the soldiers who have fought and died are already dead, right? 

Really kind of pissed me off. 

So on that note! 

I give you Models Own Balearic Cool with Indian Ocean:

OK, yeah. These are in the bottles. I somehow, through all this process - I say that because I have a post demonstrating how I repair chips coming up and it was with this manicure - I never took a shot of me holding Indian Ocean, that sparkly goodness on the left. I confess, Indian Ocean was the whole reason I looked into Models Own and I am SO glad I did. 

Look at that thing. I mean...I'm drooling on it. Enlarge the picture to really see it. I dare ya. (website to order: www.modelsownit.com) Balearic Cool, on the other hand, while gorgeous, was absolutely impossible to accurately photograph. Flash, no flash, sunlight, electric light...I tried everything I could think of. It's darker and richer than this. It's not sky blue as it's going to appear in every single picture that I took of it. Maybe another blogger had better luck, I don't know. 

So...BMWWU says "I know. Let's layer these". OK!

This is natural sunlight on the black top of my driveway. Some idiot in a minivan nearly wrecked watching me do this. WTF? My driveway and I live in the sticks. Run along! Run along!

This is as close to a perfect swatch of this manicure that I was going to get. It's still washed out but not as badly as some of them. 

Yes, one small chip there, which will be fixed in a later post! 

The rest of it, as you see, is flawless. This was several days old. The Indian Ocean adds a depth and character which softens what is essentially an electric neon gigolo blue. It's very sheer so it didn't really do more than tone down the Balearic Cool while adding mouthwatering pink and purple shimmer. I wanted to try Indian Ocean on every single blue I owned after this. I didn't...but I did have that urge. 

Stunning. 

I don't remember how she did this. I might not have been paying attention at all. I know it was two or three coats of Balearic cool and one coat of Indian Ocean. I don't know that you could get Indian Ocean to be opaque on it's own, I'm not sure you would really want to. It's like bacon: it makes everything better. 

This wore great until it didn't. I did repair it once, which held it for about 2 more days and then it was polishapocaplypse. 

It came off in sheets. 

I have a pic of the other hand but it's not loading it for some reason. Bloody picture problems. Let's see if we can get the kind of funny one I took of the big sheets of polish peeling off. 
 

NO!

Love it. What a POS. Do other bloggers have these problems?

This wore roughly a week. I was getting tired of it, actually. It's very pretty but I'm used to wearing polish for about 4 days and then it peels or chips and I remove it. I'm typing this with bare nails now. I'm trying to choose a color...my nails are in good shape now...hm. 

Regardless. 

Models Own. Great colors, great wear, trendy, pretty, easy to apply...what is not to love? OK...maybe the price and WOOO the shipping from Britain. Make sure you make it worthwhile for yourself. I wound up ordering a ton of polish to be able to justify the shipping but they do give you a discounted price when you buy their sets. I bought two plus some other random ones. I also got a free black eyeliner for my first order. I haven't tried that yet, but after the polish I have high hopes. 

Sorry I've been so wordy lately. I'd love to tell you I'll cut it out but I probably won't. 

Happy Talons! 

ETA: Picasa seems to be behaving right now. Here is what the sheets of polish coming off looked like:

 

Check it out! It's...CHUNKS! When this stuff decides to go, it does not pussy foot around. It goes. The up side to that is that it could take it a week to do it. When you're working in an office handling a ton of paper, typing and then coming home and cleaning and doing dishes a week is a damned God send. I think I'm a Models Own believer.

V-Day, What I wore

Yeah...I ultimately chose an almost sarcastically cheerful color. It's a matte, which is even better. It looks like dulled down Valentine's hearts. In a few days you can expect an update on this color, I'm sure, as I'll have to find out what it looks like with a top coat, but not until after Tuesday.

ManGlaze. I love them. They have such a sense of humor and are slightly rough around the edges, well, slightly is up for grabs there, and they make a great polish, which is even better. This polish has two names, revealing the sort of random nature of the humor over there, so while at work I can honestly tell people this color is "Blue". In reality, it's called "Fuck off and Dye". Now...how perfect is that for someone who is not enjoying 40 hours a week of her environment and is at her most hated day of the year? (Probably the label for this on the post will be F*** Off and Dye, just to keep from freaking anyone out.)

It's actually gorgeous.

Love the labels. OK, so as you can see, we have a hot pink matte with silver shimmer. These shots were taken in a rare bit of Winter sunshine through the window so they are very true. Love when that happens. I did all the swatches yesterday I could stand to do just because I had such great light. The shimmer in this is rather understated.

Look at me trying to be all PC and shite. Covering up the label name...Ha. OK. so...yeah, I had some breakages and didn't get to my regular manicure. Between BMWWU being really, really sick and my being really, really broke (more on that in posts to come)...it did not happen. I cannot shape my nails for crap, I think I've probably mentioned this. Please forgive the nubbin. When I break them I don't screw around. You should see my right hand.

I love the sheen of these mattes. ManGlaze isn't a dead sort of matte. It has a sheen to it, but it's still powdery in feel. My nails feel like they have a baby powder over them...almost like corn starch, really. I love it. I never thought I'd like mattes, but I really do. I also love that rubberized texture Illamasqua did for their last new collection.

The silver shimmer in there gives it a very soft look. And relatively tidy cuticles. This is an easy polish to apply but by this point I had probably swatched about 20 colors so I was getting tired. Also, mattes dry super fast, which can make them a tad tricky.

According to ManGlaze.com this was created in response to the uproar that wearing nail polish turns little boys into little girls, which is, of course, crap. However, that perception has been the foundation of rock star performance art for decades. It's incongruous, I admit, not in the least bit traditional but I don't think all the skater punks around where I work are going to develop drag queen careers any time soon, either. Everyone needs to just live and let live. Kind of the theme of these V-Day posts, if you think about it.

This went on thick and dried fast. Obviously, I didn't top coat it. I suspect I will just have to try it in a few days, though. That's me.

I wonder what butter LONDON Disco Biscuit would do to this? I'm still trying to find a way to save the train from wrecking on that.

I couldn't decide which was the better picture between this and the next so you get both. Sometimes it works like that.

Nice, huh?

OK, Mechanically:
1 coat Poshe Base Coat
1 coat Nailtiques 2
2 coats Fiberglass Network. I tried to go back to Rebuild and it wouldn't dry. I think that bottle is cooked.
2 coats ManGlaze Fuck off and Dye

I expect great wear from this, that has been my experience, but I'll update you as it happens!

Happy Talons!