Nail Art

Hello, lovelies! How do my nails look? These are the first pictures since I broke the index nail of this hand and did an emergency teabag fix. It's holding up great!!

As for this post, I bring you a new product today. Or rather, New York Color (NYC) brings you a new product. It's a mattifying top coat (yep, they called it mattifying) they've named Matte Me Crazy.

I was stunned to find this on the shelf. The only matte top coat to be found around here is Hard Candy's, Matte-ly in Love, found exclusively in Walmart. Hard Candy will cost you about $4 for a .35 fl oz bottle. It will even get you a cute little cardboard topper that fits over the cap. This makes finding it in a polish drawer very easy!

But, the reason I was so excited to find this new matte top coat is that NYC costs under $2 for a .33 fl oz bottle and can be bought in a multitude of locations. Sadly, it doesn't come with a cardboard topper and is not so easy to find in a polish drawer. :(

Now for the nitty gritty. Hard Candy has a much thicker formula. Hard Candy passed the drip test with flying colors. NYC ... not so much. It gave two very quick drips and a slower third before leveling out on the brush.

While on the subject of brushes. Hard Candy has a short, rounded brush with a slightly short and round cap. It fits in my hand okay but its short length may not be comfortable for everyone. NYC has a longer and wider brush that's attached to a round cone like cap. My preference in brushes have always leaned towards the wider and flatter. I adore the Sally Hansen flat brush and the new Wet n Wild megalast Pro brush so I prefer the NYC brush.

I don't think Riveting was the polish to go for when testing out a new matte top coat. I know it turned matte but I'm not sure just how matte. I can however tell you that NYC mattified slower than Hard Candy. I was actually kind of pleased about this though. I've had trouble with one part of my nails turning more matte than another with Hard Candy because it dried and turned matte too quickly. I don't know about anyone else, but I paint backwards so my pinkie nail was just settling into fully matte by the time I started my thumb with NYC. I had no streaking or blobs of darker matte with NYC.

I will definitely give you a more thorough answer on just how matte is matte when talking about these two in another post with another mani. NYC may just be a good substitute for the more expensive Hard Candy. We'll see ... probably sometime next week.

Hello everyone!

TL Design #96 Bombay

Today I want to show you TL Design #96 Bombay. First nailphotos of it on its own, and later with Accessorize Aztec on one accent nail, and then with OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air layered over Bombay. And finally some other layering options on my nail wheels.

TL Design Bombay:

TL Design #96 Bombay is a beautiful classic green nail lacquer. On these pictures I have used 2-3 coats, base- and top coat. TL stands for Tone Lise Akademiet, and TL Design is their line of nail products. All their own products are cruelty- free. The TL Design nail lacquer collections are very colorful. I could not find any information about Bombay on their web page, so I do not even know which collection it is from, but I bought it last year (summer 2011). Their main web page is in Norwegian (at time of writing), so if you have problems with translation, choose that language.

With Accessorize Aztec on the ring finger:

Aztec is the strangest nail polish I own. I thought I bought a purple- copper duo chrome or foil. But when I put the first coat on my purple nail wheel, it looked green with copper particles in it. So I wanted to layer it over Bombay. But on its own, it builds up to a dark purple- brown- gold- green. I will make a post about it (soon, i hope). I took photos of it last week. Do you have this polish?

With OPI Fresh Frog of Bel Air layered over Bombay:

Bombay+ Fresh Frog of Bel Air

This was my Christmas mani, and my mother said it was the most beautiful nail polish she had ever seen, and was surprised that it was a combination of two polishes. "Fresh Frog of Bel Air" is probably well known by now. As you see, it is a polish with big silver hexagonal and small green round glitter in a clear base.

Aztec, Bombay, Fresh Frog of Bel Air

I have also tried other polishes over Bombay, but in my opinion these two are the best. I did not manage to make the base of Deborah Lippmann "Across the Universe" look even. On my nail wheel, Deborah Lippmann "Happy Birthday" and "Boom Boom Pow" and Nubar "2010" look nice, though.