Blue and Glittery

I hope you can stand just a bit more from the Orly Viva collection, because I liked La Playa so much that after doing all the comparison swatches in yesterday's entry, I put that beautiful blue back on and wore it until I had to switch to something more conservative to work my employer's user conference. Because I sometimes have trouble leaving well enough alone, I topped it with Finger Paints Sapphire Shimmer, which was way prettier than I'd expected. Taking a page out of Susie's blog, here's what I used for my mani:



Starting at the left, I put on one coat of Orly Nailtrition. I'm trying this out as a possible replacement for Sally Hansen Age Correct Growth, which has been my treatment of choice but which SH decided to discontinue. I do still have a stash of bottles of the SH stuff but thought I'd feel better if I had a plan for when they eventually run out. Next comes Seche Base Ridge Filling, which I started using when L'Oreal stopped making the ridgefiller I used to like. Next, you'll notice I got the bottles in the wrong order again--obviously I put the Orly La Playa on first and then the Finger Paints glitter. I only used one coat of La Playa under two coats of glitter--it has excellent coverage. Last there's my favorite top coat, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Anti-Chip. I like this so much that I'm really surprised SH hasn't discontinued it, too, like she did my treatment base coat (and a lot of other people's holy grail base--Nail Quencher). When I was done it looked like this--some of these are bit out of focus, the better to show off the sparkly bits of color in the Sapphire Shimmer:









I admit I was a tiny bit cranky about Finger Paints releasing a multi-colored glitter and a blue glitter so close on the heels of OPI's Alice in Wonderland ones--surely they could come up with something different, I thought--but they didn't just copy OPI. Sapphire Shimmer is beautiful and not at all a dupe of Absolutely Alice. I was fascinated with the pops of color that showed and was sad to take it off.