OPI xPress/On Nails

For the second week of my trip, I wore a set of OPI fake nails, my first time trying this brand's offering. I chose 100% That Scorpio from their zodiac collection (I'll share other signs from that in a future display post). I'm not a Scorpio, but I really liked the purple/green/blue multichrome effect. This set's shape is Classic, which I'd call oval.

 

After I opened the package, I struggled to find sizes that fit my nails. The assortment was very much skewed toward the smaller end. Other brands I've used have had a more even distribution, and my hands are not small, so I wasn't sure I'd be able to make this work.

 

I did the best I could with the sizes, but it wasn't great, especially the over large nail I had to put on my middle finger. As with the Ardell nails I shared in my last post, these came with glue but I used adhesive tabs.

 

The shift in these was strong and fun to look at.

 

The shape of these at the tips did expose some of my natural nails, which wasn't ideal, but the shiftiness of the fakes was distracting enough that I could ignore that after a while.

 

These nails did not like the adhesive tabs. I had the first nail pop off only a couple hours in, leaving the adhesive tab on my natural nail. Fortunately I found the nail, which is important as it was one of the larger ones and I didn't have a replacement for it. A few more instances of that, and I started using glue between the adhesive tab and the fake nail. That helped them stay on longer, though I still lost several even with the glue. That issue and the sizing make me less excited about trying other sets of these, though they have a lot of attractive ones and other shapes so I'll probably give them another chance or two.

Polished for Days Cloudburst

Just a single polish today: Polished for Days Cloudburst, which is a turquoise to purple shifting shimmer. I almost didn't post these pictures as I wasn't careful enough with application and some of my brushstrokes are wiggly, but the polish has such a nice glow to it that I decided to showcase my imperfection. This swatch is two coats plus clear topcoat, which I thought might bring out the shimmer more.

 

The shift to purple was really clear when I tilted my hand:

 

In the bottle, I could see some gold shift, too, but I did not manage to get an extreme angle enough to see that on my nails.

 

So pretty.

 

Even though I know a polish that's opaque in two coats is most likely not great for layering, I went ahead and tried it anyway. I left Cloudburst on my index finger and took it off the rest to lay down three creme bases: Sally Hansen Insta Dri Cerulean (sky blue), SinfulColors Show and Teal (dark blue with a touch of green), and Funky Fingers Dark Knight (black).

 

I then topped the cremes with one coat of Cloudburst. The differences were slight. The darker the base, the more teal-leaning the turquoise face was. It is good to know I can save my precious indie by using one coat over the sky blue and have the same look as if I'd done two coats of Cloudburst alone.

 

 

I really need to keep swatching my stash as it does a good job of reminding me that I have so many pretty polishes already. No buy isn't possible for me I don't think, but low buy might be.

Warm Hues from Bee's Knees

Back in August, I shared some water marbles I did with shades from Bee's Knees Lacquer Acotar Agaaaiiiiin collection. Today I've got some swatches of the warm tones from there plus a bonus polish that didn't make it into the water marble post. First up, a quartet of compatible shimmers: A Dreamer Born Into the Court of Nightmares (light yellow), When I Kill I Do It Slow (yellow orange), Illyrian Baby (light orange; this is the one that didn't make the marble post), and Truth Is Your Curse (red orange).

 

I used three coats of each for a juicy Skittles look. There's a tiny bit of nail line peeking through with some of the shade at certain angles, but I thought that was fine.

 

 

 

I then used these same shades for a funky French, first putting down a skintone creme base then adding black creme tips before slicking on the shimmers. The black tips let the shift and flash show up more. For some reason, I did them in a slightly different order, so below from top to bottom it's A Dreamer Born Into the Court of Nightmares, Illyrian Baby, When I Kill I Do It Slow, and Truth Is Your Curse.

 

 

 

Then it was time for Only You Can Decide What Breaks You to take a turn. This is a dusty rose shimmer with a gold/green shift.

 

Before I swatched this one, I added some base colors. I left my index finger bare. On my middle, it was Essie Talk Sweet to Me. On my ring, Girly Bits Don't Paddle Break a Nail. My pinky got black.

 

Then I added Only You Can Decide What Breaks You to give me an ombre look: three coats on my index finger, then two coats over each of the creme base colors. All my digits got clear topcoat.

 

The shift in Only You Can Decide What Breaks You really showed on all my nails, though of course the black brought it out the most.

 

 

In direct light, all the nails looked nice, but the nail with the black base was fascinating.

 

And look what happened in filtered sunlight—so beautiful:

 

I have to make a concious effort to avoid the Bee's Knees website sometimes, as I just know there are so many tempting things there. They do a really good job with shifty shimmers like these, and magnetics too, and I need to play with the ones I've got already before I buy a ton more. I successfully avoided the September launch but am not sure I'll be able to do the same with October. We shall see.

A Pair of Polishes from Morgan Taylor

When I first came across Morgan Taylor, it was in a beauty supply store. Now both Ulta and Sally Beauty carry the brand, so it's more accessible ... or at least was when I was going into stores regularly. On one of those shopping trips in the Before Time, I picked up a couple shades that called out to me. First up, the smoky purple shimmer called A Girl and Her Curls, a part of the Forever Marilyn collection.



A Girl and Her Curls was opaque in one coat. I added a clear topcoat to my swatch as well because I hadn't used base coat and the ridges on my problem nail (the ring finger) were creating some ripples I didn't like. Not the polish's fault.



I am quite enamored with this polish; the shimmer translates beautifully from the bottle to the nail even in indirect light, and the color is so rich and elegant looking.





I also picked up shifty shimmer I thought would work as a topper and coordinate nicely with the purple: Izzy Wizzy Let's Get Busy. I grabbed this one from the core section of the display at Ulta and don't know if it was originally part of a collection or not. It's a white iridescent shimmer which shows flashes of blue and pink in the bottle.



I put one coat of Izzy Wizzy on top of A Girl and Her Curls, plus clear topcoat for depth and shine. This gave a strong blue shimmer effect, with a hint of a pink shift at some angles.







When I added a second coat of Izzy Wizzy, the pink shift became more noticable, though over the purple base, it was more of a purpley-pink, which I completely am into.









I'm thinking Izzy Wizzy could be worn on its own but wasn't curious enough about that to try it. I think I'm still recovering from the years and years I had to wear very subdued polish in the conservative corporate period of my life ... now I want color and flash!

Bee's Knees Lacquer Acotar Agaaaiiiiin

With so much extra time at home and on the computer thanks to the pandemic, I've been seeing more indie polish swatches and that's lead to buying more. Today's post is about some of my latest acquisitions from Bee's Knees Lacquer. Left to right: Night Triumphant, Feyre Darling, Welcome to the Family, I Was a Survivor and I Was Strong, A Dreamer Born Into the Court of Nightmares, When I Kill I Do It Slow, Only You Can Decide What Breaks You, and Truth Is Your Curse. All are from the Acotar Agaaaiiiiin collection, (mostly Part 2, which was released at the end of July; Truth and I Was a Survivor are from Part 1 which was out at the end of June but is still available).



Because one of the reasons I was inspired to buy these was a post in the brand's fan group showing some of them used for water marbling over black, that's what I did first, starting with the four cool hues: I Was a Survivor and I Was Strong, Welcome to the Family, Feyre Darling, and Night Triumphant.



I laid down a black creme base first then dove right in to marbling. I hadn't done it for ages, but some of my nails turned out pretty well. The polish is so pretty it distracts from my ooopsies in marbling. I did add a clear topcoat as well to smooth things over.










Then it was the warm hues' turn: A Dreamer Born Into the Court of Nightmares, When I Kill I Do It Slow, Only You Can Decide What Breaks You, and Truth Is Your Curse.







Some of these are shifty, too, so that added to the entertainment.





Also, sparkles showed up in the sun:



Looking at these pics again to do this blog post, I'm feeling like I might need to pick up the colors I didn't get so I can have even more fun. Maybe I'll reward myself with that after I do proper swatches, at least Skittles of the ones I have.