Swatch / NotD

   It took me way too long to get around to wearing this polish after nabbing it from a blog sale.  Butter LONDON Knackered had been on my wishlist for awhile, though I had no idea what the name meant.  It prompted me to look into British slang, and in that way I found that it means basically means exhausted.  Cool!  British slang is fun!  And so is this polish.

   I have to admit that I was knackered when I did my nails.  I used one coat of Wet 'n Wild Black Creme as my base (yes, it really is good - my first time trying it), and one coat of Knackered over top.  I didn't do my best work with this manicure, and I didn't realize how sloppy it was until it showed in the macro shots... yikes!

   Butter LONDON Knackered has a thin consistency that dries pretty fast.  I think it would have looked better with either two coats or a thicker, better-applied coat.  Even so this polish is super gorgeous, looking the most stunning in low light when it's holo microglitter sparkles like crazy and it has more of a blackened smoldering effect.

   The purple-to-green shift this polish has is awesome.  It also shows pale blue in the bottle but I don't really see that on the nail.  I believe that is just from the sheer tint of the polish.  If I use Knackered alone it would look more grey-blue, and not have such a strong color shift.

  The sparkle reminds me of China Glaze Fairy Dust very much.  I expect you could create a similar manicure just by layering Fairy Dust over your favorite duochrome polish.  I loved wearing Knackered so now I'm inspired to create other versions of this manicure through layering.  What do you think of it?

NotD

   While digging through old pictures I found a few from a manicure in July.  Nothing too fancy, just simple layering, but I couldn't waste pictures of multichrome-and-flakie goodness!

   Both of these polishes change color at different angles, so it was a neat manicure.  Nfu-Oh #60 is a black jelly filled with orange-to-green shifting flakes.  Orly Space Cadet is a sort of foil finish polish with a copper red-to-green shift and a teal base.  Here they are sitting next to each other:

   I think it is worth noting that Nfu-Oh is a 17ml bottle of polish, and Orly is 18ml.  My two "biggest" bottles next to one another!  I appreciate the generous portion of polish when both of these brands tend to be pricey.  Now have a couple angled nail shots to show off the color shift they have together!

   So pretty!  Pictures don't do justice to these polishes!  I put #60 in my blog sale but after being reminded of these pictures it is tempting to pull it back out!  I have enough flakies, though... someone grab it before I change my mind!  =P

   Ever come up with something that you know is really pretty but you're just not sure if you love it on yourself?  That's how it is for me with this mani.  It looks beautiful, but I just wasn't feeling it the way I thought I would.  At any rate, here are what I call my "deep sea mermaid" nails:

   Gorgeous, right?  That is two coats of LA Girl Deep Sea Mica topped with one coat of Zoya Charla.  There are a few more pictures after the jump, including Deep Sea Mica by itself.

    Look at what Color Club sent to me!  I actually won this nail polish from them!  I was so surprised; I rarely win contests.  It was really nice to win, and proves that yes, they really are connecting with their fans and giving things away.  How did I win it?  I follow them on Twitter.  Every Friday they post a picture of one of their colors (to their facebook, but they tweet it too), and accept E-mails of people guessing what the nail polish in the bottle is.  You get two guesses.  Very fun!  For their last contest I had just one guess: Naughty-cal Navy.  Imagine my surprise when I was contacted as a winner!  I figured I would hear back from them, I've guessed incorrectly and they personally thanked me for playing anyway (scoring big points in my book).  But this time... I won!  And they sent the polish out to me super quickly.

   I was expecting a bottle of Naughty-cal Navy, but instead I ended up with Blue-topia.  Very cool with me because I like the name better and it is a neat color.  It would fall into the family of navy blues.  Not a color that I was looking to buy for myself, yet one that I knew I could use for layering and art.  So how convenient to get it for free!  Lots more piccies after the jump~

   First the polish, then the explanation of why my blog has been neglected for almost a week.

   You may remember my recent post of trying my new Nails Inc. Magnetic Effect Polishes that ended in great disappointment.  I was hoping it was just a fluke and so I've tried them again.  Looks like I found what these polishes need!  I didn't do anything differently in my application or technique, but I did use a different base coat.  The first time I snagged my old Poshe bottle, which is a fast-drying base coat.  Last night I used Orly Bonder.  This time my polish applied evenly, did not destroy itself with bald spots, and actually stayed wet long enough to make perfect little magnetic waves.  So huzzah!  ...Now I'm really bummed that I missed the Nails Inc. 3-polish set (twice)!

   When it is working properly Houses of Parliament is a nice dark purple with lavender-looking magnetic particles.  This was just one coat, the way it should be.  Shown here with top coat because magnetic polishes don't dry very shiny.  Also, can you take a guess at what is layered on my ring finger?  It is a very thin coat of Cult Nails Clairvoyant.  =)

~~~

   So, my nails are done differently.  This is the shortest and squarest I've ever shaped them.  I like the squared look, but I'm really missing my length.  All of these nails were in good condition but I shortened them to match my very tragic thumb.  Over the weekend I had a major nail break while trying to pick something up and the nail broke down into the nail bed.  Ouch!  It is still hurting me now.  So needless to say I was pretty discouraged and didn't feel like blogging anything.

   When I started this blog my nails were very short, and I was having trouble with them peeling.  For years I had healthy, long nails.  Since the start of this year they wanted to do nothing but break off.  I had fallen very ill and I don't know what happened but that seems to be the start of my nail problems.  Break and peel, break and peel.  When I started blogging some polishes I found I really enjoyed it, and it inspired me to get my nails back into shape.  They are gradually growing out to be healthy and I'm not making the rookie mistakes that I was.  I'm even taking supplements for nails!  The break to my thumb is probably the last remaining growth "before vitamins".  Still it is a downer and I'm worried about it growing back properly.

   To go along with the nail problems I have been extremely busy and hardly home at all.  I have all sorts of pics that I meant to share last week, and even some half-written posts.  My blog is really just a hobby so when life gets crazy it has to take a back seat.  I apologize to everyone for not being here and want to say Hello to all new followers.  Wow, I did not expect to be over 90 today.  I'll try to treat you all to some pretty polishes and haul posts for the rest of the week.  =)

   I'm currently rocking this totally awesome manicure that appeals to my love of black nail polish and cutesy, girly things.  I used my new L.A Girl polish from their Rock Star Nail Lacquer collection.  The color?  Rockstar.  It is a black polish with a jelly-ish quality that is loaded with purple micro-flake shimmer that flashes green in the bottle.  I have only seen purple show on my nails, but it's gorgeous and I love it anyway.

   In fact I love it so much that I took a ton of pictures of it, which you can click to see larger.  =)

   In the interest of organizing my blog better I'm creating more specific tags, or labels.  These are so you can find a certain type of polish quickly.  Brand name tags have already been put in use.  All nail polish tags will begin with "np-", and the types will be defined as follows:

   ~ Finishes ~

Creme - also known as cream, but hey, that's a color!  Creme polishes are pigmented, opaque, shiny colors.  True cremes contain no shimmer or glitter.  Think of shiny enamel paint.
Effect - what I'm dubbing the crackle, shatter, and graffiti colors.  Also includes color-changing, glowing, and magnetic polishes.
Flake - contain larger, odd-shaped and usually iridescent reflective pieces.  Think of fish scales.
Frost - or pearl, these polishes can usually be identified by their brush-stroked look.
Glitter - polish containing glitter!  Often meant for use as a topcoat.  Sparkly!
Iridescent - polishes that change color in different lighting, or have "flashes" of a color in them.  Other terms can be lustre or duochrome.  Think of soap bubbles, insect wings and oil slicks.
Jelly - these polishes are sheer, yet have depth and look almost squishy or wet.  Very shiny, good for layering.
Matte - flat color with no shine after it dries, which is quickly.
Metals - polishes with a metallic, mirror, foil or chrome quality.
Prism - or holographic nail polishes contain special glitters that reflect a whole rainbow of color.
Satin - polishes that dry to a sheen somewhere between a creme and a matte.
Shimmer - these have smaller, fine microglitters or "glass fleck" particles that sparkle faintly.  May only show in strong light.

   ~ Colors ~

Bright -  vibrant colors, and neons.
Dark - deep, dark colors of any hue.
Light - all pale or pastel shades.
Mid - any mid-range color that doesn't fall in with bright, dark or light.

   ~ Other ~

B3F - stands for "Big 3 Free".  Polishes that do not contain Dibutyl Phthalate (DBP), Formaldehyde, or Toluene.  Besides those chemicals posing potential health risks, polishes that do and don't contain them often don't work together well.
B3+ - my term "Big 3 Plus".  Not only are they b3f, they also exclude other risky ingredients.

   This is my list, made up according to how I describe things myself and usually see things described as.  It may be updated or added to from time to time.  I do try to be accurate, so if anyone would like to offer corrections, suggestions or refinement please comment below.  I really hope that these tags can be of benefit in the future for anyone searching for specific types of polish I have posted about.  If anyone else wants to use a similar tagging post on their blog go right ahead, but if I inspired you a link back here would be great!