Blue on Blue

I Have A Herring Problem

In Her Majesty's Secret Service

Since I'm remarkably lackluster at fine detail painting, most of the manicures you'll see here are variations on the French tip theme. Mostly I like playing colors off of each other, and something about a monochrome/texture variation just makes me happy.

I was in Ulta, eyeballing the OPIs because they were on sale and found two I knew I had to put together.

OPI In Her Majesty's Secret Service and OPI I Have A Herring Problem. In real life they're both a bit more blue than they came out in these pictures. Both look more like grays that had blue added, as opposed to blues that have been toned down with gray.  I Have A Herring Problem is lighter and has a subtle glimmer to it, a sort of glass particle look, rather than a micro glitter. In Her Majesty's Secret Service looks like silver/gunmetal shimmer in a blackened navy base.

Together, I think they're looking pretty snazzy in a subtle sort of way.

Pure Ice: Viva Las Vegas

Pure Ice Viva Las Vegas

Pure Ice Viva Las Vegas is the sort of color that makes me squee with joy. It's a purply-taupey-white-gold-shimmery little bottle of joy. I love, love, love this color.

Two coats provided pretty solid color, and three got me to to true to bottle level. Depending on how I hold my hands, and how the light hits them, I get everything from taupe to shimmery gold, to an almost blue-tinged light dirty-purple (that absolutely refused to be photographed). Did I mention I love this color?

I am somewhat less impressed by the dry time.

So, I put it on, skipping the top coat because I wanted to see how it wore on it's own. And the correct answer was, great, once it fully dried. Now, I used OPI's drying drops, because I just don't have hours to lay about without moving my hands. Most of the time I plop on the drops, give my hands a good twenty minutes of down time, and I've got bullet-proof nails.

Not so much for this shade. An hour after I put this on, I was getting dings and scratches. Two hours later, and I had bullet-proof nails. There's a tiny scratch on the middle finger, and I ended up with a large ding on the thumb, that also refused to be photographed.

Once it dried, I got two days of no visible wear or tear. Little tip wear by day three. On day four the nail was showing through on the tip. No chips or fading. 

Other Press:

http://beautybycrystalstore.blogspot.com/2012/11/mani-monday-pure-ice-viva-las-vegas.html

http://lizzysblogplace.blogspot.com/2012/12/pure-ice-underwear-4-viva-las-vegas.html

http://glitterandunicorns-angiebee.blogspot.com/2012/11/pure-ice-swatchfest.html 

Other Shots:

Long Live the Beach At Vegas

French tip mash up of Loreal's Walk on the Beach and Pure Ice's Viva Las Vegas.

I absolutely adore Viva Las Vegas. It's a white gold, taupey, shimmery bottle of just lovely. And I wasn't planning on matching it up with anything until I was in Target and saw....

This! I'm sure there are other colors that I'll love with Viva, (I'm thinking it'll look interesting with red...)but this one looks like it was just made to go with it. I snatched it up, and as soon as Little Dudes were in bed, I was adding it to my already Viva bedecked nails.

Which resulted in: 

This on the left hand. I actually prefer how this combo looks with the tips in Walk on the Beach. Maybe because it's a more traditional "French tip" look, or maybe it's just because I like the sparkly, shiny-ness to be center stage. Either way, I think this hand worked out better than....

This one. It's not bad or anything. I just like the other one better. To my eyes it looks like the Walk on the Beach doesn't lay as well on the larger side of the nail. The formula was a bit on the streaky side while I was putting it on, and that wasn't as issue for the tips, but it does seem to make the right side look a little less polished (if you'll forgive the word choice.)