Essence Choose Me! with Gold Stamping

I had a lot of fun with this mani!  This particular polish, despite being glittery, wears well on me.  I paired it up with some other colors to achieve the final look.

Zoya Frida - Funky Fingers Platinum Record - Essence Choose Me!

Layering goes as follows:

1. Nailtek II Foundation
2. Two coats Choose Me!
3. Stamped: BM 204, FF Platinum Record
4. One coat Zoya Frida
5. One coat OTD

I'm super happy with how this came out! Bonus: the gold gets a bit purposefully "lost" in the manicure, the stamping doesn't need to be perfect. 

I used the floral full nail design right above BM204 for the stamping.

Zoya Zuza & Greetings from Virginia!

Originally, I had planned to write schedule posts in advance and have then trickle out throughout the week.  I forgot how bad I was a time management and wasn't even close to getting them done. We have internet access despite being in the mountains and I have some downtime right now considering its evening and raining.. I'm tired and want to do nothing constructive.  I like when vacations are low key then they feel like actual vacations.

I took some pictures and saved them before I left of Zoya Zuza so I have them to share today. I usually blog from my desktop, not my laptop, but I thought ahead. Zoya Zuza is just beautiful, I got some great shots of it.  Since I'm having trouble pinpointing the attributes of this polish, I'll just cite Zoya directly "Zoya Nail Polish in Zuza can be best described as: Deep, saturated, oceanic turquoise with gold and silver metallic shimmer and a foil-like finish. A beachy, colorful, foil-like shade with the perfect balance between blue and green." Pretty spectacular description! I almost called it glass fleck, which I know it's not.. foil didn't occur to me!

"Natural" Light

All photos shown here are two coats of Zuza over Orly Bonder and sealed with Out the Door.

"Natural" Light

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I found a Ross here, the closest one to me in NJ is an hour away and the time I did go, had nothing even remotely interesting in terms of nail polish.  The Ross here had a ton of stuff, I got lots of pretty polishes to add to my stash.

Thanks for reading (=

China Glaze Sea Spray & Funky Fingers Accent Nail

My friend Gaby suggested doing this mani, I'm so glad I did! Instead of gold glitter, though, I used a gold foil. It's so beachy!

"Natural" Light

This is two coats of Sea Spray over Orly Bonder and sealed with Sally Hansen Diamond Flash. Which sucks, LOOK at the bubbling. No fan or air was blowing at me when I did my mani, so.. I'll give it one more shot one day, maybe.

"Natural" Light

For the accent nail, I used Funky Fingers Down to Earth. This is two coats as well. I really wanted to do white horizontal stripes on the blue nails but they chipped before I had a chance to. Sadface.

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I really loved how this turned out, minus the damn bubbles. Thanks Gaby!

Jessica Disco Diva & Valentine's Stamping

With the lover's holiday approaching, I thought it'd be cute to add some themed stamping to my dazzling previous manicure.  I seriously can't get enough of Disco Diva, the linear holo is so incredibly strong!

"Natural" Light

I used Funky Fingers Monster Ballad for stamping and Klean Color Metallic Blue for the dots as well as Monster Ballad.  The finishes of the colors (foils) played so nicely with the base (holo).

"Natural" Light

For anyone wondering, the rose is from plate BM09 and the kissy lips are from plate BM02.  I used a dotting tool for the dots, of course!

New Funky Fingers Foil Collection Swatches

Oooh these are excitingly beautiful!  As many of you know, Funky Fingers and Color Club share the same mother company, Forsythe Cosmetics Group.  These are dupes of the Color Club Foiled collection.  The only differences I've spotted so far is that the light pink in the Color Club collection ("Foil Me Once") is actually an older Funky Fingers polish named "Favorite Girl" (I think); additionally, "Power Chord" is not in the Color Club set.

At my Five Below, "Favorite Girl" was plunked right next to all of the other new foils.  It's not a new release, however and doesn't have a name change.  Another fun yet confusing fact to throw into this mix is "Platinum Record" seems to be a renamed re-release of "Down To Earth". If this is the case, than FF is releasing old colors with new names.  I'll do a comp eventually.

Among the foils there was a chunky silver hex glitter, Stage Dive, which is swatched on some nails.

Anyways, onto the beauties!

Monster Ballad:

This is only one coat!  Monster Ballad applied so nicely, a lovely magenta foil.  This one stood out among the crowd, it's so bold.

Sold Out Arena:

One Coat of Stage Dive

This is two coats. I wore this for like, a solid two days and loved it. I'm sure its not the first minty foil but its my only as of now.  This was two coats. Somewhat runny formula but workable.

Power Chord:

One Coat of Stage Dive

I had some trouble capturing this color really well.  It's a dark plummy kind of purple but it catches gold on camera.  This was two coats, could've used a third for sure.  This was the runniest of them all, too.  Very pretty though.

Sound Check:

GORGEOUS vibrant blue.  This one is really super pigmented, like Monster Ballad, and could be done with one decent coat.  This is one splotchy coat but I do believe you could get away with one coat if you paid attention.

Guitar Solo:

One Coat of Stage Dive

An icy icy blue foil.  This one was easy to apply, the formula ran so inconsistently in this collection.

Platinum Record

One Coat of Stage Dive

A gold foil, seen it 100 times. Nothing too 'stand out' about this color, it washes me out, too.

So this whole collection is kind of confusing.  Two colors look like previous FF colors, one has a name change and one doesn't.  It's hard enough keeping it straight between FF and CC, but if they're really releasing the same things with different names, then my head will explode. I'm looking at the bottles now, and the one seems to be a bit grittier than the other; so hopefully they are different.

Additionally, the formula is somewhat all over the place.  Some are super pigmented and a nice consistency, while some are runny and need multiple coats.  Maybe that has more to do with them being foils and less about their maker, I'm not sure.  I do love the color range of this though, so many to choose from.  I bought this entire collection for $12 at Five Below so I can't complain too much. Which is your favorite?

"favorite girl" & a skin problem

Uh.. what day is it? Friday? I feel like Monday morning, lol.  I figured I would give a quick update and post about a new polish I bought the other day.

This blog crosses my mind about 3 times or so a day. I miss it but have been successfully dodging it for more reasons than "lack of time".  As mentioned before, the gloves I wear are destroying my hands.  No latex allergy but the powder has been brutal.  I have mild dyshidrotic eczema on my hands, and it is (in my case) stress triggered.  The constant washing, lotioning and gloves have caused the skin on the sides of my fingers to literally peel off by the end of the day.  I don't want to post pictures of raw skin and aggravated blisters.  Up until this week I hadn't even painted my nails for about a month in order to not call attention to them.  The topical steroids my doctor has prescribed help, but it doesn't cure it.  I've done research on the condition and there isn't much you can really do.  WARNING: if you decide to be ballsy and google pictures of it, it is pretty gory.  As I said, mine is mild (actually, very mild in comparison) but micro focus is rather unforgiving.

Work has been truly exhausting.  It's hot, the air conditioning isn't the best, and enrollment has picked up.  There's a handful of coworkers who have turned being lazy into a true art form, meaning those who do work have to work harder to pick up the slack.  A lot of people there seem to have unofficial "daycare tenure" and can evidently do no wrong.  I'm in the 18 month - 2 and a half year old room by myself, there is a lot of lifting, chasing and general running around. It's mentally taxing, too. I come home and watch TV for a bit, and usually fall asleep. I have an 8 hour day, but usually spend my hour break trying to catch up on work that needs to be done. I am by no means a morning person and waking up at 6:45 am blows. I don't think anyone wants to listen to anyone gripe about work, but this is my little soapbox!  It is really nice having a break from school though.  When I come home from work, there is no sitting at the computer typing paper after paper.

On to the polish (=  I tried having long(er) nails while working but holy crap it was impractical.  I have super nubs now.

Forgive the cat fur, my Ralphie LOVES this thing, haha!

Polish damage after ONE day of work )=

Funky Fingers - "Favorite Girl" 3 Coats
A pretty pink foil.

I don't have many (or at least, wear many) foils, but this is really pretty.  The application was somewhat splotchy, but I think it has more to do with me being out of practice.  Some lighting and holding my hands just the right way so thin spots of the polish.  But about 95% of the time you can't tell - you'd really have to be looking for it to see it.  2$ at five below - totally recommended!

And back to my previous paragraph - does anyone have or know of anyone with dyshidrotic eczema?  I've seen information saying to keep it dry, some says to keep your skin moisturized - it's all pretty confusing.  Any tips or advice is greatly appreciated.  My doctor(s) basically shrugged it off, they had NO useful advice.

essence "Choose Me!"

WOW where did this week go?!  My head was buried in the books as the post-spring break panic is here.  Professors all of a sudden realize that since we had a week off - now its double time.  Yawn, I'm bored of writing paper after paper after paper.  LOL @ me for choosing english as a minor.  It was between math, chemistry, history and english.. options were limited ya know?

Anyways this'll cheer me up.

Essence "Choose Me!"

Please click to enlarge these, this is really a beautiful color and finish.  Since we know I'm *amazing* at describing polishes, here we go: a bluish green micro-glittery foil looking delight.  I tried.

GORGE.

This polish tricks your eyes I swear!  Indoors and without flash it is very very green.  But it's also very blue.  Couldn't capture what I see, exactly, but this is pretty close.

99. cents at Ulta