Shattered Candy - OPI / China Glaze crackle mani

Let me start this post by saying that I'm definitely not fed up with crackles just yet. For me, crackle polishes are here to stay. It's a "new" type of finish, just like I'm still loving matte manicures, suede finish, you name it. I just wear whatever floats my boat, LOL!

I recently made a bunch of crackle rings, and I decided to match my manicure to one of them. I'm wearing four polishes: China Glaze For Audrey with OPI's Black Shatter and Wet'n'Wild Black Creme with China Glaze Crushed Candy.

It took me one, thick coat to mostly cover my nails with For Audrey, and Black Creme is a one coater even with a thin-ish coat, so it was a fast manicure overall. I had a few issues getting Crushed Candy to crack right, but I think it's because it has thickened a bit. 

I'm including a picture of both hands, and I must say I like the result on the right hand the most (the picture on the left). Big crackles are so beautiful; it really shows the colour underneath it!

Shattered Candy - OPI / China Glaze crackle

And here's a picture of my right hand with the matching ring :)

Shattered Candy - OPI / China Glaze crackle

That's all I have for you today!

♥ Vetten

Gosh - New Age

Today I have an old discontinued colour to show you. I'm sure a lot of us looks for polishes on sale at any time possible. While visiting my local Matas (drugstore) a little while back, I decided to look for discontinued Gosh polishes which are sold at half price. It's almost always the same boring polishes, but every once in a while a new old polish find it's way to the bin in some magic way, lol.

This time I got lucky and found a grubby bottle in their old design. It's called New Age and is a dark green shimmer/pearl polish - even though I don't like pearl finish at all, I decided to give it a chance at half the original price ;) I took it home, cleaned the bottle with acetone (it was full of old, sticky makeup, yuck!) and it ended up looking rather good!

I suspected it to be very sheer (the brush being visible even dripping with polish), so I used a green creme as base for my manicure. I decided to use Don't Mess With Opi, a green creme from the Texas collection earlier this year. One coat was sufficient enough to cover my nails although I would use two if I was going for a manicure with this polish (don't mess, that is) on its own.

I then added a coat of New Age, and even though I believe I skipped the top coat for these pictures, I used it later on to protect the manicure. It was slow drying, lol. Also, I should mention  it was a bit brush-stroke-y, and I realised I should've used another coat of New Age as it showed bald spots in some types of light.

I ended up choosing two pictures to show you - one in my lightbox, showing how it looks like most of the time, and one in sunlight to show you how it comes alive with a few rays of sun. :)

Lightbox:


Gosh - New Age - lightbox


Sunlight:


Gosh - New Age - sunlight

 Do you like it? I think it's pretty neat for an old polish - I don't know exactly how old, but I'd guess at least 3 years or so. I wish I knew when Gosh changed into the new bottles... These are easier to use because of the handles (and they look bigger! lol). When did you last find something old but still neat on a polish hunt? :)

Vetten

China Glaze : Rated Holographic (+ matching ring!)

Today I want to show you my new love. 

China Glaze Rated Holographic

I have no idea why I never gave China Glaze Rated Holographic a chance until now. And truth be told I ordered it in the belief that it would be a rusty, red holographic - which isn't quite right (even though my bottle picture shows it as a hint too red. It's more true to the ring pictures).

Rated is from China Glazes much coveted Kaleidoscope collection. I have quite a few of the colours myself, but I have put off wearing them until the sky clears and I can enjoy them in their full glory. The thing is... Rated is gorgeous even on a cloudy day. Heck, I didn't even mean to be wearing it, I was supposed to swatch a few colours and started with applying Rated on four nails. It quickly made it's way onto the last six, and before I knew it, I was making a ring to match it as well.

I used my regular base coat, NailTek II, 2 coats of Rated and no topcoat this time. It dried really fast and with a satin kind of finish - where have I been living the past months during the holo craze around the blogs? I thought these were rough to the touch! - and so I left it for once and saved a few drops of top coat, LOL!

Why did Rated surprise me so? It is very similar to OPIs Teenage Dream, and I'm surprised I haven't seen any manicures with these two paired in blogland. Come to think of it, Rated is gorgeous on its own and I didn't even want Teenage Dream on top of it except in the ring to give it more bling, so that might explain it.

China Glaze Rated Holographic - outdoors, direct sun

 The above picture shows rated a tad too red, again - it is really more the colour of the following pictures:

China Glaze Rated Holographic - indoors, flash

If you've noticed the vintage worn looking lid on Rated, you're spot on: it isn't the original foil. It's such a silly thing, but when Rated arrived it was covered in Laser Lime (which sadly didn't survive breaking it's neck. Tragedy!) and the silver foil was gone, making the lid looking like yellowed plastic. I love this polish so much that I decided to used a silver foil polish to paint the lid and sealed it with ChG Fast Forward. Yep, I'm very silly like that. I'm a perfectionist in many ways, and I wanted Rated to look as gorgeous (as possible to remake) as the other 7 Kaleidoscope polishes I have.

Do you like this colour? I don't think I need to repeat myself, but I was really surprised when I tried it. It's amazing! I'm already in the process of ordering a spare bottle of this beauty. I must admit that I'm beginning to like the Kaleidoscope holos far better than OMG holos.

On another note, expect to see rings with many of my posts from now on. Initially I wanted to make a post showing them all, but as I'm always making new ones I decided it'd be much more fun to spice up my plain-looking-manicure pictures.

Also, a huge thank you for following ♥ I went online today to see there's a staggering 300 of you now, wow!! Needless to say, I am very flattered you guys follow my nails' life :)

♥ Vetten

Illamasqua : Radium

Wow, my fingers are glowing today! LOL

Illamasqua Radium

I'm a sucker for green polish - everything from dark, forest green to light, mint green seem to appeal to me, and lately I'm beginning to dig vibrant colours (it might have something to do with spring finally being here... I saw the first wasps and butterfly today!)

Radium is from Illamasquas Toxic Nature Collection. It's an in-your-face yellowish green creme with green shimmer. It might remind you of Who The Shrek Are You? from OPI, and truth is the base colour is not very far from it. The only thing making these different enough not to be dupes are the shimmer. Me being a sucker for everything green, I couldn't seem to stop eyeing pictures of this polish online, and I finally decided to order it.

I used NailTek II, two coats of Radium and ChG Fast Forward. I'm not impressed with the formula - it was thick, gloopy and even slightly streaky - I was expecting perfection like with Muse from the same brand :/ It had foamy tendencies like OPI's I Vant To Be A-lone Star, though not as bad luckily. Maybe I'm just horrible at handling shimmers/pearls? 

No matter where I looked, people seem to be impressed with this formula... could it be a case of brand-whoring (in lack of a better word, because this sounds so mean) where people are willing to do anything to make it work or is it just me? In general, I think many of us are brand whores to some degree. I will do anything to make a Lippmann polish work, and I'm also somewhat biased of some colours - willing to stretch a little to make it work. I always mention in my post if I think I'm biased, though. I'm never biased because I received a product for free to review! That's my number one rule ;)

Anyhow, back to the polish. It does look greener on the nails than I could seem to capture on pictures, and the colour does change appearance based on different light.

Illamasqua Radium

 Overall, I like the unusual colour :) It took some time getting used to, and the formula was way worse than expected. I have yet to try Who The Shrek Are You? as an entire manicure, but I think I like the colour without shimmer just a teeny bit more. Oh well. Radium was a cheer-up manicure for sure, super bright and fun to look at!

I don't mean to offend anyone who expressed love for this polish (and particular naming the application flawless). I was just expecting perfection and was sincerely disappointed when I tried it. Again, it is probably just me not being savvy on applying shimmers like this ;) I just want to highlight my experience as this is a slightly expensive polish.

Oh, and thanks to all of you who were sending well wishes, I really appreciate it! I do feel better today, a visit to a chiropractor helped ease the pain :)

♥ Vetten