Today, let's take a look at the two OPI DS reds that I own: DS Reflection and DS Tapestry.
Reflection on the left; Tapestry on the right.
DS Reflection is a scattered red holo that leans more towards a berry red. The scattered holo isn't as bright as it is in Tapestry. Tapestry has a brighter scattered holo that leans a little more coral than Reflection. It's not as coral as Coral Reef, but it definitely leans more coral than red. Both of these polishes are scattered holos, which is a departure from the original DS linear holographic collection. While I usually prefer linear holos, I do really enjoy both of these polishes.
Here's a closer shot so you can see the holo pigment a little better.
See how Tapestry has a much chunkier holo pigment than Reflection?
Like all OPI DS's, these both applied really well, very evenly with a lot of pigment in just one coat. Here, I have on two coats with a top coat. You can find these in some ULTAs, nail salons, or at TransDesign. I bought my Reflection at ULTA and my Tapestry at a salon near me. They have been discontinued, as far as I know, but you can still find them places if you look hard. I think they are just different enough to justify having both! Well, that was short and sweet, lol. I'll leave you with some nail mail!!!! I got my Dollish Polish This is Halloween collection in the mail today! It's funny, too, because I actually have two more packages on the way from her, which will make two lucky readers very very happy! Eeep! I expect to do a Lynnderella Very Pretty Vampire comparison to Dolly's Vampire Coven and Sonoma Deadly Zins very soon, so keep your eyes open for that!
Well, we have a winner, ladies and gentlemen! Congrats to Liz Lew! You have won the Color Club Starry Temptress collection pack! I have emailed you, so you have 48 hours to get into touch with me before I have to choose a new winner! By the way, you may want to check your spam folder, just in case. ;) Congrats! Thank you, everyone, for playing along! I truly appreciate your follows and feedback. There is another giveaway on the horizon, we're only 26 followers away! Trust me, you're not going to want to miss this one! Think indies, mainstream, and jelly sammiches! Piqued your interest yet? Good! (Although, the prize for the next giveaway isn't really a secret. I have a picture of it on my Facebook page, so go and check it out!) Since today is my birthday, no I'm not looking for well-wishes (although, they are appreciated, lol), I decided to do cupcake nails! I have never done a cupcake nail in my LIFE, so I used this tutorial:
I honestly had no idea it would be that easy. Cutepolish has a youtube channel with tons of tutorials, so I am hoping I can use her videos to start incorporating more nail art into my weekly posts. You can check out Cutepolish here. For my cupcake mani, I used Elevation Marble Caves for the base color and cupcake wrapper, A-England Elaine for the striping, 365 Days of Color Birthday Bash for the icing and accent nail, and Essie Sure Shot for the heart on top.
Without further ado... Here is my special birthday edition manicure: Cupcake Mani!
I still just love this mani!
Since it is my birthday, I really wanted to try out 365 Days of Color Birthday Bash. Birthday Bash is a white creme based polish with fine teal glitters and multicolor shreds. I thought it would be perfect for cupcake icing! I also wanted to check out how it would look on a full nail, so I did my pointer finger as an accent. It applied well and only needed two coats for full coverage on my accent nail. I'm a little torn on this one. I like the idea of this polish, but maybe not so much the actual polish. It looked great as the cupcake icing, but I'm not a huge fan of it on its own. I'm not even sure why I don't like it. I guess, if I'm going to go with white and teal, I'd rather use Dollish Expecto Patronum. Plus, I have so many white based polishes, it's kind of insane. That being said, I think this little guy will make its way to the blog sale soon.
Close-up of 365 Days of Color Birthday Bash. The shreds were hard to get out. :(
Holy moly, I love Elevation Marble Caves. This polish is GORGEOUS. I hated covering it up with stripes! It applies very thinly, so it requires three coats to get full coverage. That pale purple is one of my favorite colors, plus it has iridescent glitters that shine blue, green, red, and gold. I hate that it was a limited edition because it's just such a beautiful polish. Plus, it applied really well. I've had it on for 3 days, and only 1 chip and no tip wear. That's amazing considering how badly I treat my hands!
Look at that sparkle!!!
I used A-England Elaine for the stripes. Elaine is a deep purple creme. I can't really say too much about it because its use was so limited. I've put it back into my untried stash so I can get a real manicure out of it. It applied well with my nail art brush, but I still want to see what she can do with a proper manicure. The same can be said of Essie Sure Shot. Again, I used it for such a limited purpose that I can't truly review it.
I have loved this manicure so much I have worn it for 3 days. I'll probably keep it on until tomorrow! Plus, this design was actually pretty easy to accomplish. I felt so proud of myself for doing proper nail art. The hubs thought it was pretty cool, too. Verdict: cupcake manis: keeper; Elevation Marble Caves: keeper; 365 Days of Color Birthday Bash: seller/swapper; A-England Elaine: back in the untried stash; Essie Sure Shot: back in the untried stash. Lastly, I thought I'd show off my nail mail! I can't wait to try them all out for you guys!! They make for a nice birthday surprise. :)
Dollish Heart of Glass, Dollish 3 Best Friends, Dollish Master Chief, Dollish Greased Lightening, Elevation Ama Dablam (x2), Dollish Zombie Flesh
Have you ever done a cupcake manicure? How did you do your nails on your last birthday?
Man, you guys came at me full force! Thank you so much for the following love! I truly appreciate it! The overwhelming majority of you guys are most interested in nail art, so I will do my best to deliver. I'm not a very artistic person, but I do love stamping! You guys are also interested in jelly sandwiches, so I will make sure to try one at least once a week! Now that I have a better idea of what you guys are looking for, I can try to make a weekly schedule to fit it all into! I'm so excited, and I truly appreciate all of your feedback. I had planned to do a giveaway at 50 followers, but you guys got me there before my current giveaway has even ended! Therefore, I have decided to push my next giveaway back to 100 followers. It's a pretty awesome giveaway, so I can't wait to share it with you guys!!
I finally received my Elevation order today, and I'm soooo stoked! Although, I do see two potential sellers/swapers in the group. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that Sarychev is going to be way too orange for me. As I've mentioned before, I'm not really into oranges. Plus, Nararsuk looks pretty close to Pretty & Polished Rat-a-tat, so I plan to do a comparison post of those two next week. I just don't think I will be able to justify keeping both of them. I also got some trades that I was waiting on. Thanks for the Butter London and Sinful, Tomboy Nails!! Plus three amazing Lynnderellas from a friend in one of my Facebook groups.
This is made of win.
Well, last Friday I promised a positive post. You know, one where I'm not tossing the polish into the sell/swap stack. I think I can finally deliver - at least partially! I had to wade into my stack of untrieds that I'll most likely keep instead of the stack of untrieds that I'll most likely get rid of, which is where I have been working up to now. Although these two are both keepers, I'm actually a bit disappointed in this mani. We'll get to that in a minute, though.
For untried mani #11, I used Elevation El Cap for the base color and Rainbow Honey Mare of the Moon for the top. Elevation Polish can be bought at Lulu's Big Cartel store here or at her Etsy store here. She restocks the 7th of every month at 10pm est (on BC) and 10:10pm est (on Etsy). You can also read her blog and get updates here. If you're interested in ordering from Rainbow Honey or checking out their blog, you can do so here. Luckily, they keep their polishes in stock fairly regularly, so it should be easy to get your hands on them.
So pretty!!!!
El Cap is a blurple shimmer that looks blue in one light, but purple in a different light. In the bottle, it looked like it would be a great match for Mare of the Moon. This is two coats. Unfortunately, it isn't as pigmented as El Cap, so I did need to use more than one coat. However, this doesn't detract from the awesomeness of this polish. It is so complex! It goes from blue, to purple, to periwinkle just by changing the angle with which you look at it. It applied smoothly without pooling or staining. Even though it has a bit of a frosted finish, you couldn't see any brush marks, which is something that tends to pop up on frosts when they dry. The only real bummer to this polish is the dry time. It took a pretty long time to dry.
Blurples are the best.
I topped El Cap off with Mare of the Moon. It's a very complex indigo blue that shimmers purple in some lights. This polish is chock-full of silver crescent moons and silver hexes of varying sizes. I store this polish upside down because I know that larger or shaped glitters are usually a pain to get out. Mare of the Moon wasn't an exception. It took a lot of rolling and digging just to get even a few glitters out. As you can see from my pics, I didn't really succeed in this endeavor. I would've liked for the hexes to be a bit easier to fish out, but they were almost more elusive than the moons. I'm not sure what I can do the next time I use it to make it easier, but I'll keep trying. The application on this guy was very thick, and I had to pluck out the moons and slap them on with globules of polish, which didn't help with the thickness on my nails. Rainbow Honey includes a disclaimer in her packaging that her polishes may be thicker than many prefer, so I knew that it may be too thick going into this mani. [Side note: I actually prefer a thicker polish over one that's too thin. At least if it's too thick, it is much easier to fix it to my standards than ones that are too thin.] After doing my thumb, I went ahead and added a few drops of thinner to see if that would make it more manageable, but it didn't really help. I'll definitely need to add more thinner next time.
So pretty!!!
I wish there were more hexes!!!
Because of the thickness of this polish, the dry time was a DISASTER. This is even with Seche Vite on top! Plus, it doesn't really play well with Seche (see the shrinkage at the tips). Next time I wear this guy, I think I'll just have to use a regular top coat, and just wait out the dry time. It's hard to hate on this mani, though, because it was just so pretty. At certain angles, all you could see was the indigo from Mare of the Moon, but at other angles you could see El Cap's periwinkle peeking out to say hello. I kept staring at it all day. The dry time on this mani was a huge problem for me. I did it quickly before heading out the door to work on Saturday. Even with Seche Vite, I got major denting and managed to smudge the tips of 3 fingers. It was frustrating to say the least. Plus, the Seche had MAJOR shrinkage even though I had used a bit of Gelous before my top coat. It's hard to see in the picture below, and it actually got worse the second day. Needless to say, I removed this mani the next day. While it was a gorgeous color combo, I just couldn't get over the dry time and the mess I made of my hands. Luckily, removal was very easy since there were little to no glitters on my nails. Neither polish stained, either, so that's a huge bonus in my book.
Unlike George Costanza, my nails were not in the pool.
The verdict for these two polishes: they are both keepers. I will work on thinning out Mare of the Moon before I give up on it. The colors are just so gorgeous. Blue is my favorite color, so I can't help but be partial to these two. Plus, there aren't many polishes with cool shapes in them like those crescent moons. It's a very unique polish. What do you think about polish-makers that include a thickness/curling/bleeding disclaimer in their listing or packaging?
*Edited to add a pic of the full mani with Mare of the Moon on top... I can't believe I forgot to add that. I guess I was a bit sleepy last night, rofl!*
