What The Matte?

also known as Matte Top Coat breakdown.....

Matte polish is one of my loves.  I may not get the textured thing, but matte - yes please!  Mishka with Accio Lacquer is far better at showing the matte love.

Now, you can buy straight up matte polishes.  I have some of those, and I do love them.  But you can also buy matte top coats.  Of which there are now several on the market.  So I'm here to break them down.

My only order is by cost per 1 mL, highest to lowest.  Simply because I need SOME way to start.  I'll provide links if I have any.  I'm also figuring out the total for 15 mL, since that's a fairly general standard size. I've got 9 options, so they'll be ranked 1-9.

Julep Matte - $14.00 for 8 mL - $1.75 per mL, $26.25 for 15 mL

Total waste of money in my book. 

It's insanely expensive, and I'm not going to become a Julep Maven because I'm too picky about the colors I like, and all the boxes I've seen have at least one color that is awful. 

It actually DOESN'T do matte finish well, or my bottle doesn't.  It goes to a rubbery satin finish more than matte. 

It burnishes like mad, you rub the finish at all and it goes to gloss.

It's very streaky.

I can't think of ANYTHING I like about this polish.  It's dead last in the running, flat out.  It's over priced and doesn't perform.  It's 9th and would be lower if I had more places. 

ManGlaze MatteAstrophe - $13.13 for 11 mL - $1.19 per mL, $17.85 for 15 mL.

It's ok, but it does work far better over other ManGlaze polishes than over other brands. 

It does tend to work fairly nicely over wet/damp indies, apply similar to how you apply Seche Vite, if you want full matte.  If you want matte with glossy crackles, apply it to dry glossy polish.

It does go very matte, it's harder to see over other ManGlaze polishes which have some shimmer, but over a basic black creme, it does matte nicely.

This does burnish some, not too bad. 

I do like it, but if you don't have other ManGlaze polishes, it's probably not worth the bother.  Other matte topper work better and are cheaper.  I can't say I'll buy it again since I don't like the crackle look and I have others I like better for matte.  But it's 7th in line. 

Butter London Matte - $19.00 for 17.5 mL - $1.09 per mL, $16.35 for 15 mL

I've only used this a few times from a friend.  Mishka at Accio Lacquer uses it a good deal.

It mattes nicely, doesn't look streaky, works well.

It did burnish slightly at the tips when I tried it. 

It does dry slightly hard, so it can crack sometimes.  I've found this to be less likely if it's applied over a fully dry fast dry glossy top coat.

Overall, I like this, it works nicely, it's got the nice Butter London formula - but it is on the higher end of the price, so it's only coming in at 4th place.  It's honestly one of the best, if not the best matte top coat - but it's just painfully expensive. 

Out The Door with Wonder Beauty Product ZAP powder - $10.00 for 15 mL - $0.67 per mL

Yup, one of my favored quick dry toppers.  I put in some ZAP powder, and with some fiddling, I got it to a nice, flat finish.

It is fussy to get to, I will admit that. 

But I have a quick dry matte top coat, I like it.  It acts like OTD normally does.

This is very high on my list, just because it's so easy to use in my world.  I put it at $10, OTD being $5 and ZAP being $5 for 2 tablespoons - but I used 1/4 teaspoon to get OTD matte as I like it, so it's really a good deal less, about $0.21 of product.  But if you don't already have ZAP, you do have to buy it.  So I'll be fair and use the $10.  Since it's not premade and you do have to fiddle with it, I don't rank this first, but it's close.  It's my second runner up.

Essie Matte - $10.00 for 15 mL, $0.67 per mL.

Absolute junk on my nails.  Essie never seems to flow well for me, so I don't know why I bothered buying this.

But it does matte pretty well, it doesn't go the the really flat matte that I like.

It burnishes pretty heavily, and is prone to streaking.

It also is really crackly for me, more so than the ManGlaze which advertises as being a potential for crackle.

It's not dead last on my list because it's not worse than Julep, but it's not one I recommend or will ever buy again.  8th place.

Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food - $8.00 for 15 mL, $0.53 per mL

Yes, I'm including my beloved Glitter Food.

No, it's not a true matte.  It's more a satin/eggshell finish. If you like the rubber texture that some lines put out, this works very well at that.  This is actually more matte than Julep's really awful attempt.

If you put ZAP in, I suspect it'll go to a full matte.  I haven't bothered because I have other matte toppers I like, and I love this as the rubbery texture.

It doesn't burnish at all, yay!

It's not streaky!

It is slightly thick, as it should be for the starving glitters.

For fun of a satin or rubbery finish, I love this.  I adore this.  It's coming in 3rd, even if it's not a true matte.

Hard Candy Mattely In Love - $4.00 for 10.3 mL - $0.39 per mL, $5.85 for 15 mL.

Meh.  This is ok, it's not great, it's not awful.

It mattes nicely and it's not streaky.

It does burnish some. 

It dries very hard and is very prone to cracking after 24 hours of wear. 

This is ok, nothing more, nothing less.  Before other lines put out their mattes, this was a better one. This is getting harder to find in stores, at least as far as I've found. I'm not sure if Hard Candy is pulling this product or not.  It's a solid 5th place.

Revlon Matte - $4.99 for 14.7 mL - $0.34 per mL, $5.10 for 15 mL.

Ick.

This stuff is weirdly runny and just don't work nicely.

It does go to full matte.

But it's streaky, it cracks and it burnishes.  It's ok over other Revlon products, but not over other lines. 

This sucker comes in 6th.  It's just not that great, nor is it worth the money.  Same issue with ManGlaze, if you own a lot of the line, it's fine. 

And our FINAL matte top coat.........  Who is also my personal favorite recommendation........

N.Y.C Matte Me Crazy - $1.99 for 9.3 mL - $0.21 per mL, $3.15 for 15 mL.

Yup, this one is my recommendation!

Very simple.  It works.  It mattes down perfectly.  It doesn't show streaks.  It applies nicely.  It doesn't crack.

It's only flaw is burnishing, but every matte I tried has burnished.  This does burnish a bit more than Butter London - but I can get 18.6 mL of NYC for $3.94.  I can put up with the burnishing for the cost savings. 

So there's my vote on the better matte top coats out there.  NYC Matte Me Crazy wins, if you want to make your own, go the OTD route because that is a bit nicer.  If you want a true matte to buy, NYC Matte Me Crazy or Butter London are the way to go.   

There are more matte top coats out there, but this is what I have or have tried.  Others may be better or worse.

* disclaimer - all polishes reviewed have been purchased by me for my use or borrowed from friends who purchased the product.  This is my opinion and experiences only. *

It's Purple Day

To make this easier since I've got a grumpy internet connection, I'm going to link you to Nail Narcotics! which is who I learned about Purple Day from.

Today's version of purple for me is LynB Designs polish, featuring Eloquent Dust at 2 coats on accent nail, Melody Malone AKA River Song as my purple nails also 2 coats, and The Silence as a topper at 1 coat that was mostly brushed with minor dabbing to fill in odd spots. 

Base coat and first top coat is NPB Glitter Food, glossy top coat is very thinned Seche Vite.  The SV is agreeing again, so I'm giving it another trial.

Just the one picture today, sorry!  Eloquent Dust is looking very green and poor River Song is looking pale, but they are very gray and purple IRL.  The Silence adds a fun dose of sparkly to both. 

I've got a TON of LynB Designs polish, and have had very little problems with them, short of the fact it's been nasty cold here at times and they act wonky if too cold, but every polish I have does that.  Jenna is a dream to work with, and her polishes apply smooth as butter for me, with no flooding or major problems.

Yes, my nails are VERY short right now.  They just weren't happy post gel attempt, and I whacked them off.  As you can see from my YEARS of nail biting, the nail beds are really low, and I do have some free edge on all nails. 

*disclaimer - I bought this polish.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

Quiet few days

After the gel epic failure, I decided to just pick colors I loved and see how long Glitter Food lasts for me as a base coat.

Since I'm using GF as a base, I figured it was easiest to try other NPB polish for the color.  So I just went with my two favorites, Oodiful and Bigger On The Inside.  Oodiful with BOTI as accent on left, BOTI with Oodiful as accent on right. 

So my thumbs are still getting their acetone break, I'm happy with my polish and hey, I'm seeing how GF works as a base.

See everyone Monday :)

Gel Fail

Now I do like gel polish sometimes.  Usually I don't bother because I like changing my color way too often.  However, sometimes I get a crabby nail - usually my thumbs - and I gel them to give them a break for the daily polish removal.

Well, my thumbs went crabby again, so I figured I'd break out my favorite base/top - the CND gel - and a new to me color, IBD's Plum Raven.

First and most importantly - it's WAY too prone to massive cuticle flooding.  Which is a PITA to start with, but in a gel - it's a recipe for disaster.  Major, major disaster.  If gel polish is cured on your cuticles, it pops off.  This will come in shortly.

Second - the color.  It's not what I'd call a plum or a darkened plum.  It's full on magenta with purple leanings on me.

Third - It's a jelly.  I like jellies.  I don't like them so much in gels, but this one is a particularly bad jelly, which leads to the next issue.

Fourth - 5 freaking coats of gel color and I still have major VNL, streaking and uneven color.  *ARGH*  I've NEVER had any polish behave this badly, gel or otherwise.  VNL I'll put up with, because my nails are prone to it, but the streaking and the uneven color?  No freaking way.

So there it is.  It's not a bad color, but it's not what I like.  But having cranky thumbnails, I'll give them a rest, I've got multiple toppers I can swatch with this.  Applied this at 6:30 am.

Now, since the majority of my dislike is just me being my picky, picky self - I wasn't going to bother blogging this.  Until the fun tonight.

As of 7:30 pm - that first issue of cuticle flooding has come back to bite, hard.

Yup, the color coat is popping off 13 hours later.  Hard to tell here, but the CND base coat is still on my nail, but the color is just peeling straight off.  I'm not sure if the CND didn't bond well with the color, but the top coat (also CND) is well stuck to the color.  My best guess is the flooding is the problem, I cleaned up insanely well with each application, but with that much flooding, I am willing to bet that I didn't get it perfect.  I've NEVER had any other gel colors flood at all, so meh.  I'll take blame there, but ugh, it's a crappy gel polish.

So off to go remove this craptastical, evil gel polish and do something else.  But I'm not sure what yet.  I do have another IBD gel I might test, but it'd be a while.  Long while.

*disclaimer - I bought this polish.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

Purple Polish Time!

See, I really do worship other indie polishes!

Today's fun is Digital Nails in two of her Adventure Time polishes. 

First up is Sorry I'm Not Made Of Sugar, a polish for Marceline.  This is a lovely grape jelly with tiny black hex glitters, black holo hex glitters and the most lovely of all sparkly Spectraflair!  It's mostly cloudy here, so I can't get good holo pictures, but this polish is full of holo wonderful goodness.  3 coats, slight VNL. 

How can you NOT love this purple goodness?

 Next up is Oh My Glob, a LSP polish.  Yes, this is so wonderful!  This is glitter, glitter and more glitter. Lots of purple glitters, some charcoal glitters, and a whole bunch more.  This is *eep* 5 coats of glitter, so I'm willing to bet it'll be a great time to remove.  But, I LIKE the glitter and I didn't like any undies under this, so pain in the neck removal it is.  Yes, I know the PVA base coat idea, but my nails are peel prone anyway so it's not for me.  At 5 coats, this stuff gobbles top coat like mad and needed 2 coats of Glitter Food to mostly behave, it's still a little well, LUMPY.  Yeah, I had to do that.  Sorry.

This is just great on it's own.  I love it this way. 

See how pretty they are together?  Lilac glitterfest with grape jelly holo yummyness.

Yup, it kind of matches grape soda.  Sort of.  It looks cool anyway. 

But more important, it matches my favorite sweater!

NPB Glitter Food as base coat and top coat, Sally Hansen's Insta Dry for glossy top coat, as is my new normal.

*disclaimer - I bought these polishes.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

 

 

 

Rainbow Of Who

A friend online was wondering about what nail skittles were.  Skittles being the candy are the Rainbow of Happy.  In my world, skittles being the nails are a Rainbow of Evil - which makes ME happy.  So, without further blathering, onto a pretty dang geeky skittle!

Nail Pattern Boldness not only makes my beloved Glitter Food, but she makes REALLY pretty colors and glitter bombs!  Adding to that joy, she's got a Doctor Who set of 6 beautiful Who themed polishes.  I'm showing the five jelly/crellys today.  Poor Allons-Y will have to wait for another post, but he is beautiful also.

Base coat is my new usual of NPB's Glitter Food, 2-3 coats of color, Glitter Food topper, Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry for glossy top coat. 

Here's the 5 who are being my pretty, pretty Skittles today!

Here's my "grape" skittle - Bigger On The Inside

It's a TARDIS blue jelly with silver and blue microglitters.  Very pretty, very sparkly wonderful.  2 coats.

Here's my "lime" skittle - Slow Invasion

It's a teal jelly with about every color of square glitter jammed in the bottle.  It's great, I love it.  3 coats, some slight VNL but it's a jelly and it likes being jelly.  Similar coverage to Hello, Sweetie and A Good Man Goes To War.

Here's my "lemon" skittle - Oodiful

Oodiful is oodiful.  What's not to love about an Ood or an Oodiful polish? 

It's a gray jelly that leans crelly for me with some white and pink matte glitters.  A lot lighter on the glitters than the rest of this collection, but it just fits with the Ood.  3 coats, mostly as my VNL loves to show up when it shouldn't.  2 coats would probably be fine for most.

Here's my "orange" skittle - Hello, Sweetie

I love me some River Song, I'll just put that out there. 

This is a purple/magenta jelly with red, black and copper glitters.  Similar coverage to Slow Invasion and A Good Man Goes To War, 3 coats here, slight VNL.

And here's the final skittle, the "strawberry" skittle - A Good Man Goes To War

This is a VERY red jelly with tiny black glitters, some square black glitters, and some metallic red and copper glitters.  Similar coverage to Slow Invasion and Hello, Sweetie, 3 coats again, slight VNL.

This is the only polish in the group that stained my nails, and it did so very well when I first wore it.  It doesn't bother me given as my nails are perma-stained from my love of dark nail polish.  But if it bothers you, you may not love this polish as much as I do.

Here's the skittled Rainbow of Who that isn't quite my usual Rainbow of Evil.

There isn't a polish in this collection that I don't love.  But if I have to pick favorites, Oodiful is way up there at number 1.  Or maybe Bigger On The Inside.  Those two are 1 and 2, they just are still fighting over who is 1 and who is 2. 

*disclaimer - I bought these polishes.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

More Ruby White Tips

Yes, I have other brands of polish.  I'm just being lazy.  It's my bloggity blog, so I can be lazy.

Ruby White Tips has a really awesome Kill Bill collection.  You got a peek of Exploding Hearts yesterday, so I have a single (craptastical) picture of two more of the collection.  Mr Camera, you best get to agreeing with Mr Computer or we will have a war....

RWT P Wagon is a really freaking awesome duo!  It's pink to gray, eeeepy squeaky of awesome!  It shows kind of purple sometimes to me, sometimes olive, and sometimes gold/coppery.  It's VERY different over some undies, which is how most of swatches are shown of this.  A friend wanted to see this on it's own, so 3 coats of pretty duo and it's nearly perfection.  Slight VNL in real life, but my nails are prone to it. 

RWT The Sword is a duo with scattered holo.  Yummy yummy!  With no undies, it's never going to be opaque, but it's pretty anyway!  Blue to lilac with some green to me, plus the scattered oh so pretty holos. 3 coats because there is no such thing as too much holo.  RWT's scattered holos are a bit hungry, not as bad as some, but they enjoy GF top or two coats of a thick top coat. 

NPB Glitter Food is filling the role of base coat still.  I might get a little more lift on my edges if I'm not careful about clean up vs China Glaze Strong Adhesion, but seeing as I change polish more often than not, it's not a huge concern.  Add in, my nails love to spit polish off anyway.  GF under duos, holos and glitters makes everything just go on smooooooooooooth.  No streaking, no bald spots.  I love it.  I adore it.  It's perfection in a bottle. 

Just the one picture today, sorry!

So GF base, P Wagon, The Sword as accent, GF top coat, Sally Hansen Insta-Dry top coat.  I like it, little sedate for my usual polish, but I can pretend to be an adult some days.

*disclaimer - I bought these polishes.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*



And I may get around to wearing another indie one of these days....

This is what happens when a geek...

...decides to combine probably too many favorite things EVER into one manicure. 

I couldn't help it. 

My pretty, pretty Black Cat Design polishes came on the same day as my pretty, pretty Ruby White Tips polish!

How was I supposed to pick just ONE evil idea when I got Welcome to Portlandia polishes, and Kill Bill polishes and TON polish all on ONE day?

So, ha.  I used a lot of evil, evil ideas.

Scrangie did it first, and probably way better than mine.  But I'm a glitter worshipper, so I had to bust out the glitter.

BCD's Bloody Kisses is taking the role of the black here.  Yes, black with red glitter, but I don't care, I like it.  It's also filling my TON role.  It's a black jelly with a whole freaking bunch of red glitters, including some into the purples and everything.  It's awesome.  I love it with all of my filthy, black heart.  It's slightly thick, but it did put a LOT of glitter down, I just had to pat it around some to spread it across the entire nail. 

RWT's Exploding Heart from her Kill Bill collection is taking the red role.  Clear base with itty bitty red glitter and nothing else.  If Bloody Kisses has a bunch of red glitters, this sucker has twice as much.  This may be stealing my red polish role.

I'm still using Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food as a base.  I'm liking it so far, it helps anything that's streaky to behave a bit more so I can get by with fewer coats usually.  I'm not sure how long it lasts, as I tend to change polish pretty often.  Underroos for BCD is LynB Design's Quoth The Raven, a pretty standard black until it dries, then it has a slightly rubbery look, very similar to dry GF without a glossy topper.  I like it so far, but I think I'm keeping it for just black manis, since the fun doesn't show with the glitter fest topper.  Underroos for RWT is a random silver I have, no name on the bottle.  It's sheer mostly.  I suspect with two coats of Exploding Heart, I wouldn't need underroos.

One coat of GF, one coat of underroos, one coat of Bloody Kisses and yes, ONE coat of Exploding Heart.  THAT much glitter is from ONE coat.  It's awesome. 

Yes, THAT much glitter.  Me loves!



Bloody Kisses is a starving glitter, it took two coats of GF to make it happy.  But that's quite alright.  I'm trying Sally Hansen's Insta-Dry for a top coat, it seems to be working nicely with GF. 

*disclaimer - I bought these polishes.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

Adding some info here since I'm getting hits off Facebook and not everyone knows my geeky side there - TON is Type O Negative.  The Rammstein/Emigrate comment from the post before this one is with the linked post by Scrangie, RZK plays guitar in Rammstein and founded Emigrate.  I'm really hoping I don't have to explain Kill Bill.

Upcoming plans

of evil......  Mwahahahaha.......

I've got 3 skittles I want to do. 

But most likely, first up will be how I managed to combine Quentin Tarantino movies, Type O Negative and Rammstein/Emigrate into one manicure, all with indie polish!  Except top coat. 

Because that's how my evil self rolls.

The Geek Side to Faux Zoya Remove+

Hey, I admit, I'm a geek.  Acetone is rather drying, but it works so well!  Zoya Remove+ adds glycerin, which negates the drying.  But it SMELLS.  To me, it reeks of chemical sweetner, chemical flowers and the typical Zoya smell to me of WET DOG. 

Loodie did the breakdown on how to make Faux Remove+.  Pretty easy to follow along.  I'm just posting some of my own geekery and math.  Loodie did the geek stuff really well however to start.

For prices, I'm rounding up because I'm lazy like that.

The basic starting point from Loodie's recipe is (high end of the glycerin) is 200 ml acetone need ~30 ml glycerin.  If you do some math - or cheat and use the internet like me - 128 ounces of acetone needs ~19 ounces glycerin.

Acetone first.  I use it.  A lot.  So why bother with the small bottle.  Go to your nearest hardware store.  They sell it.  My brand is called Klean Strip, a gallon is $19.99.  I had a 20% off deal, so yeah doggies, $15.99.  A gallon is 128 ounces.

Glycerin next.  I don't know why, but this was a nasty little bugger to find.  CVS is where I found mine after a week of hunting.  Which was a good thing, as it was buy 1, get 1 50% off.  So I bought 8 bottles.  Because that was what they had out on the shelf.  Regular price was $3.79, half off was $1.90.  Glycerin comes in 6 ounce bottles.  For 18 ounces of glycerin, 6 bottles at the buy 1, get 1 50% winds up being $17.07, which divided in half becomes $8.54.

Distilled water.  I just have it around.  It's $3.50 a gallon, which winds up being $0.03 per ounce.  I wound up using 6 ounces.  So for my little amount here, I'm spending $0.18.

For a grand total of  $24.71.  Keep that in mind.

Now my fun mixing....

I keep the acetone in it's metal tin.  It doesn't evaporate at all and it's all but impossible to spill once you seal the top again.  It's also near impossible to open, so get a flat screwdriver - NOT YOUR NAILS! - and pop the seal. 

Now, in the tin is 128 ounces of acetone.  But I need room to add the glycerin and water.  So, my evil little mind poured off some acetone.  28 ounces to be exact.  It gave me some room to play with.  So now I have 100 ounces of acetone.  If you want, you can only pour off 24 ounces.  Whatever makes you happy.

Pour in 18 ounces - or 3 bottles - of glycerin.  Pour in 6 ounces - or 1 refilled glycerin bottle - of distilled water.

Reseal the top.

Shake the devil out of it. 

Shake it some more.

Shake it like a Polaroid picture.

Yeah, ok, that was stupid.

For me, those amounts happily went into solution and stayed in solution.  You may have different amounts needed, usually more water.  Which is why I left the extra 4 ounces out, because I had room to add water if needed.

You now have 124 ounces of Faux Zoya Remove+.

For $24.71!!!

Zoya Remove+ is $25 for 32 ounces. I have no clue on how much the shipping would add up to, but I'll leave it off to make up for not having pretty remover.

So I have an equally effective product and I have 92 ounces extra. If I leave the extra 4 ounces of acetone in, I have 4 bottles for the price of 1.

Not only am I a geek, I'm a CHEAP geek. 

AND, yeah doggies, NO WET DOG SMELL!!!!! 

Yup, me happies!

But the other side

Hrm, my nails are kinda greasy or sticky with this vs Zoya Remove+

Simple.  I have more glycerin in my solution than Zoya Remove+

Zoya Remove+ lists glycerin AFTER water.  There is more water than glycerin in there.

I have more glycerin than water.  Thus, yeah, I have something on my fingers post polish removal. 

However, it's not a big deal.  Because now I have to seal my nail plate, wash my hands, push at my cuticles, remove them if needed, wash my hands, apply cuticle oil, let it sit, wash my hands, wipe them with alcohol THEN apply polish.  The excess glycerin is long gone.

Add in, when I'm doing my clean up, my cuticles are very happy with the glycerin amount.

Thus, I'm not going to further geek myself out by figuring what the exact amounts are.   Have fun if you want to.  Start with equal amount of both.

Doing The Batty Bat!

Or yes, I'm a geek who loves bats.

Ruby White Tips is an indie polish who does a monthly polish to help support Bat World Sanctuary .  50% of the price goes to Bat World.  So as a polish loving geek who loves bats, how can I pass up this polish?

To borrow RWT's description "The color is super vibrant! It's base is blue, but has plenty of undertones of purple. There's some added holo micro sparkles that make it shine even more! This is best with a top coat but is still beautiful without one." 

To me, it reads slightly duo, nice blue that shifts a bit to lilac shimmer.  Add in some scattered holo and well, what's not to love?  This is two coats, no undies.  No VNL in real life.  This is a slightly hungry glitter, Gelous or Glitter Food is much appreciated.

Great color, super coverage, cute bottle.

Accent today is just matte top coat because I like this color too much.

One more picture of my thumb and matte accent nail.

Polishes used - China Glaze Strong Adhesion, Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food, Ruby White Tips BOO2, another coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food, Out The Door top coat and Hard Candy's matte top coat. 

I'm giving the matte top coat another try, since I WILL succeed!

*disclaimer - I bought these polishes.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

 

BOO2 for sale on Etsy.

If the camera doesn't agree

 The phone sort of does.

I admit, bad pictures.  But for now, it's what I've got

ManGlaze Fuggen Ugly, accent nail ManGlaze Matte Is Murder.  Accent nail is my first finger, as is my normal.

Easy application, two coat coverage for me.  Very stable and durable seeming matte finish.  I did use Out The Door to make a glossy French type tip.  Mostly as I don't have a matte top coat I like yet, and I've horrible for tip wear and chipping, so going without top coat is not happening.

Base coat is China Glaze Strong Adhesion. 

See, pretty :)

First finger and birdie finger - with a touch of ring finger.

Hard to tell with phone pictures - but they aren't solid black and gray.  There is a bit of shimmer, more noticable with a glossy top coat. 

*disclaimer - I bought these polishes.  Review is my opinion and based on my experience.*

Trying this out

Yeah, you aren't going to know what I'm having for lunch.

Right now, my camera and computer aren't friends, but eventually they will be.

What will you get?

Stupid crap. 

I'm FULL of stupid, random bits of information.

Probably some of my ramblings on piercings.  Yes, I have many.  Yes, I'm employed in a normal, adult job. 

Probably mostly on my nail polish.  Because I can.  Because I'm an indie polish addict.

Probably some on my random geek points.  I'm a geek and I'm proud of it.

And probably any other stupid things I want to post.