Barielle Swatch Series: Slate of Affairs, Swizzle Stix and Berry Blue

I didn’t post yesterday because my dog has a skin allergy and I had to take him to the vet.  It threw my whole day out of whack and now I’m playing catch up.  He’ll be fine as long as he stops chewing on himself!  Baths with medicated shampoo, Benadryl, an antibiotic and extra flea prevention (in case he’s allergic to flea bites) was prescribed.  I’ll certainly be busy ministering to him over the next two weeks.

My new motto: if it’s not one thing, it’s another.

Or: life happens.

On to today’s post.  This is the rest of my Barielle polishes.  My camera skewed everything more blue than they really are, so I tried to color correct as much as I could without ruining the pictures.  I’ll let you know with each picture how close I got to the real color.

First up is Barielle Slate of Affairs.

Barielle Slate of Affairs is a gray toned purple creme.  There is a slight iridescence that shows up in direct bright light, but is not seen otherwise.  This picture is the best I could do with my camera and editing software.  I got the purple fairly close, but lost the gray tone in the process.  My skin looks a little redder, too.  However, this is better than my original picture that made it seem just plain old blue.

The color is  very rich.  It also has a good formula, slightly thin but not runny.  It is self-leveling.  This is three coats.  

Next is Barielle Swizzle Stix.

Barielle Swizzle Stix is light turquoise creme.  This picture did not need color correcting.  This is simply a rich, beautiful color.  The formula is the same as Slate of Affairs.  This is three coats for full coverage.  

Finally, I’ve got Barielle Berry Blue to show you.

Barielle Berry Blue is a mesmerizing deep midnight blue creme with a touch of purple, like really dark blueberries.  This picture is slightly color-corrected to bring out the purple aspect of the color.  The formula is thicker and more saturated than the other polishes, but it still self-levels.  This is two coats.  It’s really a gorgeous polish.  

I hope you forgive the color-correcting.  I don’t know enough about cameras to get a more accurate color.  Learning more about cameras is on my to-do list!

Did you like any of these?  Tell me in the comments below!

Have a great day!

Sunday Stamping: Spring Flowers

Hello!  I feel like a new woman.  After several days of feeling like crap, I finally feel back among the land of the living.  It’s a great feeling!

Today’s challenge for my stamping group is ‘spring flowers’.  I have so many flower stamps and lots of colors to choose from.  It took quite a bit of looking through plates and polishes before settling on the design.  Let’s face it, planning a pretty design is half the fun!

This is China Glaze Electric Beat with BM16 in Konad White and dots in Zoya Pippa.  I love how cheery it looks.

Have a great rest of the day!

Barielle Swatch Series: U-Concrete Me, Date Night

Yesterday was what I call a lost day.  Exhaustion, brain fog and leg pain kept me in bed.  When I wasn’t sleeping, I played mini golf on my phone with random people.  Thanks to MBratton682 for many good games yesterday!  Today I’m a little better, although my eyes keep on telling me to go back to sleep (keeping my eyelids open is giving me a headache).  I’m determined to get at least a few things done and then I’ll take a nap.

One of the things to get done is today’s post.  I swatched another brand that’s been lurking in one of my polish boxes for months.  I reviewed Barielle’s A Bouquet for Ava a while ago, and today and Monday I will review the rest of my Barielles.

Let’s start with Barielle U-Concrete Me.

Barielle U-Concrete Me

Barielle U-Concrete Me is a medium toned gray creme.  The formula is very thin, but not runny, and it does self-level.  This is three coats.  I really liked the color on me.  

Next is Barielle Date Night.

Barielle Date Night

Barielle Date Night is a dark emerald green with a bit of frost.  Unfortunately the formula on this was not as nice as U-Concrete Me.  While thin, it doesn’t self-level.  Brush strokes are visible, which is not my favorite look.  Too bad, because I do like the color.  This is three coats.  

Enjoy the rest of your Friday!

Stamping: Blue with White Flowers

It snowed again here in NH.  We got almost a foot of snow.  It’s definitely pretty when it’s coming down.  The world seems hushed somehow.  But overall I am sick of snow, sick of the winter.  If it snowed and immediately melted, I’d be fine with it. Especially if it stayed above freezing.

Okay, enough complaining.  Here’s a stamping I did a few weeks ago when I got my first Konad stamping polishes.  I posted about Konad Black a few weeks ago.  Below is the first design I did with Konad White, and I love it!  I highly recommend Konad stamping polishes for clear well-defined images.

This is Orly Skinny Dip with Mash 42 in Konad White.  This turned out real pretty.  It’s definitely one of my faves.

Have a great Wednesday!

Cult Nails Nail Art: Stamping

Congratulations to Sabrina from Polish Alcoholic!  She won the giveaway for my one year blog anniversary.  Congrats, Sabrina!

If you recall, I started using Ecrinal Vitamin Nail Strengthener to help my poor nails.  I used it faithfully every day for 10 days and I’m happy to report that it has worked as advertised.  My nails are stronger and are no longer chipping.  Soon they’ll be back to the length I like.  I’m absolutely thrilled!  Thanks to my reader who suggested it.

Today I’ve got the last of my Cult Nails nail art posts.  Today the emphasis is on stamping.  I found that none of the Cult Nails polishes I have work very well for the stamped design, so I ended up using other brands for the actual stamp.  In general, not all polishes work for stamping, so that’s not unusual and certainly not a knock on Cult Nails.

This first mani was done back in January.  My nails are exactly the length I like.  *sigh*  I’m getting there!

This is Cult Nails Feel Me Up and Feelin’ Froggy stamped with Sally Hansen White On and Mash 40.  The dots were added with dotting tools.  I think the white is too subtle on the yellow background.  It’s not horrible, though.

This next mani I did just last week.

This is Cult Nails Feel Me Up with Mash 31 in Konad Black.  This mani made me very happy.  I love it.

Which mani do you like?  Tell me below in the comments!

Have a great rest of the day!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day

Happy St. Patrick’s Day everyone!  I don’t usually do holiday nail art because it seems like I never have the right stamps or colors.  However, I set out to do a St. Patrick’s Day design for this week’s stamping challenge.  I had grand visions of this intricate design with shamrocks, rainbows with pots of gold, french tips and an accent nail.  Sadly, best laid plans went awry, as always.

I first did the french tips.  While laying down the base color, I forgot I wanted to do an accent nail (reverse the colors).  Okay, no problem, I thought.  That might have been too complicated anyway.  Then, I was running out of time, so I dispensed with the idea of rainbows and pots of gold.  I went to stamp the shamrock and realized it actually was a four-leaf clover, and it was so big, just one covered my whole nail!  So, ugh, that didn’t look good at all.  So, as if I planned it all along, my St. Patrick’s Day mani is green with green french tips!

This is butter London Bossy Boots with China Glaze Starboard on the tips.  As an added bonus, try saying Bossy Boots out loud without saying it over and over and then accusing anyone near you of being a bossy boots.  It’s impossible.

I hope you have a great day – have a green beer for me!

Cult Nails Nail Art: Tape Mani

I just discovered Joyce Carol Oates.  I’m reading her book The Falls.  She’s written a million books and this is the first one I’ve read.  So far it’s really good.  I like how she manipulates language to get her point across.  Have you ever read anything by her?  Any recommendations?

Continuing with Cult Nails nail art, I decided to do a tape mani.  I thought I’d make it interesting and use multiple colors for the base.

The colors for this are Cult Nails Feel Me Up, Cult Nails Bad D.N. and Cult Nails Princess.  I achieved this effect by doing one coat of Princess, then dabbed on the other colors randomly.  Then I dabbed on another coat of Princess over the blue that was remaining, to make sure I had good coverage.  I actually quite enjoyed the splotches of color as its own manicure.  But, I had to see what my original idea would look like!

I added striping tape randomly to each nail and then painted over with Cult Nails Let Me Fly.  I removed the tape right away to get crisp lines.  The result is kind of funky, don’t you think?

Ok, I’ve got to go run some errands!  Have a great rest of the day!