Revlon Street Wear in Jelly and Groovy

 The shades I have in today's post are a bit more my style than yesterday's. Although, I'm still not overly thrilled with them. Maybe it's me. I seem to be in some kind of nail polish slump. New collections are just meh, and I have no desire to go out and buy them. I would usually go out of my way to pick up new collections, but lately I don't even feel the urge to look at swatches. I'm even contemplating a blog sale to downsize my collection. Crazy! I suppose it's just a phase I'm going through which hopefully subside sooner than later.

This is Jelly. It is a taupe polish with purple/blue shimmer, but the shimmer isn't visible under normal lighting. I used three coats.

This is with flash. I wish it looked like this 24/7.

Groovy is a clear base with holographic bar glitter and small, purple glitter. I loved this one, but that's just me being partial to bar glitter. If it has bar glitter, I am more likely than not to love it. I used one coat over two coats of OPI A Grape Fit!. Sorry about the flooding on my ring finger, I didn't notice it until today when I was reviewing the pics.

Here it is with no flash. A Grape Fit isn't as bright as it looks in the pics above, or blue for that matter. These pictures resemble the color better, but the color is still a bit off.

 I'm not sure what to think of my new Canon EOS Rebel T3. Most of the pics I take come out way off in color. I think my old Sony Cybershot takes better pics sometimes. Maybe it's just my lighting? I took some really awesome pics over the weekend at the aquarium and those are color accurate... Probably just user error. ^_^

Revlon Street Wear in Exposed and Chick

 I don't know why I keep waiting to the end of the day to post. I'm tired and sleepy and really don't feel like typing. To top it off I just painted my nails. Why did I start a new mani knowing I had to go to sleep soon? I seem to be doing this more and more often. I NEED to be asleep by at least eight so I can get enough sleep. Oh well. C'est la vie! The polishes in today's post aren't really my thing. They are both frosts. I'm not a big fan of frosts because they do not hide brushstrokes well. It doesn't matter how hard you try there will always be some visible brushstrokes.

This is Exposed. It is a brown shimmery frost. I didn't like the color nor the finish so this is definitely going to my swap list. I used three coats for this one.

I'm on the fence on this one. I loved the color, but the frost finish is a deterrent for me. I liked that it dried to a satin finish, but it's still a frost. This one took four coats.

 All photos were taken with no flash. I really thought I was going to like the Street Wears more than I do, but I also don't have any of the really good ones like Toad or October 31st. Those are amazing and are incredibly hard to come across. I do have high hopes for Burnt and Dijon though. I love those fugly colors. ^_^

Revlon Street Wear in Charming

 I have a few Street Wears that I have accumulated over the past few weeks, so I thought I would swatch them all to get them out of my untrieds. All week I will be posting two of them daily, except for today. I only have Charming for you today. It's a slightly blue/purple duochrome base with tons of silver glitter.

This is four coat of Charming with no top coat. I initially thought it would be grainy with all the silver glitter, but it's actually quite smooth and glossy on it's own.

 I was able to get this polish of a polishsale that theasiangirl was having and it was only $5! To me that's cheap considering these aren't made anymore. I loved the color and finish of the polish, but I just wished the duochrome was a bit more visible on the nail. ^_^

Revlon Mini Nail Polishes: Waterfall, Sparkle, Garden

 I was swatching these this weekend at my mom's house, and she asked me, "Are these Revlon?" She was surprised that Revlon had bright colors like these available now. Back in the day this was one of the brands of nail polish she would buy, but she said that these colors weren't "in". Then again, ever since I can remember, her nails have always been done in some sort of burgundy or red hue.

 I suppose it's for that reason that I was never attracted to Revlon nail polish, because in my head it was one of the "mom" brands that never appealed to me. Now, I am loving Revlon. These bottles are utterly cute!! I just couldn't get over the cuteness of these little babies!

Here is Garden with one coat of Sparkle. I didn't like Sparkle too much though. The hexagonal glitter was really sparse and I had to fish out the few that you see below.

Garden by itself. This was two coats. This was my favorite of all three.

Waterfalll with one coat of Sparkle.

This is two coats of Waterfall. This color isn't a creme like Garden. It actually has a slight shimmer to it at certain angles.

 I have to admit that I am now open to Revlon nail polish, but these aren't their best polishes. However, at 7.99, you really can't expect much more from this set.

Wednesday's Nail Art: Grape Clusters

    I have always wanted to attempt the Konad manicures, but when it comes down to buying nail polish or Konad plates, polish always wins. The only plate I have is the Hello Kitty one that I bought off Ebay. I'm not sure if it's the polish I have tried with it or the rubber stamp, but my images never come out clear.

   One of the images on the plate is a cluster of grapes. This never appealed to me, until one day I was going through my polishes and saw that I had one of Revlon's scented polishes, Grape Icy. It was a lightbulb moment for me because I immediately thought, what better way to use Grape Icy than to do a grape design?? Now, like I said I'm not good at Konading so I decided to replicate the design with other nail art tools.

   For this design I used Petites Mystical, China Glaze Rainbow, Revlon Grape Icy, Sinful Colors San Francisco, purple striping tape, a dotting tool and a detail nail art brush.

   I decided that the best way to show off my grape clusters would be to use a french manicure design. In order to add some contrast between all the purple I decided on one coat of China Glaze Rainbow over the whole nail as background. I normally do not like sheer nail polish, but this is a nail polish that I would definitely wear on its own. In the bottle it looks white, but in real life it has a pink and purple shimmery cast depending on the angle you look at it.

   For the tips I used 3 coats of Revlon's Grape Icy. This polish is relatively sheer, but for some reason it took ages for it to dry. I suppose the reason for that has to do with the scented formula because the other Revlon scented nail polish that I have also took quite awhile for it to dry. The scent was not overwhelming and did not cause me to get nauseous which happens to me with prolonged exposure to sweet scents. I have heard people describe it as a fake grape smell and they compare it to grape candy. I actually don't like grape candy so to me it was just a sweet smell, but I did let my husband smell it and he immediately identified the smell as grape.

   For the grape clusters, I took my dotting tool dipped in Mystical and created three adjacent dots then two more dots below that and then one last dot below the two dots, like an upside down pyramid.

   My vines were not exactly visible on my actual manicure because like I said before, I'm not great at freehand. Even though they weren't perfect, I don't think that it really matters in this design since the focal point in this design is the grape cluster.

   To better show what my vines were supposed to look like, I went ahead and took a picture of my trial run on a nail art wheel. I used my detail brush dipped in San Francisco and created a sort of cursive e and then drew two leave shapes on either side of the cursive e.

   Afterwards, I took Revlon Grapy Icy and with a smaller dotting tool, I made small dots on random "grapes" to add some dimension.

   I love striping tape. It's one of my favorite nail art products because of the BAM effect it adds to any nail art design. I get compliments everytime I use it. Here, I just cut a strip and lined my french manicure with it, which also helps define my french manicure line and cover any mess ups I might have had.

   Final look with Finger Paints Top Coat:

   I didn't expect to love this manicure as much as I did. I think the color I chose for the background really made the grapes pop and then adding the scented polish made it even more realistic for me. I really enjoyed doing this manicure and I hope you will enjoy it too!