19 October 2009

Lacquer Lundi

Sorry for the tardiness of this post, but things have been over the top stressful here at Chez HZC today.

So, let's get right to the pretties:

BB Couture - Laguna Lagoon
- purchased at overallbeauty.com for $9.00 US

Mint green is a hot nail colour this Fall, what with the release of Chanel's Jade. As much as I like Jade, I couldn't see paying $30 CDN for the honour of owning it. So, I went looking for something a bit more reasonably priced and found Laguna Lagoon. It has the same pastel green goodness, without the pocket book busting price.

Laguna Lagoon is a lovely mint green creme. It flows on smoothly and covers the nail well. I only needed two coats for complete opacity. It wore well for the two days I had it on - only very minor tip wear.


Sally Hansen Salon - Night Hydrangea & Nicole by OPI - Let's Get Star-ted
- Sally Hansen purchased at Shoppers (chain drug store) for $5.49 CDN
- Nicole by OPI purchased at Shoppers (chain drug store) for $9.99 CDN

Night Hydrangea is Spring 2009 release that was created in conjunction with clothing designer Tracy Reese. It is a gorgeous purple base with a silver micro shimmer. For the Futurama fans in the crowd, it is basically the exact shade of Turanga Leela's hair (yes, I am a geek).

Night Hydrangea (photo to the left) applied wonderfully. It flowed onto the nail well and moved around nicely. I needed two coats to achieve bottle colour. After one day, I only had minor tip wear. At that point, I decided to add another layer to jazz up the manicure and get a new look. I added one coat of Let's Get Star-ted (photo to the right), which is a colourless base infused with kaleidoscopic purple stars and glitter. Total tacky and completely wonderful!

My only complaint with Let's Get Star-ted is with application. It is nearly impossible to get stars on the nail without fishing them out of the bottle with the brush one by one. Also, it's necessary to apply two thick coats of topcoat to smooth over the stars' rough edges. Despite the negative, I ended up with a mancure that got a lot of attention - both my colleagues and my students thought it was pretty nifty.


Finger Paints - Artistic Azure & Covergirl Boundless Color - Disco Dazzle
- Finger Paints purchased at Sally Beauty Supply for $4.99 CDN
- Covergirl purchased at Wal Mart for $5.08 CDN

Artistic Azure is the perfect shade of medium teal. It reminds of the colour of night sky shortly after the Sun has set and darkness is setting in. My husband has declared this his favourite colour.

Artistic Azure (photo to the left) applied nicely, just like every other Finger Paint polish I own (man, I love this brand). It required two coats for opacity, but if I had been careful, I think I could have managed with a single coat.

Since it reminded me so much of the night sky, I added two layers of Disco Dazzle to simulate the emerging stars. Disco Dazzle (photo to the right) is a colourless base with sparkly silver hexagons and glitter. I ended up with a result that would be an astronomer's dream. This manicure lasted two days with only very minor tipwear.

The only hitch in the whole thing was removal. I ended up with a serious case of Smurf fingers. They were so bad that my cuticles and finger tips were stained blue the entire next day. Yikes!

16 comments:

Rachel said...

I love the mint green polish. I saw an advertisement in a recent fashion magazine for some essie nail polish in mint green.

Maryissewfast said...

Gorgeous pretties...I need to go do my nails now!

thornberry said...

Hi Shannon! About time I stopped lurking and let you know that I really enjoy your Lacquer Lundi posts. I first found your blog because of the astoundingly gorgeous and classy clothes that you make. Your nail polish posts are great - they've made me look at nail colour in a whole new way and embrace the tacky - because as you say, it is wonderful when it comes to glittery nails! Thanks for sharing the fun.

CarlaF-in Atlanta said...

Now I have the Snurf tune in my head :) Thanks for the heads up Artistic Azure. The color is so nice I just might risk Snurf fingers.

CarlaF-in Atlanta

Eugenia said...

My favourite has to be the Night Hydrangea - that's a beautiful color for fall/winter.

Sewellen said...

Lovelies!!! I LUUUVVV the top glitter coats, you did a great job on the application. I think I had read on another blog about how tricky it is to get the "sparkles" out of the bottle and on the nails. Yours are great!

Gretchen the Household Deity said...

Love that mint green and the sparkles are so much fun!

Carol said...

I love the mint green, I have a similar colour and it gets a regular outing. I call it bathroom green because it reminds me of the colour of 1950's bathroom sinks (at least here in Australia). I've never tried the glitter and stars, but you've made me want to give it a go.

Summerset said...

That teal with the sparklies is my fav this week!

Dawn said...

So I never comment on these nail polish coats. I enjoy looking at them but I will just never paint my nails. But! But, I just HAD to comment on the two glitter/star/dots topcoat (I don't even know what to call it -- I'm nail polish stupid) layers. How freaking fun are those?? I love them. If I did do my nails, they would always be dark with glittery bits on them.

Anonymous said...

Like the others I love the LL posts. I on the otherhand, never wear nail polish because I've heard it can do great damage to your nails, such as softening them and turning them yellow. As a nail polish user, would you do a post on the topic of how often you use polish, do you give your nails "a rest", and how often you change your colors. I've always loved nail polish and as you can see, all the exciting colors you show are making me long for wearing it. Thanks for LLs.

elena-lu said...

oh my word the glitter ones are awesome! i usually dont do that kind of polish but wow these look sooo amazing!

Michelle said...

Again, you're not the only one with the sharp-edges-of-stars problem. I got a nail polish in college that was like that and found the same 2 coats of clear nail polish was necessary and even then, still, it didn't last too long. I did like it though. Next time I get on a glitter kick, I might try the disco dazzle : )

Digs said...

You're so incredibly fashion-forward with all these nifty colours! Kudos to you.
Off topic completely, how are you, as a teacher, doing these days, what with the flu hitting the younger set harder than us pre-1977 parents? My son's class is at 20% absenteeism.... he's one of the flu absentees, too.

meredithp said...

I'm not a nail polisher either, but I just love doing my nails vicariously through you. I particularly LOVE the stars and sparklies! Wonder if the stars would be more effective if you just got some tiny craft stars and applied them one by one (as you're already doing) then shellacing them good and solid with topcoat. Hmmmm...

Denise@thebluegardenia.com said...

Laguna Lagoon is yummy.