Saturday, April 28, 2012

NOTD: Dreamy Mermaid

Sorry for the sporadic posting lately....Since the end of January I've had a weird sinus problem. It's the area right over my tearducts--they are SWOLLEN. I mean, I look like the poster child for eyelift plastic surgery (before pictures). And frankly I just do not feel pretty.

When you don't feel pretty, you don't feel like putting on makeup or painting your nails. When you don't feel like putting on makeup or painting your nails, you have nothing to post. When you have nothing to post, your blog and your readers are ignored and alienated.

Don't ignore your blog and alienate your readers.......find an allergist/ENT stat!

(Ok so he's neither of those but with the show ending I'm going to get every single HouseMD/Hugh Laurie fix that I can).

Wait, what? I think that was the flu talking. Yes, I now have the flu. FML. (Like this post if you laugh hysterically at those commercials....my personal favorite: Don't have a grandson with a dog collar *snicker*)

BUT! I painted my nails despite my Quasimodo-like looks, earlier this week, when I thought I "just" had a cold. I had just swatched the polishes and thought they would look great together--and they do! I also got brave and finally tried out stamping!

My main polish is Deborah Lippmann's brand new fantastic amazing Mermaid's Dream. I am so happy I got a second bottle of this. It is absolutely one of the best polishes she has created. The base is a very light mint/teal shimmer with flecks of gold, green, teal and blue glitter. But it doesn't look TOO glittery, just enough to see the reason she called it this--it's just what I think a mermaid's tail would look like!


Application was pretty quick--but don't go over areas twice, it pulls up the color. This is two coats. Looking at the photos up close, I can see a few tiny bare spots but the shimmer makes that invisible IRL. It's a tiny bit rough so a couple coats of clear will make it pop that much more and smooth it out.

For the accent nails, I used Zoya's brand new Zuza, a truly lovely teal shimmer that matches some of the glitter in Mermaid's Dream. It is not quite as shimmery on the nail as in the bottle but still very pretty. This was also two coats, but it could have used 3 if I weren't going to stamp. It was a little streaky going on.


For my Very First Stamping I used two of the plates from that set that is sold in drugstores (I got mine at Sally's). I prefer the Konad stamper to the one that came with this set. I thought the sea turtle and seahorse would be perfect for this mermaid mani! (Plus they are two of my favorite sea creatures). I used Konad's Special Princess Polish in Blue Pearl.




I had attempted stamping with regular polish before and it was a disaster. So I invested in some of the Konad polishes and can't wait to get more. It's extra thick so you can only use it for stamping--they warn you if you try to paint your nails with this, it will never dry. Ever. 

Since I move about as slow as a turtle, I think that's why regular polish didn't work for me. Or I didn't have enough. Or I scraped too hard. I don't know. In any case, I love how it turned out. There's a tiny flaw in the seahorse tail, but since it's right at the tip, it doesn't show too much IRL. I also realized I definitely need to let my nails grow if I want a single stamp instead of just a design. The sea turtle wouldn't fit on my left hand.

I also tried out a new basecoat--Butter London's Nail Foundation Flawless Basecoat. WOW. Seriously, WOW. It has a very sheer tint to it, but it goes on easily, and dries matte. You can easily wear this alone if you like. It was just the right weight and I love that it looks like makeup for nails lol.

I used fast-dry topcoat for my DL nails and a regular topcoat for the stamped nails. I think I have read that quick-dry can smudge stamping since it's such a thin coat of polish.



I have experienced a little chipping on the DLMD but doing a touch-up seemed to pull up the older polish. One nail chipped off--I don't think I sealed it well. The ZZ has a little tipwear and the stamping looks the same. So I'm quite pleased overall since I use my hands alot.

I think this is one of my favorite manis ever so far and I am pretty sure I will use these two together again! And now that I have my confidence up, I can't wait to try out more stamping :D

Stay Pretty! (Cuz God knows I'm trying to get there!)

2 comments:

  1. Ah, the glittery one is so cute! I'm far from being a "nail junkie", most of the times too lazy to do more than one simple color... but glittery polishes save me from very boring nails. And Mermaid's Dream has such a beautiful combination of colors!

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  2. eeeeep, so gorgeous! i love the glittery one :D

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