Sunday, January 16, 2011

Playing with Matte

I ordered a bunch of polish online the other day and got my first matte top coat. I figured, why buy the matte polishes when you can make any polish matte? Its also fun for nail art, so I played around with it. First, the regular swatch. This is Essie In Stitches from their Fall collection.
It's a pinkish creme with a bit of mauve and rose to it. I think it's quite chic and feminine. I love the color!Now I'm really trying to figure out the best way to take pictures of a swatch, so help me out here if you can.


Here are the polishes and tools that I used. First was Seche Base Ridge Filling Base Coat (which I just realized I left out of the pic haha), two coats of Essie In Stitches, one coat of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Invisible, then I striped the manicure diagonally with China Glaze Matte Magic.


Matte Striped Mani

So far I'm quite liking Essie polish, as this is my very first Essie. The color really stood out to me and I had to have it. I bought it online for cheaper than in stores. They sell it at Target now! The application was great. I felt like I could have almost gotten away with one coat, but two or three nails weren't quite perfect yet. I'm impressed by that almost though. It dried very quickly, as I bumped my nail on the rear view mirror when I got in the car just a couple minutes later and it left like 20% of the damage I would have expected with such a hard bump. After washing two loads of dishes, baking apple cake, and making ramen noodle salad (cook out tomorrow :P) I have tip wear on one finger and a wrinkle on my thumb. It isn't flawless, but I'm not scared away! I like Essie!

The matte lines aren't perfect, but they're better than they look. I'm learning more and more about swatches as I go, and I can tell some weird reflections are making the nails look a bit more messy on the glossy surface. All in all, I think the matte top coat is super cool! I've seen matte with glossy tips or vice versa, matte with glossy dots, all sorts of things. I haven't really braved making a meant to be glossy color all the way matte yet.

What do you think about matte?

2 comments:

  1. Hi you entered my giveaway (www.melaniesnailpolish.blogspot.com), but you didn't let me know what your emailadress is. Now I can't contact you if you are the winner. So please place another comment with your emailadress if you still want to win :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Okay I'm looking now and I remember this one. I did the first comment with my email and GFC name and all that:
    "I'm a new follower.
    GFC: Megweno
    Email: Itsrainingstars13@hotmail.com

    Cute blog! "

    Then like yesterday I forgot to actually get the points for blogging about it, which I had done days before, so I went ahead and posted another comment. Is that okay? Either way, thanks for reminding me and thanks for coming to my blog!

    ReplyDelete

I love and appreciate your comments, and always read every one!