Brooklyn Franken Fail

I had been debating about whether or not I should even share this mani, since I'm so unhappy with it but decided to share it anyway because I'm hoping one of you can help.

A long time ago I did a mani with Carolyn New York in Brooklyn. In the bottle it was a lovely vampy red but then when I got it on the nails and dried, it seemed a couple shades lighter. So I made plans to add black to it. Well, I tried and it didn't work. It looks darker in the bottle, but again, shows up lighter on the nail. That was the first disappointment. Then, I did a terrible job cleaning it up. Reds are one of the worst for staining my skin when cleaning up with a brush and acetone so I opted to scrape off the bits that got on my cuticle with a cuticle pusher and trimmer instead. My nails were left with odd ridges at the edges and after my shower the color started lifting up in areas. Enough griping. Here is my mani and bottle of Carolyn New York, with 20 drops of black added in. Wet n Wild Black Creme to be exact.

 

This shot was taken in the morning with bright, indirect sun light. If anyone had suggestions for a blackened neutral red which is easy to find, please let me know. Thank you! Also, I'm sorry, but I do believe this brand is discontinued and have taken down their website. I keep hitting reload on the home page linked to on my long trusted All Lacquered Up, but get a 404 Not Found error.

In other news, I have a monster of a post on the back burner which I hope to complete and share with you soon. As you can probably see, my pointer finger nail looks different. Well, it got slammed in my garage door a while ago and is on the long ugly road to recovery. The funny, sad, thing is that last year I slammed my middle finger in the door and went through the healing process with that. Complete with photo documentation of the different stages. In my first few posts on this blog I mentioned it briefly and you can look closely to see the different texture of the injured nail. 

I have now gathered up some of the 'highlight' photos from these adventures and am writing the memoir of this journey. So, stay tuned for that, but it probably will not be for the faint of heart or weak of stomach. And... I"m now nearly falling asleep on my keyboard so good night!

Happy Scratches!
(mew) carakitty   >^. .^<