October Claws (So Far)

I haven't been painting my nails as often as I thought I would be. The full time job thing takes up more time than I thought it would, plus I need to make time for the family as well. I do have a couple NOTDs to share with you though!

After my very last shift at Starbucks I went to the grocery store to pick up something for dinner and they have an OPI display there so I checked it out just for fun. And ended up getting a celebratory polish! I picked up Jinx, from the Bond Girls collection in the Liquid Sand formula. I thought it was a pretty pumpkin shade and it reminded me of a fire which would be perfect if we had a decent fireplace in our home. The weather is getting cooler here and I am loving it!

OPI Jinx. First day, no top coat.

I decided to accent with a top coat on my ring finger and thumbs the day after I painted. Sally Hansen InstaDri in the red bottle is now my current favorite TC. I like the effect it had, but it didn't turn out well in the photographs I took. Top coating it made it shiny and smooth. The shade deepened by a couple notches and the glitter was brought out and looked more dimensional.

OPI Jinx day 2 and 2.5. Top coat on ring finger.

After two and a half days it started getting brittle and chippy so it got taken off.

Next was Zoya Austine. I was kind of sad because when I brought out my Anchor base coat to use with it there was an odd ring of the base coat dried on the plastic part of the brush. I will need to see which thinner is compatible with Zoya so I can put a little in there and get it mixed up and happy again. Despite using no base coat, this one stuck strongly on my nails. It looked nice for three days before it started to chip from front office abuse I gave it.

Zoya Austine with *gasp* non-Zoya TC! ;)

I currently am giving the Revlon Gel Envy a go. I decided to get Cardshark, a creme bubble gum pink shade because I feel like when I wear lighter shades I'm less inclined to pick at them. I did a quick but surprisingly clean swatch of it in my car before I ran the rest of my errands but I did not top coat it. So tomorrow I'm going to put on another coat of color to even things out and I'm also going to use the Gel Envy Diamond Top Coat.

My first impression of this stuff is pretty high! After I did my two swatch coats I drove in the car for about 10 minutes with the top open. When I had to dig through my purse and wallet and got out my card to pay for gas I didn't see a single ding or smudge! Amazeballz! Since there are gel components to this line of polish and top coat, I think the sunshine helped cure them extra well. Hopefully my finalization of this mani tomorrow will yield good results. If it does, I may have found my new Holy Grail of Polish. I've been debating on getting Shellac or something at the salon but if this looks nice for the work week then I'm going to get a couple more colors from this line!

Stay tuned for more from the Claw-Set at a later date, and my final thoughts on the Revlon Gel Envy...

Happy Scratches!
carakitty   >^. .^<