Dragon Lady Nails: matte

Showing posts with label matte. Show all posts

Week 9 - "Vintage" Mani

I realized the other day that I am now a week behind in the Year's Challenge and that last Sunday was Week 9: "Vintage" Mani. I googled 'vintage mani' during one of my class breaks last week and was not too happy with what I found...

Here's one of the photos that came up under 'vintage mani':

Cosmopolitan - December 1936

I'm sure it was just fantabulous in 1936, but meh for 2012. Needless to say I wasn't too thrilled to do this mani, which is one of the reasons I wasn't stressing about not getting the post out on time due to homework overload.

After more than a week of thinking about this mani I decided that the "" around Vintage on the challenge list meant that "vintage" was open to interpretation. So here's what I came up with. It reminds me of vintage wallpaper. Like this:

For this mani I used one coat of China Glaze Admire (light metallic rose), stamping over it with Konad Special Polish in Black & using image plate BM21. I finished it all off with one coat of China Glaze Matte Magic Top Coat. What do you think? Is this "Vintage" enough?

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Untried Tuesday: Neeka & Motley

For today's Untried Tuesday I figured I play with one of the two Zoyas I recently got. These are very my first 2 Zoyas! I have to admit that when I ordered Neeka I was expecting a lighter polish, kind of a lighter dusty purple with gold flecks. Although she turned out a bit darker than I expected I still like her, especially as a matte (*Facepalm* I forgot to take a picture of Neeka with Matte top coat). Neeka went on smooth, and was almost a one coater! I went ahead and did two coats. There was no dragging and the formula was perfect! However, she just didn't do it for me in my current mood. I wanted something more sparklie so I contemplated my glitter polish collection, then came across the flakie polishes in my drawer.

Zoya Neeka - two coats (lightbox)

I thought that the blue & green flakes in Motley would compliment Neeka's dusty purple quite well. I wasn't wrong although in some of these pictures Neeka appears almost black.Please excuse the crappy clean up job it was 1:30 in the morning.

Neeka 2 coats (lightbox)

Neeka + 1 coat of Motley (lightbox)

Neeka + 2 coats of Motley (lightbox)

Neeka + Motley + Matte (lightbox)

Lightbox

I really like Neeka with Motley mattified! Technically Motley is an almost untried for me - I swatched it on one nail in an earlier post, but this is the first time I have really used it. I wanted to show you how this looks in the sun, unfortunately my chunk of "sunny" California isn't sunny at the moment. It's overcast and raining! If the sun comes out I'll be sure to snap some pics and upload them!

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Week 5: Newspaper Mani

I have never tried a newspaper mani before and had a little trouble with the newspaper I chose to use not being a good "bleeder" I guess. I don't think it turned out to bad. This was a fun mani to do and I look forward to playing around with this technique again. I totally need a gray polish though, I used a light purplish-gray creme, China Glaze Light As Air and topped it off with China Glaze Matte Magic for a more "papery" look.

Much Love, The Dragon Lady

Fellow 52 Week Challengers:

Polished & Not Quite Put Together

Fun With My Nail Polish

Operation: Nail It!

Lauriestrodes Fun With Nails

Square Polish

Only Always Soccermom

Hurr Did, Nails Did

Olivia Writes

Nothing But Nail Polish

Oje Sihirbazi (Wizard of Polish)

Asa Nisi Masa Nail Spot

Emerald Sparkled

Gypsy’s Glitter

Glitter Obsession

If you are also doing this challenge and not on my list please leave a comment with your blog url and I will add you. Thanks!

Nubar Greener cont.

So I loved the look of Nubar Greener so much I wasn't ready to give it up...so...I hit it with some China Glaze Matte Magic. I think it turned out great, still has that awesome shimmer just now it's more velvety.