More LeChat Perfect Match Mood Swatches (and this week's mani)

I have two more LeChat Perfect Match Mood swatches for you today.  Crimson Nightfall from the newest release and Frozen Cold Spell from a previous release.

Crimson Nightfall

Crimson Nightfall is a gorgeous blue leaning red cream that shifts to a dark cherry red when cold.  Please excuse the poor application on the index finger.  It's not a problem with the polish.  Like all of my LeChats, it applied like a dream.  My son simply woke up early from his nap and caused me to rush.

 Frozen Cold Spell

Frozen Cold Spell is a tough one to photograph.  It shifts from a gorgeous blue with purple shimmer when warm to a deep shimmery purple when cold.  While in natural transition, it is a subtle fade.  I actually planned to swatch one other color today, but when I saw this one in action I decided I had to keep it for a bit.  This has officially become my favorite mood polish for cooler weather. :)

And I couldn't resist going back and adding this adorable bird stamp from MoYou London Pro Collection 04. 

MoYou London (not to be confused with another UK company by the name of MoYou which I have not tried) is currently releasing some amazing images.  I have pre-ordered some of the new XL images and can't wait to get my hands on them after seeing how well this one stamped.  (Note: the image above is a forced color shift using water on the tips to better show the color change since the natural transition is so subtle in the comparison above.)

That's all for now.  No crazy rambling today like my last post.  Be on the lookout for a few Ink swatches next weekend.  ;)

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The Journey – From Naked Nails to Gel Polish Obsessed

I'm a simple girl.  I would live in boots, blue jeans and fitted t-shirts if I didn’t have to dress up for work.  I wear my hair long so that I don’t have to style it.  I wear minimal makeup (just enough to hide the bags under my eyes from waking up 100 times a night between the two little ones).  I have pierced ears but rarely wear earrings.  I wear only two rings and never change them - wedding set on the left, and a simple tanzanite band on my right.  I wear the same necklace every day - a white gold chain with a diamond and sapphire cross pendant.  You get the picture.  I am certainly NOT fashion forward.  I couldn’t even begin to tell you what is in style right now. 

 

Yes, I know that my nails don’t match my personal style (or lack thereof).  They did a few years ago.  Prior to March 2012, I never wore polish on my hands.  Why?  Because I’m a freaking perfectionist.  If I’m going to do something, it has to be perfect or I won’t do it at all.  Regular nail polish chips within hours on my hands.  And chips are not perfect.  You get the point.  :)  That all changed when I was forced to step outside of my cozy little comfort zone and get all dolled up to be a bridesmaid in my brother’s wedding.  I made a nail appointment and when I told the tech that I didn’t want polish because it always chips, she talked me into trying soak off gel.  2 semi-sheer coats of OPI Gelcolor Bubble Bath later, I fell in love.  Not a single chip for over a week.  That was all it took for me to go back for a second SOG manicure.  This one was a disaster.  I asked for a simple French.  What I got was a hot mess!  The white tips didn’t even begin to line up with my natural smile lines.  But I didn’t have time to make her redo it, and I didn’t have time to soak them off myself.  Want to see it? 

I was stuck with THAT hot mess for a weekend road trip to visit my in-laws.  And I was furious.  It wasn’t perfect.  It looked like a 5 year old did it.  And that shape?!?!  It kicked my OCD into overdrive.  I insisted my husband stop on the way out of town so I could grab a bottle of regular polish to cover it up and a magazine to read on the road.  As soon as I flipped open the cover, there it was.  Like a sign from the Heavens, beckoning to me.  Sensationail DIY Soak Off Gel manicures.  I looked down at my hands, looked back at the ad, and the clouds broke, the sun was shining, birds were chirping, and angels started to sing.  I looked up at my husband and said “To hell with this. I can do it better myself!”  His response? “Oh Lord, here we go again.”  (I’ve gone on a few obsession kicks in our time together…but that’s another story for another time.)

 

Because I’m neurotic, I started researching the heck out of Soak Off Gel.  I learned about other lines, picked up tips for application and removal, and started off on a journey that began with 2 bottles of Sensationail gel polish and quickly escalated to 130+ bottles of gel polish, 60+ pigments, 130+ glitters, 4 lamps, several thousand crystal rhinestones, a book full of stamping plates, over 100 regular polishes to stamp and play with, and various other nail art pieces.  How does a girl justify this madness?  Why, by starting a blog, of course. :)

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Mani of the Week - Subtle Tone on Tone Teal (Updated)

This is what I'm wearing right now.  I'm a sucker for subtle, tone on tone stamping.  Base color is Red Carpet Manicure High Society.  Stamped in Revlon Ocean with an image from MJ XX.

*disclaimer:  This photo above is not color accurate.

Update:  I finally got a color accurate picture.  Turns out my white balance needed a little tweaking.  This one also captures a little of the duo-chrome effect of Revlon Ocean on the index finger.  Excuse the dry cuticles.  I forgot to oil before I took the picture.  Hey, I'm human.  ;)
 

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LeChat Perfect Match Mood Polish

I have three fun swatches to share today.  LeChat Partly Cloudy, LeChat Lavender Blooms, and LeChat Moonlit Eclipse.  These are three of the mood soak off gels.  I love LeChat.  It applies nicely and wears very well for me.  Plus the matching traditional nail polish is fun for pedicures when I don't feel like doing gel.  However, please note that even though the moods are included in the Perfect Match line, they do not come with the matching bottle of nail polish.

These are really fun gels to play with as they are constantly changing throughout the day.  It's the end of August here in the South, which means some pretty warm weather still, but I was constantly seeing these shift regardless of the warmer temperatures.  Though I will say that it was a little strange to look down and realize that one of your hands is much warmer than the other so your polish doesn't match all the time.  :)  Please excuse the water droplets in the pictures.  I had a hard time keeping them in the warm and cold phases over the entire nail. 

Partly Cloudy

Partly Cloudy is a semi-sheer frost from the first color release.  I wish it was more opaque as the VNL drives me nuts with this one, but a quick coat of nude underneath (aka undies) would make a world of difference.

Lavender Blooms

Lavender Blooms is one of the newly released colors.  LeChat really improved the formula with this new release.  These are much more pigmented than the first group of moods, and the colors pairings are a lot of fun too.  

Moonlit Eclipse

Moonlit Eclipse is another from the new release.  I'm really loving this one.  I'm a sucker for dark colors right now, and most of the time it looked like a fade while I was wearing it. What you can't tell from the pictures is this has a gorgeous scattered holographic shimmer.  I tried to capture it, but my camera simply refused to pick it up. 

I plan to pick up a few more of the new moods this week, so watch for those swatches in the near future.  :)

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Score! Discounted Sensationail

I walked into Kroger the other day and found a clearance section of Sensationail colors.  While Sensationail isn't my favorite brand, I can't seem to force myself to pass them up when I find them on sale...especially not when the clearance price is $5.99 each.  Sensationail wears ok for me and they have some gorgeous colors.  I just don't care for the small bottles, thin brushes, and 1 minute cure time in LED.  But I figured I might as well share a few quick swatches of my clearance score anyway.  :)   I'll get around to swatching them on my nails at some point as I go through my collection. 

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So I Started a Blog

I've been thinking about starting this blog for a while and finally decided to give it a shot. Then I spent a week trying to decide what my first post should be.

I guess there's no better place to start than with an introduction. I'm a DIY nail artist and gel polish enthusiast. I'm not a nail tech. Not a pro. Just a working mother with a love for Soak Off Gel Polish and nail art in general. :) One of the things I find most frustrating is buying polish online sight unseen. Those little dots on websites are never accurate! Since I clearly have started hoarding gel polish, I've decided to take the time to swatch my collection and post photos that are true color representations of my stash. I'll also share my nail art and manis along the way.  

Please feel free to check out my stash and comment if there's a color you would like to see swatched sooner rather than later.  But for now, I'll leave you with a picture of my current manicure.  :)

Nude Lace

For this mani, I started with a base color of OPI Gelcolor Bubble Bath. Then I stamped with Pueen 27 using Konad White and topped it with Red Carpet Manicure My Favorite Designer.

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