Christmas Mani

I am not particularly festive, mostly cause this year I have to be away from my family during the holidays and won't celebrate much. I decided to do a Christmas themed mani though, just to make use of the themed designs on my nail plates. One thing I have to say is that this many lasted a long long time-more than I had intended to keep it. The pictures I took were on the fourth day of the mani and there's only a bit of tipwear, no cracks. That's Seche Vite top coat for you.

The breakdown:
China Glaze - Jolly Holly
Stargazer - 237 (gold)
Creative - House of Rebels

Aromatic Navy Blue

Barry M - Navy is a rich true navy blue with super fine blue shimmer that makes it very special. It looks sophisticated and very grown up, but there is a major disadvantage to it; it stains big time. In the two years I've had it I've only worn it five times (this being the fifth), four of which within the first month after I got it. My nails by the end of that month were yellow and horrible which is something I had never had before. And yes, I was wearing a base coat under it. I often like to have my nails bare and back then I simply couldn't because they looked disgusting! 

I had really missed it, however, and I have yet to find a navy blue as vibrant and cool so I decided I would only wear it for 2 days and I would use an extra coat of a sheer polish over my top coat to keep my nails doubly protected. Here it is!

Fluorescent light

Then the next day I noticed an uncanny similarity between my polish and the lid of my Guerlain Shalimar perfume. The fine shimmer makes the polish look like a metallic sheet on your nails, and it is a couple of tones more cool than Shalimar. They are unquestionably pretty together though!

Natural light (cloudy)

Comparison: Dirty Greens

Since I have a few colours that seem to belong roughly in the same dirty turquoisy/greeny group I thought people might find a comparison useful. The polishes I compared are:

• O.P.I - Mermaid's Tears
• China Glaze  - For Audrey
• Etude House - V.V.I.P.Green
• Misa - Dirty, Sexy, Money

Bottle pictures

Fluorescent light

Natural Light

Opalescence

I have been looking for a polish that would look opalescent, which in my mind means that it should be

• sheer, but buildable
• not too peachy, not too pink, not too yellow
• leaning towards white, but not too stark/contrasting to my skin colour 

and after a lot of disappointments I finally found what I was looking for in Color Club - Oh my Versailles! and how I adore it! I was drawn to it cause of the name since the Palace of Versailles is one of my favourite places to be, and I was so happy it was exactly what I was hoping it would be.

This is four layers of it with the flaky beauty of Nubar - 2010 on top.
Natural light

Fluorescent light

Along came my darling Manglaze - Matte-Astrophe to make everything perfect!!

And here's a couple of pictures from my visit in Versailles. One from behind the Belvedere and the statue of Eros in the garden near the Trianon.