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

The reason I stopped buying red nail polish...

...is that I always end up with the same blue-based red colour! I love it and I am always drawn to it and in fact I have another two that are exactly this colour, but they are much older so I didn't include them in the comparison. Instead I thought that a comparison between these two Essie colours would be much more useful to you my dear reader.

The first one is Essie - Fishnet Stockings. I think it's from their standard line and it's as classic as a classic red can get. I think it's most famous for being one of Dita Von Teese's favourite polishes and it's no wonder as it is gorgeous and so flattering. It's a creamy polish and very pigmented; with careful application you can even get away with only one coat and in spite of the pigmentation, it's not too much of a nightmare to remove. One of the most stricking things about this polish is that in lower light settings it looks a lot darker than any of this type of reds, so much so that I felt complelled to swatch it next to Ciaté - Dangerous Affair, but they are not as similar as I thought. 

The second one is Essie - Limited Addiction. LA is Fishnet Stockings' almost jelly sister. It's the same colour as you'll see, a gorgeous bold red that demands to be called "feminine", only it has more depth due to its almost jellish nature. It was part of the Fall 2010 collection, it needs about 3 coats for a good coverage, but it does make a good mess when removed so be very careful with it.

Enough with the chit-chat, on to the pictures!

One coat - Fluorescent light

Two coats - Fluorescent light

Fishnet Stockings 2 coats/Limited Addiction 3 coats - Natural Light

Bottle pictures - Natural Light

As I mentioned earlier, I thought it would be a good idea to add swatches of them next to more reds and I picked Creative Nail Design (CND) - House of Rebels and Ciaté - Dangerous Affair. One is lighter and the other is darker. Excuse the sloppy application. I was really tired and had already swatched a lot of polishes that day. Look at my poor cuticles, so dry from the acetone.

Fluorescent Light

Bottle Shots - Fluorescent Light

The Illusive Puce Couleur

I hadn't realized I have a favourite winter colour until I noticed that in my wardrobe the ruling colours(other than black) are all variations of the colour puce. In essence it means that they are too red to be plum, too purple/brown to be burgundy and when they are lighter, they are too cool and brown to be dusty pink. Puce(the French word for flea) is an illusive colour that ranges from dirty rose (belly of the flea) to reddish brown with a bit of purple(back of the flea). If you click on the pretty image, you'll get to read some interesting things about the colour that was the height of fashion in the 18th century!

Not many puce coloured polishes are around at the moment since taupes and lilacs is more in fashion. There are "dirty" roses around, but they lean too much towards mauve. I do have two little jems in my collection though that are "puce" enough to make me happy. The first one is Nubar - Mystic Romance;it is a very light dirty rose with the finest lilac sheen. In the bottle you can also see a little green and a little gold, but those colours don't translate on the nail. On the nail it looks like a flattering dirty pink that has a light glow, sort of like the elves in Lord of the Rings. I know it sounds weird, but it is beautiful and the fluorescent lamp on my desk doesn't do it justice.

Excuse the burn mark on my index. Morning porridge accident. 

The next day I decided to stamp it with an arabesque design from the Bundle Monster plate BM20 and I used a medium puce colour, CND - Muddy Rose. Actually 'muddy rose' could be an alternative name to puce and it sounds a lot better that 'well fed flea colour'. Here it is

And to end this rather baroque post, some music!