Work-Appropriate Half Moon Mani

My hamster Claude had a bit of an adventure the other day. I let him crawl around on the kitchen floor for a bit while I found him some food and he immediately went to his favourite spot behind the door under a (turned off) radiator. I looked away for a second, and when I looked back...he was gone. I'm pretty sure I had a small heart attack at this point. I eventually discovered that he had crawled up behind the radiator and wedged himself between it and the wall! As if that wasn't stupid enough, he wasn't actually stuck - he was climbing up and down and side to side, just not out. I couldn't reach him to get him out, but after about five minutes he got bored and just sort of plopped back to the floor in a cloud of dust. He was in the doghouse for about two seconds, and then I forgave him. XD

Anyway, back to nail polish. I wasn't really interested in the China Glaze/Hunger Games Collection that came out in March, despite my love for the books, but after seeing some beautiful swatches online I caved and got a couple of them. One of these was Fast Track, which has a taupe base with a chunky gold shimmer. I teamed it with Revlon Smoky Canvas, a greige creme, to make a half moon mani with triangles instead of semicircles.

I think this manicure idea looked better in my head than in execution, but oh well. I'm lucky enough that I can wear whatever nail polish/nail art I fancy to work, but for others I think this would make a great work-appropriate manicure. It's a bit different, but not in-your-face.

And for no reason whatsoever, here's a photo of Sleepy Claude:

Nubar Prism Collection 2010

This collection came out almost exactly two years ago, but this was before I had even heard of Nubar. It's just not that widely available in the UK, which is a pity as they do some amazing colours. (The ones I do have are from BeautyBay, which has a pretty good selection.) Anyway, I recently purchased two of the colours from the Prism Collection, which I thought I'd show you today.

First up is Absolute, a light blue scattered holographic. I've heard some people have found it a bit sheer, but for me it was opaque in two coats. It dried surprisingly shiny although I did use a top coat for these photos. The first shows it under natural light, the second in artifical light, which really shows off the holographic effect. I don't have any photos of it in the sun because, well, there wasn't any. :(

The second one I have is Gem, which is a grey/taupe holographic. In some lights it almost looks a dusky pink. It's really interesting - I don't have any other holographic polishes this shade.

I found the formula of Gem very different to Absolute. While Absolute dried with a smooth finish, Gem was much rougher. I used two layers of top coat and it still looks kind of gritty. It makes it look like it bubbled, which it didn't. You can see what I mean better here:

See? Gem dries with a much rougher finish. I think the holographic particles are chunkier than in Absolute. Still, it does have the advantage of making the holographic effect more pronounced. The grittiness really bothers me for some reason, but I'm still glad I have both these colours in my collection.