Nailing NYFW

If there’s anything that NYFW teaches you, is that fashion doesn’t stop at the end of the runway. The audience and crowds contributed to plenty an ooh and ahh, whether they were celebrity or not. My camera was often pointed equally to someone’s clothes and shoes, as it was to the models and garments.

I even felt the kick under my heiny to step it up and rocked out with bright lipstick for days. But today’s not about that – today’s nail day!

The pasttime that I can always commit to is doing my nails and toes. I usually do this before I do anything, as I can aid drying time that way. I also am tempted to try a new polish nearly every day (though that is half blamed on my penchant to peel my polish and half because of my constant new purchases). For NYFW, I didn’t want to be a one color girl, so I enjoyed some fancy mattes, suedes, creams, and a Konad for days.

I wanted to mix it up for Fashion Week, as I didn’t want to run through all the fabulosity with a mere one color. I tried to do a fresh nail every other day.

First one was a cream color that struck my eye immediately when I came into the Beauty Supply store. It was a sherbet melon/orange type color, and I could attest that I had none to even so much as mimic it. Plus the color was around $2. The brand was one that I never tried before, but as it’s name says itself – I was ~~curious~~ Quirious!

Though I liked this color, the polish took a bit too long to meet my expectations. The picture here is after roughly four coats. The first two coats made it look sheer as all goodness and that actually made me pout. I like the finished effect, but it takes too long to achieve it. Regardless, though… given the price, I’ll forgive em & probably showcase more of their colors soon.

Next two colors that I tried are pretty new to the nail market and I didn’t want to wait too long to try them out. After spotting them on websites and nail blogs alike, my heart was beating fast in the material sector. First one was OPI Suede in Russian Navy.

The little note attached to it says the same thing as the ones on the Mattes as I posted here. They tell you not to use a base or top coat, that they wear differently than other polish, and not to use lotion.

Just to let y’all know. I haved used a base coat with all my matte polishes and that hasn’t changed anything. I have seen that the one time I followed directions and didn’t use a base coat, the matte made my nail yellow. Yaya doesn’t like that one bit.

The Suedes are fabulous guys. They have this silver underlayer that makes the top coat shine. It’s hard to explain. The pictures show you that I have a top coat on my ring finger to show you what it looks like with a top coat. I like the color both ways. I also noticed that upon removal, you can actually come across the middle layer that is invisible to the eye when applying or wearing.

flash on the left and no flash on the right

Coooooool. Right? 🙂 This is when I was removing it, so excuse the chip. Mattes and Suedes wear a lot more sensitive than creams, so they tend to chip at the ends within one or two days.

Next one was OPI by Sephora in Metro Chic Matte. This was an ultra cool matte, that had the best application of any of the mattes I have ever come across. Case in point: most mattes, if you apply more than two swipes on one nail in succession start to clump up. This one did no such thing.

flash on the left and no flash on the right

pinky has a top coat on it. Looks almost identical to Metro Chic cream

The color is a little different with flash and no flash. Neither shows the color perfectly. It is a bit in between the two if you can imagine. I tried to add a little Holo pizazz with China Glaze on the thumb and ring finger.

I also love that this polish is extremely true to bottle color. Most of the mattes – it is just too hard to convey that.

My last mani was my last hoorah inspired by my girl Brit from ClumpsofMascara. She was tweetin’ and YouTubin’ with a fab houndstooth Konadicure, and I took her as inspiration to rock my plates out. I used a Sally Hansen Insta-Dri polish that I just got from Walgreens on sale, and used bows and fishnets to rock out the rest. I used my black and white Konad polishes and then mixed some of them to see if I could get gradient colors.