Ciate Sharp Tailoring and Velvet Tuxedo Lace Manicure Fail

So now that Winter's almost over, I'm finally wearing my Winter collection nail polishes. Go figure. Anyway, good polish is timeless! The perfect edgy neutral is always timeless and oh-so-chic all year round! And the two Ciate colours I happened to buy when they were on sale at ASOS are pretty neutral and chic. I bought Sharp Tailoring and Velvet Tuxedo.

First of all, bottle pics of both of them! I'm really digging these two.

Sharp Tailoring is a very edgy neutral greige (you know, a cross between a grey and a beige), and is one of those colours that I LOVE to death. This one isn't like the rest of them - it doesn't have any pink in it (unlike the other greige-y colours), and that's what makes it stand out. It also has gold shimmer that really amps up the colour.



Velvet Tuxedo is a blackened-grey, or is it a black? that has beautiful multidimensional shimmer:



I love those two colours, and I decided to do a KOTD with them, in attempt to replicate the "Lace Manicure" look that's been so popular lately. The KOTD itself turned out to be a massive fail due to my inability to stamp and align properly, but here you go anyway. I believe the plate is M57.

As you can see, in natural sunlight, Sharp Tailoring is a lot more grey, and a lot less beige.



In indoor lighting, you can really see it's beige-y-ness, and it's gold shimmer (which my @#$@% camera can't seem to capture. I think my camera has issues with shimmer). I do think it stands out best indoors, as opposed to outdoors:



Application-wise, both of them were a little mixed. Velvet Tuxedo gave me no problem whatsoever - it was opaque in one coat, and good enough to konad with. Sharp tailoring was a little sheer and streaky, but two coats took care of everything, so it's not a big deal. However, I do wonder if it was the polish or my lack of skillz that made this a little tricky to work with. But anyway, I've yet to see a dupe of this pretty little colour, so if anyone knows of a dupe with less application issues, let me know!

Mannequin Hands Nail Polish Shade: I Unwittingly Haz!

One of the latest trends in nail polish (other than the is-it-over-already annoying jade green trend which looked awful on me) is the Mannequin Hands trend. That's one of my favourite trends. I think it's super cool, especially when paired with the Lace Manicure, or with painting one of your fingers on each hand a different colour from all the other hands (two of the trends I've been seeing too). I'm not a fan of jade or mint green (although I do love that ASOS Paint by Ciate, and I'll be posting an NOTD with it soon), but I do love lace, and I am ALL for painting mroe than one colour at a time!

Anyway, unlike so many people, I don't actually have any problem finding a more-or-less mannequin hands shade. (I don't believe there'll actually be a nail polish the exact shade of my skin, so I'll settle.) And, what's more, I already did an NOTD with it HERE. In fact, in another of my old posts I wrote about the different nude nail polishes I owned, RIGHT HERE. Of course, you know, that's all because I'm such a fashion forward, edgy chick...Hah. Who am I kidding. It was pure coincidence.

Anyway, what's this marvelous perfect nude polish I love so much I just have to blog about not once, but twice? Well, I raved about it then, and just for kicks, (and because not many people will have seen my previous posts as those were made when my blog had a total of like 0 followers), here is the closest I'll ever get to a Mannequin Hands Manicure:



I know! Isn't she a beauty?! That's Nails Inc Basil Street for you. :) Perfect nude beige creme with almost no pink, perfectly opaque in two coats, and so smooth that it nearly applied itself. I didn't even need to clean up on that one! That's how perfect it is. Love it to bits! Anyway, for anyone who is still searching around for their Mannequin Hands shade and find most of the popular nudes too pink, I strongly urge you to try this one.

Comparison Swatches: Nude/Beige Nail Polishes

So I've finally decided to do a comparison of the various nude/beige nail polishes I have. So far I have 7 of them.



L - R: Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, Nails Inc Basil Street, OPI Tickle My Francey, Rimmel Beige Style, Misa High Waist Hue, OPI Barefoot in Barcelona, Rimmel Euphoria

OK OK so I know Nails Inc Elizabeth Street isn't really a beige nude..But I'm putting it in there anyway.

Here's the first four of the nail polishes, swatched. Each of these were 3 coats, although most only needed two.



Index to Pinky (that's R - L): Nails Inc Elizabeth Street, Nails Inc Basil Street, OPI Tickle My Francey, Rimmel Beige Style

Nails Inc Elizabeth Street was a bit disappointing. First of all, it was streaky and uneven and sheer, and required 3 coats to be opaque, and even then it didn't really look that good :( This was why I had to use 3 coats for all the swatches - I figured since I had used 3 coats for Elizabeth Street, for comparison's sake I might as well use 3 coats of the rest, although they weren't nowhere as sheer. It's a pale milky baby pink type of colour, a creme finish. I don't mind this colour, I just wish the quality was better.

Nails Inc Basil Street...I've talked about this before haven't I? Creamy, smooth, and opaque in two coats. I really love this, and I really LOVE Nails Inc, so I have no complaints about this one. It has a little pink in it, but it's pretty beige for the most part.

OPI Tickle My Francey needs no introduction, with it's now-famous pink-grey-nude hue. I like this one a lot. The grey tinge gives it an edge and makes it more unusual. This requires two to three coats, depending on how thin or thick the coats are, to acheive full opacity.

Rimmel Beige Style also was a 2-3 coater. Unlike the other colours, which were all creams, this one has a slight shimmer. It's more pink than Basil Street, but less pink than Tickle My Francey. I really like this one, I imagine it'd be pretty much universally flattering on most people because it has a nice balance of pink and beige.


Here's the last three, along with OPI TMF again for consistency:




Index to Pinky (that's R - L): OPI Tickle My Francey, Misa High Waist Hue, OPI Barefoot in Barcelona, Rimmel Euphoria

Wow. These all look so different on the nail.

Sadly, Misa High Waist Hue and OPI Barefoot in Barcelona seem to veer very warm on me - and I have no idea why. Barefoot in Barcelona looks positively orange, and Misa High Waist Hue looks like it has a slight peach tinge to it. Unfortunately I don't really like how they look. The OPI was nicely opaque in 2 coats, while the Misa required a little more, 3 to be perfectly even.

The last one, Rimmel Euphoria, is a pinky nude that seems to have a little bit of taupe thrown in - maybe its the shimmer. I really like this one, and I think it's a rather interesting colour. It applies a bit unevenly, but nothing nightmarish.

I guess out of the entire lot, my favourites are Nails Inc Basil Street, Rimmel Euphoria and of course, OPI Tickle My Francey. But of course, a good nude is so dependent on skintone that it's hard for me to say who would look good in which nude. I just hope these pictures and my ramblings have helped someone.

Nails Inc Basil Street and GOSH Purple Haze: KOTD

Did I tell you I've been on a nude nailpolish kick lately? As of now I have 7 nudes in my collection, and I totally plan on doing a swatch comparison one day. But for now, here's a simple NOTD/KOTD for you!

Here's Nails Inc Basil Street:



Excuse the frazzle, and the fact that there are cotton wool bits stuck in my mani (I hate when that happens).

Basically, the perfect opaque non-pinky (or almost non-pinky, rather) beige nude. Perfect, perfect perfect. This one was smooth and easy to apply, and it was even and opaque in 2 coats. Unlike most nudes which can be often sheer or streaky or just a pain to apply (ahem, Essie), this covered well in 2 coats. Love, love, love.

Then, because I was bored, I just had to do this over it:



I know, I know, let's not talk about that smudge ok? :( And the fact that I suck at centralizing my designs :(

The interesting thing about GOSH Purple Haze is that it's a very dark, almost-black purple/green duochrome. AND it's opaque in 1 coat - thus making it ideal for Konading. The interesting thing though, is that depending on what color it is used to konad with, Purple Haze shows up either as a dark purple, or in this case, a dark green. It feels so weird to see your konad being green when you really used a dark purple, but I love this colour. It's like, self-adjusting or something. Really, really cool. So far when used with pinks it tends to veer purple, and here, with a beige it looks green. GOSH nail polishes are also in general one of my favourites, because they dry very fast. Sometimes I even wonder why I use a topcoat with them, but then I remember that I need to prevent the polish from chipping so fast. They also have a pretty decent wear time. Basically, I've pretty much liked everything I've tried from GOSH and Nails Inc.

Well, that's it for this post! I hope noone threw up from my terrible mani skills...