YSL Extreme Purple Nail Polish #40

Good morning, Dear Reader!

This morning, I have a polish to show you that I've been waiting to use for several weeks. What I've been waiting for is confirmation that I was sent the right color - YSL polishes are labelled on the box, not the bottle, and I questioned if this was the right bottle in the box. This morning, I was able to find one of those "swatches" that's a cartoon-y image of a smeared drop that confirmed it's the right color. Since I couldn't easily find other images online, I thought I'd show you this one today.

So, Yves Saint Laurent Extreme Purple... Sounds right up my alley, no? I bought it after I'd moved here, to the middle of a cornfield, where there are no Nordstroms to go look at things in person first. I do not miss living in River North on the whole, but when I think of having three Ultas within two miles, a Nordies, a Sephora, and a Chanel boutique all within one mile, I admit there's a little pang of longing! Anyhow, I ordered it, it arrived, and I discovered I had a deep brownish blood red creme nail polish.

For a moment, let's move on the the positives of this one, so this isn't a big complaintfest. It has a great shine. Name set aside, it is a lovely color. I'm trying to think of more... The overcap on the bottle is pretty? I'm really trying!!!

As for the application, I applied it over my usual base of Nu Nails. Last Fall, I believe it was, I developed a crush on YSL with their Fall and Winter releases - great colors and application. The application of Extreme Purple was not difficult, it went on well, but it took four (yes, four) coats to be opaque and even. After two, I was a little bent out of shape, yet still willing to put up with a third, but when I'd applied the third and still had uneven and bald patches on several nails, that was ridiculous. For a high end, mucho $$$ polish, I expect it to be good in two coats. That was part of my rave about the Chanels this week - good in one, the second coat was optional to make them look like vinyl. Also, since four coats is so much nail polish, I had to wait a couple minutes before applying coats three and four (and waiting is like punishment to me), and since it's early I don't have my glasses or contacts. I'm near sighted, so I can see my nails and my computer monitor just fine, but I couldn't see the clock across the room, so I sat there in nail polish purgatory for what seemed like an eternity!

One other oddity I noticed in application immediately was that the nail polish had a very strange smell. I have an unusually acute sense of smell - I can immediately tell with a pretty high degree of accuracy when polish is Big Three Free as soon as I open it, and smell is also how I tell when my nail polish has completely cured, like well enough to go wash my hair. This one was off enough to make me read the ingredients. It is three free, it just has an strong chemical smell to it.

My last complaint, which is evidenced in the pictures, is about expensive and somewhat deceptive packaging. A standard nail polish bottle is 15 ml, or 0.5 oz. This one is 10 ml, or 0.33 oz, only 2/3 the volume of a regular one, for a significantly higher price than most polishes (these are up there in the Rescue Beauty Lounge & Chanel range, although those are both only 0.4 oz). However, look at the size of the bottle! Now, my hands are smaller than average, but I have a hard time taking a picture with YSL bottles. Perhaps if less went into the gargantuan bottles, they could afford to give us the remaining 1/3 bottle of polish.

Wow, when I was thinking all of that earlier, it seemed like a lot less ranting! I also thought I had more positives, and have been trying to think of more, but good color and shine are still the only two I can think of. I guess I'm still a little bent out of shape - I wanted and Extreme Purple that was an extreme purple, and in the formula that I had a crush on last year!

Here is the finished manicure, four coats with a base and topped with SpaRitual Tout de Suite (I'm saving the Diamont I have for Konad bases, since I'm low), under artificial light.

Yves Saint Laurent Extreme Purple #40 Nail Polish, Four Coats

Even though this post is already long (I'm still working on the caffeine that will make me edit myself!), I'm going to repost all of the details of the WowSoCool giveaway. If you've read it already, please just skip to your goodbye. My assumption is that not everyone reads every post, so I'm going to repost the details every few posts or so, in order to make it clear to everyone. Regulars, thank you for being patient with that!

Here goes:

For two weeks (12 more days), I'll be taking entries, one per person, for a giveaway that WowSoCool is sponsoring to thank you for your business (everyone, worldwide). There will be two winners, one wins a Gold Deluxe Kit (that's a link to the page - it's a few down for the full description, the $94.99 one, or the full description's on a tab on the entry form). Here's a tiny picture of it if you just want an idea - it's a bunch of plates, polishes, stamper, and scraper...

The second winner gets a $50 gift certificate to WSC.

It's very simply a Thank You gift. I don't get anything here, I'm just hosting the entry form so you can have it. I've used the service for this random drawing form many times now, and your email won't get used for anything other than to let you know you've won, and in this case, I will pass it on to WowSoCool for the owner to get in touch with you for shipping info. I will not collect your mailing address at all myself if you're the winner, since I won't be mailing you anything. Basically, I'll pass the whole thing over to WSC once a winner is drawn, and the lady there will mail out your prizes.

The last details are that your name will show up on the list of entries as you enter it, but there is no need to enter your full name (you can take care of that later if you win), and the biggie is that this is open to everybody, all readers worldwide. So if you're reading this and have not entered, have at it! If you still have a question, please ask it in the Comments below, as I'm sure someone else is wondering the same thing.

So that's the tale of YSL Extreme Purple, which is neither extreme nor purple, and of the WowSoCool Konad Giveaway. The upside to the YSL is that I now have a nice Fall mani even if it wasn't what I'd hoped for, so it worked out fine.

Until next time, Dear Reader, love and nail polish to you!

Yves Saint Laurent Stormy Grey

Good afternoon, Dear Reader!

I went out and about for a while, then came home and my raggedy tips did get the best of me. It was time to pull out another high-end pretty I've had my eye on, YSL Stormy Grey. This one appealed to me because it appeared, in promo pics, to be a slightly bluer grey than most, and it is. The bigger surprise is that it's full of mica shimmer, that really subtle shimmer that often doesn't show up on the nail, but Stormy Grey is so packed with it that it does indeed show up.

The down side I discovered applying it is that it's a three-coater to be totally even and opaque. Here it is with a base and top. I'm starting to see a theme to the high-end polishes already: look at the size of the YSL bottle! It's huge, too! A standard one is 0.5 oz, this is less than that (somewhere between 0.3-0.4, I don't have it handy), but the bottle is enormous! Maybe the polish would cost less if they didn't make the bottles so friggin' gargantuan...

This morning, I showed you a mani using the splatter-paint pattern from Konad plate M70. I've been really wary of that pattern, sure I'd never use it, but I absolutely loved it when I wore it, and it got compliments while I was out. I tend to prefer more linear, clean lines, so I was really surprised to like it. Stormy Grey looked like it could use a little something, so I used the very same pattern, this time in Blue Konad Special Nail Polish. I don't know that I have ever used the same pattern for two manicures in a row, but I'm really smitten with this one!

That's the update for today, Dear Reader. Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

YSL's Latest Offerings

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today I have pictures of Yves Saint Laurent's two newest colors for you. They are Moonlight White

and Deep Blue.

Deep Blue is distinctly blue, not blackish, while Moonlight White is a sheer white with a slight blue flash.

That's all for now, Dear Reader. Until later, love and nail polish to you!

More Konadicures!

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Today, I have pictures of more Konadicures for you! I was in a picture takin' mood this morning, so I even have a before and after of today's Nails of the Day.

I'll start strong today with Yves Saint Laurent's Tulipe Noire, which I thought could use a delicate little tip pattern.

Next up is yesterday's NOTD, which is Rescue Beauty Lounge's No More War with an all-over pattern and tips in yellow. It brings back memories of the 1970's avocado green and harvest gold kitchen applicances I grew up with.

While I was in the '70's state of mind, I did a mani that reminds me of my mom's recipe box. It was a yellow index card box with funky early '70's flower stickers on it.

That brings me to today's NOTD, which is a Konaded EA Christopher St. Cappucino. Here's the base I started with...

...And here's my end result about 45 minutes later.

Today is one of those days where both hands turned out just right, so I did pictures of both. The next time I have a day where my right hand is imperfect, I can look at this post and remind myself that it can be done!

That's all of the for the pictures today, Dear Reader, which brings me to the part where I remind you to enter this week's giveaway. It ends on Tuesday, and it's a random drawing for an OPI Music Hall Minis Set, which was generously given to you by sparkling*nails on ebay to thank you for your business. Your name will show as you enter it (so you don't have to enter your full name), and your email address will only be used to notify you if you're the winner. The drawing is open to all readers worldwide, so if you have not entered, please do!

That's all for now, Dear Reader. Love and nail polish to you!

Some YSL Rich Coffee & My Sister's High School Uniform

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Let's start a Sunday morning out right with some Rich Coffee from YSL.

Now that the coffee's perked us up a bit, we can move on to today's NOTD, which makes me think of my sister's high school uniform, which was brown houndstooth on off-white. Obviously, my colors are a little bolder, but I thought I'd do a mani that makes me think of her today because it's her birthday. We're just under a year apart in age - for twelve days in September, we're the same age, and that fun little window closes on September 28th. So Happy Birthday to M, and each time I look at my nails, I'll think of her high school uniform... Those were fun days for us (but our poor parents!) - I went to the public high school and she to a private one, so we spent a great deal of our free time together and were very close. Good days indeed!

On to the mani pics...

So these are my nails of the day in tribute to my sister, Dear Reader. If you haven't entered the contest for the most creative mani with and for the OPI Get In-Spider-ed Set, please give it a go. The contest runs through 10/06/08 to give you lots of time to think of fun things, and the entry form and picture of the set are at the bottom of the post below.

That's all for now, Dear Reader, Love and nail polish to you!

You Say It's Your Birthday? It's My Birthday Too...

Good morning, Dear Reader!

Many thanks to those of you who sent me birthday wishes - what a great way to start my day! I have lots of pictures for today's post (all taken under flourescent light in my kitchen), and I'll tell you why. Late last week, I placed a Happy Birthday to Me order with Nordstrom, and part of the order arrived last evening. Predictably, I started playing with my fun new pretties right away.

The first thing I dug into was the Lippmann Collection Party Like a Rockstar Set. In the set, I discovered Good Girl Gone Bad was chock full o' glitter. Being a huge fan of all things sparkly, that was my first choice. The set also contains a pretty blue (Devil in a Blue Dress) and a quick-dry topcoat, Addicted to Speed. They're all minis, but not as mini as some - they're 0.30 oz, which is just shy of a full size Dior or YSL (which are .33 oz). I decided to try the Addicted to Speed just for the heck of it, assuming it wouldn't work as well as Seche Vite or Poshe, but discovered it's name is perfect - my nails were totally dry with three coats of color, enough to make dinner, within 5-10 minutes. So don't try Addicted to Speed unless you need a taste for very pricy topcoat, since it's the most effective I've ever tried and shiny as heck to boot. I'm going to save it for travel, I think. Here's Good Girl Gone Bad topped with Addicted to Speed, which is what I woke up with this morning.

I was awakened at 4:00 this morning, so I got up, had some coffee, and then decided to try the other pretty that I've been looking forward to: Yves Saint Laurent Tuxedo Grey. As you can see in the pictures, it's more shimmery in the bottle than it is on the nail. Here are some pictures of it by itself - had I known it was this close to Misa's Dying Love, I probably wouldn't have sprung for it, but it does have the fabulous YSL finish to it, which is nice.

As you can see, Tuxedo Grey is a little bit plain on its own. You know I can't have plain, Dear Reader, and especially not on my birthday! So after taking the pictures of it by itself, I dug into the Konad set and decided silver leopard print tips would be just right. Here's the result of that addition.

So that's the first two and a half hours I've been up. I may post more later, as I may decide to play with more nail polish today. My mom was of the mind that a person gets to do all and only what he wants on his birthday (she was funny like that), and a little of that has worn off on me. There's plenty of work to be done to prepare for movers to be here on Thursday, but I've already sworn off all work on the apartment today. Not today!

So now you've seen my 37th birthday nails so far. Remember that to help celebrate my birthday, I'm giving one Dear Reader the complete Color Club Glitter Vixen Collection (see it here). Your name as you enter it will be displayed (so you don't have to enter your full name), and your email address will only be used to notify you if you win. The drawing is open to all readers world wide, so help me celebrate by entering for me to share a gift with you! Also, If you have an opinion about which pictures you like and haven't yet voted for your preference, please do (thank you if you have!!!). The poll for that is in the upper right hand corner of the page.

I think that's everything for now, Dear Reader. Love and nail polish to you!