Color Club Electro Candy: The Return of the Konadicure!

Good morning, Dear Reader!

When I swatched Color Club's Electro Candy Collection for you yesterday, most of them were absolutely crying out to me to Konad them. I knew which one I really wanted to do the most, so I changed my nail polish to Electro Candy (the pink) last night.

Having a great hot pink base, I chose good ol' Konad plate M65 for my beloved swirly tip pattern this morning, and used Konad Special Polish in Blue to stamp the design. I'm also doing a little top coat test, which I'll explain after you see the Electro Candy Konadicure.







Since this is the first time I've used the Konad since I discovered Nubar's Diamont top coat, I decided to test how it would work over the Konad polish, since Nubar says it's also intended to seal nail art (which would typically be applied to dry polish). As you can see in the pictures, Diamont did not cause any smudging or bleeding of the pattern at all, and so far so good as far as using Diamont as a refresher.

For me, Seche Vite has caused the edged of my polish to peel up almost immediately on the two occasions I used it to seal an addition to dry nail polish, and that's not been the case so far with this one. I'll know tomorrow how well the Diamont does to seal Konad over dry polish with respect to causing any shrinkage, peeling or chipping of the manicure. Barielle Manicure Refresher is a quick-dry to coat that does work as a refresher without causing tose issues with a manicure, but I've found that it can cause some smudging and bleeding of Konad Special Polish on its own, so I don't use it to seal Konad. If this works, I'll be happy, since I've been using my tiny Konad Top Coat to seal the nail art without smudging, and then using Barielle Manicure Refresher over it to make it dry quickly and shine. One coat of Diamont is easier and a lot cheaper than the Konad Top Coat topped with the Barielle.

I think this bold mani is a great way to bring back the Konad after weeks of neglect, and it's fun to wear a bright new Color Club nail polish.

One other thing, Dear Reader, before I let you go: reader TML inquired as to why more people aren't using the chat feature on the right side of the page, the fifth item from the top, and I think it's because I've neglected to mention it much. It was used a good bit the day or two after I added it, but not since then. Feel free to pop in and say, "Hi," and see who's on! You don't need to enter an email or use a password, but if you want to reserve your username, just use the username with a password and it's all yours (I do not have access to the password you use). To add an avatar, just put a link to an online picture in the URL box next to your username, and you're ready to go. Feel free to test it as well - as long as the messages are clean, I don't mind if we have lots of "Test" with various avatars going. I added the Chat so we can have a little fun, so let's chat! I'll make it easy for you... Nail Polish: discuss amongst yourselves!

That's it for today. Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!

Baby It's "Coal" Outside!

Really? This was the nail polish you were so excited about that you busted out the exclamation point?

(photo from Nail Polish Diva)

Here's an idea: if you only have enough currency at the Punctuation Store to pick out one present for yourself, how about investing in a comma? I know, it doesn't have the flash of an exclamation point, but the upside is that you will look a lot less like an idiot, with the pleasant side-effect of being grammatically correct.

Oh, and thanks for the quotation marks around "coal." I was in danger of believing that, in a bizarre and terrifying sequel to Cat's Cradle, the carbon in our atmosphere had literally transmuted into sedimentary rock and was in danger of crushing anyone who ventured outside. ("Yes," Steampunk Santa said, as he unleashed the particle of Coal-9, "you've all been very bad.") The thing is, I know what it would be like to have coal outside. I don't, however, know what it would be like to have to worry about "coal." What exactly are the scare quotes supposed to indicate? Something kind of like coal is outside? Watch out, it's sandstone! Oh, no, here comes whale blubber, another non-renewable source of energy!

I assure you, if you persist in saying things like this, you will soon have nobody left to call "baby."

Color Club Electro Candy Collection for Summer 2009

Good Morning, Dear Reader!

I discovered I had a package this morning, and I was excited to find it was my Color Club Electro Candy Collection.  This is the collections I've been most anticipating for the last few weeks.  Since I got up bright and early, I got about the business of swatching them for you, and I have the pictures all ready to go for you now.

One caveat: neons are simply very difficult to capture with a camera in general.  Overall, I am pleased with how these pictures turned out, but the colors are actually just a bit more vivid in real life.

Each of these is three coats over a base, with the exceptions of Volt of Light, which took four (neon yellows take notoriously many coats), and Pure Energy, which is three coats with two top coats.  The two top coats I used were (i) Color Club's Vivid 10 Color Intensifying Top Coat, which really did make the color even brighter, and (ii) Nubar Diamont, since I wanted it to dry quickly and thoroughly.  

Let's get to the pics, and I'll tell you more as we go through them...

Electro Candy, the namesake of the collection, is a great neon Barbie pink with the irridescent quality that characterizes this collection.

Pure Energy is a vivid blue shimmer, and my Nails of the Day.  This is the one with two layers of to coat over it.

Tangerine Scream is more neon than this picture shows, but check outt he strong shimmer and irridescence it has - that was a real surprise.

Ultra Violet is really an incredible nail polish.  Although it's darker in the bottle than on the nail, the blue flash is stronger on the nail than it appears in the bottle.

Volt of Light is a unique yellow neon due to its finish and shimmer, but even at four coats, was a bit streaky.  I think this one might be perfect with five coats.  A lot of coats of nail polish?  Yes...

What A Shock! is a fantastic neon green.  It's not a Sinful Colors Irish Green nail polish, where your retinas sting after glancing at it, but it's still definitely neon.

That's Color Club's Electro Candy Collection for you, Dear Reader, and it's what I have for you today.  Until tomorrow, love and nail polish to you!