OPI Shatter vs China Glaze Crackle - Showdown

Without looking at the filenames, can you tell the difference?  (Apart from having a third hand to take the black shots and myself to take the blue?)

I did them both the same way - base coat, two coats of the base color (and dried completely), shatter/crackle, top coat.  I polished in the same direction on each nail (for both colors - middle fingers horizontal, ring and thumbs vertical, baby and index in opposite diagonals) and you can tell with both polishes by the way they crack how I did it.

The black is OPI, and the blue is China Glaze.

I found the OPI to be a bit more user friendly - you can see that it generally shattered fairly consistently, and it goes on like regular polish.  China Glaze was a bit thicker, sort of tarry, and to thin it out (check my left middle finger) it just gets worse.  By the end of my right hand I think it looked comparable, and pretty cool, but it's not quite as fool proof.  Also, on my left thumb and index finger - where's the effect? And on my ring finger, how come there are slits on the end and crackling toward the cuticle?  Then my right thumb completely separated and it looks like I missed a spot, but on the right index it didn't crackle very well.  The last three fingers on my right hand look pretty good, so I'm not sure what gives.  Maybe I'll do a "take two" to see if practice will improve.  ;)

Overall - both worth it.  China Glaze is much easier to find (Sally's has it, OPI is only available in salons) and I think retails for slightly less...  They offer very different color selections too, so buy what you like and work it!

MK Base, OPI Simply Smash-ing, Black Shatter, Love & Beauty Fuchsia, China Glaze Crushed Candy Crackle, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.

Artists are just children who refuse to put down their crayons.

June 7 was National Crayon Day.  I know my post is late, but I did my nails in honor of the occasion.

Sorry about the poor shot of my thumbs...

MK Base, Sally Hansen Pure White Tip, Cherry Red, Black Out, Finger Paints Scenery Greenery, Sketchy Character, Love & Beauty Fuchsia, Ulta Moody Blues, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.

If a building looks better under construction than it does when finished, then it's a failure.

As the warm weather approaches, it is joined by orange and white barrels, single lane highways, and irritable drivers.  Behold:

I just googled traffic signs for reference (they were much orange-er in real life, not sure why they photographed so red...) and wasn't paying attention when I painted the bio-hazard symbol.  Oh well!

Not catching the zombies reference?  Than you obviously missed the big news!

MK Perfect Surface Base,  Sally Hansen Black Out, Pure White Tip, Cherry Red, Orly Hook Up, Claire's Flames, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.

A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art...

Remember the emotions chart from when you were a kid?  No, I'm the only one that needed that kind of therapy?  Well, it's just a bunch of clipart smiley faces labeled with different emotions to help a child verbalize what he's feeling.  Recently, I've gone through quite a range of emotions, but the original artwork is a bit boring for nails, so I used emoticons!

I used MK Perfect Surface Base Coat, Orly Hook Up, Sally Hansen Black Out, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.

Of course I have played outdoor games. I once played dominoes in an open air cafe in Paris.

The other night my friend couldn't come out with me because she was playing Triominoes with her parents.  (She was home to visit, be nice.)  I'm actually not familiar with the game, so I just did Dominoes.

I think they'd look better if my nails were square too, but I think I look weird with square nails.  Also, I find them unbelievably annoying.

MK Perfect Surface Base Coat, Sally Hansen Black Out and Pure White Tip, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.

I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.

My sister loved my first attempt at water marbling, and requested I do her nails (NOW, since she's moving out of state).  She chose her colors, and here it is:

Her left ring finger is my favorite, and I'm glad because I think it was her most attractive nail that day.  A friend who is also a nail tech suggested I put vaseline around the cuticles to keep the cleanup to a minimum - I did this, and it worked!  (Thanks D!)  I coated the entire finger just past the first knuckle with it, carefully avoiding the nail beds, but we wiped the polish off the skin easily and I only had to do a bit of detail cleanup.

MK Perfect Surface Base, Sally Hansen Spark, OPI Flashbulb Fuchsia and A-Rose at Dawn...Broke by Noon, Ulta Dance Teal Dawn, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.

As a side note - comments are not being published.  I get them in my email (so thank you, commenters*, I appreciate your feedback!), but I can't reply to them.  Switch to WordPress already? 

*I see that this is apparently not a word.  But commenter is, and I wanted it to be plural.

And when it rains on your parade, look up rather than down. Without the rain, there would be no rainbow.

It's been raining for most of a week here, and is scheduled to continue for another week.  Instead of being sad about the rain, I decided to be happy that I don't have to water my flowers (not including the one that died cos it got too cold, but I digress).  Tulips are possibly my favorite flower - also, they're reasonably simple to draw, even left-handed - and my partner isn't keen on having more (than the one by the porch).  Admittedly, their bloom period is short, but I still love them.  Same with lilacs...

It occurred to me after that I should have reversed the colors - the dark blue as the clouds, and the gray as the sky/background...  Oh well, next time. 

MK Perfect Surface Base Coat, Ulta Moody Blues (base), OPI I Want To Be A-Lone Star (clouds), Big Hair...Big Nails, A-Rose at Dawn...Broke by Noon, Rose to the Ovation, Flashbulb Fuchsia, Orly Hook Up, Finger Paints Scenery Greenery, Sally Hansen Pure White Tip, Cherry Red, Love & Beauty Fuchsia, Beauty Secrets Top Coat.