Teal on Fire

The Polish
BC: Revlon - Colorstay Base Coat
Color: Covergirl - Teal on Fire (Outlast Stay Brilliant line), two coats
TC: Seche Vite

Wear: Uhm, wore for 9 days, even though it was chipping.. ^-^;

Ocean Breeze

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Revlon - Ocean Breeze, two coats
TC: Seche Vite

No pics from Day 1, so here's one from Day 3.

Wear: Forgot to record

Teal on Fire

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Covergirl - Teal on Fire, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

Aha! Finally a blue-to-purple duochrome I can get behind. This one applied so much nicer and looks a lot stronger and less greyed out than previous ones I've tried.

In actuality, the purple is hardly ever noticeable on the nail. It's nearly always this glowy greenish-teal, but I'm not complaining! I still really enjoy it. <3

Wear: Removed on Day 5 when I couldn't stand the gap growth anomore

Ocean Breeze

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Revlon - Ocean Breeze, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

Oh, this color again! It's strange because I don't tend to enjoy metallics much, but this one is so bright and colorful.. it just calls to me. It's almost a green-blue duochrome, but it shows teal most of the time. In the picture below, you can ALMOST see the blue part of the shift.

Wear: Removed on Day 5 with some lifting

Mystical

The Polish
BC: Nailtiques - Formula 2
Color: Revlon - Mystical, two coats
TC: Seche Vite

Okay, turns out this one DOES need three coats. Meh. I was in a hurry. Still looked lovely inside. :P

Wear: Removed on Day 3 with some lifting

Altruism

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Mentality - Altruism, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

I really do love this polish. Three easy coats and such a delicate, soft-grey holo with purple-pink shift. I was having a tough day, and Altruism made it better. Thank you. <3

Wear: Removed on Day 5 with some lifting

Challenger

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Different Dimension - Challenger, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

A multichrome today, so apologies in advance for many pictures.

Challenger, which is from a set all named for spacecraft!, is a green/gold-to-red/purple-to-brown multichrome with holo glitter and glass flecks. How's that for a description?

I can't quite decide if I like it or not. It's not really a color I would normally pick up, but it IS pretty.. The red/purple isn't very apparent in most lights. Most of the time it just appears to be a glittery dark brown.

But maybe it looks a little messy? We'll keep it on for a while and see what I think.

Hey~! I finally got the green to show in the car! You can see some glass flecks in this one, too.

Wear: Removed on Day 2 with the decision... to purge. Honestly, I probably would have preferred it without the glitter, just as a multichrome creme. *shrug* Hopefully someone else will like it.

Mystic

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Revlon - Mystic, two coats
TC: Seche Vite

Okay, not the nicest application, and I got some bubbling going on, but IDGAF! I cannot express how awesome this polish is! If I were the person to cuss, aside from in letter abbreviations, THIS would be the polish to make me do it.

Wear: Minor tipwear and chips on Day 4 from cleaning, removed on Day 5 with lifting

Shade Shifter

The Polish:
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: KB Shimmer - Shade Shifter, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

Uh.. Hmm... The polish goddess hasn't been with me recently. Check out this streaky mess. I've never had a duochrome I enjoyed, and this is no different.

Maybe over black? I'll give it another chance and see how it works over black.

Wear: Removed immediately. Time for a break.

Peace & Love & OPI

The Polish
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: OPI - Peace & Love & OPI, three coats
TC: Seche Vite

I'm not so sure about this one. Peace & Love & OPI is a muddy purple-to-green duochrome that has a touch of a brush-stroke-y metallic finish. It's sheer and needed three coats for opacity, though it would probably look nice over black.

I have yet to own a duochrome I enjoy, though I know they exist. (ILNP has a lot.) This one, however, is going into the swap box.

Wear: Removed on Day 3 with some lifting

Mystical

The Polish:
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Color: Revlon - Mystical, two coats
TC: Seche Vite

Mystical is an old Revlon my mother-in-law gave to me during a local swap. I'm convinced it's magic. Like, +3 Magic. It's a blue-purple duochrome with blue shimmer and tons of depth. It's a little darker than I normally wear, but I'm getting used to darker, especially with all this magic going on. Seriously, pictures just don't do it justice.

SO Comments
I showed SO, a gamer, when I first put it on so that I could tell him about it being +3 Magic. A few days later, he noticed my nails while cuddling.

SO: Wow, is that the same polish?
Me: Yep.
SO: I mean.. same... *trying to find the right word* appli...cation?
Me: *smile* Yep! This is day four. Nice wear, huh?
SO: Yeah. *smile*

He's getting good! :3

Wear: Lifting on Day 5, with minimal tip wear starting on Day 3. Removal left a little staining, so next time, wear two layers of base coat.

Sea Temptress

The Polish:
BC: None
Color: Finger Paints - Sea Temptress, two coats
TC: None

I have such mixed feels about this color. It's alright, a duo-chrome-y white with green shift. It's one of those texture polishes that is texture by way of glitter, not the whole polish. So.. that's weird. And then the color thing happens to me, and it's not actually THAT pretty...

I just feel like, if anyone were enjoy this polish, it would be me. So I have trouble giving up on it. It's not a BAD polish.. it's just not that great. :/ I'll give it one more chance, I guess.

Wear: Four days to chips. Removal was a glitter pain.

Misty Altruism

The Polish:
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Main: Mentality Nail Polish - Misty, two coats
Accent: Mentality Nail Polish - Altruism, two coats over Misty
TC: Seche Vite (over accent nail only)

Surprise holo! Ooooh, I love it! Altruism is silver-purple duochrome holo that reminds me of L'Oreal's Masked Affair. I don't have that one, so I can't compare. (They're probably not all that similar, whatever.) Also, I wore Altruism over Misty, so I'm not sure how it'd hold up on its own. Maybe it's sheer?

Misty is a very pretty matte grey with gold shimmer. It was lovely when I put it on, but after 24 hours, many nails had cracks throughout the polish, as though it were a crackle. Strange. I'd never had that happen before. Maybe the coats were too thick? I need to thin it before the next time I wear it and make sure my coats aren't too thick.

Wear: Slight wear on day two, chips on day three

Adorable Bomb

The Polish:
BC: Revlon - ColorStay Base Coat
Undies: L'Oreal - B. Adorable (Bijou Facets), two coats
Glitter: LA Girls - Glitter Bomb (Color Craze), two coats
TC: Seche Vite

Just kinda threw this together when I wasn't quite sure of what to wear. It's not awesome, but it works. I should have taken pictures of B. Adorable by itself, since I don't have any pictures of it alone yet. Next time.

Wear: Peels on day four prompting removal.

Travel in Color

The Polish:
BC: Nail-Aid - Extreme Steel Hardener
Color: China Glaze - Travel in Color (HoliGlaze collection), two coats
TC: Sinful Colors - Quick Dry

After the awfulness that was my last mani, I desperately needed a palate cleanser. Thankfully I had Travel in Color untried, so I nubbinized, put it on, and then breathed a sigh of relief.

Travel in Color is a sheer, shimmery white with bright pink flash and just a touch of green shimmer, too. It's meant to be a topper, but alone it was great for the simplicity I needed. Speaking of flash, by the way, I've recently learned via the nail board that any polish with a flash is actually considered a duochrome, and the things that I was considering duochromes, like WnW Grey's Anatomy, for example, are actually multichromes. I guess it makes sense--this one has two colors, white and pink, while, if you look at the bottle in the swatch of Grey's Anatomy, you can see three colors, blue, purple, and green. Well, alright, then. So Travel in Color is technically a duochrome.

About that flash, by the way, it just refused to be photographed. It's startlingly bright in person, just wouldn't show off for the camera. Grr, frustrating. I still think I prefer my sheer whites with gold flash, like Calla Lily and White Cap, but pink will be fine every once in a while.

Wear: Removed after three days.

Raindrops Dream

Raindrops Frankendupe version 2
Pure Ice - Mint Dream

Trying to do various layering things with the six polishes I brought on vacation with me. This is one layer of Mint Dream over one layer of my second attempts at a Raindrops frankendupe. Full of flaws, but hey, it's something to upload! I think this was the second day of wear, and the tips are already starting to chip.

Mint Dream is definitely better layered than by itself, but I'm still not very fond of it. It looks like it would be perfect under a butterfly-wing stamp, right? But I just don't like duo-chromes. This has been Mint Dream's second chance, so into the swap box it goes.

Flakies to the rescue!

The Color Workshop - unnamed flakie (NOTA?)

Okay, that didn't last long. I wanted to put on something, so I decided to just put on one coat of something sheer, this The Color Workshop polish I found at a thrift store. No base coat. No top coat. No strengtheners, fortifiers, or therapies. Just the polish.

And I loved it. I wore it for a day and then decided to try and take a picture. I put on another layer, just for effect, and scoured the house for a good spot to plug in my LED lamp. No where. No where in this house has good, white light. Then my husband said, "Why don't you just go outside?"

I've taken pictures outside before. It sucks. The glare of sun makes it impossible to see what's on the screen, meaning I'm taking blind pictures. Plus, they don't even turn out that well. But, desperate as I was, I stood out there playing around with it, and then finally found the BEST technique. While standing in the sunlight, I turned with my back to the sun and took a picture in the shadow of my body. Perfect!

I think this may have been enough to get me into a positive mood about polish again. I'm not going to worry about Rejuvicote or my peelies or fancy mani ideas. I'm just going to wear my pretties. And I'm going to use this technique of standing in the sun but taking the picture in my shadow. It'll be great.

Oh yeah. As for the polish itself. It's a small flakie in a sheer pink, almost duochrome base. It's obviously meant to be layered over something else, but I like it on its own. It's conservative and pretty, and while I don't love it, it was nice enough to make me want to give nail polish another go, even when I was frustrated with it.

Warm and Fozzie

OPI Warm and Fozzie (Muppets collection)

I spent a week on vacation and did not take care of my nails at all. So, here's what it looks like when that happens. This first picture is kind of a mess, but it shows the color most accurately.

It's still a bit cold out, despite being almost April, and I had one more winter color in my untrieds I wanted to put on before I dive headfirst into pastels next week.

Warm and Fozzie was totally not what I expected. It's a complicated color, but if I had to explain it, I might say that it's a coppery brown / gold duo-chrome with specks of red and green micro-shimmer. It's also a lot more sheer than expected. This is two thin coats. I definitely could have layered on more, but I didn't care enough. I like sheer polishes, but I'm not really feeling this one. It's super pretty irl and would probably be even nicer if layered thicker, it's just not for me.

Mint Stars

Pure Ice Mint Dream
Wet n Wild Star of the Show (Fast Dry Line)

Wear: Two days (Slight tip wear that wasn't a problem, but when one of the stars curled, it frustrated me until I removed it, leaving small bare area. I could have left it for another day, but I got excited about trying something new.)

Pure Ice is one of my least favorite brands. They make a lot of frosty colors, and frosty polishes are streaky and finicky. I got Mint Dream from a friend, though, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Mint Dream is a green duo-chrome that would probably be best over a solid creme. Not knowing that ahead of time and wanting my usual sheer break after a few days of wearing a creme, I tried it by itself. And man, it's pretty boring, actually. The formula and application were really smooth, I just wish there was a little more to it.

I wanted a top coat to spruce it up and found one I hadn't shown here yet. Star of the Show, in truth, should be named, "Fishing for Stars," because that's all I ever do with it. Even the bar glitter isn't very prominent! Meh. A lame top coat for a lame polish. Better luck next time!

Mint Dream and Star of the Show can both be found currently at Walgreens or Walmart for about $2, if you were so inclined to pick them up, but there are much better things you could buy instead.

Update: It's grown a little on me throughout the day. The green isn't really a pretty green, in my opinion, but it's unique. The pictures really don't show the color. I think I'm just not a fan of duo-chrome finish, but this polish is fine enough. Well, I like it enough that I'll wear it until it chips rather than removing it tonight, so that's saying something!