Minced mermaids!

Back when I was getting acrylics (which I wore for 3+ years!) OPI’s Catch Me In Your Net was my favourite shade in my nail tech’s collection. The first time I wore it I excitedly told her it looked like minced up mermaids, and the name stuck. So a few months ago I decided to try to buy this shade that was so pivotal in beginning my polish obsession. It’s a teal blue jelly base packed full of blue and green micro-glitter and gold foil flakes. Super glittery and eye-catching. I wore this mani about a month ago (am playing catch-up).

The problem was that Catch Me In Your Net is a limited edition and near impossible to buy. Occasionally you can find it for $$ on ebay. Yeah nah. So I did some searching and discovered that it is but one of many dupes (a then-unknown term to me). There is OPI Catch Me In Your Net, Zoya Charla (the original I believe), Orly Halley’s Comet, Essence Choose Me!, Jesse’s Girl Glee, Accessorize Mermaid, NYX Girls Sea of Cortez, and a near-dupe in Wet n Wild Teal of Fortune. So, lots of choices and a lesson in looking for dupes if you have your eye on a hard to get or expensive shade made by one particular brand. I ended up buying NYX Girls Sea of Cortez from BeautyJoint.com (misnamed here as Sea of Glitter, but the polish code is NGP200).

Two of many... (Sea of Cortez is on the left and the right.) Image source.

I was very chuffed! One of my original favourite shades, for a fraction of the limited OPI price! They’re identical and the NYX Girls formula is just as easy to work with. And the price difference? Well let’s just say Sea of Cortez set me back US$1.99 (excluding shipping with other polishes). I layered 2 coats of it over China Glaze Liquid Leather (black) to give it a slightly darker background flash at the edges of the nail than it usually has. It works great as a layering polish in general as well as becoming fully opaque in 2 to 3 coats. The finish is very foil-like and is easily smoothed out with a couple of layers of top coat. I fell in love with it all over again!

Bright indoor halogen lighting.

Deliberately blurred to show the glitter flashes.

Bumblebee Nails

Some summery nails today. My husband says they remind him of the transformer Bumblebee (original not Michael Bay, he adds) so we’ll go with that. These are polishes I bought from BeautyJoint. I will get around to showing you swatches of what I bought but for now I can say that I was very pleased with my shopping experience.

The colours for this manicure were Kleancolor Concrete Gray and Pearl Silver, and NYX Girls My Sunshine. I found Concrete Gray and Pearl Silver to be a bit thick and difficult to neatly apply, the grey particularly so. I’ll be adding a few drops of polish thinner to both. The grey creme has a blueish tint and comes up distinctly dark grey as in the bottle, rather than drying to almost-black. The silver is a standard silver foil that can show brushstrokes if you’re not careful, and has a slightly blackened shine toward the sides of the nail. My Sunshine is a summery yellow creme that shows mustard in some lights, which I love. It has a thinner formula and is a 3 to 4 coater. Most yellows are at least slightly frustrating and patchy to apply so this isn’t anything particularly unusual, but it does mean that this won’t be a polish I use frequently.

Sunlight indoors. True to colour.

I am now the happy owner of a bottle of Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat (also from BeautyJoint) so drying time was significantly shorter. It also seems to smooth out any small lumps. Seche Vite contains toluene which I know many people avoid, but it doesn’t bother me (though it does have a strong odor). It does what it says on the label and has a really glossy finish. Kleancolor polishes are also pretty foul-smelling in general, particularly the holos (the holos are headache material). They might smell like Beelzebub’s own arsehole but it fades as the polish dries, and I like Kleancolor‘s range.

Stats: base coat of Orly Top 2 Bottom, 3 coats My Sunshine (4 on thumbs), coat of Seche Vite before taping, coat of Concrete Gray, coat of Seche Vite before taping, coat of Pearl Silver, top coat of Seche Vite. I’m never the person to talk to about wear time as I change my nails every 3 to 4 days, but no chips so far.

Left (dominant) thumb.