Acetone Files: Shoot for the Maroon + chevron manicure
Acetone Files
October 4, 2012
Nicole Shoot for the Maroon
I bought and tried my first Nicole (by OPI) this weekend, and I have to say I love it! I rather irrationally avoided this brand for a while because I mistakenly thought they were made by the Kardashians. Actually, the K-abusers just have a line within Nicole (which is full of bad puns btw). The rest are totally clean of spoiled-rich scuz. I'm sad I waited this long!
The one thing that bugs me about OPI is their Walmart- and Target-exclusives. Shoot for the Maroon turns out to be a Walmart exclusive, while the other shade I really want from this season's collection, Just Busta Mauve (lemminged from Chalkboard Nails), is a Target exclusive. Making me run around to two different stores to find the shades I want. Psh.
Review: The cool thing about this formula is that all the elements come together to create a general reddish-purple maroon effect, but there's a lot going on within it. The actual acetone base seems to be the most dark maroon part of it, while the glitter has rusty red and gold notes as well as purple. It's a beautifully-crafted formula, but difficult to do justice in photos. It looks red in some lights, and bright purple in others. I managed to get a really great closeup of the bottle this time. Your welcome. On a related note, Just Busta Mauve is NOT true to the bottle graphic at all, which shows more of a lilac-y color, and it seems to vary wildly in swatches (from goldish to bluish), so you know it's a complex brew. Makes me all the more excited to pick up a bottle in person and examine it! Anyhoo, finally, the texture is perfect. The glitter comes out smooth to the touch, just like Zoya, and not sandpapery like Fingerpaints (grrrr), and the base is the perfect consistancy. The only downside is the price, a whopping $7, but esp, it seems, when it comes to glitter, you get what you pay for. A
Nicole Shoot for the Maroon + Ulta Little Black Dress
I had the urge to pair this with another glitter and try a pattern, and stumbled upon the chevron. I remembered the Ulta I'd been dying to try, since its subtle shimmer perfectly matched the maroon, both in a cool accent color and in glitter content.
How I did it:
It was a little challenging because I wanted to alternate positive and negative space with the chevrons and the base color, so since I already had my base of all Nicole, I had to alternate positive and negative chevrons on each nail. Let me explain it differently: On the nails where I have a marron chevron, I just had to cut an address label into a chevron and paint over the rest of the nail with Ulta LBD. But the nails I wanted a black chevron, I had to cut out a point and a V, making a blank space in the middle of my nail where the chevron was, and paint over that. If I started from scratch, I'd probably want to alternate the maroon and black base coats to begin with, so all I had to do was paste on chevrons and alternate the second coat. Anyway, as usual, a shiny coat of Seche Vite pastes it all together.
Anyway I love the Ulta too - it's just as smooth. I'm going to do LBD alone at some point, I promise. By the way, I just noticed the interior of the Ulta brush caps are blue. Neat!
October 4, 2012
Nicole Shoot for the Maroon
I bought and tried my first Nicole (by OPI) this weekend, and I have to say I love it! I rather irrationally avoided this brand for a while because I mistakenly thought they were made by the Kardashians. Actually, the K-abusers just have a line within Nicole (which is full of bad puns btw). The rest are totally clean of spoiled-rich scuz. I'm sad I waited this long!
The one thing that bugs me about OPI is their Walmart- and Target-exclusives. Shoot for the Maroon turns out to be a Walmart exclusive, while the other shade I really want from this season's collection, Just Busta Mauve (lemminged from Chalkboard Nails), is a Target exclusive. Making me run around to two different stores to find the shades I want. Psh.
Review: The cool thing about this formula is that all the elements come together to create a general reddish-purple maroon effect, but there's a lot going on within it. The actual acetone base seems to be the most dark maroon part of it, while the glitter has rusty red and gold notes as well as purple. It's a beautifully-crafted formula, but difficult to do justice in photos. It looks red in some lights, and bright purple in others. I managed to get a really great closeup of the bottle this time. Your welcome. On a related note, Just Busta Mauve is NOT true to the bottle graphic at all, which shows more of a lilac-y color, and it seems to vary wildly in swatches (from goldish to bluish), so you know it's a complex brew. Makes me all the more excited to pick up a bottle in person and examine it! Anyhoo, finally, the texture is perfect. The glitter comes out smooth to the touch, just like Zoya, and not sandpapery like Fingerpaints (grrrr), and the base is the perfect consistancy. The only downside is the price, a whopping $7, but esp, it seems, when it comes to glitter, you get what you pay for. A
Nicole Shoot for the Maroon + Ulta Little Black Dress
I had the urge to pair this with another glitter and try a pattern, and stumbled upon the chevron. I remembered the Ulta I'd been dying to try, since its subtle shimmer perfectly matched the maroon, both in a cool accent color and in glitter content.
How I did it:
It was a little challenging because I wanted to alternate positive and negative space with the chevrons and the base color, so since I already had my base of all Nicole, I had to alternate positive and negative chevrons on each nail. Let me explain it differently: On the nails where I have a marron chevron, I just had to cut an address label into a chevron and paint over the rest of the nail with Ulta LBD. But the nails I wanted a black chevron, I had to cut out a point and a V, making a blank space in the middle of my nail where the chevron was, and paint over that. If I started from scratch, I'd probably want to alternate the maroon and black base coats to begin with, so all I had to do was paste on chevrons and alternate the second coat. Anyway, as usual, a shiny coat of Seche Vite pastes it all together.
Anyway I love the Ulta too - it's just as smooth. I'm going to do LBD alone at some point, I promise. By the way, I just noticed the interior of the Ulta brush caps are blue. Neat!