Americana

Another set of pictures wilting in the archives were of my Fourth of July manicure. For the holiday, I took a last minute trip to the Smoky Mountains and Nantahala River for some countryside views and relaxation along with a bit of outdoor activities.

I wanted to rejuvinate the classic red, white, and blue palette with a little bit of shimmer and flakie firework action.  The blue nails were Orly Royal Navy with two layers of China Glaze White Cap on top to serve as a play on the flag’s star field.  The red accent nail was China Glaze Ruby Pumps with Barielle Elle’s Spell on top for depth and fire.  I’m pretty sure I was rocking the high gloss Seche Vite top coat at this point in time as well.

Amusingly enough, the white cap polish had a deeper meaning as there were crests of swirling white on the river rapids…enough that they assisted in capsizing our small two person inflatable raft at the end of our river run.  I took these pictures after the incident while recovering from the adrenaline rush with an icy cold red, white, and blue themed American beer.  So the tipwear was probably a direct result of clawing at the upside-down raft that had flipped entirely on top of me while trying to assume a safe whitewater swimmers position to avoid getting bashed into rocks.  Considering there was minimal tipwear, I’m giving the polish performance a good grade.

I can’t say that I have ever really considered myself much of a “country girl,” but I have been out there before and I have really enjoyed my time there because there’s just a unique soul to the surroundings that I can appreciate.  This was outside of a quintessential river haunt, a shack called Pizza By the River which serves up some tasty pizza.  Most importantly, it serves it up where you can literally sit and eat it on the river rocks and wade your feet in the stream if you’d like.  They also have great little bonfires going in the evening as the river starts to kick up a thick mist on the surface.  Sometimes there seems to be banjo music drifting down the river as well that just makes the whole environment come together.

Femme Couture Lip Luster in Angel Kisses Swatches & Thoughts

I picked up Femme Couture Lip Luster in Angel Kisses on clearance and Sally’s about a month ago for $3.99 and it seems that this as well as other colors in the line are still available online here and in some store locations.  What was interesting enough for me to pick this up is that it’s a flakie lip gloss, and who doesn’t enjoy looking at flakies?

Yet, flakies on lips?  Does that read as well as on nails?

Angel Kisses is 0.11 oz of clear gloss base full of glitter and sprinkled with flakies with a brush wand applicator.

precocious purple.

I was searching for something really bright to pair with a nice layer of Nubar 2010 flakies, and decided I was pretty freshly intrigued with Essie’s perky purple. The idea of a neon purple itself is sort of perplexing since to get that buzzy neon saturation it seems like a purple is going to end up leaning pink in hue, and this was no exception.  In fact these images ended up looking quite a bit more pink than I felt they did in real life, but that is because the sun really brought out the pink brightness of the color.  Still, it’s a lot more interesting and a bit of a chameleon than a standard pink neon would be.

As neons tend to do, this color ends up quite matte on the nail, but with a layer of Nubar 2010 and Poshe topcoat, it obviously ended up quite glossy.  On the other hand, the wear on this was deplorable.  This is actually the second attempt at this manicure merely for the purpose of taking pictures of it.  Both times I had giant chips in the polish that began hours after application.  I used my trusty basecoat and everything and have never had a problem to this extent with any of my other polishes.  I don’t know if it’s the fact that it’s matte or Essie or both or a bad combo with everything, but the wear was really awful which is a shame since it’s such a nice combination and I’m rather fond of the uniqueness of the color.

The combination of the firey flakies which shift from deep orange to yellowish green on the bright neon background made me think of the playfulness of graffiti and the flaking layers of paint, so that became my setting for this polish.  You can see how the flakies come alive even more in the shade as they catch and bend the subtle moments of light revealing their full rainbow capabilities.  If you can catch it all the way at an angle, the green really shines through.  It’s quite a fun manicure to stare at.  Too bad it doesn’t stick around for very long!