NOTD: Essie Orange, It's Obvious + Cult Nails Captivated

This is a manicure from "The Vault" aka my Google+ Instant Upload Photos that otherwise never see the light of day. I wore it last summer and with summer right around the corner, I figured it was an appropriate combination to share!

Essie, Orange It's Obvious - This is a beautiful and vibrantly opaque orange shade from Essie's Navigate Her Spring 2012 Collection. It is a brignt punchy tangerine orange creme opaque in 2 easy coats. If I was careful, I could do 1 thicker coat too, but 2 made sure there no bald spots on my nail. Make sure you've got 2 layers of basecoat on underneath this because it stains like a mf'er otherwise! I learned my lesson on that the hard way. When worn by itself, it dries to an extremely high-gloss finish, but I like to put on topcoat just to protect it from tipwear and chipping.

Cult Nails, Captivated - I usually adore Captivated coupled with Cult Nails, Scandalous - it's like the two were made for each other. Whether I actually mix the polishes together and apply them as one, layer them, or even create a jelly sandwich, Cult Nails Captivated + Scandalous are soulmates. I was craving something more bold (Scandalous is a jelly finish so it gives everything a more soft and dainty appearance), so I layered just one coat of Captivated over Orange, It's Obvious for the above look. 

Captivated itself is also a jelly polish with a coral base, and can be built up to nearly-full opacity on its own. It will lean a lot more coral/red when worn alone as compared to the manicure above. The formula is chock full of gold and coral glitter, and the jelly finish gives it a little bit of a pinkish translucency around the edges when worn without undies. 2 coats give you a squishy semi-opaque look and three will cover you right up. 

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I am defiinitely planning on wearing Captivated a lot more with the weather getting better though! I'm so bored of wearing OPI Tickle My France-y to work, even though I do love it. It's work-appropriate but OH SO BORING to people used to neon glittery nails by now lol.


UPDATE/DUPE ALERT - Icing, Tiger's Blood ($4.50) - Check out ThePolishAholic's post here for pictures and things!

NOTD - Jelly Sandwich Daisies

Hi guys! Still working on swatching up the Essie Yogaga collection. Once I do that, I'll have giveaway all set!!

In the meantime, here's a manicure I wore last week :) It was rather BEAUTIFUL!!

I wore the following -

OPI Care to Danse
OPI Pirouette My Whistle
Amy's Nail Boutique - Daisy 

AMY'S POLISHES CAN BE PURCHASED VIA HER ETSY SHOP BY CLICKING HERE!

The OPI nail polishes are from the OPI Ballet collection, and they're beautiful! Care to Danse is a sheer grey jelly and Pirouette is a super sparkly silver/holo topcoat. Reminds me of one of the OPI Glam Slam polishes that I can't remember the name of. It's also very similar to a Revlon glitter. I don't have them but I might try to get my hands on em to prove that they are dupes! Or discover that they aren't.

It's a beautiful layering combination, I'll tell you that!

I wore 1 coat of Care to Danse, 1 of Pirouette My Whistle, and 1 more of Care to Danse. I wore that for a day but it got very boring/girly for me really quickly. It was really pretty but it was too monotone. To spice it up, I added on 1 coat of Daisy - Amy's Nail Boutique

Take a look at the gorgeousness!!

I wasn't going to take a picture due to tipwear of the original jelly sandwich, but wanted to show you how Daisy looks. Bear with me, ignore the cuticles, and enjoy the glitter!

Indoors, artificial light!

Outdoors light!

See the buried white hexes that are smaller than the white in Amy's Daisy? Those are from OPI Pirouette My Whistle sandwiched between OPI Care to Danse. Trust me, this was a spectacular effect in person.

I know, I've been featuring a lot of indie nail polishes, but that's alright...I'm linking you to where the polishes are and enabling them!!

Next up is another F4 polish, Pink Penguin. After that, I'll begin a polish series of Horoscope-based nail polishes you can ogle over and appreciate it! I'm wearing Aries on my nails right now...once I get through a few of them, I'll begin posting them here! I don't want to leave you hanging so I want to make sure I have enough "nail material" ready!

Alrighty, thank you for reading!! I hope you're looking forward to the upcoming manicures as much as I am!