China Glaze Reggae To Riches & Cirque Fascination Street

Howdy!

I had this manicure two weeks ago and only managed to post it up now. I have another one pending.. oh my, even blogs have backlogs!

What you see here is China Glaze Reggae To Riches; I knew of this polish last year and was secretly lemming for it. Well, I did it discreetly because I had a long list of to-buys and was distracted by the new collections popping out in seasons. I just didn't have time to look back. Now, when this RTR caught my attention in Star Trinkets, I bought it without hesitation.

I mentioned before, Color Makeup 5 could be a dupe but no, it's not. CM 5 is a fuchsia-near-neon-more-pink-tone with blue flash. CG Reggae To Riches is violet pink with bluish-purple shimmer.

Shown on my nails, 2 coats with topcoat.

Yup, bubbles on them. Bummer! (pun intended!) My instinct told me to blame the polish. Then I sat down dejectedly, because I knew some of the bumps were the result of my rough nail beds. I was one of those kids who bite nails, and continued doing so into my adulthood. I only managed to quit the ugly habit two years ago. By then, no surprises there, my nails are dented with teeth marks. Looks like I gonna rely heavily on ridge-filler from now on! :(

[side-note] When I put RTR on, it reminded me of Nicki Minaj. She's always in violet, pink or fuchsia.. I can't shake off her image from RTR. The hair color and body suit may not be perfect match to RTR, but still... 

I lived with the bumpy manicure for a week. On that Saturday, I made an impulse move by putting Cirque Fascination Street on the tips. It was supposed to be a "gradient" effect. Yea, supposed to. Didn't look like it that way:

A medium shade is missing to create the gradient flow. I didn't have time; I was already running late for appointment. My impulse action sequence began by putting weight from the brush on the tips and light strokes from top to mid-section - all these were done in less than 3 minutes for 10 nails. That's faster than waiting for instant noodles to be ready at the table. Yep, that's instant for you and end results, for a noob like me, produced such bad color-coordinated manicure. HEE, sorry if they are eyesores :)

I owe Cirque Fascination Street a proper introduction. I will do a better NOTW for FS, I promise. In the meantime, check out FS' holographic effect, taken indoors:

Till next time, let's hope for a better manicure!