Sonia Kashuk Fairy Princess

Sonia Kashuk Fairy Princess

Fairy Princess is a mint creme with blue shimmer. It is SUCH a pretty polish! I'm actually really surprised that le roommate didn't snatch it from me when I showed it to her. She looooves the color mint, but I guess she has some self-control afterall! :P Anyway, I used 3 coats here. The formula was a bit runny and watery, but otherwise okay. But because of this, the polish kept wanting to flood my cuticles. You should be fine if you're careful with the application though. Fairy Princess dried slowly and definitely needed a coat of topcoat because the shimmer became a bit hidden. I'm not sure why, but there was also some sort of grainy appearance. I bought this from a blog sale so I'm not sure of the original formula. The polish was released last year (I think) so the polish is a bit old, or this bottle could have been from a bad batch. Regardless, I'm very happy to have killed another lemming! The dry time and weird appearance when dried matters not to me!

Regardless of the problems later encountered with the polish, aren't you ecstatic when you kill a lemming? 

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

Butter London The Black Knight

Butter London The Black Knight

The Black Knight contains magenta, blue, red, gold, and silver microglitter in a black jelly base. It's gorgeous in real life, and a lemming my friend helped me fulfill! :D (She totally trolled me when she gave it to me though...) I used 3 coats to build up the jelly base and glitter. I was expecting The Black Knight to be clumpy and sheer, but was happily surprised at how easily it built up and applied. Even some stray brush hairs couldn't hinder the smooth application! The dry time wasn't that bad, but make sure to wait a couple of minutes in between coats or you'll get some dragging. It dried a bit dull and gritty so topcoat is a must! I used two coats of topcoat because it was still a little gritty and not as sparkly with one. 

Don't you guys love it when your lemmings are fulfilled?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

Milani Hipster Plum

Milani Hipster Plum

Hipster Plum is my idea of the perfect plum: a reddish-plum creme that is not so dark that it looks black in low-lighting. I used 2 coats. You guys have nooo idea how long I've been looking for my perfect plum! (Back in high school if you care to know...) Anyway, this is my first Milani polish that is not a glitter polish. I was surprised and delighted to find that the formula was really great! Hipster Plum glided on and dried very shiny. Sadly, it dried slower than the average polish. You can't have it all though! I didn't mind waiting so it wasn't a deal breaker to me. On another note, really? "Hipster"? Why? Makes me think of the below meme and other variants of it:

I'll stop with the memes now (probably). See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips

OPI Kiss Me On My Tulips

Kiss Me On My Tulips is a blue-based pink creme and slightly darker than pictured. I tried to make the photo as color-accurate as possible, but this was the best I could do without making it look too dark. KMOMT was very opaque! It could be a one-coater, if applied more thickly. I didn't want it to bubble or get too thick so I did 2 coats. It had a terrific formula, just like my other OPIs. It was literally a breeze to apply, dried very shiny, and had a good dry time! I know OPI is expensive, but it delivers superb quality!

I've been on a pink kick lately, haven't I? See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

China Glaze Surreal Appeal

China Glaze Surreal Appeal

Surreal Appeal is a neon-ish medium pink creme. In real life, it doesn't look as bright so it's actually quite wearable. When le roommate saw this on me, she said the color reminded her of strawberries. (I assume she meant the inside of a strawberry... Or a radioactive strawberry!) I used 3 thin coats here, but you can get away with 2 thick ones. Surreal Appeal was fluid and easy to apply, had the right thickness, and leveled well. In short, the formula was great! It dried very shiny with average dry time. I dare say you don't need top coat. It's great if you're feeling lazy or usually skip topcoat.

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

Love and Beauty Peach Bud

Love & Beauty Peach Bud

Peach Bud is a warm-toned, pink-leaning peach creme with very subtle silver shimmer. Though you can only see the shimmer in direct light and up close, it still gives the polish a very pretty and delicate appearance. It took 3 coats to become opaque, but you can get away with 2 if you apply thicker coats. It has the same good and solid formula as all of my other Love & Beauty polishes: the right amount of thickness, easy application, and nice shine. I did use Seche Vite though since I was in a hurry. The dry time was average. I find that Love & Beauty has great (and inexpensive!) basic colors and glitters. They've just released some interesting polishes (like the milky-looking base ones with different colored glitter) too!

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

Like A Sir

LIKE A SIR. I love my memes.

In order to celebrate this new start, I've a very fine manicure to show you guys. Granted, it's not my friend's or my best work, but we're proud of it! (Well, I am anyway. I'm not sure how my friend feels about it...) But I digress. Let's move along, shall we?

For this exquisite look, I used China Glaze Westside Warrior (army green), Sinful Colors Snow Me White (white), Sally Hansen Golden-I (gold foil), Butter London The Black Knight (black with beautiful multicolored glitter from the dear friend who helped me), Essie Playa del Platinum (greige), and Sinful Colors Black on Black (black). I topped everything off with Seche Vite Fast Dry Topcoat. We used a dotting tool to make the moustaches and cutepolish's Movember Moustache Nails tutorial. On my other hand, I alternated all the colors except The Black Knight, which I kept on my ring finger.

Lesson of the Day: Moustaches are harder to paint than you think. My friend and I learned the very hard way...

What do you think of this mani?

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

A New Start

Hi guys!

I finally jumped the bullet and reformatted the blog! I've been thinking of doing this for months now (the new blog name and banner somewhat more recently though) and I'm so glad I finally just did it! Originally, the "tm" in the former blog name stood for my now-roommate and my first initials. We were going to do a Japanese subculture (what she likes) and nail polish (what I like) blog, but things fell through and she was too busy and actually not really interested in blogging. (Not hating on her! Just the truth.) "Romance de la Luna", as I've said before, is taken from a romance (Spanish for "ballad") by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer. (It was called "La Romance de la Luna, Luna".) I wanted to avoid any possible legal issues, especially now that my blog will most likely live for at least a few more years. I hope all of you are still here with me! Blogger does not give me the option of redirecting sites. :(

I am looking forward to this new start! :D

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle

P.S. I know there's a kink in my background. I'm working on fixing it ASAP.

Happy New Year! With a Jelly... Cupcake? + Swatches

 

Let's start off this new year with a gobsmacking jelly cupcake!

For this jelly "cupcake", I used the following:

2 coats of Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac as my base

1 "coat" of Spoiled Trust Fund Baby

2 coats of OPI My Pointe Exactly over the glitter

Manicures like these are normally called "jelly sandwiches", but for some reason this concoction reminds me of a pretty, yummy cupcake. So "jelly cupcake" it is! (Lighting was not liking me so the jelly cupcake looks very grey and icky.)

Now that's much better!

Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac

Lacey Lilac is a pretty lilac creme and takes 2 coats to become opaque. Though it's a pastel, there wasn't an overboard of white in its base. It's not chalky at all and very wearable. It had a great formula as it was easy to apply, albeit a little thick. Still very manageable though! It dried with a nice shine and had a good dry time. When I need my pastel fix, I'll turn to this little one. (And my roommate might too since she likes pastels...)

Spoiled Trust Fund Baby

Trust Fund Baby contains small blue, yellow, and black hexes and small magenta square glitter. I tried applying this one in coats, but the glitter went on too sparsely. The dabbing method works best. There's way too much clear base in this so it took a while to dry and bubbled a little. The bubbling wasn't too bad, though, since you could only see it up close. On the plus side, it dried to a smooth finish. Trust Fund Baby, which is part of Spoiled's core collection, is a dupe of the Limited Edition Wet 'n Wild Beautiful But Dangerous. In my err, I bought the Wet 'n Wild from a blog sale, and while waiting for the package and being bombarded by Black Friday online deals, I got this Spoiled online from CVS. It wasn't until I opened the blog sale package that I realized I accidentally got the Spoiled dupe too! (So much for an Excel chart of my collection! ...But more glitter for me!)

See you guys on the other side of the day!

Michelle