OPI Sonic Bloom + koi pond leadlighting

By -
I don't remember who or where or what pointed me in the general direction of OPI's Sonic Bloom, but you, anonymous hero(ine) of the internet, are fabulous.

indoor, CF lighting
Sonic Bloom was from the 2005 Brights collection, and that it certainly is.  It has a somewhat sheer, sorta watery formula (reminiscent of Austin-tatious Turquoise), only it was magically close enough to opaque at just 2 coats, and only flooded my cuticles a little bit.  It's a beautiful summer-sky blue, with this killer acid green flash on top.

The interwebs recently tipped me off to the magic of NanaCoco Love Black as the ultimate black stamping polish, and I'd just received a passel of sheer jellies for leadlighting, so this ocean became a koi pond, using Bundle Monster plate BP-725.

indoor, office fluorescents
DAAAAAAAYYYYUM.  Love Black rocketed beyond expectations.  Perfectly opaque, supremely easy to work with (doesn't dry so fast you have to be The Flash, doesn't smear all over the place with top coat), and wicked cheap.  It's a huge winner.  While wearing just the blue with the stamping, I discovered that the already stunning green flash actually turned bright pink at angles:  woohoo, surprise duochrome!

outdoor, bright sunlight.  pink was even MORE pink IRL.
Then I used a dotting tool to dab in a little of OPI Landscape Artist (grassy green), Essie Muse Myself (butterscotch yellow) and Essie Highest Bidder (wine red) to fill in the solid black outlines, like painting stained glass.

outdoor, overcast daylight for all below


BAM.  Leadlighting is supremely easy - this was my first attempt, and the coloring-in part of things took maybe 10 minutes total for both hands.  Just dab a heavy drop of each color onto your work surface (plastic bag, aluminum foil, silicone mat, whatever), and use that as the source to replenish your dotting tool - much easier than opening and closing each bottle a number of times.

Rating:  Sonic Bloom is a fantastic color and gets a solid 4 out of 5 stars.  It wore rather well, too, considering what a sheer jellyish formula it has.

Where to buy:  this one is of course long discontinued, so shop ebay or Amazon.  Ebay also hooked me up with the Essie and OPI sheers at about half the retail price.

~Michelle

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Topcoat battle! HK Girl VS Pro-FX quick dry!

By -
Image
I'm sure that every polish geek has a half a handful (or plenty more) topcoats - I myself have my go-to quick dry, a thicker one for chunky or unsmooth finishes, some back-up "lesser" quick drys, and a matte.  Having that many, though, honestly means we're all still looking for MORE! For a couple of years now, my holy grail TC has been HK Girl.  I'd been pretty happy with INM Out the Door for a year or so, but HKG dries much faster to a harder (aka more chip-resistant) finish, so I made that switch around the time we started blogging here.  I've never had the love affair with Seche that plenty do - it seems more stinky to me and I get shrinkage often enough to have never bought more after my first 99 cent mini of it.  I've seen a few blog posts mentioned some behemoth from WalMart, and remembered to pick up a bottle when driven to the commercial den of iniquity by a wild goose chase for multichrome notebooks, which brings us to... Topcoat Battle!!!!
Read more

ILNP Masquerade & Comparison

By -
Image
Every time I Love Nail Polish releases another batch of their multichromes, my wallet is going to take a little hit.  Their formula is always great, but the colors .  OMG, I die with these super shifters.  From the most recent release, my first pick was Masquerade.  Ginormously pic-heavy post in 3...2...1... Masquerade is a very sheer charcoal grey base packed with magically light-bending pigment that goes from a rich magenta-wine color, through a lighter pink, then bronze, on its way to a vibrantly saturated emerald green.  It took 3 coats to get it to visible opacity, of the sort where it can look sheer if you hold your fingernails up to the light.  Though it's most often a metallic to slightly brush-strokey chrome, in the sunlight, a sparkly shimmer peeks out. outdoor, bright sunlight The color range can be soft and muted: ok, "muted" for something like this, anyway.  outdoor, overcast/cloudy day It can be mostly wine: outdoor, overcast daylight
Read more

China Glaze Pearl Jammin' + comparison

By -
Image
For my first new mani of this year, I went straight for one that was on so many people's best of 2016 lists, China Glaze Pearl Jammin'.  This lovely lady sold out super quick, and for a while was going for INSANE prices on ebay, but I found one at normal retail price on Amazon. indoor, bright CF lighting for both Pearl Jammin' is a greyed sky-blue base packed with warm coppery shimmer that's thankfully just as beautifully flashy on the nail as it is in the bottle.  The formula is a little squirrely, the sort that's both slightly too thin and yet dries so fast that it gets gummy if you go over the same area twice.   3 coats are needed for even coverage with the sorta thin/sheer formula, but that's the price to pay for having the shimmer this bright, and all minor irregularities smooth out perfectly with a layer of topcoat.  I stamped my accent nails with the cute dreamcatcher image on BM-407 using Hit the Bottle Copper Haired Girl. Then we promptly had
Read more