Experimental Layering - China Glaze Fortune Teller and Pahlish Bony Fingers

China Glaze Fortune Teller with Pahlish Bony Fingers

I was just playing around with a couple of my older polishes when I came up with this effect. Both are glitter polishes with black jelly bases; Fortune Teller has copper glitter and Bony Fingers white, silver and holographic glitters in various sizes. Both of the polishes also have a halloween theme, so probably a weird choice for April, but I don't think anyone should let the names of colours dictate when they are worn! China Glaze Fortune Teller was from their 2009 Halloween Collection; just for completeness, here is Scrangie's review and pictures of Fortune Teller when it was first released. Palish Bony Fingers was released for Halloween 2012, and is also discontinued now.

I started a mani with Fortune Teller, but I thought it needed something of a 'highlight' so I decided I would layer Bony Fingers through it. I did one coat of Fortune Teller, one coat of Bony Fingers then another coat of Fortune Teller. Fortune Teller must have a thicker black base than Bony Fingers, because the second coat of Fortune Teller almost drowned out the white, silver and holo glitters. Not a problem; I just added a further coat of Bony Fingers. A coat of Gelous and a thick coat of Seche Vite smoothed the whole lot out.

Here are some pictures at various angles and lights that show how well the glitters work together.

China Glaze Fortune Teller with Pahlish Bony Fingers

 I always think it's more fun to combine polishes and come up with something unique than just to wear polish straight from the bottle!

China Glaze Fortune Teller with Pahlish Bony Fingers

GOSH Early Green with Pahlish Marbles on Glass

GOSH Early Green was one of those colours that leapt off the shelf and shouted 'buy me'! I love greens of all sorts, but especially fresh, spring greens. Early Green is lighter and fresher than Rescue Beauty Lounge Abiquiu and more yellow than Illasmaqua Smash, which are two of my favourite greens in this part of the spectrum. I'm too lazy to do a comparison swatch right now, but MishMreow has a really helpful comparison of GOSH Early Green with Illamasqua Smash and Radium.

Although Early Green is awesome on its own, I really wanted an abstract, glittery mani today, so I decided I'd pair it with a fairly complex black glitter, Pahlish Marbles on Glass. Marbles on Glass has black glitters of various sizes in every shape I can think of (hexagonal, round, square and bar), and some tiny colour-shifting iridescent glitters which glint blue and green at certain angles. And just for an extra bit of fun, I fished out a few red matt glitter squares from another polish to add an extra highlight to some of my nails. The inspiration for these colours is my Madagascan Giant Day Gecko - he is about the same colour as GOSH Early Green and has random red markings (many pictures of giant day geckos!)

Here's the finished result; this blurry, kind of abstract picture shows how the iridescent glitters catch the light and really sparkle:

 GOSH Early Green with Pahlish Marbles on Glass

This is what it looks like most of the time:

 GOSH Early Green with Pahlish Marbles on Glass

This is two coats of Pahlish Marbles on Glass. The base of this polish is pretty thick, and the glitter is dense, so a dabbing sort of application is needed and after applying the glitter the surface of my nails was quite rough and lumpy. To apply the red highights, I just picked the glitters I wanted from the the stem of the polish  brush with a fine (cheap) nylon paintbrush and dabbed them onto my nails. Then two thick coats of Gelous and a coat of Seche Vite to smooth everything out.

GOSH Early Green is far too nice not to include pictures of it on its own before the glitter. This is the first GOSH polish I've used, and I was surprised by how nice the formula is. I was expecting this to be a streaky horror, but it was great at just two coats and Seche Vite!

 GOSH Early Green 

And finally, just to put the colour in context, I'm holding a daffodil bud here - Spring is on the way :)

 GOSH Early Green 

I purchased GOSH Early Green from my local Superdrug yesterday - GOSH  polishes are currently half price (£2.49), but I didn't notice how long the offer was for. I purchased Pahlish Marbles on Glass directly from the maker at her etsy shop; I've had this colour for a while now and I think it may be discontinued.