Brand New Skates + Seche Vite

I couldn’t decide what color I was in the mood for this week, so it ended up being gray. Not just any gray though – OPI’s very glamorous “Brand New Skates”, which I absolutely adore. One to two coats are fairly sheer, but the third coat made this nice and opaque, and the multi-color micro glitter is very sparkly! I added a few purple heart stones for a little “flair”, and called it good.

You’ll have to excuse my messy “clean up” job, and my dry cuticles. The weather took a turn for the worse this weekend, and it feels like all the moisture has been sucked right out of my skin, which partially accounts for my poor cuticles. As for the clean-up – that’s Seche Vite’s fault!
When I ordered from Head to Toe Beauty a couple weeks ago, I needed new top coat. Seche was on sale, and since everyone online simply raves about how wonderful the base coat is, I decided to try both base and top coat. So far, I’m really not sure what all the fuss is about. They both stink – the top coat smells like epoxy, and considering I used three coats (one to set the stones in, two to seal them on), I felt like I was asphyxiating myself. I already have tip wear (seriously, with a base coat, three coats of polish and three coats of top coat), which doesn’t thrill me, and the top coat is positively impossible to get off skin (ie, cuticles) once it dries (which is very fast). I’m finding that the parts I can get off are very brittle, and I’m hoping that’s not what it does to my nail polish (chips, anyone?). So we’ll see, and I’ll use these for now (because I have them), but I’m going back to Zoya base/top coat once these bottles are done.

In any case, I’m in love with this polish color, and I think it will make a super backdrop for spider webs next Halloween too!

Later this week, pics of my haul from “Head to Toe”…