Before & After: Ludurana Fascinante (or, Subtle Sari)

Hello!!

Today's prompt is 'stamping'! As this is where my heart lies when it comes to nail art, the technique I love best, I wanted to do a simple stamping mani that shows how beautiful this technique can be even when it's done in the most fast and simple way. This mani literally took me under 5 minutes, once the base polish was dry, of course. :)

I started with a base of Ludurana Fascinante, a beautiful multichrome that goes through shades of reddish-purple, orange-brown, gold, and even a bit of olive green:

Ludurana Fascinante in the shade

Just...wow.

Ludurana Fascinante in the sun

Then I stamped over it using Konad Gold polish, and Cheeky plate D:

Okay, I know that's a lot of pictures, but how I couldn't help myself. This manicure reminds me of a beautiful sari, and makes me feel like a princess in a Bollywood movie. I love it love it love it love it--and it took next to no time to just stamp.

This is what I love about stamping--you can get beautiful images with incredible detail in no time flat, and precisely replicate them on each nail if you like, or vary them somewhat, as I did here. Even if I had the ability to do this by hand, which I SO don't, it would probably take hours. And anyone can stamp with a little bit of practice and after watching a couple of YouTube videos, lol.

Anyway, thanks for looking and I hope you like it. Please check out the other stamped manis, linked below.

Xoxox,
M.

Dupe Or NO Dupe: Ludurana Show Vs. Essence Where's The Party?

Hello!!

Okay, this time I know why my post previously didn't have the writing. So if you came before and saw only the pictures, I apologize! But I know what the problem is now.

Today I'm going to compare Ludurana Show and Essence Where's The Party for you. This is potentially an important Dupe-off, because one of these is very expensive and relatively hard to find and the other one isn't!

First, let's look at them in the bottle. On the left is Essence Where's The Party, and on the right is Ludurana Show:

In direct sunlight, they look very much alike; in the indirect light, they look a little bit different. Close...Now let's take a look at them on the nail.

First, here are the two colors with no underwear. Essence is on the left, Ludurana on the right, in all pictures:

Now, here they are over Wet n Wild Everyone Hates Chris:

And finally, all playing nicely together (Essence, Ludurana over black; Essence, Ludurana alone):

Definitely NO DUPE. While these polishes are both gorgeous multichromes, they are not identical. Ludurana  shows more blue-purple, while Essence shows more purple-green. So while these were close enough in the bottle to get me excited, they are definitely not really even close enough to make you happy if you really want the other one. I think they're both must-haves for polish fanatics like me. :)

Thanks for looking, and I hope to have an MSMD for you later today. :)

M.

Review and NOTD: Ludurana Admiravel

Hello!

Earlier this week I showed you a manicure that used the saran-wrap technique to make a pretty background texture on the nail, and I promised you I'd do a separate post on the base polish. I did that because Ludurana Admiravel is so pretty it really needs a picture-heavy post all its own to explore all of its multichrome magic.

It's not surprising that I think yet another Ludurana multichrome has caught my eye, nor is it surprising that they did a great job with this one once again. Admiravel is a green-purple-brown-rose multichrome that shows 2-3 colors in a given type of light, but shows very different colors in different lights--this is a bit different from some others that just show more/less intense versions of the same color sets.

Unfortunately, I was not able to capture all of these on camera, but I will walk you through what I can't show you. :) All of these pictures are three coats over bare nails; These colors would be more intense if layered over a dark polish, and you'd need fewer coats.

First of all, in shade, Admiravel is a grassy green that goes a bit darker at the edges, and has a brown flash in the center, as you can see here:

Ludurana Admiravel in the shade

Ludurana Admiravel in the shade, downward angle

If you look at the first picture above, you can see a brown flash with a little rose flash in the center of it, near the white reflection areas in the polish. When Admiravel is in intense direct sunlight, the polish is that color brown almost completely, with a strong rose flash in the middle, and olive green at the edges. I couldn't capture this on film, so you'll have to trust me. :)

When the light is a little less direct in the shade, or when indoors, the green becomes a little more intense, and starts to get purple at the edges:

Ludurana shade

Ludurana shade downward angle

When indoors, the green and purple become extremely vibrant, much more so than even the picture above. :)

When in a less intense direct sunlight, the green becomes a little darker, and the whole polish becomes glittery:

I love that this polish seems to shift palates completely depending on the intensity of the light. With more scattered light intensity (like morning light), you get grassy greens and purples, with some light browns. With more intense light (like afternoon light) you get olive greens and browns with rose.

As a last comment, I have to say that of all the Luduranas I've tried, I'm least impressed with the opacity of this one. Even with three coats, you can almost see bald spots in my last picture, with the direct light coming down at a straight angle. I don't think I'll wear this alone again, but will put it over a dark polish, and that's the first time I've felt that's necessary with a Ludurana.

Also, this reminds me of Nubar's Wildlife, but I remember that one being browner. I can do a comparison post if anybody wants me to...:)

Thanks for taking the time to stop by!

M.

MSMD Monday: Saran Wrap nails

Hello!!!

I am very excited today about my MSMD because I was finally able to try out a technique that has intrigued me for quite some time. I've seen a couple of manicures done with the saran wrap technique, but it was one done by Manicurity that finally sent me over the edge. You can see the original manicure here.; I really love the colors she chose and the texture was visible enough to get me thinking.

I started with a mystery base polish that I'll feature in its own post later in the week; it's a duochrome that shifts from green to purple to olive to brown to rose. Green is the predominant color, and purpple is the second most common, so I decided to play up this combination.

I chose Sally Hansen Lovely Lilac for the saran wrap portion of the manicure. If you don't know this technique, it's extremely easy. Take a drop of polish and put it on a piece of paper or a piece of plastic. Take a ball of scrunched up saran wrap, and dip it into that drop of polish. Then tap it on the paper or plastic a few times to get off the excess polish and spread the polish out a bit. Then gently tap onto your nails. Start gently--you can always tap again, but can't take it away if there's too much. Here's how mine came out:

(sorry for the messed up cuticles! I tried to re-take the pictures after cleaning them up but for some reasons the colors in that second set came out washed out.)

In the sun

Up close in the sun to show the texture :)

It was pretty on its own, but it clearly needed something. So, I busted out mah Konad m60 and stamped some pretty little green flowers with Sally Hansen Lickety-Split Lime, and used a dotting tool and SH Pronto Purple to make the centers of the flowers. I Seche Vited it up, and was good to go!

This is one of those manicures that no matter how I tried, I couldn't capture it well on camera...the duochrome and sparkle of the underlying polish played really well with the creme finishes of the texture and stamping. It comes through a bit in the sun pictures, but is so much nicer in real life (I'm still wearing it, couldn't bear to take it off yet to do tomorrow's challenge!)

I really love the texture you get from this technique. It's quick, easy, and doesn't use much polish. As you can see from my first picture, it doesn't mess up your cuticles anymore than regular stamping does most of the time (Hey...yeah...*that's* why I left the cuticle mess there, so I could show you how not messy it is...yeah, yeah, that's it!). This one is definitely going into my repertoire of often-used techniques--you can expect to see it again soon!

Hope you enjoyed it, and thanks for stopping by. Don't forget to check out the other MSMD manicures done by the lovely ladies of CNTs, linked below!

M.

NOTD: Ludurana Show (or, Thank God for Brazilians!)

Hello!

At the end of Eat, Pray, Love, Julia Roberts says 'Thank God for Brazilians'. She was referring to the man she had fallen in love with, but I think she just as easily could have been referring to Brazilian nail polishes, which, in my opinion, are some of the most spine-tinglingly beautiful polishes in existence.

I don't know how they do it. There must be some magic ingredient that can only be harvested there, perhaps some magic essence left over from all of the beautiful women celebrating during Carnival. Whatever it is, I approve.

To support my claims, I give you Ludurana's Show, from their Aurora Boreal collection:

To say that Show is a dark violet/dark teal duochrome is correct, but not fully accurate. Sometimes you see a more true blue, sometimes a pinker fuschia. Unlike some duochromes where you mostly see only one color at a time, it's very difficult to see fewer than two colors at once with this polish, and usually you see more than that. This is a beauty in all lights and at all angles. And the colors are even deeper and more saturated than they appear here.

In all of these pictures, on my ring finger I have one coat of Show over one coat of China Glaze's Concrete Catwalk (a dark gray), and on the rest I have two coats of Show alone. You definitely don't have to layer this over a dark color for the beauty to show through, but it does look a bit more intense if you do. I will probably wear it over black or dark gray on all my nails in the future, if only because I only need to use one coat of it that way--more manicures for me from my precious bottle!!!!

This shows the many colors you see at once. :)

Here you can see the difference between the polish with and without an undercoat

I think it's safe to say this is my new favorite polish (admittedly, my 'favorite polish' list is growing...but this is exceptional even among that group). About 90% of me is really bummed that most of the rest of this collection is currently out of stock at Ninja, and the other 10% is...my bank account, lol. :)

So what do you do to a polish that is already stunning? How do you improve on a near-perfect multichrome? What else?! You Spectraflair it!!

After a few days of wearing it on its own, I put some of my Spectraflair topcoat over it. Here is the result:

Spectraflair all the duochromes!

Turns out, this did not go too well. The SF did give it a holo effect, as you can see, but it also diminished the intensity of the colors and the multichrome effect. It's still lovely, just different. And with the new color and style, I decided I wanted a little stamping on it, too...I used plate Drk-A to stamp on it with Pure Ice Lively Lilac on my ring finger, and Sally Hansen Insta-Dry in Grape Going! on my other fingers:

Duochrome-holo-stamped version

A little holo for ya!

The Grape Going is very close to the new color of the polish, so it shows, but very subtly, and more depending on the light (as you can see above). The New Lilac shows much more dramatically, giving the look a nice contrast. The whole look ended up with a surreal mermaid-like feel to it. :)

Thanks for looking!

M.