Tweezers for the free edge, but of course then you've got to run the risk of doinking a nail fishing them out of the medicine cabinet where of course they're located in the BACK in a CUP with other POINTY POKEY implements. And don't grab the pointed tweezer because unless you're dead on accurate you'll spend what seems like forever trying to grasp the effing little tip of the offending fiber, making your eyes go berserk in the process and risking additional ploinks into your carefully wrapped tip. And let's not forget the coup de grace, where the fiber pulls a syrupy dollop of polish along with it when you finally do manage to pluck it from the nail and immediately gloms onto the tweezer.
As for those iniquitous tiny fibrils that silhouette beneath a fresh coat of polish in the middle of the nail, well dealing with them pretty much depends on how risk averse you are at the time. I've met some such incidents with cautious aplomb and others with fury and I can tell you, fury is high risk. Today, I managed to extract one with the help of my clean up brush, the others I painted over. Yes I did.
The end result is a roundly imperfect manicure that I photographed anyway because I have no shame. Even with the slack clean up and flaky nail surrounds... you know how dogs and cats will sometimes stand up and shake and poof, suddenly there's fur all over the place? Well I think I've developed an ability to do this with my fingers and flakes of skin, only without the shaking. I just get worked up about a manicure that's not going particularly well and poof, suddenly there are dry flakes of skin everywhere.
All this was especially annoying because I was working with one of my favorite polishes from China Glaze, Sea Spray. Sea Spray was released as part of the wonderful Anchors Away collection for Spring 2011 and has since become part of the core line. It is a well-pigmented pale creamy blue grey with subtle silvery blue shimmers, soft, elegant and understated. A beautiful, versatile, timeless color with an equally lovely formula, although my nail ridges give it a run for its money. This is one of the most useful layering polishes I own, it's subtle coloring allows it play well with all kinds of glitters and toppers, but greys, blues and silvers especially.
Photos show two medium coats of Sea Spray over Seche Rebuild and Butter London Nail Foundation. Sea Spray dries naturally to a glossy shine, and I added a topcoat of Seche Vite because after all the fiber-related and other hullabaloo I wasn't taking any chances.
The only other thing to mention is that I was wearing a color-radiating ORANGE top today *slaps forehead* so you will see some not-so-subtle reflection of that color on my fingers and hands in the photos.
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| China Glaze Sea Spray |
Outed by a Probot by NerdLacquer is from the Star Wars series. Amanda, creator of NerdLacquer, describes it as "a shimmering wintery opalescent silver-blue with silver, iridescent, and sky blue glitter." It has a pale somewhat sheer milky blue grey base with medium-large silver hex glitters, medium silver and iridescent ice blue hex glitters and silver and blue iridescent microglitters. It looks to have a bit of silvery shimmer in there too. Dreamy and cloud-like, twinkling frostily with silver, pale blue and pale purple sparks like from the iridescent microglitters, Outed by a Probot over Sea Spray is an ethereal combination.
Though sheer, Outed by a Probot's consistency was liquid and easily applied. My bottle is a mini with a very small, soft flexible brush, which distributed the microglitters evenly across the nail. I had a harder time getting the larger hex glitters onto my nails but managed to fish enough of them out of the tiny bottle to complete a somewhat comprehensive if sparse sampling of the components in Outed by a Probot. I continue to be so impressed with Amanda's formula for her glitter-filled creations: they are fluid and flowing upon application, with no glitter stacking or dragging, no clumping at the neck of the bottle or on the brush, and they dry relatively quickly to a finish that is only slightly textured and very smooth. She is a genius formulator.
I used three thin coats of Outed by a Probot over the Sea Spray manicure above with a topcoat of Seche Vite. All those layers resulted in a rather puffy look at first, especially with the Seche Vite on top, but it dried down nicely and I am happy with the results.
Again, the radioactive looking orange color of my hands and fingers in some of these pics is the reflection of light off of the subdued (NOT!) orange top I wore today.
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| China Glaze Sea Spray and NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot, bottle shot |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray on the nail, NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot in the bottle |
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| ditto |
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| LOVE! |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
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| NerdLacquer Outed by a Probot over China Glaze Sea Spray |
Reminds me of a wintery sky full of clouds heavy with snow, or the perfect garb for a snow fairy. Soft and delicate but not without presence, this combo has a cool sleek feel on the nail that is fabulous.
Sea Spray is such a good color match for Outed by a Probot that I wonder whether I haven't reduced the dimensionality of Outed by a Probot by using them together. I say this because this is the first of the NerdLacquers I've tried that seems to be more interesting to the eye the further it is from the nail.
I must once again thank Thithi for these NerdLacquers I've been swatching, I doubt I would ever have had these wonderful experiences had she not sent them to me. Thithi, you rock!
Don't you love this cool blue look, Eleanor? Does it remind you of happy stay-home-from-school snow days?
love,
Aunt Liz
This is really lovely on you! I love that NL aren't jammed with glitters and have a balanced composition of pigment, shimmer, and glitter. Great layering!
ReplyDeleteThanks! These NerdLacquer polishes are so beautifully crafted, I love applying them and am sorry when I finish. I feel like I could paint a whole room with Outed by a Probot and live happily ever after in it.
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