Saturday, August 21, 2010

NOTDs from the previous two days: Milani Bare to Wear and Incoco Oscar Night

My cuticles are still a bit travel-ravaged even though I've been treating them with Mango Mend every few hours since getting home. Sigh, traveling does do quite the number on my body. I'm still dead exhausted.

Milani Bare to Wear
This is supposedly somewhat close to Lippmann Waking Up in Vegas but I don't have that polish. This is a very greyed-out light taupe that can pull lilac in some lights. Very pretty, understated color and it only required three coats to be opaque but it took forever to dry (with Gelous and Diamont, which is usually a very quick drying combo on me). See that big chink on my pinky? Got that several hours after I applied the mani. Grr. Didn't notice it until I took the photo. Double grr.

Incoco Oscar Please

Satiny champagne shimmer made up of darker and lighter gold. Incoco sent me this for review and their review samples don't seem to have names. Either that or I can't find them. Judging by the swatches on their website, I think this is most likely to be Oscar Night. This is not the neatest or nicest Incoco mani and I'll tell you why: I did this on the plane in fifteen minutes during turbulence!

I didn't have a nail file or anything to trim down some off the less-well-fitting pieces but luckily, most of the pieces fit me alright. Because I lacked a file and just had to tear off the extra length at the end, some of the pieces ended up a bit too short for me but generally, I thought it looked okay, if a bit worn for just one day.

I peeled off -- yes, gross, I know -- my Paradoxal mani before applying it. Paradoxal lasted for four days without chips and then on the fifth and last day of the conference, a few small chips started coming off while I was on the plane. Being bored and nervous on a plane, I started picking the entire manicure off. And because my nails were stained from previous manis -- though not the Paradoxal mani -- I decided to try out the Incoco nail appliques I had been carrying in my carry-on for such an "emergency". (The emergency was that I was vain and bored.)

The flight attendant saw me putting on the Incoco nail appliques and asked me incredulously whether they actually work. I was happy to report to her her, yes, they do. :)