Work Wear Wednesday Tutorial Subtle Ruffian

Today I have a subtle look that I actually wore for a meeting, so this has been beta tested! It is a super easy, three step, no tool look that anyone can pull off! I have a simple, subtle ruffian manicure to share with you today!

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 25 Fashion Inspired

I am back at it today with some more nail art for the #31DC2014 challenge! I had to have self imposed "work appropriate" nails today, so I started off the day with a base of China Glaze Foie Gras from the Hunger Games Collection. That has to be one of my favorite collections of all time. No joke, go check it out. Foie Gras is a really nice brown/taupe creme. In some lights it is completely brown, in others it looks grey or taupe. I love colors that change like that. The challenge prompt for today is fashion inspired, and I could totally do some beautiful crazy things for that, but I am feeling the simple plaid today. It may be because it is officially fall or because it is raining here, but I love a good plaid.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 16 Geometric Print

Hello! Sorry my posting has been a little sporadic lately, I am trying to keep up with the nail art challenge posts, but it takes time! For today's post I am doing yesterday's challenge. The theme was geometric print. Funny enough I was wearing a geometric print dress to work yesterday, so I used that as my inspiration for my nails. It has a Mondrian feel to it, but not exactly a copy. I did some Mondrian nails a little while back and loved the result, so these were a lot of fun and reminiscent of that design.  I started with a white base coat and free hand painted with Zoya Ling for the blue, Zoya Dove for the grey, and Color Club Sunrise Canyon for the chartreuse.

Nail Art: #31DC2014 Day 14 Flowers

For today's nail art challenge, I did a mani swap with a friend on instagram! Her username is @beautyintact, so be sure to go follow her! The challenge for today is flowers. A mani swap is where you take a design from someone else and copy it, they do the same with you. It was my first one and I thought it was really fun!

Battle Royale: Cheap Matte Top Coat Comparison

Battle Royale will be my title for any post that is a comparison. I like how epic it sounds! This time around it is a battle of cheap matte top coats! I don't know how you all feel about matte finish polish, but I've noticed a lot of people are on the fence about it. A while ago I wanted to try out a nail design that required a matte top coat. The problem was that I didn't want to spend $8 or more on a polish I wasn't sure I would love. Turns out there are cheap ones on the market! I first found Sinful Colors Matte Finish Top Coat for $1.99 at Rite Aid. More recently I found NYC Matte Me Crazy Top Coat for the same price, $1.99 also from Rite Aid. The only major differences that you can see from the bottles are that Sinful Colors has .5 fl oz whereas NYC has .33 fl oz and SC clearly has a different color tone. Unfortunately neither are fast drying top coats, but in researching it seems there aren't any fast drying matte top coats. I recycled my half moon manicure so I could show you a comparison over colors. Here are the contenders:

The color difference here is color accurate.

The NYC Matte Me Crazy has a flattened but narrow brush, which makes application a breeze. The Sinful Colors Matte Finish has the usual Sinful Colors brush which is thick and rounded.

I staggered the different matte top coats, hoping I could see the difference more clearly. Honestly, I don't see much of a difference. All of my nails feel the same, and they seem to have the same level matte finish. However, I did notice an ever so slight color difference between the two. Can you see it? I think the SC makes the color look slightly lighter.  

Here is another view, can you see the difference?

The difference aesthetically isn't enough for me to fret over. The application difference is something that can help determine which to buy. I found that the Sinful Colors took a long time to dry and had a tendency to apply thick. NYC seemed pretty quick drying and was a great consistency: thin but not runny. I like the flat brush that the NYC polish came with instead of the Sinful Colors brush. Overall, I would say that the NYC Matte Me Crazy is the winner here, though I wish it came with .5 fl oz instead of the .33 fl oz. Would you all like to see matte designs that inspired me in my next post? I hope that you will at least try out the matte trend! For $2, it's not a bad deal! Thanks for reading!