What an Unexpected Mess: Hits Speciallita No Olympo Ares

I wanted a more mainstream color to wear at work after wearing the in-your-face Lynnderella Cauldron Drippings the week before.  I also didn't have much time for my manicure and wanted something easy to apply.  I love the Hits Speciallita No Olympo holo polishes, and I had not had any trouble with the formulas before.  I picked Ares because the Hits No Olympo holo polishes I had tried before resulted in quick and easy manicures.  Not so with Ares, but I still love it because the red holo shade is beautiful.

The polish is appropriately named after the god of war; I felt like I had been at war with the polish to try to apply it.  My brush was mop-like which made it difficult to be precise. I have not had that issue with any other No Olympo holos, so I assume I just had the one bottle with the bad brush.  It happens.  The polish was thick like syrup, and it forms a "skin" quickly as it dries, so if you like to use an orange stick around your nail edges as you go, you can rip off a bunch of connected skin-like polish . . . like I did.  My first coat was streaky, but a very heavy second coat covered that and any bald patches up.  I still had the issues with the tricky skin-like polish threatening to rip as I used an orange stick around the edges as I went along.  There was no way I was going to suffer through a third coat, though, so I just tried to be as careful as I could.  I still love the polish because it's so pretty.

It is a very attractive shade that's between cherry red and thickened blood red, depending on the lighting. The HBO series True Blood started back up the day I put on this manicure, and the blood red manicure seemed appropriate, although I had not planned it that way.  The holo is noticeable.  Seche Vite as a top coat did not dull the holo.  Cleanup was not too hard.  I developed a new technique in my cleanup routine; I used the side of my cleanup brush bristles to smooth out polish bumps (some from my use of the orange stick as I went along) on the edges of my nails.  The wear was pretty good.  It lasted a full week until I took it off.

Here are some pictures after a day of wear:

Sunlight.

Sunlight.

Sunlight

Indoors, office lighting, without flash.

Indoors, office lighting, with flash.

Indoors, office lighting, with flash.

In indirect sunlight.

Sunlight.

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Nail Mail: Lynnderellas!

Last week I got two packages in the mail on the same day.

I got some nail art tools and brushes, including my first dotting tools, that I had ordered at the end of April from this store on ebay recommended by Lacey of Lace & Lacquers.  She had used the tools for an Easter-themed manicure.  You can see her manicure and more pictures of the tools here.

I also got my first two, my only two Lynnderellas.  I got them during a flash sale the week before last on llarowe.com.  They didn't take long to get to me!  I got Cauldron Drippings, which I had been wanting for a while, and I got Funny Money on a whim.  Turns out I don't really like Funny Money now that I see it up close.  If any of you would like to trade with me and are interested in Funny Money, please let me know.  I've never done a swap or trade before!

I also got HITS Speciallita No Olympo Ares, a truly red holo, deep cherry red!  This was also from llarowe.com.  I am just a sucker for that No Olympo collection of holo polishes.

Here are some pictures of the packaging and the bottles and some swatches on nail wheels:

Cauldron Drippings on #14 on the top wheel (and #15 on the top wheel is HITS No Olympo Ares and #13 on the top wheel is Lynnderella Funny Money).  China Glaze Cross Iron 360 on #9 on the bottom wheel and Confetti 053 Papa-Razzi on #10 on the bottom wheel.  I was trying to find a suitable "underwear" color for Cauldron Drippings so that I don't have a crazy amount of glitter layers from Cauldron Drippings.

#13 on the bottom wheel is L'Oreal L'Orange.  This may be what I end up using as my "underwear" for Cauldron Drippings (#14 on the top wheel).

All my HITS No Olympo holos.  Ares is #15 on the top wheel, Demeter is #6 on the bottom wheel, Hermes is #7 on the bottom wheel, and Poseidon is #8 on the bottom wheel.

 

Funny Money is #13 on the top wheel.  On the bottom wheel, #7 is China Glaze Holly-Day, and #8 is China Glaze Glittering Garland.

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