China Glaze Stone Cold

Thank you so much for your patience while I was sick and then while I completed a very long continuing legal education course in my "free" time.  I should be back to blogging more now, and I will start exercising and keeping a food log again on Tuesday.  I explained why Tuesday on the blog's Facebook page.  If anyone uses the iPhone's Lose It! app or uses Lose It! online, please send me a private message if you would be my Lose It! buddy.

At the end of September, I will have been blogging for six months.  I am planning a giveaway, and I will probably have some indie minis as the prize.  If I reach 50 fans on Facebook (I'm at 48), I will start the giveaway then rather than at the end of September.  I was also keeping an eye on my number of published posts to start the giveaway if I reached 100 published posts before the end of September, but I'm at 80 published posts--this one will be #81--so the Facebook fans will probably reach 50 before I can reach 100 published posts.  Finally, I'm watching my number of followers through GFC (Google Friend Connect), and if those were to reach 75 before the end of the month, I will start the giveaway then; I'm at 67 GFC followers.  At the latest, though, the giveaway will start at the end of September, for my blogging demi-versary.  Yay!

On to the polish review:

I am pretty sure that this was the first time I had ever worn black nail polish.  I would not have thought I would like black polish, and I had no idea how much I would love China Glaze Stone Cold.  When I first swatched it on a nail wheel after I bought it recently on clearance, I was surprised to see it dried matte!  I thought I had bought the other dark Hunger Games collection polish that did not dry matte.  I was very excited about having the matte polish, though.  I like it so much!

It's an amazing formula, opaque in one coat!  It dried quickly.

Cleanup took a while, but it was easier than cleanup of black creme polish.  Using acetone for the cleanup around the edges of my nails took a bit of the black off on the edges, revealing silver underneath.

I was very worried it would not last without top coat, though.  I did do a "funky French" with top coat free-handed on the tips, and I even tried to wrap my tips (maybe for the second time ever, I just can't seem to do it without ruining the manicure with clumps over the edge), but I worried the matte parts of the manicure would chip.  It wasn't long before my OCD self insisted on topcoat somehow.  I wore the funky French for a couple of days, though.  And, for those two days, each morning I touched up the tips with a new layer of top coat.

Here are some pictures:

Sunlight.

Indoors, office lighting.

Indoors, flash.

Indoors.

Indoors, flash.

Indoors.
My poor little thumb nubbin has completely grown out now!  It's been a month since I took these pictures.

Thank you for reading my blog!