Nautical Tips // Nautical Style French Tips Design

I'm not sure what to make of this look. I originally wasn't going to post it but not every mani can be flawlessly executed. I've been buying up lots of gel polishes lately to practice freehand painting with and straight lines are hard. I also had difficulty figuring out the centre of my nail lol.

I also wanted to do something that was actually nautical from last months challenge as mermaid nails aren't strictly nautical.

For this quick look I started out with 2 layers of Thirsty Nails then painted the tips with SC01 (white gel). Using a fine liner brush I attempted some lines with 619. They're not completely awful if viewed from several feet away lol. I will say I love the shade; it's super vivid and wonderful to paint with. I felt like the look was lacking something so I added the gold (856) to hide where the blue and white meet.

This was super fast thanks to the gel because I can just cure it for 60 seconds and away you go. I used these on top of my usual peel off basecoat and it was amazing to not have to wait for drying or worry about the polish drying out whilst painting.

Polishes/Tools used:-

- Nails Inc // Thirsty Nails (sheer pink)

- Nicole Diary Soak Off Colour Gel // SC01 (white)

- Beetles Gel Polish // 619 (blue), 859 (gold glitter)

SWATCHES: OPI // Bubble Bath, Barre My Soul, Suzi Nails New Orleans & Meet A Boy Cute As Can Be

I'm trying to get proper swatch photos of all the polishes in my collection so I'm now going through some polishes I got a while ago but never swatched. 

Bubble Bath // soft baby pink creme

Collection: Infinite Shine Iconic Collection

Release: September 2016

Coats: 3

I finally got my hands on a Bubble Bath shade. I've been wanting this for a long time but it's such an "in-demand" shade it's either out of stock or eBay wants £15 for it. I managed to snag an infinite shine version for £6 thanks to the auction format. First of all I love the shade once it's been built up through 3 coats but it's not what I was expecting. This polish is used a lot in rose quartz nails but the Infinite Shine version is to opaque to be used with layering. it's also really streaky. You need to apply this in 3 strokes or less to prevent dragging.

Looking at other swatches though I have a feeling this bottle is from a bad batch or it's gone thick as this is definitely not sheer and it should be. I can't even see my tips after only 2 coats and that's why the streaks annoy me so much. Streaky cremes are awful. I stopped at 3 coats but I'm kinda disappointed. I guess I'm still on the lookout for the perfect rose quartz shade.

Barre My Soul // sheer nude creme

Collection: New York City Ballet

Release: April 2012

Coats: 3

Photos of this online make it look way more pink than it actually is. In person it's more of a soft sheer beige with a pink undertone. If this was more pink it would be great for quartz nails but alas, it's more nude and very streaky; far streakier than Bubble Bath. I wouldn't call this a jelly formula due to the streaking and brush strokes, it's more like a tinted base coat. Layering would work though but the streaks become more noticeable with each layer.

The entire collection is a weird one though. All very sheer polishes that practically look the same apart from the grey one which makes your nails look dead.

Suzi Nails New Orleans // barbie pink creme

Collection: New Orleans

Release: February 2016

Coats: 3

Another streaky shade. I stopped at three coats on this barbie/flamingo pink shade but it definitely needs a top coat to level things out. It's a shame because I like quite a few other polishes from this collection but a few sites note how patchy and difficult they are to work with.

Meet A Boy As Cute As Can Be // pastel yellow creme

Collection: Grease Infinite Shine

Release: July 2018

Coats: 3

Another streaky one but the formula is easier to work with but urgh. Look at those streaks on 3 coats! The shade saves it for me though as I love shades like this. It reminds me heavily of one of my all-time favourites; Lemon Sugar from Avon. I'd say the Avon one is a tad more yellow. Pastel yellow is just so fresh and fun; you can't go wrong with it.

SWATCHES: China Glaze // Sun Of A Peach, Pilates Please & Peachy Keen

Surprise surprise; I bought some peach nail polish! Bet ya didn't see that one coming.

One thing I did not see coming though was the revelation that China Glaze only went 5-Free in 2019. I found this article from 2019 (https://www.thezoereport.com/p/the-orly-vs-china-glaze-nail-polish-difference-is-this-experts-say-18196467) which states a spokesperson for CG says they were "always 5-Free but now they've gone 7-Free as well". This is a lie as all three of the below polishes clearly state Formaldehyde Resin on the ingredients label.

I wish I knew this before I started buying up older CG polishes. So a warning if you're allergic; only buy CG polishes from collections from 2019 onwards for at least 5-Free polishes. I personally only like to use polishes that are at least free of any formaldehyde and toluene so I'm disappointed. I'll still continue to use the polishes I've bought but I won't be buying anymore older CG polishes from now on.

But anyway onto swatches; make sure you're in a well ventilated area when using older CG shades as well!

Sun Of A Peach // satin neon orange (contains formaldehyde resin)

Collection: Sunsational

Release: Summer 2013

Coats: 4

This is a bugger to apply. It's extremely thin and dries insanely fast so streaks; streak everywhere. You need to build this up in thin coats. It's also nearly identical to FlipFlopFantasy V2. The re-release of FFF was after this though so I have a feeling that maybe they changed the colour of FFF to match this one as it's kind of hard to get hold of and is a sun of beach to apply. With FFF v2 I'm done in 2 coats.

You can see in the comparison photo that FFF is only slightly lighter than Son Of A Peach and you can only see the difference in very bright lighting. So if you're looking for a neon orange I'd say go with FFF v2 as it's much easier to apply and has a better formula.

Pilates Please // peach creme (contains formaldehyde resin)

Collection: Chic Physique

Release: Spring 2018

Coats: 3

A wonderful true peach creme. It is on the streaky side and I needed 3 coats in the end to get full opacity but I love this shade. I wish I had some stamping plates with peaches on them as this would be the perfect shade!

This is one those polishes though where the more layers you have, the lighter it gets. After 3 coats my nails were looking gloriously plump and shiny. The top photo was taken in more direct lighting than the bottom so you can see how much it changes based on lighting.

Peachy Keen // peach/orange creme (contains formaldehyde resin)

Collection: Up & Away

Release: Spring 2010!

Coats: 3

This is a super old one. We got some vintage China Glaze action going on here. It was actually in searching to find if CG did a re-release of this shade (because the text on my bottle is different than the original photos) that I discovered that this polish contains formeldahyde resin. So I guess it was good for that?

As for the shade though, this is another one of those polishes that becomes lighter with more layers. I think my bottle has started separating quite a bit as it was streaky and needed a good three coats. After that it was bordering on neon.