Sparkled Beauty

I bet lots of you have seen Avon Violetta from the matte line that they promoted awhile ago, so this post is to document a few experiments I did with it, and it was fun.

Violetta is a gorgeous colour but it looked so flat on my nails that I didn't bother to take a pic. I don't normally dislike matte shades as I own quite a few of them, but just not this one. Plus, you always have to accept the fact that matte polishes don't wear very well. And I'm talking 1 day in this case.

A twitter conversation with macbella2 sparked the interest of improving the wear of Violetta, by applying a matte top coat over it. So I did.

This is Avon Violetta with a coat of Claire's matte top coat. You would think it would look even more flat, but nope, it turned into a satin finish which surprised me. Under direct flash, it even shone a little, lol.

So Claire's matte top coat solved the issue about the flat look of Violetta, but unfortunately didn't improve the wear much. It last an extra half a day on my nails before horrible chipping happened. At this point, you would suggest a regular (glossy) top coat, wouldn't you? :)

Here it is, my first attempt with the Scotch tape. I placed the tape across my nails diagonally and painted Seche Vite on the halves of the nails that have the free edges. This is to spice up the matte look and to test the wear of Violetta with a regular top coat. I figured chipping normally happen at the free edges first.

And again, I got a day and a half out of this mani, free edges or not, lol. It is quite persistent eh? However, I did get something out of it.

Click the pic to enlarge to see how pretty Violetta is with a top coat. The magenta and silver sparkles which did not exist when the shade was matte came alive. It was very pretty when the sun shone on my nails.
A close up on my thumb to show you the Scotch tape effect. And to summarize the experiments, I would wear Violetta again with a top coat as I think it shows up better that way - unless you are a huge fan of matte looks. And be prepared for the chips :)

Note that application isn't the best. It dries too quickly, so any mess I make along the way cannot be fixed easily, which explains the uneven edges near my half moons. I did do better the second and third runs with it though.

It's the first day of December, everyone seems to have a count down going on - either 24 days before Christmas, or 31 days before the year end. How crazy is that?