Sinful Colors Endless Blue + Darling Diva Ringer

I want to apologize for the tipwear and kitchen sink you're about to see. I usually have pretty high standards for the pics I upload. However, the color and finish of this mani are too amazing to let it go unseen by the Internet.

This picture is not Photoshopped. My nails really are an intense, ultra-saturated blue with strong purplish-pink shimmer. This is two thick coats of Darling Diva Ringer over one of Sinful Colors Endless Blue. Endless Blue is the Sinful answer to Nails Inc. Baker Street and the other ultramarine blue crèmes that have been all the rage lately. As a bonus, it's opaque in one coat, which makes it a real live unicorn among Sinful polishes, which are infamous for still showing VNL after five coats. Darling Diva Ringer is supposedly a dupe for the legendary and discontinued Clarins 230 - I wouldn't know, as I've never seen it in person. If you own both these polishes or any of these dupes, it's a must-try layering combo that reminds me of a brilliantly lit nebula. That makes it very appropriate for the playing of Mass Effect, which is a bonus!

Different Dimension Orion Nebula

First off, I want to apologize for the application job you're about to see. It's messy, not because of Orion Nebula itself, but because of the Pure Ice Black Rage I used as lingerie under it. I find it practically impossible to apply black polish without making a mess (I suspect this is purely psychological), and Black Rage is a somewhat difficult polish, needing to be thinned after almost every manicure.

This is two coats of Different Dimension Orion Nebula over one coat of Black Rage. I was intrigued by Orion Nebula several weeks ago, then abruptly vetoed after reading that it requires a lot of "fishing" to get the larger pink/purple iridescent circles out. Then, in an act of polish-ADD hilarity that I suspect is actually pretty common, I forgot that I'd decided against it and bought it on impulse, remembering the "fishing issue" about five seconds after placing my order with a merchant who doesn't accept cancellations.

The copy was partially right: You do have to fish if you want many of those big iridescent circles in your manicure. However, I'm perfectly content with one or two. The smaller hot pink circle glitters are easy to get, but it does require dabbing onto the nail to get a semblance of even coverage. Fortunately, the black jelly base seeps away from the glitters as the polish is applied, so there's no need to shove glitters around with the brush, trying to get them clear of the base.

In the end, I was surprised by how much I like the result - some of my nails look like constellations or diffuse clusters of hot pink stars in an utterly black night sky, while a couple of unplanned "accent" nails have big, shiny, iridescent (and holo/dichroic at some angles!) planets or supergiant stars. Perhaps best of all, Orion Nebula has what I consider to be the most desirable quality in any jelly glitter polish - it looks positively fathomless on the nail, like I could stare at my manicure for a few minutes and end up lost in space. It's definitely worth the minor application hassles, although it's perhaps too fidgety for the strictly casual polish lover.