Once again, I took pictures of both my hands, because I want everyone to see how easy nail art can be to create with your dominant AND non-dominant hand. While I'm definitely not a professional, and my nail art has some flaws, it still came out pretty well and garnered a lot of compliments.
I tried to get some pictures of my thumbs, but I wasn't too happy with my photography skills in this aspect:
And lastly, an inside photo with flash:
Ok, as for the review of this color... this is going to be hard. I apologize for what looks like black blending into black blending into more black...but that's what you get with this shade! OPI Gelcolor "Lincoln Park After Dark" is an almost black creme with hints of reddened purple. It kind of blends in with the black bottle and my purple-black walls because, well, they're all basically one tint away from being the same color! However, you can definitely see the reddish purple tint, especially around the edges of my nails and the nail art, and the color has a bit of a luminescence best seen in the flash photo. The best way to get an idea of this color is to compare it to a true black, like NaiLuv's "Hardcore Rock" that I wore in 2012. Just by comparing the photos, you can tell that in comparison to a true black shade, "Lincoln Park After Dark" looks just a smidgeon warmer and slightly red-purple or even red-brown, depending on the lighting.
As for the formula, I had heard bad things about the OPI Gelcolor version of this shade...but I personally had no problems! There was maybe just a hint of shrinking from the edges of my nails, but since I was doing nail art, I was fiddling around a bit before curing my nails. That lapse of time before curing will cause shrinking all by itself. To solve this, I just quickly recapped the edges of my nails and smoothed them out right before curing. I did have to use three coats to get this shade looking smooth and non-patchy--it would have looked brighter and not so black if I had managed to get away with two coats, but with my application skills, two coats just looked uneven and ugly.
That's all for now... hopefully I've inspired more people to attempt some simple nail art. :) It can be time consuming, but with the lasting power of gel polish, it's worth it!
You dud a great job with LPAD. I find it to be a right tricky little trickster because mine just wants to shrink all the way off my nail and back into the bottle !!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks!
DeleteTo combat the shrinking, I used the trick that I use for polishes that are too cold in the winter time (since unfortunately, I have to store my polishes in one of the coldest areas of my room). While taking off my old polish, I stored the bottle underneath the heating pack that I use to warm up my nails to make removal easier. So the gel got extra warm--and while it did, I shook it up really well, too. It seemed to do the trick for me!
The hearts are really cute! I hate it when my nails aren't matching so its nice to see someone who does a design on both hands :)
ReplyDeleteI'm not complaining but I found it kinda hard to read this post, not sure why but some of the lines of text went over into the section on the side, and also the bold/italic bits seem to overlap other pieces of text.. which made it really hard to read. Is this just me?
Thank you! I hate it when my own nails aren't at least semi-matching, too.
DeleteI think the mismatching text may have something to do with the font, I'm sorry...I've noticed it one or two times when previewing my post, but the problem seems to correct itself when I refresh, so I didn't think anyone else would see the same thing. Maybe I should look into altering the font! Thanks for the heads up. :)