The Bridal Rogue – Be Romantic Yet Adventurous with OPI Rose of Light

Greetings from under a massive pile of tulle, fellow rogues!

Recently, I acquired some glittering loot from OPI – two polishes from their recent glitter-focused collection, Blush Hour and Rose of Light (the pick of that bunch, in my rogueish opinion). I’ve already succumbed to the dual charms of Blush Hour (it’s purple *and* sparkly) with this manicure, and since then I’ve been experimenting with the glorious glittering glamour of Rose of Light. As part of these experiments, I’ve been trying to achieve a look suitable for (or perhaps evocative of) ballet, which in turn lends itself to conservative-ish wedding nails. As I mentioned in another post, French manicures (perhaps the stereotypical wedding manicure?) aren’t really my cup of mead, so I was looking to break that mould! The result? Well, glitter, obviously! Tasteful glitter. Yep.

 

From left: OPI You Callin’ Me A Lyre, OPI Don’t Touch My Tutu! and OPI Rose of Light

In the picture above you can see all the polishes used, although I’ve created two manicures for this post. Similar to recent posts, I’ve been working my way through the OPI NYC Ballet Soft Shades collection from a couple of years ago, this time working with You Callin’ Me a Lyre? which is a peachy pink jelly, and Don’t Touch My Tutu!, which is a marshmallowy white jelly. As you might expect, these go on quite sheer, although you can build up to a reasonably squishy opacity with three or four coats. They’re smooth and self leveling, and generally awesome. Dry time is a little longer than average for me, but I get a solid two days wear out of them at least (excellent on this rogue’s magical polish-repelling nails!)

Because no day is complete without a half-assed macro shot, right? I thought so, too.

Rose of Light is, quite simply, gorgeous. It’s packed full of square silvergoldpinkhologlitter, and lots of tiny pale pink glitters. Seen in natural light, from normal viewing distance, the polish has a decidedly pale gold tone to it, but there is a warmth there, a pink glow that catches the light and really makes this a gem for your polish hoard. You would not *believe* the dragon I had to fight off to get this one. Ended up beating her at a game of Guess Who, actually. True story. Anyway, you get a full broadsword’s worth of glitter on the brush with this one, and one generous coat is enough to give you some seriously loot-worthy sparkle. Stunning.

So I guess you’d all kind of like to see some actual manicures, right? And hear some more about this ballet/wedding business I’ve been blabbering on about? Well, here you are! The first manicure uses two coats of You Calling Me a Lyre, with one coat of Rose of Light over the top:

Two coats of You Callin Me a Lyre, one top coat of Rose of Light. Also pictured: loot of this rogue’s own design (sometimes you just can’t be bothered going dungeoneering for pretty things). Also also pictured: random polish remnants that I forgot to clean off before photographing. Professional, that’s me.

I call this one the ‘ballet’ manicure, because, well, it’s pink and sparkly. Not that ballet has to be either of those things, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t part of the attraction. The tulle in the picture at the top is, after all, from one of my tutu skirts! I do, however, think that this look could work equally well for a wedding where you want some sparkle, but don’t want too much colour or chunky glitter (by polish standards) on your nails. Rose of Light is so magically natural-looking on the nails (for glitter, obviously), that the wizard kept wanting to do an arcana check on my hands in case it was just too good to be true and there was a curse in it somewhere. Fortunately, Rose of Light just really is that awesome!

Raking light, because I’m telling you, you need more pictures of Rose of Light in your life. Even though they don’t do it justice!

The second manicure is a little more conservative, but involves white. I had been meaning to try a jelly sandwich manicure with the NYC Ballet shades for a while, and this seemed like the perfect excuse! This one is three coats of Don’t Touch My Tutu!, f0ollowed by one coat of Rose of Light and one more top coat of Don’t Touch My Tutu!:

Bridal rogue nails! You get to be soft and romantic, but you also get GLITTERING LOOT on your nails. What’s better than that? Well, OK, watching Susie the Rockbard try to catch the bouquet, possibly. She’s not even really interested in marriage – I think she just dives for it on principle…

This mani does it all. It’s white without being stark, it’s soft without being wishy washy, and you can wear glitter without feeling like you’re, well, WEARING GLITTER. Stealth glitter is a thing, people. Embrace it, like the rogue you are. 🙂 Either that or just go full dungeoneering mode and have your glitter unmuted. Perhaps add a rhinestone on the feature nail. Then test the wear by punching a goblin (or paladin, if he’s getting too righteous). Unless your significant other *is* a paladin. Or goblin. I’ll shut up now.

So! What are your thoughts on these bridal/ballet-inspired nails? What would you wear for a bridal/ballet manicure?

The practicalities: OPI colour/gitter polishes cost NZD ~20/USD ~8.00 each for 15 mL/0.5 fl. oz, depending on where you shop,  and may be found on the OPI shelves at your local pharmacy/Farmers, as well as various online distributors. OPI and China Glaze ($15.94 for 14 mL) polishes are also available in New Zealand (along with Zoya, Picture Polish and a number of other hard-to-get brands!) from www.candygirl.co.nz.

Until next time, fellow adventurers, don’t forget to check for traps!

Syl

I am an adventuring rogue, not a mercenary for hire, and as such, all opinions expressed here are my own, based on a genuine fondness for/interest in this product. If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to pin your parchment to the board (contact me) at thepaintedrogue [at] gmail [dot] com., or use the contact form provided! All images and text on this blog are the property of The Painted Rogue unless otherwise stated. If you nick off with any of it, be prepared to find a dagger in your back. Possibly with a legal troll attached to it. You don’t even want to *know* what he powders that wig with.

Rogue’s Comfort: A Glittering Purple Sequin Manicure with OPI Care to Danse? and Blush Hour!

Greetings from the safe room in the dungeon, fellow rogues!

We seem to be in manicure mode here at Rogue HQ! I recently tried (and hopefully succeeded) opening my mind a bit to grey nail polish. As you know, of course, opening one’s mind is an arduous business, especially when it comes to nail polish (#rogueproblems again, I think), and so when the grey manicure came off, I immedieately turned to the comfort of purple! I didn’t want to backslide too far, however, so this sparkly feature nail look still includes a very pastel shade of purple (something I don’t usually wear uncovered by glitter or similar).

Rambling aside, the result was an OPI Care To Danse? mani (from the same NYC ballet mini set as My Pointe Exactly) with an OPI Blush Hour (from this year’s Spotlight on Glitter collection).

OPI Care to Danse and OPI Blush Hour. Feast your eyes on the glitter and purple goodness…

So! First up: Care to Danse? This polish is, like its siblings, a soft jelly polish (and it it is the colour of the purple Mentos candy that you get in the mined fruit tube). Unlike My Poine Exactly, however, it doesn’t self-level *quite* as nicely, and the result predictabley requires three oo four coats to both achieve ‘opacity’ and smooth out the streaks. Mostly, I was in it for the streak smoothing, as opacity is – well, come on, it’s a jelly polish! As I’ve mentioned previously, the need to scale walls and broken dungeon stairs quickly means that I keep my nails very short, so visible nail line isn’t really a big concern. Dry time is average to long, dentability is in the red zone, but the finish is lovely – squishy, shiny, pastel purple goodness. Still a little more pastel than I’m used to, but pretty nonetheless! Basically, you shouldn’t start applying this on your watch if you know that goblin raiders are likely to eventuate, but if you have some more extended campfire time, it’s worth the trouble.

Note the soft, Mentos purple of Care to Danse. Note the awkward hand pose to display thumb. Try to ignore alchemical splatters on side of forefinger and terrible cuticles…

Blush Hour is a strange beast – it’s a purply pink clear base stuffed with tiny violet hexes, small silver hexes, medium pink, fuchsia and lavender hexes and a troll-load of strange white ‘liquid sand’ style grit. No kidding – this isn’t marketed as a liquid sand/textured polish, but you could re-grip the soles of your adenturing boots with it (handy in those slime dungeons, actually). This isn’t a deal-breaker for me, because the colours and glitter are exactly what I’m after, but it was certainly a surprise. This means that if you are looking for a shiny, tinted glitter topcoat, Blush Hour is not your friend. However, if you are looking for a gorgeous, densley glitter-packed, feature-nail all-star (hyphens!), then you’re in the right place.It requires basically zero effort to coat your nail with glitter. Dry time is average, and it sets like concrete (as most liquid sand polishes do on me.

SO PRETTY! Seriously, all you have to do is make it purple and stuff glitter into it, and I’ll excuse all the random grit you toss in there as well…

All in all, I feel this manicure was pretty snazzy indeed, and provided a balm to my poor, grey-polish-wounded rogue soul (nope, still can’t type that with a straight face) :-P. Care to Danse lasted maybe two days, with Blush hour still going strong at that point (liquid sands are the only polishes to regularly last up to a week on me). If you like pastels, purples, glitters and sequins, and you don’t mind a rather textured feature nail (I toned it down and polished everything up with Sally Hansen Mega Shine topcoat), then give this manicure a shot! I think this little pastel adjunct to my grey polish adventure has taught me that if I’m going to wear pastels, jellies help as they’re not so intense and white-based. Yay for learning! 😉

This week’s cuddly sweater shot is also my first attempt at a super-macro picture, in honour of Jaa and her mad skillz!

So! Would you try a purple pastel sequin manicure? Do you mind if there’s random grit in your glitter polishes? Susie and the Paladin want to know (they had a bet – don’t ask).

The practicalities: OPI colour/gitter polishes cost NZD ~20/USD ~8.00 each for 15 mL/0.5 fl. oz, depending on where you shop,  and may be found on the OPI shelves at your local pharmacy/Farmers, as well as various online distributors. OPI and China Glaze ($15.94 for 14 mL) polishes are also available in New Zealand (along with Zoya, Picture Polish and a number of other hard-to-get brands!) from www.candygirl.co.nz.

Until next time, fellow adventurers, don’t forget to check for traps!

Syl

I am an adventuring rogue, not a mercenary for hire, and as such, all opinions expressed here are my own, based on a genuine fondness for/interest in this product. If you have any queries or suggestions, please do not hesitate to pin your parchment to the board (contact me) at thepaintedrogue [at] gmail [dot] com., or use the contact form provided! All images and text on this blog are the property of The Painted Rogue unless otherwise stated. If you nick off with any of it, be prepared to find a dagger in your back. Possibly with a legal troll attached to it. You don’t even want to *know* what he powders that wig with.