Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Today's NOTD (Zoya Gaia) and manifestation of OCD (poster design)


I'm trying REALLY hard not to be a perfectionist. But I'm being driven crazy by my little "experiment"... and my actual experiment.

I'm playing with Zoya Armor/Anchor to figure out whether Zoya and I can coexist peacefully. I recently received my Zoya Exchange loot, which included one of my favorite polishes, Zoya Gaia. I had swapped away Gaia long ago because Zoyas just don't stay put on my nails... and I had been pining for it ever since. I think it's an absolutely stunning color, for all that it needs to be built up. A lot. But then I decided to give Armor/Anchor a shot because Zoya really does have some very pretty polishes and a lot of good promotional deals.

What do I get in exchange for my good faith? BUBBLE HELL.

Zoya Gaia


Such a clean and pretty polish. Sheer milk white with peachy gold microshimmer. I mean, this is elegance and loveliness in a bottle. I didn't even mind that it took me five coats to get it to be unstreaky. (Okay, I minded a little bit but not that much.) I didn't even mind when two big bubbles popped up in the first few hours. Fine. Bubbles happen when you use five coats of polish. But then I went to bed and the next morning, BUBBLES BUBBLES EVERYWHERE.

Close-up of Gaia
Check out that shimmer! And check out those bubbles! Gah.

Because I'm trying to figure out whether Anchor/Armor is really good at making my polish last, I'm trying to keep this mani on for a few days to see if it I've just been using the wrong base- and topcoat all this time. Besides, I have little time to change polish today. But the bubbles are really exasperating and I just want a new mani. Now.

If that weren't enough to drive me nutty, my labmate with whom I am coauthoring the poster I'm presenting at APS next weekend just sent her revisions back to me... and it messed up the formatting of the Microsoft PowerPoint file, which means I have to go back and reformat the entire thing. Do you know how many hours I originally spent trying to get every single little thing aligned perfectly? Centered perfectly? How many hours I'm going to devote to this now? No one really is going to notice these little details except me but as long as I have control of the design of this thing, I want it to be perfect. Except I don't have enough time to make it perfect. Hence, the crazy-making.

BTW, BeautySak is having 20% off your entire order with code BSAK20% (and free shipping over $50). Time to buy those Lippmanns and RBLs you've had your eye on...


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6 comments:

Piff said...

I LOVE Gaia too and i'm extremely anti-multi coats and you do need at minimum 4 just to level out the streakiness. Let it dry more between each coat!

Lolitadewdrop said...

Shame that's a horrible polish experience. :(

jaljen said...

I'm the same with PowerPoints but I do have plenty of OCD traits. Obsessive handwashing, lining things up parallel to the desk edge and on and on...
Good luck with it.

Unknown said...

Can you use a base color underneath it to reduce the number of coats? Can you use a different color for your experiment so you can change your mani? Can you just put the changes your labmate suggested on the old Powerpoint presentation so you don't have to re-format the whole thing? Ok slap me now! I just became the person I hate - you know when you complain about something and the other person gives what they think are obvious answers but you already thought of them and if it could be done it would have been. So onward and upward. Hope the day gets better.

april brooks said...

Gaia is my #1 favorite color. If I could choose only one color to wear for the rest of time it would be this one. I'm so sorry you had bubbles!
Does anybody know of a dupe for this one? It seems so simple yet I've never seen another color like it. I would call it a soft white with gold micro shimmer.

LizKS48 said...

I never get bubbles but I'm not sure why. I roll the bottle of polish instead of shaking it and I use Seche Vite topcoat always. For white polish I use Seche Vite rebuild 2 coats because it's a sheer white and it helps to not have to put on so many coats of white polish. I let each coat of polish dry for 20 min. before I add the next one. Then I end with Seche Vite top coat. I find that it smooths out any problems I have with the polish on the last coat. Hope this helps. Sorry about your powerpoint file. That would have made me a bit testy.

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