crackled out phoebe

Omg it's been a crazy, stressful week and next week is going to be even more insane. Wish me luck please =)

I wanted to show you what I did with my nails last week. I'm SO addicted to phoebe, only thing is that it chips SO fast =(  and I'm not talking about little chips. This time around when I put the crackle on top of phoebe, some of the inside chipped off BEFORE the outside chipped- SO WEIRD!! Has that ever happened to you before? I will have to try it with different bases and top coats to find which one will maximize the length of wear of the pretty, pretty phoebe.

So let's get started. I used zoya's get even ridge filling basecoat. It comes in a cool professional box. BTW, I got their color lock system. I'm not sure if I took a picture of it, but I will and I'll show you next time.

Then I used two coats of phoebe.

Then after it dried. I put on one coat of china glaze's crackle in concrete. It doesn't go on as easy as opi's shatter, more streaky but I still think it came out well. 

and wa-la =P  crackled out phoebe. It kinda looks like dutch crunch bread huh? HAHA... or maybe I'm just hungry...

It came out looking very nice and matte but then I put on zoya's hurry up speedy dry drops and it became shiny. boo =( The speedy drops have Cemellia oil in it which probably brought on the shiny. 

So I had to use china glaze's matte magic to correct it. LOVE it!! Thank you matte magic, you're a life saver!

What do you think? Do you like it or prefer phoebe on her own? I love how the blue peaks out from behind the gray and still stands strong. 

zoya phoebe

omg! I love this color. I'm not a fan of matte, but I will make an exception for this one. This color is just SO hard to resist. Don't let the smoothness fool you. This polish is a bit difficult to use. It dries ridiculously fast (like by the 3rd stroke to spread the polish on the nail). And it dries weird and streaked. I had to do my right middle finger 3 times! I've never had to redo nail polish that many times ever. 

And even though it might be more trouble than you might care for. I love it and am constantly looking at my fingers =)

Another downer is that I painted my nails on Friday. It started to chip on Sunday =(

That's pretty fast for me. Usually the tops of my nails would start to recede a little bit but it doesn't chip until near the end of the week, if not well into the next. Still after all the negatives, I am keeping this bottle in rotation and will probably mix it up with some Konad plates at some point and see how that does. This is my first and last matte nail polish unless someone comes up with a color this irresistible. 

Here is what I used for this manicure. I used the Zoya Anchor base coat.

Then I painted 2 coats of Zoya Phoebe.

Last, I painted on China Glaze's Matte Magic top coat.

And there you have it. Let's look at it one more time.

I've read on some other blogs that matte top coats on top of matte nail polishes makes it chip easier and faster. Also that matte nail polishes are prone to chipping in general. 

What do you think? Do you like the color? Is it worth the trouble? What's your favorite matte polish?