Last Night's Nails: Orly Space Cadet - Matte-ified!

Drink of the Night: Ketel One Vodka & Soda
Nail of the Night: Orly Space Cadet & Essie Matte About You

Last night's plan was to stay in, relax, and catch up on TV season finales (a bittersweet entertainment, for certain). However, around 11pm I decided - coincidentally, around the time I ran out of wine - that I didn't want to stay in for the night, and so decided to head on over to my local watering hole. My nails were naked, though, so I needed to throw some polish on. Enter Orly Space Cadet!

I had seen swatches over the interwebz of Space Cadet, and was intrigued by the duochrome nature. For those who don't know, I would describe duochromes as polishes with 2 distinctive complementary colors. Based on lighting and angle, one color or the other will shine through. There really kinda cool, and FYI, when you're at a bar, make you look 'special' when you keep looking at your nails with a wide-eyed look. Space Cadet is a duochrome with contrasting green and purple colors, and also shimmery to boot. However, I also received in the mail yesterday my essie Matte About You, a top coat that instantly gives any polish, no matter how shiny, a matte (muted) finish. So I wondered - if I put Space Cadet and Matte About You together, what kinda manicure would I get?

Here's the answer:

Indoor lighting, no flash

Indoor lighting, with flash

This was not my favorite manicure; let's breakdown why. First, Space Cadet was a slight pain to apply - I guess I just have the fattest nail beds ever, because other than OPI, I feel like every manufacturer - Orly included - makes the smallest friggin' brushes and it takes me several strokes to get full coverage on one nail. For Space Cadet I applied 3 coats and still had VNL (visible nail line). You can especially see it in the first pic, where my nail tips show the blue/green color. I'm not sure if I'd ever wear Space Cadet a) in bright daylight or b) on a regular basis because VNL seriously bothers me.

However, the parts I did like about this manicure mainly had to do with Matte About You. Matte top coat is not forgiving and so you can see some streaking on my nails and that mangled middle finger because I was in a rush to apply the polish and get to the bar before closing time. I love matte finishes, and expect to go through this bottle of Matte About You quickly. I'll give Space Cadet a second chance to make a first impression in the future, but after this initial mani, it's definitely got some 'splaining to do.

What do you think? Did you pick up any of the duochromes from Orly's Cosmic FX Collection? Do you prefer your finishes matte or shiny? And just what were you drinking last night? Sound off in the comments below!