KotD – Vintage Tea

Those of you who follow me on twitter may have seen my tweets about a tin of tea my father gave me, after finding it in a cupboard in his office. It’s from 1978. And perfectly drinkable. So now I’m the proud owner of tasty tea that’s older than I am.
To be precise, I’m the owner of two tins of tea that are older than I am, but the second one is a blend with Jasmine. I haven’t tried it yet, but it smells very bitter, as Jasmine tends to be, and that’s not my cup of tea at all. ;-)

Today I tried to do a pretty mani inspired by the lovely blue tin pictured above, which required some frankening, ‘cause I didn’t have a blue like that. Also, I got really irritated at my patches, so I soaked them off and chopped off my nails. Let’s hope they’ll survive without the silk.

Here’s what I used today:

• OPI Nail Envy Soft & Thin
• Sally Hansen Miracle Nail Thickener
• Tea Time – the aqua-ish light blue frankenpolish
• China Glaze 2030
• Konad image plate m44
• essence image plate (has no number on it, the one with the crown, obv.)
• LOOK by BIPA nail tattoo liner 11 gold
• Seche Vite

I started with my usual base manicure: one coat of either base coat, two of Tea Time and sealed it with Seche Vite.

Since this is a random frankenpolish I won’t talk about Tea Time much, other than to say that I’m very pleased with how it came out. The opacity and drying time is excellent and I can’t believe I didn’t have this colour before (though b.pretty sky is quite similar).

Here’s Tea Time in two coats with Seche Vite:

I then used 2030 and image plate m44 to add a double line to the tip of my nails. The French tip plates are still something I struggle with and I had to redo quite a few nails (if you seal the base colour with Seche Vite or something similar you can wipe of a failed motif with polish remover once or twice, then it’ll start to take of the base, too). Ultimately I got them all reasonable straight, except for my left ring finger nail, which I actually repainted a few times, going for a gold-on-gold design that I don’t really love, but enough was enough, y’know.
Then I used an old essence image plate, I don’t remember the number, but it has the crown, some stars, butterflies and floral designs, and 2030 to add a crown to all nails except for the golden one and the pinky nails (‘cause they’re just too tiny for that crown). A bit of top coat and the Konadicure was done.

 

For the record: the tea is Jacksons of Piccadilly Earl Grey’s Tea. Despite being over 30 years old it’s quite strong, rich and rather smoky tasting. I still prefer the more gentle Twinings, but once in a while I’ll most definitely reach for this one. And I can see myself using the tin for many years.
Would you even have brewed this tea?