Good evening and hoppy Easter! I hope you all had a wonderfully blessed holiday weekend filled with family :)
Today's Stamping Sunday challenge was, of course, Easter themed nails. I thought long and hard and scraped several ideas before settling on what I did. I started with a Skittles mani, using Zoya Arizona and Pippa, OPI You're Such a Budapest and Pink Friday, and China Glaze Kinetic Candy, all done with 3 coats and topped with Seche.
Once that was dry, I pulled out 5 different stamping colors- Maybelline Sweet Clementine, Ulta The Jungle Look, Confetti Get the Party Started, Sally Hansen Blue Me Away!, and Wet 'N Wild 2 Weeks Sober. The plates I used were Bundle Monster 323 and 315, and Mash 43. The results were to make my nails look like designed eggs, especially once I matted them with OPI's matte topcoat.
Good evening!
I know I've been slacking this week, but it's been a bit busy for me. I've had family visiting from out town and get ready for Easter :) I do have today's and Wednesday's manis to show you. Both are flakie manis, which I've really been in the mood for lately.
Today's flakie mani uses China Glaze colors, Dandy Lyin' Around and Luxe and Lush. I remember reading reviews last year about Luxe and Lush, and they weren't glowing. I still wanted it, and figured I would get around its rough feeling. Luxe is very like I Lily Love You from OPI in that the flakies don't want to lay nice. I had since discovered Gelous, which is a smoothing miracle in a bottle for rough textured polishes. So, three coats of Dandy Lyin', one coat of Luxe, one coat of Gelous, and one coat of Seche :)
This was one of those manis that I honestly didn't know how the final mani would look, and if I would like it lol. I was really tempted to matte it, but I did not want to put another coat of anything on it, since the base color was three, thickish coats to get opacity. I ended up liking just like this though.
Wednesday's mani was an exercise in pissing me off. I did that one 3 time before I was happy with it. By the third mani, the colors weren't even the same as I had started with.
I had wanted to do a jelly mani with a sparkly/flakie topcoat. The original mani was Zoya Kate and Belle, but when I woke Wednesday morning, I don't know, it's like the tips shrank or something. I thought, ok, I have time before I have to start getting ready for work, do over. The second mani was OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y and Zoya Chloe. Talk about way too much visible nail line >.> So off that mani came. The final mani was one coat of OPI Kiss me on my Tulips, 2 coats od Do You Think I'm Tex-y?, and one coat of Zoya Chloe. I still wasn't entirely happy with it, I wasn't wanting something so bold, but it is what it is lol.
Good evening!
Ok, you all know how much I love matte polish/topcoats. To date, I've tried six different brand matte topcoats, two of which were recent. Three of them I was truly impressed with, one I'm going to show you tonight. Everything I used for this mani is from OPI.
I started with two coats of Can't Find my Czechbook. This color is pretty awesome, and I'm seeing shades of mint just about everywhere in fashion right now, so grab a bottle while you can :) Then, I added just one coat of Polka.com. The only thing I don't like about this glitter is it's a little difficult to see the blue and teal glitter in it if you wear it over the lighter Euro Centrale colors. In order to see them better, I decided to matte the mani using OPI's newly released Matte topcoat.
This is one of the best matte topcoats I've used. Most of them recommend using 2 coats, but I only needed one of the OPI. I'm pretty happy with this mani :) I need to try matting more glitter manis lol.
Good evening!
I know I normally post my Stamping Sunday challenges, but, well, today's was a fail in my opinion. The theme was spring flowers, and I had a great idea, but the execution left something to be desired.
So, instead of showing pics of my dailure (didn't take any, anyways), I'll show you some swatches I've been sitting on. Both are from OPI. The first one up is You Glitter be Good to Me from last year's Breast Cancer Awareness, which was paired with I Think in Pink. You Glitter be Good to Me is mix of large and small pink and rose gold glitter. It's not as dense as it appears to be in bottle, so you will definitely want to layer if you don't want to more than two coats of a glitter on the nail. For my swatch, I did three coats of it alone, no topcoat (although I prolly should have swatched it over at least one other color :P). First is inside with a flash, second is outside no flash.
The next swatch is one of OPI's glow in the dark polishes, Zombody to Love. This is from their Spookettes set. Zombody to Love is a lime green color that you could wear alone, even though it's rather sheer, or wear layered over, say, white to make it pop. Zombody dries to a matte finish. Now, I did 3 coats of this for my swatch and it was still more sheer than I like. Both of my pics were taken during the day, because my camera just doesn't like trying to photograph glow in the dark polishes. First is inside with a flash, second is outside no flash, no topcoat on either.
Good evening and happy Friday!!
I wanted to show you the lovely gradient mani I wore today. I don't know if it's just me, but in just about every polish group I'm in on FaceBook, I've been seeing gradients all the time. Like, dozens each day. It's as if all the sudden, gradients have become extremely popular. I personally love a good gradient, even though there are some that have made me go O.o
I know I'm not perfect at gradients, but I do hope that have been getting at them lately. Gradients are awesome because they allow to use at least 2 colors at a time, and sometimes you get different colors when those mix :) Mine wasn't like that, though; it was part glitter gradient.
I first started with 2 fabulous coats of Zoya Blu. Blu is pretty, light sky blue, and is not to be confused with Zoya Kristen, which is more a light blue grey. I topped with Seche and let that dry before moving on. My gradient was two parts, actually, the first being Wet 'N Wild's Bow in my Presence, followed be Revlon's Blue Mosiac on the very tips. I smoothed it all out with a generous coat of Gelous and topped again with Seche. Clean up was a pain. in. the. ass, but well worth it.
Good evening!
So, I know I said that I was going to try to post and such, and here it is, Thursday posting Wednesday's mani ._. I have a perfectly good reason for not posting last night......... Let's just say it wasn't for anything fun or enjoyable that I didn't post =\
Anyways! Wednesday was the first day spring, and to kind of celebrate that, I did up an easy and cheery mani. Both colors are from Zoya, Lianne and Chloe. Lianne was the base color at 3 coats, with just one of Chloe, topped with Seche. That's it! You can kinda tell in my pics that the weather here yesterday was just gloomy, so this mani was the perfect pick-me-up for it!
Good evening!
I've decided to bring back my dupe posts, at least until I run out of dupes to post about lol.
Up for consideration tonight are two OPI colors, Wreathed in Red and I've "Red" the Script. These were both released as part of holiday collections. Both are gorgeous reds and perfect for the hoidays. Here is the bottle shot:
Wreathed in Red is on the left, I've "Red" the Script on the right. For my comparison, I applied two coats of each with no topcoat.
Again, Wreathed on the left, Script on the right.
Index and ring are Wreathed, middle and pinky are Script. Aside from the shimmer, these two are pretty much the same color. Wreathed has a red shimmer to it, while Script had blue/purple shimmer. Unless you're a red lover like me, you really don't need both of these :P
Good evening and Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you got to enjoy some green-ness today :) If not, I hope my mani does it for you.
It started with two coats of OPI's Skip the Gift Wrapping, followed by one coat of OPI's Fresh Frog of Bel Air topped with Seche. This was pretty enough on its own, but I wanted to stamp over it using my Messy Mansion plate 04. I used the full nail clover image stamped with Wet 'N Wild's French White. The white wasn't as opaque as I thought it would be, but I kinda like how you can see the glitter through it.
Good evening! How's your weekend, do you have plans for tomorrow? I don't, aside from cleaning and grocery shopping xD We don't normally go out on holidays such as St. Patrick's Day, too many drunks on the road.
Ok, so, I just ran out of time yesterday and too tired to try and post yesterday's green mani. It wasn't anything complicated, since I didn't have much time to throw it together Thursday evening. The pics aren't the greatest but then that's what happens when I have to be up at 5 am for work x.x The pics were taken indoors with a flash.
The green-ness was achieved with 3 coats of Zoya Mitzi, one coat of Zoya Opal, and one coat of China Glaze Matte Magic. It may not be the most flattering color on me, but I likke how it came it out :)
Now, I want to show you some neons that I found th other day that seem to stamp nice. I only tried them on one plate, but for that one plate, they came out well. These are from the Walmart brand, Salon Perfect, and they are from the nail art line.
Good morning!
I have a few holo swatches I want to show you this morning. I've got so many swatches to post, that I figured I would post a few on the days I don't have an actual mani to show you :)
The holo goodness I want to show you are from Color Club's latest releases from the Halo Hues line, Cosmic Fate and Beyond. Mind you, I didn't buy any from the first releases of Halo Hues, but that was because the colors didn't really call to me. The newest ones did, from the pics I had seen.
First to show is Cosmic Fate. I was a little disappointed in the color of this one, since the pics I had seen showed it to be more orange than it really is. Cosmic Fate is more coppery than orange; I like it, but I was wanting more of an orange holo. The polish applied very nicely, and I could have done with just one coat, but did two anyways. I can also tell it stamps well. First pic is inside with a flash, second is outside no flash.
Look at that linear holo goodness! Color Club really hit the nail on the head with their Halo Hues!
Next is Beyond. Beyond is a true black holo, unlike Revvvolution which comes off more charcoal grey. I have no words for the beauty of Beyond; same great formula and application. I'll let the pics speak :) First inside flash, second outside no flash.
Oh, and no topcoat was used in either swatches, but I can tell you it does not effect the holoness of either. Beyond also stamps very well. I plan on acquiring the colors in 2013 release of the Halo Hues; they are a little pricey, considering I get pro prices for other brands, but I believe they are worth it :)
Well......
Do you?
Good evening, lol! This week, I'm showing some green manis for St. Patrick's Day. I have today's and yesterday's manis to show off tonight. I'm not normally one for greens, unless they're teals or mints, but occasionally I would go for something different.
Today's was the something different. I started with 2 coats of China Glaze's Gaga for Green. Layered over that was one coat of Sour Apple, also from China Glaze, topped with Seche. Simple, but glittery :)
The next one I'm rather proud of. It's a gradient, and it didn't come out too bad, if I do say so myself :P My base color was two coats of Essie's Mint Candy Apple topped with Seche. I let that dry for about ten minutes before I sponged on my gradient colors, China Glaze's Aquadelic and Turned Up Turquoise. I went over the gradient twice and topped again with Seche.
Now, I had full intentions of leaving it be, but I was just dying to try my St. Patrick's themed plate, MM04, from Messy Mansion. I chose to the line of shamrocks, stamped with Konad Special white. After all that, I then made it matte with China Glaze's Matte Magic :) It did smear some of images a little, but it wasn't too terribly noticeable until close up.
Than not at all!
Good morning, peeps! It's a beautiful morning here in FL, and I really can't complain about it being too warm...... yet xD I can complain about the time change, though. I was still all messed up from the fall time change, so yeah. The change this past weekend did not help any lol.
Anyways! On to today's featured mani, which is yesterday's Stamping Sunday challenge. This one called for using a plate that ended in 6. Realistically, most of my sets on have 2 plates that end 6, so you'd think it would have be easy to pick one......... I chose Bundle Monster 316. Turns out, my BM 316 doesn't stamp, at least not with the polishes I tried (including Konad Special White), and I refuse to stamp full nail image with any stamper but my XL one.
So, sadly, I moved on to my back up plan, which was MASH 46. I used two images from that plate, because their full nail images don't fit my wide thumb nails. My base color was two coats of Zoya Gie Gie, Seche over that, and the images stamped in Sinful Colors Ardoise with one more coat of Seche.
Good evening!
Tonight I'm going to show you my first St. Patrick's Day themed mani. There's no green involved in this one, but I can't say the my next St. Patrick's won't lol.
This mani was easy to create. I started with three coats of my base color, China Glaze's Dandy Lyin' Around. First of all, I love this color. It totally reminds me of cream cheese frosting. Secondly, it's a bitch to apply. It might just be user error on my part, but if I wore this alone, I would prolly need a fourth coat. Since I was stamping, though, I left it at three and topped with Seche so it would be dry enough to stamp.
For the stamped image, I used my Messy Mansion plate 004. It's a plate full of St. Patrick's Day goodness. I absolutely love MM's holiday theme plates. The celtic knot image I used was stamped in Pure Ice's Magic, then everything was topped with Seche again. The final result is a festive mani without being too in-your-face :)
Don't forget to stop by my FB page and give it a like, please :)
