Friday, August 30, 2013

Texture Friday

Good evening!


Sooooooooo...... I've been rather lazy this week with blogging :P I have no real excuse for it, other than just plain laziness lol. Let's get started with my new feature, Texture Friday.

I decided that I wanted to feature some kind of textured mani, since I've so many to chose, and quite a few that I haven't worn yet. Today, I wore a texture look that I know most everyone got sick of, but I still love, the crackled/shattered look. The very last one I bought was Shatter the Scales from last year's Spiderman collex from OPI.

This is only the second time I've used this particular Shatter. I layered it over two coats of My Boyfriend Scales Walls, also from the Spiderman collex, with a coat of Seche in between and over all. I don't think I've done this combo, but I could be wrong :P








Alrighty! Wednesday's mani featured a polish that I believe was inspired by the many indie polishes using the same glitter, Maybelline's Color Show in Drops of Jade from the little Polka Dots collection.

It's a green jellyish base with black and white matte glitters in various sizes. While I love that mainstream companies are catching on, this collection could use fine tuning. I found the formula hard to work with, especially if you don't use undies. After two coats, it's a bitch to apply.

For my mani, I layered 2 coats of Drops of Jade over 1 coat of Mermaid's Tears from OPI. Even though I was generous with the Gelous, it prolly could have used another coat before the Seche.








Last but not least, is Monday's mani, another stamped Marilyn Monroe mani :) I received some new plates from Mo You UK with MM images, and let me tell you, they stamp ah-mazingly well! I can't wait to get my next order and to order more, they're that awesome. I highly recommend you check them!

For this mani, I started with 2 coats of OPI's French Quater for Your Thoughts (I'm soooo ready for fall!) with a coat of Seche over it. My stamped images were from Mo You's Rebel plates 02 and 03, and Mundas de Unas Handy 39, in Sinful Colors Black on Black and Sally Hansen Insta-dri Quick Brick. Topped with Seche then OPI Matte Topcoat.







Sunday, August 25, 2013

Free as a bird!

Good evening!

I have for your viewing pleasure two manis, today's Stamping Sunday challenge and Friday's texture mani (which I totally meant to post Friday, but this damn cold I've had just won't let me go >.<). Today I finally feel like it's going away lol.

Today's Stamping Sunday challenge was over a nude base.......... Prolly one of my most disliked colors. I absolutely loathe nude colors on me, they're just so boring! I did it anyways, though, in spite of my dislike for nudes, and love the mani I came up with. I started with a base of 4 (yes, 4, that's how many it took for opacity and evenness) coats of Zoya Madison and topped with Seche. Aside from being boring, nudes are just such a pain in the ass to get them to look decent; most are hot, streaky mess with just 2 coats.

I let that dry for quite a while before I stamped over it. I used one of my untried plates, Mundos de Unas Handy 50. It has many vintage images on that I just love. For this mani, I used the bird images on the plate, stamped in Sinful Colors Black on Black. Topped with Seche and done. These images stamped incredibly well, I highly recommend getting any from this seller. She's amazing to work with, and sells stamping polishes as well as plates.








Friday's textured mani featured Zoya's Carter. I applied just two coats over my bare nails. Carter is very glowy and reminds me a lot of OPI's DS Temptation, minus the blue glitter. You can definitely get away with having both, since Carter is meant to be worn alone and Temptation works best layered since more like a glitter topper.

I know my secong pic is a bit blurry, but you can better see the fuschia sparkle to it.




Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Happy Wednesday!

Good evening and happy Wednesday!

I have a couple manis to show y'all, starting with today's :)


Today's mani is courtesy, in part, to my Zoya haul from last week. It included several colors from their fall collections and quite a few that weren't that I had wanted. Today's mani started with two coats of Zoya Kristen as my base followed by a coat of Seche. I got Kristen last year at Ulta on clearance.

Then, I sponged a gradient on, using Kristen, Natty, and Sailor. All of them are lovely, smoky blues that work well together. I topped again with Seche and cleaned up the mess around my nails. Finally, I stamped a cool image on top from my Mundos de Unas Handy 39 in Pure Ice's Silver Mercedes. Another coat of Seche and done :)








Now, I think Tuesday's mani was something I have done before, but I'm too lazy to look :P I applied three coats of China Glaze's Riveting, a coat of Luxe and Lush, a generous coat of Gelous, and finished with Seche. The Gelous really helped smooth out L&L's bumpiness. I believe it would work really well for OPI's I Lily Love You, which has the same problem.







Sunday, August 18, 2013

Stamping Sunday!

Good evening!

I've got today's Stamping Sunday mani to show you :) Today's theme was, literally, anything goes. Now, I've seen quite a few manis in Adventures in Stamping that are, just, wow, and then there were a few naked nails pics lol. I think mine falls somewhere in between.

My base was 3 coats of OPI's DS Coronation. It had been quite a while since I lasted used it, and I can't image why I hadn't. It's a beautiful, silver scattered holo. You don't need a special base for balding or streaking. I topped with Seche and let that dry as I cleaned up around the nails.

For the stamped images, I used Messy Mansion plate MM05. I bought this plate specifically because my husband loves dragons :) I used Color Club's Beyond to stamp the images with. Yep, holo on holo. The black wasn't quite as bold as I wouldn't liked, but I think that's more user error than anything else.






Saturday, August 17, 2013

I'm baaaaack!!

Good morning everyone!!

I'm finally feeling better, not 100% back to normal but close enough that I worked this week and did my nails :) I have several manis I want to share with you, so let's get started! I'll with today's.

Today is my nephew's 4th bday party, and I wanted something fun and cute. My base is something that I just knew I was gonna to use for this particular mani, even though I wasn't totally sure it would arrive in time. Over 1 coat of Milani's White on the Spot, I layered two coats of Jindie Nails' Betty's Fetti Milkshake. BFM is a white crelly base just packed with matte glitters of many colors. I did find that I needed to use a coat of Gelous before the Seche to smooth it out (which I'm finding typical of my indie glitters....). 

For the stamped images, the plates I used were Messy Mansion MM02, Winstonia  W117, and Red Angel RA103, stamped with Maybelline Color Show in Flash of Purple and Navy Narcissist, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri on Jumpin' Jade, and Confetti Purple Reigns. All topped with another coat of Seche.








Now, the next mani I so meant to post yesterday, because I want to feature textured polishes on Fridays. I was just a little too tired, and was trying to get the above mani done to post it =\ But here it is!

Friday's Textured Mani featured Zoya Tomoko. Tomoko is from the Fall 2013 Pixie Dust collection that I bought and received on Monday. Even though I had read the description, I was a little disappointed that Tomoko wasn't more silver. I think this is the first time I was disappointed in a Zoya color. Don't get me wrong, I like it and will be keeping it, I just wish it was more silver than champagne. I applied 3 coats of Tomoko to my bare nail, and had hardly any wear by the time I took it of yesterday.








Wednesday's mani was a tribute to the beautiful, late Marilyn Monroe. I absolutely adore her, and think she's one of the most beautiful women to grace the silver screen :)

My base was 3 coats of Zoya Shelby followed by a coat of Seche. The images I used were from Rica GLAM-01, Mundo de Unas Handy 39 (I may have just butchered that >.<), and Sugar Bubbles 002, all stamped in OPI's Every Month is Oktoberfest. I'll be the first one to admit, I have bought plates for just the Marilyn images on them :) But I don't have duplicates yet lol.








And, lastly, is Tuesday's mani, which was rather simple. Just two of Zoya Yummy with a coat of Zoya Maisie, followed by a coat of Seche.







Wednesday, August 7, 2013

MIA......

Good evening!

Just a quick post, I've been sick this week =\ Which means I haven't worked, which in turn means I haven't had the urge, or need, to do my nails. I've just been too exhausted from not sleeping to want to be bothered with. Don't hate me. I am hoping to be better enough to work Friday. I'm planning on doing a little something different with my Friday posts, so stay tuned! I'll keep taking my vitamins so I can kick this stupid summer cold >.< 

Sunday, August 4, 2013

Something of a fail...... maybe.....?

Good evening!

I hope everyone had a great weekend, I did :) I got to hang with a dear friend and squash a lemming :)

I have two manis to show y'all tonight, today's Stamping Sunday challenge and Friday's mani. Let's start with Stamping Sunday, the theme called for using a plate that ended in the number 8. Ok, cool, no problem! I found one I liked and my idea took shape.

I started with 2 coats of Zoya Sarah as my base and topped with Seche. Sarah is a gorgeous, in my opinion, strawberry red, which was perfect for the plate I wanted to use, Winstonia 118. This is where I ran into trouble. Winstonia's full nail images don't fit my thumbs, so I planned on using a different plate with a strawberry image for them. I got all my other fingers done and went to do my thumbs.......... And my stampers wouldn't pick up the image on my Shany plate. So yeah, my thumbs weren't done >.< I topped the other fingers with Northern Lights, which smeared my images a little. Couldn't win with this one but I'll show you anyways.





Friday's mani was much better, lol, and very easy. Simply, I used my only untried (besides swatching) Zoya Pixie Dust, Miranda. Miranda is a pretty, rose pink with a formula similar to Zoya Chyna. I only needed two coats for even opacity, although it took forever to dry. In my opinion, Miranda is a great transitional color into fall colors, since it's not as bright as the other Summer PDs.






Thursday, August 1, 2013

Sparkling like diamonds....

Good evening!

So, yet again, I was feeling the need to do purple. I don't what it is, since blue is my fave color (obviously lol), but I've worn purple a lot this summer, and not just in nail color either. I love purple eye makeup too.

I had already figured that I wanted to do purple eyes yesterday, which kinda decided me for nails. It wasn't anything fancy, but it was pretty and I liked it. What I ended up doing was 2 coats of OPI's Solitaire and 2 coats of Zoya Stevie as accents on the ring fingers and thumbs.