Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!!

Good afternoon and happy New Year to you and yours!

I've finally gotten some time to sit down and post my latest manis ._. The last week and a half just haven't gone how I anticipated, thus putting me behind. BUT!!! I'm going to remedy that, so sit back, relax, and enjoy!

You'll have to excuse some of my, not so clear pics -.- The weather here has been rather craptastic, and even though I don't mind (much) using indoor pics, I'd still rather take outside pics. I tried to limit the not so clear ones lol.

Let's get started with yesterday's New Year's mani. It was inspired by a photo posted by Zoya on their Face Book. While I didn't quite achieve the one I picked out, I used the same colors for my mani. Base color was two coats of Trixie, followed by Seche and allowed to dry. Contrasting color was Dream, applied to taped off nails. Another coat of Seche, and one at a time, I added the little gems. To make sure they held up through work, I added another coat of Seche.







Monday's mani was very simple. Just 3 coats of Amy's Nail Boutique Ashes to Ashes. In the bottle, this appears to be an almost charcoal grey linear holo. However, on the nail, it's no where near as dark. In fact, I was very surprised at how sheer it is. The linear holo was still there, but not the darkness. Even after applying my second and third coats a little thicker, it still wasn't as dark as it looks in the bottle.







Those pics don't show the holoness of this polish, because, as I said, the weather's just been crappy here, but the next two pics do. They were taken inside with a flash.





Stamping Sunday's challenge theme was Happy New Year. I kept it kinda simple, starting with two coats of Zoya Raven as my base. Using the numbers from Shany SH07 and an image from Messy Mansion MM02, I stamped them in CND's Vinylux Cream Puff. I then added French tips using Zoya Trixie and topped it all with Seche. Normally I use Scotch tape when I do French tips, but this time I freehanded them. I do not like how they turned out lol.








Last Friday was Texture Friday, and I tried out a newcomer to the texture game. Essie had released two textured polishes as part of their holiday collection. I immediately passed on Belugaria because all the swatches I saw just looked gross. Instead, I bought Lots of Lux (surprise surprise :P). Now, I kept an open about this one, since I'm not a huge of fan of Essie. I love the color of LoL, sadly, it's not quite up to par with my Pixie Dusts and Liquid Sands. While the PDs and LQs apply nice and smooth (ish), this one doesn't. It's a lot grittier than I expected, and I only used two coats. Maybe a third would have helped? I don't know. You can even tell in my pics it didn't apply well. I may have to give it a second go round in the future.

I will say this about the color: it reminds of OPI's Absolutely Alice. What I thought was a silver sparkle (in some lighting) was actually a gold sparkle. 








I loved my mani for Christmas, I just wish it was held up better than it did. Or rather, I wish I had gotten pics of it looking good earlier in the day >.< My base colors were one of Zoya Payton over one coat of Zoya Blaze, topped with Seche. Stamped images were from Bundle Monster BM-H03, stamped in Maybelline Bold Gold. Topped again with Seche.








My mani for Christmas Eve was one of those that didn't turn out quite as I intended. The base color was two coats of OPI's Baby, It's "Coal" Outside, topped with Seche. Then I sponged on, in an attempt to do a glitter gradient, OPI's How's it Snowin'?, which is where I prolly should have stopped. But I didn't, and stamped over that with stars from Sugar Bubbles Special 02 and Pure Ice Silver Mercedes. If memory serves me right, I needed two coats of Seche for this glitter bomb.






And finally, last Monday's mani. It's not very often that I get to say this, but I actually hate this mani. It's just one of those that I should have taken off and done over, but I don't think I had the time to. I was stuck with it. Base color was two coats of OPI's Rose to the Ovation, followed by a coat of Morgan Taylor's Day Dream. Topped with Seche.






I think the Morgan Taylor flakie would have looked better over any other color, and I just shouldn't have used it over red. I couldn't hardly see the colors of the flakies, and it just looked like I had something stuck to my nails that day.

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