Good evening!
I've got a couple of textured polish swatches I want to share that have just been sitting, waiting for just that :)
First up is OPI's Alcatraz...Rocks. This gorgeous color is from the San Francisco collection and is, I believe, the only sparkly one. Thus, it was the only I wanted. In the bottle, Alcatraz has a purple cast that doesn't translate to the nail. Instead, it dries to kind of a greyish blue with gold sparkles. I haven't seen a color quite like it and think it's rather pretty. My swatch only needed 2 coats over bare nails.
Next is a color from OPI's retail line, Nicole by OPI. They released their own line textures a few months ago, called Gumdrops. Really, there was just one that called me and that was A-Nise Treat. This is a true black, not charcoal grey, texture with silver sparkles. The formula was very good, unlike other colors I've tried from NOPI. Two coats over bare nails for this one as well.
Lastly, I have one from Sally Hansen's line of textures that debuted over the summer. I had passed on them when I first saw them, because all I kept seeing were the cremes. It later came to my attention that there were two sparkly colors, one being Royal Icing. In the bottle, Royal Icing is a pretty, icy blue with pink flashes. However, this one was a bit of a disappointment. Out of all the textures I own, this one is the least opaque, making me recommend undies for it. My swatch shows it with 3 coats on its own and 2 coats over 1 coat of Zoya Blu. You really can tell the difference, and I think it looks better with undies.
It looks so boring by itself, but it really pops over Blu, and is still sparkly with the pink flashes :)
Good evening!
Yay for me posting my themed mani on the correct day!! :D For once, I'm not too exhausted or lazy to not post lol, although I'm about ready to hit the sack. It's been a long week and I'm soooo glad it over.
So, today's textured mani features the one and only textured polish that I've picked up from Nicole from OPI, from the Gumdrop collection. One of the colors that I've not that hasn't been done much is black (and green, a nice green! That annoys me to no end.), at least sparkly ones like I prefer. I can name two, Zoya Dahlia and this one, A-Nise Treat.
A-Nise Treat is a black base with silver glitter in it. It dries to, as the collex name implies, to a gumdroppy finish. Formula is nice, I only need two coats for opacity, and like my other textured polishes, wear very well. I've got no chips as of this post, and I did this mani last night.
Now, if I could only find a green textured polish that I absolutely have to have..... *sigh*
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.
Good evening!!
So, I know it's been pretty obvious that I love the whole textured look trend that's been popular, starting with Shatters/Crackles (which I still have plenty of), and has crossed over to the whole textured glitters (I can't stand the textured cremes). I own three of OPI Liquid Sands, 6 of the Zoya Pixie Dusts, and just one of the Nicole by OPI Gumdrops. Those numbers are, of course, subject to change, and most likely will in the next month or so with the release of the fall collections. It certainly doesn't look like the textured trend is fading out anytime soon.
Tonight, I have 3 of the summer Pixie Dusts to show you. I wanted to give them a little before the fall collections come out lol. I'll start with yesterday's mani, which was simply 3 coats of Stevie over my bare nail. I highly, highly recommend not using a base of any kind, even a glue base, to avoid chipping or tip wear. That seems to be best for me, even with my chipping problems.
Stevie is a gorgeous, light purple matte glitter with some silver thrown in. I could have probably been all right with two coats, but three made it appear more....... even, I suppose.
I know the third pic is a little blurry, but it does show the sparklieness of the matte glitter :)
Today's mani was a little more colorful. I got the idea from a pic Zoya had posted from the CosmoProf show in Las Vegas. I don't have the colors in their pic, so I chose my own, Liberty and Solange.
Now, I'll be honest, Solange isn't a color I would normally choose for myself. It's gold. and gold is not a good color for me. However, Solange is very yellow gold, not a regular gold. I found the color, for me, very wearable. Kerry from the Irrestible collection is the same in a sparkly foil.
I applied Solange as accents on my middle and ring finger, per the Zoya pic, and Liberty on the remaining fingers. Can I just say how much I love Liberty? Three of my textured polished are blue, and they're all different. Anyways, 3 coats of each over a bare nail and done. I will note that Liberty did take longer to dry than Solange, since I think the formula for Liberty is the same as the first collection of Pixie Dusts, like Chyna. It's worth it, though :)
I don't know why that last pic came out so dark, it wasn't anything I did in Picasa O.o
Has been getting in the way this week. I've had alot going on in my personal life, but I won't get into it here. The only bright spots this week were my bday on Monday and my mother's on Sunday.
To celebrate both, my parents, my husband, and I went out to dinner at Carraba's. The food was great, and we all had fun :) I have some swatches of what my husband got me as well as a few manis from this week. Let's start with what I had on yesterday.
So, you may may not have heard of a new method of dealing with glitter that's taken the polish community by storm. It calls for using a glue, such as Elmer's, watering it down a little, and using it as a base. For my glitter accents, I applied two coats and let them dry completely before applying the glitter. I used an old, clean nail polish bottle and filled it about 90% with Elmer's Glue-All, then added water and a couple of stainless balls, and shook the crap out of it.
Ok, for my mani, I decided to use one of my bday gifts, the Ulta exclusive OPI Skip the Gift Wrap with an accent of Nicole by OPI Kendall on the Katwalk. Two coats of each, with KOTK receiving two coats of Gelous, all topped with Seche. I love Skip the Gift Wrap, it's the perfect Christmas green. However, I absolutely hate KOTK, I think this is the first time I've used it, and it was horribly thick and goopy. I have a feeling, though, that one of China Glaze's Cirque colors, Water You Waiting For? (I think) is a dupe for it. I need to pick it up :P
Here are the mani pics, including how removal looks for the glitter.
The glitter didn't peel off, exactly; I used a rounded cuticle pusher to lift it off and kind of scrape it. I did this very gently so as not to injure my nails, but I think I prefer this over using acetone.
As I said earlier, Monday was my bday and Sunday was my mom's. Things got very iffy on Monday on whether we would go out Monday, and I didn't do my nails, until about an hour and a half before. Unfortunately, the weather here was so nasty and humid, it actually effected the dry time, even with Seche.
My mani was very simple: two coats of OPI's Birthday Babe and one of Happy Anniversary. Both are so pretty, I really don't wear them enough.
Don't mind the shimmer on my hands, that's from my lotion, CND Vanilla Velvet. It smells heavenly.
Now for some swatches! These are all OPI colors.
Every Month is Oktoberfest- 2 coats
Bogota Blackberry- 2 coats
Unfor-greta-bly Blue- 2 coats
I Think in Pink- 4 coats
Isn't that Precious?- 4 coats
Giftcards for Everyone!- 2 coats
Last Minute Shopper- 2 coats
Skip the Gift Wrap- 2 coats
Good evening! I hope y'all had a great weekend; if not, tomorrow's a new day and can only be better :)
Ok, so today's Stamping Sunday theme was called "inspired by something you love". This was really a no brainer for me lol. I took three of my favorite things and put them into one mani.
I started with two coats of Blue My Mind from OPI. This is one of my first ever OPIs and one of my favorite blues (out of allllllll the blues I own, and I own a lot :P). I then layered 1 coat of Me + Blue from Nicole by OPI. It's my understanding that Me + Blue and the Ulta exclusive The Flowers are Blue-ming! are the same thing, so you don't need both. I can't take credit for coming up with this combo; a good friend of mine on FaceBook did it first and I loved it so much I wanted to copy it. Blue and holo, what's not to love?
I topped that all with SV and waited for my ring fingers to dry enough to stamp on. I didn't really feel up to stamping the entire mani, so I only did accents. I used Red Angel plate 102 and Konad special white for the accents. I absolutely love butterflies and this is one of my favorite images. I only wish it was bigger. One last coat of SV on the accents and done!
Oh, and this is another image where my squishy stamper came in handy. I really only used part of this particular image this time.
