Good evening!
I have for you tonight a swatch of one of my new favorites. You've probably see that one of the hot trends this year is matte glitter, ie. OPI's Liquid Sand and Zoya's Pixie Dust. So far, I've only gotten one of each, mainly because the rest of the colors don't appeal to me =\
Tonight, I'm going to show you OPI's Got Your Number from the Mariah Carey collection. When this particular textured polish was announced, I was really on the fence about. Don't get me wrong, I love the matte polishes I have, but matte glitter is different. I wanted to give it a try anyways.
I'm pretty sure OPI recommends not using a basecoat with the Liquid Sands, but I couldn't just put all that glitter on my nails, so I opted for the glue method. Unfortunately, it didn't make it any easier to take off, since it didn't want to peel off, but it didn't stain.
For my mani, I applied 2 coats of Got Your Number over the glue once it was dry. When Got Your Number was dry, it reminded me of a gumdrop. The texture is slightly rough (Pixie Dusts are smoother, in my opinion), but it doesn't catch on your clothing. What was a pleasant surprise to me was the wear time; I did this mani Monday night and took it off tonight. I had very little tip wear and no chips! I can't say that about any of my polishes, except for one (and for the life of me I can remember what it is right now! :P)
So here is Got Your Number. Enjoy!
And before I forget, I now have a Face Book page for my blog :) Give it a like, I'd love to see your manis and comments.
Good evening!
Many apologies for not posting since last week. Pretty much the whole week after my last post was just sucktastic, and this week's not shaping up to be much better. There's not alot to be done about it, so I'm just trying to move past everything. Now, if only I don't get sick...... lol.
I'll start with last Wednesday's mani. I'd been wanting to do a pink and gray mani for a few weeks; not a bright pink but something soft. I pulled out Zoya Shelby and laid down three coats of that. I need to get a back up of that color, I just love it.
I let that dry and decided to add some grey dots. I had gotten a new grey a few days before that to use for stamping and used that. It's Sinful Colors Adroise, it's nice and thick and does work nice for stamping as well as dots :) After the dots, I applied one coat of NYC's Matte me Crazy.
I love love love Friday's mani! I used two different textures, matte and liquid. I wasn't completely sold on the whole liquid sand when I first heard of it, but I like at least the one I bought, Get Your Number from OPI.
Now, I basecoated under that and the matte. For the matte, I used Orly Bonder and Elmer's under the liquid sand. Then, I did 4 coats of Zoya Phoebe and 2 coats of Get Your Number. This mani actually lasted pretty well.
Ok, now I did have a mani done up for Stamping Sunday's theme, which was a light, stamped color over a dark base. My pics did not come out well, and for some reason, even though the stamped image didn't come out nice and I was gonna show it, my Konad Special white messed up the image a little. I plan on trying it out again, because I love the image I wanted to use :)
Good morning!
After all the festive manis I've done in the last month for Christmas, I wanted to do something a little more New Year's-esque. This is the first of two manis I have planned for just this reason; the other you'll get to see either tomorrow or New Year's Eve.
As you may or may not know, I've had butter LONDON'S The Black Knight for months now and have used it only once, aside from swatching. At the time, I didn't really know about the super awesomeness of Gelous and what it does for glitter. Thus, my mani didn't look as great as some pics I had of TBK.
Now that I have Gelous and have seen what it does for glitter, I wanted to revisit TBK. I couldn't think of a better time to do so than in anticipation of New Year's. I started first with two coats of my Elmer's concotion to make removal a hell of alot easier. I let that dry completely (meaning, the glue became clear), then applied 2 coats of TBK. After that, 2 coats of Gelous, then one of Seche.
This came out so much better the second time around :)
Good evening!
Well, it's a week till Christmas, do you have your shopping done? I finished mine up today, not that I had too many to shop for. My family draws names every year, so we only have one person to get a gift for, with the exception of myself, my hubs, and my mom. Our birthdays are this month as well :P
Anyways! I want to show you a few manis from this week, starting with today's. I stepped a bit out of my comfort zone and went with a darker green, Zoya's Suvi. I think I've only used once or twice and not as full manis. I did today, though. Suvi applied beautifully, and I achieved for coverage in two coats. I absolutely love how it turned it, but thought it could use a little sparkle. Not glitter but some sparkle.
I pulled out my little used Golden Rose Scale Effects #13. Wow, just wow. I topped it all with Seche, and just for giggles, I added a matte topcoat as an accent on the ring finger. The matte topcoat I used, NYC's Matte Me Crazy, made it look more satiny than matte. It was kind of hard to tell even in bright daylight, but it was still pretty.
Alrighty, Monday's mani was very simple. Using the glue method, I went with glitter- OPI's How's It Snowin'? topped with two coats of Gelous to smooth it out, the Seche. Let me tell you, as much as I hate using acetone to remove glitter, the glue method is almost as much a pain in the ass, at least in a full mani lol. Running my fingers under hot water helped with peeling it off though.
My mom wanted my to dress up her nails after she got them filled yesterday. Her base color is one of my fave reds, OPI's Rose to the Ovation. I pretty much did the same thing on her nails as I did for this past Stamping Sunday. Messy Mansion plate 01, China Glaze's Millenium, dotting tools, Zoya Song and Sure, and Color Club's Ho-Ho-Holly.
Good evening! I have another festive, sparkly mani to show you, with two swatched-only polishes. This is also an accent mani, meaning my glitter is only on ring fingers.
The main color is used was China Glaze's Platinum Silver with two coats. Most people prolly won't like it as it's a frosty silver and you can see brush strokes. That doesn't bother me though, lol. My glitter was also from China Glaze, Lorelei's Tiara, with 2 coats.. I used the glue method I told you about in the last post. I absolutely had to use two coats of Gelous to smooth it out, then topped everything with Seche.
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
