Merlot French Tips with Dotted Flower Accent

This week I did Merlot French Tips with Dotted Flower Accents on each nail. My flowers aren't perfect, but overall I'm very pleased.

I started with a base of Pure Ice "Oh Baby!", a sheer white shimmer with red flash. I think "Oh Baby!" is meant to be used as a top coat on top of blacks and other dark creme colors to create a duochrome flash, but I wanted a sheer color for my base coat. On the French Tips and the Dotted Flowers I used "Iced Merlot", also by Pure Ice. It's a shimmery metallic merlot color. :) Finally, for the dots in the center of the flowers I used Savvy "Chrome", a silver shimmer.

I had originally wanted to do pink tips and flowers, but I found that all my pink shimmers were much too transparent for it. There was one that probably would have made a good base coat for the sheer color, though.

Pure Ice "Oh Baby!", Pure Ice "Iced Merlot", and Savvy "Chrome".

As a side note, when I was doing my dotted flowers I found out not to put the polish on a foam disposable plate. The polish started to eat through the plate and I had bubbles in the dots!

On a Trip with a Rockstar Pink DVD

Good morning my lovelies! For your viewing pleasure today I have a lovely purple manicure with pink glitter french tips. I've had every one of these colors for a few months now, but I'm so happy I finally got around to using them. As you can probably see, there was some shrinkage from the time I painted them last night to the time I took the photos this morning.

Wet n Wild Megalast "On A Trip", Sally Hansen HD "DVD", and Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Rockstar Pink".

The base color is "On A Trip" from Wet n Wild's Megalast collection. It's a purple creme. Their Megalast collection has what Wet n Wild calls a Manicurve Pro Brush. It's very wide and flat. From what I've read on other blogs I think I'm in the minority, but I really like the wide brushes, and at the very least I prefer my polish has a flat brush versus a round brush. The Wet n Wild Megalast collection is available at most retail stores for $1.99.

On top of the purple base I put "DVD" from Sally Hansen's HD collection. It's a metallic purple with blue shimmer. I loved the color the second I saw it in the bottle, but when I got home and swatched it, it turned out to be very, very sheer. As it turns out, pretty much the whole HD collection works best as layering polishes. I've seen some manicures on other blogs where they are layered over black, and they all look wonderful. What I like about layering it over the "On A Trip" is that they're the same shade of purple, so I get that wonderful bottle color in the opaque I'm looking for. I got this one at Walgreens. It's been awhile, but I think it was $6.

I couldn't resist the urge to add some glitter, so I did french tips with "Rockstar Pink" from Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear. It's a lot of pink glitter, with a little bit of purple, red, blue and gold glitter. You can buy this one just about anywhere for $1.99 as well.

Kleancolor "Firework" over Nicole by OPI "Iceberg Lotus"

Happy Memorial Day!

This week's manicure features what I call "messy glitter french tips." Not messy in a bad way, but on purpose. The random nature of the glitter is perfect for free-handing the french tips without using french tip guide stickers.

The base coat is called "Iceberg Lotus" from Nicole by OPI. It's a gorgeous teal shimmer, but it took three coats for full opacity. Luckily it dried quickly. It also has a hint of duochrome in it. Some lights bring out a bluish/purple color, but I couldn't get that to photograph. If I recall correctly, I bought this one at CVS. I have a few other polishes in the metallic turquoise/teal family, and several polishes in shades of metallic blue. What can I say, they're my favorite colors. :)

For the glitter tips I used "Firework" by Kleancolor. It has a clear base with red, gold and turquoise hex glitter, as well as small gold square glitter. This glitter looks great over SO MANY nail polish colors. Kleancolor isn't sold in my area, so I purchased this in a set of other Kleancolor polishes from an eBay seller. I think "Firework" is one of the best ones from the set.

Nicole by OPI "Iceberg Lotus" and Kleancolor "Firework". You can kind of see the duochrome of the Iceberg Lotus in this picture.

Of course, to make it smooth over the glitter I have two coats of Seche Vite on top. Altogether that makes 8 coats of polish at the glitter tips! (Two coats of base, three of the turquoise, one thick coat of glitter, and two of topcoat.) Something I've read about in other blogs and have noticed myself is that the Seche Vite causes some shrinkage of the polish. Not every polish, but definitely glitter polishes. With this manicure it's really obvious on my pinky. I haven't had a problem putting it over cremes.

Funky Black French Tips

This weekend I did a fun and funky French Tip manicure. I used two inexpensive polishes, too. As usual I started with a clear base coat, then I applied two coats of Wet n Wild fastdry "Teal Or No Teal". Once they were dry I put on my tip guide stickers and applied one coast of Wet n Wild fastdry "Ebony Hates Chris" to the tips. Then I topped it off with my NEW Seche Vite fast dry top coat. The "Teal Or No Teal" has gorgeous metallic shimmer!

Wet n Wild fastdry "Ebony Hates Chris" and Wet n Wild fastdry "Teal Or No Teal". 

A short and sweet blog post this week, folks!

Joyeux Mardi Gras!

Believe it or not, I didn't originally intend to do a Mardi Gras manicure this week. Last Wednesday I was going through my polishes, trying to decide how to do my manicure this week. Two weeks ago I bought a New York Color purple called "Purple Pizzazz Frost", and a week ago I happened to buy a gold glitter called "All About You" when Walgreens had their Sinful Colors on sale. When I saw the two bottles side-by-side I realized Mardi Gras was approaching and decided to go for it. So I went to Dollar General the next morning on my way to work and purchased Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Ivy League".

New York Color "Purple Pizzazz Frost, Sally Hansen Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear "Ivy League", and Sinful Colors "All About You".

I alternated the purple and the green on every other nail, and I sponge painted the gold glitter on the nail tips. This was the first time I've sponge painted nail polish, but it was very easy and I'm sure to do it again. You just apply the polish to a makeup applicator sponge, and then dab it on your nails.

New York Color is a very inexpensive brand, and I can't remember if I got it at Kmart or WalMart, but it retails for about $1 or so. I was actually impressed with the "Purple Pizzazz Frost" for that price (my photo doesn't do it justice), but I'm NOT loving the applicator brush. It was thin, and made out of a harder plastic that didn't spread the color very well. By contrast the brush on the Sally Hansen "Ivy League" was kind of wide and flat and the polish spread very easily.

In my mind I'm already trying to decide on what I'm going to do for my next manicure. Right now the front-runners are either using Sally Hansen's HD "DVD" (a holographic purple) or Zoya's Matte Velvet "Phoebe" (a matte turquoise). Whatever I do, I'm going to try to make it something quick. My oldest son is turning 8 next Sunday, and I know I'll be busy with the finishing touches for his party next weekend.

 Sally Hansen HD "DVD" and Zoya Matte Velvet "Phoebe".

On a side note, I'm realizing that eventually I need to get a good digital camera and stop taking pictures with my cell phone. My nails look much nicer in person than they do in the first photograph.

Welcome!

Welcome to my nail blog! I'm an amateur nail polish addict, and my fascination grows every day. Hopefully my nail polish skills will increase along with my blogging skills. :) My plan is to talk about polishes in all price ranges, and show you my own personal manicures. I promise to get more interesting as I get more experienced!

Last Friday I gave myself a glitter French manicure.

I used Essie "Trophy Wife" for the base color, with Sinful Colors "Nail Junkie" for the glitter tips. The gold line is metallic tape strips you can buy from eBay.

This was only my second attempt at a French Manicure. I'm not very good at painting the French tips freehand, so I have to use the guide stickers. The first time I tried a couple of months ago I thought the polish was dry, but apparently it wasn't, and the guide stickers ruined my polish. :(  I was much happier with this attempt.

Next week I'm planning on a Valentine's manicure... I can't wait!