Maybelline Color Show Sequins "Cocktail Dress"

Surprise! I'm still here. I know I've been MIA lately, but this time of year is crazy, and I just haven't had much time to paint my nails. It has made me so sad. I finally have something to show you!

This is Maybelline Color Show Sequins "Cocktail Dress". It is a clear base jam-packed with black and metallic charcoal glitter, and small maroon-ish hex glitter. It's going to be such a PITA to take off, but it's just so freaking gorgeous!

This two coats of "Cocktail Dress" and two coats of Butter London PD Quick Topcoat. "Cocktail Dress" sells for $3.49 for a 7 ml bottle.

China Glaze "Luxe and Lush" over Funky Fingers "Mood Ring"

This week's manicure is China Glaze "Luxe and Lush" over Funky Fingers "Mood Ring".

Mood Ring is a lovely metallic seafoam green that I purchased from my new favorite store, Five Below. Application is pretty good. This is two coats.

Luxe and Lush is from China Glaze's Hunger Games collection that was released early this year. It flashes a bunch of different colors, but the one that is the most prominent is red. I used THREE coats of Luxe and Lush, because in my opinion just one coat went on kind of sparse. Believe it or not the flakies lie pretty flat, it just looks chunky in the pictures. I got Luxe and Lush on clearance at Sally Beauty Supply on clearance for $4.99 plus 50% off!

Overall, I like it! There are a couple of spots where I had trouble getting the glitter out of my cuticles, and in these photos it makes it looks like I have some hangnails, but I don't!

Walking in the Spider Webs

Happy Halloween!

For my Halloween manicure I used crackle polish for the first time. OPI's black crackle over Sinful Colors "Summer Peach". The crackle is supposed to represent spider webs. I also did an accent nail of a spider, and I used the crackle as a French Tip. I made the spider with my dotting tools. My spider needs a little work. Not only did my top coat make the white polish for the eyes bleed a little bit, but I realized after I did it that a spider spins his web from his back end, not the front. Oh well! I'm still pretty happy with it.

Funky Fingers Mermaid Lagoon

Yay, a new blog post! After a week of naked nails, I FINALLY had time to paint my nails last night, and I LOVE IT.

So, a couple of weeks ago I discovered an awesome new store with some fun nail polish! The polish I'm showing you today is "Mermaid Lagoon" by Funky Fingers, and line of polish I found at a store called 5 Below, where everything is $5 or less. Bottles of Funky Fingers are $2 each, or 3 for $5.

"Mermaid Lagoon" is medium silver hex glitter, small purple glitter, and micro blue glitter in a clear base. I layered it over an unnamed purple shimmer by Color Club. Well, it probably has a name, but for some reason the multi-pack of Color Club polish I bought doesn't have any names on them. I am so loving this manicure! Not only do I love the colors, but the glitter goes on great. No fishing for glitter pieces at all! This is definitely one of those times where I find myself staring at my nails without even realizing it.

 

If you have a 5 Below near you, I highly recommend you buy this polish. They also had bins of Nicole by OPI polish for $4 per bottle! Of course, I picked up a few of those, too. ;-)

Matte Glitter!

Today I have a matte glitter manicure to show you.

For my base color I used China Glaze "Liquid Leather" (black), and then I did messy glitter French Tips in Jordana "Celestial". Celestial is a turquoise glitter with small glitter and medium hex glitter. To make it matte I used Butter London Matte Finish Shine Free Topcoat.

I know, this one is short and sweet. Sorry, it's Monday!

Lynnderella "Connect the Dots"

Today I have on "Connect the Dots" by Lynnderella. THAT Lynnderella. Any fellow nail polish bloggers who are reading this probably understand my internal conflict of buying a Lynn. For anyone who isn't big into the indie nail polish scene, the story would probably bore you, lol. Let me start off by saying I did NOT pay full price. A few weeks ago Copious.com released some credits--one for $5, and one for $15 off a $30 purchase. So I had $20 in credits to put towards a $30 purchase, and I snagged this for $10.

Now that I've finally had a chance to use a Lynn, I have to say, I can see what the fuss is about. There are so many chunky glitter polishes where you have to fish around for the glitter, and even then the coverage isn't that great. Not so with this polish. It's PACKED with it! It's got small black and white round glitter, medium black and white hex glitter, black and white bar glitter, and a sprinkling of regular iridescent glitter (that you probably can't see in the photos). I don't have a picture of it, but on my right thumb I have a piece of large black hex glitter, so there probably is some large white hex glitter, too, I just haven't gotten to it.

I chose to layer it over NYC Color's "Sidewalkers", from their In A New York Minute Quick Dry Collection. "Sidewalkers" is a gray creme. NYC color only has a small collection of Quick Dry colors, but I've always been very pleased with them, especially for the just under $2 price tag!

Butter London "Knackered"!

I had been wanting "Knackered" from Butter London for a few months now, but I could never bring myself to pay the $14 price tag, so you can imagine how excited I was when Coterie.com had their big promotion! For those of you who don't know, they had a pre-sale prior to the opening of their online store where you could purchase 3 Butter London colors and a matte top coat for $36, and then add a code for $25, bringing the total to $11 shipped! (I think this promo is over, so sorry to anyone who missed it.)

Knackered is a purple duochrome with a scattering of holographic glitter. The secondary color in the duochrome is a light blue. Knackered is a bit sheer, so I had to pair it with some undies. I chose "Zeus" from Sinful Colors. Zeus is a purple shimmer with a hint of pink.

I am so happy with this color combination! I'm in love. Unfortunately it was overcast this morning when I was taking photos. I still think the photos turned out good. Now for some swatch spam!

This one was indoors by the window. It's blurry, but it shows the holo glitter better.

Butter London "Knackered" and Sinful Colors "Zeus".

Dupe Alert! Sephora + Pantone Universe "Reflecting Pond" and Essie "Dive Bar"

I had a crazy weekend (my youngest son turned 5), so I didn't have time to do my nails this weekend. Shocking! However, I do have a post to share with everyone.

A few weeks ago I went to Sephora for the first time, and I picked a bottle of Sephora + Pantone Universe "Reflecting Pond", a dark blue shimmer with a hint of purple duochrome. As it turns out, I've had a dupe for this color for months! I noticed how similar they were this weekend, so I swatched them on nail wheels to be sure. Yep! Essie "Dive Bar" is the same color.

The dupe factor is not as obvious from the bottle shots, because of how thick the glass bottle is on the Pantone Universe Reflecting Pond.

The prices are comparable, but Dive Bar is cheaper. Dive Bar is $8 for .44 oz., and is sold at most retail locations (but it is a Fall 2011 Collection color, so availability could be affected). Reflecting Pond is $9 for .37 oz., and it is a Sephora exclusive. It's from the Pantone Universe Fall 2012 Collection. The Reflecting Pond has a flat brush, which is a plus to me.

Max Factor Fantasy Fire over 1/2 of Revlon Cosmic Effects Galactic

I've got a bit of a Love It/Hate It for you today.

First up, the Love It! A couple of months ago I won a Max Factor "Fantasy Fire" from a giveaway from Set in Lacquer. Fantasy Fire is a "top coat effect" polish that has a purple base, but also flashes blue, green & bronze in the right light. It's meant to be worn over another polish, and it is absolutely gorgeous! Due partly to my lighting, and partly to how dark my base color is, these pictures only show the bronze shimmer.

Unfortunately, there's a catch: Max Factor no longer sells nail polish in the United States, so Fantasy Fire is pretty hard to get your hands on here. As I said, I was lucky enough to win mine in a giveaway. If you really want some, you might be able to get it from eBay, but it's $14+ for a tiny little 5ml mini bottle.

Now, for the Hate It. I mentioned that Fantasy Fire is a top coat effect polish, so I decided to layer it over a dark blue. The dark blue I used is half of the Revlon Moon Candy collection called "Galactic". It comes in a unique bottle that is dark Navy Blue on one side and a turquoise blue flakie top coat on the other side. I had so many problems with this polish. :( It wouldn't go on smooth, and it flooded my cuticles something awful. Some of this might have been because I found the brush awkward to hold, since it had the other bottle of polish attached to it (and there's nothing you can do to avoid that, due to the duo bottle design.) But the worst part was when I got out my acetone to try to clean my cuticles. This stuff stained my cuticles horribly. Also, instead of cleaning up neatly, the blue "bled" all over my fingers and deeper into the cuticles. I'm not sure if I'm describing it right, but it was awful. With how badly this polish bleeds and stains, I'm really not looking forward to removing this polish AT ALL. I'm going to have to scrub my nails with baking soda and peroxide or something.

If you're curious, I swatched the flakie turquoise top coat onto a nail wheel, and although it looks cool, it was kind of thick and goopy. I don't think it would be fun to manicure with. :-/

I still love my Fantasy Fire, but next time I'll layer it over something else!

"Midnight Seduction" over "Plenty Of Fish In The Sea"

Today's manicure features two of my favorite things: Teal polish and Glitter!

Photo taken inside, but in the sunlight.

My base color is two coats of "Plenty Of Fish In The Sea", a teal/turquoise blue polish from Spoiled by Wet n Wild, a line of polish that is exclusive to CVS. It retails for $1.99. It's just a little sheer, so if I was wearing it by itself I would have used three coats to get rid of any visible nail line, but since I was planning on the glitter top coat, I only used two.

The glitter is two coats of "Midnight Seduction" by Kleancolor. "Midnight Seduction" is a multi-color holographic micro-glitter in a clear base. The main colors I see are turquoise, pink, and gold. I've mentioned before that Kleancolor isn't sold in my area, so I bought this one from a Copious.com seller.

Something you'll probably notice from these photos is shrinkage! You can see the tips of my nails, and this is NOT tip wear, but shrinkage from the top coat. I used Jordana 60-second Quick Dry. I had lots of problems with shrinkage when I used Seche Vite, too. I only have a shrinkage problem when I use glitter.

I've tried to take a variety of photos, both inside and outside, and in the sunlight and shade, to show you how it looks in different lighting.

Photo taken inside, but in the sunlight.

Photo taken outside, but in the shade.

Photo taken outside, in the direct sunlight.

Mac Cosmetics "Formidable"

First off, let me apologize for how long it's been since I wrote a new blog post. I had a busy birthday then holiday weekend. :)

Second, let me apologize for how crappy these photos are. I say this way too much--these pictures don't do this polish justice!

MAC Cosmetics "Formidable" is a metallic purple shimmer with a slight blue duochrome effect. It's not strong, but it's there, especially in the right light. My photos show three thin coats. Just using one coat it was the color of grape jelly. Two to three coats produces the gorgeous dark purple you see in the photos. This color is such a different shade of purple than I'm used to seeing, and I fell in love with it when I tested it. Formidable is from MAC's "Venomous Villains" Collection, which was released 2 years ago in 2010. The other two polishes in this collection are called "Bad Fairy", which I'd like to get, and "Mean & Green", which is a dupe for Orly "Space Cadet" & Hard Candy "Beetle" (I have Beetle).

I got this polish at Nordstrom's, and it's pretty expensive... but it was  my birthday, lol!

This unfocused photo with flash shows the pretty shimmer.

You can see both the reddish-purple and the bluish-purple in this shot.

Cupcake Nails, AKA "Happy Birthday to Me"

Today is my birthday! In celebration, I have on my very first attempt at "Cupcake Nails". I did cupcakes on three nails, with stripes on the other two.

I was feeling too lazy this morning to take a photo of all the polishes used, so I'll just list them instead. :) The light blue on my thumb, middle and pinky fingers is Sinful Colors "Cinderella", a shimmery light blue with iridescent pink flecks. The pink is NYC Color "Prospect Park Pink", the white is Jordana French Manicure White, the Red "cherries" are Wet n Wild fastdry "Everybody Loves Redmond", and the blue Stripes are Sinful Colors "Anxious Azure", which is a striping color with a precision brush.

I made the cupcake icing and the cherry on top with my dotting tools.

It's fabulous to be turning 21 again!! ;-)

Revlon "Whimsical" over Wet n Wild "I Need A Refresh-Mint"

New day, new manicure! Today I have on Revlon's "Whimsical" over two coats of Wet n Wild Megalast "I Need A Refresh-Mint".

 

I really like this combination, but this base color makes the "Whimsical" look opaque. I think next time I should try it by itself or over white.

Wet n Wild's Megalast line seems to be superior to their other lines. So far I haven't been disappointed with any of the colors or their application. WnW's fastdry line seems to leave something to be desired, but I like the Megalasts. I also like their wide brushes. "I Need A Refreshment" is a Tiffany Blue creme color (which I classify as turquoise), and it retails just about everywhere for $1.99

Revlon's "Whimsical" has pink and blue hex glitter and small iridescent glitter in a transparent turquoise base, and it's a dupe for Deborah Lippmann's "Glitter in the Air"! "Whimsical" retails for about $5, while "Glitter in the Air" retails for $18! That's quite a difference, so save your money and buy the Revlon.

Winter Wonderland and Blue Frost

Today's manicure is two coats of Kleancolor "Winter Wonderland" over two coats of Scherer Chameleon "Blue Frost".

Winter Wonderland is a shimmery silver foil with just about every color of (small) glitter. I think next time I use this polish, I'll layer it over a shimmery white. Kleancolor brand is not sold in my area, so I bought this from an eBay seller.

Blue Frost is a silvery/light blue duochrome. The color itself is very pretty, even though the duochrome is not strong. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of the color by itself to show you, because the formula is not very good. It went on very streaky, and even kind of clumpy. :( I would never have been able to wear it by itself because of that. Since I knew I was putting a fairly bumpy glitter topcoat that would camouflage the bumps, I went ahead and left it on. I had read some bad reviews of Scherer Chameleon polishes, so I wasn't really surprised. It's a shame, because the color itself was nice. This is another brand of polish that's not sold in my area. I got this one from Copious.

Here's a shot with my camera phone in Macro mode. It shows a close-up of the glitter better, but it washes out a little.

Color Club "Wild & Willing" over Wet n Wild "Under Your Spell"

Today I have a manicure that at first glance might come across as plain, but when you see the gorgeous multichrome effect know it is definitely not plain!

Before I get too far into this post, I want to apologize for my cuticles. They're very dry, and I have at least three hangnails this week. I tried to edit them out of the picture, but this software I have on my home computer is no Photoshop. Just don't enlarge the picture. :)  If you follow my Facebook page, you know that I haven't been able to find my cuticle cream, and I also can't find my cuticle nippers (which I try not to use, but with the absence of the cream, I could have used them for the hangnails.) I'm pretty bummed about the hangnails, because I did so good about not flooding my cuticles with polish this week. Figures.

For my base color I used two coats of Wet n Wild Megalast "Under Your Spell", which is kind of a dark burgundy shimmer with hints of black. It was somewhat streaky with one coat, but it smoothed out pretty good with the second coat. If I was planning on wearing it by itself,  I probably would have added a third coat. It retails for $1.99 at most retail stores, and sometimes you can find it on sale for $0.99.

On top of the WnW I layered one coat of Color Club "Wild and Willing". "Wild and Willing" is a gold/coral/pink/green multichrome shimmer (mostly gold). These two polishes together create a spectacular multichrome. Depending on the light you can see gold, burgundy, brown, green, or all three. I'm not really sure how much Color Club retails for, because it's not available in my area, I had to buy it from an ebay seller. I think they are a Rite Aid drugstore brand, so they're probably not expensive.

So there you have it. Successful color combination and polish application, unsuccessful cuticle maintenance.

As a side note, I was at Ulta today, and there was a color from Pixel Polish called "Oh Golly Gee!!" that looked like it could be a match for this color combination!

Deviantly Daring Disco Dolls!

I swear I didn't notice the alliteration when I picked out these two nail polishes to wear together, but it sure works!

For this manicure I used "Deviantly Daring" from China Glaze as my base color. I used two coats, but this polish has such nice coverage that I probably could have made do with one. After the base color was dry I angled tape strips across my nails (using the striping tape I bought from eBay). If you want to recreate this look, be sure to leave "tails" on the tape, because you'll be removing it. On top of the whole nail and the tape I painted "Disco Dolls" from Nicole by OPI. Then I quickly removed the tape, revealing the stripe of the original color.

"Deviantly Daring" is part of China Glaze's new Bohemian Collection for Summer 2012. It's a turquoise luster chrome. They're all supposed to be duochromes. I have to say, the duochrome on this color pretty much disappeared once it was on the nail. I still think it's a gorgeous color though. I found my bottle of "Deviantly Daring" at Sally Beauty Supply, but you can probably also get it at Beauty Brands and Ulta.

"Disco Dolls" is a glitter polish consisting of mainly gold glitter, but it has flecks of turquoise and pink glitter as well. It's from Nicole by OPI's Kardashion Collection. I'm not a fan of the Kardashian's, so buying their polish made me feel a little dirty, but it was so pretty! And sparkly! "Disco Dolls" is available at most retail locations, like WalMart, Kmart, Target and CVS.

This is one of my personal favorites so far. I know I'm going to want to keep doing this same effect with different polishes, so I'll have to try to keep challenging myself to do something different. :)

Here's another shot of it, taken with my camera phone, where you can see more of my thumb. You can see the glitter a little better, but the camera phone is terrible for the color & saturation.

Try It On Tuesday! WnW Heatwave & Kleancolor Chunky Holo Poppy

Yay! I finally got the time to participate in Jilltastic Nail Design's "Try It On Tuesday" event, where every Tuesday Jill challenges participants to wear a polish that we already have but have never worn.

For my base color I chose Wet n Wild Megalast "Heatwave", and topped it with Kleancolor Chunky Holo "Poppy". I've only had "Heatwave" for about a month, so I'm not sure if it qualifies as a "dusty" yet, but I've had the Kleancolor Chunky Holo Glitter collection since spring, and I haven't used any of them yet. Oops!

My nails almost (but not quite) match my old orange "Everlear" concert tee that I have on today.

I also just want to take a moment to complain about my camera. The top photo was taken with my cell phone, and the bottom two photos were taken with my Kodak Easy Share. I cannot get my Kodak to focus on a close-up of glitter to save my life. That's why the bottom two pictures aren't close up. My cell phone will go into macro mode and focus on the glitter, but it washes out the color. :(

Shuffle the Deck... a bit of a fail. :(

 
So what I have for you today is kind of a manicure fail. I say kind of because I still like the idea, and it looks good from a distance. As a matter of a fact, I had two strangers tell me they liked my fingernails while I was out shopping today. Unfortunately when you examine them closely, they have all sorts of problems.

On my index finger I have Revlon "Fire Fox", on my middle finger I have Jordana French Manicure White, on my ring finger I have Savvy "Chrome", and on my pinkie I have Wet n Wild fastdry "Ebony Hates Chris." Over each nail I have Spoiled by Wet n Wild "Shuffle the Deck".

My first problem was that I kept getting air bubbles in the "Chrome". Next, the "Ebony Hates Chris" seems to have gotten thicker and harder to apply since the last time I used it, plus the brush that I don't remember having trouble before seemed ratty, and I've only used it once! The French Manicure white was a little thick, too, but it evened out with a few coats. The biggest problem was that I had a hard time getting enough of the "Shuffle the Deck" glitter on the brush and the nail, resulting in me applying it too thick... which resulted in air bubbles on EVERY NAIL. I didn't even bother putting on a top coat because I'm hoping to have time to remove it Monday night.

Revlon "Fire Fox", Jordana French Manicure White, Spoiled by Wet n Wild "Shuffle the Deck", Savvy "Chrome", and Wet n Wild fastdry "Ebony Hates Chris".

I was very surprised that I had so much trouble with this glitter... I also have Spoiled by Wet n Wild "Trust Fund Baby", which is pretty similar to this glitter polish, just in different colors, and I don't remember having this many problems getting the glitter out. You can see my blog post about "Trust Fund Baby" here.

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!

China Glaze "Optical Illusion" & Pure Ice "Not Now"

Today I have on a manicure with two of my favorite things-turquoise nail polish and glitter.

Now... you might say this is green, not turquoise, but in real life it's got a very subtle hint of blue in it that I think qualifies it as a dark turquoise. It's a very, very pretty metallic polish from Pure Ice called "Not Now".

The glitter and stars are China Glaze "Optical Illusion", from their Prismatic Chroma Glitters collection. I have another one from this collection, called "Prism" that I used way back on April 23rd, and I just ordered "Full Spectrum" with my Copious credits, so it should be on it's way to my house. <g> They are all just the most gorgeous glitters I have ever seen.

For this manicure I did a focal nail with the China Glaze glitter, and made stars on top of the other nails with the glitter using a star-shaped hole punch and blue painter's tape.

The picture is a little fuzzy, but you get the idea. This was the first nail I did, and I didn't remove the tape quite quick enough, so it smudged the shape of the stars a little.