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.

O.P.I. Just Spotted the Lizard!

Isn't this a gorgeous color? This is "Just Spotted The Lizard" from O.P.I.'s new Amazing Spiderman Collection. Please excuse the paint on my cuticles, as this is before I did my clean up. But really, this applied so nicely that there wasn't a whole lot of clean up to do. It was mainly just that middle nail. Just look at that duochrome, color-shifting yumminess!

As many of you probably know, Just Spotted the Lizard is a dupe for Chanel's "Peridot." I've wanted that color for months, but I can't justify spending Chanel prices, so O.P.I has made me very happy. I've read that there is also a dupe from Jessica Cosmetics, but those aren't sold in my area.

Well, I tried to take my manicure a step further and added some Kiss Nail Art stickers, but I really think I should have left well enough alone. The color was so nice by itself. What do you think?

The top photo was taken in the evening light, and the bottom photo was taken in the morning light, so that's why the coloring appears different in the two photos. This color does different things in different lighting!

Out Of This World Nails

This week I have a gorgeous, gorgeous blue-based manicure with two kinds of glitter. The base coat is Wet n Wild Wild Shine's "Blue Moon". It's a dark blue with just a hint of duochrome. In the bottle it looks bluish-green, but on the nail it mostly looks blue. The first glitter layered on top is Jordana Cosmetics' "Cosmic". It has blue and green hex glitter, and a touch of silver hex glitter, in a clear base. It's really great for layering. My second layer of glitter is from Kleancolor, called "Silver Star". It's small silver glitter pieces and silver star glitter in a clear base.

I like how I ended up with three stars across on my ring finger, like Orion's Belt. :)

I am really loving this combination of polishes. Without the star layer, the "Blue Moon" and the "Cosmic" together make a great imitation of Deborah Lippmann's "Across the Universe". Since I don't own "Across the Universe" I can't show you a picture of it here, but you can Google it. It's not exact, but it definitely has the same feel. It's close enough for those of us who don't want to spend $18 for a bottle of Deborah Lippmann. I added the star glitter to give it an extra kick.

Wet n Wild Wild Shine "Blue Moon", Jordana Cosmetics "Cosmic", and Kleancolor "Silver Star."

The "Blue Moon" went on smooth and clean. For a cheap $1 polish, this stuff is pretty good. I was in a bit of a hurry (as usual), so I actually only used one coat. Since I layered it with glitter you can't tell too much, but if I was wearing it by itself I would have used two coats. You can buy it at just about any discount retail store. The print on the label of my bottle is starting to come off, sorry.

The "Cosmic" is a polish I've had for a couple months and not yet used on my nails. I've been sampling it over other colors in my "swatch notebook" (I think it's time for me to graduate to those little fake nail wheels), and it really looks great over a lot of different colors. I absolutely love it over any dark blue. You can find "Cosmic" at Kmart, along with a whole slew of other Jordana glitters that are great for layering.

I love the finishing effect the "Silver Star" glitter had, but like a lot of glitters of this type, you really had to fish around in the bottle to get the stars onto the brush. It was kind of a pain. Kleancolor is not available in my area, so I bought this polish (in a lot with a few other Kleancolor glitters) on eBay.

A fellow nail polish blogger is having an AWESOME indie polish giveaway! Head on over to Sometimes I Spill My Polish http://www.sometimesispillmypolish.com/2012/05/100-follower-give-way-indie-polish.html and enter. Contest ends at 12:01 AM on 5/23/2012.

Lotsa Dots

One Hundred, to be exact.

This week I gave myself a dotted manicure with my dotting tools. The colors were inspired by (and intended to match) the dress I wore to my nephew's confirmation on Sunday. You can see it in the background of my photos. My nails are painted an orange base with puple, white, and pink dots. The pink dots are hard to see in the photos, but they are there!

The base color is two coats of Wet n Wild fastdry "9.0.2.1.Orange". I probably could have used three coats, because in person, in the right light, you can still see some visible nail line. Oh, well. The white dots are Sinful Colors "Snow Me White, the purple dots are Rimmel London "Violet Metal", and the pink dots are from the E.L.F. Cosmetics "Metallic Neon" collection, but there's no name on the bottle of polish.

This was a fun and easy manicure. The dots are really not hard to do. If you don't have a dotting tool, there are a variety of things you probably have in your house you can use instead, like the head of a straight pin.