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.