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!

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!! ;-)

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.

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.