Midnight Seduction over Black Tie

So, this is my first blog post in a LONG time. What can I say, life happens. I still love nail polish, and hopefully I'll be able to keep up with my blogging now.

Today I have on two coats of Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Black Tie" as my base color. It's a gorgeous purply-charcoal duochrome that you can find at just about any drugstore. On top of that I have a coat of Kleancolor "Midnight Seduction", which has a clear base and is jam-packed with multi-colored micro glitter. Klean color isn't available where I live, so I bought mine from someone on eBay.

I've always had a hard time getting my camera to focus on glitter, but I went ahead and added the unfocused shot anyway, to show you how nice this combination of polishes is. Aren't they gorgeous?!

Deborah Lippmann "Dancing in the Sheets" & Sally Hansen "Aisle Be There"

This week I have a beautiful combination of polishes to show you. I started with Deborah Lippmann's "Dancing in the Sheets" (from her "Footloose" collection) and topped it off with Sally Hansen Diamond Strength "Aisle Be There", from a line of polishes with wedding-themed names. It's hard to tell from the photos, but the combination really was stunning. I loved it!

Here's a picture of it with the flash on. I really couldn't capture how sparkly "Aisle Be There" is. Maybe it's just my camera. It never wants to focus when my polish is too sparkly. :-/ Not only did it add tons of sparkle, but it added purple flash. "Aisle Be There" retails for about $5, available at most retail stores.

Here's "Dancing in the Sheets" by itself. It's a dark bluish-purple metallic polish. One coat looks dark purple, but the second coat makes it more blue, in my opinion. As you would expect from a high-end polish like Deborah Lippmann, the formula was great and the application was easy. I got this polish on Clearance from HSN, along with "Let's Hear It For The Boy", a light blue creme. 

Outdoors.

Also, Glitter Obsession is having an awesome giveaway! You can win one of China Glaze's OMG polishes. Enter here.

Colorblocking!

Today I have a colorblocking manicure. The base color is Orly "Rock-It". On top of that I layered Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear's "Gunsmoke" at an angle. Lastly, I layered Nicole by OPI's "Fabulous is My Middle Name" at the opposite angle. I entered these into a nail art contest from Shelly's Sassy Nails, but I didn't win. I didn't really think I would, but it's fun to enter the contests and connect with other nail polish junkies. :)

Orly "Rock-It", Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Gunsmoke", and Nicole by OPI "Fabulous is My Middle Name."

Orly "Rock-It" is a shimmery magenta that was part of Orly's Mineral FX collection from 2011. It retails for $8.00, but I purchased it at Ulta during a Buy 2 Get One Free Sale. This is the first time I've used an Orly polish, but they are very high quality. Plus, you get a little more polish--Orly bottles hold .6 oz., and most polish brands hold .5 oz. I have a few more Orlys that I need to try some time.

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear "Gunmental" is a dark metallic grey. It retails for $1.99 and is available just about everywhere. As you can see from the photo above, my dog got his teeth on my bottle of Gunsmoke. But isn't he cute?:

Chewbacca

Lastly is Nicole by OPI's "Fabulous is My Middle Name". It's a glitter bomb polish containing small silver glitter, and silver, red, magenta and black small bar glitter. I believe it is a Wal-Mart exclusive color. It retails for $7, and I bought this with a $1 off coupon given to me by my sister Deana. (Here's the shout-out I promised you, Deana!) :)

Here's a shot of Orly "Rock-It" without the other colors layered on top:

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.

Glitter!

Well, I just did a really quick manicure this week. Both my kids were sick this weekend, and there just wasn't much time to paint my nails. I combined one of my recent purchases with an older glitter I had never gotten around to using. I have a yellow base from Sally Hansen's HD line, called "Hue" with a coat of Bon Bon's long turquoise glitter over it. I couldn't find a name on the Bon Bon's bottle. The Sally Hansen HD line used to be widely available, but I think they are from last season and no longer available in smaller stores. I found mine at Ulta. 


I went to Ulta intending to find a high-end polish that I liked, but I ended up buying two cheaper polishes because I also bought a trial size of some Philosophy's "Hope In A Jar" moisturizer ($15 for the trial/travel size!!) that I've heard such good things about.


I also got a new organizer for my manicure stuff. I had been storing them in a tote for cleaning supplies, but as you can see, my collection was growing too big:

It was important that I get something portable. Sometimes I like to take my stuff to a friend's house for manicure night. I ended up with a Neatnix "toolbox" that I found at Archiver's. It's also available from Amazon. I have plenty of room for more now!

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.