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!

Wet n Wild Hallucinate over Savvy Hazelnut

You may have already guessed it before today, but I love glitter. I guess there is still a twelve-year-old girl inside me somewhere. So don't be surprised when most of my manicures are glitterized. (I made that word up, I think.)


Today's base color is pretty tame compared to the teals & turquoises I tend to wear a lot of. It's Savvy "Hazelnut" from Sally Beauty Supply. It's a gorgeous metallic frost. I don't think the photos do it justice. Unfortunately, while I love the color, it dried with lots of air bubbles. That might be my own fault--I have a tendency to apply think coats of polish. Fortunately the glitter top coat camouflages most the air bubbles. It's called "Hallucinate" by Wet n Wild, available nearly everywhere.

Wet n Wild Hallucinate over Savvy Hazelnut

You may have noticed that my fingernails are much shorter this week. The nails on my right hand were splitting and peeling badly, even though I always apply a base coat that's supposed to help that problem. They were getting pretty long and needed trimmed anyway, but I wish I could get them to stop peeling! I'm going to try taking more vitamins.


So, am I going to have a glitter manicure next week? I'm not sure yet, but probably. :)