Wet 'n Wild "Night Prowl"

First of all, I apologize for not blogging for awhile. I've been up to stuff. :) Also, this is going to be a short post, since it's only one color and pretty straightforward.

Wet 'n Wild "Night Prowl" is purple micro glitter in a translucent black jelly base. I'm wearing three coats in this photo, but I might have been OK with just two coats. I really like this polish, it's so perfect for Halloween. Wet 'n Wild is probably my favorite "budget" brand of nail polish. Of course, since it is a cheaper brand, the polish started chipping within a couple days. However, when I removed it, it came off pretty easily, especially for a glitter polish, and I'm sure we all know by now that glitter polish is the herpes of nail polish.

Kleancolor Chunky Holo Bluebell

It's been a few weeks since I've had a chance to blog about my nails! Between getting my kids ready to go back to school and settling into a new routine, I just couldn't find the time to squeeze it in, but now I'm back with something pretty awesome to show you!

I bought a bunch of Kleancolor holos and glitters from ebay last year, and I've really only used some of them a couple times. Boy, I should have broken this one out earlier. This is Kleancolor "Chunky Holo Bluebell" over Wet 'n Wild Megalast "Root of All Evil".

Just look at all those colors! With most multichromes you have to be in just the right light to see it, but not this one!

"Bluebell" is a laying effect polish, so you won't get this great holo if you use it by itself, it must be layered over a darker polish. I kind of wish I had used a darker blue for my base color, but I do love "Root of All Evil".

 

Also, it's my birthday! :)

Happy Independence Day!

My 4th of July manicure is a giant glitter-bomb! Seriously, it's going to take a week to get all of this glitter off of my fingernails. I still have some in my cuticles that I just couldn't get out. It's gorgeous, though!

I have on two coats of Julep "America". "America" is jam-packed with red micro-glitter, mixed with medium-sized pieces of blue and silver hex glitter, and silver star glitter, although the silver stars are harder to find. To finish the look, I applied blue french tips with Wet 'n Wild Megalast "Root of All Evil", a metallic blue. Although I don't understand the name... you'd think "Root of All Evil" would be a green, not a blue. :)

Julep "America" Bottle

Wet 'n Wild Megalast "Root of All Evil" Bottle

"Midnight Seduction" over "Plenty Of Fish In The Sea"

Today's manicure features two of my favorite things: Teal polish and Glitter!

Photo taken inside, but in the sunlight.

My base color is two coats of "Plenty Of Fish In The Sea", a teal/turquoise blue polish from Spoiled by Wet n Wild, a line of polish that is exclusive to CVS. It retails for $1.99. It's just a little sheer, so if I was wearing it by itself I would have used three coats to get rid of any visible nail line, but since I was planning on the glitter top coat, I only used two.

The glitter is two coats of "Midnight Seduction" by Kleancolor. "Midnight Seduction" is a multi-color holographic micro-glitter in a clear base. The main colors I see are turquoise, pink, and gold. I've mentioned before that Kleancolor isn't sold in my area, so I bought this one from a Copious.com seller.

Something you'll probably notice from these photos is shrinkage! You can see the tips of my nails, and this is NOT tip wear, but shrinkage from the top coat. I used Jordana 60-second Quick Dry. I had lots of problems with shrinkage when I used Seche Vite, too. I only have a shrinkage problem when I use glitter.

I've tried to take a variety of photos, both inside and outside, and in the sunlight and shade, to show you how it looks in different lighting.

Photo taken inside, but in the sunlight.

Photo taken outside, but in the shade.

Photo taken outside, in the direct sunlight.

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.

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!

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.

Independence Day Nails!

The 4th of July is only 3 days away, so for this manicure I went for patriotic nails, using 4 different types of polish.

On my thumb is Sinful Colors "Hot Spot", a metallic blue, with white confetti stars on top. I kept bumping my thumb when it was only half-dry, so I had to touch it up a couple times, which you can probably see. You can also see the air bubbles that are my fault. I put the top coat on too thickly, too fast to try to cover the confetti stars, causing the bubbles.

My index finger and ring finger have Wet n Wild fastdry "Everybody Loves Redmond", with white stripes painted with Kiss brand white nail art paint. This was the first time I've tried to freehand straight stripes, so they're a little crooked, but I'm happy with them overall. Hopefully I'll get better with practice, and maybe with a better brand of precision polish. I think the Kiss brand is kind of thin and drippy.

My middle and pinky finger have "American Spirit", an indie polish from 365 Days of Color. American Spirit has a red jelly base with silver star glitter; silver and blue square glitter; silver, blue and red hex glitter; small silver, red, white and blue round glitter; and silver, and red, white and blue bar glitter. I did have to fish around for the best glitter pieces, but in my experience that's pretty typical of most chunky glitter polishes, both big brand and indie brand. It was a limited edition that I don't believe is currently for sale on her site, so I'm glad I got my hands on it when I did!

Sinful colors "Hot Spot", Wet n Wild fastdry "Everybody Loves Redmond", Kiss white Nail Art Paint, 365 Days of Color "American Spirit", and my little pot of white confetti stars.

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.

Sunspots

 

Daylight without flash.

Indoor light without flash. The orange isn't nearly as bright in this picture.

This week I wanted to do a fun, sunny manicure inspired by all the great neon colors out there right now. I picked my sunny yellow for the base color, and picked up a couple inexpensive neons for the color spots. Both Sinful Colors and Spoiled by Wet n Wild retail at $1.99, and they often go on sale for $.99.

The yellow is probably not the greatest color for my skin tone, but I like it anyway. I love how bright and fun these colors are, and how casual the lopsided dots are. Excuse my flooded cuticles... I thought I had cleaned up better than this, but it seems to be more noticeable in the pictures. :-/

Designated Driver, Summer Peach, Tip Your Waitress, Snow Me White, Permission to Proceed.

The base color is called "Designated Driver", and it's from the Spoiled by Wet n Wild line, available exclusively (I think) from CVS. The green and pink are also from Spoiled by Wet n Wild. The green is called "Permission to Proceed" and the pink is "Tip Your Waitress". The white and orange are made by Sinful Colors, available at Walgreens. The white is "Snow Me White" and the orange is called "Summer Peach". I think possible both the pink and the orange would have also made great base colors for this manicure.

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.

Dotted Flowers

This weekend I made my first attempt at a manicure using dotting tools. I got a set of 5 dotting tools from ebay for super cheap. Overall I'm very happy with the result, but I don't mind telling you that my left hand looks a lot better than my right hand. Some of the flowers on my right hand look like odd-colored fried eggs instead of flowers. :)

I'll definitely be using my dotting tools more often!

New York Color "Prospect Park Pink", Sinful Colors "Grecian Sun", Spoiled by Wet n Wild "Designated Driver", and Sinful Colors "Snow Me White".

Friday night I started to use the blue "Grecian Sun" as the base color and planned to have pink and yellow flowers, but the blue came out too think for my taste, and I kept dragging the colors. Finally I gave up in a fit of pique and went to bed. I was really disappointed, because I've been on the hunt for a blue in this shade, and I was so excited to find this one. This isn't the first time Sinful Colors has let me down. I have a lot more success with the metallics, frosts, and glitter Sinful Colors than their cremes. I also find that they tend to take a long time to dry.

The yellow "Designated Driver" is a color I picked up at CVS last week. It's a "taxi-cab yellow", hence the name. CVS is the only place I've seen the Spoiled by Wet n Wild line of polish. They had a lot of great colors, but I could tell some of them were dupes for other colors made by Wet n Wild. They have a lot of chunky foil glitters in the line that are very interesting.

"Prospect Park Pink" looks kind of orange in the above bottle photo, but that's just the lighting in my kitchen. The actual color reminds me very much of the color of Pepto-Bismol, and of the color of my dorm room walls my freshman year of college. They were that way when I moved in, I swear!

Glitter overload, anyone?

So, maybe I should just rename my blog. Something to do with glitter obviously. What can I say, sparkly catches my eye. In my defense, I came across some GORGEOUS glitters that reminded me of fancy, glittery Easter Eggs. Plus, this way I can swatch several glitters at the same time.

Milani "Pink Flare", Wet n Wild "Back Alley Deals", Wet n Wild "Believe Me, It's Real", Deborah Lippmann "Mermaid's Dream", and Sinful Colors "All About You".

On my thumb is "Pink Flare" from the Milani One Coat Glitter Collection. What you see is actually two coats, not one, but I still think it's great coverage. Some of the glitter pieces are pretty prismatic, too. Very nice.

On my index finger is "Back Alley Deals" from the Wet n Wild coloricon Ice Baby Collection. Small purple glitter base and larger fuchsia pieces. Two coats.

My middle finger has "Believe Me, It's Real", also from the Wet n Wild coloricon Ice Baby Collection. It has a small blue glitter base with larger purple glitter pieces. Also two coats. I think this is my favorite color out of the five from this week, but I'm disappointed in how it photographed. The purple glitter in it is very hard to see, and the color doesn't look good in general in the picture. It looks awesome in person, though!

The color on my ring finger is something that's really exciting, at least for me. It's Deborah Lippmann "Mermaid's Dream". It's pricy stuff, and the only bottle of Deborah Lippmann I'm likely to own for awhile. It has a seafoam green base. I'm not sure, but I think the seafoam green is a really small micro-glitter. It also has a touch of gold micro-glitter, and larger turquoise glitter pieces. Two coats.

My pinky is sporting the only color I've already used in my blog before: Sinful Colors "All About You", gold glitter with a smattering of orange glitter. This one took three coats for coverage, and it probably could have benefited with a fourth coat.

I have two coats of Seche Vite fast dry top coat on each, but the two Wet n Wild colors would need more layers of top coat if you want perfectly smooth nails.

Which one of these colors is your favorite?

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. :)

Funky Black French Tips

This weekend I did a fun and funky French Tip manicure. I used two inexpensive polishes, too. As usual I started with a clear base coat, then I applied two coats of Wet n Wild fastdry "Teal Or No Teal". Once they were dry I put on my tip guide stickers and applied one coast of Wet n Wild fastdry "Ebony Hates Chris" to the tips. Then I topped it off with my NEW Seche Vite fast dry top coat. The "Teal Or No Teal" has gorgeous metallic shimmer!

Wet n Wild fastdry "Ebony Hates Chris" and Wet n Wild fastdry "Teal Or No Teal". 

A short and sweet blog post this week, folks!

Tape manicures are easy!

So this week I decided to do an angled contrast manicure using Scotch Tape. This was my first time using Scotch tape as part of my manicure, and it was easy! After my clear base coat, I put on a layer of Wet n Wild "Haze of Love", and after it was good and dry I angled pieces of Scotch Tape across the back half of my fingernails. Then I topped the remaining section with "Shine of the Times", from the Essie Luxeffects collection. Then I removed the tape and finished with my Sally Hansen top coat. I'm very happy with the finished manicure!

Wet n Wild "Haze of Love" & Essie "Shine of the Times".

Let me tell you how impressed I am with the "Haze of Love" from Wet n Wild! It's from their Megalast line. What you see in the first picture is only ONE COAT of nail polish. It's kind of a thick coat, but still! The day I bought this color I also bought another Wet n Wild Megalast called "On a Trip", a purple creme color. I hope it's just as good. The polishes in the Megalast line also have a new "Manicurve Pro" brushes, which I think I liked. If all the colors in the line are as good as the "Haze of Love" they are a great value. They retail for about $2 or less.

I bought the Essie "Shine of the Times" last month, and the effect is just wonderful! It's got these gorgeous color-shifting holographic flakies in it. I should have used it sooner. Essie is a bit pricier and retails for about $8.