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

Maybelline Color Show Sequins "Cocktail Dress"

Surprise! I'm still here. I know I've been MIA lately, but this time of year is crazy, and I just haven't had much time to paint my nails. It has made me so sad. I finally have something to show you!

This is Maybelline Color Show Sequins "Cocktail Dress". It is a clear base jam-packed with black and metallic charcoal glitter, and small maroon-ish hex glitter. It's going to be such a PITA to take off, but it's just so freaking gorgeous!

This two coats of "Cocktail Dress" and two coats of Butter London PD Quick Topcoat. "Cocktail Dress" sells for $3.49 for a 7 ml bottle.

Funky Fingers Mermaid Lagoon

Yay, a new blog post! After a week of naked nails, I FINALLY had time to paint my nails last night, and I LOVE IT.

So, a couple of weeks ago I discovered an awesome new store with some fun nail polish! The polish I'm showing you today is "Mermaid Lagoon" by Funky Fingers, and line of polish I found at a store called 5 Below, where everything is $5 or less. Bottles of Funky Fingers are $2 each, or 3 for $5.

"Mermaid Lagoon" is medium silver hex glitter, small purple glitter, and micro blue glitter in a clear base. I layered it over an unnamed purple shimmer by Color Club. Well, it probably has a name, but for some reason the multi-pack of Color Club polish I bought doesn't have any names on them. I am so loving this manicure! Not only do I love the colors, but the glitter goes on great. No fishing for glitter pieces at all! This is definitely one of those times where I find myself staring at my nails without even realizing it.

 

If you have a 5 Below near you, I highly recommend you buy this polish. They also had bins of Nicole by OPI polish for $4 per bottle! Of course, I picked up a few of those, too. ;-)

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!

Lynnderella "Connect the Dots"

Today I have on "Connect the Dots" by Lynnderella. THAT Lynnderella. Any fellow nail polish bloggers who are reading this probably understand my internal conflict of buying a Lynn. For anyone who isn't big into the indie nail polish scene, the story would probably bore you, lol. Let me start off by saying I did NOT pay full price. A few weeks ago Copious.com released some credits--one for $5, and one for $15 off a $30 purchase. So I had $20 in credits to put towards a $30 purchase, and I snagged this for $10.

Now that I've finally had a chance to use a Lynn, I have to say, I can see what the fuss is about. There are so many chunky glitter polishes where you have to fish around for the glitter, and even then the coverage isn't that great. Not so with this polish. It's PACKED with it! It's got small black and white round glitter, medium black and white hex glitter, black and white bar glitter, and a sprinkling of regular iridescent glitter (that you probably can't see in the photos). I don't have a picture of it, but on my right thumb I have a piece of large black hex glitter, so there probably is some large white hex glitter, too, I just haven't gotten to it.

I chose to layer it over NYC Color's "Sidewalkers", from their In A New York Minute Quick Dry Collection. "Sidewalkers" is a gray creme. NYC color only has a small collection of Quick Dry colors, but I've always been very pleased with them, especially for the just under $2 price tag!

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.

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.

Dizzy Mizz Lizzy

Good morning everyone! Today I only have one bottle of nail polish to show you, but oh what a good one it is! This is Dizzy Mizz Lizzy from Enchanted Polish. Enchanted Polish is an independent nail polish maker. http://www.facebook.com/EnchantedPolishPage I also need to give props to Llarowe and her birthday sale last month, where I purchased this beauty. :) http://www.shop.llarowe.com/ The above photo is two coats in natural light with no flash.

Dizzy Mizz Lizzy is my first "indie" polish. As you can see from the above macro shot, there's a lot going on in this polish. It has a holographic pink/red jelly base with large red hex glitter, medium gold and turquoise hex glitter, small red and gold square glitter, and silver bar glitter. It's one of those polishes that I find myself staring at when I'm supposed to be doing other things. <g>

Very bling-y!

Zoya Charla... with Bling!

Hello everyone! I'm back from my mini-vacation, and I finally have a new manicure to show you. After a very brief (and small) Facebook fan poll, I decided on Zoya's "Charla" as my base color. Charla is a gorgeous teal/turquoise metallic shimmer, with a hint of gold shimmer. I just love metallic teal polish-I'm starting to get quite the collection of it! :) Charla went on nice and smooth and dried quickly.

The nearest place to me to buy Zoya polish is from Ulta, and I can't remember what it retails for (I know it's not cheap!), but I got mine for one cent with my Copius.com credits! :)

 

Charla is pretty "bling-y" by itself, but on top I layered "Trust Fund Baby" from the Spoiled by Wet n Wild line. Trust Fund Baby has small turquoise and gold hex glitter and small black and purple square glitter in a clear base. This color would look great layered on top of so many colors. The Spoiled line is available exclusively from CVS and retails for $1.99, but sometimes goes on sale for 99 cents!

Kleancolor "Firework" over Nicole by OPI "Iceberg Lotus"

Happy Memorial Day!

This week's manicure features what I call "messy glitter french tips." Not messy in a bad way, but on purpose. The random nature of the glitter is perfect for free-handing the french tips without using french tip guide stickers.

The base coat is called "Iceberg Lotus" from Nicole by OPI. It's a gorgeous teal shimmer, but it took three coats for full opacity. Luckily it dried quickly. It also has a hint of duochrome in it. Some lights bring out a bluish/purple color, but I couldn't get that to photograph. If I recall correctly, I bought this one at CVS. I have a few other polishes in the metallic turquoise/teal family, and several polishes in shades of metallic blue. What can I say, they're my favorite colors. :)

For the glitter tips I used "Firework" by Kleancolor. It has a clear base with red, gold and turquoise hex glitter, as well as small gold square glitter. This glitter looks great over SO MANY nail polish colors. Kleancolor isn't sold in my area, so I purchased this in a set of other Kleancolor polishes from an eBay seller. I think "Firework" is one of the best ones from the set.

Nicole by OPI "Iceberg Lotus" and Kleancolor "Firework". You can kind of see the duochrome of the Iceberg Lotus in this picture.

Of course, to make it smooth over the glitter I have two coats of Seche Vite on top. Altogether that makes 8 coats of polish at the glitter tips! (Two coats of base, three of the turquoise, one thick coat of glitter, and two of topcoat.) Something I've read about in other blogs and have noticed myself is that the Seche Vite causes some shrinkage of the polish. Not every polish, but definitely glitter polishes. With this manicure it's really obvious on my pinky. I haven't had a problem putting it over cremes.

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.