Manis Galore

This is China Glaze- Gamer Glam from the Spring 2011 Tronica collection. It is a light purple subtle holo. I just loved this.

I only got one picture of it in the sun while driving (and unfortunately it chipped quickly on one nail). Like most holos, it applied in thin coats and required three coats to be opaque.

Next is a Spanish combo! Amy's Nail Boutique- Fiesta is layered over OPI- Dulce de Leche. These shades work really well together.

Fiesta is composed of medium sized matte multi-colored hex glitter in a clear base. I only used one coat of it because I really liked Dulce de Leche. It applied fairly evenly utilizing a dabbing motion. 

Here it is indoors with the flash

Indoors without the flash

Here is OPI- Dulce de Leche indoors with the flash. It was released as part of OPI's Fall 2002 European collection. I believe it is now a permanent shade. It's a nude creme with a pink tint. The formula was great and it had a smooth, opaque application in two coats. This was taken indoors with the flash.

Indoors with the flash

Now this is a legit gold mani. I layered OPI- Man with the Golden Gun over A-England- Holy Grail. I wore this for four days. It lasted a long time without chipping, plus it was so gorgeous, I didn't want to remove it.

OPI-Man with the Golden Gun is composed of real 18 karat gold flakes suspended in a clear base. It is slightly different from the Sephora by OPI Gold Flake topcoat. I prefer this one over the $OPI because the gold flakes are larger.

Man with the Golden Gun was released with OPI's Holiday 2012 Skyfall collection. I had difficulty tracking this one down at Ulta, and my mom ordered it for me on ebay.

Taken indoors with the flash, you can see the combination of the gold on gold. Wearing this combination on my nails made me feel very luxurious. 

Here is A-England- Holy Grail on it's on taken indoors with the flash. I adore gold nail polish, and I own quite a few; but this may be one of my favorites. It is truly like an old, antique gold with a yellow shimmer.

Indoors without the flash. Impressive formula! It only needed two thin coats for opacity.

Next is Wicked Polish- Gangrene. This was released as part of the Pestilence collection (which is one of my favorite themes!) It is composed of small and large bright yellow and medium green neon glitter suspended in a milky white base. Indoors, the glitter was somewhat difficult to see, but in outdoor lighting, you can see it fairly well.

This picture was taken indoors with the flash. This polish was somewhat sheer and needed three coats in order to be opaque. I had no issues with distributing the glitter evenly.

Indoors without the flash- It's very difficult to see the glitter here. You can only really see the green.

Next up is Claire's- I Luv the 80's. This is one of those layered polishes. It's composed of multiple colors and it is intended to create a marbled or color swirled effect on the nail. I was very intrigued with how the bottle looked. There is actually a sticker that says "Do not shake" on the bottle cap.

Although the effect of this is pretty cool, I was somewhat disappointed because I expected all of the colors in the bottle to show up on my nails. You can't even see the green or purple at all. The top color in the bottle appears to be orange, but it's actually a bright yellow and pink that got mixed together from using the polish. I tried my best to make sure that the bottle wasn't disturbed, but the colors mixed together somehow. I'm not a huge fan of orange (it's pretty, but I prefer other colors.) I used three coats of this, and the effect was hard to see unless you looked at it up close. It also chipped fairly quickly because without topcoat it had a matte-like finish due to being a neon.

I was absolutely in love with this combo. This is Dollish Polish- The Koopa King layered over Claire's- Earthy/Happy. The Koopa King is part of the Mario Brothers collection. I love anything that has to do with Mario, so I was all over this collection. Earthy/Happy is a mood polish from Claire's and it changes colors according to temperature. In this picture, the polish is green; so I'm guessing that's the Earthy color.

Earthy/Happy shifts from a kelly green to neon yellow. I captured a good picture of this changing. It looks like a sponged on mani almost! This worked really well a a base color for The Koopa King, since that shade was inspired by Bowser. The Koopa King was filled with various colors and shapes of glitter. My favorites were the black thin bar glitter and the prismatic silver diamond shaped glitters. It applied evenly and I only used one coat because I didn't want to hide the color-changing polish.

Here's a picture of Earthy/Happy on it's own taken indoors with the flash. It dried to a matte finish since the color was neon. With the flash it's a bright green. The color-changing effect didn't really kick in until this polish had a couple hours to dry. After that, it started shifting like crazy!

Here's a picture of Earthy/Happy indoors without the flash. It looks completely different than the picture with the flash. This is not a color accurate picture at all. This shade only needed two coats.

This is Essence- Gleam in Blue. It is a light blue shimmer. I actually don't own another blue like this.

This only needed two coats, and it came out to a nice, smooth finish. I'm a fan of the Essence Colour & Go mini bottles. You can find them for $1-$2 at Ulta. Definitely worth it for the quality of polish that you get!

Last, I have an old gem. This is Covergirl- Ghost layered over China Glaze- Jungle Queen. Covergirl crackles are a treat for collectors of vintage nail polish. They were the first crackles produced by a major nail polish brand. The effect is different than the new shatters released a couple years ago. I believe that these were released in the early 2000s. This was around the time I was in middle school. I remember walking to the drugstore near my school after class for the day with friends and admiring the crackle polish and thinking "What science is this?!". Unfortunately I didn't have any money at the time, so I didn't buy it. I was able to snag this beauty on ebay in a lot! 

Application of this is similar to the newly-produced crackles. You have to wait for the base color to dry completely, and then apply the crackle in one even coat. I noticed that you have to put this type of crackle on a little bit thinner if you want it to crack more. This crackle takes much more time to dry. It also chips off quicker than the new crackle, but it's definitely worth time! I got many compliments on this. I believe Barry M has a crackle out called Croc Effects and the Kleancolor Crackles crack like this also.

China Glaze- Jungle Queen was my base color. This was taken indoors without the flash. It is a gorgeous plum color with a subtle shimmer. The shimmer is very hard to see. Wearing this under crackle, you could not see it at all. I'm glad I took these pictures beforehand. Jungle Queen was released as part of China Glaze's Fall 2012 On Safari collection. 

With the flash, you can see how the shimmer looks in different lighting. This had a flawless application in two coats.

Claire's- Candy Shop

I have a quick post today. If you noticed, I cut my nails off again. I wore Claire's Candy Shop over the weekend. Unfortunately it only lasted for 24 hours because it started chipping and peeling off. I was doing a lot of moving/cleaning, so I don't know if that has any correlation with it. This is an exact dupe to Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop, and it's rather unbelievable that it has the same name. I wanted Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop for a long time, but after this came out, that lemming was crushed (and it saved my wallet!). Candy Shop is pretty much your standard multicolored hex glitter with different sizes, only it's in a pink jelly base.This mani was beautiful while it lasted, but I just needed to do another mani because the chipping was so terrible. I'm only wearing two coats here. It built up very well. Now that I'm examining the image with the flash, I can see some bare spots. Oops!

OPI Bring on the Bling and a Haul!

Today I'm wearing OPI- Bring on the Bling. This is from the Holiday 2010 Burlesque collection. This glitter is predominately gold, with some specks of green and red glitter. I love the Burlesque glitters. This is three coats, but they build so nicely. They can be used to layer over other colors or jelly sandwiches. This is the first time I've worn it by itself. 

Here it is without the flash. Glitter overload! I will be using the aluminum foil removal method for this for sure!

I went to the mall this weekend. I haven't purchased nail polish for about two weeks. My fiance and I are trying to save up to move to a bigger apartment. I definitely made up for not buying nail polish the past couple weeks with my mall haul.

I seriously haven't set foot in a Claire's since I was a teenager, but I heard that they were coming out with some interesting polishes lately. I purchased two mood polishes: Lonely/Loved, and Happy/Earthy. I also was intrigued by the look of I Luv the 80s (Which had neon yellow, pink, purple, and green in it, but got shaken up a bit on the way home so the yellow and pink mixed to be orange). I also found Candy Shop, which pretty much looks like a dead on dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop. Claire's even used the same name! They have balls! I'm thrilled I don't have to spend the money for Lippmann's Candy Shop. The Claire's polishes were $5 each, and they were having a buy one get one half off sale.

I couldn't wait to try I Luv the 80s. This is how it turned out. I removed it quickly after. It was pretty on the thumb, but I wasn't really impressed with the rest of my fingers. From what I've read about these, they don't really start looking interesting until they're used up a bit. (That may be unrealistic with how many bottles of nail polish I own). I'm sure I'll revisit this. It needs multiple coats too. This picture only shows one. I'm not quite sure how the coats would look layered over one another. It also quickly dried to a satin-like finish because the colors are neon.

I then went to JC Penny's. They had a sale on OPI so if you buy 2 or more OPI lacquers, they are $6 each! I picked up some from the Holland Spring 2012 collection. Here I have: Pedal Faster Suzi!, Thanks a Windmillion, I Have a Herring Problem, and Vampsterdam.

Did Ya 'Ear about Van Gogh?, Gouda Gouda Two Shoes, and I Don't Give a Rotterdam!

I can't wait to try these out! I really wasn't in much of a rush to buy this collection just because the OPI Spring and Fall collections are usually more readily available and tend to stick around for longer than the promotional collections such as Nicki Minaj, Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. I still want to get Wooden Shoe Like to Know? but JC Penny's was out of it at the moment. 

Tomorrow I start my first day at my new job in addition to substitute teaching. (I nailed that job interview I had a couple weeks ago!). I may start wearing "safe" colors for a little bit until I get a better idea about the dress code.  Wish me luck!