A Ton of Manis

Catching up again, some of these may not be in chronological order, so the length of my nails varies.

This is Glitzology- Lemon Crush layered over Deborah Lippmann- Footloose. Lemon Crush is filled with different shapes and sizes of white glitter and bars and is scattered with tiny pieces of matte yellow glitter.

 I only used one coat of Lemon Crush. Glitzology polishes are so condensed with glitter! I really like how this combination looked.

Here's a picture of it taken indoors without the flash.

Deborah Lippmann- Footloose was released as part of the Footloose collection in winter of 2011. This had a great formula. It's just a simple, staple red creme. Footloose was practically a one-coater, but I put on two out of habit.

Here it is with the flash.

Next up is Happy Hands- Banana Stand. I don't own many yellow polishes and I gravitated towards this one. It has green, yellow, and brown hex glitter of various sizes suspended in a yellow jelly base. This built up very well and needed three coats.

This had a wonderful formula and the glitter dispersed very well throughout my nails. It's the perfect shade of yellow!

Here's Banana Stand taken indoors with the flash. The color looks a lot different here.

Indoors without the flash

This is Polished Perfection- Fire Flower. I purchased this in a blog sale, and there were only a few of these made. I don't think this indie brand is selling polish any longer. Once I saw the label, I just had to have this one!

Fire Flower consists of orange, silver, and yellow huge flower glitters, small bars, and small orange glitter suspended in a shimmery orange jelly base. I was blown away with the formula on this! This was a bit sheer, which is characteristic of a jelly, but it built up nicely in three coats. I love how the flowers turned out. I wore this for FIVE DAYS. I used Seche Vite and Gelous to prolong it. I didn't want to remove it because it was so long-lasting, but I had tickets to a Penguins vs. Flyers game, and there was no way that I was wearing orange nail polish there. 

Next is China Glaze- Electrify. This was released as part of their Spring 2012 Hunger Games collection. This was gorgeous, a glitterbomb for sure. It's filled with yellow and red glitter. I put on three coats of this and topped off with Gelous and Seche Vite for a smooth finish.

Indoors without the flash.

Crackle is one of my guilty pleasures. Many in the nail community are over it just because it was overdone in collection releases by many companies, but I just love how it turns out in a different pattern on every nail. When I saw Sally Hansen- Starburst I had to have it. The silver glitter in the crackle made it look so unique!

The black base in Starburst is jelly-like. I thought it was really neat out the glitter migrated with the crackle as it separated on my nails.

I layered it over China Glaze- Under the Boardwalk. This was taken indoors without the flash. Under the Boardwalk was released in China Glaze's 2012 Summer Neons collection. It's neon, and it has that jelly quality to it. It's a bright magenta. I only needed two coats of it.

Indoors with the flash

Here's ORLY- Purple Velvet. This one was released in the Fall 2009 Matte Couture collection. This had a nice formula and matte finish, but it wasn't purely matte. It had a satin-like quality. If you remember the finish of the ORLY Plastix collection, this would be right between those and a true matte.

Indoors without the flash. This applied in two smooth coats and the purple is reminiscent of an eggplant.

Indoors with the flash, you can see the subtle hint of shimmer this has. To the naked eye it looks like a flat color.

Last is Essie- Absolutely Shore. I didn't expect to love this as much as I did! It is a pale seafoam green. Coming out of the bottle it was a little sheer, but with three coats, it's a smooth-looking creme.

This was released as part of Essie's Summer 2011 Braziliant collection. The formula was so great also!!!

Indoors with the flash, you can see the blue in it.

Indoors without the flash

Deborah Lippmann- Almost Paradise and Glitzology- Guardian Angel

For this combo, I layered Glitzology- Guardian Angel over Deborah Lippmann- Almost Paradise. This kind of reminded me of icing on Christmas cookies! I took this picture in a diner because I really liked the lighting.

This was my first time trying a Glitzology polish and it was packed with glitter! I am only wearing one coat of Guardian Angel over Almost Paradise. Guardian Angel had a clear base with gold shimmer, and red, pink, and white matte shards, and pink and white hearts! It was so unique. Glitzology polishes can be found in the Etsy Shop and retail for $8.50.

Here is a picture taken indoors with the flash.

Here is Almost Paradise on it's own. This was part of the Footloose collection during Winter 2011. It a spring green pastel creme. It reminds me of Essie- Navigate Her, but it has more yellow in it.

Here it is with the flash. The formula on this one was streaky; especially with the first coat. The second coat smoothed that out. 

My fiance got me a $200 gift card to Ulta for Christmas, so I went shopping!

Essie- Bonded (via Ebay), and Where's My Chauffeur? 

China Glaze- Swanky Silk, Want My Bawdy, No Plain Jane, and Creative Fantasy

Revlon- Heavenly and Girly and Sation- Pyramid Princess and Starlight Covers (given to me in a swap)

OPI- The Spy Who Loved Me, Goldeneye, Skyfall, and Tomorrow Never Dies

Pretty & Polished- Slime Time, Jessica- Cloud Mine (given to me in a swap), and Layla- CE 54 and CE 53

OPI- Gift Cards for Everyone!, Baby it's "Coal" Outside, and Wooden Shoe Like to Know?

I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday!

Deborah Lippmann Edge of Glory Duo

 I have an interesting flakie combo today! This is Deborah Lippmann's Edge of Glory duo which was released during last holiday season and exclusive to Barney's. Deborah Lippmann collaborated with Lady Gaga. Being a fan of Lady Gaga, I just HAD to have this set. When it first came out, it retailed for $45, but I got it on sale for around $20, which is worth it for limited edition Deborah Lippmanns. It consists of a black creme called Edge of Glory base color and the flakie which was called Holographic Edge of Glory. It's actually a flakie instead of a holo, but oh well.

 The flakies consist of primarily blue and red but then they flash green, orange, and yellow. Definitely a spectrum of color! Flakies go so well layered over darker colors. I am wearing two coats of the flakies. They are absolutely GORGEOUS! It has been said that Finger Paints- Motley is a dupe for this. It is probably less expensive, but still a bit challenging to find. I have not worn mine yet, but I am curious to see how similar they are.

I tried not to tilt my hand as much so that you can see most of the blue and red flakies. Love love love! I recently integrated Gelous into my mani routine before adding Seche Vite topcoat, so my nails have not been chipping as much.

Here is Edge of Glory base color before I added the flakies. It's really nothing special; just a standard black creme. It's very glossy though! The application was flawless with two smooth easy coats.

And of course, some new additions:

 From a blog sale: Naturistics Galaxy and Moonbeam Pearl. More vintage gems for my collection!

 Essie Mirrored Metallics- Good as Gold, Blue Rhapsody, and Nothing Else Metals

My Zoya BOGO order came in. Top row: Tracie, Meg, and Edyta. Bottom row: Astra, Paloma, and Feifei

KB Shimmer- Key Lime Pie

 Here's KB Shimmer- Key Lime Pie. I LOVE this! It's green, jelly, glitter- the trifecta for polish beauty in my opinion. It has various sizes of white, green, and gold hex glitter, and white and gold bar glitter suspended in a lime green base. This picture was taken in natural light.

 These next pictures are indoors with the flash. I am wearing three coats of Key Lime Pie here. It's very pigmented and builds up nicely for a jelly. You could probably even get away with two coats if you want a more sheer look. The texture of this polish was very smooth for a glitter. When it's applied, you have to make sure that no bar glitters are sticking up.

I just love the way the glitter layers over one another between coats. I've had the best experience with glitters from KB Shimmer. There is no fishing for glitter whatsoever. The glitter just comes out on the brush. Sometimes you get too much glitter and have to put a little back into the bottle. Key Lime Pie has recently been discontinued in order to make room for the shades in the fall line. 

Here are some recent additions:

From Sally's: ORLY- So Go-diva, Buried Alive, and Decades of Dysfunction (those two were on sale)

 I ordered Deborah Lippmann- Across the Universe online and also from Sally's I got Nina Ultra Pro- Electric Slide and Finger Paints- Tough Art to Follow

I got ASP Whitening Nail Paste (which I tried out in my previous post), and Gelous to use with glitter polishes.

Sally Hansen- Blush Diamond

This polish is a vintage gem! It is an old school Sally Hansen Nail Prism called Blush Diamond. They released a few batches of Blush Diamond and this is the darker version. I miss when true holos used to be readily available, but judging by the Cosmoprof photos from other bloggers, it looks like they may return! I still have an affinity for collecting the older bottles though.

 Blush Diamond is a pretty rose pink. The formula was kind of thin and I am wearing three coats but it built up nicely. These pictures were taken after two days of wear so there's the slightest bit of tipwear.

 This picture is a bit blurry, but you can see the prism effect!

I managed to get one sunlight picture, and this one doesn't even show the full holographic effect of this polish. It was pretty intense- almost to the point where it was dangerous to drive without wrecking from looking at my nails!

I have some hauls from the past few days too!

 I took advantage of the 99cents Sinful Colors sale at Walgreen's. I want to preface this by saying that I don't agree with what Sinful Colors has done (pretty much stole other bloggers' images for their display, photoshopping out their watermarks without giving credit). I really hope that SC/Revlon owns up to what happened.  Not to mention it is bad advertising for them since the stolen photos don't even showcase their products/techniques that they advertise.I saw this as an opportunity to get a lot of polish for an inexpensive price, and I already had a list of SC's that I wanted. Top Row: Bikini, Cinderella, Slate, Unicorn, and Fig. Bottom Row: Neptune, San Francisco, Leap Flog, Mint Apple, and Let Me Go 

Some other purchases from blog sales/online consist of Sally Hansen- Hidden Treasure, Deborah Lippmann- Let's Go Crazy (Nordstrom Exclusive!), Metametics- Blood and Snow (WINTER IS COMING!), and Loreal- Gorgeous Gold.