New Year's Eve 2012 Mani

For New Year's Eve, I decided to go with a glitter bomb in order to keep it festive. This is Finger Paints- Santa's Magic layered over OPI- Tomorrow Never Dies

I was quite impressed with Santa's Magic. At first I thought it was just going to be a typical silver prismatic glitter, but the prismatic effect is super strong! You can see rainbows of color with this shade. 

Santa's Magic was released with the Finger Paints recent holiday collection. I purchased this at Sally's. They probably have these on clearance now if there are any left. This picture was taken with the flash! This polish was so packed with glitter, that it only needed one coat.

I had to take a picture while driving around in my car at night just to showcase how the glitter looked like glistening in the dark.

OPI- Tomorrow Never Dies is part of this holiday's Skyfall collection. Tomorrow Never Dies is a Blurple shimmer. I saw Blurple because I honestly cannot decide if it leans more blue or purple. It really depends on the lighting. This picture was taken without the flash- and this way it looks almost like a dark violet.

With the flash- you can see the blue side of this. I applied two coats of this for full coverage, but the second coat was somewhat thick in order to avoid bare spots. I wanted to stick to two coats since I was using this polish as a base for Santa's Magic anyway. This shade is most definitely unique!

Wet n Wild- Believe Me it's Real

This is Wet n Wild- Believe Me It's Real. This was released in their color icon series around the holidays last year. I was lucky to pick up the set of these when they were on clearance. 

Believe Me It's Real is bright blue micro glitter with some bigger particles of purple glitter. The texture of this was pretty gritty, even with Gelous and Seche Vite. I also had to file down my nails because the mirco glitter hung off of them.

Overall this was very bright, unique, and long-lasting. 

Here are more new additions.

The Milani holographics were on clearance. I got the whole set of them with the exception of the silver because I already had it. The shades are 3D, Hi-Tech, Cyberspace, Hi-Res, and Digital.

New holiday Candy Lacquers and Pretty & Polished- I'm Not a Banana!

Marshall's finds: Sation- Calorie Countess, ORLY Color Blast- Ablazing Aqua and Twilight

Sephora by OPI- Hollywood if I Could, Caged Bird Lacquer- Rose Golden, and China Glaze- 5 Golden Rings

Butter London- Shambolic, Jack the Lad, Scuppered, Fairy Cake, and Fishwife

China Glaze- Running in Circles and Water You Waiting For, Seche- Collage Overlay, and Finger Paints- Santa's Magic

Finger Paints- Comet's Collar

Here I have Finger Paints- Comet's Collar. This was part of the holiday collection at Sally's last year. I figured I'll wear something Christmas-themed a little early. It's a shimmery apple green.

This was a little bit on the sheer side and needed three coats to be opaque. It wore pretty well. There was a hint of gold shimmer in this polish. It almost had a foil finish. I just love greens! 

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.

Some Recent Manis

 I wore Pretty & Polished- Boot Camp over Zoya- Shawn. These two went very well together. Just looking at it, you can't even really tell that Boot Camp is layered on another shade. Boot Camp is pretty sheer on its own. It has brown, black, and green hex glitter and green square and black bar glitter in a sheer green shimmery base.

I did have to do a little bit of "fishing" in order to get some of the glitter out of this but it wasn't too difficult. Spreading the glitter evenly on the nail wasn't very challenging either.

 Here's what Zoya- Shawn looks like on its own. I applied two coats of it before adding Boot Camp. Shawn surprisingly wasn't one of my untrieds. I had this shade for a while, and actually wore it before I started photographing swatches for this blog! I figured it would be a good green to use as a base and also I would have a swatch of it. It's a dark green creme that has yellow tints in it.

Right after I applied the two coats of Boot Camp, I noticed that it dried matte. I usually am a huge fan of the matte finish, and I loved the look of this, but I was impatient and I wanted it to dry quickly so I topped it off with Seche Vite. The topcoat makes the shimmer in Boot Camp really pop.

 Another mani I wore in the past couple days was Finger Paints- Winter Sky. This was released in their 2011 holiday collection available at Sally's. The label print is peeling off of the bottle! The label is still intact though. I really liked the color. It's a teal with a subtle hint of shimmer, but the wear was horrible!    This mani only lasted one day and I had to change it. The polish on my index finger chipped off in chunks, and I had to redo it for the purpose of taking this picture, so it's still wet in this image. This picture is without the flash.

Here it is with the flash. you can see the shimmer more. The color of this polish doesn't really remind me of the name "Winter Sky". It reminds me of a body of water in a tropical place which is the complete opposite.

I also got over my fear of dusty hunting and went in to a couple salons today! I had success! Here are my finds:

Top Row: China Glaze- Mummy May I and Sweet Revenge, Essie- Showstopper, OPI- Will You Mari-Achi Me? and Euro-mazing. Second Row: OPI- Shanghai Shimmer, Color Club- Glitz and Glamour, OPI- You Make me Vroom, At Your Quebec & Call, Sanderella, and Done Out in Deco.

I also received packages from KB Shimmer and Metametics. I got Key Lime Pie and The Square from KB Shimmer and Lannister Gold and Earth Kingdom from Metametics.

Sanderella was the key find of today! I found it in the first salon I went into. I definitely want to do this again! If I didn't spend so much money, or had more money I could have gone to 20 more salons. It was very awkward at first and I was nervous, but it was so thrilling that I just kept going. Has anybody found some neat polishes dusty-hunting?

The Vintage Gem: Orly- Satin Society

 This is a really old ORLY! It was one of the bottles before the rubberized caps and it's .75 oz which is a lot of polish!!! I believe current ORLY bottles have .6 oz. ORLY-Satin Society  is meant to have a satin finish and even has a frosted glass bottle. The first coat dried rather satin-like, but as I added coats, I knew that it would have taken a long time to dry so I added Seche Vite. It now has a nice glossy finish. It still took a little bit of time to dry even with the Seche Vite!

 Satin Society is pretty sheer white and needed three thick coats. It had a frosty quality to it, but the brushstrokes weren't as visible.

I also have gotten a ton of nail mail lately! I've gotten some really good prices on these from blog sales or sales in indie shops!

 Candy Lacquer- Opposites Attract, American Apparel- Makeup, Color Club- Sugarplum Yum, Black Cat Lacquer: Fifty Shades of Grey and Let Them Eat Cake, and Rainbow Honey- Koi Pond.

Sally Hansen: Gentle Blossom, Finger Paints: Fun-fetti, Hard Candy: Beetle, Jordana: Blue Flash, Loreal: Owl's Night, Revlon: Grapefruit Fizz

Jen, from The Polished Zombie also sold me OPI- We'll Always Have Paris Suede, which was the last one that I needed for my collection. She also threw in a stackable penguin pencil!! I love penguins!!!

OPI Call Me Gwen-Ever and Finger Paints Flecked

 For the past three days, I've been wearing OPI- Call Me Gwen-Ever topped off with Finger Paints- Flecked. Excuse the tipwear! My camera was packed up and I wasn't able to get pictures right away. Also I was doing a lot of cleaning, so that contributed to the tipwear. I now have my own porch and I can take outdoor pictures! It wasn't very sunny out today. Call Me Gwen-Ever is from the new OPI Spider Man collection that was just released in May. It is a true coral creme. The formula was great too and it only took two coats. I topped it off with two coats of Flecked. You can see the gorgeous green/purple shift. 

 Here's an indoor picture without the flash. You can really see the coral in Call Me Gwen-Ever.

I found a gem in Ashley is Polish Addicted's blog sale! Misa- Embroidered Emerald. This polish is at least 11 years old. It has green/blue duochrome in a plum base. It's so beautiful! 

Some Layering with Glitter and the Spoils from My Lucky Giveaway Winnings!!

Today I layered one coats of Finger Paints- Drummer Boy over two coats of Essie- Berry Hard. Drummer Boy is from the Finger Paints holiday collection. I lucked out and got it at Sally's for less than $2 on clearance.  I could probably wear this alone and get it to be opaque with 3-4 coats but I just decided to layer it because I wasn't in the mood to use the aluminum foil removal method. Berry Hard is a Burgundy creme. It shows up so much brighter in this picture with the flash.

This is without the flash. Berry Hard looks very accurate. I was very impressed with the formula. Other dark red Essie cremes that I own (Wicked) are more jelly-like and take at least 3 coats to build up opacity. Berry Hard was smooth and opaque in two coats. Drummer Boy had a lot of glitter in it for just being one coat. All of the glitter is the same size and it's a sky blue color. Just by looking at the bottle, it looks as if all of the glitter is the same color. Looking at it close up, it almost looks as if there are two shades of blue glitter. One is slightly lighter than the other.

I recently won Traci's from The TraceFace Philes 2600 follower giveaway. My prize was to select five Julep shades. I chose Leah, Anne, Megan, Taylor, and Oscar. I'm so excited to try these out! Thank you again Traci!!!

 

So, this week, I found out that I won ANOTHER giveaway from Rebekah at Let's Win Blog! My prize was a February Julep Maven box. I feel so spoiled winning these giveaways! I've been entering in them for a long time, and right when I was about to give up, I started winning! So if you haven't won yet, keep trying and it will pay off :) I just love how Julep packaged this box! It was very festive for Valentine's Day!

It contained Oscar and Meryl! I just love Oscar. Julep bottles are kind of small, so now I have a backup of Oscar. There was also top coat for hair and chocolate shaped like an Oscar. Nail polish and chocolate!!! Best combo ever :) I almost don't want to eat the chocolate. It's too pretty. Thanks again Rebekah! 

I also received a small package from Cathleen from Lilacquer. She makes her own duochrome topcoats. This one is called Selkie. It shifts from green to blue. You can see some swatches on her page. I cannot wait to wear this over black. She is currently selling 5ml bottles of Selkie for $6 plus shipping. For me it was about $1.50 for shipping, so it's not too bad. Her contact information is on her page. I'm sure she will start selling some different shades of duochrome topcoats in the future. 

Here it is with the label.

Don't forget to enter my giveaway if you haven't already! Hurry! It ends in a little over an hour! 

Click here to enter!

Red Manis and a Haul!

This is OPI Speak for Your Elf. This was one of the three holiday ULTA exclusive shades for this year. This was VERY hard to photograph. It was very similar to China Glaze Ruby Pumps. I have also heard that it is similar to the discontinued OPI Smitten with Mittens. It is a red jelly with tiny particles of red glitter. This picture does not do it justice. The bottle is more accurate to how the color actually looks.

Essie Wicked is a great vampy shade. It's like a redder sister to OPI Lincoln Park after Dark. This had a jelly-like consistency and it applied very streaky and unevenly. Even with three coats you can still see some streaks. This is after two days of wear. In low-lighting, this shade looks almost black.

I was then lucky enough to stumble upon the Finger Paints Flakie Special Effects collection at Sallys. I purchased four out of the five shades. I figured since I already was wearing a darker color, I would add a flakie topcoat. (Plus I couldn't wait to try these out!) This is Finger Paints Flashy (2 coats) over Essie Wicked with the flash. I have a feeling that flakies will be the trend of 2011 just like crackle was last year. I'm eagerly awaiting Zoya's Fleck Effects collection also.

This is really cool! The reddish orange flakies shift to yellow green! I'm so glad I could capture this in a picture! You can tell that I wore this mani for 3+ days so it's wearing down. I don't want to remove the flakies though!

I thought I would upload a picture of my haul also. 

Top Row: Finger Paints: Flashy, Asylum, Motley, and Flecked. I just need Twisted! It was the only one Sally's didn't have! I'll keep looking though.

Bottom Row: ORLY- Le Chateau (I initially thought this was black and didn't buy it before, but after finding out that it's a really dark green, I can use it to layer flakies over!), China Glaze- Snowglobe and Twinkle Lights (I got these from eBay because I couldn't ever find them in the stores, and China Glaze Sun Worshiper and OPI Navy Shatter (both Christmas gifts from friends)