Neon Disaster

Hey there lovelies! The other day a dear friend to my family was lost in a tragic accident.  I have felt so down I just haven't been feeling up to much of anything.  I tried to do a bright happy mani, and while I probably would have liked it most days I decided I didn't like it and changed it.  The update was even worse (for some reason my gradients are always not so great looking). I figured you guys might appreciate the bright neon nails I was sporting for about an hour.

I used China Glaze in Celtic Sun for the base with a coat of white underneath.  I dotted with China Glaze in Rose Among Thorns and Sinful Colors in Summer Peach.

So I decided to change my nails.  I stripped the polish off my ring finger, repainted it in Celtic Sun and tried a sponge gradient with Rose Among Thorns.  I hated everything about this.  The stamping looks messy and It reminded me of candy corn.  One of these days I will actually like a sponge gradient I do.  Maybe I am missing something?

Crackle Polish and My Latest Mini Haul

Ok, so at this point I'm feeling like I should just give up on my who no buy month.  I just cant resist a good deal.  I ended up getting a small haul yesterday and I figured I'd share it along with my nails today.

I picked up a couple of Pure Ice bottles and some Kiss Nail Dress from Walgreen's and some L.A. Colors Art Deco from the Family Dollar up the street.  I thought the Pure Ice ones (Siren and Iced Copper) were crackle polishes but it turned out they weren't.  I ended up returning Siren because I already have red cream polishes that I love but I don't wear red very much anyway.  I ended up picking up Show Stopper when I went back, which isn't pictured but I'm going to redo my nails here after I'm done and plan on using it, so I'll be sure to post it tomorrow.  The Nail Dress that I got was only $2.99!  I'm excited to use them.  Anyhow... Here are my nails for the past couple days


I used Spoiled by Wet n Wild in I'm So Jaded with a thin coat of Appletini Fizz From Revlon over top, and then put a generous coat of China Glaze in Black Mesh.  Please excuse the skin around my nails.  I wasn't as careful and was in a hurry and had no time to clean up. 

Geometric Pattern NOTD

I'm kind of proud of my mani today.  I was inspired by a post on reddit that you can see here.  This is really the first geometric kind of print I have done and I love it.  I used China Glaze in Sea Spray for the base on all my nails.  Dotting and taping was done using Pure Ice in Kiss Me Here and Super Star (white), and also China Glaze in First Mate.  Hope you enjoy them as much as I do.

Matte Neon Glitter NOTD

Hello good people!  My mani for the day is 3 great things rolled into one.  We have China Glaze in Purple Panic, which is billed as a neon, and is a lovely bright fuchsia.  Layered on top of that is L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Synergy, a gold glitter with micro glitter and medium size gold holo hex glitter.  It's not a very dense glitter which would bother me in some cases but I love the purple panic so much I didn't want to cover it up.  All of that is topped off with Hard Candy's matte topcoat, Matte-ly In Love.

Glitter Galaxy Nails!

Alright, so this week's theme on reddit's 52 week challenge is galaxy nails.  I've always liked the looks of them, but I'd never actually done them.  I had seen many a tutorial and they looked simple enough, and I'm happy to say they are pretty easy to do.  I must also say that clean up is kind of a bitch.  I have glitter everywhere.  

I think they look lovely and all but as you can see I still have a considerably amount of glitter around my nails after cleaning them.  I suppose I might have put a little too much glitter on them (as if that is even possible). 

Yes. That is a lot of damn glitter.  So much really that you can't immediately tell they are supposed to be galaxy nails, but c'mon, you can never have too much glitter.

I used China Glaze in Dorothy Who? for the base.  Then sponged on China Glaze in Flying Dragon and Ray-diant, and Sinful Colors in Paris.  Lastly, I topped it off with Twinkle, Twinkle by Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear and a coat of Seche Vite.

Nails of the Day

1 coat of Chrome from Savvy followed by 2 coats of Electrify from China Glaze.

Nails of the Day... Yesterday...

 I did my first ever sponge gradient yesterday.  I'm sure with some practice it will look smoother.  I used China Glaze in Flying Dragon (Neon) and Purple Panic (Neon).  In the finished mani I feel like there isn't enough contrast in the colors, but they are neons so the color isn't as opaque as a cream.  I still like the colors together.

After finishing with the gradient I topped off my nails with L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Uninhibited, and I gotta say I LOVE this glitter.  Obviously it isn't sparkly like traditional glitter but I really dig the black glitter.

I look forward to doing more gradients in the future and hopefully getting better at it.  If any body has any handy tips I would love to hear them.  Thanks for reading! 

Highs and Lows

Hey everybody!  I figured I would post my haul from the past few days.  It's a pretty decent haul for me, and I'm mostly very pleased except one bottle I've mentioned already, but I will get to that when I get to it.  Anyhow.  Here we are....

 

As you can see here and from my previous posts The stamping plates and stamper my boyfriend got me came in.  He ordered the SHANY set of plates off of amazon.  They were very reasonably priced like $12 and let me tell you they work way better than I expected.  The only complaint I could possibly lodge is that some of the plates are slightly different than the photos showed on amazon.  Most noticeably the plate with the numbers on it.  I doubt I'd use it so it's really no big deal, but the font shown on amazon was kind of a cool techy looking font.  The font on the actual plate looks more like Times New Roman.  Which like I said I probably wont use it, and if I do i don't really mind anyway.   Overall I'm very pleased with them.  

 On to the polishes... Basically these next couple pictures just go down the line of nail polish.  I'll swatch/review these polishes as I get to them, maybe next month when I'm seriously going to cut back on my polish consumerism. 

 
Starting us off is another recent amazon purchase.  L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Uninhibited.  It's a black glitter, folks, and I haven't put it on my nails but I'm excited about trying it out.  Next is L.A. Girl Glitter Addict in Synergy.  I'm liking the looks of this one too.  I realized this week I didn't have gold glitter really and ended up scoring 2 bottles.  This one I got at Rite Aid on clearance.  Next is Sally Hansen Diamond Strength in Multi-Faceted.  All I can say is gorgeous.  More black glitter mixed in with blue and silver.  If I hadn't gotten the stamping stuff in, I would be wearing this one right now.  Lastly we have Sinful Colors in Paris.  I like Synergy better but Paris is really not even in the same ball park.  The glitter is much more dense and all fairly small pieces from what I can tell, whereas Synergy is chick full of larger holo hex pieces. 

 
Sinful Colors in Flirting Nails, Cloud 9, and Beautiful Girl; and Essie in Sand Tropez.   Flirting Nails I bought mostly because I have very few browns/nudes and I like to have a well rounded collection.  I'm sure I'll use it eventually, but I like bright colors mostly, browns aren't really my thing.  Cloud 9 is really lovely. I don't have many oranges, which I guess is why I ended up getting it.  It is a really nice shade.  I plan on doing something with that fairly soon.  Beautiful Girl I already used as the base color in my pink leopard mani that I posted in my first blog post.  It's a nice cream color with good coverage.  Lastly, we have my first Essie!  I had been recommended Sand Tropez because the nudes I have tried left a lot to be desired.  I haven't tried it yet, but I will soon.

 

 
Here we Have China Glaze in Black Mesh (crackle), Dorothy Who?,  and Glam-more (crackle).  I haven't used black mesh, but I know what I'm getting into.  I love crackle, but I only had 2 and one of them was a white that truly looks like dried cream cheese on my nails (gross!).  Black mesh was just something I felt needed to be added to the collection.  Dorothy Who?  had been suggested to me a while back and I never bothered getting it because it looked pretty darn close to another blue I had in my polish arsenal.  After taking a closer look it's very different.  Can't wait to swatch it.  Lastly is the thorn in my side this week.  I tried a couple times to use Glam-more, because it was something unique and different in the way of crackles, but on my nails it just didn't work for me.  It barely crackled.  The glitter wasn't dense enough for my liking, either.  Below is a test I did on paper, which looks acceptable.    

This really only frustrated me more.  I'm going to take it back and exchange it I suppose.  I was pretty disappointed.  The color of it is great.  I'm not trying to discourage anybody from trying it.  I may have just gotten a bad bottle or something.  Anyhow... Thanks for checking this out. 

Stamping Success!

OK, so as promised here is my first (of many) stamped mani.  It's far from perfect but everything worked great.  I really couldn't be happier with the plates/stamper.  Sorry for the crappy quality pictures again.  I have been looking for my camera and I still haven't found it.  I might have to wait until my birthday gets here and hope that my darling boyfriend can pick up the hints I plan on laying down.

I used Sinful Colors in Easy Going for the base.  It's a really light light pink for those of you aren't familiar with it.  The stamping was done with China Glaze in Rose Among Thorns, which is a great reddish pink neon.  

Overall I'm pretty pleased with the results.  I'll definitely be doing more stamping in the future.

The Dawn Of A New Era

So, here is a bit about me...

I am a reformed nail biter.  My nails have always been messy and gross and I never took much pride in them at all until about a year ago.  I'm still a newbie in the lacquer community, but I'm learning as I go, and constantly trying new things.  It's been a LONG time since I have blogged, and I'm not sure how often I'll post but I figure maybe this could be an outlet for me to show off my nails to some folks who appreciate the time and effort put into them (my boyfriend is just not impressed any more... men...). 

To start us off I give you my most recent manicure.  The picture isn't awesome (note to self: stop taking pictures of your fingernails with your cell phone), but they were super easy to do.  It was really the first time I had done leopard print on my nails and I have to say I freaking love them. 

The base coat is Sinful Colors in Beautiful Girl, the middle of the spots is China Glaze in Rose Among Thorns (which is a neon, and it really makes the whole thing pop), and the edge of the spots is L.A. Colors in Fiji Purple BCC 559.