Neon Hearts

I really love the neon trend this season (and have always loved neons!) so when I saw this design I knew I had to try it. Mine is a bit more neon than the original.

 I used OPI Alpine Snow for the base, then China Glaze Celtic Sun on top. The pink is love & beauty Fuschia. I painted a little white heart with acrylic paint and then added chartreuse glitter. The colors are a lot brighter in person, almost glowing. This is one of my favorite looks so far!

And a mini haul:

MAC lipsticks in Quick Sizzle and Naughty Saute, Dior palette in Garden Pastels (441). 

Yay for spring colors!

NYE Mani

This mani is a bit beaten up and there's some purple from my hair dye but this is what I wore for New Year's Eve 2011:

Gray base is Catrice London's Weather Forecast, silver glitter is Misa Dance Fever, tips are Etude House WH004. I was thinking about changing it for NYE but I didn't end up having enough time. Oh well.

Sephora currently has an offer of an extra 20% off sale items so I just couldn't help myself! Plus I needed to pick up the Nicki Minaj for OPI collection of course.

Tokidoki Pittura Brush Set 24 Karat Edition, Paperself lashes in Deer & Butterfly and Peacock, Urban Decay 24/7 Shadow Pencil Stash, and Nicki Minaj for OPI polishes in Super Bass Shatter, Fly, Did It On Em, Pink Friday, Save Me, and Metallic 4 Life. I love Nicki Minaj and I'm so excited to try out the polishes!

Did you do any damage for New Year's?

Fourth of July Mani

Happy Fourth, everyone! I wish I had been able to post this before today but I actually didn't even think about doing a 4th of July mani until late last night. Here it is:

The white base is MAC Vestral White, the red is OPI Rock-apulco Red, the blue is Blue from love & beauty (sold at Forever 21, same as L.A. Girl), and the glitter polish is Deborah Lippmann Today Was a Fairytale. I used a striping brush (you can find them cheap on ebay) for the stripes. My right hand actually turned out okay, though the stripes are a bit thicker and messier, haha. I realized after finishing my mani that it looked a bit abstract but if you want to make it look more reminiscent of a flag you can always to horizontal or vertical stripes instead of diagonal, or paint on stars or use star-shaped glitter instead of a glitter polish.

Hope the weather is nice for all of you and you get to eat some yummy BBQ!

Glitter Bindhi Mani

I saw this design in a magazine and it really caught my eye:

I love the way it looks like a beautiful, intricate bindhi design, so sparkly, feminine, and elegant. It also didn't look too hard (no time-consuming florals!) so I thought I'd try it out.

Here are the polishes I used:

Top row L to R: Milani Blue Flash, Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, OPI Last Friday Night
Bottom row: no-name fuchsia glitter polish from Transdesign, Essie Splash of Grenadine, OPI Teenage Dream

First step was to paint little crescents with the glitter polishes, then shape them while the polish is still wet. I used a popsicle stick but an orange stick would be ideal.

Next, I painted French tips with the cream colors. I did this freehand but you can always use sticker guides of course.

Then, I added the sheer glitter toppers. As you can see the tips got a bit smeared so I would advise that you kind of pat the glitter on the tips rather than paint them on. This will minimize the smearing.

Last step was to add the pearls and rhinestones and a thick layer of topcoat:

After I had finished I realized I should have used a slightly darker blue but I still love the results! Rhinestone designs are a fairly easy way to make seemingly ornate designs without much effort. If you're not sure what you want I recommend buying one of the multi-sets on ebay for cheap. Born Pretty Store also has a whole kit you can buy with various rhinestones, orange sticks, dotting tools, and nail glue (link is my referral link).

If you're looking for nail art that is fairly easy but impressive, try this one!

Black/Blue Mani

I did this one a while back but I wasn't very happy with it. Besides the fact that the overall look is kind of sloppy and random, the black acrylic powder I used to make the bow smeared everywhere. I had to paint over some parts with the nail polish again, making it look really messy.

The base is Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau. I did the bow on my pointer using acrylic powder and the one on my ring finger is just hex glitter pieces and a black rhinestone in the center. The lace parts are stickers.

Definitely not my best work but oh well, you learn from experience.

Milani Gems over MAC Something About Pink

I did this one a while ago, because I was feeling festive:

Milani Gems over MAC Something About Pink. This is the new version of Gems, with pink glitter. I don't have Lippmann Happy Birthday to compare, but I think they are pretty much the same except for the fact that the small glitter in Gems is hexagonal and the small glitter in HB is square. This didn't turn out quite as well as I had hoped; I am wearing three coats of each polish but I think it would have looked better with just one or two coats of Gems. I love the new Gems though! The pink glitter makes it more like party glitter rather than a holiday polish.

Happy Friday!

Cover Girl IceSlicks

I already swatched Anti-Freeze a while ago, but I recently bought a few more on ebay so I thought I'd do a comparison. I did these all over Diamond Cosmetics Crushed Velvet which is actually a dark purple, but it looks blue in the pictures.



All of them go on clear and the glitter is iridescent. The glitter in Arctic ranges from cerulean to teal, depending on the angle. The glitter in Krypton-Ice goes from teal to yellow-green. Orange Slush's glitter goes from red-orange to yellow-orange. Pink Ice has the same glitter as Orange Slush, plus a royal blue glitter. Anti-Freeze has the same royal blue glitter as Pink Ice, but also small specks of pale green glitter (possibly the same as the glitter in Krypton-Ice).

I really love all of these! Even though I only wore the different colors on each finger for this comparison, I loved wearing them so much that I did it on my other hand too. There's a good amount of glitter as a top coat, I am wearing two coats of each color. Not dense enough to wear by themselves, though. As much as I love these, I do have some complaints. First of all, they REEK! I'm sure it has to do with the chemicals (pretty sure these are not 3-free) but whatever the reason, they smell like rotting garlic or something. I don't even mind the smell of most nail polishes that much but these smell gross. The other big complaint I have is that they do not seem to mesh well with 3-free polishes. I put Seche Vite over my mani, but it was still dent-able for at least two days, maybe more. Also, I'm not sure if this is a well-known fact that I am just discovering, but it seems like when you put SV over polishes that take a very long time to dry, small cracks eventually form in the polish. Weird. Still, I love these glitters so much that I am willing to deal with it all; I don't think there is anything similar out there right now.

I know people have been able to find these at their local Dollar Tree locations, but I bought these on ebay. If you are lucky enough to find some, pick them up!

St. Patrick's Day Mani

I actually forgot that St. Patrick's Day was coming up, I just wanted to wear a green polish. Once I pulled the polish out, though, it occurred to me that I could finally try an idea that I'd been wanting to do for some time.


My first 3D acrylic sculpture! This was inspired by one of Asami's pictures. Mine didn't come out quite as perfect, but I'm proud of it anyway (my right hand did not fare as well...). I know the heart is kind of random, haha. I just really wanted to do a heart! I originally had this over just green polish, but it looked so plain and the color of the shamrock was too close to the color of the polish:

I added a little glitter to make the shamrock stand out more and to make it more interesting overall.

The green polish is Diamond Cosmetics Froggy, a bright grass green. This is actually a neon. I was so excited about this, but ended up being kind of annoyed with it. I think the color is nice, but it's really sheer! In the last picture you can see that after four coats there was still visible nail line, and it took a pretty long time to dry. I added one very thin coat of Color Club Under The Mistletoe and it made it all better! Helps to hide VNL. It's one of my favorite glitters out of the many that I own! The glitter is actually made of small gold flakes so it covers well and isn't gritty (full review here). Next time I wear Froggy I am definitely using something opaque underneath it.

China Glaze Cracked Concrete

Today I'm wearing CG Cracked Concrete (gray cracked polish) over Nicole One Less Lonely Glitter (hate the name-lavender glitter):


I used pretty thick coats of Cracked Concrete so the pieces are large but you can use a thin coat for finer cracks. Underneath is three coats of OLLG, but it's not opaque. I think I didn't apply as much to the tips as I did to the rest of the nail, though. I hate the name of OLLG but it's a very pretty color, super sparkly small hex and fine lavender glitter.

I love wearing these Crackle polishes over glitters! The glitter kind of peeks through without being overwhelmingly sparkly (not that there's anything wrong with that!). I really like this combo, it's edgy but spring-y at the same time. I have to admit that I wasn't crazy about the cracked polishes at first, but they're really growing on me! I guess it's just about finding the right combinations.

Cover Girl AntiFreeze Over MAC Spirit of Truth

I saw AntiFreeze on Scrangie and I thought it was pretty, but it runs about $12 shipped on ebay. I couldn't bring myself to spend that much on drugstore polish. I know it's available at some Dollar Tree locations but I couldn't find it here. I finally saw it on ebay for around $5 so I jumped on it. I received it in the mail and I was excited, but it looks pretty unassuming--ugly bottle, weird green base, just kinda blah. I was so wrong!


I truly think this could be my best polish purchase ever. I can't stop looking at my nails! I know Essie Starry Starry Night is the big lemming for everyone and I've never seen it IRL, but I really think this is better. SSN is kind of like what the night sky looks like from earth but AntiFreeze (over a dark color) is what the sky looks like in space! This is two coats over Spirit of Truth, obviously you can use more for more glitter. AntiFreeze is a mix of silvery-green iridescent glitter and electric blue(!) iridescent glitter. The electric blue is what really makes it amazing. I really adds a lot of depth, making it look almost 3D over darker polishes. Over Spirit of Truth, it definitely looks like the glitter is in the polish, not just on top. I couldn't capture its true beauty in my pictures, but this could be my favorite polish out of all the ones I own. I normally think back-ups are kind of silly, but I NEED a back-up of this (or two, or three).

As amazing as it is, there were some cons. It took quite a long time to dry, though it wasn't much worse than many others I've tried. I waited a good 20-30 minutes for it to dry by itself before I decided to just add some Seche Vite. It was still soft underneath, but it's pretty much dry now, ten hours later. I can still make some dents if I press hard enough. Also, the smell was terrible! I'm guessing it's not 3-free and I was smelling one of those big 3 chemicals? The smell has dissipated, though.

Spirit of Truth I had no real complaints about. It was very easy to work with and offered great coverage; you could probably get away with one coat but I did two just in case there were any bald spots. Not the most unique color, but if you are looking for a true navy cream that doesn't look black, this is a good one! Plus, the packaging is so freaking cute!

Go out to your local Dollar Tree and hunt this one down!

OPI Last Friday Night over Diamond Cosmetics It's Electrifying!

I did this mani a couple of weeks ago but didn't have a chance to post it until now! I really wanted to try LFN over a color that kind of matched the base, so that it would look like the glitter was embedded in the polish rather than just painted on top. I think I found a pretty good match!


For a while I wasn't that into the idea of glittery topcoats, I preferred polishes that were more opaque. I'm really having fun with this one, though! Can't wait to try it with some other blues.

I also recently got a Bergdorf Goodman gift card and used it to buy some Chanel polishes:

I want to try these out soon. Honestly I probably wouldn't have purchased them with my own money but I didn't mind "splurging" with a gift card.

China Glaze Fault Line Over OPI Bring On The Bling

I received my China Glaze Crackle polishes today! I played around with them a bit, just painting them over my current mani:

I messed up the purple one a bit, tried to apply it differently but it didn't quite work out.

I also did a comparison of CG Black Mesh next to OPI Black Shatter:

Black Mesh on pointer and ring, Black Shatter on middle and pinky. It seems like you can get either more or less cracks with both, it just depends on how you apply it. Black Mesh dries a bit more slowly, though, so it's easier to work with. I'll have to do a bit more experimentation.

Here's my first Crackle mani:


Fault Line over OPI Bring On The Bling. I was dying to use this over a glitter, and I thought a multi-colored glitter base would be really interesting. I love this combo! I did two coats of BOTB; I wasn't worried about it being completely opaque, but coverage was good.

I wasn't sure at first if I really liked these cracking polishes, but I guess it just takes the right combination!

Recent Nail Polish Hauls

Bought these in the past ten days or so:

MAC Wonder Woman Spirit of Truth and Obey Me


Hello Kitty Bubble Gum and Purple Sprinkles


pa A113, OPI Black Shatter, Last Friday Night, Teenage Dream, and Castledew Purple Miracle. Here is one coat of each over Hard Candy Sky:

Thumb to pinky: Black Shatter, Purple Miracle, Teenage Dream, Last Friday Night, A113. I will definitely need some practice applying Shatter. Last Friday Night kind of reminds me of Purple Sprinkles, I wonder how they compare?

I love playing with all of these, can't wait to really test them out!

Color Club Spring 2011: Starry Temptress and Wicked Sweet

I don't think I've seen previews for this anywhere but I got the pictures and info from the Color Club website.

Starry Temptress




"Color Club lets you SPARKLE with STARRY TEMPTRESS, an OTHERWORLDLY collection of STAR-MAKING SHADES that brings
BOLD COLOR and GLITTER DETAIL together. Brush on our “STARRY TEMPTRESS” TOPCOAT for MEGA-SHINE and extra TWINKLE!"

Wicked Sweet




"Color Club serves up Wicked Sweet, a LUSCIOUS collection of VIBRANT COLOR. Once DRY, these fun, DELICIOUS SHADES Become FRUIT SCENTED and totally irresistible!"

NEONS! I looove neons, and now glitter neons and scented neons?? Sooo excited for this! They are already available at 8ty8beauty.com, but I am hoping I will be able to find them at my local Ross soon! Who knows, though, I might just end up taking the plunge anyway!

Zoya Nova and Crystal

Yay, I received my free Zoyas a few days ago!

L to R: Nova, Irene, Crystal

Crystal

This is a shimmery light blue with lots of gold flakes. I have read that it is a dupe for OPI's Reflecting Pool, and it certainly reminds me of water. Gorgeous color, great for any season.

Nova

I did a simple dégradé mani with this one. It's a magenta jelly with lots of pale pink glitter, perfect consistency/sheerness for this look. I did thin coats, each coat starting a little further from the cuticle than the last. Very easy to do.

I haven't tried Irene yet, but it looks so intriguing!

Absolutely Alice

I had to try this one out as soon as I received it!

I'm sure you've seen a million swatches of this one already, but it really is gorgeous. Bright, turquoise blue glitter with a sprinkling of gold. With good application you could probably get away with two coats, but I am wearing three in this picture. You can never have too many glitters!