Black and Gold Snowflake Mani

Yikes, it's been over a month! Been so busy with finals and the holiday celebrations have begun already. Here's my current mani:

I copied the design from one of my favorite nail blogs, Mini Nail Blog. She did a much better job of course, but I am really happy with the result! I love the conventional snowflakes with the unconventional color scheme. I used American Apparel Hassid as the black base, the white is Chanel Pearl Drop, and gold acrylic paint for the designs. 

Of course, with all the holiday shopping, I had to buy a few things of my own!

This was my Urban Decay haul from actually a while back. I bought two lipsticks in Jilted and Lovechild and they came with the free deluxe lipstick cap! I also bought liquid liners in Radium and Ecstasy, a green matte shadow, an olive green pigment, the Urban Bride set, and some Urban Defense tinted moisturizer. Can't resist a sale!

I bought this OCC Lip Tar set in Nearly Neon on Black Friday. The colors are Harlot, Hoochie, Queen, Beta, and Anime. It also includes their lip brush.

More of my growing lip obsession! I bought Hourglass lipstick in Fever, Nars lipsticks in Red Lizard and Schiap, and MUFE lipstick in #9. I also bought the UD 24/7 Shadow blending brush and used some of my Sephora Beauty Insider points for a deluxe sample of Laura Mercier tinted moisturizer and NARS primer. I also found some NYX matte lipstick in Shocking Pink (not from Sephora), which is supposed to be very similar to MAC Candy Yum Yum (which I missed out on).

Hope everyone is having a nice holiday and gets the stuff they want!

Mint Green Jewels

I was in the mood to do something fun so I decided to try this mani:

I simplified it a little bit because my nails are so much shorter than the ones in the picture, but I like the results!

First, I painted my nails with Revlon Minted as the base. Then, I used a small brush to paint an outline with Diamond Cosmetics Party Hearty. It's a rose gold as opposed to the regular gold in the picture, but I think it works well enough. Lastly, I added the rhinestones and bullion beads. It's actually not as complicated as it looks! Gluing on the beads/stones takes a little bit of time but it's so much easier and faster than, say, painting a floral print. I love the placement of the stones but I think my favorite part is actually the gold outline, I like the way it frames the mint green. As I've said before, I love doing manis with lots of rhinestones because it looks ornate but isn't a lot of work. You can obviously experiment with different colors and placements as well of course. If you're intimidated by nail art, try something easy and sparkly!

China Glaze GR8

I'm sure most nail polish lovers mourn the loss of the China Glaze OMG collection and I'm no exception. I wasn't into nail polish at the time and I had no idea about holos. I did acquire one a while back, though, without even realizing it was from the collection. GR8 is probably the least popular color, but that means it's easily available on ebay for a reasonable price (around $8 shipped) and there's even still available on head2toebeauty.com (that's where I got mine). Here it is:

It may not be super popular, but I still love it! It's pretty unique, a gold holo, a linear holo at that. I didn't capture the holo effect too well in this photo, it's stronger IRL. This is two coats, no base or top coat. It's pretty watery, but dries quickly. I need more linear holos in my life! Hopefully I will be able to buy lots of Nfu-ohs soon, but they don't make a gold holo so I'm glad to have this one. I might have to look for a few more polishes from the OMG collection now! China Glaze, PLEASE bring these back!

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!

Diamond Cosmetics Rubies and Diamonds with Konad M71

Another Christmas mani! I was a little lazy about fixing the middle finger so it's a bit off to the side. The red base is Rubies and Diamonds from Diamond Cosmetics and the gold stamps were done with Diamond Cosmetics Party Hearty, a rose gold foil. I topped off the bows with some yellow-orange resin rhinestones. Rubies and Diamonds is really beautiful on its own, bright red jelly with red and gold microglitter. I am wearing four coats in the picture. Party Hearty worked perfectly with the Konad plate, as I'm sure most foils do. The bow is from the M71 plate.

Just a few more days until Christmas, hope everyone gets some great gifts!

Milani Rockstar Heavy Glitter

Swatches, finally! This collection is really gorgeous. I'll start with the one-coat glitters.

Gold Glitz:


This one is a mix of gold and orange-y copper glitter. It's a nice warm-toned gold, just a little bit ghetto fabulous! Way better on the nail than I expected!

Purple Gleam:


Mix of dark and light purple? Or maybe purple and black? Hard to tell. It's just a shade darker in real life. I am not normally a huge purple fan but I do adore this one. Then again, I really loved this entire collection!

Red Sparkle:


Red is another color I'm not a big fan of, but this one is so pretty. It's a very saturated ruby red, great for the holidays!

Silver Dazzle:

This one is a steely gray glitter. I would say it's the most subtle of the bunch. Kind of like the glittery version of a dark, stormy gray. Seems pretty unique!

Blue Flash:

This turquoise glitter seems to be a mix of turquoise and light turquoise glitters. I think the "3D" effect I mention later is most evident on this one. Some people have asked if this is similar to China Glaze's Dorothy Who. I can't say for sure because I don't own DW, but it seems like Blue Flash has finer glitter and lacks the silver glitter that DW has.


The collection also includes two "Jewel FX."

Gold over Purple Gleam:


Gold over Blue Flash:

Gold is just a bunch of gold hexagonal glitter suspended in a clear base. There's quite a bit of glitter packed in there, though, so I don't think it would be too hard to layer on the glitter to fill the nail.

Gems over Red Sparkle:

Perfect holiday combo!

Gems:

This is three coats of Gems on my thumb. As you can see, it's a mix of small and large hexagonal glitter in silver, gold, red, green and light blue. I personally am not sure I like the look of this on its own, but it's great for layering.


This collection is really amazing! They are called one-coat glitters and the glitter is very densely packed. With some careful application, you could probably get away with one but I used two for the red and purple. They all seem to be a mix of light and dark versions of the same shade. This combined with the fineness of the glitter really gives them depth. With top coat, they have an almost 3D effect, kind of like those Magic pictures from the 90s. Drying time was quick (even the Jewel FX) and application was a dream! Hardly any cleanup needed at all. These really are the best glitters I've ever tried!

These were on sale at CVS, BOGO half off and they retail around $4.50-$5 per bottle. I read somewhere that the official release date for these is supposed to be in February so if you can't find them, don't worry! I am sure they will be available to order on the website soon.

Rescue Beauty Lounge Look Rich Be Cheap

RBL number three! This one is a glitter so hopefully it doesn't chip as quickly. I first fell in love with this color when I saw it on Sara at a meetup. It was so sparkly!


This is a very shiny gold glitter with bits of purple. It mostly looks gold but the purple makes it more interesting and sophisticated somehow. Great for Lakers fans, too! This is four thin coats in the picture, but there are still some bare areas. The glitter reflects so much light, though, that you can hardly tell. Really gorgeous color, much better on the nail than in the bottle. I can never tire of glitters, I've been looking at my nails all day!

Definitely looking forward to the other RBL glitters!