Presents for nails!

Another holiday mani? yes, another one. I used to be impartial to these manis but it seems that this year, the Christmas cheer has gotten a hold of me... 

This time, my nails are masquerading as presents!

I had lots of fun thinking of different color combinations and wrapping paper patterns!
Here's a close up as well as what I used to create each!

Revlon in Gold Coin

Art Club in White

Pure Ice in Silver Mercedes

Milani One coat glitter in Red Sparkle

Milani One coat glitter in Red Sparkle

Sally Hansen in Whirlwind White

Art Club in Fine Silver

Sally Hansen in Whirlwind White

Milani One coat glitter in Red Sparkle

Sally Hansen Color Quick in Green Chrome

Sinful Colors in San Francisco

Sally Hansen Color Quick in Green Chrome

Milani One coat glitter in Red Sparkle

Revlon in Gold Coin

Revlon in Gold Coin

Sally Hansen in Whirlwind White

Pure Ice in Silver Mercedes

There are so many other options for this design. Using different colors or a different pattern. Adding bows and decals. Limitless I say! 

Until next time ^_^

Sinful Colors Holiday Edition- Swatches and Nail Art

I have for you today the Sinful Colors Holiday 2011- WISH collection. 

As far as I am aware, all of these are part of the core collection and so are readily available to almost everyone!

SinfulColors Holiday Nail Wheel

Here are the polishes Ill be showing:

Picture from SinfulColors news release

3 coats

Out of this World- A cool silver loaded with shimmer. This one is a little bit on the sheer side... It's great layered over almost anything. Keep reading and Ill show some examples :)

2 Coats

Midnight Blue- A nice bright navy with metallic finish

2 Coats

Sugar Sugar- Shimmery bright red. A  little streaky on the first coat but beautiful on the second

3 Coats

Daddy's Girl- A violet jelly with a lot of shimmers and micro glitter. It takes a little work to get it opaque but this color is amazing and totally worth it!

2 Coats

Last Chance- A very opaque dark green creme. Perfect for nail art but, compared to all the other holiday colors, a little lacking in oomph.

2 Coats each

Fashionista- A simple silver glitter liner. Reminds me a lot of the quality of ArtDeco stripers: Not the greatest but does the job. It's great for half-moon or french manis!

Flower Girl- a warm metallic gold liner. This shade is much better, it's opaque after one stroke, something I favor strongly in stripers.

*********************************

Since these are from the holiday collection, I thought I could show a holiday/winter nail art you can achieve using only these polishes and a basic white creme.

1- (present/gift) Last Chance striped with Flower Girl

2- (snowy french) Midnight blue tipped with Out of this World and Fashionista and outlined with Sugar Sugar

3- (purple stripes) Daddy's Girl striped with Out of this World and Fashionista

4- (Christmas tree) Sugar Sugar with Last Chance tree and Flower Girl star

1- (mistletoe) Out of this World layered over white, stamped with Last Chance and dotted with Sugar Sugar

2- (holiday half moon) Last Chance with Sugar Sugar half moon outlined in Flower Girl

3- (Christmas lights) Midnight blue with Last Chance cord and Flower Girl, Sugar Sugar, and Out of this World lights

4- (wreath)- Sugar Sugar with Last Chance wreath accented with Flower girl and Sugar Sugar

1- (snow drift) Midnight Blue with Out of this World sponged and dotted snow and Fashionista accent

2- (tree ornaments) Last Chance with Flower Girl, Sugar Sugar, and Midnight Blue ornaments

3- (snowflakes) Daddy's Girl stamped with white (purple pigments bled into it...)

4- (candy cane) Sugar Sugar striped with white (red bled too!) and Fashionista

There you have it! You dont need expensive polish to make pretty nail art. SinfulColors retail for about $1.99 and are available at Walgreens (online and in store) and  Cherry Culture as well as many other retailers.

Until next time ^_^

*these were sent to me for review*

Snowman French

The weather has been usually warm here in Ohio. We've had snow a couple of times but it always melts by the end of the day... It's very odd. 

I've been doing some winter/Christmas manis to keep me in the holiday spirit since the weather hasn't been helping out with that. 

Today I have a Snowman French mani over a very shiny blue

China Glaze in Dorothy Who?

SinfulColors in Hottie

Art Club in White

Pure Ice in Silver Mercedes

*Snowman*

Sally Hansen in Whirlwind White

Milani in Black Magic

Finger Paints in  Sketchy Character

SinfulColors in Cloud 9

I love the way Hottie makes Dorothy Who? sparkle. DW is gorgeous to begin with, but Hottie adds those holo flecks that I am sucker for :D

Until next time ^_^

Etude House Swatches- part 2

On to part 2 of the Etude House polish swatch-apalooza!

This time I have some Shimmering and Sparkling members of the LUCIDarling collection

Sparkling Music Box Mint, Shimmering Blue Sherbet, and Shimmering Tender Mint

Tender mint, Blue Sherbet, and Music box Mint- all 2 coats

Tender mint, Blue Sherbet, and Music box Mint- all 3 coats

As you can see the Sparkling polish have a foil effect while the Shimmering ones are cremes with some micro flecks.

I recommend 3 coats for the Shimmering polish while I think that the Sparkling can easily get away with 2. Overall the formula for these is very nice. Not too runny, not too thick. The brush is also a nice medium size so a couple of swipes is all you need!

4 coats

Tender mint is reminiscent of Dress Maker by Milani. Tender mint is a little lighter and some of the micro flecks are pearly silver unlike dress maker. I prefer Tender Mint because it is shimmery-er but that's just my opinion :) It does run on the sheer side so 4 coats is a pretty safe bet to reach opacity.

3 coats

Blue sherbet is also really gorgeous! is has the same pearly silver flecks as tender mint but in a pretty baby blue shade. I've never seen a polish color like this, so I can't give you a comparison, just trust me on this: It's gorgeous! Blue sherbet is not as sheer as Tender Mint so 3 coats cover up any visible nail line.

2 coats

Finally there is Music Box Mint (also sometimes posted as Mint or Orgel Mint? I dont know....). It is a gorgeous foil sparkley polish in a greyed out green shade. It applies like a dream and only needs 2 coats to be fully opaque!

My glam bag

*This is a non polish related entry*

Many of you have probably heard of Michelle Phan. She is actually one of the reasons I started playing with makeup and then nail polish...

Well last month she unveiled a new company that she opened with some other beauty bloggers/vloggers and it's called MyGlam. It's a lot like birch box and all those other beauty subscription companies but with a little twist.

After you receive your package from MyGlam you can log on to the website where each of the stylists will show you how to create a look using the products they send you!

I just received my December Glam bag yesterday and I am thrilled. There are 3 full sized products and 2 large samples of some high quality brands.

• Tarte- Lights, Camera, Lashes mascara
• Mai Couture- Salicylic acid blotting papers (and a sample of blush papers)
• Urban Decay- eyeshadow in Sin
• Urban Decay- Primer Potion
• NYX- matte lip cream in Milan (different colors were sent out depending on how you answered the quesitonaire)

and it all comes in a cute zip pouch with an attached mirror. Unfortunately after a few months of this I might have a few too many pouches....
So as you can see, MyGlam has some really nice products. I can't wait to see next month's bag :D

If you live in the US, you can get your own glam bag at myglam.com. They are currently sold of for January but be sure to check back in order to sign up for February's!

Until next time ^_^

Tribal nails

Hello!

I went by Sally's earlier this week and picked up a few of the new Orly colors from the Soiree collection. I'm not much of a fan of the formula for Orly, but these were just too pretty to pass up!

I then added a pretty tribal-ish stamp on top. It took me forever to decide what color to do the stamping in. It seemed though, that gold was pretty much the only way to go...

Orly in Oui

Sally Hansen Color Quick in Gold Chrome

Stamp is XL-C from chez-delaney.com

Well I hope you like it!

Until next time ^_^

Shiny Snow Nails

Today I have for you another take of my snow nails

For this mani I wanted to try and capture how pretty it can be when it's snowing (and you don't have to go some place). I layers on quite a few glitter jellies to get the look just right!

Sally Hansen in Whirlwind White

Wet n' Wild in Kaleidoscope

Wet n' Wild in Hallucinate

Funky Fingers in Stage Dive

Sally Hansen in Hidden Treasure

I hope that if you recreate this mani, it too reminds you of pretty snow 

Until next time ^_^

Etude House Swatches- Part 1

I've received a lot of requests for some swatches of Etude House. These polishes can be hard to get, mostly if you don't live in Asia. You have a few options: Ebay, Etude House USA website, or swapping. However, if you're going to work that hard for a bottle of polish, you probably want to know what it looks like before you invest yourself in it.
I certainly do not have all of the Etude house polishes. Not even close. But I do have a few, and I am happy to show them to you and tell you what I think about them.

Today we begin the Etude house swatches with my favorite- Spangles

Etude House nail wheel!

Spangle is what Etude calls their glitter polish

Pink Topaz, Silver Diamond, Crystal Gold, and Ruby Purple

Here are 4 of the 9 available Spangle polish from the LUCIDarling collection by Etude House
Aren't they cute?

Pink Topaz- 1 coat, 2 coats, 3 coats, 1 coat over white

Pink Topaz is the sheerest of the Spangles. It's a pink jelly with loads of pearly glitter

Silver Diamond- 1 coat, 2 coats, 1 coat over black, and 1 coat over white

Silver diamond is my favorite spangle. It's opaque after 3-4 coats and it is made entirely of micro glitter and small hex glitter in silver.

Crystal Gold- 1 coat, 2 coats, 3 coats, and 1 coat over black

Crystal Gold is silver diamond's sister.... It becomes beautifully opaque after 3-4 coats and is made entirely of micro glitter and hex glitter, this time in a flattering shade of yellow gold

Ruby Purple- 1 coat, 2 coats, 3 coats, and 1 coat over black

Finally there is Ruby Purple. It's made of micro fine glitter, almost like glitter dust, in a magenta purple. There are also some purple hex and stars in this. The only downside of Ruby Purple is that is never quite gets opaque. I'm sure with enough determination, one could achieve it, but if you layer it over plum, it's amazing!

I hope this was helpful!

Until next time ^_^

Fall Festivities

A quick half moon using China Glaze's Halloween collection from last year. Overall, I find this to be more fall-y than Halloween-y. However for a true fall feel, I would probably change the purple for a red or gold glitter.... 

China Glaze in Ick-A-Bod-Y

China Glaze in Mummy May I

China Glaze in Zombie Zest

Milani in Black magic

You all might remember the unfortunate peeling incident with the swirls and glitter mani. I thought it might be due to the base coat (orly's Top2Bottom) not adhering well with glitter polish, so I tried it with this mani. Not peeling occurred. In fact this mani lasted almost a week with very little tip wear.

The peeling event was very bizarre. I'll keep on it and let you guys know if it happens again. Maybe certain brands just don't mesh well with Orly?

Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate the Holiday. I know I am looking forward to tasty turkey and mac and cheese!!

Until next time ^_^

Double Drip!

This is a new twist on the Halloween Blood Drip manis.

Just use the same technique as the single drip but overlap a second color on top!

China Glaze in Peri-wink-le

China Glaze in For Audrey

Zoya in Harlow (matte)

Seche Vite

Until next time ^_^

2 of my favorite things

I love glitter polish! I am also a fan of swirly-ma-jigs. In fact, almost all of my notebooks are filled with doodles of swirls in the margins...

So one uninspired day, I just combined the two. 

I actually really liked it :)

Forgive the bad lighting. There are very few sunny days in Ohio

 OPI in Sparkle-licious

Sally Hansen Nail Art Pen in Black 

(I recommend the Art Pen only because it is nearly impossible to do swirls with a striper brush and nail polish. )

Glitter shot!

 Unfortunately, this mani didn't last very long. I'm going to blame it on the base coat: Orly top2bottom, even though it's never given me problems before... Maybe it just doesn't like glitter
Anyhow, the following day this happened:

to all of my nails. One by one, they peeled off like helmer's glue on skin. Very disappointing but the easiest cleanup I've ever had! Pros and cons, pros and cons...

Until next time ^_^

Two-fer gradation

hello all!

I found this little gem in my old photos. I did this mani almost a year ago and forgot to post it! This duo of a color gradation with a glitter gradation is super easy to recreate.

If I remember correctly, I only used 2 polishes for this look: Arisa in creamy mocha and Etude house in gold spangle

the trick is to sponge on your base color starting from the tip to the middle of the finger so that most of your color is concentrated at the end.
Then you want to take the glitter and apply one thin layer over the whole nail, followed by one slightly thicker layer over the tip half of the nail and then one last thick layer over the free edge/tip of the nail.

there you go, a two-fer gradation

Until next time ^_^