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 ^_^