First Water Marble!

Hey everyone!

So today I attempted my first water marble.  It took an hour (ew), but I'm really happy with how it turned out :) I used Sally Hansen's White On for the base, and China Glaze Sky High Top, Entourage, and Bermuda Breakaway for the marbling.  I'm not gonna do a tutorial here, but if you YouTube "water marbling," you'll get about a million hits :)

Other things I used:

-Tape 

-Filtered water

-An old plastic cup

-Polish remover

-Q-tips

-Toothpicks

  L to R: SH White On, CG Sky High Top, CG Entourage, CG Bermuda Breakaway

 So, I have some air bubbles, and it's not perfect (I need to work on the swirling-in-the-water part), but I think it's acceptable for a first attempt :)

 My favorite finger was my right thumb; it looks like zebra stripes!!

A rare right hand picture - the camera was sorta shaky :) On my middle and pointer fingers I didn't swirl the colors at all in the water, and I think it turned out sorta cool!  And on my pinky I accidently stuck it in the middle, so I got a big blob of green haha

I know I didn't do the best job on cleanup, but I was running short on time.  

Thanks for reading! <3

(Attempted) Watermelon Manicure

Hey everyone!

So this is my (failed) attempt at watermelon nail art!  My sister found a tutorial on YouTube for this but I'm not sure which one she picked...

I used: China Glaze Hey, Sailor!, China Glaze Entourage, Sally Hansen White On, Wet n Wild Black Creme, tape, a toothpick, and a heck a lot of patience! Hahaha :) 

(I want to give credit where credit is due, so thank you Jamie [my sister] for dotting on the seeds and helping me not lose my mind :)

 L to R: CG Hey, Sailor!, CG Entourage, SH White On, WnW Black Creme (I've finally started watermarking my pictures :)

 I want to apologize for the messy application, and the fact that these look like pizza slices.  

After my base coat, I started by painting one thick coat of White On.  Once that tried, I taped off the sides and painted on a semi-thick layer of Hey, Sailor! (it's very opaque).  Then, I freehanded the tips with Entourage and dotted the seeds on with a toothpick.  Wait a while to top coat it so you don't smudge anything (like I did :) and voila! Watermelon nails!

This was actually my second attempt; my first attempt was full watermelons, not just slices.

Sorry for my gross dry hands! Hahaha

There you have it!  The nail art that almost made me lose my mind :) it took me about an hour total, which is WAY longer than I ever want to spend on my nails!

Thanks for reading <3

Essence Choose Me!

Hi!

My recent manicure is Essence Choose Me! which is a duplicate for the discontinued OPI Catch Me In You Net (which I don't have, so I can't compare them, but swatches online show that they're very similar haha).  Choose Me! is a really hard color to capture - keep in mind my pictures show it more blue-ish, while it's actually a teal.

 Essence has mini bottles, but at $0.99, it's easy to buy backups haha. I also love how the cap matches the polish color <3

 The *teal* color with the blue-green sparkles make it look like a mermaid tail sorta!! :)

Natural light with flash

As for the wear, I put it on in the morning and after a couple hours at work typing, I had minor tipwear (with a top coat).

That's it! Thanks for reading <3

Straw Manicure

Hey guys!  I have a really fun manicure today :)

First of all, I want to credit the blog who inspired this manicure: Neverland Nail Blog

I love her blog and as soon as I saw her straw manicure I knew I wanted to do it!

I used all China Glaze: Lemon Fizz, Flip Flop Fantasy, and Sky High Top

Step One: Paint your nails a base color (I used Lemon Fizz [3 coats])

Step Two: Take any straw and dip it in a drop of your second color (I used a small-ish drinking straw that you can get 100 of them for like a dollar hahaha :)

Step Three: Once your second color dries, go back with the straw with your third color

Step Four: Wait for it to dry, top coat it, and done!

P.S. Flip Flop Fantasy is a super bright neon pink, but I had a hard time getting it as bright as it is in real life :P

 L to R: Lemon Fizz, Flip Flop Fantasy, Sky High Top

 It looks even cooler if you don't complete all your circles :)

Voila!  There you have it :)

Thanks for reading! <3

China Glaze blue and purple gradient

Hi everyone!

This was my first attempt at a gradient, and I really like how it turned out!  I used two coats of China Glaze Grape Pop for the base, and China Glaze Custom Kicks for the tips.  It was really easy; all I did was paint some of the teal on a regular sponge and sponge it onto your base! Hahaha that simple :) 

 CG Grape Pop and Custom Kicks

 My favorite one is my middle finger cause I actually went back and sponged some of the purple where the teal ended to make it more faded...I should've done that with all my nails!

That's it! A super short post hahaha thanks for reading <3

Nfu Oh 38 over Wet n Wild Black Creme

Woo!  I finally used one of my Nfu Oh flakie's (two months after I bought them :P

Nfu Oh retails for $12.50 for .6 oz on fabuloustreet.com, which has excellent customer service (see my Nfu Oh haul post :)

I used a base coat, one coat of Wet n Wild Black Creme (an excellent one-coater black, retails for $0.99), one coat of Nfu Oh 38 (a red/orange/green flakie), and one coat of top coat.

 The flakies in this polish are very dense, which means you get a lot of coverage for just one coat.  The main color (in direct lighting) is red, but.....

 ...when you angle your hand (or in indirect lighting), it turns green!!

I believe this is the same pigment used in the infamous Clarins 230 (every nail polish lover's dream polish), just put in flakies and not a purple base.

 This is me trying to get the red and green in the same picture hahaha :)

Macro!  

The only bad thing about my pictures is that I didn't manage to capture any of the yellow or orange color shifts.  It's extremely subtle.

I really really love this polish, and I think it's totally worth the money!

Thanks for reading! <3

Sally Hansen Golden-I

Hey everyone!  So sorry for the delay, this was supposed to go up a couple of days ago but I couldn't find the pictures and I had already taken the polish off my nails :P Anyways, here it is: Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Golden-I.  Golden-I is similar to Celeb City except it's gold haha :)

Application was nice; two coats was opaque.  I got it at Ulta for $2.  Without further ado, pictures!

 It's borderline glitter, so it's a little hard to get off your nails, but not as difficult as glitter.

I don't own Orly Luxe, but what I've seen from pictures, Golden-I looks like a dupe.  From far away, it really looks like liquid gold on your hands!  I love this polish (and the price ;)
Thanks for reading! <3

Sally Hansen Celeb City

So, I'm really excited for this manicure :)  First of all, because it looks like liquid silver on my nails <3  Second of all, because it's the polish I wore on my driver licensing test (and I passed! :D

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Celeb City (available at Ulta for $2) is one of the most amazing silvers.  Ever.  It's opaque in two coats, the brushstrokes are less visible than other foil polishes, and even without a top coat it lasts for days.

I hadn't worn this nail polish in a long time, so I pulled it out.  Also, I wanted non-holographic nails for my drive test, just in case I was in danger of being distracted by them ;)

 Sorry some of these pictures are a little fuzzy, this polish is really reflective so my camera was having a hard time focusing!

 From far away, it really does look like molten silver!!! <3

I forgot how much I loved this polish!  In fact, I love it so much, I went online to see if Sally Hansen had any other foil-ish polishes.  I found two - a gold and a pink one.
The gold one (Golden-I) is coming up next! :D
Thanks for reading <3

Color Club Fashion Addict

Hey everyone!

So today I have yet another holographic nail polish to show you.  This is Color Club Fashion Addict - a lavender holographic.  I got this at 8ty8beauty.com for $3.  

I really love this polish!  It's perfectly opaque in two coats, drys quickly, and is inexpensive.  However, if you don't use a holographic base coat (like Nfu Oh's Aqua Base), you'll experience issues with balding.  Balding means when you're brushing on the polish and you go over the same spot twice, the polish picks up and leaves a bald spot on your nail.

I was too impatient to wait for my Aqua Base to dry, so I used my normal OPI Natural Nail's Base Coat.  I had some balding, but not as terrible as some holographics.  I didn't use a top coat.

These photos were taken under a bright desk lamp :)  Click for bigger versions!

 Close up shot to show off the linear holographic-ness :)

Natural light - it looses it holographic nature if it's not under a bright light or sun, but it's still a pretty lavender color.  You can see the balding on my ring finger and some on my other fingers :P

There ya go!  A cheap, great polish :)

Thanks for reading! <3

China Glaze Something Sweet and Custom Kicks

So, my vision for this manicure was China Glaze Something Sweet with CG Custom Kicks hearts on the ring finger.  Well, when I went to do the hearts, it was a massive fail.  I saved it by making it simpler: a full-color accent nail :)

I was expecting Something Sweet to be really sheer, but it only took two semi-thick coats to get it opaque.  I can't really comment on the formula of Custom Kicks since I did one coat of it over two coats of Something Sweet.

 Something Sweet is a really pretty cotton-candy / baby pink.  Custom Kicks is a teal with subtle gold shimmer (you can sorta see it in these pictures, but it isn't real pronounced in real life either)

Kinda simple, but I like it :)  Sadly, after I washed my dad's car today I had massive chipping :P  Oh well, time for a new manicure! :D
Thanks for reading <3

China Glaze Sky High Top with Revlon Whimsical

*edit:* I accidently wrote Custom Kicks instead of Sky High Top!! Custom Kicks is a teal color.  Sorry for the misinformation!

Hi everyone!

First off, I want to apologize in advance for my messy nails.  Right after I finished painting them, my dog really wanted to play with the tennis ball, so I got some scuffs right off the bat :P

For this manicure I used China Glaze Sky High Top (a bright blue with micro gold shimmer) and Revlon Whimsical (a hard to find glitter dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air).  I found a lone Whimsical at my local Rite Aid, and all Revlon was 40% off, so I got lucky! :)

Something note-worthy about Whimsical: it takes forever to dry.  Another reason for my horrible application = I kept touching my nails to see if it was dry, and it would mess it all up :P

 2 coats of Sky High top, and 1 coat of Whimsical

I had to kinda work around the glitter to get it where I wanted, but I like the end result :)

That's it!  From far away it looks good, it's just when the camera gets all macro-mode on the polish is when you see the flaws :)

Thanks for reading! <3