4th of July Nails!

I've been thinking about this mani for a few weeks now. I saw a video a few weeks back that showed how to  make tiny strings on your nails. The first time I tried it out, I didn't do so well. The strings were too large and it just didn't look good. I was determined to make it work though, so I tried it again. 

I'm very happy with my results this time!

The colors are:

Blue- China Glaze First Mate

Red- Illamasqua Ruthless

White- Wet N Wild White Creme

The video I used for inspiration is posted below. I was much more patient this time in waiting for my polish to get tacky and that helped me to get the look I was going for. The longer you wait, the thinner the strings will be when you lift your dotting tool out of the polish (you could try using a bobby pin or a toothpick if you don't have a dotting tool). 

I put a few drops of blue and red on a plastic bag and waited a few minutes for them to thicken up. If you don't want to wait, let the drops of color start to thicken up while you paint your nails. By the time you finish painting the drops should be thick enough for you to be able to start making strings!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5CTNGcFbzg&feature=player_embedded

Jelly Sandwich!

This is my first jelly sandwich ever! I'm very happy with how it turned out.
I started with 3 coats of Verity Deep Violet, then added 1 coat of WnW Back Alley Deals, and then used 1 coat of Max Factor Fantasy Fire.
I'm in love! This is my favorite mani that I've ever done! It just glows!
These pictures were taken indoors next to a window since it was raining outside when I put this on. I can't wait to see what it looks like in the sunlight!

Taped Mani

Not much chatter today but I wanted to show you what I'm wearing on my nails. I haven't worn a tape mani in forever! I need to do these more often, they're really fun!
The colors I used are China Glaze For Audrey and Electric Beat (from Electropop).

Essence A Lovely Secret

Essence A Lovely Secret

I'm not sure how to describe this color. Sometimes it looks like a pastel lavender and other times it looks periwinkle. Either way, the color is very nice.

Not going to lie, when I applied this I was a little disappointed. What originally drew me to this polish was all of the shimmer you can see in the bottle. When I put in on my nails though, the shimmers disappeared. It makes the polish look speckled, which is pretty cool just not what I was expecting when I bought it. 

Application was very nice. I really like the brush on the Essence bottles. It fit my nails very nicely. I barely had any cleanup to do. 

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic

2 coats Essence A Lovely Secret

1 coat NYC Grand Central Station

Gradient Nails + Tutorial

Here's my take on a gradient mani:

I used two Island Girl polishes for my gradient, Aloha Luau and Big Island Volcano. 

Here is a quick tutorial showing how I achieved these results!

1. Apply your favorite base coat and then 2 coats of your base color.

2. Pick out a second color that you will use for your gradient.

3. Using a sponge, apply both colors to the sponge and lightly overlap the two colors. 

4. Sponge the colors onto your nails until you're happy with the results. You may have to do this step twice.

5. Clean up with acetone and a small brush (or q-tips). 

6. Apply a quick dry top coat and you're done!

For Reference:

1 coat Nail Magic

2 coats Island Girl Big Island Volcano

Sponged on Island Girl Aloha Luau

2 coats NYC Grand Central Station

Purple Tone-On-Tone Stamping

 Ever have one of those days where it seems like every piece of cat hair and fuzz makes its way onto your nails while you're painting them? Well this was one of those days. By some miracle my nails turned out fairly decent.

I used Essie Nice is Nice for my base color and then I stamped over it with China Glaze Magnetix Drawn to You to hide some of the mistakes that I made while painting. Image is from Cheeky XL Plate D.
Magnetic polishes are great for stamping since most of them are one coaters. Drawn to You had a really great shimmer to it when the light hit it and I tried to capture some of that in the pictures.
The formula of Nice is Nice wasn't as good as I remember with previous uses but that might have just been user error since I had previously really liked this polish. It's still my favorite pastel purple regardless.

For reference:

1 Coat Nail Magic

3 Coats Essie Nice is Nice

Stamping with China Glaze Magnetix Drawn to You (Cheeky Plate D)

1 Coat NYC Grand Central Station

Jaybird's Junk Basket Franken

My friend Jaybird sent me a gorgeous franken last week as an extra in a package. It's called Junk Basket.

I'm not normally someone who wears a lot of pinks but I loved the look of this one. It has gorgeous green and blue micro-glitters in it. 

Here is 2-3 coats on my nails.

Perfect for spring!

Max Factor Fantasy Fire

A lot has been said recently about Max Factor Fantasy Fire. It gained popularity for it's similarities to the famous Clarins 230 (aka Unicorn's Pee). Clarins 230 is known for it's color shifting properties. The pigment shifts from red to orange to green.
Unfortunately, I don't own Clarins 230 so I can't do a comparison between the two polishes.
I decided to layer Fantasy Fire over Verity Deep Violet so that it could keep the jelly look.

Fantasy Fire is a polish that is best layered because it is so sheer and because the bottles are so small. Each one contains only 5mL of product.
For reference, this is three coats of VDV and then two coats of Fantasy Fire on top. I could have easily gone with just one coat of FF but I wanted to see how it built up.
The downside to this polish? It's only available in the UK. I'm lucky enough to have a few friends over there who were gracious enough to send me a few bottles.

Verity Deep Violet

Verity Deep Violet is a gorgeous dark purple jelly nail polish. It finally came back in stock and I ordered two bottles of it. One of my friends then informed me that she had ordered some backups but when her bottles arrived, she noticed that the color in the new bottles was different.
When my polishes arrived, I noticed that I had received one of the old formula polishes and one of the new formulas.
The new formula is slightly lighter in color. The new version is on the left and the old version is on the right.

I decided on doing a comparison between the two to see if there was a noticeable difference on the nail. 

The new formula is on my Index and Ring fingers. The old formula is on my Middle and Pinky fingers. You can see a slight difference in the colors but it's very minor. The difference is hardly even noticeable in the shade. Both polishes have the same great jelly formula. 

Hope this helped!

Autism Awareness Nails

April is Autism Awareness month and I knew I wanted to do something. I decided to do puzzle piece nails to match the Autism Ribbon. It's not as neat as I wanted since I couldn't find my tape so I had to freehand the lines but overall, I'm happy with how it turned out!

China Glaze FYI

This is my first bottle from the China Glaze OMG collection. I'm so in love with it. I wish I had been able to buy this back in stores when the collection was originally released. Sadly, I wasn't as into nail polish then as I am now.
China Glaze FYI is a nude holo. I love nude holos because they're subtle yet still really fun to look at.

Easter Gradient

Wow! Long time no post! Sorry about that. School got busy with midterms and I didn't have much time to do my nails or update.
I received a lovely package from a friend yesterday and she included a polish she made for me! I decided to do a gradient mani with it so that I could conserve some of the pretty.
For the base color I used two coats of A-England Iseult and then I sponged Emily's Easter Egg on my tips. Hope you enjoy! Happy Easter!