Sparkly Stepping Stones Nails!

I've been super into Tumblr lately and I've been seeing some people do fabulous things with a glittery base and solid patterns atop it.  I just had to try it out myself after seeing what Whitney at Dressed Up Nails and Stephanie at Sincerely Stephanie have done recently.  By the way, I kinda hate you Whitney, you're just too good and it makes me incredibly jealous! 

I loved the idea of using Color Club glitter polishes from Christmas last year so I started off with two coats of Sugarplum Fairy and then just painted half my nail with Beyond the Mistletoe.  Both are completely awesome and sparkly micro holo glitter, the former slightly purple-toned, the latter slightly green.  I wish I could do the glitter justice, it just doesn't come off in photos! Once dry, I dotted on Wet'n'Wild On A Trip, Sally Hansen Pacific Blue, Nina Ultra Pro Blu Blaze and Nicole by OPI "Baby" Blue.  So many polishes!  But look, sparkly!

The Verdict: Love how the sparkly mixes with the creme polishes, almost like stepping stones on a river of glitter.  That's for me, that's for sure.  Fits with the gradients I've been obsessed with lately too.  Yay sparkly!  Man, I finish a lot of posts like that.  But I like glitter.  So yay!

Water Marbling with Color Club Halo Hues 2013!

Ever since I found the new Color Club Halo Hues 2013 collection at a nearby Winners, I keep using them but then being unable to fully capture how amazingly holographic they are.  This is the third time I've used the collection and the third time I'm actually angry at my photo setup for eating the rainbows.  This is why these pictures look weird; I was so desperate to get the holo going I shoved an ikea lamp sideways into my lightbox and it was still not that holo-y.  Just pretend there are twice the rainbows, k?

I had great success water marbling the first Halo Hues collection and my only criticism would have been that the colours just kinda look the same. The 2013 collection is really all I could have hoped for.  So holo-y, so bright and so good to watermarble.  I started with two coats of black then alternated five of the colours (leaving out the black) with China Glaze Liquid Leather.  I've found that brand doesn't really make a difference in the marbling effect, it's more how new the polish is.  Anyway, you have to work fast as the holos dry quickly but look how pretty they come out!  I even cheated a bit and did two fingers at once in the middle but I did do my other hand to match, which I don't normally do.  

The Verdict:  Pretend I did these nails in full sunshine, not late at night, and that the rainbows were even stronger.  I love you forever holos!

Tried for Girly, Got Grungy with Color Club Halo Hues

Sometimes things done turn out how you planned.  I've been doing a lot of glitter lately so when I sat down to do a mani that wasn't glitter, I decided to follow suit with jessuhhkuh on Instagram and do a girly, soft rainbow mani with Color Club Halo Hues polishes.  I did that but instead of being flowery and soft it came out really grundy.  Turns out that's ok too!

My mistake here was using a black base.  I'm not really sure why I did that because I know that the Halo Hues polishes are opaque and really don't need a base colour to be holoy.  After applying two coats of Rimmel Black Satin I blobbed a small amout of a polish on to a piece of paper and used a small brush to apply a couple splotches onto each nail.  I kept going with each of the 2013 collection colours until the black was covered.  I added a little of the silver from last year for good measure.  This would have been ok had I not been over zealous in my cleaning and let so much black show around the  cuticle.  It was late so I just topped it with a top coat and called it a day.

The Verdict: This wasn't what I was aiming for but it looks kinda cool and is still super holoy so I'm cool with it.  And I found a way of making some of the holo show in my pictures which I'm also digging.  Turns out if I turn my lightbox off and just use my ring flash, I get this grungy style picture and holo.  So win!

I'm a Proper Mermaid This Time Beeeeaches

Ermerger guys, I don't have any glitter on me!  Well, I do, just on my nails.  I always have glitter on me.  And cat fluff.  It's funny how often my bf comes home with glitter in his beard.  That means it's been there all day... Anyway, new nail vinyls mean something a bit different.  I swear I'm not actually obsessed with mermaids, it just seems like it... Anyway, again, shall we?

I got a bunch of really awesome nail vinyls from Lou It Yourself the other day and of course the mermaid stencil jumped out at me.  For the sake of transparency, I should tell you that I'm using acrylic tips here.  My real nails have taken a bit of a beating due to how much I like picking off polish so these are a good alternative.  There's a Nailene kit I found that actually works really well.  The top coat is what I've been using lately instead of Seche Vite and it's just so shiny I can't even a bit.  Anyway, once my nails were prepped, I applied two coats of a navy Quo polish then applied a coat of Seche Vite to help with the drying process.  Once dry, I applied my stencil and sponged on a gradient of Color Club Blue Heaven, ILNP Star Gazing and Glitter Gal Dark Purple.  I did two quick coats then peeled the stencil off.  BAM I'm a mermaid bitchessss.

 

The Verdict:  Really like the polishes and extra like the stencil.  I was able to do five nails with two stickers which is awesome.  Hooray for holo mermaidnesssss yisss