Rainbow Glitter Pinstripe Nails!

You might remember in my last post I get the newest set of stamping plates from MASH nails.  That wasn't the only thing in the package, there was also a set of 12 holographic bar glitter pots.  I'm normally not the biggest fan of bar glitter.  It sticks up, it catches on things, it generally drives me a tiny bit crazy.  This set had the most perfect set of rainbow colours I had to try out a hand-placed glitter arrangement.  So I present rainbow glitter pin stripes!

To start, I applied my usual two coats of Rimmel Black Satin over a base coat.  I've just switched to Essie Protein Base Coat and it seems fine.  I've had a lot of nail breakages lately so figured I'd better try something a little more proper.  Next, using my slowest drying top coat, I painted a strip down the side of my nail and went to work with my toothpick.  Sure, it takes a while but nice neat pinstripes make up for it.  I found the best way was to start at the cuticle and work upwards because it's easier to just trim glitter off the ends of your nails than try to do it around the cuticle.  I added an extra coat of Seche Vite over normal because I hate bar glitter and it should be completely buried, and voila!  

The Verdict:  Of course I love this.  It's so sparkly!  I even made a vine because sparklies suit the six second video format.  LOOK:

That's all I have to say about that, other than my cuticles aren't doing so great right now, so please excuse the slightly dodgy pictures.  Turns out though, that if you run out of quick-dry oil, olive oil works too!

Rainbow Bar Glitter Zig Zags on Neon Orange

I have something of a love-hate relationship with bar glitter.  Sure, you can create some amazing patterns with it but oh man, when it sticks up and catches on things?  Kiiinda annoying.  That's the best thing about hand-placing it - minimises the chance of sticky-uppy bits.  What better a companion to a rainbow than neon orange too, no matter how hard it is to photograph.  Imagine neon orange duct tape when you look at the following pictures, because it actually exactly matches it in person.

I know you're likely to think I'm a little on the crazy side with this mani but in my defense it's so sparkly I could die.  To start, I applied three coats of Urban Outfitters Tiny Shorts, the most vibrant neon orange I own.  Application is always good with the Urban Outfitter polishes and this one is good too.  Sure, two coat would be preferable but neons are tricky so I'll let it off.  Once done, I lined up my eight different colours of glitter and went to work with my toothpick.  I found the best way to create these zig-zags is to start in the middle at the cuticle and work out from either side.  SO SPARKLY.  SERIOUSLY, SO SPARKLY.

The Verdict: I think you know by now that I love this and only wish I'd had the time to do all five fingers.  Confession time: I only ever do the one hand in hand-placed glitter.  The other hand I made similar - for example, here I used the same base colour and just used a finger to pick up the glitter and press into wet polish.  Trust me, if someone notices and asks after your nails, just hold out the fancy hand they are guaranteed not to tell.  I mean, I do all my fingers and toes every single time I post!  Yeah!

Re-review: Nerd Lacquer All of Time and Space, Warrior Ethos and Event Horizon

It's no secret I think indie polishes are awesome.  I love them for all their sparkliness, uniqueness and that they're just made by people.  In their houses.  Sometimes though I just have to go back to the indies that started it all for me, the irreplaceable Nerd Lacquers.  I'm lucky enough to own about a dozen and I thought I might let some of my favourites see the light of day.  Let's take a look at Warrior Ethos, Event Horizon and All of Time and Space.

Back in early 2011 when you could actually buy Nerd Lacquers, there was nothing else like it around.  There were a handful of Etsy sellers but not much beyond that.  It was the sparkliness and all-around differentness that drew me in.  Warrior Ethos was one that especially caught my eye.  It's a beautiful, blood-red jelly polish with black, iridescent and red glitters of all sizes.    With these kinds of polishes, you need three coats to let the glitter build up in layers, getting a real sense of depth.  

I don't even have words to describe how much I love Event Horizon.  Look at the macro shot on my thumb, look at how much glitter is packed in there!  There's too many different kinds to name, suspended in a deep blue-green jelly.  Just like Warrior Ethos, the more coats you add, the deeper the polish looks.  This one has a whole bunch of holographic silver glitter in there so not only is gorgeous, it's sparkly too.

Finally, at least for today, we have the much softer All of Time and Space, an awesome mix of pink and silver glitter in a mint green base.  This one has more of a frosty finish than the first two but it's that pink shimmer that's mixed in there with the glitter that gives it a different kind of dimension.  I feel like this looks almost like Monet's Waterlilies, although that could just be me stretching to find another way to describe how much I love this polish.

The Verdict: It's been well over a year and just no one has been able to come close to making the same complex polishes as Nerd Lacquer.  I don't mean to disparage other brands - they do their own thing - but Nerd Lacquers were just such an amazing mix of glitter and perfect base jellies, flakies, everything.

I'm also posting this because I'm sad the Ninja Polish site crashed when these were going on sale again recently.  Doesn't hurt to take a look at the originals!  Speaking of, I have reviewed all these before but let's just say I'm a bit better at doing this now.

Blue and Gold Hand-Placed Glitter Mani!

A lot of you won't understand this particular type of manicure.  Not because you don't like it, but that you can't understand the amount of time it takes to do.  That's ok.  I happen to have time in the evenings that I like to spend watching TV shows (currently on Intervention, not really sure why I like it so much).  It's pretty easy then to just whack my glitter on.  Think of it like knitting or cross-stitch, but sparklier. 

I wanted a nice contrast colour to the gold holo glitter so I started here with three coats of Urban Outfitters Blue Velvet.  I really like UA polishes, they're super cheap at $4 each, have a nice consistency, have an awesome square bottle that fits in my drawers well and are really great colours.  Anyway, I went with three coats here because you want all of your glitter to have polish to sink into, just a little.  Makes it stay on better.  Once dry, I went to town with my usual technique, using Wet 'n' Wild top coat to adhere the glitter.  Any top coat will do, as long as it doesn't dry fast.  Once done, I topped it off with two coats of Seche Vite.

And for the mani in action (please excuse my thumb, it's a nervous habit I'm trying to kick):

The Verdict:  I love how this came out, both close up and from a distance.  Up close you got all the detail and sparklies, from a distance it looks almost purple with intense gold flashes.  It's doing this that I wish my nails weren't quite as long as it takes longer but I'm ok with it.  As a side note, I have no idea how I managed to get my nails this long and this even.  It's never happened like this before.  Just when they start looking good, either my index or middle nails will nope out.  Let's hope that doesn't happen!

P.S. I'll love you forever if you don't post the "Ain't nobody got time for that" gif. Cos I have time!  I swear it doesn't hit a nerve though!

Review: Art Deco mani using Floss Gloss Stun, Dimepiece and Partybruise!

I'm always on the lookout for new polish brands and I'd seen Floss Gloss around the place and thought I'd give it a shot.  I'm so glad I did because they are so very super sparkly and awesome.  I've been moving away from the traditional polish reviews lately as I like to contribute to the internet something that hasn't been done before. I really wanted to try out these polishes so the hardest part was trying to find out how to incorporate a coral, very dark brow, gold glitter and silver glitter polishes in the one mani.  Why not jump aboard the art deco train and do something with triangles and call it art deco?

I initially did a mani involving coral and brown stripes over the gold and silver glitter but it really wasn't working for me.  For my second attempt, I started with two coats of Partybruise, a really awesome brown so dark it could be black.  Application was good - you only need the two coats - and it's something different from just using black all the time.  After it and my coat of Seche Vite were dry, I went to work with my tape.   I started by cutting "M" shapes out of painter's tape for the silver polish.  Dimepiece has excellent coverage for a purely glitter polish - I only needed the one coat here.  After adding another coat of Seche Vite and letting everything dry, I switched to clear tape and taped off the V's for the gold polish, Stun. Everything was sealed off with another coat of Seche Vite and I was done.

The Verdict:  These polishes are awesome and not too expensive either.  I didn't get to post the vine of this manicure, but the one above is using the same silver glitter over Sally Hansen Celeb City and it'll give you a true idea of just how amazing it is.  And yay, art deco!

Review: Clipart Nails with Big Ruby Tattoos

I like to keep up with what other bloggers are doing, and if one of them does something cool, I kiiinda need to do it too.  When I saw this nail tattoo mani over at Chalkboard Nails, I knew I had to get the tattoos too.  That's a lot of O's in a sentence.  I'm ok with it.  Anyway, an order to Big Ruby Tattoos and brainstorming session consisting of having them sit on my desk for a week, let's take a look at my manly nails!

Since the internet has already seen the "Hers" set of tattoos, I had to go for the "His" collection.  I've tried temporary tattoo manis before and have had issues with them breaking apart with the top coat so I approached with caution and low expectations.  Turns out, Big Ruby tattoos are totally fine.  I wanted a bold, non-girly colour to go with my manly tattoos so I started out with three coats of Urban Outfitters Sunshine, a really bold yellow.  It was a little streaky at first but after three coats, it was fine.  Next, I cut out all my tattoos and applied them one at a time.  I didn't have any real trick here, just choose one, line it up, press on the wet cotton pad for 20 seconds and done.  I could even apply a full nail's worth at once without layers of top coat.  Once I was done, I applied two coats of Seche Vite, because I wanted them to stay.  So in your face, it's awesome.

The Verdict: I love how these came out.  The yellow and black turns out to be the perfect combination for bold, manly nails.  The tattoos applied super easily too.

The Other Hand: I'm going to start doing this as a section because I feel I probably should.  I didn't use the tattoos on my other hand as I wanted to save them.  I used the same base colour in Urban Outfitters Sunshine with Cover Band Sticks 'n' Stones, as it seems to fit colour wise.  Yay honesty!

Floss Gloss Party Bruise with Gold and Silver Holo Glitter Dots

I've just started at a new job and now I'm sure they don't mind sparkly nails and the word is out that my nails are usually not bad, I had to pull out all the stops and go mega sparkly.  I've been into gold and silver holo glitter lately so why not use them together over a dark grey-brown polish?

To start, I applied two coats of Floss Gloss Party Bruise, a dark grey-brown creme polish with a great name.  I've woken up with bruises this colour before.  Next, using my cheapest top coat, I went to work with my glitter using my usual technique.  This may look tricky to get spaced evenly but if you do a stripe down the middle of your nail and place them evenly, it's not too difficult to match the spacing as you fill out the sides. I like to add two coats of a top coat like Seche Vite to this because you don't want the glitter to escape.

The Verdict:  I think this might actually hold the record for my most-commented-on nails ever.  They were so sparkly, so holo-y, I must have had ten people comment on them throughout the day.  I did manage to break my index nail half way through the day though :(

The Other Hand: It should be made clear that I really don't do both hands like this.  It may be cheating but my camera set up only works for my right hand and I'm not that good at doing both hands the same.  Instead, I used the same base colour and just sprinkled the same glitter over the wet polish.  It doesn't look that different and if anyone asks, just show them your right hand!

Rainbow Nails, Mixing Matte and Shiny Glitter Together for All That Texture

I'm not really sure how to introduce this manicure, other than I love it but am scared for my sanity over how long it took to do.  This took a long time to do.  Like, a LONG time.  Like, I'm not going to tell you how long, cos it's a long time.  I don't care though because I had the TV show Scandal to keep me company and now I have the most rainbow-y nails in this apartment.  Let's take a look at this monstrosity, shall we?

When I did my computer logo nails last week, I fell just a bit in love with the rainbow glitter as all the colours went together perfectly.  My brain of course then wanted to know what would happen if I mixed it with the matte glitter I received in the same order from Impulse Co.  Turns out, not only are the colours perfect but the contrast of the matte and shiny together looks awesome.  To start, I applied two coats of Rimmel Black Satin when went to work using my usual technique.  As usual, I started with a stripe down the middle of my nail then just built out either side.  Yes, I did also trim pieces to fit around my cuticle and tips.  By this point I'd already spent so much time on this what's a little more time to leave no gaps?

The Verdict:  I don't know how to words for this.  I love them so much, even though I suspect a few people won't understand why I'd spend so much time doing this.  It's totally worth it for me, especially close up.  The mixture of textures is perfect and I love them.  I only wish the shiny glitter was holographic but we can't always get everything we want.  I think I might be leaving these ones on for more than a day :)