Pink to Blue Ombre Mermaid Nails

Ok so yeah, I know I just did this kind of manicure but it's totally different, I swear!  I found more pink glitter so the colours blend together nicely and I spaced the glitter out more!  Pretty much though it was the Reddit Monthly Meetup on Saturday night and I wanted sparkly nails.  What more can I say!

To start, I did the usual two coats of Rimmel Black Satin.  Someone remind me to get a new bottle, cos it's getting a bit gluggy.  Anyway, next you'll need a think swipe of your non quick-dry top coat, I'm currently using Sally Hansen Invisible.  You almost can't apply this thick enough because you need to reallllly smush the glitter in there, so no bits stick up.  If I even have one piece of glitter sticking up, I can maybe go six to ten hours before I'mma need to get rid of it.  It's the main reason I trim all my glitter to fit, so it's nice and smooth.  I've found that with the big pieces of glitter, start in the middle with a column in your colour run, then just build out either side.  I also find the top coat will apply better if you leave a tiny gap between each piece.  Once you're done, you really can't apply too many coats of Seche Vite.  I think this is three? Yeah, sounds about right.  Make sure you run the top coat along the edges of your nails too, it'll stop the edge pieces coming off.  

I should go to bed now, so sleepy, hence the tone of this entry!  But look, sparkly: 

The Verdict: I would normally call this just a colour gradient but it feels very ombre-y to me so I'm going with that.  And sparkly.  So sparkly.  Yay!

Scary Studded Nails, In Case You're That Kind of Valentine's Girl

Not into pink and hearts and flowers?  Me either!  Or, I tried to do a pink and hearts and flowers mani but turns out I can't draw even hearts for the life of me so it's the other end of the Valentine's spectrum for me!  I've been wanting to crack out the micro beads for a while now so let's take a look at my slightly scary studded nails.  Oh, and don't buy the caviar kits, just go to an arts and crafts store, you should be able to buy a bag that you will inevitably spill for about $1.

To start, what I should have done was fix the settings on my camera so the colours aren't so wonky but it's too late for that!  After applying two coats of American Apparel, I went through my usual process for applying glitter, just using super thick coats of top coat and making sure the beads are pressed all the way down into the polish.  I used a toothpick to pick up the beads, it seemed to work ok.  I kinda cheated here and didn't add my usual covering coats of top coat but I decided to live directly on the edge and skip it.  If you wanted this to last more than a night, I'd add lots of Seche Vite or the like though.

The Verdict: I like how this looks but it was almost impossible for me not to pick the beads off.  It's fun to do and looks cool though!  I also wanted to include my kitty cos I can.  She's an inside cat and I want her to share in the excitement of the nearly foot of snow we got in Toronto last week.  Look how cute she is!

Purple and Gold Hand-placed Glitter Gradient!

The Essence Nail Art Decoration Kits still have plenty of glitter in them, so I'm clearly going to do more glitter manis.  I try to not do these every day because I don't want you to get sick of them but this is so totally permission because I have to review these kits properly!  I really wanted to do a full coverage mani with the medium sized gold holo glitter from the gold kits but I've done this one recently, can't be predictable.  Glitter gradient it is!

I don't know what it is, but I'm totally obsessed with Urban Outfitters nail polish right now because their creme colours are really good at going with my glitter.  And the bottles are so square, they tesselate nicely in my drawers.  And they're $4 each.  So I started this mani off with three coats of UA Bandeau, a strong purple creme.  Next, I tipped a little of the gold hex glitter onto a plastic container lid (or anywhere where you can retrieve said glitter without dying) and went to work with my orange stick and cheap top coat.  I found it easiest to start at the cuticle - keep them nice and close together - then just work up until you think it's good.  Nice and easy, this one.  Then all the top coat.  Cos we want our glitter to stay cos yay sparklies. The end.  For this bit, there's more down there vv :)

The Verdict:  Ignore the bubbles in the top coat, that's just cos I tipped two Seche Vite bottles together and it was chucking a tanty.  You can't really go wrong with purple and gold, especially when it's sparkly and the purple is such an awesome colour.  Sparkly!

Red Matte Glitter Checkers Over Purple

Not done with my new glitter yet.  The bright red square matte glitter caught my eye the other night so I chose a nice purple to contrast and got to work.  It's hard to say much more as an intro, it's the same glitter I've been playing with recently, from Borough Babe Supply. Cos glitter is awesome.   

To start, I applied three coats of Urban Outfitters Bandeau, a bright imperial purple creme.  I've used this colour tons but who cares, it's pretty.  The three coats are important when you're working with the larger pieces of glitter - you want to give the pieces something to sink into so they don't catch on everything.  I used my usual technique here but instead of the usual single column down the middle, I had to do a zig-zag, aligning the corners, to make sure my pieces were evenly spaced.  It was then just a matter of filling out each side.  I had the time to do all my nails but it's a pretty loud pattern and I liked the accent nail.  

The Verdict:  I love how this came out.  I had three different people ask if the checkered pattern was a sticker which I always count as a win.  It's nice when it comes out crisp and even.  Despite me wanging my middle finger between applying top coat and taking these photos, which is about two minutes :/ Go glitter for being versatile!

Review: THE ENTIRE CHINA GLAZE HALLOWEEN COLLECTION 2013

I'm not normally big on the "normal" style of swatches but I found the China Glaze Halloween Collection 2013 in TBBS yesterday and I couldn't resist getting them.  Then actually using them. Because they're ALL AMAZING.  Let's take a look, shall we?  I have about three million pictures, so get comfy!

Let's start with Howl You Doin', without commenting on the name because it's pretty terrible.  The polish, on the other hand, is kinda amazing.  I don't have anything like it in my collection, that's for sure.  It's a dark reddish purple jelly, filled with the typical purple and orange glitter but what's not usual is the orange flakies.  The combination is amazing, so complex to look at.  This is three coats, topped with a top coat. 

 

Next, Bat My Eyes, a black jelly packed to the gills with gold and copper glitter and a smattering of bar glitter.  LOOK AT IT.  It's stunning on the nail and only needs two coats to be opaque.  It has that wonderful depth you get with glitter-packed jellies.  I didn't even notice the bar glitter before I applied it, and it just makes it that much more interesting and unique.

Next, Boo-gie Down, a polish a lot like Whirled Away but with large and small copper hex glitter added.  This is one coat over Urban Outfitters Cherry Tomato and it just looks great.  You have to do a little fishing to get the larger pieces of glitter, but not too much.  The metallic glitter is nice with the matte black and white hexes and large bars. 

Fang-Tastic is a real glitter bomb, filled with purple, pink, green and blue glitter of all sizes.  This is one coat over Urban Outfitters Sunshine.  You have to dab the glitter around a bit to get an even coverage, but it's not a real problem.  This polish would work great in a gradient.

I'm so into texture and taping right now and I can't stop touching it on my nails as the combination of smooth and rough feels cool.  Bump In the Night has the same texture as the other China Glaze texture polishes - that sandy finish with no glitter.  It makes a nice change from all the other matte glitter polishes around right now.  It isn't as versatile though as the finish is lost under a top coat.  Here, I applied two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls, added a coat of Seche Vite then taped off my stripes with scotch tape and applied one coat of BITN.  Beetlejuice-y :D

SURPRISE TWIST: Under the stripes but over the OPI is a coat of the glow-in-the-dark polish Ghoulish Glow!  This polish is not only super glowy, but is also pretty much invisible on the nail so you could theoretically use it over just about anything.  LOOK, GLOWY.

The Verdict:  Hot damn this swatching process takes forever but it's worth it when you get an awesome collection like this one.  I'm not normally into the Halloween polishes but China Glaze has done a great job here.  You could totally use all of these year-round.  I need a nap now.

Review: A Bunch of Zoya Pixie Dusts

I got paid yesterday so of course I'm going to go buy more polish.  It's the good pay, where I don't have to pay rent, so I kind splurged a bit, picking up the other half of the Zoya Fall Pixie Dust Collection, a Deborah Lippmann, a couple of Nails Inc and a few cheap drug store polishes.  Shh I'm an adult.  I've seen some lovely manis with rainbow stripes and texture polishes so of course I'm going to try out my new Zoyas.  

I'm not very good at freehanding things but it turns out vertical stripes are pretty easy to do.  I started out with the usual base coat (still liking OPI Nail Envy), placed a blob of each of Arabella, Dhara, Solange, Chita, Sunshine and Carter on a piece of paper and went to work with a small brush.  I eyeballed the width of each stripe although I found it easiest to start at each edge and work my way inwards. This is three coats of each polish.  Two would have been fine but I wanted to make the edges as sharp as I could.

I of course then put top coat on.  Which I now regret because it looks better without it.

 The Verdict: I'm not sure why I keep buying texture polishes.  They're still kinda hard to incorporate into regular manis and I'm still not not 100% used to the rough texture.   They're sure pretty in a rainbow though!  What do you think, leave the texture nature or add a top coat?