Matching a Mani to the Sparkliest Bag I've Ever Owned

While travelling in New York over Christmas, I kept an eye for...something.  Something unique, something you don't see often, something that stood out.  While wandering around Brooklyn, I found the thing that I was looking for.  It may not be practical but oh man, is it sparkly.  Covered in a perfect gold-red-fuchsia-pale pink gradient of flat sequins, this bag had to be mine.  When I got it home, I of course had to honour it with a glitter gradient of my own.

I wanted to bring in the silver reverse side to all the sequins so I started this mani with two coats of Sally Hansen Celeb City.  I'm not really sure why now as I've tried to put glitter on this before and it never quite looks right.  Anyway, on I went with my usual technique, using Sally Hansen Invisible in very thin layers to stick the glitter on.  Again, I've had luck lately in first laying a strip of glitter down the centre of my nail then building out either side.  Once done, I added two coats of Seche Vite.  I was then silly enough to take a shower before taking photos so that's why the tip of my ring finger's a little mangled.  Once I fixed it, using my glitter fixing process, it didn't look too bad.  So much fun taking photos with this bag though.

The Verdict: Love the bag, would love the mani more if the pink didn't bleed quite so much.  Yay for sparkles for everyone!

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.

Sparkly Glitter Dots!

Whenever I do a glitter mosaic mani, I get a lot of people focusing on how long it takes to do.  That's fine, it's easy to see it's time consuming.  I wanted to challenge myself the other night, see how long it would take me to do a slightly more sparsely glitter mani.  

To start, I applied two coats of Essence Black is Back.  You can go three coats, doesn't really matter, you just want a base that has enough polish to let you sink the glitter into, ever so slightly.  Then, with a toothpick and my usual technique, I went to work, but this time with a timer.  It took me about 3-4 minutes per finger, to get the glitter on.  That's pretty reasonable!  If you want to "cheat" with your non-dominant hand, just do what I do, make one hand super fancy, do the other with the same base coat and find a glitter polish that looks the same.  American Apparel Meteor is the same size and shape as my silver holo polish so the only difference is how neat the glitter is!  Total time taken, from base coat to top: 42 minutes. 

The Verdict: I love holo glitter so much, especially in the elevator at work.  So many rainbows that two separate people I've never met commented on me doing this in the light:

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!

Abstract Glitter Mosaic!

You might have noticed by now but I love glitter.  Matte, holo, metallic, all shapes and sizes, doesn't matter as long as it's not iridescent.  I hate iridescent glitter because you can't do anything with it and it keeps showing up in 12 packs I buy.  Anyway, favourites of mine are my pots of gold and silver holo glitter, the ones with the black lids.  Nice and evenly shaped and super sparkly, it's really good for my glitter mosaics.  My silver glitter, however, tends to stick together in almost a sheet which is super annoying if you're trying to get a piece at a time.  I decided to run with it this time, so let's take a look at an abstract glitter mosaic.

I started as usual with three coats of Urban Outfitters Hottub which is a really strong bright pink creme. Goes well with the silver glitter.  When the three coats were done - you don't really have to wait for them to dry here - I covered my nail in my slowest drying top coat.  You don't want to use something like Seche Vite as the glitter won't stick because the top coat is too good at its job.  I'm using Wet 'n' Wild top coat I found at the dollar store.  Anyway, starting at a corner, I used an orange stick to pick up the glitter.  Because of the way this stuff sticks together, I'd get between six and a dozen pieces in a sheet or a chain.  I have no idea how you do this is you didn't get the specific sticky batch I did.... but look, sparkly!  You'd be able to get the same effect by carefully shaking the glitter onto your nail, I guess.  I'm tired and appear to have lost my point.... sparkkklyyy

The Verdict: Man, Vines are really good at getting across how sparkly a thing is, especially when my lightbox is where sparklies go to die.  Short of using a flash or a halogen lamp, has anyone had luck accurately capturing holo glitter sparkly inside?  

Review: Essence Nail Art Decoration Kits

Shoppers Drug Mart is a dangerous place for me and it's worse because it exerts a kind of magnetic pull I just can't resist.  I have to go in nearly all I pass because WHAT IF THEY HAVE NEW SPARKLIES MMMM SPARKLIES I COULD GO THAT, I'LL JUST GO IN REAL QUICK.  Didn't help me that I found Essence now sells Nail Art Decoration kits and they have holo glitter in them.  I clearly wasn't going to not buy them.  The trick is how to use them...

The kits come in gold and silver and I had really high hopes for the gold and silver holo diamond glitter.  The hardest part about working with this particular shape is that it often isn't cut even.  When you're trying to do a precise design, having a piece be off in shape or size really gets old fast.  Anyway, I got started with two coats of Essence Back in Black as my base colour then went to work with my usual technique.  I started by laying a line of a single colour down the middle of my nail, then alternated colours, building out each side.  On my non-feature nails, I just laid a line near the tips of my nails.  When I had the glitter spread out on my little plastic tray, I could find enough consistent pieces but there's a lot in there that has cut-off bits, weird shapes or just generally not even.  It is very sparkly though, so I guess it's ok.  

The Verdict:  For ~$3, these kits are worth it, wonky pieces aside.  If you're too impatient or generally not into ebay, it's a good start for holo glitter.  And seriously, look how sparkly it came out.  

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!

Urban Outfitter Cherry Tomato with Gold and Silver Diamond Holo Glitter

That's it, I think I've run out of fancy names for my nails, after being actually creative with the title yesterday with my computer nails.  Basically, I have this gold and silver diamond holo glitter and I wanted to use it and red was the colour I felt like using at the time so here we are.  Sparkly!

To start, I applied three coats of Urban Outfitters Cherry Tomato, a polish that I think is going to take the top spot for my new favourite red creme polish.  It's such an amazing red and applies so evenly and smoothly, I can't believe I just let it sit in the drawer for ages.  When it was dry, I did the usual thing to apply my glitter, starting in the middle and building out.  And yeah, I might have trimmed some pieces to fit around my cuticle and that might seem excessive but shhh look, sparkly.  The result reminds me of some kind of lacquered inlay box but I can't seem to turn that into a snappy title.  Sparkly!

The Verdict:  After all that, while it's sparkly I'm now not sure if I'm 100% down with the colour.  Oh well, sparkly!  So sparkly.

The Other Hand: Same base colour, dunked my thumb and ring finger in the same glitter and brushed off all the sticky-uppy bits.  SPAAARRRKKKKLLLYYYYYY