Brace Yourselves, This is a Bright One!

Hot damn am I glad that Valentine's Day is over and I can finally stop staring at the collection of pink and red polishes on my desk that I never used.  Sure, it's nice to have all the holidays be inspiration for manis but it gets a bit old after a while.  Now it's all over and done with for, what, a month til Easter, I just had to have a go at a fantastic neon mani I originally found on Pinterest: Sparrow Nails' combination of China Glaze Purple Panic and Turned Up Turquoise Neon.  It's too blindingly bright for me not to!

To start, I painted all but my ring finger in Purple Panic, leaving it to be Turned Up Turquoise.  Two coats is enough with these frosty neons, which is nice.  I added a coat of Seche Vite to each finger because I'm impatient and it makes the taping easier.  I then used my striping tape, painter's masking tape, pinking shears and dotting tools to make the various patterns.  Once they were all done, I finished off with another coat of Seche Vite and a coat of Essie Matte About You.  I've been looking for it for months and months, always missing it but TBBS in Toronto FINALLY had it in stock.  So everything will be matte now because it's the best matte top coat I've ever used.  I've tried Joe Fresh, Nails Inc, American Apparel, all of them can't even a bit compare to how good Matte About You is.  It's just such a matte finish!  Totes worth it.

The Verdict:  I love how abusively bright this is.  It was a pain in the bum to photograph, as you can imagine, but it was worth the effort.  I'm also going to go on again about how good Matte About You is.  Cos it's really good.  Yay neons!

Rainbow Bar Glitter French Tips on Turquoise!

So I know I just did a post about my new holographic bar glitter but I don't care, it's sparkly so you'll probably see a lot of this in the next little while.  Having just tried stripes the other day, I wanted to see what the horizontal version would look like and it hit me: this could make for an awesome French tip! 

To start, I applied three coats of China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise! It doesn't have the best consistency in the world (you really need the three coats) but the colour is so fantastic I can look past it.  Using a cheap top coat and working from left to right, I went to town with the glitter.  You have to be careful when working with such skinny glitter pieces - too much top coat and it will go over the glitter and look icky.  You can see that happening a bit on my middle finger.  Don't do that.  Very thin coats of glitter are your friend.  Once I was done, I put a preliminary coat of Seche Vite on to stick it all down then I trimmed the glitter that was overhanging the tips of my nails.  Another coat and DONE. 

The Verdict: I'm not happy with how my middle finger came out (got a bit too carried away with getting rid of the extra glitter) but all in all I think this came out awesome.  I just love that the glitter is all holographic, just makes it that much more awesome. 

Cos I'm doing this now too, here's a Vine of this mani in action:

You can find the glitter here at MASH nails. 

This product was sent to me for my unbiased review. 

A is for Aztec: Rainbow Kinda Aztec Nails

I swear glitter talks to me.  "Hey, you don't need to try anything new!  You can just use us again!  Who cares you've already done a bunch of glitter mosaics this week!  Doooo eeet" So of course I relent because glitter is amazing.  It's getting harder and harder to find an interesting base colour so I tend to fall back on my favourites.  That's how this ridiculous rainbow aztec-y mani came about.

To start, I applied three coats of the always amazing China Glaze Turned Up Turquoise.  It's just such a brilliant colour I can overlook the fact it gets a little streaky in the first few coats.  Evens out so it's ok.  I then went to work with the square glitter that came in the same pot as the hex matte glitter I've been using recently.  I found it easiest to start at the cuticle with your bottom colour then build a column straight up.  It's straightforward to then build out each side and seal with top coat.  This counts as aztec, right?  I want to get in on that sweet, sweet A-Z challenge going on over at RedditLaqueristas.

The Verdict:  Some of the glitter is a bit wonky but I'm happy with the overall result.  Certainly eye-catching for a non-holo mani, even though the green blends in more than I'd like.  Yay glitter!

When All Else Fails, Use Massive Glitter!

I apologise for yelling at you yesterday.  I was super frustrated that all my pictures came out a different colour.  Today is better because I used glitter.  Everything is better with glitter.  Especially massive holographic circular glitter that is not only sparkly but so big it actually goes rainbows in all lighting conditions.  Shall we?

It's been a couple days since I did glitter last so I think it's ok to do it again. I wanted to use my huge circle glitter so brought out Bourjois Paris Turquoise - a gorgeous turquoise creme polish that has a really great brush.  It's touted as being "1 sec" as in it applies that quickly and it's actually not far off.  It's really opaque, right from the get go, and the formula wears nicely.  So that's all good.  Once I'd done my three coats I wanted to give my glitter a nice deep base, I went to work with my cheap top coat and orange stick.  The key with such large pieces is to press each piece down into the polish on all sides, and to cut pieces in half for around your cuticles.  I use a pair of sewing scissors but you could use any sharp pair.  Top with two coats of Seche Vite to really seal everything in and you're done. 

The Verdict: I kinda love how this came out, in terms of the finish on the glitter.  I don't have much in this large a size and I really like the almost iridescent effect the top coat makes over the glitter.  It's super shiny and sparkly too, which is always a plus.  It's 4pm and I've already picked off the half bits of glitter from the ends of my nails because they were annoying me but all the other pieces are stuck down nicely.  Sparky!

Ocean Mermaid Nails!

I was contacted by someone from Glitties.com recently, offering to send me glitter to review.  Of course I'm up for that!  My jam is making patterns with glitter so I was super happy to see so many different glitter colours in the same size and shape.  I'm like a crackhead for holo glitter, so the gold, silver, turquoise and light blue 3mm hexes were of course going to be my first choice.  SO SPARKLY. Let's take a look at my latest mermaid nails, shall we?

Working with large pieces of glitter like this can be tricky: you have to make sure no bits stick up, that you work right to the edges of your nails and that your top coat covers evenly.  I've found that starting with three coats of your base colour - in this case I used Essie Dive Bar - gives you a nice deep base to press your glitter down.  I started each nail with a column of glitter down the center, starting at the cuticle and building up.  I then built out each side, using pieces I cut in half with a pair of sewing scissors as necessary to get a clean edge around each cuticle.  You know, the usual.  For the ends of my nails, I just trimmed off any overhanging bits.  It's best to finish off with at least two coats of Seche Vite, making sure you wrap your tips with each coat.  BAM, SPARKLY.

The Verdict:  Love the glitter, love the holo, love the colours.  Happy Laura!  Even though I picked off a bit that was sticking up and annoying me then went home and fixed it at lunch.  SPARKLY!