Happy Halloween!
I hope everyone has had a great Halloween! Ours wasn’t super- it’s been pouring rain and storming all night. But we tried to have fun here at home!
Tonight wraps up Halloween inspired manis 😦 I have a couple to show you tonight!
First up is Lumina Lacquer’s Mickey’s Moonlit Masquerade over Takko Lacquer Kiss the Sky (post coming in a week or so)!
I really love this Micky polish- and it looks so lovely over Kiss the Sky! As with most of my Luminas, I applied using the dabbing method. I didn’t have to fish for any glitters- such a fun variety!
Next up is the pumpkin mani I kept talking about!
Like I said- simple, but festive and fun! I never got a chance to take ‘real’ photos of this one before there was so much chipping I couldn’t save it. But I was able to enjoy it for almost a full week! I got a bunch of compliments!
The base color is Sinful Colors Citrine. I picked it up last summer from the Wow! Pop! display, but I’ve heard that it’s part of *this years* Halloween display! So if you want to grab it- hurry! My phone picture is showing this as more red than it actually is- it is a red orange, but a bit more orange leaning. For the jack o lantern face, I used Nail Thins- SUPER easy to apply, just like a sticker- but it’s incredibly thin, so you can’t see a ridge where it’s applied. I’ll provide links at the end of the post!
Last but not least, is my official Halloween mani for this year!
I finished my nails up last night right as the clouds rolled in, so I wasn’t able to get good photos- and then I smudge my ring finger. Still wearable, but not as pretty to photograph 😉
This is a gradient mani using Different Dimension’s Gnarly, Totally, and Tubular (green, yellow and orange). I did 1 coat of Cult Nails Tempest (white), and then sponged the 3 colors on top. This was a super fast, quick gradient- I think it took me 5 minutes. It’s also very messy, and you can probably see a bit of green still on my fingers. After I was finished I did a TON of cleanup! I knew I was going to add glitter though, so I wasn’t worried about it looking good on it’s own. Then I topped it with 1 coat of Lumina Lacquer’s Desfile de Mickey! Such a fun, bright look to compliment my bright pink and purple monster hat 🙂
Information!
Takko Lacquer: Store , Twitter
Lumina Lacquer: Store, Facebook Page
Nail Thins: Store, Facebook Page
Different Dimension: Store, Facebook Page
Sinful Colors: Available at most drug stores (Walgreens, CVS, Walmart) for $1.99
Too Cute-icle: Swatches and Review!
Woo look at me, 3 days in a row! Maybe I’m finally back in my groove?
Tonight I have some fun polishes to show off from a new indie line launching this weekend! My sweet friend Jess of the blog Too Cute-icle is venturing into the land of polish making. I was sent Frosty the Penguin and Pretty Pretty Princess to review, and they’re both so pretty!
First up is Frosty the Penguin!
This pretty glitter topcoat was named for an adorable mani Jess did with this polish- originally called Frostbite- that featured a cute penguin! This is a fun mixture of iridescent, blue and white glitters. Perfect for winter!
For these first 2 photos, I layered 1 coat of Frosty the Penguin over 3 coats of OPI’s My Boyfriend Scales Walls. I opted to use a bit of dabbing to get the glitter exactly where I wanted it, but it went on fairly smoothly and evenly without it
In this photo, I layered 1 coat of Frosty the Penguin over 2 coats of Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise. What a gorgeous combo! I’ll have pictures of Arctic Sunrise this weekend (though I’ve featured it briefly here).
The second polish I got to try out was Pretty Pretty Princess!
Pretty Pretty Princess is a girly glitter mix of various shades of pinks, purples, and blues. It’s super sparkly and pretty!
In the first 2 photos, I layered 1 coat of Pretty Pretty Princess over 2 coats of Sinful Colors Flutter. I did a bit of dabbing to ensure things were photo ready, but for the most part the glitter went on nice and evenly!
This is 2 coats of Pretty Pretty Princess over Sinful Colors Flutter. Almost full coverage! My nails were SUPER sparkly, I love it!
Too Cute-icle is opening shop on December 2nd. You’ll be able to find these polishes and others at her Etsy store! You can also follow her on Facebook, as well as her blog. Be sure to keep an eye out!
*These polishes were sent to me for review. All opinions are my own*
Spoiled Are Mermaids Real? and Sinful Colors Sweet Dreams
Today I’ll be showing off the underwear coats I used yesterday for my Jindie Nails review post. I don’t think the non-indie colors have been getting enough love lately, so I’m going to try to start working more back into my routine!
For you budget-minded ladies out there, you’ll really love these!
First up, I have Spoiled’s Are Mermaids Real? I used this yesterday underneath Jindie Nail’s Neonderthal.
I have always loved this polish, but when you have as many polishes as I do- most never get a lot of attention. One downside to being a polish hoarder 😉 Are Mermaids Real? is a gorgeous purple polish filled to the bring with a heavy golden glass fleck look. Though not a dupe, it’s very similar to Zoya’s Daul (but a brighter purple than Daul).
This is 2 coats of Are Mermaids Real? with no cleanup. Application was great, went on smoothly and covered well with 2 coats.
Finally, we have Sinful Color’s Sweet Dreams.
I love this color so much! It was part of Sinful Color’s Sheer Shimmers line this spring, so sadly it’s not the easiest to find. However, you can still get lucky sometimes at Walgreens in the big bins of Sinfuls! I found a second of this color months after the collection was gone from shelves.
Sweet Dreams is a beautiful turquoise blue filled with sparkly glass fleck shimmer. It is anything but sheer- it was opaque in 2 coats and was almost a 1-coat polish. Oh, if only it’s cousin Cinderella was so opaque!
Spoiled polishes are created by Wet N’ Wild, and can be found exclusively at CVS stores, and retail for $1.99. Sinful Colors can primarily be found at Walgreens, though you can find them at Target and now some Walmarts as well- also for $1.99.
Both can be found on CVS and Walgreen’s websites if you don’t have a store near you!
Battle of the Blues: A Comparison
When I first became interested in nail polish, one of my early favorites was Sinful Color’s Cinderella. I loved the name, the shade, and adored the pink shimmer.
I did not, however, adore how sheer it was, or that it took 4-5 coats to build up.
Unsurprisingly, I’m attracted to this ‘type’ of color- and I recently realized I have quite a few that look similar! So I decided to compare all 5 that I own in 1 post.
Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise, Cult Nails Princess, Models Own Indian Ocean, 365 Days of Color Bora Bora, and Sinful Colors Cinderella.
As you can see, none of these are really the same, though a lot have the same qualities. All 5 are blue with a pink color shift- but that’s where the similarities end.
Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise and Models Own Indian Ocean are the most similar, with the Models Own being a bit more ‘in your face’ sparkly. However, Indian Ocean required 4 coats to be opaque (it’s better to layer), and Arctic Sunrise was opaque at 2 coats. Indian Ocean is a bit stinky, as well (not 3-free), for those with sensitive senses.
Though it shows a pink shift in the photo, Cult Nails Princess is a bit more of a gold/pink shift. 365’s Bora Bora has the most subtle shimmer, but it’s a gorgeous blue with just the tiniest ‘bling’… it’s one of my favorites to use in combination with glitter layering polishes (see here and here).
And then of course we have Cinderella herself. It’s a BEAUTIFUL color- the most baby blue of the bunch, with a pretty significant shimmer. The biggest downside is just how sheer it is… but layered over another blue or white, it works out well.
Here’s where you can get each of these pretties!
Girly Bits Arctic Sunrise: Girly Bits Big Cartel site $10; Harlow & Co. $12; Llarowe $12
Cult Nails Princess: Cult Nails website $10; Overall Beauty $10
Models Own Indian Ocean: Ninja Polish $8; Harlow & Co. $10
365 Days of Color Bora Bora: 365’s Big Cartel Site, $8
Sinful Colors Cinderella: Walgreens, $1.99 (not available online at the moment, but I’ve bought it via their site in the past)
(Just Another) Mani Monday: Olympic Nails
First off, I’d like to say again- THANK YOU for all the support, and for all the interest in the giveaway!
As I mentioned on Facebook, I drew the names of the winners last night, and they have already responded! So big congratulations to Tina, Patricia, and Cayce!! 2 of the 3 winners will have their packages on their way to them tomorrow- the 3rd (at her request) will be getting hers mailed as soon as the Olympics are over. My first international winner!
Be sure to post pictures on my wall when you make a fuzzy monster mani, guys!
Now onto today’s post- Olympic Nails. Unless you’ve been living under a rock (which is always possible, I’m fairly in the dark with news a lot of times), you know that the Olympics began this weekend. Go Team USA!
I will freely admit, this is not my best work. But the kids were screaming, and I’m sure it’s fun to see the ‘fails’ as often as the wins. The idea is good though, in my opinion! Maybe you can recreate it a bit better 🙂
Here’s the first round of polishes I used. This is OPI’s DS Radiance, Essie’s Penny Talk, a franken thrown together 5 minutes earlier by me, Color Club’s mini gold with no sticker (from May’s BirchBox), and Julep Kate. (Or in other words- you need white, gold, silver, bronze, and (optional) patriotic topcoat)
I had planned to use Pretty and Polished’s Freedom Calling, but I couldn’t find the bottle for the life of me. I know it’s around here somewhere. That is a good one to use though, it’s fairly similar to this one but not identical. Same idea- red, white and blue mixed glitter.
I painted white on my thumb and pinky, and did the 3 medal colors across the inner fingers, like so:
I think using all 3 colors from Essie’s Mirror Metallics would be good if you have them. This gold and silver did not play nicely when it came to cleanup, because of the glittery effect.
Next round of colors:
You’ll need black, green, yellow, red, blue, and some straws (cutting them is up to you- but you’ll need 5 ‘sides’). I used Cult Nails Nevermore, Julep Emilie, Sinful Colors Pull Over, Zoya Sooki, and Sinful Color’s Rain Storm. For cleaning purposes, I also used a paper plate, but a piece of paper will also work.
Now we’re going to use these colors to create the Olympic rings on our thumb!
To make the rings, I dipped the tip of the straw into a little blob of polish. If you don’t know off the top of your head (I didn’t), the rings go blue-black-red, and then yellow-green below them. So I began with blue, and worked my way down!
Here’s the tip of the straw with polish on it. Then you’ll place the straw end where you want the first ring, and gently rock it around to ensure the polish gets on the nail around the entire circle. On my first circle, I lifted up after just placing it on my nail, and 1/2 the circle was missing. When I re-did it, it made it look a bit ‘off’. Do make sure you have a good bit of polish on the straw, but it doesn’t have to be dripping.
My nails, in addition to being shorter, are not very big. I could *barely* fit the rings on my thumb, and they were all overlapping each other. If you have slightly smaller nails, I’d advise trying out a coffee stirrer straw instead of a standard one. If I had any, that’s what I would have used!
My ghetto rings. At least it’s obvious what they’re supposed to be!
I didn’t take photos of the next step (because my husband wasn’t home to help with pictures), but I wrote ‘USA’ in red and blue polish on my pinky. I did this using a paintbrush, but you could easily do it using nail art stripers, or maybe even a standard brush if you’re patient.
I then finished it all off with my red, white and blue topcoat over the gold, silver and bronze nails. Obviously, if you’re not from the USA, Britain, or another r/w/b country, you can use something else to represent your colors!
Believe it or not, I DID clean up those metallic nails. The gold and silver really don’t like me!
And I didn’t realize my USA was upside down in the swatches until after I’d taken pictures. I didn’t want to redo the entire nail, so I hope you guys understand 🙂
Go Team USA! Make us proud!
If you do any kind of Olympic mani, even if it’s completely different from this, please link up on my Facebook page- I’d love to see it and feature it!
(Just Another) Mani Monday: Ladybug, Ladybug
Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home; Your house is on fire and your children all roam!
I used to say ‘burn’ as a kid but that’s really sort of depressing, so I didn’t teach Syd that version 😉
The other night my husband spotted a baby ladybug on our bed. My daughter LOVES ladybugs- in fact, her nickname from my mother-in-law is ‘Nana’s Little Ladybug’- so of course we called her in and she spent a good chunk of time staring at it.
So when I was trying to decide what to do for today’s Mani Monday, I remembered the little visitor and decided to do ladybug nails!
Here’s what you’ll need:
Nail polish, and dotting tools. I used Revlon Colorstay in Red Carpet, Sinful Colors Happy Ending, Cult Nails Nevermore, and Julep Kate. You can use whichever colors you like! I got my dotting tools for super cheap somewhere on Ebay from China, but you can find them in a lot of places. If you need help locating some just leave a comment!
First off, I painted each nail with Happy Ending- this was my closest ‘grass’ type color, and I hadn’t used it before so I was glad to have the chance.
I had never noticed this color before, but I think it’s part of some core lines of Sinful Colors? Most of my stores don’t carry it, but I noticed it as part of the standard larger display at Rite Aid. I really like it! This was almost a 1 coat polish- I added a second coat to make the color a bit brighter. I also had NO CLEANUP. I did my nails last night and took the photo this morning… and I didn’t have to touch up a thing. I honestly think that’s a first for me! I don’t know if it’s a testament to the polish, or to my increasing skills with a brush!
I didn’t take photos while I was doing the mani, but it’s very straightforward and easy. I used one of the larger dotting tools, dipped in red, and did 2-3 dots on most fingers. I let that dry a little, and then I took one of the tiny dotting tools, dipped it in black, and added the ladybug’s characteristic spots. As an afterthought, I used a larger dot of black for the ‘head’ area and dotted small white dots for ‘eyes’. I didn’t have a teeny tiny brush, so I didn’t add antennae. I TRIED on my thumb and it came out awful and thick, so I covered it with Happy Ending- this explains some of the inconsistencies in the coverage on that nail 🙂
Super quick, easy, and cute! I struggled a little more with my right hand because I have issues keeping my left hand steady… but it still looks decent!
Some of the eyes are giant, next to a little eye. My ladybugs are crazy I guess 🙂
Hope you enjoy! If anyone decides to recreate a similar look, please share pictures on my Facebook page!
Mani Monday: Neon Rainbow Snow Leopard Stamping with Cheeky
I hope everyone had a good weekend! Ours was ok… quiet, relaxing, but slightly boring. Back to the busy week!
Once again I’ll be starting off the week with a Mani Monday! As I sat down to work on this yesterday, I struggled with what to do- and then it hit me! I just recently ordered my very first stamping plates- Cheeky’s 2012 Collection bundle– and hadn’t used any yet!
When I say hadn’t used any- what I really mean is that I have never used a stamping plate- ever. I’d long drooled over designs that I saw people do with the plates but had never bought any. Laziness, again. Stamping plates aren’t something you can just pop into the drugstore and buy.
There are a lot of various brands you can buy stamping plates from- Konad (my stamper is from Konad), Bundle Monster, Cheeky, Red Angel, Shany, Mash… and many stores offer their own line. Ninjapolish.com offers some really interesting ones, Llarowe just announced that they’ll be carrying a line, and you can even find them on etsy, like at Vivid Lacquer’s store!
How cool is that, though? She makes her OWN stamping plates!
So back to the mani… One of the major designs I’d seen people do was a leopard print design… or more specifically, a NEON snow leopard design. Be still my neon-loving heart.
I honestly don’t remember the first place I saw this crop up, though I do have have Steffel’s post on it saved in Pinterest, so that’s the one I’m going to credit. She used the Bundle Monster plate, which is a little different than the Cheeky design.
Supplies:
For this, I used a base of Essie Marshmallow (can anyone suggest a good, plain white? My only one is Sinful Nails Snow White and I’m not a fan), Cult Nails Nevermore for stamping, Cheeky plate CH2, and my Konad stamper. I pictured the Konad scraper, but I ended up using an old gift card (I’ll explain below).
For the neon accents:
I have a lot of neon colors. I picked these out mostly for their brightness factor, but also because they seemed to work well together. From left to right: Sinful Colors Pink, China Glaze Sun Worshipper, Sinful Colors Neon Melon, Color Club What A Shock!, Color Club Pure Energy, and Color Club Ultraviolet. The last 3 are part of Color Club’s Electro Candy neon set from 2009, and I won’t lie- they’re by far my very favorite neons of every color- especially Ultraviolet. You can still find this collection (cheap) at Ross sometimes, and can definitely find it on Amazon.
I didn’t detail the stamping process. I had planned on it, but the photos my husband took just turned out terrible- I probably should’ve given him a clear cut list of how I wanted things, but I was working quickly with both kids screaming for dinner. Luckily, there’s a ton of amazing tutorials and videos all over the internet.
Basically, you paint over the design to be stamped on the plate, scrape off the excess (leaving paint in the design indentations), smoosh-roll (new word) the stamper across the design, and quickly roll it over your nail. Almost every nail blogger I’ve read suggests using an old credit card/gift card instead of the scraper included- and I 100% agree! I initially tried out Konad’s scraper, but was having absolutely no luck. It wasn’t getting all the excess paint off, and by the time I went over it again I’d lose paint in the design or the design would be dry. The first time I tried a gift card was the first time I had a successful stamp on my finger!
*SQUIRREL* moment incoming:
Did I mention my very favorite animal ever is a snow leopard? Has been since I was really little 🙂 We took the kids to the Chattanooga Zoo in September, and I was so excited to see the Snow Leopard was not only hanging out right by the glass… but she had a baby! They quickly became Syd’s favorite animal, too!
So here’s my nails without the neon accents, looking like lovely snow leopards:
Time for neon! To add the neon, I used toothpicks. I didn’t want to have to clean paint brushes, so I simply dipped the end of a toothpick into the color on the brush, and then dabbed it where I wanted it. After I finished all the colors, I added 1 coat of Poshe Fast Drying top coat.
As an afterthought, I threw on a topcoat of fine glitter. Because really, the only way to make neon better is to make it sparkle. Or am I the only one that thinks that??
I wanted the effect to be subtle (believe it or not), so I used the finest glitter I could find in my Helmer. This Avon glitter is simply called ‘Purple Glitter’ (yes, it used to be purple) and it’s from approximately 2003. I also have ‘Pink Glitter’ and sadly it looks the exact same as this one 9 years later. Proof that my nail polish hoarding began a long, long time ago 🙂
So there it is! I apologize for not having a thorough explanation this week, but I’ll be happy to answer any specific questions you may have- just leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you! See you all tomorrow for Try It On Tuesday! And if you haven’t hoped over to my Facebook page, please do! I love being able to interact with everyone!
Polish Monster 