31 Day Challenge, Day Seventeen: Glitter

I have a firm belief that glitter polish looks better in the bottle than it does on my hands. I'm not sure if its the curve of my nails or the colors I choose, but I never really quite feel the BLING factor.

Below I used: 

Revlon: Silver Dollar

Essie: Lapis of Luxury

Essie: Set in Stones

Two coats of "Lapis of Luxury"

Using nail tape I set the limits for the reverse chevron

Add a coat of "Set in Stones" and voila!

                                           

Overall I'm satisfied with this design, but I think I'll try it with a darker base coat next time.. hm.

31 Day Challenge, Day Ten: Gradient

Hello hello! So I just want to start off by saying I love gradient! It's easy and fresh and just so hard to mess up!

For this manicure I used:

For the foil design I used, crush nail sheets; I finally found a use for them! lol

1) Cut regular makeup sponge into small pieces
2) Have a sheet of saran wrap already placed on your area

3) Put two coat of your main polish on your nails, I suggest this being the lighter of the two polishes
4) Then paint the two colors onto your saran wrap as shown

5) Dip sponge repeatedly in polish on saran wrap, shifting up and down to merge colors seamlessly
6) Apply to nail, moving the sponge up and down

7) Feel free to put added polish directly to sponge to fill in  hard to manage areas
8) Finish with Seche Vite!

31 Day Challenge, Day Six: Violet

In an effort to embrace glitter I have purchased this handy dandy parcel from Amazon, complete with 12 different hexagon glitter designs. It also came with dotting pens, which was a total surprise, guess i have to read the product description a bit more closely. The only thing about these glitters is that some if the colors are not opaque but a bit iridescent. Other than that I love em! So here's China Glaze- "Grape Pop" bringing you VIOLET!

This lighting really showcases the color of the polish

This lighting helped to highlight the glitter

31 Day Challenge, Day Three: Yellow

Yellow has got to be the LEAST inspiring/ attractive color for me in terms of nail design. Also I find that I need to reiterate how much I dislike photographing glitter polishes, nothing ever captures it properly. So after flip-flopping from my real camera to my phones camera to outdoor pics and then indoor pics I've decided to showcase this look via my phone. I used China Glaze's- "Lemon Fizz" with Clear nail glitter powder.

Clear image to give you an idea of the placement of the glitter

Me blurring the image to give a hint of the sparkle

Tape Me Up

I decided to start if the new year with some tape manicures, LOVE tape manis! The first was actually inspired by my boyfriend, who although he makes fun of nail obsession he does ask me questions that force me to see my colors differently- sometimes less is more. My second look is inspired by packapunchpolish, I just LOVED this manicure the moment I saw it.

Look #1
What I used:

Essie- "Angora Cardi"
Nails Inc. - "Black Taxi"

Look #2

What I Used:

"High Hopes", "Grape Pop", "Four Leaf Clover", "Heli-Yum", & OPI- "Havana Dreams"
the Glitter used but not shown is OPI- "Spark-Tacular! Top Coat"

Using nail tape to create the boxes and then fill them in randomly did take time, but it was definitely worth it!

::Dots or Hearts <3

So this time around i tried out two new polishes. I'm not overly fond of polishes with too much character, i prefer to create my own character in designs... But when in a rush interesting polishes can give you and easy out. The two polishes I used were: Nicole by OPI Nail Lacquer, Love Your Life and Channeling Coco Nail Polish.

Please forgive my less than stellar cuticles!

What I love about this polish is the smooth application and the quick drying effect it had even before the top coat!

Let it Snow Let is Snow...

HAPPY DECEMBER! I truly love this season. The lights, the music the warmth and the SNOW! Well... there's no snow yet but hopefully my gradient attempt can inspire mother nature. :)

Here's what I used: 

I was trying to do a bit of a snow effect to jump start my Christmas nail chain using the gradient effect from The Nailasaurus. Also, because I wanted my base to be dark I used Konad nail stamping polish as  the lighter blue so it would be opaque enough.

My Casualties:

Thanks for your time!

Tea Baggin' and more

So I have taken the plunge and become a Julep Maven! Nowadays I find myself with so many colors I don't know what to do with them. With being a Maven I automatically get sent 2-3 polishes a month, kinda like the Sephora birthday gift- only every month. So this month I received:

Rose oil for cuticles 

Nail glitter, Bornpretty.com

Toni & Michelle

I'm hoping to get alot out of the rose oil because with this cold weather my nails and hair need serious moisturizing attention. Hence my need to tea bag my nails. Teabagging is a technique where you use a stretching material with nail glue or clear polish as a mini bandaid when you have a tear in your nail.

Just nail glue and piece of teabag

With rose oil and coat of clear polish 

Once filed and buffed it's polish as usual:

one coat

Thanks for reading!

Glitter: Shine Vs. Matte

So I'm trying to get into glitter, mainly because this whole matte glitter trend is really wowing me right now. But I didn't want to totally discount the joys of glitter with shine, after all it is the original way to go! So for my shine glitter example I used one coat of OPI: "Big Apple Red" which is a great jelly red and then two coats of OPI: "Be-Claus I Said So". For the kisses I used Bundle Monster 02.

  

 

I tried to take pics of this glitter in different lights but I still feel the overall shine of this polish wasn't represented 100% by the camera.

VS.

Next I used a matte glitter that I've been dying to use since the first time I saw it, Amy's Nail Boutique: "Pink Lemonade".

 My amateur palm tree is my attempt at free-hand designs... I really have to brush up on my free hand skills! Thanks for reading and Happy Bloggin'!