Matte Iridescent Glitter Nails

Hey everyone! So  lately I finally decided to buy a polish that i've been wanting for forever..the Butter London matte topcoat. I've seen swatches of it and tried it in stores that have the testers (which is really awesome), and I loved it. I put off getting it because it's expensive and normally way out of my budget. But I got some money and found a good deal on ebay, so..now I have it! Of course, I had to try it out right away. I tried a bunch of different combinations with it and decided to pair it with some iridescent glitter. Iridescent glitters, along with flakies, are my favorite finishes ever. I especially love the way they look over black. So after taking a bit to choose which glitter to use, I came up with this.

Sally Girl Dare U over Nuance Black Dahlia, mattified with the matte topcoat. By itself its a pretty mix of blue, green, and gold iridescent glitters in a light blue base. I love Sally Girl because they are so cheap and have some great colors. This is one of the old bottles, i'm not sure if this color is still available in the new ones. I was sad when they changed their bottles to be even smaller then they were. They only hold 4ml now. But hey, 99 cents is still a pretty good deal, and they're still bigger than the OPI minis.

So, what do think? Do you like iridescent glitters too?

Hard Candy Crush On Amethyst Swatch

Hi everyone! Today I have for you a really gorgeous polish. From the brand Hard Candy! I'd seen this brand lots of times in Walmart and I've been anxious to try it! I love the colors and the look of the brand in general. I was really excited when I got two of them in a swap. I've swatched one of them for you now.

It’s called Crush On Amethyst, from Hard Candy’s Crushed Chromes collection. It’s a beautiful purple foil packed with gold shimmer/glitter.

I love the complexity of it. The mix of gold in there makes the color really deep and unique. It’s funny, despite the gold, it looks more silvery in normal light. I love it. It’s a great fall color too. I think it fits with the season nicely, although i'm sure it would look great at other times of the year too.  The formula was also amazing. It went on opaque in two coats and dried nice and smooth. It also dries flat, as in there’s no thick layer on your nail. I put a pretty thick second coat by accident on one of my nails but it dried like I only used one coat.

Overall, I really like this polish, and for $3.99 each ill definitely be getting more at some point. My only complaint is that I wish the bottles were bigger. They’re only 7ml.

So what do you think? Do you like the Hard Candy brand? Let me know what you think! :)

Fall Flakie French Tips

Hi everyone! So..it really is fall now isn't it? The leaves are changing..the weathers getting colder, and all the fall polishes get brought to the front lines! I've been really getting into the colors of fall, and so I made my first fall mani of the season!

Ta dah! Flakie french tips! I love this! The black really makes the red/green/gold duochrominess of the flakies stand out! It reminds me a lot of piles of fall leaves at night.

I used Nuance Black Dahlia for the base and Color Club Snow Flakes for the tips.

So what do you think? Are you getting into the fall spirit?

Nail Art Experimenting.. Water Color Nail Art With Markers!

Hi everyone! So the other day I was sitting on the floor trying to see if I could think up a new nail art technique that no one had done before. Then, my eyes wandered to the other side of the room, where I had a bunch of markers sitting out from when I had been drawing, and I had an idea. No, I did not paint my nails just with marker, although I did have fun doing that as a kid. I was thinking of the times where I had drawn on a smooth surface and didn't wait long enough before running my finger over it, and it smudged. I started wondering, what if I could do something like that on my nails to make a cool water color effect?

The answer is yes ladies and gentleman, yes I can. Here's what to do if you want to try this,

1. Paint 1 coat of white polish on your nails (I used Sinful Colors White on White. You can use another coat if it looks really streaky, but be careful, because you're going to use a whole bunch of top coat and you don't want your mani to be really thick.)

2. Paint on a coat of your favorite shiny top coat. (I used Out The Door)

3. Let dry COMPLETELY. (This is important because the next step will dent the top coat if it's not totally dry)

4. Use a marker of your choice to draw on your nails. Leave plenty of white space. I chose to draw chevrons. Make sure you press to get as much marker ink as possibly on your nail.

5. Before the marker ink has any time to draw, quickly paint over it with top coat. Press down with the brush to really pull the marker color through. You might have to go over places twice to get even coverage. 

It took some trial and error to get this right. I drew some nail shapes on paper and covered it with tape to try it on that first. Then I could see which colors and which markers worked best. I found that dark colors and permanent markers worked the best, because they are more pigmented and have a stronger, more visible water color effect, although crayola markers worked too if you want a more subtle effect anyway. You also want to work fast with the top layer of top coat, because if you don't two things could happen. One is that the marker ink will dry and you won't be able to get good streaks of color, or even coverage, and the other is that the top coat you already put on will start to dry and will smear, which doesn't look good.

So, what do you think? If you like it, try it for yourself. Let's see if we can start a trend! If this does catch on, I vote to call the art made with this technique "Marker Manis". :)

Despicable Me Minions Nail Art

Hi everyone! So..first i'd like to give you an update about whats been going on in my life. For the next few months i'm going to be working with my aunt. She's a kindergarten teacher, and everyday I've been helping in her classroom. It's a lot of hard work, but I love the kids and the job. Plus it will give me great experience for when I go to college and start studying early childhood education.
So..for the first day of school I was thinking about what I could put on my nails. I wanted to do some cute nail art, with something that would appeal to kids. So..I thought of doing this.

Minion nails! I've seen some people do them before, so I decided to put a little bit of my own twist on it. Instead of making a minion on all of my nails, I made one on my accent nails and spelled out "Bah Nah Nah" across the others others. This was inspired by the minions love of bananas, and of the song that they sing in the Despicable Me 2 trailer.

I even made a little banana on my thumb. Also, I apologize for the slightly less than appealing background in my pictures. I haven't quite located a good place to take pictures up here in Maryland yet. 

So..what do you think? I'm pretty proud of myself because this is my first nail art involving letters(Not counting the XOXO in my textured valentine nail art). Yay for milestones! :)

LA Girl Birthday Cake Review and Swatch

Hi everyone! Okay, something about me is that I absolutely love crelly and creme glitter polishes. Ever since I saw swatches of Kbshimmer Oh Splat online..I've been hooked. So when I was in Rite Aid..I saw this beauty sitting on the shelf and I just had to have it.

LA Girl birthday cake, a pink creme base with rainbow colored glitter. Let's get on to the review shall we?

Application

I had no trouble with the formula. It went on nice and evenly in 2-3 coats. I like that the glitter spread out evenly too, instead of clumping together or gathering at the tips.

Look

LOVE. Crelly and creme glitters are just beautiful. This one is no exception.

Price

$2.99 at Rite aid. I'm definitely not complaining at all here!

Overall

I've seen a lot of this type of polish ever since Deborah Lippmann Candy Shop came out. A lot of brands have been trying the whole pink base rainbow glitter thing. But I think this one is different because instead of it having a sheer-ish jelly base, it's a creme. That makes it a lot more opaque with a lot less coats, which means no glitter clumps! Plus it's a LOT cheaper than the Deborah Lippmann. So, of all the "Candy Shop" type polishes I've seen, this one has my vote.

So, what do you think? Will you be buying this polish? Do you love crelly glitters too? Let me know! I'dlove to hear from you!

Nail Art Experimenting..Textured Sugar Spun Nails

Hi everyone! So a while back I was bored..and decided to try to come up with something that not many people have tried before. So, after a while, I came up with something. We've all heard of sugar spun nails..but what about textured sugar spun? I've never seen anyone try that before. Well, I decided to try it, and here's how it turned out.

At first I wasn't really sure about it. At first I thought that this must be why nobody had done textured sugar spun nails, and I almost called it a fail. But after a while..it kind of grew on me. It's different..but I like it.

Here's how I did it for those of you who want to try this for yourself. I didn't take pictures at the time, but if any of you want a picture tutorial just let me know.

1. Paint your nails a base color. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White.
2. Choose your textures. I chose to use the Rimmel London Sweetie, because they're sparkly and not too chunky. Plus..the technique is called "sugar spun".
3. Put drops of the first color onto a piece of plastic. I put scotch tape on a piece of paper and put it on there.
4. Wait a little bit, and every so often dip a tooth pick into the drops. Wait until it thickens enough that when you dip the tooth pick into the drops and lift up, strings of the polish come with it.
5. When it reaches the right thickness, touch the tooth pick gently to where you want a string to start, then lift up and move the toothpick across the nail so its just above it without touching it. This should cause the string to stretch across your nail.
6. Continue placing all the strings you want.

It took some practice getting the strings to go all the way across my nail, but I think over all I succeeded in what I was trying to do.
What do you think, will textured sugar spun nails be the next trend? :)

Lemon Nail Art

Hi everyone! I'm back! Sorry for the long wait! For a while there I just posted to Instagram, and I apologize for neglecting those of you who see me on here. Anyway,  recently I finally had a nice opportunity. I got to go buy some Funky Fingers polishes. I previously hadn't gotten the opportunity to get them because they are only sold at Five Below stores, and the closest Five Below to my house is over an hour away. But the other day I went on a trip to visit family and they happen to have a five below near their house. So I got to go! Yay! I didn't want to spend too much money since I already gone a bit polish crazy with my graduation money, and I do want to save some of that. So I just limited myself to four polishes, two from Funky Fingers and two Fresh Paint.  I'll have swatches of those soon enough, but today I want to show you some simple nail art I did with one of the Funky Fingers polishes.

This polish caught my eye in the store, not just because of the color, but also because of the name. Alex's Lemonade. For those of you don't know, Alex's Lemonade is a charity that raises money to benefit research for childhood cancer. Right now Five Below is supporting them by selling this limited edition polish with a portion of the profits going to the charity. I think that's really nice, so I bought one.

It's a good polish, a bright yellow creme, that surprised me by also being lemon scented! The formula of the polish is good, being nicely opaque for a yellow. I used two coats, three on one nail to even it out a bit more. It also dried nice and shiny. I also used Nuance Black Dahlia with Sally Hansen Lite to paint little lemon slices on my nails.

Cute right? And it benefits a charity. Overall, I'm really happy with it.

So what do you think? Let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear from you!

Rainbow Cotton Candy Nail Art Using Rimmel Sweetie Crush Polishes

Hi everyone! So the other day I showed you my swatches of the Rimmel London Sweetie Crush polishes. Well I was looking at them, and I was thinking that despite the fact that they are all supposed to based on different candies, they all remind me of rainbow cotton candy. So..I decided to do this!

Rainbow cotton candy nails! How cute are they! What I did was use Sinful Colors Snow Me White as a base, then I painted the cotton candy shapes using Wet n Wild Black Creme and painted around each one with a pastel color that matched a Sweetie Crush polish. The background colors are LA Colors Unnamed(pink), Essie Mint Candy Apple(blue), and Claire's Rubber Ducky(yellow). I didn't have a pastel green so the color I used on my ring finger is a mix between Crayola Green Apple and Sinful Colors Snow Me White. The only Sweetie Crush polish I didn't use in this was the purple one, Violet Swizzle, mostly because I didn't have a lavender creme polish. Maybe next time I'll use it.

So what do you think? Do you like cotton candy? Let me know what your thoughts are in the comments! 

Rimmel London Sweetie Crush Collection Swatches

Hi everyone! Who's ready for summer? I know I am! I love the beach, the BBQs, the flip flops, and of course, the new nail polish collections! I have one of them to show you today. This collection actually as released around march, but it's technically for summer so i''m reviewing it now! It's also an accomplishment for me, as it's the first full collection of polishes that I bought that I didn't get in a box set. Yay for milestones! I started off buying one, then put it in my swatch book and immediately went to the store and bought all of them. These are that pretty.

So without further ado, here it is, the Rimmel London Sweetie Crush collection! Five sparkly texture polishes that were inspired by candy! I love polishes that remind me of food!

The first one is Candyfloss Cutie. I love the name, the fact that these are from the UK makes the names cool. Anyway, it's a sparkly, pearly, cotton candy pink texture. It was a bit sheer but built nicely. This is 3 coats.

Next is Violet Swizzle, a pale lavender purple pearly texture. I thought this one would be really sheer but it's actually not. This is 2 coats.

Next is Blueberry Whizz, a sparkly blue texture. This was the brightest color of the bunch. 2 coats.

Next is Fizzy Applelicious, a pale apple green texture. Sparkly and kind of pearly. Really pretty. This was the first one I picked up before I decided that I wanted the others.

Next up is Sherbert Sweetheart. Its a sparkly yellow texture with some iridescent yellow glitter in it. This was the most sheer of all of them. It also had a slightly different formula then the others. It was kind of strange. It managed to be thick and sheer at the same time, and it also liked to get in my cuticles. This is 3 thick coats.

Thats the collection! Pretty right? They're available at Rite Aid and CVS for $2.25 each. 

So what do you think? Do you like texture polishes? What about food inspired polishes? Let me know in the comments! 

Graduation Nail Art

Hi everyone! I have an announcement to make, I have now officially graduated from high school! It's so great(although a little strange) being done, and now I finally have more time to blog, which you all probably know I needed..
Anyway, today i'm going to show you the nail art I did for the occasion.

My school colors are navy, white, and gold, so I chose to do simple white tips using Sinful Colors Snow Me White over Crayola Blueberry on my index, middle, and pinky finger, and Zoya Ziv over OPI Love.Angel.Music.Baby. on my thumb.

On my accent nail I made a graduation cap design using Nuance Black Dahlia for the cap and Zoya Ziv for the tassel. I think it's cute, and it was a fairly simple, fun design to make.

So, what do you think? Let me know in the comments! I'd love to hear from you! Also, if you graduated this year(or last year), and made nail art for the occasion, feel free to give me the link to the post! I want to see grad spirit! :)

Essie Bikini So Teeny Review and Swatch!

Hi everyone! Today I have for you a pretty polish done by a great brand that I enjoy, but has often been a little bit too far on the pricey side for me, a broke teenager, to afford. But, the lovely Michelle from Manic Talons gave this to me. Which I appreciate a lot. 
So here it is, Essie Bikini So Teeny. This color is almost one of those lavender blurples. But it's just enough on the blue side that it's not. It's a creme with subtle silver micro shimmer in it (which I couldn't really see much of on the nail).

Application

I had some trouble with it. It went on kind of streaky and sometimes looked lumpy on the edges of my nail. I had to re-do my middle finger three times. Three. So the formula could be better.

Look

Although I'm not sure that it totally agrees with my skin tone, it's a cute color. I think it probably would look good on people with less red and pink undertones in their skin then I do. It also ended up with what looks like a tiny bit of bubbling. In it's defense though, I'm not 100% sure if the bubbles are from the polish or the top coat. I've had some difficulties with the top coat I had bubbling. I might re-do the swatches in the future with a different top coat to see if that was the problem. It also could've been a combination of both the polish and the top coat.

You can really see what i'm talking about in this picture.

Price

Retail $8.99, but I received this one as a gift, as I stated above.

Overall

I think for the higher price Essie could've done better on the formula. It's a cute color but I'm not really sure if I like it enough to go through the application process again. But although it wasn't overly great, it definitely wasn't the worst formula i've seen in a polish. The price of the brand makes me a little more critical of it though. Especially with the bubbling.

So, what do you think? Do you thing the bubbles are the polish or the top coat? Or both? Hmm..

Sinful Colors Gorgeous Review and Swatch

Hello everyone! I'm back! Sorry that time really got away from me for a while. As a High School senior whose about to graduate in less then a week, I've been kind of swamped with final projects and such, as well as studying for upcoming final exams. But there was one other reason for me not posting, and that brings me to one thing I want to mention before I go on to show you the polish that's one of my new favorite summer colors. I've been on a no buy lately, because I'm a broke teen who will have to help pay for college soon. I mentioned that on a blogging group I'm in(Shout out to everyone in Hobby Polish Bloggers, I love you guys) and I later received a message from one of the women in the group, Michelle from Manic Talons. Long story short, she very generously offered to send me some of the regular polishes she bought and never used since she reviews gel polish. She ended up sending me 34 polishes! How amazing is that? She really is awesome, and I really look forward to showing you the new polishes she gave me after I finish up this one that I already had lined up.

So here we go, a color I'm sure I'm going to be wearing more then once this summer! Sinful colors Gorgeous. It really lives up to it's name! It's a beautiful aqua blue metallic with a little bit of a shift to a lighter blue in the shade! For me I think it's a great color to wear to the pool!

Sinful Colors Gorgeous Sunlight

Sinful Colors Gorgeous Sunlight

Sinful Colors Gorgeous Shade

Sinful Colors Gorgeous Shade

Ive worn this polish twice over the last few weeks. I just keep reaching for it!

So..onto the review!

Application

It went on nicely, I used two coats with top coat.

Look

The only problem I could see anyone having with this polish is that it does show brush strokes. They are obvious but for me I don't mind that because the color and shininess of it is so pretty. But you can choose for yourself.

Price

$1.99 like all Sinful Colors polishes.

Overall

I'm a big fan, and would most definitely buy again. I think the name is perfect, because it certainly is gorgeous in my opinion.

So what do you think? What's your favorite summer color? Now that i'm just about finished with school, i'll have more posts up!

Happy Painting!

Nail Polishes That We All Have ;)

Hi everyone! This post doesn't have pictures of nails..but it is nail related! I was going through my polish collection, and started thinking about all the different types polishes I have. Well..that idea spawned into this, a list of polishes that I know all you fellow polish collectors know too well! I hope all of you find it as amusing as I do!

Polishes That We All Have

The Tease- The polish that you love but you're afraid to wear because it's discontinued and you don't have a back up bottle.

The Senior- One of the first polishes you owned. Now it's all thick and you don't really like the color anymore but you keep it anyway because it has memories.

The Ugly One- The polish that you absolutely hate in every way but you keep it anyway to laugh at how weird it is.

The Superficial- The polish that looks fantastic in the bottle but is all kinds of ugly when you try to put it on.

The Rocky Road- The polish that always insists on being lumpy.

The Hater- The polish that always looks great on every skin tone except yours. You want to love it..but it doesn't love you back.

The Multiplier- That one shade of polish color that you can't stop yourself from buying every time you see it.

The Ex- The polish that used to be your favorite but now sits in the back of your stash collecting dust.

Water- It might as well be it, since it's about that thickness anyway.

The Sheer-ness Monster- No amount of coats will ever satisfy it.

The Beast- The polish that you like but never wear because it's a giant pain in the butt to remove.

...

So there you have it! A list of all the oddball polishes you may or may not have lurking in your collection.
So..what's your "tease"? Or "senior"? I want to know what other types you have in your stash! :P

Pacman Nail Art

Hi everyone! Okay, yesterday I was looking at the polish I had on, Color Club Beyond (You can find my review of it here) I love that polish, and I wanted to do something really cool with it, so I decided to do some nail art. After a while of thinking, I decided on a really cool design. I've seen a bunch of people do this before, so it's not exactly original, but I couldn't resist the idea!

Pacman nails! I used to love this game when I was younger! Although I wasn't all that great at it..my uncle is the Pacman champion in my family. I still had a great time playing it, even though I died a lot. One thing that confused me though..is the name of the orange ghost. I've seen it as both Sue and Clyde. I always thought that they should pick one and stick to it. Hah.
So anyway..heres what you do to make the ghosts if you want to do the design too:

1. Paint your nails with 1-2 coats of Color Club Beyond. Let that dry.

2. Outline make a U shape following the base of the nail on all your fingers except the thumb. I did this using a tooth pick with Wet n Wild black creme.

3. Make a horizontal zig zag connecting the ends of the U on all the nails except the thumb.

4. Fill in the outline with your desired color. I used Nail Ritz Ruby for Blinky, LA Colors Unnamed for Pinky, Essie Mint Candy Apple for Inky, and Nail Ritz Mandarin for Clyde/Sue. Let it dry.

5. Make two big dots of white side by side. I used Sinful Colors Snow Me White.

6. Carefully make two smaller dots inside the white ones. I made them a little off center so the ghost looks like its looking to the side.

And you're done!

So there you go! Pacman nails! :) So what do you think, tell me in the comments! I'd love to hear from you!

Happy painting!

Color Club Beyond Review and Swatches

Okay, today I have to show you a polish that was on my ISO list for a long time. I saw pictures of it and I went "I need this.."..probably in a little bit of a creepy voice.
It started when I saw pictures of the Color Club halo hues. Let me tell you..all these babies are like OMG RAINBOWS. They all look gorgeous, and someday I will own them all. But today I just have one that was sent to me in a polish gift exchange I participated in.

It's called Beyond, and it's a black holo. In the shade it just looks grey with silver shimmer but step in the sun and it just goes crazy.

I can't stop going outside to look at it more. To me it looks like rainbow fire on a bed of coals.
So..onto the review!

Application

The formula was great. I used two coats but you could get away with one. It was smooth and didn't flood my cuticles at all.

Look

In the bottle it's awesome, on the nails it's awesome. What more is there to say?

Price

This one was given to me but it retails for $10. I'd love it if it were cheaper, but I can definitely forgive the price because it's so beautiful. Worth every penny in my opinion. They could probably get away with charging more.

Overall

Just try to guess my opinion of this one. Take a wild shot at it. ;) I love this. I really want every single one in the collection. The next halo hue I have my eye on is Angel Kiss, a gorgeous sea foam green holo. Hopefully I'll get my hands on it soon.

So..do you like holographic polish as much as I do? Tell me in the comments, i'd love to hear from you.

In the meantime, happy painting. :)

Rainbow Fish Inspired Nail Art

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister. For those of you who've never read it, its about a beautiful fish who has beautifully colored scales, along with many special silver scales. He's really proud of his scales, and brags about them to the other fish. None of the other fish have any silver scales, so they get sad and jealous of Rainbow Fish. Some of them ask Rainbow Fish if he'll give them just one silver scale, but he says no. Eventually all the other fish don't want to be friends with him anymore. Long story short, Rainbow Fish eventually learns that sharing is important in friendship, and he shares the silver scales with the other fish. It really is a nice story.
But anyway..getting back on track..here's what I came up with.

What I did was I used Nail Ritz pearlized white to outline the scales, then went over the lines in Wet n Wild Black Creme. Then I filled in the scales with Nail Ritz Electric Blue, Nail Ritz Indigo, Nail Ritz Berrylicious, and Milani Cyberspace. For my thumb I used NYC Tribeca Silver. I think it turned out pretty cute.
Heres a picture of my inspiration..the books cover.

So..have you read "The Rainbow Fish"?

Happy Painting :P