Mani Monday: Blood Splattered Zombie Flesh

Hey all! Hope you're all having a great Monday. Yeah I know you're not, Monday's suck. Today is actually my Friday, I don't have to be back at work until Thursday. Wooooo! I'm heading up to visit Mama LacquerVixen, so I'm actually blogging right now from my phone at a Starbucks. Yeah, I'm one of THOSE people at Starbucks. Well at least I'm not taking up a whole table I guess.  

For the longest time I've been itching to do a splatter mani.  I've been looking for some coffee stirrers for weeks and no one has them, my no one I mean Target. Way to drop the ball Target. :P I did find cocktail straws though. 

Last night I was inspired. I had been looking for an excuse to bring Dollish Polish's Zombie Flesh back to the blog and the cocktail straws were my reason.  I put down two coats of Zombie Flesh and then pulled out Julep's Mytrle.  Myrtle is just a stock red cream with a touch of jelly to it.  I took one of the cocktail straws, dipped it in the polish and blew through the other end, pointing it at my nails.  

This technique is supposed to splatter the polish on your nail.  Well it is if you use a tiny straw.  The cocktail straws are a tad too large. While there is some splattering, I did end up with a fair amount of globbing.  Now this isn't terrible in this mani.  My nails look like zombie flesh splashed with blood, which is what I was going for.  If you're going for a more delicate splatter, keep looking for the coffee stirrers. 

Another word of advice?  Tape the hell out of your fingers.  It took my so long to clean up my nails.  They actually legitametly looked like blood splattered fingers. Mr. LacquerVixen actually said they looked cool. ;)

As the usual kind reminder. These products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have people send me products for review. 

Untried Wednesday: Funky Fingers Jawbreaker

Hey all.  Today I have for your a smaller drugstore brand of nail polish.  Funky Fingers polishes can only be found at Five Below stores, which only really exist in Texas or the East Coast.  Recently people have become obsessed with Funky Fingers polishes on Instagram or in the big nail polish groups, like Polish-Aholics Anonymous.  So a lot of people that are not so lucky to have a Five Below in their town, have been doing a lot of Funky Fingers shopping on Storenvy or have gotten themselves a polish mule.  I asked my cousin who lives in Texas to hook it up.

So in case you did not already know about this Funky Fingers trend, their appeal comes from the unique colors and glitter mixes along with their inexpensive price tag.  3 for $5!  Yeah they're a steal and they're so pretty!  I got seven Funky Finger polishes so far, with two more on the way.  So expect a few mini collection post and single swatches coming soon!

Today I have Jawbreaker for everyone.  It is a white crelly base with large yellow, orange, and purple hexes, medium teal and darker purple hexes, and tiny red and orange hexes.  Now a white crelly with a rainbow glitter mix is not that uncommon.  This polish though does have three sizes of glitter, most of the ones I have only contain two.  This mix also leans towards blue and purple, instead of an even rainbow.

I used three coats in my pictures, but two probably would have been enough.  I'm just a sucker for insane glitter manis that are going to suck to remove later.

As the usual kind reminder, these products were purchased with my own money.  I am not cool enough to have companies send me free stuff to review them. ;)

Random Post: Essie's Summer 2014 Collection Too Taboo

Greetings my fellow polish junkies!  I hope you all are having a good week so far.  I know mine has been pretty awesome so far, and a large part of it has been because of the darling love of my life, CinnamonKandy.  We did a hometown swap and how could we not send each other more polishes?

So because we lack self control, she sent me four of the new polishes from Essie's new summer 2014 collection, Too Taboo.

Aren't they so pretty??  Just looking at the picture though, Too Taboo looks awfully like DJ Play That Song and Vices Versa looks like The More the Merrier from last year's summer collection.  But we all know that the big brands are always recycling the same colors.  Kandy ended up sending me Too Taboo, Chills & Thrills, I'm Addicted, and Sitting Pretty.   

I pulled out my own bottle of DJ Play that Song and placed it next to Too Taboo.  Too Taboo is on the left and DJ Play that Song is on the left.  Lucky for my poor junkie heart, Too Taboo is pinker version. I used to call DJ Play that Song a radiant orchid color, but looking at both of them side by side, I would say that Too Taboo is a good version of Pantone's Color of the Year.  I can totally justify having both.  ;-)

To start things off, I am not a fan of spending a day swatching different polishes, painting on one color then taking it off as soon as you've taken pictures to start on another.  That's not my thing.  I much prefer to either do just one color, or do a skittle mani.  Which is what I did.  From left to right I am wearing Sittin' Pretty, Too Taboo, Chills & Thrills, and I'm Addicted.  The above picture is of the polishes with two coats and no top coat.  They were all opaque and painted on relatively easily.  Most of the reviews I've seen of this collection says that they were difficult polishes and required three or more coats.  I did not have any issues with these polishes.  Sure, there is maybe the barest hint of VNL with Sittin' Pretty (the lilac cream), but it didn't bother me at all and VNL is one of the things that bug me the most with polishes.  Too Taboo dries to a waxy finish, unlike the rest of the polishes which dry glossy.

Would I call these polishes neon?  No.  I know summertime is when all the make up brands bring out their neon colors, but I've never been a huge fan of neons.  I would call these colors "brights" and I do enjoy them.  :-)

As a side note, while I did not pay for these polishes myself, they were gifted to me by a friend and not sent to me by any company for reviewing purposes.  I'm not that cool to be getting free stuff.

May Nail Art Part 2

Hey look! I'm finally continuing this nail art post!

In this third mani, all of the polishes except for the black one, which is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Onyx, I got from my swap last month with Megan over at You've Got Mail!  Seriously, that girl decimated my wish list.  There is like next to nothing left.

The pink is Essie's Peach Daquiri, which in really life looks a little bit peachier and less hot pink.  It was still a pretty neon color, which is why I had to use it.  Generally, I can't do neons.  Something about them turns me off.  Whenever I have tried painting at my nails with various neon colors, I always end up just staring at them, not because they're super pretty but because they are distracting.  Almost in a bad way.  This one though, I LOVED.  Maybe it's why I went the extra mile, or four, of doing some full nail art.  I swiped two medium thickness coats of this color for full coverage on three nails.  Then I painted three coats of Color Club's Magic Attraction for full coverage.  It is a silver and holo glitter with specks of pink in it.

On my middle finger, I used one layer of Shopaholic from Pop Culture Cosmetics, just a fuchsia glitter. On the remaining two nails I used my trusty dotting tools and black polish to make big polka dots and filled in the empty space with little ones.  The whole thing was topped with my usual Sally Hansen Insta Dry (in the red bottle), which you can see smeared the dots a little bit.  

I got a lot of compliments on those nails.  I had my nails painted like that when I was sent to New Employee training and people kept commenting on them.  People kept being shocked when I said that I had done them myself while I was bored.  To top it off it was super easy!  

My last bit of nail art was inspired by one of the boytoy's coworkers.  She is obsessed with the Minions from Despicable Me and she was having a birthday party.  So what better way to get ready for a party then to draw some Minions?

For the three nails I started out with two coats of Nicole by OPIs Hit the Lights from the Selena Gomez line on my left hand and three on my right.  Does that happen to anyone else where it takes more coats to properly coat the nails on your off hand?  The color is a touch splotchy, but I really like it because it reminds me of macaroni and cheese.  The blue overalls are Essie's Butler Please.  I used the same black as always for these along with China Glaze White on White for the eyes and teeth.  The edges of the goggles are Sally Hansen's Celeb City, the best silver ever.  

My favorite part of Despicable Me is the part were Gru wins Agnes the stuffed unicorn at the carnival and she screams out "IT'S SO FLUFFY, I'M GOING TO DIE".  At the time, I felt this was my fluffiest unicorn polish.  As of yesterday though, I own Dollish Polish's It's So Fluffy, I'm Going to Die!, so not the case anymore.  

My two accent nails were done in JENsations Unicorns and Rainbows, which she no longer has up anymore.  My other lovely, nail mail buddy Candace over at CinnamonKandy sent me this in out last swap.  For some reason, people seem to think I love unicorns.  :-P  This was an awesome polish very similar to that ice cream sprinkles trend that is going on right now.  The reason why I love this one is that the glitter is all the colors of the rainbow.  I ended up doing three coats, not because it needed it, but because I couldn't stop using it, if that makes sense.

Hope you guys enjoy this!  Hopefully I have some more up soon!

May Nail Art Part 1

May was a good month for me when it came to nail art.  I was actually pretty proud of the stuff I managed to pull off.  If you follow me on Instagram, then you've seen these already, but here you get a more in depth description and mini review on some of the polishes.  

For this first mani I used Julep's Janel.  Janel is a really pretty raspberry color and it took me two coats for this level of opacity.  Julep.com describes it as a frost, but it just looks like a cream to me, which is good, because I just can't seem to find any frosts I particularly like.  Also, I adore raspberry polishes.  They're like the perfect combination of red and pink, which are my favorite polish colors.  For accent nails I drew a black, white, and silver glitter starburst in the corner.  On my other nails I just did a coat of ORLYs Shine on Crazy Diamond.

To top it all off, I pulled out my Julep Freedom Polymer Top Coat.  I hadn't used it in forever and I could not remember why.  The day after I did this mani, I remembered.  The top coat just PEELED OFF.  Not my polish, put the Freedom Polymer stuff.  I sat there and sheets of clear polish just chipped off my nails.  Does anyone else have this issue?  Also it was kind of gloopy and didn't smooth over my nails evenly at all.  So if you looked at them, it was really obvious which parts hadn't been able to get some.  And it wrinkled on the base of my nails too.  Maybe I just had a bad bottle, because it looks like most reviewers loved it.  

For this next look I have to show you guys starts out with two coats of Picture Polish's Majesty.  It is described as a taupe/pink/nude color with a holo shimmer and no glitter what so ever.  I love this polish so much that I was almost sad to paint a design on top.  But I do love the final look of these guys, so I don't really regret it.

For the petals on these flowers I used my nail art brushes for the first time.  How exciting!  The petals are done in Illamasqua's Load, which the very sweet boytoy got me.  I have discovered that I love off white polishes and Load is white with a tinge of yellow, so yay.  The brown polka dots and edging of the center of the flowers is Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Haute Chocolate and the yellow is Hit the Lights from Nicole by OPIs Selena Gomez line.  

So as I write this, I notice just how LONG this post has gotten.

Want to see the rest?  I will post a part two!

Dollish Polish Swatches- Welcome to Rapture and Zombie Flesh

Hey look at me, I'm almost done playing catch up on my photos!  After this, I should only have one more and it's a pretty neat one.  :-)

As I've mentioned before, one of my favorite things about nail polish is the names that people come up with for the colors.  When I first got into nail polish, I found out about Dollish Polish and her famous shade of Zombie Flesh.  

Now there were all sorts of reasons why I needed this color, I don't really have that many green polishes for one thing.  I also love the layered of the look of the cream/jelly polishes with glitter, like Hard Candy's Candy Sprinkles or Illamasqua's Speckled polishes.  But finally, the main reason I needed this polish was it's fantastic name of Zombie Flesh.  It sounds gross, so I needed it.  

Zombie Flesh is a puke green creally with dark green glitter in various sizes.  The picture shows three coats of polish.  Part of the reason I love these kind of polishes is that the sheerness allows you to see the lower layers of glitter.  It gives your nails are whole different look than if it was just a straight cream polish.  

The other nail polish I bought from Dollish Polish was called Welcome to Rapture.  When I first saw the name, I squeaked like the nerdy little fangirl I am.  Nail polish with a reference to the boytoy's favorite video game?  Yes please!  I am a super supportive girlfriend. ;-)

Welcome to Rapture is chock full of different colored glitter.  The inspiration behind it is supposed to be that moment in Bioshock when you first see Rapture from the bathosphere, specifically all the different colors and lights you see.  I really like the way the glitter looks over basic polish.  For my picture I alternated between Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue and Zoya's Jacqueline. I really like the way it looks over different colors and how heavy the glitter is.  It is dense and disperses pretty evenly over the nail.  In my opinion, it is a good multicolored glitter to have on hand.  To bad Dollish Polish is discontinuing it.  :-(

Pink Gradient Mani with Studs

Look at me!  I keep attempting nail art!  This was my first attempt at a gradient, it's not terrible, but I don't love it.  Don't they always say that you are your own worst critic?  ;-)

First off, I did three coats Ulta's Baby Doll, which was giving me trouble as always.  Maybe I'm just cursed to never be able to use light, delicate colors because they will never dry without terrible smudging or they will just be super streaky.

Anyways, after my base color finally dried, I painted two thick lines on my handy dandy make up sponge.  For this mani I choose Zoya's Sweet and Morgan.  I dabbed the sponge and still wet paint onto my finger nails to transfer the color over.  Before they dried, I did a quick coat of ORLY's Shine on Crazy Diamond.  Partially to blend the colors together, but mostly because I adore the light sparkling of holo glitter that it gives.

Finally, I drew a line of nail glue down my ring finger and stuck on my awesome Born Pretty Store nail studs that I love.  The glue dried kind of quickly so my studs ended up a little crooked, but I thought they still looked cool.

I topped the whole thing off with a thick layer of Sally Hansen's Insta Dry and called it a night.

Born Pretty Store Matte Top Coat Review

I adore getting mail.  Anything that is in the mail box with my name on it makes me very happy.  It doesn't really matter what it is, an envelope, a post card, a box.  I love it.  And before you say, "Well Lisa, what about bills?  Do you love getting those?"  I don't get physical bills, that's why I signed up for e-statements! :-P  But that's a whole different topic for a whole different blog.

For a while now I've been seeing a lot of blogs talk about the Born Pretty Store.  It's a great place to get all sorts of neat nail art supplies, jewelry, and accessories for cheap.  It's like eBay, but a lot more controlled and only from one vendor, which is nice.  I finally made an order from them a while ago and bought all sorts of cool stuff, like awesome studs that I used for my Las Vegas Mani, and some neon green glow in the dark polish that I'm going to use for a nerdy mani one of these days.  

I loved everything I had ordered, except for this guy.  Their Super Matte Change Surface Glossy Oil Nail Polish.  It was terrible!  Once it dried, it left my polish all bumpy and streaky.  It also shrunk away from my cuticles, leaving jagged looking edges.  I was not a happy camper.

For all I know, I did it wrong and it works just fine. But then if it's that complicated, it's not worth my time.

Julep Spring Mystery Box and Spring Bunny Mani

Sorry I've been away for so long guys!  I moved, got a new job, and have been stuck in training for the past three weeks.  Things are finally starting to slow down again, so I'm back!

So after having a Julep subscription for five months, I finally went out and ordered one of the their Mystery Boxes.  I talked myself out of the Christmas and New Years ones, which I regret because they had nifty bags and it looked like the stuff people got was worth it.  The Valentine's Day box, from my understanding, kind of sucked.  I guess people got a lot of repeat and similar colors.  So I finally bit the bullet and got the Spring Mystery box.  All in all, I was pretty happy.  I got three nail polishes, Lauren, Camille, and Ashley, face and hand sunscreen, a nail file, nail polish remover pads, and hair ties.  Totally worth the $25 I spent on it.  

I wanted to do a spring mani using the polishes I got and I kept seeing bunnies on Instagram, so I felt like trying something new.  I painted my nails with two coats of Julep's Ashley, a pale orange with gold shimmer and used China Glaze's White on White for some polka dots.   Then I did a coat of Camille on my thumb and pinkie.  I kind of love Camille.  It's a clear chunky glitter  that almost looks holo and totally reminds me of the fake snow in snow globes.  It makes me want to do nail art inspired by the collectable snow globes from Fallout New Vegas.

And finally, on my ring finger I painted a bunny using my dotting tools.  The white is the same one I used for the polka dots.  His little blue eyes are Sally Hansen's Calypso Blue, and his nose and ears are Zoya's Sweet.  I painted on his whiskers with a black striper.  

I was really proud of myself for actually being able to pull this one off.  People kept complimenting them and were surprised that I had done it myself.  :-)

Nails Inc Baker Street Swatch and Comparison

I have a friend adores BBC's Sherlock, like to the crazy fangirl status.  But then so do I, so who am I to judge? 

One day she was shopping and fell in love with this blue nail polish by Nails Inc.  When she noticed that it was called Baker Street, she had to have it.  She let me borrow it.  It was a pretty blue creme that I did two coats.  You can see that there is some balding on my pinkie, so that dissapointed me a little bit.  I also did two accent nails with Pixie's Gold Glimmer from the holiday pack.  Yeah, it really doesn't look gold, but actually silver. 

 

 

The more I looked at Baker Street, the more familiar it looked.  Finally, it hit me that it looked an aweful lot like Essie's Butler Please, which I used in my very first blog post!  

 

 

The only difference that I found was that Baker Street was patchy at two coats and Butler Please was not.  Also, Baker Street started chipping pretty quickly, so that was dissapointing.  But that just might have been me because polish never lasts very long with me.  

Pinata Snow Mani

Today is only a quick mani guys.  I pulled out the polishes with the intention of just something simple for an interview and I swiped on three coats of Sally Hansen's Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull.  Like I mentioned before in the Colorful Leopard Mani, this white isn't my favorite because it takes so many coats to give full coverage, but I haven't gotten around to replace it because I've been lazy.

I was going to stick with just plain white, but then I wasn't paying attention and my bottle of Ulta's Pinata-Yada jumped into my hand and demanded I use it.  This is probably my favorite glitter polish ever, probably because it has a ton of different colors in it.  It has red, fuchsia, blue, green, silver and gold glitters in various sizes.  

What Wizardry is This? OPI and Liquid Sand

So for those of you who don't know, one of the nifty new things in nail polish right now are textured, matte polishes.  OPI was the first to come out with them in the form of four new polishes that were part of their Mariah Carey line.  They were chock full of glitter, which we know I love, but there were also little stars.  Considering how annoyed I've been getting lately with polishes that had confetti, I thought it best to stay away from the Liquid Sands.

Then Zoya came out with their Pixie Dust lines and I thought that they were awesome, unfortunately none of the colors really sung out to me enough that I needed to spend the extra money on shipping, so I controlled myself.   A couple smaller lines came out with textured polishes, like Milani, but they're not sparkly so I'm not interested.  Without the glitter they just kind of look like you messed up your polish while it was still wet and was too lazy to fix it.

Finally, OPI came out with the press releases for their line inspired by Oz the Great and Powerful and I saw this baby.  I NEEDED it.  Usually when I buy polishes, it's either when they're on sale or online and cheaper.  I really hate spending a full $9.50 on a bottle, but as soon as I saw the display at my Ulta on Saturday, I plucked it off the table and clutched it in my little hands.  I was so excited to find it, that I wasn't even upset that Ulta's usual $3.50 off of $10 coupon doesn't work on OPI any more.  Did you guys know that?  I had to pay full price for this sucker, and looking at it now on my nails, I regret nothing!

What Wizardry is This? is a chocolate colored polish with gold glitter and that totally awesome texture feel to it.  It went on in two coats perfectly and dried pretty quickly.  To keep the texture, you of course don't want to add a top coat.  It'll make the polish smooth and shiny, taking away the totally awesome bumpiness and matte look.  Also, sorry about how red my hands look.  I think it's the terrible lighting in the kitchen.

I'm a sucker for the feel of things, and while I do love a smooth and glossy nail, I adore the sandpapery texture of this nail polish.  I even showed it off at work by walking up to people and demanding they rub my nails.  Yeah, if my coworkers weren't used to me they'd think I'm a weirdo or something.

I've had this polish on for three days now, and for me that's a long time.  I don't even want to change my polish yet.  Usually by now the cheaper polishes have peeled off and most others are chipping away, or I get bored with the color and NEED to change it out.  This Liquid Sand color is still holding up strong with only the single chip on my middle finger.  Looking at it now, I might finally splurge on some of the Zoya Pixie Dusts.

Las Vegas Mani

So the boytoy took me to Las Vegas for Valentine's Day.  We walked too much and drank a lot, though he did take me to a fancy French dinner, so I guess it's okay.  Also, I got to finally end my month long "no new polish" fast, so of course I bought too many.  My next post will show off that haul, but now back to the important stuff.

For my nails, I used L'Oreal's Limited Edition Project Runway Nail Stickers in Enchanted Queen.  When I first saw these months ago, I knew I needed them for my next Las Vegas trip.  Red, black, and white nail stickers with card suits and stripes?  They were a mandatory purchase.  

Maybe it's because I had such high hopes for these guys, but they kind of sucked.  First off the ends would never file smooth.  My thumb was always catching on stuff and the pointer finger on both hands peeled off as soon as I had finished.  Lucky for me, I happened to have China Glaze's Lubu Heels on hand, so I ended up painting my pointer finger with it. 

Also if you look at my ring finger you can see air pockets.  No matter how much I smoothed it out, there were always bubbles.  The other two black nail stickers peeled off by the second day of our trip. 

The last thing I did for my failing mani was add a row of square shaped studs to each of the black nails.  That was probably my favorite part of the whole thing.  It was nice addition to the whole thing and the only thing that kept me from just peeling off the stickers and just painting all of my nails with Lubu Heels.

For those of you that don't know, Lubu Heels is a black jelly with tiny red glitters, like those iconic Louboutin heels with the red undersides.  The red is subtle unless you look at it with direct sunlight, so it's a nice little surprise.  The only downside is that you have to do a base coat of black polish to keep it opaque.

Valentines Day Barbie Glitter Nails

So I know this is super late, but in my defense I was trying to pack for Vegas and do a ton of laundry, then we actually went to Vegas. Then there was no chance of me actually blogging in Vegas because the boytoy demands all of my attention.  But I have a Vegas mani to post and a haul to talk about.  Super exciting stuff here.  

This is my mani from Valentines day.  I swiped on two coats of Sally Hansen Back to the Fuchsia which is a bright pink creme polish with just the lightest hint of blue shimmer in it.  If it wasn't for the blue shimmer, it would probably be a dupe for Zoya's Morgan.  Back to the Fuchsia kind of reminds me of Lush's candy scented shower gel, Snow Fairy, at least color wise.  

Afterwards, my natural response was to pile on as much glitter as possible.  I did a coat of Laquerlicious Cherished Cherub for glitter and Nicole by OPI's Love Your Life for the hearts.  Cherished Cherub has orange hearts, but no matter how much I dug around in the bottle I could not pull out any hearts.  It was a pain to get off, but I didn't have any chipping what so ever when I finally took it off.

Hex Lizard Mani

In case I have not already mentioned it before, I am a nerd.  I play video games, I watch nerdy shows, I read comic books, and I love the Avengers.
OPI's Amazing Spiderman line caused my love of nail polish, more specifically Just Spotted the Lizard did. It is definitely one of my favorite polishes.

The color changes from green to gold based on the angle that light hits it. I did two coats of polish and look how pretty it is! I've noticed with metallic duochrome polishes you have to do two coats. The first coat is always way too sheer and kind of ugly. The second coat is what makes it pretty. People always comment about how it looks like beetles.

I added very light green hex glitters on my thumb, middle, and ring fingers. They added a nice reflective quality to my mani that I kept getting distracted by. Now if I only had the patience to lay down the glitters in order so they completely covered my nail, I would be golden.

Colorful Leopard Nail Art

My mom wanted me to do her nails, and by "wanted" I mean demanded.  She went on youtube and watched videos until she decided that she wanted leopard print.  She picked the colors and I just did as I was told.  

I started with three coats of Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure in Ivory Skull because it was really bad at going on smoothly.  I don't like it very much, just because if I'm using something as a base, it should cover really well in just one or two coats.  Three is far too many.  For the spots I used one of the bigger ends of my dotting tools and just scattered a few of each color on every nail.  The black was done with a smaller tip, I just made sure to not completely surround the dots.  Make sure you fill in empty space with small black dots and you're done!  

Look at my poor mom and her beaten up skin.  She works with her hands and her cuticles dry out really easily.  Any suggestions for what she should use?

Deborah Lipmann Mermaid's Dream

So I have a Bachelor's in Creative Writing specializing in Fiction and my writing tends to stick to fantasy for the most part.  Like any proper girly girl, I love unicorns, mermaids, fairies, and all sorts of fantastic creatures.  Hence, why when I see nail polish with "mermaid" in the name I have to have it.

Mermaid's Dream is my first Deborah Lipmann.  I spent far too long comparing the different colors I wanted until I finally decided on this one.  After all of my blues and mermaid colors, this one is still different from them all, which makes me glad I invested the $18 on it.
In real life, it is actually a touch more mint green and little less teal.  Mermaid's Dream is a thick glitter with specks of holo glitter that I did not actually notice until I was in the sunlight.  The holo was a nice little sparkly surprise.  There are also navy blue glitters running through it.  I layered one coat of Mermaid's Dream over Sinful Colors' Mint Apple, partially because both were perfect matches for each other, and partially because I did not want to have to attempt to remove three coats of solid glitter.
The last thing that I love about this polish is how forgiving this formula is.  It completely filled in the still healing ridges I have left from my six month stint with acrylics.

February Nail Art Challenge - Day 3 Flowers

So day three is off to a better start then my first nail art attempt, so yay.
Flowers were a lot easier to pull off then hearts, for some reason, so I am really happy with this mani.  When I first started trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to do with for the flowers theme, I was at a loss.  Then I started playing with my cousin's nail polish and fell in love with this blue.

It is Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails Xtreme Wear in Blinding Blue.  I probably would have been fine with just one coat, but there was just a touch of visible nail line so it was a two coater.  I might have to find my own bottle of this for a lot of the nerdy nail art I have planned.
For the flowers I pulled out the dotting tools and used the biggest end I had.  The orange is Essie's Fifth Avenue, a bright red orange that paints on in one coat.  I'm very glad that I bought it on a whim.  The yellow is Milani's Totally 80's.  It's supposed to be neon green, but the formula is so thin that even with three coats on top of white polish it looks yellow.  I loved the name, but not so much the actual polish.
I love the way this ended up.  It remind me of 70's retro curtains, all bright colors and funkiness.

Rhinestone Bow Nail Art on Purple

Apparently I've created nail polish addictions in some of my friends.  The person most effected is my partner in crime.  I've been promising to do her nails for a while, and I finally got a chance to last weekend.  This is what we came up with.

I did three coats of Essie's Sexy Divide because it took that much to cover the bald spots.  It is a very pretty dark purple that would be great for the winter.  The stripe and bow are from Konad stamping plate m56 and the white Konad stamping polish.  I stuck a rhinestone in the middle of the bow and then coated the whole thing in top coat.
She got a ton of compliments on the nails and one lady even asked if I had a business card.