This one, Sensational Scarlet by Nicole, was an adventure! Gorgeous colour loaded with glitter. It's a pink so deep and dark it's a hair away from being a red. The brush made things a little challenging. It is short and wide and picks up a whole lotta polish. Plus this polish is very thick due to the high glitter content. Application was not much fun.
When it dried the polish was very dull. It was also very bumpy. I think I ended up putting 3 coats of top coat on trying to smooth it out but it never did. This polish was also very difficult to get off. It was the most difficult of all glitter polishes I have and I have A LOT! The glitters from the OPI Burlesque collection have full on glitter comes off easier than this stuff.
Despite having all of that against it I will use this polish again. It`s different and it`s a gorgeous colour. More pictures....
click on it to enlarge and see texture.
All with top coat
with (index & ring) and without (middle & pinky) top coat.
A super short 13 second video of the sparkle:
Addition - June 20, 2011
Just wanted to share what this polish looked like when I started to remove it. After the first bit of rubbing it was revealed how much glitter is in this polish.
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I almost made 6 months without breaking a nail! They always break right at the quick. For the last while I have been trimming them when they get to a certain length in hopes of preventing breakage. That point was reached at the time I did my burgundy mani last Monday. It was time to trim them back a bit but It was late and I decided to wait another week. Sure enough just a couple days later.... Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh : (
So I went ahead and trimmed all my nails and did a little stamping with my new Bundle Monster plates! The plate images are larger than the old ones but still not large enough to cover my nails at the length they were. I ordered my plates on Wednesday, April 27th. I recieved a ship notification email the same day just 3 hours after placing the order! Wow! They are as excited as us to get those plates out there. I live in British Columbia Canada and the plates arrived in 9 business days on May 10th. I received 2 of plate BM201 and did not received plate BM210. When I emailed Bundle Monster they were exceptionally apologetic and assured me the problem would be remedied immediately. It was such a nice and reassuring email I just have to share it with you.
Thank you for your email regarding your recent Bundle Monsterorder. We are sorry to hear that you received only a partial order. We strive to always offer quality service and we apologize that this was not the case. We will send you the missing plate BM210 in the mail. Please expect to receive the replacement package in 7 to 20 business days to Canada We are truly sorry that a plate was missing from your order and we appreciate you bringing this to our attention. We look forward to shopping with you again.
Left Hand Fingers Index - BM-223 using Revlon Diamonds Are Forever Middle - BM-206 using OPI DS Exclusive Ring - BM-211 using Sally Hansen Chrome Champagne Pinky - BM-206 using OPI DS Extravagance
Right Hand Fingers
Pinky - BM-203 using OPI DS Extravagance
Ring - BM-208 using Konad Black (the gold is from a failed gold attempt that I wiped off)
Middle - BM-202 using Revlon Diamonds Are Forever
Index - BM-221 using Sally Hansen Chrome Champagne
Good evening! This was just some experimentation that I had not planned on sharing but the colour came out so bold I decided to share it. Unfortunately neither photos or video could capture just how intense the colour was. I can't even find the right words to describe it. Gaudy but cool? I am for sure going to do this again for keeps. It started with a coat of Black Onyx by OPI. It was going on kinda thin and streaky but I didn't want to do 2 coats so I laid it on thick which of course led to bubbles. Then it was 2 coats of some gorgeous glass fleck loaded polishes. No top coat. No clean up 'cause I had not intended to share it. Sorry for the ugly. : )
Also want to try green, lime, red, and purple glass fleck as well next time.
The ones I tried this time appear in the same order on my nails as they do in the top photo:
Citrus is the theme of this week's mani! Yummy! : ) I have been impatiently waiting to do this mani for awhile. I tried doing it with 3 gorgeous glass fleck filled citrus colour polishes from OPI but they are just too sheer! Goldilocks Rocks (orange), That's All Bright With Me (yellow), and Call Me On My Cell-ery (green). Then I tried layering those on similar colors that were more opaque and had some shimmer in them. I still didn't get the look I wanted. To get what I wanted took some serious layers with 8 different colours! LOL I love it so it was worth the trouble. Lighthouse by China Glaze is this reason I finally got what I wanted! You will see what Lighthouse looks like on it's own when I do, and post, my easter mani next week.
Index Finger:
1 coat Va Va Voom, a shimmery dark peach by Rimmel.
1 coats Goldilocks Rocks by OPI
Not sparkly enough sooooo
1 coat Lighthouse by China Glaze
Middle Finger
1 coat Ivy League by Sally Hansen
2 coats Call Me On My Cell-ery
Not sparkly enough sooooo
1 coat Simply Smashing by OPI
Ring Finger
1 coat Lite by Sally Hansen
2 coats That's All Bright With Me by OPI
Not sparkly enough soooo
1 coat Lighthouse by China Glaze
Pinky Finger
2 coats Orange Marmalade by China Glaze
1 coat of Lighthouse
to add a touch more sparkle
and lighten up the orange.
This reminds me of Lifesavers! If only I had a glass fleck loaded red! Hmmmmm.
After 3 months of impatiently waiting I finally got my hands on the Katy Perry collection by OPI. It was worth the wait but I am still annoyed. I monitored their facebook page for information. The whole situation and the way it was handled was, and still is, a mess. I heard through the salon supply store where I got mine that OPI would be distributing this collection for all of this year to try and catch up, and make up, for the shortage. OPI should have explained this, or whatever was/is going on, at their website and their facebook group in a way that stayed up, not just through passing comments. It's a shame that many people paid crazy amounts of money because they thought it was the only way they would ever get any. I understand stuff happens, just think it could have been handled better by OPI. Enough venting! The two polishes from the collection I am experimenting with today are "Teenage Dream" and "Last Friday Night". "The One That Got Away is another from the collection that I used as part of my experiment with the first 2. These photos do not even come close to capturing the sparkling beauty of these 2 polishes. I have my fingers crossed for a little sunshine tomorrow so I can take better pictures.
STAGE ONE
All colours are by OPI with the single exception of `Laser` by Sally Hansen
Left Hand
Thumb = Teenage Dream (2 coats)
Index = Teenage Dream (2 coats)
Middle = The One That Got Away (2 coats)
Ring = Just a Little Dangerous (Sephora) (2 coats)
Pinky = Black Onyx (1 coat)
Right Hand
Thumb = Last Friday Night (4 coats!)
Middle = Laser (Sally Hansen) (3 coats) (it`s very sheer)
Index = Last Friday Night (4 coats!)
Ring = Glacier Bay Blues (2 coats)
Pinky = Black Onyx (1 coat) + Last Friday
Night (1 coat) (I jumped the gun. Wasn`t supposed to add that until stage two.)
Now for STAGE TWO. As I said, these photos do not capture the full sparkly goodness of these. May add sunshine photos tomorrow if I am lucky. I was surprised by how much coverage I got with Teenage Dream and how little with Last Friday Night. Teenage Dream is loaded with pink micro glitter. Plus some silver microglitter and lots of awesome rainbow medium size holo glitter. Simply gorgeous! Full coverage with just 2 coats like the Burlesque glitters. I want a backup bottle now! As for Last Friday Night it is super sheer. Even with 4 coats I can still see my nail line. Much more subtle. Great as a top coat. I think it is blue and silver micro glitter with medium holo glitter that is muted by the slightly blue base.
Left Hand
Thumb = Teenage Dream (2 coats)
Index = Teenage Dream (2 coats) + The One That Got Away (1 coat)
Middle = The One That Got Away (2 coats) + Teenage Dream (1 coat)
Ring = Just a Little Dangerous (Sephora) (2 coats) + Teenage Dream (1 coat)
Index = Last Friday Night (4 coats!) + Laser (1 coat)
Middle = Laser (Sally Hansen) (3 coats) + Last Friday Night (1 coat)
Ring = Glacier Bay Blues (2 coats) + Last Friday Night (1 coat
Pinky = Black Onyx (1 coat) + Last Friday Night (1 coat)
Bye for now!
March 23rd
Even sunshine photos did not come close to capturing the multidimensional awesomeness of Teenage Dream. This video comes close. Maybe tomorrow I can shoot some video in sunshine. This was shot under an Ott Lite. I used my cell phone to take it. It's HD and the phone is a Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro. My technique needs some work! : )
Now this is fun! The first time I ever saw a scotch tape mani was a picture posted in the photos for the page for OPI Nail Lacquer. It was OPI's beautiful and sparkly Catch Me In Your Net covered with shiny black! The blue sparkle peaking out from under the black was a hidden treasure. A tease! I loved it! You can see the photo I speak of at the blog ThatsSoFresh! This is one of my top 3 2 fave blogs. It is also how I found the blog Chloe`s Nails which is another of my top 3 2 fave blogs. This girl is genius! I could, and have, spent hours going through her blog. There are loads of tape manis there to check out. Thanks to both ladies for your fantastic blogs! They have both been in my blog roll since day one.
As usual every nail is different. I just love sparkle peaking through black! OPI Black Onyx to be exact. My faves are the pinky on my left hand and ring finger on my right hand. Sadly some didn`t turn out so good as there was some bleeding of black polish under the the tape. Also managed to get some black on the tips of my left hand nails when removing the tape from my right hand. Too lazy to use tweezers! Next time I will. For the nails on my left hand I used craft scissors. I have about 30 pairs of these scissors. My fave are the non uniform ones. They look like ripped paper. Most did not cut the tape well.
On my right hand it was scotch tape. Except for the 2 fingers that were just shattered using OPI Black Shatter. On my index finger I stroked the shatter on going the length of the nail. On my middle finger I did it side to side. I like the middle finger better. For sure the effect of glitter under black is far more satisfying to me than glass fleck polishes. Will for sure play with this some more in the future. It is a great way to extend your mani a bit longer. Once there is tip wear and / or chips you can do this to cover them up! Two most important things I learned were to use tweezers for removing and maybe even placing tape and to use sharp scissors! The scotch tape ones took me waaaaaaay too long but It was fun anyways!
With St. Patrick's Day coming up on the 17th the obvious colour choice this week was green. Three of them are loaded with glass fleck and of course it is impossible to capture the full magical beauty of them with a still photograph. Dozens of pictures taken in dozens of different lighting situations. If only it was a sunny day! Poor light makes it very difficult to get a good photo. I wish these were a little sharper but they are the best I can do right now As you can see these are a wide variety of greens. The one on my pinky looked green with a slight blue sheen in the store. At home it looks like blue with a green sheen! So I covered it with glitter after this photo. Still looks blue.
Thumb = It's Not Rocket Science by Orly
Index = Ivy League by Sally Hansen
Middle = Ivanka by Zoya
Ring = Simply Smashing by OPI
Pinky = Resolution by Sally Hansen with Glow Up Already! by OPI on top
All were pretty sheer so 3 coats for every one. Sadly there are bubbles on my index finger. No top coat yet.
As always if you click on a photo it will open in a window all by iteself and larger than what you see here. Click it again for the largest size.
I like really blurry pictures of sparkle.
Need to go through my nail stamping plates to see if I have anything applicable to the holiday. I don't think I do. Won't be able to do that until tomorrow. For now we have just the beginning!
Just for fun lets add one more picture. The first 3 were from my Nikon Coolpix S80. This last one is from my new phone which is a Sony Ericsson Vivaz Pro and has a 5.1 MP Camera. Not too shabby. Both cameras got the colours right. Even my not so sharp Nikon pics still do beat the cell phone pics. I would hope so with nearly 3X the MP's.
Looks like I have bubbles in the polish of the my middle finger too. Crap!
Update March 14th. I couldn't bring myself to cover any of the glass fleck yet. That leaves one shimmery frosted index finger. I found a four leaf clover on plate BM03 from the Bundle Monster set. I used Where's the Tire Jack? by Sephora. It's quite thin. After the 17th I'm going to experiment with scotch tape patterns. Bye for now!
Everywhere I go now I am finding Byte! I have 5 bottles now but I still had to really force myself to walk away when I found another 2 bottles the other day. I also found again the blog post that started my obsession! When I wrote this post I had forgotten where and searched forever and couldn't find it. Just found it again now while looking through one of my top 3 fave blogs "ThatsSOfresh". The same blog I mentioned in a recent post about scotch tape manicures. Here is the specific post: Where did you get that from!? Thanks again for the inspiration ThatSOfresh! Now that I have seen those photos again that is for sure my next mani!
About a month ago while spending hours looking through blogs dedicated to nail polish I came across the most amazing, electric purple I had ever seen! I had to have it! Turns out it was a layered polish. Sally Hansen's Byte layered on black. As soon as I had given up on finding it I found 3 bottles! I bought them all. Maybe, if I can bring myself to part with it, I will give one away when I reach 100 followers. In the meantime it is time to start experimenting!
I love, love, love, love, LOVE how shiny and sparkly this polish is. It is LOADED with glass flecks. Pink and blue. I also bought two other glass fleck loaded colours. Spectrum and DVD. The colours remind me of Spring and Easter Eggs. When I first put them on I thought I would never wear them on their own again. However they are growing on me! These will only stay this way for a day. Tomorrow I'm going to add something to them. Man, they are gorgeous! Of course my photos don't do them justice. There are loads of other photos out there to drool over if you google them.
This is 3 coats with top coat. Ring finger has 4 coats. You'll see why.... Index = Byte Middle = Spectrum Ring = 3 coats of Byte + 1 coat of Spectrum on top. Pinky = DVD Thumb = Patchy stripes of Spectrum, DVD and Byte topped with OPI Shatter
As you can see it is a very sheer polish. I imagine that is the price you pay for having so much awesome glass fleck! These are going to look fantastic peeking out from under scotch tape manicures or stamping. Also already experimenting with layering them on top of other colours. Here is what Byte looks like on top of white, black, dark purple, silver and red! They all got dinged and mucked up because I did stuff before they were dry. Byte on white looks neon but my camera didn't quite catch that. On silver it becomes an old school pastel pink frost. Where it really shines is on black and on red! Wow! On the nail byte is lighter than in the bottle. On red it looks like the colour in the bottle but a little darker.
Before Byte:
Index = Queen of Everything by Sephora
Middle = Just a Little Dangerous by Sephora
Ring = Where's The Tire Jack by Sephora
Pinky = Alpine Snow by OPI
Thumb = Karina by Zoya
Next I want to try Spectrum (the turquoise blue) on black, blue, purple and red. So many possibilities and so little time!
What are some of your favourite layering polishes and colour combinations? Please share!
I'm apologizing up front for unsightly bits you might see when your view the larger versions of the photos (click on them). Macro shots show and magnify stuff not visible to my naked eyes! Like the way the top coat smeared the alpine snow. Can't see it in real life. Anyways! As of yesterday my purple polish was a week old. No chipping, just tip wear. Was planning on changing it yesterday but then I got some exciting mail! A few Konad plates and 21 plates from Bundle Monster! WOOHOO!!!!!!!! Since my paint job is a week old and going to be changed anyway it's ok if I do a crappy job stamping. So I went for it.
I used Alpine Snow by OPI for the stamping. As you can see a few were really bad! Some not so great and some pretty good. The most important thing is to start on one side of the nail and roll over to the other side. Seemed to want to start in the middle and then roll left then right. That does not work! Konad has a how to video. Just google it. Bottom line is it was fun! Pretty darn cool too.
It wasn't sparkly enough so today I added a coat of Byte by Sally Hansen. Gorgeous polish! Pink with loads of glass fleck which is probably why it's kinda sheer. Also lots of blue sparkle to it. Quite like it! Going to keep it on for a few more days.
Last weekend I finished entering all of my polishes in the Excel document I started the week before. You can check it out by clicking on the STASH tab above and then following the link to the document. Before I properly organize all of my polishes over 2 racks I wanted to see what 3 of my fave brands look like together. Here is a picture of most of my OPI, Zoya and China Glaze.
Click on the pic to get a larger version in a window all it's own. Once there if click on it again you should get an even larger version. you can also go check it out at flickr photo album linked to in the header above. So pretty! : ) There are only two non-sparkly colours in my entire collection of almost 200 bottles and that is black and white. I LOVE SPARKLE!
I am also still working on designing this blog. Added a few more tabs above. Hope you will explore a little! Thanks for stopping by!
Today was a relaxing, stay at home, rainy day! I spent the majority of it entering my nail polish stash in an excel spreadsheet. I'm about half way done! You can view it by clicking on the stash tab above and following the link. Some of them are so old you can't find them using Google. : ) I just bought 2 of these racks in the last couple of weeks. Not organized yet but here is the first rack which I worked on and completed today. These bottles will not stay in this order.
Click on the picture for a larger view in a window by itself. Click on that photo and it will give you an even larger view that is about 50% of actual size. You can read the labels and see the colours quite clearly. They are even the true colours which can be hard to capture at times! When I am all done I will take pictures of the final order and add text to each bottle with the name of the colour.
This does not include dozens of bottles of Zoya and China Glaze I have purchased in the last month. The Burlesque collection by OPI set me off on a feeding frenzy! I've kinda been out of the loop and didn't even know about Zoya and China Glaze! LOL I am now cut off and cannot buy another bottle for a long, long, long time. Hopefully I will find duplicates so I can trade for colours on my wish list. Must stop now.......
Blurry pic of Burlesque Shimmers and Glitters gradient mani.
Welcome! This blog is all about sparkle! I am absolutely in love with the amazing dance that goes on between light and colour! Especially when it comes to glass. My home is filled with coloured glass. The sparkle that happens when sunlight travels through it mesmerises me. Glitter that includes all the colours of the rainbow is the ultimate! I love how a colour can go from dark and dull to vibrant and beautiful by increasing light. The recent release of the Burlesque nail lacquer collection by OPI turned me into a kid in candy store. Six glimmers and six glitters. All so amazingly bright and rich and gorgeous!!!!! I just can't get enough of them! On their own, layered, gradients as they are commonly called, glimmer polish with glitter tips, etc. I was also amazed by how long it was lasting on my nails. After 2 weeks no visible wear on left hand and a little tip wear! This of course led me to explore other polishes. I had not been wearing it regularly so had been out of the loop as they say. Turns out it's an exciting world out there for nails! Micro glitter, metallic, duochrome, chunky glitter, medium glitter, flakies, shimmer, and more!!!!! I'm beside myself with excitement! I've purchased more bottles of polish in the last few weeks than I will ever admit too! This coupled with some recent purchases of gorgeous and sparkly mineral eye shadows and pigments prompted me to start this blog. I also happen to be what I call a "show and tell" kinda person. Every time I see something interesting, beautiful, etc. I have to show and tell others. Because I have so much I'm excited about right now I need more people to show and tell! : ) Don't want to overwhelm the people in my life with my enthusiasm! LOL
Thanks for coming and sharing and I hope you will come back again soon.
This one, Sensational Scarlet by Nicole, was an adventure! Gorgeous colour loaded with glitter. It's a pink so deep and dark it's a hair away from being a red. The brush made things a little challenging. It is short and wide and picks up a whole lotta polish. Plus this polish is very thick due to the high glitter content. Application was not much fun.
When it dried the polish was very dull. It was also very bumpy. I think I ended up putting 3 coats of top coat on trying to smooth it out but it never did. This polish was also very difficult to get off. It was the most difficult of all glitter polishes I have and I have A LOT! The glitters from the OPI Burlesque collection have full on glitter comes off easier than this stuff.
