Was shopping at London Drugs last week and came across these lovelies! They are loaded with glass fleck although for the yellow and orange ones especially it looks like small metallic flakes of the same colour as the polish. As always with glass fleck polishes they are quite sheer. I think this is necessary for the glass flecks to catch the light. The yellow, green and orange seem like jellies or sorbets. The blue and purple seem a touch less sheer. The bottle tops have a scratch and sniff sticker on them so you can preview the scents. All were subtle and not over powering or sickening as some can be. Even with five different scents on my hands it just smelled like fruity mint! : )
Thumb - Purple - Grape Fizz - sheer - pink and purple flecks more like micro shimmer.
Index - Blue - Mint Fizz - sheer - flecks more like micro shimmer. This colour will STAIN your skin so try not get it on your skin and be sure to use a base coat.
Middle - Yellow - Pineapple Fizz - sheer - large yellow flecks that look like metallic flakes.
Ring - Green - Apple-tini Fizz - sheer - large green flecks that look like metallic flakes and some light blue or sea foam green micro shimmer as well.
Pinky - Orange - Orange Fizz - sheer - large orange flecks that look like metallic flakes.
As always as my mani nears the end I stamp it. Originally I was going to use the same images, all flowers, on the same finger of each hand but make one hand white and one black. I almost did it but got sidetracked on the last 2 by my fave image and one I had not used yet.
Left hand
Thumb - Plate M65 - Konad
Index - Plate M64 - Konad
Middle - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Ring - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Pinky - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Right Hand
Thumb - Plate M64 - Konad
Index - Plate BM16 - Konad
Middle - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Ring - BM16 - Bundle Monster
Pinky - BM16 - Bundle Monster
I CANNOT wait to get my hands on the new set of Bundle Monster plates! Sadly when I tried to log in to Amazon it would not let me. : ( Have to call customer service tomorrow. Have you seen or used them?
Happy Easter Weekend!!!!! Also happy Earth Day today!!!!!
This mani is inspired by jelly beans and those plastic eggs that you can put Easter treats in for Easter egg hunts. Bright, beautiful, vibrant spring colours! Love them!!! Loads of sparkly glass fleck!
Thumb - 2 coats of Mimi by Zoya + 1 coat Byte by Sally Hansen
Index - 3 coats of Byte by Sally Hansen
Middle - 3 coats of Spectrum by Sally Hansen
Ring - 3 coats of Lighthouse by China Glaze
Pinky - 2 coats of Orange Marmalade
by China Glaze + 1 coat Lighthouse by China Glaze
Of course photos don't do it justice so a short video is necessary! : ) Yet even that cannot capture it 100%.
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.
As I mentioned Wednesday it was a purple polish party day. If only I could actually capture the colour purple! It always looks more blue as in indigo rather than the yummy grape juice purple that it is. At least I thought I wasn't getting it but now that I look at it on my work computer it looks purple! In fact I'm happy with how close it is to in person. Yay! I bought a new camera and so far I am quite happy with it. It was the only brand (Nikon) in the store that seemed to be getting the colour right and capturing the sparkle. Spent more than I intended. Got a Nikon Coolpix S80. Back to sparkly stuff! On my left hand I tried 5 different purples. One less is shown in the picture because it was a duplicate colour.
Index finger = Zoya, Mimi
Middle finger = Nicole, Gone Wishin'
Ring finger = Orly, Out of This World
Pinky finger = Sephora, Just a Little Dangerous
Sorry for the mess on my fingers when you click on the photos to see the larger size. : )
Gone Wishin' is now one of my top 10 all time favourites. I just found it this weekend. I'll be sharing that haul next blog post. It is a gorgeous polish. It is a clearish base with tiny purple specks and then bigger peacock blue and hot pink glitter. Just a Little Dangerous is a disappointment. When you apply it you see loads of purple shimmer. It must all sink to the bottom because on the nail once it is dry it looks like a cream. I did manage to catch a little sparkle in the photo but it is nearly impossible to see in real life.
On my right hand I experimented with things I could put on top of Just a Little Dangerous so I could wear it as I will never wear it on it's own. The following are on top of JALD.
Index finger = Cover Girl, Amethyst Mist
Middle finger = Cover Girl, City Lights
Ring finger = Color Club, Covered in Diamonds
Pinky finger = Nubar, 2010
I have more I want to try so that's just the first round!
