Pink Ombre with Gold Glittery Tips

Hello! I've had a busy week of meetings and interviews and lots of rushing around. But tomorrow is my birthday, so I will have a great mani up to celebrate! In the meantime, you have one more day to enter my giveaway on Instagram! In celebration of one year there, as well as my birthday, I am giving away two of my favourite polishes--Essie Set in Stones and Max Factor Fantasy Fire! Entry and rules can all be found here, so go check it out!

Anyway, today I wanted something simple, chic, but with a touch of glitz. I filed a bit of my length down and then did a pink ombre with gold glittery tips!

Fuchsia Glitterbomb

Heya! Sometimes, when inspiration is a bit lacking, you just need something sparkly! If there's one thing I learned from Rebecca, it's that there's nothing quite like a glitterbomb for those times :D

Split Charisma

Hello hello :)  Today's mani is a split pink & purple look. I almost didn't post these... it's one of those that kinda looked better in my head than it came out on my nails (and even more so in the pics). But...

Red, Black, & White Party Skittlette*

*with apologies to Marta for the name!

Hiya! I went to a party this weekend, and wore a black top with red, black, and white shoes and accessories. It was the perfect occasion to match my nails to my outfit, so...

...I did :D

The feathery thing you see me holding here is the headband I wore! It has a black band that disappears in my dark hair, so you just see the cool red feather. Très chic, in my ever-humble opinion ;)

But right, you came here for the nails! I'll just go down the list...

Index finger: China Glaze Adventure Red-y & Wet 'N Wild Black Creme, topped with NYC Matte Me Crazy. This matte is actually more of a wax-finish topcoat, and reminds me of Cult Nails Wax That.

Middle and ring fingers: Two coats of OPI My Boyfriend Scales Walls (nice off-white creme), stamped with Konad black and Bundle Monster plate BM-016. The centre of each flower has one individual glitter from Milani Jewel FX Red, except the biggest flowers, which have a small red rhinestone.

Small finger: Base of China Glaze Adventure Red-y, then several sponged coats of the aforementioned Milani red glitter. Not really sure how many coats--maybe 3?--I just went until I felt it was thoroughly covered.

Thumb: Same as the middle and ring fingers, but with Wet 'N Wild Black Creme covering half the design, just for some visual interest :)

All topcoated with KBShimmer Clearly On Top (except for the matte-ified one, of course).

I was kicking myself for not picking up the new Cult Nails Passionate Dreams collection while it was on pre-sale, because Kiss (a lovely red with a wax finish) is SO pretty. However, this NYC matte topcoat with some of my medium reds seems to mimic the effect quite well! I think the red I used here is too dark, but others I played with (Revlon Red, for example) was pretty much dead on.

The different finish of the index nail shows up well here.

One more in the sun. :)

Glitters are so hard to photograph! I wish the sparkle and glow of the small nail had come through in any of the pictures. In real life it's very dynamic and looks like Dorothy's shoes in the Wizard of Oz.

Anyway, that's all for today. As always, I hope you enjoyed this post. Thanks for reading today, and I'll see you soon! xoxo

Alphabet Challenge: T is for... Twinkly Tips

Hello my friends! Only six letters left! This has been fun :D

Today's letter is T!

BLURRY AT THIS SIZE WAT (click to enlarge)

Gradient glitter tips are so easy and fun and pretty :D And all the polishes start with T to boot!

I couldn't decide which combination I wanted to use, so I decided "ah, what the hey" and did one on each hand! Because #yolo and all that >.>

This is by far my favourite of the two hands :D

I love this combination on my right hand! The lovely bronze base colour is Soulstice Spa Tokyo, and this is two coats. I absolutely adore it, not that this is any surprise to any regular readers here who know I have a massive girlboner for Soulstice Spa.

It was just pointed out to me that it looks rather reddish in these photos. It is more true-coppery-bronze in real life.

The tips are the bottle in the shot and one of my favourite glitters, China Glaze Tinsel Town. I was able to just use the brush that came with the bottle and do a few thin coats. This polish worked really well for this look, and it feels so posh! I want to wear it as a full mani soon!

Also pretty :D

Right hand! The silver base is by Petites and is called Twilight. It's a bit thin, but this is three layers and it does look nice, if a bit too frosty to be a favourite. You could see the brushstrokes a bit more than I prefer. But overall, a good polish.

The tips are the bottle in the photo--it is Milani Twinkle. It doesn't look as blue IRL as it appears in this photo--the primary hue is violet. This is one of their "one coat glitters" (although it really needs two for full opacity). It's packed with warm purple microglitters and small cerulean-blue hexes. The purple is that colour that is famous for not photographing properly. So pretty in real life!

It also, unlike the other glitter, is impossible to use the brush for anything remotely resembling smooth application. I used a makeup sponge to build up this gradient, and it worked wonderfully. :D

Topcoated with Seche Vite and done!

Not the best pic at all, but you can actually see the purple properly, whee :D

Okie, that's all for now! I'm getting this post up late, hope anybody actually sees it >.>
See you next time! xoxo

Birthday Nails! Sprinkles & Balloons

Hiya everyone! Short and sweet post because today's my birthday! Couldn't let the day pass without a special manicure, of course. :)

festive!

Hooray! LOL. Lots of steps in this one, but nothing too complex...

Base is one coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear White On. It isn't quite opaque in one coat, but its very close, and was sufficient for what I knew I'd be putting on top of it :)

Next I added a layer of Milani #530 Gems, a rainbow-coloured glitter. (Said to be a dupe of Deborah Lippmann's Happy Birthday, so I had to use it!) At this point, it looked like this:

shiny :D

I then added a coat of OPI Don't Touch My Tutu, a super sheer white jelly that was just made for jelly sandwiches :D

Doesn't it look yummy?

Finally, I painted on the balloons with a dotting tool and some different polishes: OPI A Roll In The Hague (orange), China Glaze Starboard (green), Revlon #280 Bubbly (pink), and Orly Blue Collar (blue). Not pictured, because all the photos including it were rubbish, is Sally Hansen Insta-Dri #280 Rapid Red on the thumb.

Used black and white Stripe Rite striping polishes to add the outline and shiny details :)

The balloons covered up most of the 'sprinkles', but they still reminded me of these!

And now I'm off for more fun :) See you all next time for a new set of challenges I'll be taking on! xoxo

Peppermint Bark Nails

Good day, everyone!

Well, today it finally decided it was going to start acting like winter. It was so warm last week, but today it barely got above freezing! Brr! Do not want. But it does make wearing festive holiday manis feel that much more appropriate :D Like this one I'm showing you today. I wanted a soft look with red and green glitter, and what I ended up with was a jelly sandwich mani that looks like peppermint bark. Yummy!

omnomnom

Man, my nails are getting long.

Anyway, yeah. That lovely soft white base colour is OPI Don't Touch My Tutu!, from the same collection (NYC Ballet) as the sheer squishy pink I used in the last post. It's very sheer, and I started with three coats before I had something you could remotely detect with the naked eye (ha). I then painted one coat each of Orly Mermaid Tale (small green + larger green holo glitter) and Milani Jewel FX Red (uniform-sized red glitter). At this point, it looked like this:

Shiny! (no flash)

Shinier! (with flash)

It was pretty like this too, but I had the idea kicking around to jelly-sammich-ify it, so although I initally topcoated (Cult Nails Wicked Fast, btw) and left it for a while, I was itching to add one more coat of the sheer white, and so I did. And loved the results!

After one more coat of Wicked Fast. It was still a wee bit bumpy even after a total of 3 smooth coats over the glitters! Oh well.

Festive and Christmasy! I think I may do one more thing to these before taking them off... so expect a mini followup post if it turns out well :D xoxo

edit: I did!

Challenge Day #17: GLITTER

Hiya! Today is glitter day! In case you don't know me at all, or you didn't notice the name of this blog, I'mma tell you a little secret: I freaking love glitter. So I went a little bit nuts with this one. Definitely wanted to do some glitter over black, but I couldn't choose just one, so... I did a different glitter on each nail :D OBSERVE:

My camera decided to make my skin tone look entirely different in each pic O_o I didn't colour-correct, though, because the polishes look right. GLITTER BOMB Y'ALL! (click to enlarge)

Aww yeah :D blingy! This one was fun to wear! I started off by painting all nails black--China Glaze Liquid Leather, to be precise. I then applied the following polishes:

Left thumb: A001 New Years Kiss, from the Wet n' Wild Fergie collection - 1 coat
Left index: So Go-Diva, Orly Flash Glam collection - 1 coat
Left middle: 580 Fuchsia, Milani Jewel FX collection - 2 coats
Left ring: Mermaid Tale, Orly Flash Glam collection - 1 coat
Left pinky: Set in Stones, Essie LuxEffects collection - 1 coat

Right thumb: Be Brave, Orly Flash Glam collection - 2 coats
Right index: 531 Gold, Milani Jewel FX collection - 2 coats
Right middle: 521 Red Sparkle, Milani One Coat Glitter - 1 coat (duh)
Right ring: Stroke of Brilliance, Essie LuxEffects collection - 1 coat
Right pinky: Snow Globe, China Glaze - 3 coats

Topped off with as many coats of Seche Vite as was necessary to smooth the surface. Some took more coats than others to get rid of the grittiness. Totally worth it!

Look at that shine <3

These were SO sparkly, my camera was going crazy trying to focus on them. I'm afraid these pics don't do them justice. Few words about these... all the Flash Glam polishes are SO pretty and densely-packed, highly recommend! Especially Be Brave. Pink holographic bar glitter, whaaaaaaat? This one was just amazing in the sun, I had rainbows dancing on my thumb constantly. New Years Kiss is from an otherwise relatively unoriginal set, but I really liked the combination of silver microglitter and holographic bar glitters in one polish. Plus, the brush is perfect, and the polish itself is so dense: it only took one effortless coat to get that look! Lastly, Set in Stones is my favourite silver glitter ever, and I bought like three backup bottles because I wear it all the time.

LOOK at that rainbow action Be Brave has going on! And how blingy that gold is. And and and omg :D

Gold, Red Sparkle, Stroke of Brilliance, and Snow Globe. Indoors with flash--not a great pic, but it shows off Snow Globe pretty well, which really did look lovely over the black.

Fuchsia, Mermaid Tale, and Set in Stones. Click to enlarge and look at the tealy greeny microglittery holographic yummyness that is Mermaid Tale.

I think it's safe to say I thoroughly enjoyed these. Hated to take them off! But the challenge marches on... See you next time! xoxo

Challenge Day #1: RED nails

Challenge day 1! When I do red nails, I can't just do plain red. I always have to jazz it up somehow, I just can't leave them alone. For this, I wanted something reminiscent of Dorothy's ruby slippers in The Wizard of Oz, and I think I succeeded! I started with one coat of Orly Rock-It, which is a beautiful rich deep red--almost purplish red--with red and gold microshimmers. I should have gotten a photo of it alone, it's so stunning! Atop that I used at least 3 layers of Milani Jewel FX in 584 Red, dabbing the pieces on a bit with the last layer to get good coverage. The Jewel FX line are all clear bases with big yummy juicy shiny glitters, and this red is so mesmerising! I love the contrast with the deeper red of Rock It. On top is a nice thick layer of Seche Vite fast-dry topcoat to seal it all in and make the surface smooth.

Despite the fact that I'm all about nail art, I decided to keep this relatively simple, because let's be honest: this polish is SO super pretty, what else was needed? (Click the photos to enlarge):

*sigh* Dreamy! <3 They practically glow...

And one more pic I took at my desk at work. This one's a little silly, but hells yeah red Swingline stapler:

Yeah, I 'm gonna need you to go ahead and come in on Saturday... mmhmm.. that'd be greeeaaaat.

Annnnnd that's all for now. Stay tuned for tomorrow's post... My peeps back home will either love or hate my design for day 2, orange! xoxo