With and Without

Hey to everyone on this beautiful Friday! Next up in my journey to be up to date is this manicure from June 17, 2012. Despite this manicure being very old and my talents having grown since then, it is still one of my favorite manicures that I'm still very proud of.

I used Zoya Cho as a base, and Sally Hansen Cherry Red to freehand the French words for without (sans) and with (avec) in a medieval-type font and Sinful Colors All About Me for a splash of gold. I rather impressed myself with the dexterity I displayed on my right hand, having used my left hand of course.

There you have it, a mani that has stood the test of time for me (although I should have cleaned up my cuticles better!). 

Cheers!

xox

It has been literally forever...

...since I have posted anything! My life has just been chugging along. And now I should have a little more time to post somewhat regularly! Of course I say that but who really knows, maybe I'll fall off the face of the planet again.
In an effort to satisfy my need to have everything be in order and not miss things, I'm just going to pick up where I left off and post old manicures until I catch up to the present. As such, I'm sure I will be mortified at how less good I used to be at manicures! Oh well... posterity for posterity's sake.

This manicure is from over a year ago, June 13, 2012. I used two coats Cult Nails In a Trance with a loose black and gold glitter gradient. It reminded me of New Years when I did it... now it reminds me of a mani that looked good in my head and then I didn't like in the end. Cult Nails knows how to do a killer shimmer though!

So there you have it. The loose glitter all over the place renaissance of my blog. Cheers!

The 80's!

Okay, the mani in this post today I looooooved. I kept in on an entire week with minimal wear which, as far as I'm concerned that's like a miracle. The idea behind this came from OPI Pirouette My Whistle. The Walmart in the town where I go to school didn't have the NYC Ballet collection in for the entire time I was there, so when I came hom for the summer I finally grabbed it. I wanted to think of the perfect mani to use it for, and I wanted to do something different than what I'd seen. So, I did an edgy 80's thing instead of soft and delicate like the collection is. Here it is!

I used one coat Wet n Wild Black Crème, then did the triangles with French White Crème with Sally Hansen Frutti Petutie and WnW I Need a Refresh-Mint over, and covered it all with one coat Pirouette My Whistle. I did kind of have to place the white hex glitters, but other than that application was fine.
Can I just say one more time how much I loved this? :3

Thanks for reading!

Glass Pink and Simmer and Shimmer gradient

This post will be pretty simple. I thought that the shimmer in Sinful Colors Glass Pink would really pop under a super sparkly glitter so I paired OPI Simmer and Shimmer (from the Burlesque collection) with it. I did three coats Glass Pink and then went over the nail from the cuticle about three times with thin coats, covering less of the nail each time.

artificial light

artificial light

natural light

There wasn't as much VNL in real life... of course it showed up in the photos. :P I really loved how super shiny this combination was. So pretty!

What do you think? What's your favorite glitter gradient combo?

Framed Glitter (failicure salvaging)

Here I am... studying for my two finals tomorrow. My head is about to split open (and I just started lol) so I'm taking a break. :3

The post today is what I managed to salvage from probably my most embarrassing failicure yet. I layered Revlon Scandalous and OPI Metallic 4 Life (both of which were brand new to my collection) over China Glaze Aquadelic and Happy Go Lucky, respectively. I thought that the black jelly base would serve as a kind of shroud, making the blue and yellow dark and murky. I did NOT think they would go entirely opaque in two coats. My huge mistake! Because they did. I did not even take any pictures of what it looked like at that point... Instead, I framed my nails with Aquadelic and HGL because there was still some peeking out of the edges underneath Scandalous and M4L. I'd like to say I did a good job of rescuing it! I kind of liked the way it turned out.

Sooooooo there you have it. Loooool.

Tell me what you think! Thanks for reading :]

Cult Nails Captivating with Spoiled Shrimp on the Barbie

Since I'm such a sucker for glitter, I got Captivating during the last $5 Cult Nails sale. They did another this weekend, and I really wanted to get Hypnotizing, but I'm forcing a summer budget plan on myself. :l Hahahah. Anyway, I paired it with Shrimp on the Barbie. Here that one is alone.

Two coats Spoiled Shrimp on the Barbie natural light

Two coats Spoiled Shrimp on the Barbie direct sunlight

It's a really nice bright coral-y pink with gold glass fleck shimmer. I later realized it was pretty close to Zoya Rica when I finally got around to swatching my pinks the other day. I might do a comparison post, if I get the time.
I used this one as "underwear" for Captivating to give it some extra shimmery oomph. Here they are together. This picture hardly gives it justice... It was so much more gorgeous in real life. Maria does a really nice job.

One coat Cult Nails Captivating over two coats Spoiled Shrimp on the Barbie

What's your favorite Cult Nails polish?
Thanks for reading!

Jelly sandwich with Wet n Wild 2% Milk

So in my last post I talked about one of the Wet n Wild Megalast polishes I have. This time, I have another one, 2% Milk. This is a sheer beige jelly. Love! I don't have any of the OPI New York Ballet collection yet, but from what I've seen it kind of reminds me of that from it being a neutral jelly.
For this jelly sandwich, I layered two coats 2% Milk, one coat LA Girls Glitter Addict Uninhibited, one coat OPI Rainbow Connection, and then another of 2% Milk. LOVELOVELOVE the way this turned out.  :]
I've only got one picture because it's pretty self-explanatory...

Tell me what you think! What's your favorite jelly sandwich combo been so far that you've tried?

Mermaidesque nail art

I'm at work with all my tasks completed... what to do, what to do? Blog about nails of course :P

Today's post is mermaid themed, loosely. Picture first, then I'll ramble on about it for a while...

Index/pinky: Two coats Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost, two coats Sinful Colors Nail Junkie
Thumb/middle/ring: Two coats Zoya Cho base
Rings/sponging thumb/middle/ring: Revlon Plum Night, Zoya Faye, China Glaze Aquadelic
China Glaze Flyin' High, Wet n Wild Caribbean Frost, Revlon Gold Coin, Zoya Bevin

I USED SO MANY POLISHES! Geez, I didn't realize I had until I had to type them all up... :O

I really like the way Faye sponged onto the nail. It turned out just a really faded purple with that green-y gold sheen. Super pretty. The circle pattern is just something I usually end up doodling on the margins of all my notes in class, so I did it in colors on my nails. It was pretty time consuming. I thought it would end up looking kind of mermaid-y so I used Nail Junkie for glittery fun. Merp.

Tell me what you think! Thanks for reading :3

Franken/springtime skittle!

So as we all know, indie brands and frankens have been huuuuge in the polish world. I think it's so cool, and would love to be able to make some of my own. However, as a poor college student :P , I can't do as much as I'd like. This is one I made from mixing together probably about eight or nine different polishes. I wanted to see what it looked like over a few colors, so I did a springy skittle.

Two coats each, thumb to pinky:

China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, OPI Planks a Lot, Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet,

China Glaze Fuschia Fanatic, China Glaze Aquadelic

Then I added one coat of my franken. I clearly had to shake it up a lot, and as a result got a bunch of air bubbles that are really visible on my ring finger. :/ Oh well. Anyway, I just used about a trillion different glitters and some white and added them to what I had left of an old Revlon Extra Life No Chip Top Coat. The bottle for this top coat is matte, so it's fairly difficult to see what the franken actually looks like.
Let me know what you think!

Thanks for reading!

Cloud Mani à la Nailside

So I'm procrastinating writing this paper and in such a lame mood that I decided to post about this sunshine-y bright mani I sported a while back. I had just gotten the China Glaze mini-haul I did in the mail so I decided to use a few all at once and try out the cloud style that Nailside does so well. After a base of OPi Nail Envy, I used two coats China Glaze Aquadelic. The cloud/scalloped part is OPI Skull and Glossbones and China Glaze Happy Go Lucky, and then one coat of China Glaze Techno (which was so hard to photograph the right way in order to get the holo... of course.)

Thanks for reading!

Nail art with Spoiled Jewelry Heist

Hello everyone! Here's a mani with another Spoiled by Wet n Wild polish I picked up when it was two for $3, Jewelry Heist. I'm a sucker for glitter, and this one was DIVINE. I paired it with two colors that I thought went with the rosy pink hex glitters and the iridescent minty green square glitters, Sinful Colors Easy Going (two coats) and Sally Hansen Mint Sorbet (applied with a striping brush). I thought bringing a geometric pattern, pastel colors, and glitter all together was kind of funky. :3

Jewelry Heist applied like a dream. This is two coats over two coats of Sally Hansen Grey Area. See how glossy and shiny!? Not at alllll a hungry glitter. 

The only thing about it is I somehow managed to get a smush on my ring finger in between finishing top coating everything and taking pictures... Geeeeeez, Kalen. :P

Hope you enjoyed this mani as much as I did!

Blue Wants to Be a Millionaire

There are a lot of holo polishes out there, and I want to get my hands on all of them. Needless to say, this is quite impossible on a college student's budget. :P However, Wet n Wild never breaks the bank so I picked up Blue Wants to Be a Millionaire. It was a little sheer, so I layered it over Sinful Colors Savage to brighten it up. I wanted to see what some added holo would look like too, so I added some to my ring finger and thumb.

Sinful Colors Savage, Wet n Wild Blue Wants to Be a Millionaire, Warpaint Beauty White Noise

OPI Nail Envy, two coats Savage, two coats WWTBAM, one coat White noise ring/thumb

And of course, blurry holo is excellent. :3

Thanks for reading!

Pure Ice Rio and Sally Hansen Multi-Faceted

When I was home for spring break a couple weeks ago, I went to Walgreen's since there isn't one where I go to school and I saw this little Sally Hansen display of polishes I didn't recognize! Usually I see the previews or press releases online (since I'm always on here looking at polish, lol) but I hadn't seen any of the polishes anywhere online. I must have missed it somehow! Since my hands were already full with a small Sinful Colors haul, I only had room in my budget for one, Multi-Faceted. I decided to pair it with an untried I got a while ago, Pure Ice Rio.

The following pictures are three coats Rio and one coat Multi-Faceted.

Rio is a squishy hot pink jelly with blue shimmer. Loved how bright it was! Multi-Faceted has medium sized silver, black, and iridescent glitter.

Since I didn't layer it over a darker color, my camera was having difficulty picking up the iridescent bits on the nail. Sooo here's a bottle shot for fun!

Thanks for reading!

Purple holo glitter goodness!

It's been so long since I've posted! I'm going to try to keep up a more regular schedule, even if I'm super busy.
Today's post isn't super long, unfortunately I reall only got one kind of good shot of this mani when I was wearing it (which was actually about a month and a half ago, oops!). Here it is!

After a coat of OPI Nail Envy on all fingers, I did two coats each of OPI Planks a Lot and Color Club Sugarplum Fairy on the thumb and ring finger and then two coats each of Revlon Plum Night and Studio M Purple Medallion and Warpaint Beauty White Noise on the index, middle, and pinky. Topped it all off with Revlon Extra Life No Chip Top Coat. The only reason I added the extra holo glitter on the darker nails was because Purple Medallion is in a deeper purple jelly base, and Sugarplum Fairy isn't, so the holo ended up being a little muted. Overall, I seriously loved this mani and got a bunch of compliments on it! It was super fun to wear.

Thanks for reading!

Tiger Pride!

So, as you may know, I'm currently a college student, and I study at DePauw. I don't get a lot of time to blog, but I do sure take a lot of time doing my nails! I see it as my own personal time to myself. It's a break from the stress of being a student. However, I really do love it here and I thought a cool way to show my DePauw pride was (of course ;] ) by doing a mani!
Since our mascot is a tiger, I did tiger print and a growling mouth on my pinky and thumb. For my index finger, I did a kind of university block letter D. I attempted to recreate the silhouette of a building on campus on the newer logo that they've been using on my middle finger. This took a really long time, and I know I could have perfected it even further, but I'm pretty pleased with the way it turned out. Finally, no mani is entirely complete without glitter, so I used a fine silver glitter polish underneath a chunky gold and  small/medium black glitter on my ring finger. And now on to the mani! :]

And for reference, here's a picture of the logo. 

Polishes used: Sinful Colors Snow Me White, Black on Black, Pull Over, Vacation Time, Pure Ice Beware, China Glaze Cross Iron 360, LA Girl Glitter Addict Uninhibited, and then a random chunky gold glitter from PacSun :P

Let me know what you guys think! :]

Julep Leighton and China Glaze Marry a Millionaire

Soooooo for this post I've got two gorgeous polishes that aren't new, but new to me using them! Hahaha. I've had them for a while and decided to use them both since I hadn't before.

After a base of OPI Nail Envy, I used two coats of Julep Leighton. This is a beautiful silver chrome that applied very nicely, despite the brushstrokes which I can overlook because of the awesome finish of this polish.

Then I added China Glaze Marry a Millionaire in a gradient starting from my cuticle. It was like beauty flowing off the brush. I absolutely love this glitter! It was a little difficult to photograph, though, and get all the colors in. Removal was also kind of difficult, but oh well because it's so beautiful.

Thanks for reading! <3