American Apparel Nebula

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! I tried looking up swatches of this particular polish before I purchased it. Could not find any. Looked again yesterday to see if anyone wore it alone to see if it could eventually be opaque, still no swatches. Can I really be the first to post about this beauty? How is that possible?

American Apparel Nebula is a clear base filled with small multicolor hex glitter. The colors include silver, yellow, orange, blue, red, green, purple, pastel turquoise, and pale pink. Very colorful and really pops over the black base. The application is perfection. The glitter spreads out nicely and covers evenly. I used one coat over two coats of black polish. Definitely a must have if you love glitter!

Zoya Marina & Stamping

I hope you are enjoying your Monday!

Zoya Marina is a strongly blue toned gray metallic. The application is good and opaque in two coats. Over Marina, I stamped on this lovely pattern with Color Club Gingerbread Man and stamping plate BM-209.

I literally forgot to add that I matted an accent finger to see how the two metallics would look matte. Every finger aside from my ring is topped with Seche Vite, while the ring is topped with Butter London Matte Finish.

OPI Mermaid Tears

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday! We are three weeks into my new-ish weekly posts, which are voted on by you. Every Wednesday I add new polishes to vote for, and on Friday I post the polish you all voted for. I'm a day behind this week. Next week's poll is already up and consists of nail art.

OPI Mermaid Tears is a dusty turquoise sea foam green creme. The application is perfection and opaque in two coats. I cannot believe it took me this long to wear this beauty. I purchased it back when the Pirates collection was still in stores. I obsessed over getting it then never wore it. I kept staring at my nails, in love with the color.

Essence Ticket to the Show & Front Row or Backstage?

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday!

Essence Ticket to the Show and Front Row or Backstage? are one of the Colour3 duos. A double ended polish. Ticket to the Show is a black jelly like creme base filled with rainbow shimmer. The shimmer was hard to capture on camera, and rather subtle. Front Row or Backstage? is a grey brown filled with gold flakes. It is the layering polish and while meant to be used over a base, I decided to showcase it on its own. The application on both is perfection. Ticket to the Show is opaque in two coats, while Front Row or Backstage? took three.

Naild'It SSSNot What You Think

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! Today I have a lovely indie polish to share with you.

Naild'It SSSNot What You Think is a green tinted base filled with three different sizes of hex glitter in pastel green, yellow, orange, red, blue, and silver. I initially wore it alone; however, I just was not wowed by it. So a few days later, I searched through my green swatches for the closest to SSSNot What You Think's base. I found one that was nearly perfect.

The first three pictures feature two coats of SSSNot What You Think over one coat of Sinful Colors Mint Apple (after one day of hard wear). The next two pictures are three coats of the indie polish on its own. The last is a close up to showcase all of the lovely glitter.

Cookies and Creme

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! Today I am revisiting a polish layering combination I did a little over a year ago. I was inspired by my favorite candy bar to do a Cookies & Creme mani. I simply layered black glitter over a milky white base, as seen in the post I did for it. This time I got a tad more creative.

I did alternating layers of Essie Marshmallow and Love & Beauty Black Knight for five layers total. Jelly, glitter, jelly, glitter, and jelly. I think it gives more depth and reminds me more of candy. 

Lynnderella I Don't Mean Rhinestones

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday! About a week ago, I posted about Lynnderella I Don't Mean Rhinestones. While I liked it, I was not overly impressed by it when worn on its own. All of the layers made it too thick. I said that I would layer it over a base color soon. And I finally did.

One coat of I Don't Mean Rhinestones over one coat of Wet n Wild Nocturnal (a blackened blue ink). I much prefer the layering versus on its own. See my previous post if you want to compare for yourself. This polish is a clear base full of holographic turquoise squares, diamonds, and hexes. They are not holographic in the traditional sense. Instead they reflect colors in the blue spectrum  Think yellow, blue, and green. Its very pretty. You see more of the individual glitter when layering. For example, I did not realize it had small square turquoise glitter until I layered it over dark blue.

Zoya Frida

I hope you are enjoying your Friday! I've started a new weekly post, with this being the second one. Every Wednesday I add new polishes to vote for, and on Friday I post the polish you all voted for.

Zoya Frida is a glossy teal jelly. It starts off very sheer and builds. This is five coats, with ICING After Party sandwiched between the fourth and fifth coats on my ring finger.

DIY Sand

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! Today I have a little DIY nail art experiment to share with you. All these liquid sand polishes coming out had me thinking about what an actual sand manicure would look like. My pack of sand for crafts was calling to me.

It looks a little more like rock candy or pop rocks than sand. But I like it! I started off with a coat of Ulta Blue Streak. Then one finger at a time, I painted on another coat and dipped my nail in blue sand. I dusted off the extra sand with a fan brush. Finally, I topped it with a matte topcoat. I wanted the sand to stay on but keep the matte finish.

I imagine finer sand or glitter would with a matte topcoat would give a more definite sand like appearance.

China Glaze Whirled Away

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! I was very excited when I saw that a mainstream brand came out with a black and white glitter. They have been extremely popular in the indie polish world. However, this particular one leaves a lot to be desired.

China Glaze Whirled Away is a clear base with black string, large hex, and white extra large hex glitter. The base is thick and the glitter is difficult to place. You do not even see only of the white glitter here because they were so hard to fish out. This is one coat and some fished out pieces over Pure Ice Super Star! and Claire's Lime Yours. If you want black and white glitter, in my opinion, you are better off going the indie route. I plan to.

Zoya Aurora

I hope you are enjoying your Saturday! I took advantage of Zoya's promo and received my order on Thursday. The sale ends on 1/13 at midnight est. You get three free and just pay $10 for shipping and handling, using promo code ZOYA2013. 

Zoya Aurora is a medium purple jelly with dense holographic glitter flakes. I cannot express how gorgeous this polish is! The application is perfection in two coats. The glitter flakes are small and flat. They do not apply like glitter or remove like glitter equaling easy application and removal. Aurora is a must have!

Lynnderella I Don't Mean Rhinestones

I hope you are enjoying your Friday! Last week, I added a feature to my blog so that you could vote for what polish you wanted to see me swatch. I plan to post them on Fridays. I will do this every week, so please vote. :)

Lynnderella I Don't Mean Rhinestones is a clear base full of holographic turquoise squares, diamonds, and hexes. They are not holographic in the traditional sense. Instead they reflect colors in the blue spectrum  Think yellow, blue, and green. The polish is gorgeous in the bottle and pretty when looking down at my nails. The application was a bit of a pain. I suppose chunky full coverage glitters tend to be. It took three coats to be opaque. Its a very pretty polish, but not really worth the price tag in my opinion. I do plan to try it over a base color to see if it will make me love it.

This is my first Lynnderella. I received it in a surprise grab bag. I have not owned one before because of the drama and difficulty to obtain them. I'm not completely sold on the hype as of now. I plan to have a post next week showing I Don't Mean Rhinestones over a base color. Maybe then I can say I get the hype.

SoFlaJo Champagne Cocktail

I hope you are enjoying your Thursday! Today I have a gorgeous indie polish to show you.

SoFlaJo Champagne Cocktail is a silver holo with scattered holo glitter. The holo effect is much stronger than it appears in my pictures. It was cloudy the entire time I wore it, and indoor pictures obviously did not do it justice. I love the addition of holo glitter! It adds a little something extra to make this polish unique. Champagne Cocktail can be alone as I did, or used as a layering top coat. It took three coats to be opaque and has a wonderful application.

Love & Beauty Pink Speckled Glitter Over Black

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! I recently saw a gorgeous manicure on Pinterest and I had to know what glitter was used. To my surprise, it was something I already owned. They had simply layered it over black.

This is one coat of Love & Beauty Pink Speckled Glitter over a black creme. Pink Speckled Glitter is a sheer pink jelly with iridescent flakies, micro, and small round glitter. All of the glitter is iridescent, not quite holo, but close. I loved it over a pink base, which you can see here, but I am just head over heels seeing it with black.

Ulta Glitter Gradient

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! I have a colorful gradient to share with you using Ulta polishes. 

Ulta Eye Popping Poppy is a red poppy jelly like creme. This is three coats to reach opacity. Pinata-Yada-Yada is a clear base filled with multicolored and multi-size hex glitter. Can you tell I love my multicolored glitters?

Blue Dusted Marshmallow

I hope you are enjoying your Monday! Today I have a little experimentation with pigment to show you. I finally bought Essie Marshmallow about a month ago and wanted to do something fun with it. Initially I thought about a glitter sandwich, but wanted something different. By now most of you have probably seen this tutorial floating around Pinterest where you place pigment at the cuticle, blow, and have gradient nails. Epic fail for my attempt. Perhaps a different pigment. But I loved the color combination, so I sprinkled the pigment on top then blew off the excess. To me, it's delicate and wintery. 

I started off with one coat of Essie Marshmallow. I added the second coat one nail at a time then sprinkled the blue pigment (after the gradient failed). The pigment is an ancient long discontinued shimmer powder from ICING by Claire's. It was part of their Attitudes line. I've literally had the powder for a decade. I have seen many pigments that look very close, a light slightly turquoise blue.

China Glaze It's a Trap-eze

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! I'm finally beginning to feel better. So, I decided to push through and post. If you're unsure what I'm talking about, see this post. 

Its a new year. I want to post more often and interact more often on Facebook and Twitter. I also decided that it would fun to have you all vote on what polish you would like to see me post about. So each week, I will choose a few from my stash and make a poll. The first one is already up on the top right of my blog.

China Glaze It's a Trap-eze is a milky white jelly filled with multicolored and multi-size hex glitter. I see white, fuchsia  green, blue, yellow, and orange glitter. The application is great and semi opaque in two coats. You could start over white for a more opaque finish. However, I prefer the jelly finish. It gives depth and has a lighter feel to it.

Zoya Tallulah - In Memorial

December was not the best month. The holidays are stressful, plus working in retail during the holidays. Then it got worse. Very early Saturday morning at midnight my grandma passed away. The visitation was last night and the funeral was this afternoon. I managed to post Sunday, but am literally pushing myself to type at the moment. 

It felt appropriate to paint my nails a color she would have liked. Blue was her favorite color. She preferred sapphire and navy blue. I do not own too many of those shades, so I compromised and chose something we both liked.

Zoya Tallulah is a medium electric blue shimmer. The shimmer in this is beautiful. Mostly blue, but occasionally green and purple. The application is perfection and opaque in two coats.