Autumn Leopard

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! Thanksgiving is almost here! For those who celebrate, I hope you have a wonderful day. Hopefully it will involve the people that you love and yummy food.

Today I have a fun nail art design to share with you. Leopard print!

I have honestly never been a big fan of leopard print. But I kept seeing so many pretty nail designs involving the print, so I finally decided to give it a try. This design could not have been easier to create. So simple! I'm still on the fence as to whether I love it yet or not, but it is growing on me.

Since we are well into Autumn, I decided to use colors fitting the season. Essie Head Mistress, Finger Paints Figure of Art, and Love My Nails Black Rage. I'm rather found of the colors; I just wish red didn't turn my skin pink during cleanup.

Head Mistress is part of the Essie Stylenomics Collection and retails for $8. Finger Paints retail for $5.29 at Sally Beauty Supply. Love My Nails retails for $1 at Bari Cosmetics.

Born Pretty Store Dried Flowers Manicure and Review

I hope you are enjoying your Wednesday! I was contacted by Daisy from the Born Pretty Store to review a product for them. I chose the dried flowers. I have been dying to try dried flowers in a manicure for a long time.

Each order contains twelve different flowers, each in small plastic containers. The quantities vary slightly; however, there should be at least five of the small flowers and two of the large cluster flowers. Plenty to do more than one manicure.

I decided on pairing the large yellow cluster flower with Finger Paints Where Art Renoir?. The yellow really pops against the black backdrop. The flowers are very easy to apply, much easier than I expected. They are also sturdier than I anticipated, so I had no issues with crumbling.

I went with accent fingers since this was my first experience with dried flowers. After painting my nails and letting them dry, I used tweezers to pick up one of the flowers. It was large enough to use for two fingers, so I carefully cut it in half through the middle. Each half stayed intact. I painted on a thin coat of clear polish before placing a flower half on my nail. They were easy to press down. I let it set for a minute before adding one coat of top coat. Once that was completely dry, I added another coat to make it smoother.

Application was easy and the flowers stay on very well after top coat. I took a shower, washed my hands several times, and went to work without them budging at all. If you love dried flowers or want to try them, you will definitely enjoy using these.

Dried Flowers (Item ID: 129) retail for $6.08 at Born Pretty Store, and they offer free shipping worldwide.

Daisy even gave me a code to share with all of you for 5% off your purchase. AHL91

Mattified Flakies

I hope you are having a great Thursday! I'm quite behind on getting posts up. Things have been hectic. I'm trying to prepare for a trip next week. I had planned to post about this particular manicure Tuesday, but time got away from me.

I love mattified flakies! I started with two coats of Milani Fresh Teal, a teal blue neon. Then I added one coat of Finger Paints Asylum, a clear base with glitter flakes that shift red, blue, orange, yellow, green and purple. A final coat of Hard Candy Matte-ly in Love gave the flakies a fun finish.

Milani retails for $3-5 at various stores (a list can be found on their website) and sites. 

Asylum is part of the Finger Paints Special Effects Collection. The collection has been discontinued and while bottles can be found online, the prices are generally marked up quite high sadly. Hard Candy retails for $4 at Walmart.

Rainbow Favorites Day 3 - Yellow

I hope you're enjoying your Tuesday! I have another part of the rainbow challenge to share with you. Just like the last two days, I debated over two polishes before I chose one. Its hard to pick just one.

Finger Paints Psychedelic Sunshine is a yellow jelly packed full of holo micro glitter. Its rather sheer, even for a jelly. Normally I would use a matching base coat, but decided to just wear it alone this time. If you want to see what it looks like with a yellow base coat, you can check out my original post here. The application is good, once thinned a little. What you see above is two coats. 

Psychedelic Sunshine is from Finger Paints Summer 2011 Peace, Love and Color Collection. It is not available at Sally Beauty Supply anymore, so if you love yellow and are lucky enough to see a bottle, snag this beauty.

If you want to see what other polishes the other lovely bloggers are choosing, check them out. :)

~on beauty stuff and what else’s...~

9ml Universe

atlcatsmeow

Captivating Claws

Fancy Phalanges

Fe’s Nails

Football and Fingernails

Fresh Air & Fashion

Happy Nails

Kelly’s Kolors!

Lacquer Dreams

Lacquer or Leave Her!

Liesl Loves Pretty Things

Light Your Nails!

Manicurity

My Life in Polish

Nail Polish Lane

Nailpolish is Alive

Nubbin Nails

Of Color n Music...

Passion for Polish

Polish and Such

Sincerely, Obsessed With Polish

So You Think You Can Paint

The Rantings of a Nailpolish Hoarder

Everything Blue

I hope you are enjoying your Sunday! Today, I have a layering combination to show you with nothing but blue polishes.

I am really enjoying wearing this combo! I started off with two coats of Ulta Mint Condition. Next, I did a layer of Finger Paints Motley. You can see some of the flakies peeking out behind the crackle. Finally, I did a coat of Funky Fingers Teal Scales. It is a gorgeous crackle with tons of shimmer. The application on all of these is wonderful.

Ulta Nail Lacquer retails for $6 at Ulta. Motley is part of the Finger Paints Special Effects Collection and retails for $5 exclusive at Sally Beauty Supply. Most stores are sold out (given it is Limited Edition)  though some sites online will have them. Funky Fingers Crackle retails for $4 at Five Below.

Finger Paints Hipnotic

I hope you're enjoying your Friday! Sorry that I have been absent from posting for two days. It has been a crazy week. I helped a friend move across state Monday through Wednesday. Plus, I interviewed for a job yesterday and started it today. So very hectic.

On to the polish! :) I am in love with the idea of magnetic polish. I prefer the richer and lighter colors, so when I see them, I snatch them up. I have a very pretty berry red to show you today.

Finger Paints Hipnotic is a lovely shimmering berry red. The application was great. I did one coat on each nail. Then doing one nail at a time, I did a generous coat and held the magnet over the top. The cap comes off so doing this is very easy. Holding the magnet for thirty seconds is best. It gives the polish time to dry slightly so that the pattern stays. All of the magnetic have a wave pattern.

If anyone has seen the Color Club Magnetic polishes, all four Finger Paints magnetics are dupes are four of the six Color Clubs. The bottles are exactly the same, as are the names.

Finger Paints Magnetics are limited edition and retail for $7 ($6.30 with your Beauty Club Card) at Sally Beauty Supply.

Mermaid Mani

Its Stamping Sunday! And April Fools! Since its April Fools Day, the theme is non-stamping. I did a flakie bomb, that ended up reminding me of a mermaid's tail.

Two coats of L.A. Colors Sea Siren then five different flakie polishes, one coat each. Finger Paints Motley, Essie Shine of the Times, Finger Paints Asylum, Flecked, and Twisted. All layered in that order. The application on all of these is amazing.

L.A. Colors retail for around $1 and can be found at most Dollar stores. Shine of the Times is part of the Essie Luxeffects Collection and retails for $8 at Walgreens, Walmart, Target, Ulta, and several other stores. Motley, Asylum, Flecked and Twisted are part of the Finger Paints Special Effects Collection and retail for $5 exclusive at Sally Beauty Supply. Most stores are sold out though some sites online will have them.

Girly Girl Nail Art Challenge Day 7 - Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice

I hope you are enjoying your Tuesday! I have another design for the Girly Girl Nail Challenge for you today. This challenge lasts a month and includes eight different days of nail art. Instead of trying to keep up with a new nail design each day, we have two each week. Day Seven is Sugar, Spice, and Everything Nice: That's what little girls are made of! Show off your sweet (or spicy) inspired nails.

I took the theme a bit literal. Sugar on my index finger with Bon Bons 1060 and Sinful Colors Pinky Glitter, both two coats. Spice on my middle finger with two coats of Julep Demi. Everything Nice on my ring finger with Finger Paints Easel Come, Easel Go and Ulta Glitter Top Coat, both two coats. On my pinky, I combined Sugar and Spice with 1060 and Demi. Every girl is a combination of them after all. :)

Ulta Nail Lacquer retails for $6 at Ulta. Bon Bons retail for $1 at Walmart and Bari Cosmetics. Sinful Colors retail for $2 at Walgreens (online/in store) and Target (in store). They're also available for $2.50 at Cherry Culture. Julep retails for $14 at Julep. Finger Paints retail for $5 at Sally Beauty Supply.

Please check out the other lovely bloggers participating in this challenge. :)

Amanda of Nox Nails
Amanda of Berry Polished
Ashley of Smashley Sparkles

Bethany of  A Plethora of Nails
ChiChi of I'm just me...ChiChi
CR of Color Me Silly

Danielle of Polish. Glitter. Rock & Roll
Elly of Polishable

Emily of TheLacquerologist

Eugenia of Talon-ted

Jess of LuvMyLacquer

Jodi of CaptivatingClaws

Johanna of Neues vom Kellerkind

Kate of This Charming Kate

Kelly of Devilish Polish

Lindsey of Neverland Nail Blog
Lizzy of The Do It Yourself Lady

Olivia of Unprofessional Nails
Robin, Erin, and Anna of Polished Cousins

Sarah of See Sarah Swatch

Stephanie of A Little Polish
Tressa of O' Natur Nail

Finger Paints Twisted

The Finger Paints Special Effects Collection had many of us watching the Sally's Beauty Supply nail aisle waiting for them to hit the shelves the first of January. My first visit I was only able to find Flecked and Asylum. Eventually, Motley joined my collection as well. But Twisted seemed to have disappeared from the display with no hope of restocking. It wasn't until this month that a very lovely woman from PAA named Karine offered to pick up bottles since a store near her was well stocked. Twisted was finally mine!

I'm sure most everyone has heard of or owns this collection by now, but if you haven't... The Special Effects Collection contains five flakie polishes. Twisted, Asylum, Flecked, Motley, and Flashy. All of them are just gorgeous! You may have noticed I only talked about owning four of the five. Flashy is a dupe for Essie Shine of the Times, so since I owned the latter, I saw no point in tracking down the other.

On to the pictures!

I did a bit of layering to give this the depth I wanted. I did a layer of L.A. Colors Nuclear Energy, Finger Paints Twisted, Nuclear Energy again, and Twisted again. Nuclear Energy is a sheer purple jelly, so it allows you to see the flakies that are suspended between polish layers. Both polishes apply very well. Twisted has a nice amount of flakies in one coat and they spread out evenly. It is my favorite out of the Special Effects Collection. There is literally every color of the rainbow packed into this polish.

L.A. Colors retail for around $1 and can be found at most Dollar stores. The polishes from Finger Paints Special Effects Collection, if found in store, will be at Sally's Beauty Supply and retail for $5.49 (less if you have a Sally's card). There are some for sale online from different sites if you look around.