Red, White, and Blue Glitter Art

Here's my first 4th of July Manicure! This one is done using red, white, and blue hex glitter on a white base. I picked up the glitter from a craft store and placed them one at a time onto my nails.

I'm quite happy with the finished product! It takes a lot of patience to place each glitter so I got impatient and wasn't very careful about glitter placement near the end. It really doesn't matter though because it looks great.

The white glitter on white base disappeared in the pictures, but it looked awesome in person.

Do you have any patriotic / red, white, and blue  manis planned?

Sally Hansen Magnetic Red-y response

Found another mani photo from a while back!

Although I'm not huge on the whole magnetic craze, I have to admit that they are fun. it's an easy mani to do when you want something fun and fast. I picked up a bottle of the Sally Hansen magnetic polish when I saw it in my local drug store for around $9. A little pricey, but these specialty polishes tend to be. The color is Red-y Response, a metallic-looking magenta. On the nails the color lightens a bit and it looks a bit more purple than red while the stripes darken to almost black.

I used the Sally Hansen magnet for all but my ring finger which is the star magnet from China Glaze Magnetix. I used one thin coat of the polish on my nails and let it dry, then another normal coat of polish and the magnet one nail at a time. I held the magnet over my nails for around 1 minute while I waited for the polish to dry, because this seems to give me the strongest magnetic image. Once it was completely dry I used my Seche Vite fast dry top coat to make it super shiny.

If you haven't used a magnetic polish yourself I recommend picking one of these up. They are red-ily available (pun intended) and look very interesting. The stripes are more analogous to a catseye bead stone than just a plain stripe and the lines shift a bit when you tilt your fingers.

Bad Nail Day?

I wanted to take a moment to apologize for being so lax about posting, present my excuses, then bribe you with the promise of prizes!

I had big plans this last week/weekend for swatching more of my China Glaze summer collection, Zoya Order, Cult Nails order etc... before I had a nail mishap. When I broke off my thumb nail I was faced with a decision, and in the end I decided it would bother me if my nails were all different lengths so my nails went down to nubbins. I've since come to realize that I hate my nails this short and rounded (especially the broken thumb nail) and I just can't bring myself to photograph my nails. For a few days I was conservatively using up some stockpiled images but I've got nothing left.

So here are my plans for the future:

• 4th of July Red White and Blue Manicures (including several indies: Paris Sparkles Election Day, Darling Diva Polish Anita, Elemental Styles limited edition U.S. A-mericium and nail art)
• Swatches and comparisons between all of the lovely pinks from CG Summer neons
• Cult Nails Seduction, Time Traveler, Enticing, Let Me Fly and Evil Queen
• Comparisons between Cult Nails Evil Queen and similar reds (I have 4 candidates sitting on my desk)
• Zoya Anaka and Alegra Comparison (dark pinks)
• My base coat opinions/review

I've also started picking up prizes for my 100 follower giveaway (I love giveaways so it's fun to plan ahead.. 24 followers left). Currently in the giveaway pile: OPI DS holographic, Max Factor Fantasy Fire, a full collection of Sally Hansen polishes (I think there's 10 of them), and a set of 25 MASH stamping plates plus scraper and stamp (for the beginner stamper or the experienced stamper who needs another set!). 

Teal Franken Polish

Here's a polish I frankened. I don't particularly like how it turned out and I might not be keeping this one around. The tiny flecks are very pretty but the color is just meh. The formula wasn't my best, very sheer, but fast drying.

Do you ever just get the desire to try making something yourself? Have you come up with a franken polish that you absolutely love?

China Glaze Red Curl Girl

Oh how I love red polish.. are you sick of seeing it yet? I've got some other polish sitting around ready to be swatched but haven't had a chance to do it yet! But since I wear red about 50% of the time I have a bunch of red swatches saved up that I will now torture you with. I'm sure I can find something else, but you're not sick of it yet right?

This is China Glaze Red Curl Girl. It was released as part of a surf-themed collection if I remember correctly. It's a bright cherry red with fuchsia and red glass flecks. It's pretty... but very bright! This one might be a bit too RED for me to wear as a mani. I might reserve this one for the perfect pedi color. I find that the China Glaze glass flecks last FOREVER as a pedicure. It's wonderful for this girl who is too lazy to paint my toes that often (no one sees them most of the time!). I made the mistake of using neons on my toes the last time.. awesome look... wear-time=zero... pedi=fail.

CG Red Curl Girl Shade:

CG Red Curl Girl Sun:

But anyway, isn't this just a splendid color? Imagine it on your toes sitting on the beach with a nice tan sitting in the sand, drink in hand... I apologize for the imagery for any of you in the southern hemisphere. 

Dollish Polish Lipstick Around Your Dipstick Swatch

Here's another color I picked up from the Dolly Does Polish collection from Dollish Polish. This is Lipstick Around Your Dipstick, a very pretty bright coral-toned red with tiny silvery flecks. This is a truly stunning polish and my photos don't do it justice, it looks much brighter in real life. The names from this collection all make me laugh. The third color I picked up was A Bad Case Of The Blueballs which I have yet to photograph although I wore it as a base under Whimsical Ideas By Pam's Saturday Morning Cartoons.

The formula was fantastic, two coats and it was opaque, but I used a third to get it good and opaque. I really like this color and have worn it several times already. (This is an old photo from a couple of weeks ago when my nails were shorter and my cuticles were a mess. It was tough getting them to look decent enough for a photo!)

Sun: (well.. it was a bit overcast)

shade:

with flash:

A Month Late: June Julep Maven Box

June's It Girl Maven box came with three gorgeous colors this month. The theme is 'Be Bold' so all three of these are right up my alley and I'm quite happy with them.

The box also came with a lip balm and pixie sticks (which I surprised myself by eating). Because this was only my second Maven box they also included a gift voucher for a free polish that I gave to my mother because she loves Julep polish.

Since I love all three colors, this box seemed to be doomed... First of all I had a problem with Sandra. For some reason my bottle of Sandra bubbled horribly. I read other blog reviews of Sandra and no one mentioned the problem so I tried using every combination of base coat and top coat, then I tried it without any base coat and still... more bubbles than I could stand! I used thin coats or thick coats, I waited two hours for the thinnest coat possible to dry and it still bubbled! In the end I emailed the Julep Maven program about Sandra. They hadn't had any other problems with Sandra bubbling, and sent me a new bottle that arrived within three days. I haven't had a single problem with the new bottle!

Then before I could even get the polish into my storage container, I dropped Sasha and the neck of the bottle cracked off. I caught it as soon as it broke but still lost quite a bit of polish.. Luckily for me it broke on a  dvd case sitting on the floor rather than the carpet! Sasha now resides in one of my mini 5 oz bottles I have for frankening. 

Then there was Morgan, a gorgeous vivid purple frost/shimmer. It has brush strokes like a frost, but if you are careful it's hardly noticeable and looks more like a pretty shimmer.  The depth of this purple was amazing, and I didn't have any issues with bubbling. This is two coats and SV topcoat.

I've got... nothing!

Hi everyone!

I'm afraid I don't have any swatches or fun manicures to show you today. My camera spent the day out on the boat with me and smells like dead mackerel... I can't quite bring myself to touch it now that I'm clean!

I've also been feeling particularly uninspired with my nails... so check out my stash and let me know if there's anything you'd like to see swatched/stamped!

Nails inc Porchester Place

Sadly I'm not feeling particularly wordy tonight so I'll mostly let the pictures speak for themselves.

Nails Inc. Porchester Place.

Formula: excellent; 2 coats, dried fast

Dries a little darker than bottle color, but still a creamy tangerine orange.

Red Checker Nail Art!

Here's a mani that I did for fun when plain red got boring after a couple of days. I started with China Glaze Red Stallion, taped it off in squares (slightly lopsided squares, but it really doesn't matter) and used one thick coat of Zoya Trixie for the silver.

I really like how this turned out. It kind of reminds me of a medieval knight's shield with the red and sliver checkers. It would be really fun to wear to a Medieval Times restaurant or a similar event. 

Edit: August 5, 2012. I was looking through old posts on Lucy's Stash and found the manicure that must have subconsciously inspired this mani! I didn't even realize it!! I just wanted to give credit where it's due so go check out the mani on Lucy's Stash. She even has a tutorial!

Another Water Marble Fail..

I love water marbling every time I see what someone else has done. It always looks so pretty, unique, and interesting. Unfortunately I am a complete and utter failure at water marbling. I think it comes down to being a perfectionist, and no matter how you try every nail will not be identical. Then there's bubbling, making messes, and clean up.. and I don't try this technique very often. My left hand was awful, so here I'm showing you my right!

Here is the one nail that I am proud of, which just so happened to be the first nail I tried... giving me false hope for the future.

I used the Essie Poppy-Razzi collection for the water marble, and Sally Hansen Rapid Dri Whirlwind white as my base color. It was much brighter in person, but neons are so hard to photograph..

Here is the water marble with the shirt I was trying to match!

Do you water marble? Or like me do you attempt water marbling but never actually wear it as a full mani?

China Glaze Red Stallion

Sorry I don't have much to say! Life has been crazy busy and I haven't been able to post.

CG Red Stallion is a gorgeous medium cherry red shimmer. It is more of an orange toned red because the shimmer has a yellowish tone to it. It's a gorgeous polish and has an almost metallic finish. I love this color and use it as a go-to polish frequently when I'm busy as it only requires one coat! Photos below are two coats and top coat. (Brush strokes are a little visible in the pictures, which is strange because they never are in real life, trust me I've worn this color 7-8 times!)

Pretty and Polished Jawbreaker

Jawbreaker is a sheer white creme loaded with glitter of all different colors and sizes. There's tiny purple, bigger red, yellow, and blue glitter. The glitter is a mix of circular, mini hexagons, big hexagons, big squares and tiny bar glitter. The effect of the glitter is that the polish looks exactly like its namesake: the jawbreaker candy from childhood.

(I never ate jawbreakers as a child but I remember that my friends did. Something about the drooling all over the place while attempting to eat a candy larger than my mouth never sounded appealing.)

When I say that it is a sheer white cream, I don't mean sheer, the polish was opaque in two coats, but the color is sheer enough that the glitter is clearly visible, like the perfect jelly sandwich.

I really like this polish. The color isn't stark white, it has a soft look to it. Although I didn't manage to get any of the big red squares on my nails, but I still love the way it looks. It really reminds me of jawbreaker candy, and it's so fun to look at!

As you can tell I just couldn't get enough pictures of this one...

Pretty and Polished is available on Etsy and retail for around $8.50.

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y Swatch

OPI Do You Think I'm Tex-y is a fun berry-pink jelly. It's a bit sheer and slow drying (like many jellies) but pigmented enough to have no visible nail line. I used this a few weeks ago so I can't remember how many coats were necessary... three sounds about right.

I really liked this color but the dry time was slow enough to be annoying. Pinks are great go-to colors when I don't have enough time to do any fun art or layering, but the dry time doesn't make this one a good go-to color for me. I think I smudged my right hand before it could dry (even with Seche Vite) so I didn't end up wearing this as a mani. Hate the dry time but I love the jelly finish and I love the color! :(

Deborah Lippmann Footloose

Just a fast swatch today since I've been so busy! This is Deborah Lippmann's Footloose with Deborah Lippmann Happy Birthday on the accent finger.

Footloose is from the DL collection "Footloose" released elusively by HSN in conjunction with the release of the Footloose movie (did I mention footloose? lol). I picked this beauty up in a duo with Almost Paradise for just $10 when it went on clearance! Such good fortune!

Footloose is a delicious rich tomato red creme, or a yellow-toned red creme. The formula was fantastic and flowed onto my nail with two effortless coats. Shiny even without top coat!

Happy Birthday is the original multicolored glitterbomb. It's definitely a classic to any DL lovers. It was really hard to photograph because it was just too sparkly for my camera!

Sun:

Shade:

Giveaway Winners!

Congratulations to the winners! I have emailed the two winners and they have 48 hours to respond via email. After that time new winners will be chosen.

Thank you to everyone who entered my giveaway and I appreciate each and every one of my new followers! If you have any suggestions for the blog (or want to see any of the polishes in my stash) send me an email at Polishetc (at) gmail.com.

I'm already thinking of ideas for my 100 follower giveaway which will have three awesome prizes! If there's anything you'd like to see in a giveaway let me know and I'll see if I can get my hands on it!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sally Hansen Loves Me Not Swatch and Review

If you've stayed tuned today for my vampy colors posts thanks! I appreciate it!

Last up is Sally Hansen Salon Manicure Loves Me Not (in case you are sick of reds). This is a black base with tons of duochrome micro-glitter. The glitter shifts from a light lilac purple to an almost dark navy blue. It really is quite stunning in person, since the color shift is fairly obvious. Even though the base is black the polish looks dark purple because of the abundance of glitter. It's a really cool color, and I was surprised to find something so unique in my local Walgreens.

The formula was fantastic, I hardly needed any cleanup. The best part? You're looking at a whopping one coat. There's no bare patches whatsoever and no, it isn't a thick coat, just one simple normal coat of polish and the mani looks perfect!

fluorescent lighting:

I don't normally wear colors this dark, especially in summer, how about you? This is one that I will be rocking on my toes come fall!

Wonder Beauty Edward's Kiss Swatch and Review

In celebration of my favorite TV show returning for the 5th season later tonight (Sunday 9pm) I sponsored a giveaway of some great vampy colors. Today is your last chance to enter my giveaway!

In addition to the end of my giveaway at midnight tonight I've got a bunch of great vampy swatches to show you today.


I want to preface this review by saying that I've heard a lot of mixed reviews regarding Wonder Beauty Products with regards to their customer service. I did not have any technical problems with my order so this is a review of the product--the nail polish--nothing more.

My order came packaged in a cute little black bag and contained the nail polish in a cute little jar along with a mixing stick and the "liquid fusion" top coat.

Edward's Kiss according to the product description is supposed to look like blood and is a "Deep blackened blood plum red embellished with fine red garnet glitter dust." 

The mixing stick was definitely necessary. You can see below that the glitter settled to the bottom of the jar, and the pigments did too. When I was stirring the jar I really was reminded of blood the way the pigments swirl together. 

The smell was a bit strong, but not horribly unpleasant. The formula was pretty nice; I used three coats in the swatches below but topped it with my fast-drying Seche Vite rather than the Liquid Fusion top coat (which has become a great top coat for smoothing out glitter polishes before I use SV).

Overall I'm very happy with the color. I've been looking for the perfect "blood red" for a long time, and while this isn't my perfect red I've been searching for it's a very pretty color that I will be wearing again. The wear on this polish was incredible, it resisted tip wear and major chips for 3 days.

Wonder Beauty Products can be purchased in a jar or in a bottle from Wonder Beauty Products on Etsy and retail for $10. (I don't see this one available at the moment, but there are some polishes available). I purchased this polish when the bottle option wasn't available and paid $8.75.

I'm just so in love with indie polish that I'll try anything once. I haven't had any horrible experiences yet. Do you buy polish from Etsy?