St. Patrick's Day Shamrock Mani!

Do you ever have an idea for nail art that just doesn't translate well from your imagination to your nails? This was one of those manis for me. I think it turned out okay in the end, but it was a struggle every step of the way! For a St. Patrick's Day Mani I had the idea to do a rufian mani with a yellow base, green on top, and a shamrock on each nail. Clearly that isn't what I ended up with!

What you see here is a half-moon manicure with a base of Manglaze Nawsome Sauce. The yellow is one coat of Cult Nails Tempest (white base to cover the green) and two coats of Cult Nails Feel Me Up. I then added the awesome shamrocks compliments of Make It Stick nail decals. 

I wish I had either used less polish layers or waited longer for them to dry since the polish was very thick on the tips of my nails, and a bit uneven. I used Seche Vite to try to speed the drying time, then ended up with a matte top coat so smooth out the bumps.

The shamrocks are from Make It Stick (set of 50 available on Etsy for $5) were absolutely perfect for this mani! They're so much easier than getting out all of my stamping supplies (I'm not even positive that I have a shamrock on any of my stamping plates either). They are thin flexible vinyl decals with a sticky backing. They come on a small sheet similar to stickers. I simply peeled them off and placed them carefully in the center of my nails using my fingers, but tweezers can also be used to handle the decals. These can be placed on wet or dry polish, and if you use them on dry polish they can be re-positioned before you add top coat.

Overall not a failure, but certainly not my best work! What do you think? Do you have anything planned for St. Patrick's day?

*product(s) in this post provided to me for review.*

Color Club Holo Hues 2013 Swatches and Comparisons!

Today I have the entire 2013 Color Club Holo Hues Collection to share with you! These are some gorgeous linear holos, so the post is fairly picture heavy (if the pictures are loading slowly, wait it out, it's totally worth it).

In each set of photos the first one is with diffuse light and the rest are with direct light (my daylight bulb). I've also compared each of the colors with everything similar in my stash, I don't have every holo on the market but I had a few to compare!

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Kismet is a yellow-toned green (I'd call it chartreuse) holo, and completely unique in my collection.

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Cosmic Fate is a copper holo. It's a bit of a nude-toned holo on me, but beautiful. I have nothing in my collection like this!

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Miss Bliss is a bright pink holo.

Pink Comparison

The Jade is extremely different than either of the Color Clubs here, it's a hot pink jelly based holo. Halo-Graphic and Miss Bliss are very similar but Halo-graphic is a dustier and less vivid than Miss Bliss. Halo-graphic is also a bit more sheer, I needed three coats to equal the two coats of Miss Bliss. Miss Bliss is my favorite of the two.

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Eternal Beauty is a bright violet purple holo.

Is it weird to say that there's almost a different smell to this one? Something about it smells a bit different than the rest of the collection and I just can't put my finger on it.

Purple Comparison

Direct light:

Diffuse light:

Jade Fascino Violeta has a jelly base while Eternal Beauty is more of a chalky holo (jelly bases tend to wear better). The Jade is also a touch more red-toned than Eternal Beauty. I don't *think* Jade is 3-free (it doesn't smell 3-free but I could be wrong). I like both of these for different reasons, and I'm happy to own both, but some people might be happy with just one.

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Over The Moon is a beautiful sky blue holo.

Blue Comparison

No dupes here! Roger That is still the perfect blue for my skintone, but it's not a very strong holo compared to the Color Club holos. Over The Moon is the winner here!

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Beyond is a beautiful black (well, charcoal grey) holo.

Black Comparison

Direct light:

Diffuse light:

Beyond is a bit more blue-grey toned than Jade Magia which is more black. The holo in Magia isn't as strong and linear. Next to Beyond Magia looks like a scattered holo, although it usually seems quite linear. Unless you really like black holos, you probably don't need both of these.

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The formula on all of the Color Club Holo Hues is fantastic. Beyond was a bit thicker than the rest but still very manageable. As with all holos I did not wear top or base coat. They are all opaque in 2 coats. (You are seeing two or three coats for all of the photographs although they were perfectly opaque in two. I just have a rough spot on one of my nails I was trying to cover up since I couldn't use my normal smoothing base coat.) The formula was also incredibly easy to control, I didn't do any clean up before taking these pictures.

I love this collection just as much as last year's Holo Hues. Color Club is really producing some fantastic polishes, first they introduced incredible strong holos, and with this collection they've added more pigment to produce bright unique colors. The colors are a lot more unique, and a bit more vivid without sacrificing any of the holo intensity. My must haves for this collection are Eternal Beauty, Beyond, and Cosmic Fate, although Kismet is unique to my collection as well. I like Over the Moon and Miss Bliss better than the pinks or blue from the 2012 collection, but I love them all!

College Football Nail Art!

Bonus post! I'm still doing the 31 day (or is it 30 day, I'm not exactly sure anymore..) nail art challenge, but I've got some other fun things to share, so I hope you guys don't mind. :)

As I'm sure everyone has realized, college football season has kicked off. Last week, before I started the challenge, I was inspired to do some college football themed nail art. I'm currently living in South Carolina, but I was born and raised in the lower peninsula of Michigan. I'm a Michigan girl through and through, although not a huge football fan unless I'm actually at the game.

If you're familiar with Michigan college football, you probably know about the rivalry between Michigan State University and the University of Michigan (also known as State and Michigan/UofM respectively). I've never really chosen a side in this particular rivalry, and I have close friends who go to both State and to Michigan, so I decided to do manicures featuring both universities!

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First up: Michigan State Nail Art.
Colors: Dark (forrest-like) Green and White
Mascot: Spartans

I free-handed all of the designs on this one with a small paintbrush. The S didn't turn out very well, but I love the spartan helmet! The Football is textured and was all free-handed as well. Polishes used: China Glaze Holly Day, Essie Very Structured, Zoya Coco, and Sinful Colors white (the small square nail art bottle).

State Football Nail Art

State Football Nail Art

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University of Michigan nail art

Colors: azure blue and maize (dark blue and yellow)

Mascot: Wolverines

For this one I took the easy route and used China Glaze Sun-kissed and China Glaze Splish Splash. These colors were a little bit bright, but I loved the look anyway. This is exactly the kind of manicure I can see myself wearing to a UofM football game, bright and flashy! The football was done with: Essie Very Structured, Zoya Coco, and Sinful Colors white.

Michigan Football Nail Art

Michigan Football Nail Art

What do you think? This was a lot of fun to do! I especially loved making the little footballs which even had the perfect texture for a football. If anyone is interested in a tutorial for how I did the footballs just comment and let me know!

Yellow Funky French

I did something a little bit different for me today: this is a funky french with China Glaze Sun-Kissed and China Glaze Orange You Hot? from the summer 2012 neon collection. I can't believe both of these sat in my untrieds for so long. Sun-Kissed is a bright neon yellow shimmer and it practically glows its so neon! I used two coats here and still had visible nail line (but I didn't add another coat since I was going to do the french tip). I also used two coats of Orange You Hot? for the tips, and this one was nice and opaque. Orange You Hot? is a nice tangerine-hued orange shimmer.

China Glaze Sun-Kissed and Orange You Hot?

More photos after the break!

Aqua Daisy Summer Collection Swatches and Review

I couldn't decide which colors I liked the most from Aqua Daisy's summer collection, so I got them all!

Swatches after the jump!

Dollish Polish Check Out Those Sweaterpuffs!

Hey y'all

Sorry that I haven't posted in the last two days. Life got a little crazy after I PASSED my huge exam! It feels so great to be able to say that.

I thought today that I would show you my new favorite pink, China Glaze Ahoy! I wore it for the 3 days prior to my exam while studying, then added another coat the day of my exam, and had the perfect manicure for exam day. Somehow I've managed to wear Ahoy four different times without taking a single decent picture!

So instead tonight I want to show you a polish from Dollish Polish. This is from her newest collection: Dolly DOES Polish. If you aren't familier with it, I'll warn you that it is riddled with inuendos and some pretty dirty minded slang.

This is Check Out Those Sweaterpuffs! The color is described as "creamsicle Orange with copper glass fleck shimmer" which is a perfect description of a beautiful polish. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed when I saw that the newest Dollish Polish collection was just colors, no fun glitter or crazy combinations. With the release of the minis I decided to give it a try. I picked up there colors and I LOVE them all. These aren't plain colors they are gorgeous flecked beauties. They sparkle and shine and are absolutely spectacular. Props to Dollish Polish for coming up with an indie collection unique for how normal and wearable the colors are. They are bright and perfect for summer. I'm kicking myself for not checking out with the whole collection (9 shades).

Sun:

Shade:

Dollish Polish is available from dollishpolish.com  polish is available in both mini bottles and full size bottles, however stay tuned to Dollish Polish on Facebook for news about the next sale.

NVL Sunny Floam Swatches

NVL Floam is one of the most popular new indie polishes I've seen, in fact, so popular that many polish makers are jumping on the matte glitter bandwagon. Although I didn't pick up floam from Nail-Venturous, I did manage to get my hands on Sunny Floam and Pinkerbell (more on that later).

Sunny Floam is very bright and pretty, it has a clear base with neon yellow and dark blue matte glitter. Most of the glitter is yellow, but with the blue it looks neon green from a distance, it's a really fascinating color.

The formula was a little less extraordinary, it was slightly clumpy but still manageable and I used 3 coats for the photos before. Overall it's a very fun color, but for some reason I'm not sure if I like how it looks on me, my skin tone doesn't happen to like anything yellow.

Indoor fluorescent lighting that brings out the neon:

Natural lighting - indirect sunlight.

Closeup! look at the glitter! It's so cool. Even though it's matte there's still a bit of a shimmer to that yellow glitter.

Sunny Floam can be purchased from Nail-Venturous Lacquers on Etsy in a 0.5 oz (15 ml) bottle for $9.00 USD. The shop is currently sold out, so sign up for an email notification or visit Nail-Venturous Lacquers on Facebook for more updates.

China Glaze Poolside Collection

I absolutely love neons for summer. There's nothing like having your fingernails and toenails glowing against tan skin. They're so much fun! I haven't had the courage yet to wear neons to work, although it's not against our dress code.. it just feels unprofessional. Hopefully I can wear some of the poolside collection to work this summer, or else I'll be rocking neon pedicures. China Glaze Poolside Collection from the summer of 2010 has fantastic neons!

China Glaze Yellow Polka Dot Bikini is from the poolside collection and is a neon fluorescent yellow. It dries matte like most neons and simply glows. The formula on this one is quite streaky, but not nearly as bad as I was led to believe by some reviews. Since I didn't use a white base coat this is 4-5 (I can't remember exactly, and I'm sorry for that) coats over base coat.

The color is A LOT more neon than it appears here. It literally glows exactly like a yellow highlighter.

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Towel Boy Toy is a very bright blue-teal. It's not quite neon, but bordering on it, and it still dries matte. This was three coats and it could have used another for 100% opacity.

Here it is in three different lights to try to capture the color:

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Sun Worshiper is a neon orange. This one is almost safety-orange it's so bright. It's the color of those neon vests that road workers wear to avoid being hit at night. When your headlights hit the reflective orange and it literally glows. Three coats + SV.

Love it!

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Pool Party is a bright neon pink. It looks like more of a pink creme but dries matte like the rest of this collection. This one I had the hardest time photographing. It is a bright glowing pink, not as orange or as dark as it appears in these photos. Three coats and top coat.

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Kiwi-Cool-Ada is a medium neon green. It's a bit darker than the other green neons I own, but it somehow still glows (I'm just fascinated by how neons truly GLOW). The formula was a bit streaky but not horrible, three coats and top coat.

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Overall I am very happy with the poolside collection and I might have to pick up the only one that I didn't order, Flip Flop Fantasy.