Teenage Dream Matte Glitter

Today's manicure is Sinful Colors Black on Black with OPI Teenage Dream in the bottom part of the nail and a matte top coat.  I think my matte top coat went bad?  Can that even happen?  It didn't work nearly as well as usual.  In theory I should have loved this, I love dark nail polish, I love Teenage Dream, when it works I love mattes and matte glitter...but this is super 'meh' for me.

I started at the bottom of the nail and just barely pulled the Teenage Dream up to about half way up the nail and let it get higher in some areas.  I like that part, I think it would be better with different colors though.

My order from Cult Nails's sale should be here tomorrow or the next day...so excited!  :-)

31 Day Nail Challenge Day 24: Inspired by a book

Hello!  Today's theme is "Inspired by a Book."  This is one of the days that I had planned from the first days of this challenge.  I based it on the book "The Cat and the Hat" after seeing some flocking powder the exact color of Thing 1 & 2's hair at Michael's.  I'd never seen flocking powder nails before, so I was kind of sad when I got home and found out it has been done before.  Oh well!  They are still super cute, and perfect for Dr. Seuss!  I used Sinful Colors Why Not as the under color for the blue flocking powder, and Julep January for the red nail.  I love this and would wear it every day if it didn't seem so wildly impractical.

24 Days down, 7 to go!  Thanks for reading, and don't forget, there are still a few days to enter my giveaway.

31 Day Challenge Day 19: Galaxy Nails

It's galaxy nail day!  I've been wanting to try these for awhile now, but they looked so complicated!  I used my thumb as a learning experiment since it's never in pictures and then learned from there.  I'm really happy with how this turned out, although next time I think I will use a black as the background instead of the purpley-brown that I used.  I used Orly Galaxy Girl as the base color; Milani white stripe, Sally Hansen Mellow Yellow, and Sinful Colors Forget Now for the nebula; Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe and Out the Door silver holographic top coat for the top coats.  This one even got a "That looks awesome" from my husband, who normally only tolerates looking at my nails.  Love this one and can't wait to play with more galaxy nails later!  :-)

19 Days down 12 to go!  Don't forget to go checkout the giveaway posted a few days ago!  :-)

31 Day Challenge Day 14: Flower Nails

Hello!  Today's theme in the 31 Day Nail Challenge is flower nails.  I've seen several cherry blossom manicures floating around online and always think they're so pretty so I decided to try one of my own.  I used Sinful Colors Cinderella as the base color and then Julep Niecy for the flowers and black Stripe Rite as the branches. I used Konad Black for the centers, and then didn't let it dry enough (again) before adding top coat.  Since I waited 30 min this time I really just think Konad black never ever dries.  Rawr.  Streaking or no, I still like these and have gotten lots of comments on them today.

14 Days down, 17 to go!

31 Day Challenge Day 5: Blue Nails

Today's theme is blue nails.  Blue is my favorite nail color lately, so it took me awhile to figure out which colors I wanted to use.  I ended up using Sinful Colors Why Not with China Glaze Dorothy Who? tips.  I really like how this turned out.  Why Not is my current favorite blue creme polish, it's a nice bright, springy blue.  I hadn't used Dorothy Who? before this but it's gorgeous!  

5 days down, 26 to go!  

Easter Skittles

Happy Easter!  This is what's on my nails today.  I used 1 color per nail and then stamped with Sally Hansen White On using a Red Angel plate over it.

ALSO!!! I ordered a Julep Spring Mystery box.  Did anyone else?  The preview of one on Facebook had a $50 gift card in it.  I can't wait to see what's in mine.  :-)

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Colors Used: Sally Hansen White On, Mellow Yellow, Green with Envy, Lacey Lilac; Sinful Colors Why Not, OPI Strawberry Margarita
Technique: Stamping
Purchased: Sally at Target, SC at Walgreens, OPI at VyVys.
Verdict on the colors: I didn't think I liked pastels, but I actually think the purple, green, and yellow look really nice.  The other two are colors I already had and liked.  :-)

Good Manicure/Bad Manicure

I'm really conflicted about my nails right now.  I painted them with Let's Talk by Sinful Colors, and I think it's probably the prettiest purple I own.  It's such a deep, rich, gorgeous purple.  Slightly shimmery, and just super pretty.  I didn't really want to do anything with it because it's so nice on it's own...but I was also bored and watching TV, so I put a layer of Electrify over it anyway.  The result was really cool.  At first I thought Electrify went on too think and you wouldn't be able to see any purple under it, but as it dried it kind of melted into it to where at certain angles all you can see is purple like you're looking through the glitter.  Then up close you can see all the gold and red glitter.  I really like it.

AND YET!

I painted my nails at night and lately have been waiting to take pictures until the following day after work so that I have some sunlight.  Usually I manage to keep it chip free and fresh looking at least that long.  Not so with this.  Even with 2 coats of Anti-Chip top coat this started chipping and showing tip wear within hours of me painting them.  Seriously, before I went to bed I had an inexplicable chip in my index finger.  I debated even taking pictures of it because by the time I got home it looked 4 days old instead of less than 24 hours.  But I still really liked the combination, and also wanted to show the level of wear after one day as part of the review.

None of these pictures accurately capture the purple BTW.  I have a feeling my brand spanking new camera needs to go back...I also went to take these pictures and suddenly the colors aren't reflecting right, the preview thing on the LCD isn't working, and it's having trouble focusing (not in Macro mode though, yay!)  So yeah.  But here it is!!

Look at that chip!  What the hell, Batman?

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Colors Used: Sinful Colors Let's Talk, China Glaze Electrify
Technique: Layered
Purchased: Sally & Target
Verdict on the colors: Let's Talk is SO PRETTY, but holy chipping!!

Happy St Patrick's Day (what's left of it)

Sorry this first picture is all kinds of out of focus, I thought I was transferring the in focus one from my SD card and didn't realize I'd grabbed the wrong one until I deleted the other.  :-/  This is actually the 2nd St Patty's manicure I did.  The first was a white, green, and gold argyle one but it was so uneven I just took it off and started over.  I really liked how this one turned out for the most part.  The dark green underneath made the white tips turn pale green, so it's very festive for today.

Also, I got a new camera today!  The super macro mode is excellent.

Happy St Patrick's Day!! Who's drinking a green beer?  :-)

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Colors Used: Sinful Colors San Francisco, Sally Hansen White On and Golden-1
Technique: Stamping, tip strips
Purchased: Walgreens (SC), Kroger (SH)
Verdict on the colors: Love San Francisco.  Not fond of White On...need to find a new basic white.

Water Marble

I decided to try a water marble this weekend!  It was a little more difficult than the tutorials make it look.  I got these little water drop marks in most of my nails...how do you prevent that??

Here are the colors I used:

I decided not to use tape because I figured "How much harder could it be to just clean the polish off my hand?"  And then this happened to my thumb and I reached for the tape.

The end results!  I used Northern Lights Holographic silver top coat on top.  I love it!!  As I was cleaning my cuticles I snagged some of the polish on my index finger.  I always seem to mess up at least 1 finger within 5 minutes of doing my nails.  Ugly index finger aside, I think it looks really pretty and is worth the mess!

Right hand...I think the pattern on my thumb looks like a butterfly.  It's my favorite finger this time.

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Colors Used: Base color: Sally Hansen White On.  Marbling colors: China Glaze Blue Iguana and Make an Entrance, and Sinful Colors Why Not
Technique: Water Marbling
Purchased: CVS and Sally
Verdict on the colors: All turned out very well for the marbling, Blue Iguana lost it's glitter somewhere though.  I think next time I'll do 2 colors instead of 3.