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 Challenge Day 31!! Recreate your favorite challenge

Woohoo! It's day 31!  This has been so much fun, but I am definitely looking forward to going back to a 2-3 times a week posting schedule.  Today's challenge was to recreate our favorite challenge, and I chose to redo galaxy nails.  I really liked how mine came out the first time, but I wished I'd done a black background instead of the brownish one.  So, this time I used China Glaze Smoke and Ashes as the base instead of Orly Galaxy Girl.  I used all the same sponging colors and top coats: Sally Hansen White On & Mellow Yellow, Pure Ice French Kiss, Sinful Colors Forget Now, Deborah Lippmann Across the Universe, and Out the Door Holographic top coat.

As a comparison, here is the first one from earlier in the challenge:

And here is today's.

LOL, now that I see the black background I think the brownish-purple is more "realistic" looking as a galaxy. It's still pretty though, I think.

Be sure to check out Painting Outside the Lines' Facebook page for the other entries.  She'll be putting all the Day 31 pictures in an album and the one with the most "likes" will win the contest.  There are a lot of pretty manicures posted already!  :-)

31 Day Challenge Day 2: Orange Nails

It's Day 2!  Orange nails.  I used Sally Hansen Crushed because it's my favorite orange and I topped it with Sally Hansen In the Spotlight because I feel like they belong together.

The camera makes Crushed look way more dull than it actually is.  It's a very shimmery, electric orange IRL.   The silver bar glitter sets it off really well and adds to the overall loudness of it.

2 days down 29 to go!

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Colors Used: Sally Hansen Crushed and In the Spotlight
Technique: Glitter on top
Purchased: CVS
Verdict on the colors: Love these together

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!!

Pink Wednesday

Happy Wednesday!  Today I have OPI Strawberry Margarita with Spoiled Trust Fund Baby layered over it.  Trust Fund Baby is a fun glitter, it has hot pink square glitter, and gold, blue, and black hex glitter.  It spread really unevenly though, so that was kind of a pain.  I've found some Spoiled brushes are GREAT, but some look like they've been beaten with a tiny tiny weed wacker.

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Colors Used: OPI Strawberry Margarita, Spoiled Trust Fund Baby
Technique: Layering
Purchased: VyVy's and CVS
Verdict on the colors: Strawberry Margarita is one of my favorite pinks.  Trust Fund Baby is pretty, but the brush makes it hard to get an even distribution.

Julep Glitter

I went to visit my family last weekend and borrowed the nail polish my sister had brought with her!  She signed up for the Julep Maven program last month too and had Viola from her Bombshell box as well as Sephora by OPI To the Glitter End.  Viola is a deep, raisin colored creme polish.  I wasn't sure how the glitter would look layered over it, but I really liked it!

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Colors Used: Julep Viola, Sephora by OPI To the Glitter End
Technique: Layering
Purchased: Borrowed from baby sister
Verdict on the colors: I like Julep's polishes, and this color was really pretty.  However, it wasn't super "me" so I'm okay with just borrowing it occasionally.  I think I might buy the Sephora one though.