Week 7- Valentine's manicure

I don't normally do pink or girly nails, but for Valentine's day I did. For my Valentine's manicure I used these products:


From left to right: Northern Lights Hologram Gold Top Coat, FingerPaints: Watermelon Watercolor, Pure Ice: Watermelon Ice, Jordana: Pop Art in Star Designer and Red of Hearts, and The Color Workshop top coat.

First I used one coat of the Hologram Gold, then I taped off for French tips. I painted the tip part with two coats of Finger Paints: Watermelon Watercolor, and after that dried I added one coat of Pure Ice: Watermelon Ice for a bit of sparkle. After taking the tape off I did some clean up with a Q-tip dipped in nail polish remover. Then I added another coat of Hologram Gold, but just to the top bit of nail. I free handed a strip of Star Designer and then a top coat to seal.



On my ring finger I did things a bit differently. After the strip of Star Designer I added a coat of Red of Hearts, placed the four rhinestones and fished out one of the hearts in the Red of Hearts polish. Because the Red of Hearts polish is a bit cloudy I added a coat of Hologram Gold to the top part and then sealed with a top coat.



These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Week 6- Half Moon Manicure

This is a little late, but we are still sick here.

So, here are the items I used:


Polishes are Finger Paints: Vintage Violet, Sketch N Etch, and Sally Hansen Super Shine.

I did a Mardi Gras colored half moon manicure, Mardi Gras is coming up on the 21st, but I don't know what I'll be doing with my nails then.

First I coated my nails with two coats of Finger Paints: Vintage Violet.


I did this at night, so most of the pictures are a bit dark.

Here is a better one with one coat of top coat.


Then I cut the page re-enforcers in half and placed them on my nails like so:


I painted my nails with with Sketch N Etch.


This is just one coat, so you can still see the Vintage Violet underneath.


After adding another coat of Sketch N Etch I did a layer of top coat and then placed yellow rhinestones. But... my nails must have been still been wet when I went to bed, because I had sheet marks when I woke up.


My thumb nail had the least amount of marks.


To try to help hide the sheet marks I added a coat of Sally Girl Mini Nail Polish: Chunky Gold on the Sketch N Etch green polish part. Chunky gold is a small glitter and larger hexagonal gold glitter top coat.


These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

China Glaze: Snow Globe and Confetti: 083 Party Palace Blue swatch

First up is China Glaze: Snow Globe



Snow Globe has small silver glitters, small hexagonal opalescent glitters and larger hexagonal opalescent glitters.

Indoor picture, one coat:


Outdoor picture, one coat:


Snow Globe is lovely. Even with all the glitters in the polish it dries smooth and there isn't a need for a top coat.

*****



Party Palace Blue is in a blue base with hologram glitters (I think they are both gold and silver, it is hard to tell), with small hexagonal opalescent glitters.

Indoor picture, one coat:


Outdoor picture, one coat:


Party Palace Blue dries rough and should probably have at least one coat of a top coat on it. It does give a very slight blue tinge, so given enough layers the blue might have more of an impact if you use it as a top coat.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Week 5- Newspaper manicure

I have been sick all week, so I didn't get to post this until today.

I painted my nails with three coats of Pure Ice: Super Star! last Thursday, and you can see there is some tip wear already. I didn't use a top coat, but then I can down with the plague. Today I did manage to venture out and get a newspaper. I found a quote by Albert Einstein in it, "I never think of the future - it comes soon enough." I cut it out to use on my manicure. I started with my thumb and worked my way to my pinky. I did get better as I went along, but my thumb really is just a smudge of ink.

And here is my picture:


I am starting to feel better, so hopefully soon I'll be back to swatches and I will do better on next week's challenge.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Weekend purchase - Snow Globe

I finally have it! China Glaze: Snow Globe



When I first went to try and buy this I was told that they were sold out and wouldn't get any more. But today when I went it this bottle was sitting on the clearance shelf. I am especially happy because I am sick again and not feeling well, but I needed to use my coupon before it expired.

I also have two Zoya polishes to swatch, Jasmine and Zara.

Lunar New Year's manicure

새해 복 많이 받으세요! (saehae bok mahni badeuseyo) Many fortunes in the New Year.

I based my manicure on one that I saw before, but I can't find the website. If I do I will link to it here. The photo I saw had a much more subtle gradient, but I didn't have the polishes that were used in the photo. I think mine kind of looks like fire.

The colors are a little off here, it is snowing so there is no natural light, not even through the windows.

Here is what I used:


From left to right: Sally Hansen Super Shine, Pure Ice: Siren, China Glaze: Ruby Pumps, and Jordana Pop Art in Golden Artist.

The base coat was Pure Ice: Siren, and then I layered half of my nail with China Glaze: Ruby Pumps.


I put a layer of top coat, and then layered the lower half with the Jordana (which is actually a stripping polish, but it is the only gold glitter polish I have.)


What do you think? Do you celebrate the lunar new year?

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Week 4- Plaid manicure

I was not confident at all in this manicure, so I only did my ring finger. I also originally I had planned to do it all in tape, but that didn't work out.

Here are the products that I used:


From left to right: Sally Hansen Super Shine, Pure Ice: Super Star!, Pure Ice: Siren, Jordana: Pop Art in Star Designer, Sally Girl mini polish #812029 Way 2 Disco, The Color Workshop top coat, and Art Club silver holo stars.

Here is the only picture of my first attempt:


Pure Ice: Super Star! is the base color and the red strips are Pure Ice: Siren. It reminds me of the English flag. After this picture it all got ruined and I had to start over, so I just free-handed the strips.

My second attempt:


I placed a layer of top coat between the Siren strip and the Jordana: Pop Art in Star Designer, but as you can see the red spread. It gets worse.



Here I added a strip of Sally Girl: Way 2 Disco, but it is hard to see. I also added the Art Club silver holo star to help hide all the red that was being displaced, even though it should have been covered with two layers of top coat by then, I did switch top coats after the first time the red made a mess, but it didn't make a difference.

Here is a clean up shot:


I found this manicure to be messy looking, so I took it off right away.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.

Finger Paints: Curator's Crimson swatch

FingerPaints: Curator's Crimson is a nice smooth creme polish in red.


From left to right: four coats of Curator's Crimson and one coat of top coat; four coats of Curator's Crimson; three coats of Curator's Crimson; two coats of Curator's Crimson; one coat of Curator's Crimson.

Closer view:


I probably could have skipped the fourth coat, but you can't tell in these pictures, but indoors I could see through on the tip part with only three coats. I really like the color of this polish, it kind of reminds me of either a villainous character's polish or a dramatic 1940s actress's polish. I didn't use a basecoat and the polish did stain my nails slightly.

Do you like seeing the layers individually?

I received this as a prize in a giveaway from Polished & Not Quite Put Together. Go see her blog it.

Finger Paints: Vintage Violet swatch

Finger Paints: Vintage Violet is a shimmer nail polish with slight red and gold tones added to the purple.


From left to right: three coats of Vintage Violet, one top coat, and one coat of Sally Girl mini polish #812029 Way 2 Disco; three coats of Vintage Violet and one coat of top coat; three coats of Vintage Violet; two coats of Vintage Violet; one coat of Vintage Violet on the thumb.

A closer view:


This is a color that I probably wouldn't have picked out myself, but I like it. It was easy to apply, very smooth formula and became opaque quickly.

Do you like seeing the layers individually?

I received this as a prize in a giveaway from Polished & Not Quite Put Together. Go see it.

Weekend purchase - Three Jordana nail polishes

Clockwise from the top: Jordana 674 Red of Hearts, 673 Lilac Hearts, and 675 Pink Hearts.

I actually bought these a couple of weeks ago from my local grocery store. You can see that I used two of them in the Week 1- Make it Sparkle Manicure. They look like knockoffs/dupes of Nicole by OPI's Have A Heart, Love Your Life, and Step 2 The Beat of My Heart. I don't know how close the Jordana polishes are to the Nicole ones, because I don't own the Nicole ones, but I can show you swatches of the Jordanas.


Here is 674 Red of Hearts, sorry about the horrible dry cuticles. The red glitter was spare in this polish when compared to the Lilac or Pink Hearts.


673 Lilac Hearts, also has dry cuticle, sorry. This polish seemed to have the most glitter.


675 Pink Hearts, this one turned out blurry in the pictures the first time and I removed the polish before I knew the picture was blurry, so it had to be redone. No dry cuticles this time, but lint or fuzz instead. :\

All of these polishes apply on thick, were three coats each, fast drying, and the hearts had to be purposefully pulled out of the polish. I saw in the Nicole by OPI forums that the Nicole heart polishes also had this problem, getting the hearts out of the bottle was difficult.

In all, not bad for $3 for all three polishes and will probably appear in my Valentine's Day manicure.

These products were bought with my own money for review by myself.