Organizing and a new mani!

Hi there! So the past couple days I have been trying to get my stash a bit more in order so I was busy splitting my polishes up into different bins by color. I ended up with three bins. One bin for pinks, reds, purples and my one orange. A second bin for blues and greens and a third bin for my black, white, silver, gray and miscellaneous sparkles. I then decided to steal my older sister's idea and use white label dot stickers on the caps of my polishes to more easily identify them when looking into the bin. That ended up being a project and a half! I didn't finish labeling them all, but I did get a picture of the one bin I did complete. So here is a picture of my stash and one of my labeled bin! :)

Okay so now onto pictures of my current manicure! So Wet n Wild has recently launched their new look for their Megalast nail colors and I know a lot of nail bloggers have been going crazy over one shade in particular..."I Need a Refresh-Mint" and I am no exception! It is a great blueish mint green color that as others have pointed out is a great dupe for China Glaze's "For Audrey". (see Nouveau Cheap's review and comparison swatches here) Anyways, I of course fell in love with this color when I saw it in the store and I fell even more in love with it this evening when I used it for the first time. I found that the formula was really great if a little bit on the thicker side. It went on smoothly and if I had really wanted I could have gotten away with one coat since the opacity was amazing! I thought that their "Pro Brush" was going to be too wide for my nails, but honestly it was perfect and I really enjoyed it.

So of course this color is awesome, gorgeous, amazing and yet...I wasn't quite happy with it. I am of the opinion that a person can never have too much sparkle on their nails so I had to add a little sparkle! :-) I thought this was a great time to use "Nostalgic" by L.A. Girl's Glitter Addict line that I randomly found at a Rite Aid near me a while back. As you can see in the picture below it is clear base with teal chunky glitter and some smaller fine glitter suspended within it. I had to do two coats and do a little bit of dabbing to get the chunky glitter to cover the nail more evenly. The base was quite thick and I am sure if I tried to just let this dry on its own it would have taken forever, but with my favorite top coat Orly's "Sec N' Dry" it was pretty quick.

After adding a bit of glitz to this already awesome color I think this is an amazing manicure and I love it! I hope you like it too! :-)

My first time using tape! :-)

Well this was a total experiment for me that started as a regular manicure and sort of snowballed from there. I decided that I really want to make an effort to use polishes that I haven't used before so I grabbed "Blue Streak" by Ulta from my stash. I started of course with my usual base coat of Orly's "Bonder" then did two coats of "Blue Streak". I adore this color on its own since it is just a simply gorgeous blue and the formula was very nice and easy to work with. The first coat came out fairly sheer but then the second went on perfectly.

Even though I absolutely love this color I have been dying to try out the new Milani "Cyberspace" polish I bought since it is a holographic blue sparkle. I did test it on its own once, but it was too sheer for my taste even after two coats so I decided that it would go perfectly on top of this color. I didn't want to cover all of this gorgeous blue though so I thought an accent nail would be perfect. 

It was hard to really capture the sparkle of "Cyberspace" with my camera so excuse the fuzziness of the picture above. Anyways, in person this sparkle is really nice although honestly I am not as blown away with it as I was with Color Club's "Fashion Addict". Well as I said this manicure sort of took on a life of its own and for some reason I just wasn't satisfied with this look so I decided to experiment with something I have been thinking about for a long time. I found some blue painters tape laying around and tore off a strip and using some scissors I cut smaller strips and I placed them on one nail at a time so part of my nail was covered and part was left free. (Note: this was actually done the next day so I was sure that the base color was totally dry) I then painted the free section using "Cyberspace" and this was what I got! 

Although this is a bit more "edgy" than my usual manicures I really do love it and I can't wait to try it with different color combinations and different patterns! :-) 

Gradient Manicure

Why hello there to whoever happens to stumble across this. :-) Well I have been loving the idea of doing a gradient manicure, but it seemed quite time consuming and I seemed to always have something else to try first. Well I finally tried it the other night and boy was I right! It is time consuming! I am hoping that it was difficult mostly due to the polish I was using and my own inexperience. I am not really all that happy with how it turned out since I am a major perfectionist and it didn't come out how I thought it would, but it is actually very pretty.

I started off with my usual Orly "Bonder" basecoat then I did two coats of Ulta's "Celebutante".

After that had completely dried I used Sinful Colors "Purple Diamond" for the "gradient" part. I probably should have watched some tutorials or seen some other examples of how it is supposed to be done, but I was in an adventurous mood so I kinda just went for it. I also had a little problem with Purple Diamond because mine was very thick and goopy. The thick texture made it very difficult to lightly drag it down towards the bottom of my nail. I tried my best and here it is...my first attempt at the gradient manicure. (Don't judge me too harshly) :-)

As always thanks for reading my lil ol blog here! :-)

My Valentine's Day Mani

Happy semi-belated Valentine's Day everyone! I am a little slow on this one, but here it is! My Valentine's Day Mani. I opted to go for a less mushy mani since I spent this V-Day like I would spend any other Tuesday night. I used Essie's "Flawless" as a base for this manicure since it is a great basic almost nude pink. I did have to do 3 coats to get my nails covered enough and if I had not added more to it I would have had to add another coat for full opacity and to cover any streaks.

I of course couldn't leave it at this especially seeing as it was for a holiday so I added a layer of Sally Hansen's Xtreme Wear "Strobe Light".

This is one of those times where the picture does not do the reality justice. This combination is amazing the sparkle is actually much more subtle in real life than it appears in these pictures. It adds so much depth and interest to this fairly pretty, but basic and boring pink polish. This is certainly a combo I will be wearing again.

Although I loved this combination I spotted something interesting at my local Walgreens that I was dying to try out so I figured why not add a little more something special! :) They are from Kiss and they are called "In-Style Designs Catwalk Manicure Accessories" I got the set called "Lights". There are 4 sheets of stickers pictured below with pictures of each individual sheet as well.

It took me forever to decide which to try, but finally I decided to use a bit of a combination on my thumbs and middle fingers. After the polish was completely dry I placed the stickers where I wanted them and held them down flat against the nail for about 30 seconds to make sure they stuck down as flat as they could. After that I applied two layers of my usual top coat, Orly's "Sec N' Dry".

I definitely think that these are a great way to add just a little something extra without needing any skill with a nail brush or other tool. I thought my V-Day mani was girly and cute without being too over the top with tons of hearts. Also these stickers survived sleep and washing a lot of dishes today so they certainly seem to be worth it! :)

Suzi Says Feng Shui + Twisted = FABULOUS!

Howdy everyone! So here are some pictures of my current nails and let me tell you pictures don't do this one justice! It is so PRETTY! It is subtle, but really very nice and pretty. So I started off with a polish that is new to my collection, OPI "Suzi Says Feng Shui". This polish is gorgeous on its own and although it took me three coats to reach full opacity I still thought the formula was pretty good. I don't tend to love OPI's formula since I always seem to have trouble getting them smooth, but this was nice. The first picture actually shows the color looking a bit darker than it truly is while the second is closer to the real color. 

 Of course I can't have a manicure without some sparkle so I decided to try this out with a coat of Finger Paints "Motley" on top. This is an actually new polish that was only available for the month of January at Sally Beauty Stores. Now while this did add a little something to the mix it just wasn't quite enough for my taste. I am sure that Motley will be amazing on other colors, but here it fell a little flat since it blended a bit too much with Suzi.

So just to add a bit more wow to it and just to satisfy my own curiosity I added a coat of Finger Paints "Twisted" as well. Twisted was also part of the same limited edition collection as Motley so if you didn't get it while it lasted then I am very very very sincerely sorry for you. :-(

I don't know that the pictures can really do this justice, but OMG AMAZING! That pretty much sums it up. Twisted just made this manicure amazing. The flakes in this polish just really look amazing against that beautiful blue background. There are so many different colors that come out and at certain angles you even get a silvery glint. Personally, I am loving the flake trend that is going on in the nail world since they are easier to remove than regular glitter, they are much more subtle (and therefore more work/adult appropriate) and they just are so much fun! All in all this is a stellar combination in my opinion and I am super happy I got to use my new Finger Paints polishes. :-)

Super Bowl Mani

Hey everyone! So I don't know how many of you out there are football fans like I am, but even for those who don't really follow football the Super Bowl last night was pretty awesome! Even though I am really a Baltimore Ravens fan I was rooting for the NY Giants last night against Tom Brady and the Patriots. I decided to do a Giants themed manicure to show a little extra team spirit so here is a picture.

I used Sinful Colors "Midnight Blue" for the base color, which I needed 3 coats to get completely even coverage due to some streaking and bald spots. I then used my dotting tool to add red polka dots using Deborah Lippmann's "It's Raining Men" and I used Sally Hansen's "White On" to create the white polka dots. I also used my usual Orly "Bonder" base coat under the blue since I have found that it is my secret weapon against chips. I didn't plan on keeping this manicure for very long and my favorite top coat (Orly "Sec N' Dry") tends to smear my polka dots so I didn't bother with a top coat this time so unfortunately I did get some sheet marks over night. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed the show last night and if not then I hope you enjoy my manicure. :-)

My New Year's Manicure

I realize that we are now 2 months into the new year so this is pretty darn late, but I still love this combo so I want to share it with everyone. I used Barielle "Berry Blue" and topped it with Essie's "Set in Stones"

Even though I knew no one was going to see it I was so in love with Essie's "Set in Stones" that I decided to use it on my toes as well. I used it over Sinful Colors "Why Not" so although my fingers and toes did not match exactly they were definitely coordinated. (By the way sorry if feet gross you out)

UPDATE: Fashion Addict in Sunlight

Since the weather today was beyond gorgeous I had to get out of the house with the Little Miss. So while we were sitting having a snack outside enjoying the sunshine I glanced down at my nails and WOW. So I snapped a quick picture with my phone and here it is!

The rainbow of colors in the sparkle really shows up here and it just looks out of this world. Gotta say this might be a new favorite polish ever for me. Oh and I realize that this isn't an actually "new" polish since it came out a couple years ago originally, but to me it is new so excuse the delayed enthusiasm.