Day 6: Violet Nails

Today's 31-Day Challenge theme is violet nails!

I started with two coats of an unnames mini Funky Fingers lavender polish and topped it with the best purple topper -- Jesse's Girl Confetti! Confetti turns everything into an amazeballs magical blueish purple color! I love it.

Tomorrow starts the actual nail art of the 31 Day Challenge! Who's excited? *Raises hand* Me, me, me!!

Zoya Lolly and Sally Hansen Pink Blink - Pink Wednesday!

This is my first pink Wednesday post!  I do like pink, but it seems I'm usually doing my nails on Tuesday/Thursday schedule.  Amanda is out of town shenanigating with some of her buds so I'll have to post in her stead.

I used 2 coats of Zoya Lolly for the base.  This is a matte and is a tricky one.  It dries super fast so you have to be speedy on your application and don't try to go over the same spot twice - you'll get drag marks.  Load up your brush with plenty of polish and 3 strokes.  For the dots I used a dotting tool and Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Pink Blink.

This mani is SO girly!  Happy Wednesday y'all!

And...Gleeeeeeeeeeee!

Did you catch the Gonads & Strife joke there? Eh? Eh? I'm so punny.

You guys will be so proud of me. I finally did a mani and...and....I left it alone!!! But seriously...to add anything to this polish would be a travesty, I mean really.

Do I even have to describe Glee to you? I'm sure you all know. It's a dupe for Zoya Charla and OPI Catch Me In Your Net blah blah blah perfect application blah blah blah...

My light box is working so well -- yay!!

*swoon* I love you Glee...

Don't forget to enter our giveaway here!

-Amanda

Jesse's Girl Riff Raff and Konad Epic Fail

I've had this sitting around with my untrieds since my last Boston trip in March.  In the bottle its a shimmery coppery rusty brown color which translates just a smidge darker on the nails.  It applied wonderfully - I had full coverage in just 2 coats and it self leveled well and dried fast with no bubbles.  No noticeable offensive odor.   I applied a 3rd coat just for a little more opaqueness.  The color is dark and rich and lovely.

Here comes the fail!   I tried to apply a full nail design from my new BM plates.  I used the Sally Hanson Insta-Dri in Silver Sweep (which is awesome for stamping btw!) but I ended up with smudges and partial transfers.  It wasn't really noticeable to the untrained eye but I knew you guys would see it right away.  Anyway here are the fail pics.

Bleh.  I really did like this full nail design - it kind of looks like a stone path or maybe a giraffe patten.  Wish I'd done a better job on it cause I really liked this combo.

Happy Friday!

Petites Periwinkle with a Petite brush!

Happy Friday! Today I have for you another manicure that I did when I was playing with my new plates. I started off with Petites' Periwinkle - Mama picked this one up in Boston for me a few weeks ago since they don't sell them here. I used this as the base in my cupcake nails from a couple weeks ago, but I thought it deserved its own post :) I was surprised at how nicely this applied. These pictures are two coats:

Have you guys ever used Petites polish before? I haven't, and this amused me so much. Look at the itty bitty brush! It's so cute!

After Periwinkle, I decided I wanted some BLING on this mani! So I rummaged through my stash, and decided to put a coat of Jesse's Girl Confetti over it. I know I've posted Confetti before....but it's too pretty to only show once. So sorry for the re-post of Confetti...but seriously! Look at this sucker! If you don't have this one...go out and buy it NOW. Seriously. Do it. It makes me all kinds of happy on the inside and it's so shiny and sparkly and fun.

Look at that shiny goodness right there!

Lastly, I HAD to play with my plates again. I've been wanting to Konad for so long but haven't had any plates with me that once I got these, I went a little crazy. Here is plate m72 stamped with basic Sinful white polish. I'm not sure what this design is? At first I thought it was some sort of Chinese or Japanese writing but now that I look at it I think it's just some abstract funky lines. Looks pretty nice though :)

What do you think?

What are your plans for this weekend? I graduate from college tomorrow!!

Until next time,
Amanda

Jesse's Girl - Flirt

Hello! Today I have for you a mani that I did using three coats of Jesse's Girl - Flirt. I LOVE Jesse's Girl polishes...they're such good quality for a drugstore brand. It's too bad that this color was as sheer as it was -- obviously I got it to full opacity, but it took a while. It's a really nice pinkish orangish mauve color. I hardly had any cleanup with this one! Sucks that I don't have a Rite-Aid near me or else I'd be all over the rest of these polishes. Anyway, here's three coats of Flirt:

You know me. After I did that, I needed something more on it. I'm not sure that this color works well with my skintone. I wanted to do yellow roses, but I've never done roses and I was a little scared, haha. I also didn't know if it's go with the pink base color, so I decided on a simple funky french -- skinny black tips. I probably should've left it there... I feel like I just kept adding things until it was the most random mani I've done in a while. I added the black dots with a dotting tool and covered the whole thing with a coat of Revlon Belle.

Then I was STUPID -- I got in the shower because I thought everything was good and dry... and pieces of polish came off of my right hand :( You'd think I'd know better by now...

Have a great day!!

--Amanda

Jesse's Girl Half Moons!

Hello! Today I have a manicure using Jesse's Girl - Glee. I know this is old news, but I just got a bunch of new polishes from when Mama went to Boston! (thanks Mama!) They don't have a Rite-Aid here, so we're limited in our Jesse's Girl polishes. I'm sure you all know this is a dupe for Catch Me In Your Net and Zoya Charla.

I've tried half moon manis time and time again using the little paper binder reinforcement circles, and they've NEVER worked for me. Even when I think I get it sealed air tight, I still get polish under the reinforcements and ruin the manicure. Mom got these plastic reinforcements that I tried instead...and they worked wonders! No more seeping through!

I then just went over the half moons with a silver striper because I thought it looked funny with the nude moon and the blunt line to the polish.

I really love this... I think it's so pretty and glamorous yet so simple! It didn't take me very long to do at all. What do you think?

Jesse's Girl Firefly

I've been wanting to try this polish ever since I got back from vacation. I liked Confetti so much I was anxious to see what this looked like on my nails. In the bottle it looks like a white glitter in a clear base. Kind of like an iridescent snow globe.

I started with OPI Here Today Aragon Tomorrow. Had some issues with this polish - very uncharacteristic of OPI. It didn't seem to want to cover smoothly and I ended up needing 3 coats to make it opaque. For those that aren't already familiar with this polish, it's a very dark forest green that looks almost black on the nail. You can see the green a bit in the bottle on the third pic.

Over the top I applied Firefly. It flashes a green and gold duochrome. It actually reminded me a little of Zoya Ivanka but a little more sparkly.

So Much Sparkly Goodness

Firstly, let me mention that I'm on vacation having a marvelous time and don't have access to the majority of my manicure tools. So I apologize in advance for the sloppy cuticles - I forgot to bring my brush and its difficult touching up my manicure with cotton swabs. I'm also posting from a borrowed laptop and my layout is all wonky and I can't figure out what the problem is. So anyway..

While on vacation I was lucky enough to drop in on a Rite-Aid drug store (which we don't have at home) and pick up 6 Jesse's Girl polishes and couldn't wait to try them out. Amanda already swatched this one way back over black, but I had to try it to believe it.

So I started out with Jesse's Girl Blue Moon which is a blue violet foil with a satin finish. Went on well - I used 2 coats for opacity.




































Then I added 2 coats of Jesse's Girl Confetti over the top. Oh my gosh - GORG. In the bottle this is a clear base with blue and violet microglitter. It has the most fabulous blue/violet duochrome flash - really spectacular :) I can't stop looking at it.

Edit 3/23/11 - I added a China Glaze Lightning Crackle french tip on the end of my manicure today to give it new life.

Jesse's Girl Confetti

Guess what?! I finally figured out how to photograph accurate pictures of my nails, which means that this blog can finally get up and running! Yay!

This is Jesse's Girl - Confetti layered over Sinful Color's Black on Black. Words cannot convey how in love with this I am... it's just so....so....sparkly and shiny and colorful and pretty... I won this in a giveaway from Body and Soul along with some neat Wet n Wild stuff!