Golden hearts

Today's manicure started out with a base of one of my most favorite red polishes - Zoya Carrie Ann.  It's a sparkly fire engine red and it just flows over the nail like a dream.  I used two coats for the base and let it dry thoroughly before I stamped it.

I told myself I wasn't going to pick up the Essie mirrored metallics.  One - because I tend to not like Essie's formula, and two - because I thought I had dupes of most of the colors in my stash.  (By the way, my boyfriend says I shouldn't call it a "stash" because it's way too big.  I should call it a 'hoard' instead - LOL)  I saw some of this line being used to stamp with though, I changed my mind and picked up 4 of the 5 colors available.  Bad me.  Bad.  I need to put myself on a makeup/nail polish purchase moratorium.   

Anyway, my first experience stamping with Essie Good as Gold was successful and here is the result. The stamp is BM 317 from their 2012 release.   Oh, and on the thumb I added some sparkle with Milani Red Sparkle One Coat Glitter.  I really love this glitter, but my bottle is half gone and it's starting to thicken a little.  Might be time to look for a backup bottle.  Let's face it - I just love red polish!

Well, I'm off to work for what's sure to be a brutal 'last day of the month' Tuesday.  Have a good one everyone!



60s inspired fauxnad

My original plan was to make this manicure a gradient, but I ran out of time and the colors I picked didn't really work too well together.  So I ended up stamping over it.

This is 2 coats of OPI Did it on 'em and BM plate 322 stamped with Black Konad special polish.  Very 60s eh baby?  shagadelic!

And here's the lovely OPI Did it on Em by herself - one of my FAV colors!

And now a question I pose to our readers (if you still are actually reading).  Amanda and I have been experimenting a lot with different makeup looks and are toying with the idea of starting a beauty blog.  I'm in my late 40s though with partially hooded lids which might be a turnoff to some people.

Would you be interested in seeing different makeup looks and reviews from both a younger and a more mature perspective?  Please vote at the bottom of the page !

White ink tattoo

I don't know why, but lately I've been a little obsessed with white ink tattoos.  I like how they are so very subtle and almost look like your skin is made of lace.  So I wanted to try to recreate that look on my nails.

This is two coats of Sally Hansen Without a Stitch stamped with white konad special polish and plate m73, which I thought looked most like an intricate filigree type pattern that a tattoo would have.  Without a Stitch can have a tendency to drag, so you will need to apply smooth coats and let them dry thoroughly in between.   I'm quite pleased with how it turned out and I think it has the sublte look I was striving for.

I also just got back from the beach where I saw a sand sculpting festival.  Here are a few pics!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!



Dino Spots!

I have recently returned from a trip to Indiana where Amanda and I got to spend 5 days together including a fun pool party at a family member's house for the 4th of July.  I got a fabulous haircut from my cousin, Marcia; and she was kind enough to send me a care package of some high end hair products in the mail last night.  So here's a shoutout to my awesome cuz!

I picked up Zoya Trixie several weeks ago at Ulta and have been wanting to use it since then but couldn't figure out what I wanted to do with it.  So as I was looking through my folder of nail stamps last night my eyes fell upon the dino spots design and I thought the contrast of black spots would look good with the silver polish.

As Amanda and I sat down to do our nails together over Skype, I highlighted a few of the spots with Zoya Charisma and Studio M neon green.  I'm wondering if I should have just left the spots all black.  Neons are notoriously sheer and I knew it would take more than one coat to cover the black.   It's kinda cool looking though - looks like nail stickers!

Trixie went on just beautifully.  Zoya rarely lets me down in the quality of their product.  I used two smooth coats here then waited for it to dry before stamping with Konad special polish in black and plate BM211. 

Tonight I'm off to the beach to a sand sculpting festival.  I hope to have picture for you by early next week!

Rolling in the deep

Today's post is mermaid nails!

While at Ulta this week I picked up the lovely Zoya Charla and wanted to do some sort of nail art with it.  Since the color (aquamarine shimmer with flashes of green and gold) reminded me of a mermaid's tail I decided to go with a mermaid theme.

This is actually 3 coats of Charla.  I could have done 2 but due to some user error, I needed a third to even things out.  :)  I let it dry thoroughly then stamped over it with Konad Blue and Red Angel plate RA-111 in the fish scale pattern.

It came out a little more subtle than I expected, but I really like it!  When the sunlight hits Charla she really shines like POW! look at me!  The pictures lean a little more blue than Charla does in real life, but alas - I am heading out the door for work and no time to color correct them..

And here's the lovely Charla on her own.  She actually has a little more green and gold sheen than the picture represents.  It just doesn't capture how beautiful this polish is.

Have a great week everyone!

Sinful Colors Cinderella faux nad

Surely by now you've read all the hype surrounding this new polish from Sinful Colors.  It's been swatched numerous times on various blogs with differing opinions on whether it's worthy of all the hubbub.

Is it worth it?  In my opinion - yes.  I LOVED this shade.  Originally I was planning Cinderella as the base for a half moon mani, but once I got it on my nails it was so lovely I couldn't bear to cover it up.  So I wore it plain for 2 days before I stamped over it right before removal on day 4.

Cinderella is a soft pale springy blue with something special - a slight pink shimmer!  It really did remind me of the shimmery gown Cinderelly wore to the ball.  I knew it was quite sheer, so I started with white underwear of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.   Then I applied 2 coats of this gorgeous shimmery goodness.  The formula was actually excellent (Sinful is really hit or miss with me on quality).  It went on smooth and even and dried fast. Try as I may I just could not coax that pink shimmer out in my photos - either in sunlight or artificial.  You'll have to trust me on this one, the pink is there!

After Cinderella was fully dry, I applied a top coat of Out the Door.  Now - this is a new topcoat for me.  The sales clerk at Sally's swears she likes it better than SV, because it doesn't thicken up in the bottle.  I bought the large jumbo size bottle at 2.5 ounces (73 ml); which is 5x the size of the SV bottle at almost the same price.  SV = $8-9, OtD = $10.  I am still undecided on the quality of the product and need to do more testing.  Here's why...

After I applied the OtD, I waited a half hour or so then applied Color Club Copycoats scented topcoat in Duplicity (this is the turquoise tinted one).  Approximately 3 hours later, I reached into my makeup drawer and dented my mani in 3 places. I can't tell you whether this is due to the initial topcoat not drying thoroughly (it's suppoed to be super fast dry) or the Copycoats (which is not a fast dry topcoat).  Still - it had been THREE hours.   So I will do an independent test on my next mani of SV vs OtD and let you know the results.  Incidentally, I did not think the fragrance on Duplicity was as strong as the last one I tried (Mimic) and I think so far I like Mimic better.  I could still smell Mimic even after applying a regular fast dry topcoat over it but Duplicity was barely noticeable with nothing over it.

Here's the mani after I stamped over it with plate M64 and Sally Hansen Color Quick pen in Turquoise Chrome.  If you haven't tried these pens yet for stamping - what are you waiting for?  They are awesome for stamping - easy to control with super pigmented opaque color.  I was lucky enough to pick up 6 of them at Dollar Tree for a buck apiece.  In hindsight I wish I'd gotten more!  Oh, and my fubared pinky finger?  That is the result of attempting a plaid stamp with 2 different colors before finally settling on this design instead.  I don't know if I have a faulty stamp on that plaid image or what because it was blurry even using 2 different polishes.  And I'm pretty sure it wasn't my technique.  Anyway- thank God for top coat, although I did bork up a little bit of the cuticle line from removing the 2 botched stamps! If you like the chrome pens for stamping head over to Lyndsey's blog at http://pixiepolish.blogspot.com/ and check out her gorgeous use of this pen!

Sally Hansen Feelin' Saucy fauxnad

So this color combination was inspired by my calender today.  It's a picture of a kitten playing with 4 balls of yarn - magenta, yellow, blue and red.  Unusual colors to use together but somehow they just worked! 

I started with a base of Sally Hansen CSM in Feelin' Saucy, which is a gorgeous magenta color.  I don't know why I don't wear this color more often, when I applied it, I really liked it.  My bottle is a tad thin so I had to take care not to flood my cuticles.  It levels well, dries fast and is well pigmented.  I used 2 coats for opacity.

When my base was dry, I lightly sponged Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Lightening (sic) and Sally Hansen CSM in Right Said Fred and topped with 2 coats of Orly Shine On Crazy Diamond to give it just a touch of a holographic shimmer.  Then I stamped with a geometric pattern from Red Angel plate 114 and Konad special blue polish.  BTW - does anyone have any suggestions for a well pigmented medium blue stamping polish other than Konad?

This design somehow reminds me of the Autobot and Decepticon symbols from Transformers.

And here's a pic of Feelin' Saucy by herself.

Thanks for reading and have a great day!