Where holo you been all my life?

So you know how I mentioned the Jade holos in my last post? Yeah, well, I kinda went and bought two of them not long after. LOL! I bought Magia Negra and Vermehlo Surreal from the lovely ladies at Ninja Polish and let me tell you, these two polishes are GORGEOUS! Better yet, I'll even SHOW you!

First up is Vermehlo Surreal, two coats with top coat, in full sun:

And with a gradient of OPI DS Extravagance on the tips, also full sun:

And Magia Negra, two coats with top coat, taken indoors in full sun:

Some people have said the Jade holos don't play well with base coat or top coat but I had no issues applying them over my usual base of OPI Nail Envy nor any loss of the holographic effect when I put Out the Door top coat over it.

You might be wondering what I did for my second day wearing Magia Negra since, if you've been reading this blog for any amount of time, you know I can never leave a mani alone for the second day.

I decided to layer the two Jades.

That's right, I layered a coat of Vermehlo Surreal over my existing mani of Magia Negra. Then I stamped a small design with Wet'n'Wild Black Creme. Is it as spectacular as it sounds? I'll let you be the judge ;)

And it even matched the dress I wore that day! What a stroke of luck!

Plaid in Purple

Recently one of my friends was asking me for advice on what nail polishes I would recommend for her to start her collection with. I asked her a bunch of questions about what look she was going for, what her budget and preferred shopping manner was, and other related stuff. Based on her answers I gave her a few brand recommendations and set her loose on the world of polish. Bwahahahaha! Ahem. Anyway, she later came back and told me she'd bought L'Oreal Butterfly Kisses, a light, shimmery purple. I told her "Great choice!" and then looked guiltily at my own, untried, bottle of Butterfly Kisses. Ok, so I had to come up with a mani using the neglected bottle of polish, even if only to assuage my guilt at the size of my pile of untrieds.

Two coats with top coat, full sun

Coverage was very good though there were still a few visible brush strokes after the polish had dried. A great color choice for spring too! I knew right off that I wanted something more though so I grabbed Essie Barefoot in Blue and Power Clutch as well as OPI DS Classic and set to creating some plaid nail art.

My daughter was absolutely enchanted by the blue stripes so I asked her if she wanted some too. Of course she did, so I painted four little blue stripes on one of her finger nails. Then she said "'nother finger, Mommy!" and pointed to the next finger so I did that one as well. Then she wanted the next, and the next, and pretty soon she had a full mani of tiny blue stripes:

Well of course my son had to get into the act as well, but he wanted red so we went with NOPI Ready to Runaway Love and did the stripes on his toenails:

My kids love doing stuff with mommy XD

Expect Greytness or From Drab to Fab

Yeah, I'm on a roll with the cheesy titles XD

Ahem. Anyway, today I've got a bit of layering fun to show you. I started off with two coats of L'Oreal Greyt Expectations, a mauve-ish grey creme:

Then I used a makeup sponge to create a gradient with Milani Hi-Tech:

And topped with two coats of Nail-Venturous Rustic Remains:

I really wasn't feeling the balance of this though as I felt I had brought the gradient a bit too far up my nails. I needed something else to complement the middle-warm tones of Greyt Expectations but I wanted to keep with the texture of the holo/flakie polishes on top. So I freehanded a line along the edge of my nails with OPI DS Opulence:

The last photo comes closest to capturing the incredible sparkle of this combination but even it fall far short of reality. I think I'm going to try Rustic Remains over DS Opulence next since we have a few sunny days in the forecast this week!

Franken Time and Zoya Charity

If any of you follow Zoya on Facebook (and if you don't you totally should!) you would have heard about the buy two, pay only shipping promo they had a few weeks ago. I was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of the promo and let me tell you, it was VERY difficult picking just two! In the end I decided on Yara and Charity (Dakota, you will be mine someday) and I'm very happy with my choices. Of course, when they finally arrived I had to use one right away! I decided to use Charity first since Yara has been big in the blog scene more recently and let me tell you, this polish is GORGEOUS! I've been looking around for nice dusty mauve and this certainly fits the bill but there's also a delicious copper/gold shimmer that just makes me want to stare at my nails all day long. I'm such a sucker for copper and gold shimmers XD

Two coats and top coat, taken in full sun

I've got to tell you, most online swatches don't begin to do justice to this polish but I've done my best. I definitely recommend clicking the photo to see the full sized image!

After a day or so I decided to add a bit of bling so I grabbed one of my newest frankens, Rust and Rhinestones, a dark orange-red packed with copper, orange, and holo glitter (ingredients: Rimmel Hit the Street, Rimmel Torrid, SuperNail glitters in Sunset and Silver Rush) and sponged a gradient on my nails.

Swatched on its own, two coats and top coat, full sun

I really love frankening and making my own colors. I think I need to start pricing out all the stuff I need to make my own polishes. I'm going to make it my goal to have my own indie line of polishes by the end of the year!

Franken Time! : Astral Plane

Have I ever mentioned how much I love frankening? Well I do. I wish I could afford to buy little bottles so I could franken more often. I've only been able to make four frankens so far but I absolutely love it. This time I decided to play around with some holo polishes. I had one I bought at Halloween time that I really wasn't in love with so I picked that one to use as a base. It's a berry-toned red with sparse holo glitter, very sheer, kind of odd smelling, and it takes forever to dry. Most of those faults are fixable though when frankening.


Here's the polish before:

I decanted about a third of it into my only empty bottle. Then I added Wet n Wild Hannah Pinktana for more holo glitter and City Color Purple to turn it more purple. It still wasn't a deep enough purple for me though so I added a touch of Cover Girl Nailslicks Dark Denim, an almost-black blue. I think you'll like the results, I certainly do. I've decided to call it Astral Plane

Swatch on wheel is three coats of Astral Plane, no top coat

 On nails is two coats China Glaze Gothic Lolita, two coats of Astral Plane, OTD top coat

And here is ChG Gothic Lolita on it's own, two coats and OTD top coat:

DS Gradient or Birthday Money Well Spent

Next up I have a polish combination that just might get you holo-hounds drooling. Back in October I had a birthday and for that birthday I got a bit of cash along with everything else. What do you think I spent it on? If you said polish give yourself a cookie. But it wasn't just any polish, I picked TWO OPI Designer Series polishes! DS Reflection and DS Extravagance <3

Drooling yet? No? Well just wait until you see the photos! First up we have DS Reflection, a lovely, corally pink holo. (All photos two coats of polish with base and top coat)

Artificial light

With flash

Full sun!

Isn't it beautiful? But if you think that's good wait until you see the delightful, berry-toned DS Extravagance! (All photos two coats of polish with base and top coat)

With flash

Full sun!

Just look at that gorgeous holo! Can you believe it gets better? It does!

After a day or two of wearing DS Reflection I decided to get fancy and add a gradient . . . with DS Extravagance!

Both photos taken in full sun

I definitely recommend clicking the photos for a closer view, this combination is just delicious!

Stitching up Some Plaid

Some days I'm glad I only have time for a couple posts a week. It means I can post stuff that I actually have sun-lit photos of. Have I mentioned I hate winter? Have I also mentioned I hate the whole Daylight "Savings" rigmarole? Arg!

Anyway, to get me in a better mood let's talk polish! I've got a great one here today. I had been looking through all my untried polishes and trying to decide between the four Essie polishes I'd gotten for my birthday when I had a great idea: just use all of them! Well almost all, I didn't use Sexy Divide but I'll get to that eventually.

I decided to use In Stitches from the Fall 2010 collection as the base color:

Full sun

Shade

I never thought I'd love cremes as much as I do. Now I'm just about swimming in them! So of course then I had to come up with a nail art design. I remembered how much fun I had doing my orange plaid and decided that plaid would work quite nicely, especially considering the names of a couple of the polishes I was using.

Essie In Stitches, Sole Mate, Merino Cool, and OPI My Private Jet (version #5)

I used my striper brush to apply a line of Merino Cool down the length of each nail, then Sole Mate across the width. Next came MPJ down the middle and another stripe of Merino Cool across it. 

I love the simplicity and repetition of this and the pop of glitz from the MPJ.

More Holo

Ok, I'm going through a bit of sunlight withdrawal what with getting up before sunrise and getting home at sunset and not being able to get enough time with the sun to be able to get decent photos for my blog. Guess it's time to pull out some of the older mani's I didn't post about this summer. Namely those with holographic polish.

This time around I have a lovely example of creative layering. I was attempting to use Jesse's Girl Confetti, a lovely purple-blue glass fleck polish . . . also a very SHEER polish. After hardly any coverage with two coats I gave up and applied Milani Hi-Res, then another coat of Confetti (just to get that blue shimmer over the holo), and of course I topped it with Out the Door top coat (if you haven't figured it out yet, I use OTD over everything).

Natural light

Full sun

Full sun with water lilly

One of these days I will do a full swatch of JG Confetti, if only to see how many coats it takes to actually achieve full coverage with it.

For the Love of Creme and Holo

I have developed a love for Sinful Colors creme-finish polishes.  There, I've finally put it into writing. Sure it's a drugstore brand but the quality is no less for all that and it is definitely affordable! That said I've decided to dedicate this post to a couple SC cremes . . . and the extra bling I added to a couple by adding a holo over the top >.>

Ok, first up I have SC Starfish. I found this at one Walgreens at the beginiing of summer, decided to wait, came back later and it was gone! I was kind of upset and proceeded to search every Walgreens and Rite Aid in the area to find it. Eventually I did and I immediately snatched it up. I'd learned my lesson! No more wishy-washies when it comes to Limited Edition polishes!

I just love that dusty rose-pink <3 After a bit of wear I spiced it up with the gLORIous top coat:

Go ahead and click it. I know you want to ogle that lovely rainbow closer up ;)


Next up I have a very fall appropriate color, SC Vacation Time. It reminds me of a terracotta pot but a bit more pink than orange. This was a color I picked up just because it caught my eye at the time and I'm very glad I did.

And then I topped it with two coats of Wet 'n' Wild Hannah Pinktana:

Blurred to show the sparkle.

And last but not least here is SC Innocent, a lovely spring green. I loved this color so much I couldn't bring myself to put anything over it. I did wear it when we went apple picking a few weeks ago however ;)