Watermelon Nail Art

I am on a no buy right now, but I will give myself a few exceptions every once and a while. This awesome glitter bomb by Trelly's MISC Polish is one of those exceptions:

Trelly's MISC Polish- Watermelon Sorbet

Perfect manicure for summer, especially with this ridiculous heat wave we are having in the bay area right now.

Watermelon Sorbet is PACKED with LARGE green, pink, and white circle glitters. There's also large pink and white hexagonal glitters, white rectangle glitters, medium green squares and hexagons, medium pink hexagons, and small white hexagons, such an awesome mixture! There are more pink glitters out of all the colors, and since they are so big, it made it a little hard to get a good amount on my brush. There was a little fishing required. I have about 1 and half coats shown here. I did one coat and filled in the gaps. I could have done a better job on spreading it out, but I had the fan blasted on me, so it was making the polish dry pretty fast and got really clumpy :(

The coral color I used is China Glaze- Surreal Appeal (Cirque Du Soleil Collection Winter 2012), my 2nd favorite coral shade! Mine got pretty thick, so you may want to check on yours and see if it needs thinning! I used two coats. The green I used is China Glaze- Four Leaf Clover. One of y favorite greens, and it is readily available all the time! I used 2 coats on my middle finger, and one thick coat for the french tip.

I used Orly- Liquid Leather for the watermelon seeds using a dotting tool. I used the yellow one from this set. I started with the larger end to make a dot, and used the super tiny sharper end for the tip, and tried making it look more like a seed by just dragging polish to the tip.

Trelly Polish is currently closed since Cassie is out of town till July 7th, hopefully when it is reopened Watermelon Sorbet is available!

Simple Swatch: KB Shimmer

KB Shimmer is seriously one of the best indie brands out there right now. I only have a few, but each one seems to get better every time! I limited myself to only getting one from their summer collection this year, and here it is along with another water marble:

KB Shimmer- Totally Tubular

Seriously the most awesome teal of all time. I used two coats, but if you have tiny/short nails, you could probably get away with one coat! I didn't have to fish for glitters what so ever, although I didn't get any of the giant fuchsia circle glitters on my photo hand. It also has silver microglitters, large fuchsia, purple, and teal circle and hexagonal glitters, and even tiny fuchsia bar glitters! All in a creme teal base that applies like butter!

The colors I used for the water marble are OPI- Fly (Nicki Minaj Collection 2012), OPI- Planks A Lot (Pirates of the Caribbean Collection 2011), and OPI- Ink  (Night Brights Collection 2007). All worked very well! I think OPI will be my go to polishes for marbling!

I think I will definitely be getting more of KB Shimmer's summer polishes, especially the red white and blue one! You can purchase KB Shimmer on their website for $8.75!

Simple Swatch: W7

I am going to keep this short and sweet. Sorry these photos don't have the best lighting, it is raining in the middle of June!

This is W7- Salt n Pepper

I started off with one coat of Wet n Wild- White Creme, and applied two thin coats of Salt n Pepper. This polish applied wonderfully! Especially considering it is an international "drugstore" brand.

Then I used Wet n Wild- Black Creme and China Glaze- Man Hunt (On Safari Collection 2012) for the dot gradient. I think I went a little dot crazy, but I think it goes well with the W7 and can't wait to get more!

Essie Naughty Nauticals Collection 2013 Nail Art

It isn't very common for me to have an entire collection from a nail polish company. I have a really awesome nail mail buddy through instagram that seriously hooked it up! Her daughter's god father is a manager at CVS, and he managed to get us both the entire collection! So, naturally, I used the entire collection to do some nail art:

I didn't think the colors were that unique, until I saw the awesome shimmer in the bottle in person! The formula is great on all 6 shades, all are 2 coaters. My only complaint is that the Jennifer Green doesn't have the shimmer.

The base color on my index finger is Essie: Rock the Boat, which is almost the same color as Essie- Bikini So Teeny. The color I used for the flowers and dots is Essie- Naughty Nautical, probably my favorite color of the collection. I used the same color on my middle finger too, and used Essie- Full Steam Ahead for the flowers and dots. Then I used Essie- The Girls Are Out for the base on my ring finger, and Essie- Sunday Funday for the flowers and dots. I used the same colors as my ring finger but opposite for my pinky. Lastly, I used Essie- The More The Merrier for the centers of the dots

All in all I love the collection, and I have found that only one of the color is dupe-able. My top picks would definitely be Naughty Nautical and Sunday Funday.

Another Simple Swatch + Water Marble Using My Last Unused Gloss 'n Sparkle

Hold on to your seats and prepare for rainbow over load. I probably should have saved these to wear for SF Pride!

Gloss 'n Sparkle- Unicorn Droppings

I mainly wanted this polish for the name... But it is seriously amazing. Anything rainbow is an A in my book.

Unicorn droppings is a white creme base with a lot of tiny sparkles, but of course the sparkles aren't noticeable in the pictures! It has large glitters in pretty much every color of the rainbow. It is jam packed of glitter too, no problem with getting it on the brush. But I did kind of have to move the glitters around evenly on my nail. The less brush strokes you use, the better!

On to the marble. This is probably the most proud I have been over a water marble I have done. I used 6 colors which is insane, and I managed to get pretty much all of the colors on my nail, aside from the very tiny bit of green on my tip! But hey, that is still six colors which is really hard!

The colors I used are: China Glaze- Adventure Red-y (On Safari Collection Fall 2012), OPI- On The Same Paige (Summer Brights Collection 2009), OPI- Need Sunglasses?, OPI- Green-wich Village (Mod About Brights Collection 2008), Color Club- Endless Summer (Fiesta Collection Summer 2013), and Anise- Violet Falls In Love. I had no problem with any of these polishes!

Simple Swatch + Water Marble

I am still trying to get back into mastering water marbling, and I decided the best way to do that is to just do an accent nail. I don't have the patience or skills to do all 10 fingers yet. I am trying to use as many untried indie polishes as possible, so I am choosing colors to marble with that are pretty much the same as the indie polish. I really like how they are turning out, especially this one!

Gloss 'n Sparkle- Fruit Tingle

This polish is pretty much flawless. It is opaque in two coats, packed full of micro silver glitters, medium pink glitters, large black and blue glitters, and even larger black glitters! It is so opaque it kind of covered the glitters from the first layer.

The colors I used for the marble are Anise- Island Lover (blue), Wet n Wild Megalast- On a Trip (purple), and Wet n Wild- Black Creme. I have used on a trip for marbling before, and it worked pretty well. All these colors did really. Much better than the china glaze one I did a few days ago. I think I should stalk the next time cvs or rite aid has a sale on Wet n Wild so I can buy alll the Megalasts!

Note: I also started using bottled water. My refrigirator claims to have "filtered" water, but the polish would never spread through out the entire cup. I don't have a brita or anything, but so far bottled water is pretty sweet!

Gradient Using Mod Lacquer

The periwinkle blue shade is Girly Bits- Bachelor's Button. It is the perfect shade of blue, and has a nice subtle linear holographic effect to it! Definitely a unique shade to my collection. I used 2 coats.

Then I topped it off with a gradient. I used Mod Lacquer- 8-Bit Digits. I love this polish so much. It is pretty much just like the floam polishes. I almost compared it to Pinkerbell Floam, but the Mod Lacquer has way more green, and the floam has much more blue. But they consist of pretty much the same color and style of blue, green, and pink matte glitter.

You can get this shade of Mod Lacquer on Etsy. And you can get the Girly Bits shade on Llarowe, Harlow & Co, and from the actual Girly Bits website.

Simple Swatch + Nail Art

Exciting news! This is my 100th blogpost! So I decided to do one of my favorite types of nail art, water marbling! I also have my other Trelly polish for you:

Trelly's Misc Polish- Beach Bunny

I tried so many times to get a good water marble, but it just wasn't happening. So, I just settled for this one. I also should have replaced the yellow with a blue so it could go better with the Trelly polish!

The colors I used are China Glaze- Happy Go Lucky, China Glaze- Dance Baby (Electropop Collection Spring 2013) and China Glaze- That's Shore Bright (Sunsational Collection Summer 2013). I don't thing they are the best for marbling. They always give me this problem where the lines are always squiggly, and the outer edge will always come to the center if I am making a bulls eye pulling from the outer edge to the very center. Essie is my favorite so far, I need some Bettina though!

I used two coats of Beach Bunny. I really have nothing bad to say about this polish! It is probably my favorite type of pink to where, and the blue glitter compliment it very well! It mainly consists of a "crelly" base, packed with medium and small SQUARE and hexagonal glitters. I would definitely recommend using as less brush strokes as possible. If you keep making bush srtrokes, you will end up with all the glitter on the tips.

You can buy her polish on Etsy for $9.00, and she will be restocking on Monday!

Simple Swatch: Trelly's Misc Polish

I believe this is fairly new brand, and people are already going nuts. This is from Trelly's Summer collection of amazing glitter toppers and crelly's with glitter. I got this and one of the crelly's, so far, I am impressed! Here it is:

Trelly's Misc Polish- Dreaming of Unicorns

The name also helps with the polishes awesomeness as well, although my bottle is labeled "Barbie Dream House" Trelly had a woopsy daisy. I ain't complaining though.

The polishes I layered it over are two coats of China Glaze- Sweet Hook (pink), and Color Club- Take Me to Your Chateau (Pardon My French Collection 2010).

Then I applied a pretty generous coat of Dreaming of Unicorns. The hearts came out no problem, but I had to fish for the other bigger glitters like the stars and circles. But that is always expected with oddly shaped glitters like that. It mainly consists of irridescent glitters of every shape and size, even squares! The only solid colored glitters are the big circle, star, and heart glitters, and medium hexagonals. The base is a tad bit on the thick side, but some polish thinner can fix that. The best part is that you get plenty of glitter on the brush!

You can purchase Trelly Polish on Etsy. Her summer collection is out of stock, but she will be restocking on Monday, along with some new amazing colors!

Holographic Nail Art

I don't use holographic polishes for nail art very much. So I am trying to continue mastering stripes, and used holographic polishes this time!

 

Drooooool

The green is China Glaze- L8R G8R (OMG Collection 2009). The pink is Color Club- Halo-Graphic (Halo Hues 2013). The teal is Emily De Molly- Amazonia. Lastly, the Purple is Emily De Molly- Devotion.

I really enjoy the pattern I came up with as well. I started out by mapping out the pattern with a gel pen, and then painted two coats of each color as close to the line as possible. After those were dry, I used a really skinny nail art brush and painted two coats of Color Club- Beyond (Halo Hues 2013).

Hope you liked these!

Simple Swatch: Lush Lacquer

I am going to keep this short and sweet:

Sunlight

Shade

This beauty is Lush Lacquer- Dream On.

I was looking at my stash for a really long time and couldn't come up with a fun nail art design! So i was like screw it, lets wear an awesome indie glitter!

This was two easy coats. You didn't have to manipulate the glitter or anything, both coats went on like butter! It is a creme base with blue, purple, and green glitters of every shape and size- including squares, my favorite! I have said it once, and I will say it again, Lush Lacquer polishes are seriously amazing, and by far my favorite indie brand! They have the perfect balance of glitters. Just enough glitter so it is eye catching, but doesn't look like a unicorn took a poop on you hands! You really have to give them a try. Their shipping does take at least 2 weeks, but it is sooooo worth the wait. You know you should be wearing some other unworn polishes anyways :P

You can buy from their Etsy, full sizes are $9.00. Or you can skip the long shipping and pay $11.00 at Llarowe

Textured Gradient

I have been wanting to do these for a while since I go two of these three polishes in a swap, but I had little nubbins when I got them, and I am not a fan of gradients on me when my nails are short. They are finally at my favorite length, so here is how it came out:

Sooo pretty!

I started off with two coats of OPI- Pussy Galore (James Bond Girls Collection Spring 2013). I honestly wanted the polish for the name, but I really enjoy the color and formula! It didn't dry nearly as slow as OPI- Jinx which I was really happy about. I don't have a pink quite like it, which is what I go for since I am a hoarder.

Then using the brush from the bottle, I added the first color of the gradient, which was Zoya- Stevie (PIxiedust Collection Summer 2013). It was really hard to do a gradient with this! I almost went for a sponge, but didn't feel like dealing with clean up. I usually use my right hand as my practice hand, and I got the hang of it and finally figured out a good technique to get a smooth gradient. I got as much polish off the brush as possible, painted the very tip, and pushed toward my cuticle. It is kind of hard to explain...

Lastly, I used Julie G- Crushed Candy (Frosted Gum Drops Collection 2013) for the darkest color on the tips. I used the same technique as Stevie, but with much less polish. I really like these Frosted Gum Drop polishes, but I don't feel like they are really a unique "textured" polish. They are more like the gritty China Glaze glitters, kind of like these.

Hope you enjoyed!

Rainbow Stripes

I am still trying to master stripes! They are so freakin hard. Maybe I should just try tape... Here is what I came up with:

As I have mentioned before, I will never get tired of rainbow nails!

I just used the brush from the bottle, and simply painted half of each nail.

The colors I used are: Index finger: Sally Hansen- Fuchsia Power, and Jessica- Tangerine Dreamz (Gilato Mio Collection Spring 2012).
Middle finger: Jessica- Banana Peel (Gilato Mio Collection Spring 2012), and Finger Paints- Sexy Sundress.
Ring finger: Essie- First Timer (Resort Collection 2013), and OPI- Fly (Nicki Minaj Spring 2012).
Pinky finger: Color Club- Endless Summer (Fiesta Collection Summer 2013), and Essie- Play Date (Go Overboard Collection 2012).

After the polish dried I just used Orly Instant Artist- Crisp White to do the stripes! I definitely need to work on them more... But either way I love how they turned out.

Bow Nail Art

I don't really do free hand nail art. I am going to try to do more to master the skills. I think the most awesome free hand nail art I have ever done is my South Park Nails. They are still my favorite, but I really want to recreate them again so I can get better photos. Practicing more free hand nail art will also make them turn out even more amazing! Here is what I came up with:

 

Super girly and cute. I have been seeing these bows floating around and couldn't resist trying them out! I must say, I did pretty darn good!

I didn't do all my fingers because I knew it would take too long, and I didn't even know if they would turn out the way I wanted.

The pink glitter is Nails Inc- Topping Lane, and the blue is Nails Inc- Pudding Lane. Both are from their Special Effects "Sprinkles" line. I love these. I didn't get them for a while after they came out, and hadn't even tried them until now! Both were two coats. The first coat you had to work a little to get the glitter to spread out evenly, but the second coat went on just fine since it had the base to work with.

On to the bows. I started off with two coats of the base colors. The pink is Orly- Lollipop, and the awesome periwinkle blue shade is Jessica- Sophia/True Blue. I don't know why there are two names for it... I used a dotting tool to outline the shape of the bow. First starting off with a big dot in the center, and working my way out to make the bow shape. Then I just filled it in! After that dried, I used my trustworthy striper polish, Orly Instant Artist- Jet Black, to outline the bow, and to do the stripes. I love this striper! It is the only striper I have used, and I hope to get all the colors one day. I don't know if Orly still makes them, but luckily my nail supply store carries all the shades, and for just $2.50.

I hope you enjoyed these! And hopefully I will do some more REAL nail art soon!

Texture Skittles

I finally got some of the Sally Hansen "Sugar Coat" polishes. I only wanted the ones that were different colors than my China Glaze and Milani's, and I used the rest of my untried ones all at once. Here is the first ones I used, making a Rainbow. And here is what I came up with to use the rest:

Sunlight

Shade

And just for fun, here it is with the bottle

Lets start with the colors starting from the thumb to the pinky: Milani- Yellow Mark, China Glaze- Itty, Bitty, & Gritty, China Glaze- Unrefined, Sally Hansen- Bubble Plum, Sally Hansen- Sour Apple, and the black used for the dots is Sally Hansen- Lick-O-Rich.

Each polish was two coats. I really do love the formula of these. They are nearly one coaters, and don't dry as slow as the OPI textured polishes. I have yet to wear my Zoya Pixiedusts, so I can't compare them to those.

As you can see, the texture doesn't make easy dotting. But at least I don't have to worry about the top coat ruining it. I haven't used any of these with a top coat yet, so I might do a quick post tomorrow showing them with a top coat!

Illimasqua Speckled Half Moons

I have had these polishes for a really long time, but of course hadn't tried them yet. Nail polish hoarder problems... Here are more half moons! I hope you aren't getting too tired of these.

Sunlight

Shade

I made sure not to cut out any part of the beautiful Illimasqua bottle!

I started out with two coats of the base colors, and applied my Poshe fast drying top coat before applying the stickers for the half moon shape.

The green is Essie- Navigate Her (Navigate Her Collection 2012, now permanent). And the purple is China Glaze- Light As Air (Up & Away Collection Spring 2010/ Electropop Collection Spring 2012). I made sure not to choose base colors that were identical so you could actually see the shape, unlike my Easter Nails.

Then I just applied one coat of the Speckled polishes. The green is Illimasqua- Mottle and the purple is Illimasqua- Speckle. Both applied amazingly. No problem with getting glitter on the nail, and it is such a perfect balance of big chunky glitter and tiny glitters in a creme base.

I can't wait till the next time I go to my nail supply shop and get Nubar- Black Polka Dot so I can make endless amounts of looks like these Speckled polishes. Lucy's Stash has a great tutorial on how to do it!