A Simple Jelly Sandwich

Here is a simple jelly sandwich:

I started off with two coats of China Glaze- Tarty-Y For The Party (Avant Garden Collection Spring 2013). A very nice formula, fairly opaque on the first coat as well.

Then I added one generous coat of Orly- Ultraviolet (Flash Glam Effects Collection). This is part of the chunky glitter collection that Orly put out a few years ago, and I believe some of them are still permanent, not sure about this one though. A lot of the glitters from that line have the sinking glitter problem, but fortunately this particular polish doesn't have that problem. It does slightly, but all you have to do is just hold it upside down before you paint your nails and you get a very glitter dense coat for each nail.

Lastly, I topped it off with OPI- Care To Danse? (NYC Ballet Soft Shades Collection 2012). This a very pale pink shade and is also part of OPI's permanent line as well. It works perfect for layering, I would never wear this alone. You would probably need like 5 coats to get it opaque.

Yes, More Half Moons

I am in a bit of a nail art rut right now, so I am content with doing everything in half moons or french tips! Sorry, but the creative part of my brain has kind of switched off for quite a while, all though I do have 2 pretty awesome things planned. One I just haven't gotten around to doing, and the other one is using polishes that will be released tomorrow, so I don't exactly have what I need to create the look I am going for... Anyways, here are some more half moons:

Sorry for the boo boo on my pinky, one of my mice bit me real good over the weekend...

I started off with 2 coats of Ooh La Lacquer- Summer Daze (Summer Collection 2014). This is one of the more opaque Ooh La Lacquer holos that I have tried, I love it! Formula was awesome. It is super vibrant purple/fuchsia shade, but the color on top kind of took away from the awesomeness of it. You can see a better swatch here, and why not buy it while your there!

The textured polish on my ring finger is OPI- My Current Crush. This came in a limited edition set last year, so I am not sure how readily available this is.

Lastly, the awesome shimmery purple on my other nails is Orly- Hot Tropics. I am in love with this color! I have had it for a while and am just now getting around to wearing it...so sad. Just in time before summer is officially over. The formula is fantastic. I did one thickish coat on top of the holo, but depending how small your nail beds are, you could definitely get away with one coat with this polish! It is a vibrant purple base with tons of gold and silver shimmers in it. I am so happy the shimmer actually shows up on the nails. This picture is fairly color accurate too, it may be just a little darker in person. Pictures can't really do it justice.....

A Luxurious Glitter Gradient

I am calling this luxurious because of the price tag on these two polishes! They are both at the limit of how much I would pay for a polish, and well, I bought them! I don't spend this much money on one polish often AT ALL. I am that girl always waiting for a sale or good deal...

You are probably thinking, hmm, that just looks like an OPI, but it isn't just ANY OPI....

This gorgeous green is the beloved OPI- Damone Roberts 1968. I knew this shade existed before, but had no desire to hunt it down since it was so hard to find and probably ridiculously over priced. It was originally released in 2009, and was only retailing for $9.00, which is normal for an OPI, now. But it was re-released earlier this summer, and is selling for a whopping $20.00.

I honestly had no idea who Damone Roberts was, but apparently he is a fabulous eye brow expert based in Beverly Hills. The color is meant to match the color of his iconic salon walls, and I must say OPI did a great color match!

I really don't have any green like it, and that is saying a lot since green is my main color I swoon over. The only color I could think of that it was closest to in my collection is OPI- Mermaid Tears, but it isn't even close. All Lacquered Up has some great comparisons. I also got all my info about the basis behind this polish from her as well.

Okay, onto the actual formula. Flawless like most OPI cremes. I had a few streaks on the first coat, but the second coat covered those up, and it also dries super shiny! Definitely worth the money if you are a polish hoarder like myself. There are still some available! You can get it here.

The glitter I used is also a super fancy one from Rescue Beauty Lounge in the shade Locavore. I snagged this when she had her 50% off sale last year since I can't see myself spending that much... Sure, they are gorgeous, but why not wait until they are on sale? Anyways, this glitter is perfect for gradients. I have yet to wear it on its own, but you can definitely wear it alone. I think it goes perfect with Damone Roberts, definitely one of my favorite pairings in a while.

Simple Swatch: KB Shimmer

Kb Shimmer is one of those brands that I usually hold off on buying because they tend to have stock of all polishes for a long time. They have about one sale a year, so that is when I hoard all the polishes that are on my wishlist. A few months ago I saw various bloggers posting pictures of some KB Shimmer's that were going to soon be discontinued, so of course I had to see what they were. This polish was on my wishlist for ages, and I had to get finally get it, especially since it was on sale!

KB Shimmer- Watercolor

I used two coats here. The base is a semi sheer periwinkle/cornflower blue shade which barely covers the nail on the first coat, but once you add a second coat, you can't see the nail line at all! I probably could have done 3 coats, but ain't no body got time for that!

It has a beautiful mix of glitters, too. It is a mix of large, medium and small metallic purple, magenta, and blue hexagonal glitters, and also has a sprinkle of small and ultra small hexagonal white holographic glitters. And as always, it has tons of glitters like all KB Shimmer's do, but it isn't a thick goopy mess, very easy to work with. I just love it. Too mad it is not available anymore!

Enchanted Polish French Tips

I joined the Enchanted Polish mailing list towards the beginning of the year, so I have been lucky enough to have gotten all the LE monthly polishes since March! The last ones I got was May, June, and July 2014. June is a dark purple, so I will wear that another time, so I paired May and June together:

 

Seriously amazing polishes....

The orange is Enchanted Polish- May 2014. It is a burnt orange, super strong hollow, and had an amazing formula! Oranges don't agree with my skin tone a lot, but this one surprisingly did! I used two coats here. 

The red is Enchanted Polish- July 2014. The holo in this one isn't as strong, but it is still pretty apparent. It is very saturated. I remember when I swatched it on my nail wheel it was nearly a one coater, and the nails on those wheels are pretty wide and long! 

And of course I used a textured polish for the accent. I used one of my faves, OPI- Jinx (Bond Girls Collection 2013). It is a nice mix between red and orange, so I thought it went very nicely with these!

Sideways Half Moons

I saw this design on Pinterest a few weeks ago and am finally getting around to trying it out. Everyone knows I love me some half moons because they are so easy, but this is a nice twist to it. I added a little of my own touch by outlining the lines:

As you can see, I need some practice with free handing straight clean lines! I was also going to add some horizontal lines over the blue, but the purple took so long and didn't turn out the way I wanted, so I just skipped those.

I started out with two coats of China Glaze- Be More Pacific (Off Shore Collection Summer 2014). Then I applied the half moon stickers and applied Color Club- Take Me To Your Chateau (Pardon My French Collection Summer 2010). I have fairly curved nails, so this technique wasn't ideal for my nails. No matter how much I pressed on the stickers to make sure it was flat on my nail, the color still managed to bleed so it wasn't a perfect line. So, I will probably not ever be doing this again, especially since my lines that I did to cover up the mess came out so crappy! The purple I used is Floss Gloss- Lean.

Simple Swatch + Water Marble

I am gonna keep this short and sweet:

I swear every time I wear Laquerlicious the sunlight is never in my favor.

The glitter is Laquerlicious- Class Act (Lights, Camera, Action Collection Summer 2014). This was kind of tricky to work with. It is very glitter dense, so when applying it kind of clumps up, so you definitely have to work fast with it. I have 2 coats here over white, with 1 coat of Nail Pattern Boldness Glitter Food + 1 coat of Seche Vite.

I tried using colors for the water marble that were as close as possible to the glitter colors, but they aren't quite close enough for me. I used:
OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls (Spiderman Collection Spring 2012)
Wet n Wild- Candy-Licious
Zoya- Blu (Lovely Collection Spring 2013)