Half Moons Using Smudged Polish

I featured my first and favorite Smudged Polish HERE, and now I have another to show you. I did a little nail art, which is usually hard to do with indie polishes since they are usually glitter bombs. Sylvie did something you never see, a textured polish! I know there are bazillion indie brands now so it is hard to keep up, but I have NEVER seen an indie brand do textured polishes. Not only did she make an amazing textured polish, but it is like nothing the major brands have been pushing out. Seriously, you need to get you some! Here it is:

Smudged- Gravel

I probably could have used a better base color, but I just got this polish which I have been wanting for a year, and I just wanted to wear it! It seemed like a good idea at the time...

I started off with 2 coats of Zoya- Wednesday (Beach Collection Summer 2012). It is a nice bright blue that actually has a muted dusty quality to it. I really don't have anything like it in my collection, and that's saying a lot! The polish is a little thick and goopy though :(

Then I did what I always do with my half moons, and added a thick coat of Gravel. I feel the base color made it look just a tad bit darker than it really is. It has so many colors in it, too! I can see a light purple, dark purple, and black?  Maybe some white, too. I seriously love this! I need to wear it again with a top coat. I really hope Sylvie comes out with more textured polishes, I hope you are reading this :P

She only mails out to Australia, so if you are an Aussie, go to her Etsy!

Simples Swatch(s)- Gloss n Sparkle

I finally got these two polishes in a nail swap from Nails At 2 am, who has easy access to all the Aussie indie brands! We planned this in like February? And we finally sent them out a few weeks ago! Although I am not sure is she received mine yet...Well, here are the two Gloss n Sparkles I chose:

I chose to wear these together since they have pretty much the same consistency and finish, and the purple and teal glitters in the orange definitely compliment the teal polish!

The teal polish is Gloss n Sparkle- Retrovertigo, and the orange is Gloss n Sparkle- Sweet Charity. Both have the same consistency of W7- Salt n Pepper. It is a creme base that is very saturated in color, you could almost get away with one thick coat if you tired. And in the creme base are medium hexagonal glitters, both polishes have two different colors. Retrovertigo has blue and purple, and Sweet Charity has teal and purple.

For my fellow Americans, you can get these on Llarowe, and both are in stock! For every one else, you can get them on Gloss n Sparkle's Etsy, shoppe-eclecticco, and femmefatalecosmetics

A Subtle Glitter Gradient

Let me just start off by saying this was the hardest manicure to photograph. My camera could not handle the sparkle over load! I probably had a useable photo for every 10th picture I took...Here it is:

Pretty shinies....

I am definitely ready for the new winter collections to come out! I started off with two coats of Essie- Beyond Cozy (Winter 2012 Collection). Then I did a subtle gradient with one of the new ULTA polishes that just came out, ULTA- Boogie Nights. It is mostly a bronzy coppery glitter, but has a light mix of slightly chunkier rainbow glitters in it. It reminded me a lot of the China Glaze Prism polishes. It goes perfectly with the champange color of Beyond Cozy!

The way I got the amazing shine and sparkle was by applying a thick coat of Gelous Base Coat, and then adding another coat of a quick dry ultra shiny top coat! It is like shine steroids for your nails!

And here is a photo of how pretty much all of my photos came out, but it does show the shine and sparkle even more!

Simple Swatch + Water Marble!

I feel like it has been forever since I have done a marble. I had enough free time to get one in today! Along with a polish that I have been eying for a while. I de-stashed a lot of polishes from my collection that I no longer want, so I felt that was enough justification to go ahead and finally buy it! Here it is:

I feel like I say this every time I do a marble, but this is my favorite to date! Straight up Mucking Fusser status

The amazing blue polish is Pipedream Polish- Pink Elephants and Lemonade. Such a fun name, and a fun polish! I think I love it so much because I really have not seen a combo like this, at all. I wouldn't think to mix blue with pink and gold/yellow glitter... I don't think I will ever get tired of indie polish as long as they are around!

I used 2 coats. The first coat seemed a little sheer, but the second covers every bald spot up, and it looks so delicious. It is a dusty blue creme base, with medium and small sized pink and yellow glitters, so pretty!

The colors I used for the marble are OPI- Need Sunglasses? (yellow), OPI- Fly (blue), and Essie- The Girls are Out (pink). All worked perfectly, Essie and OPI are definitely my favorite polishes to marble with!

You can get Pipedream Polish on Etsy for $7.50- $8.50, and it is in stock!

Banana Nail Art + Trelly Polish

TrellyPolish just came out with some new shades. They were of course stunning, so I picked up 2 of them. Here is the first I tried, and I also incorporated so nail art with it to compliment the name:

The bay area fog was lingering this morning....

This is Trelly's MISC Polish- Banana Bubblegum. It is a mixture of all shapes and sizes of pastel yellow, pink, and true yellow glitters. Every shape from circles, hexagons, and squares! It was very easy to work with, but I always have the problem of putting too much glitter on! I think that is why there are a whole bunch of tiny air bubbles....Does anyon know why that happenns?

The green base is two coats of Lime Crime- Pastelchio. The orange is two coats of Lime Crime- Peaches n Cream. And the purple is two coats of China Glaze- That's Shore Bright (Sunsational Collection Summer 2013). My favorite combo is on the purple for sure!

Lastly, the poorly executed "bananas" on my tips were made by using China Glaze- Happy Go Lucky. Once that dried, I used my trusty Orly Instant Artist- Jet Black striper for the lines. I really wanted to do a cute banana blowing a bubble gum bubble, but I knew that would have just came out worse than what I actually did!

This Trelly shade is currently out of stock, but I am sure she will restock it if there is a high demand for it!

Nail Art for the first ever International Nail Art Day!

I got an email from Nailgasm, the first ever nail art documentry, that today is officially International Nail Art Day. I assume pretty much every nail blogger will be contributing, so of course I am going to as well! I originally wanted to do a marble of course, but I thought I should try a new technique. Thenailasaurus has been posting all these different Waterfall looks, so I decided on that. Here is how it turned out:

I think I did alright for my first time...

I started out with one coat of Mod Lacquer- Dreamland, one of my favorite indie brands. I used two thickish coats. It is the prettiest mid tone purple with a scattered holographic finish!

The three colors I used for the waterfall affect were Essie- Butler Please, Anise- Violet Falls In Love, and Color Club- Revvvolution. I ended up doing some stripes with all three colors, then went in with one of each and filled in the spaces. I probably should have used like 5 colors so it wouldn't look as muted. But over all, I like it! And I will definitely try it again.

What did you do for International Nail Art Day?

Spongeless Gradient Nail Art

One of my favorite types of nail art is glitter gradients, but I still haven't mastered sponging normal polishes to a nice gradient. I saw this spongeless gradient using a jelly polish on Chalkboard Nails and knew I had to try it! I even took her advice by topping it with the same glitter:

 

 

It was definitely a success!

I started off with two coats of Color Club- Sunrise Canyon (Fiesta Collection Spring 2013), which is just a standard creme polish. Then doing what Reccca Likes Nails showed in her tutorial, I just used the brush from the bottle of a jelly polish to gradually create the gradient. The jelly I chose was China Glaze- Keepin' It Teal (Sunsational Collection Summer 2013). I added about 4 coats of that total, with the most toward the tips. Lastly, I topped it off with Maybelline Color Show- Clearly Spotted to hide any imperfections.

I must say, it looks uhmayzing! Although it was kind of time consuming compared to doing it all at once using a sponge. I am a little slower doing my nails anyways. It was kind of frustrating to get the technique down, that is what the non photo hand is for! Even after I felt I was done, I didn't like it because it didn't look smooth enough for my taste, but once you add that glitter topper, bam! It all came together!

I will definitely be doing more of these!