Christmas Nails

I managed to post these on my social media the day of Christmas, but didn't really have time to write it up in a blog post. Who reads this anyways? Here's what I have been wearing since the day before Christmas Eve:

I used a design from Mucking Fusser again, and I must say, this is one of my best water marbles. I got ZERO air bubbles on my design

The greens I used for it are all OPI:
You Are So Out of Lime! (Neons Collection Summer 2014)
Green-Wich Village (Mod About Brights Collection 2008)
Jade is the New Black

I applied a fast drying top coat, used some Nail Vinyls map out the tree shape and painted the black using Wet n Wild- Black Creme. I added dots using OPI- My Boyfriend Scales Walls (Spiderman Collection 2012). The star is from a Lush Lacquer/Polish Me Silly Polish called Tree-Mendous, which I used for my Christmas nails last year.

For the candy canes I used Butter London- Chancer. This polish is awesome, and I don't even like reds. It is almost a one coater, but as always, I applied a second coat, then applied a fast drying top coat using the same Nail Vinyls, I placed them in random thicknesses, and applied a thick coat of My Boyfriend Scales Walls.

And that is it! My next post will probably be my New Years nails.

Merry Christmas!

I know I am posting this on Christmas Eve, but I will be rocking these nails for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. With all the stuff I am doing with mine and my boyfriend's family, I will have no time to do my nails! I went pretty festive this year:

Christmas Trees and Candy Canes

I thought I had a pretty good idea with the Christmas Tree on my two middle fingers, but it really didn't turn out the way I wanted :( I started off with two coats of China Glaze- Running In Circles (Cirque Du Soleil Collection Winter 2013). Seriously the most amazing glass fleck green polish ever! Then I topped it off with a coat of Lush Lacquer- Tree-Mendous, now the brand is Polish Me Silly due to legal issues... I will probably always call them Lush Lacquer since they were my first love of an indie brand, and they even featured some of my pictures on their etsy, but they have discontinued A LOT of their polishes since then. Fortunately they have re promoted this one this year, and you can get it on their Etsy. You can see my opinion on this polish on my blog post from last year.

For the string of lights, I first made the black line using my Orly Instant Artist Striper- Jet Black. Then using a variety of colors, I just used a small nail art brush to make weirdly shaped light bulbs. Here is a list of the colors I used:
China Glaze- Adventure Red-Y (On Safari Collection Fall 2012)
OPI- On the Same Paige (Brights Collection 2009)
China Glaze- Flyin' High (Up and Away Collection Spring 2010)
China Glaze- Happy Go Lucky
China Glaze- Man Hunt (On Safari Collection Fall 2012)

The red I used on my index and pinky is Butter London- Chancer. Again, I love this red actually. Luckily I got this for free at ULTA :P. I used two coats. The gold for the gradient on my index is OPI- Golden Eye (James Bond Collection Winter 2012). Another amazing glass fleck polish, it really looks like liquid gold. Lastly, the stripes for the candy cane was accomplished by using my Orly Instant Artist Striper- Crisp White

Here is a picture of all 5 of my fingers:

Hope you have a happy and safe Holiday!

Glitter Gradient + Dotted Christmas Tree

I can't believe I am saying this, but I love this red! I have never been a fan of the color red, therefore don't really own many red polishes. I got this in a swap, and I am in love, although this time of year will probably be the only time I wear it.

A little bit of a fail on the Christmas tree....

The red I used is Essie- Leading Lady (Winter Collection 2012). I used two coats. It is for the most part a dark red jelly base with a bunch of red glitter in it, so pretty! My bottle was a little on the thick side, but some nail polish thinner can help that.

I used two colors for the gradient. I started off with China Glaze- Twinkle Lights (Let it Snow Collection Winter 2011). It has gold, silver, red, and green micro glitters in a clear base, very Christmas appropriate! The very tips has a thicker coat of Orly- Halo (Naughty or Nice Collection Winter 2012). This polish is just a mix of very tiny champagne micro glitters and medium silver hexagonal glitters. I believe this polish is now part of their permanent line.

Lastly, the dotted Christmas tree was made with two China Glaze polishes. The gold being China Glaze- Midnight Kiss, and the sliver being China Glaze- Cheers to You. Both are from the Tis The Season to be Naughty or Nice Collection from 2010.

Hope you enjoyed! Only a few more Holiday themed nails left!

Christmas Glitta!

I am finally almost caught up with my blog posts and editing my photos! Today is finally the start of my Christmas nails. I tried doing the same last year, too, and I think I was pretty successful. You can only really pull of red and green glitter around one time of year, and I am of course showcasing the number one red and green glitter of all time today:

Again, another very difficult manicure to photograph. I am wondering if I try to just use one coat of top coat instead of using Gelous first, if the less shinyness will photograph better with these glitters...

Here are some photos more in the shade:

I used mostly China Glaze for this. China Glaze does glitters the best!! More reason they are my favorite brand.

The colors from my thumb to pinky are:  
China Glaze- Ray-diant (Prismatics Collection Spring 2013)
China Glaze- Mistletoe Kisses (Tis The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Collection Winter 2010)
China Glaze- This is Tree-Mendous (Holiglaze Collection Winter 2013)
China Glaze- Winter Holly (Holiday Joy Collection Winter 2012)
Zoya- Chita (Pixiedust Collection Fall 2013)

And last but not least, the glitter used for the gradient is China Glaze- Party Hearty (Tis The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Collection Winter 2010). Unfortunately this polish is kind of hard to get now :(. I used mine a ton, but my nail supply store all of a sudden had like 20 on their shelves and I bought my first ever back up polish! Everyone needs this polish, but fortunately Sinful Colors came out with one this year that looks a lot like it. Theirs is just green and red, but Party Hearty is green, red, and silver in all sizes of hexagonal glitters!

I did a pretty similar look to this last year, I even have a macro shot in there!

OPI Skyfall + Burlesque

Three posts in three days in a row! I'm on a roll. I actually had time during the day to do my nails, and here is what I came up with:

 

OPI- The World Is Not Enough. This is one of the three polishes I got from the Skyfall collection. They weren't that unique to me, although I really want Golden Eye now. This polish was three coats, not my favorite, but the color is so purty. It is like a weird browny purple, depending on how the light hits it, there's some hints of blue as well. You could probably get away with two thicker coats if you want.

After the three coats were dry, I added two coats of OPI- Sparkle-icious, which was from their Burlesque Holiday/Winter collection in 2010. It is made up of gold, purple, and blue glitters all in a clear base. I love this glitter so much! This is my first time trying it because my friend at work was giving away a lot of her polishes since she doesn't wear polish much anymore. So I came up on this polish, and DS Illuminate, so awesome! She almost gave me Mad as a Hatter, but she decided last minute she wanted to keep it.

What do you think? Do you own any of these polishes? I have really special nail art planned for my next manicure. Hopefully I can make it soon, cuz it is gonna be awesome!

2nd Lush Lacquer Holiday Polish

Today I successfully swatched my other Lush Lacquer holiday polish! Here it is:

Sunlight

Lush Lacquer- Ho Ho Holiday shown on top of China Glaze- Cheers to You. Ho Ho Holidays is pretty much christmas in a bottle. It reminds me a lot of China Glaze- Party Hearty. The main difference is that there is white, and these glitters are primarily matte, which is another reason I love Lush Lacquer's glitters so much! It consists of super tiny white hexagonal glitters, medium size red and green hexagonal and square glitters, large red green and white hexagonals, and lastly, super large red and white hexagonal glitters! I kind of had to work a little to get the right amount of glitter I wanted onto the brush.

Shade

Cheers to You is from China Glaze's Tis the Season winter collection from 2010. It is just your standard silver foil, but it is unique to my collection. I just picked this one up on Friday after I was on a foil kick when I wore Designer de Better. The application was pretty good. Pretty much opaque in one coat, but it was a little streaky, so a second coat made it perfect. 

So, what do you think? Have you tried any of Lush Lacquers polishes?

Lush Lacquer + China Glaze

Today I have the first of the two Lush Lacquer holiday polishes that I have. I must say, I am in love! Here it is:

 

Crappy indoor lighting

This is Lush Lacquer- Tree-mendous on top of China Glaze- Running in Circles. 

These polishes were pretty much made for each other. Running in circles is almost a glitter polish, just really fine glitter. I didn't originally pick this one up when I got my first picks from the Cirque De Soleil collection, but then I totally regretted it. I am a sucker for green polishes. I used two coats here.

Then sticking with the Christmas/holiday theme this month, I decided to use some Lush Lacquer. As I mentioned before, they are hands down my favorite independent nail polish brand. They have the perfect balance of glitters in each polish that isn't total glitter vomit, and they are so affordable. Tree-mendous is mainly a finely milled green glitter base which is pretty much the same green as Running in Circles, which represents the christmas tree. Then it has medium sized hexagonal glitters in pretty much every color of the rainbow, representing the lights on the tree. And to top it all off there are yellow stars! You kind of have to work a little to get the stars on your brush which I had a feeling was going to happen, but oh well! I love this look and can't wait to wear my other Lush Lacquer holiday polish. I will try to wear that one next.

Lush Lacquer can be found on Etsy. Their polishes are only $8.75 and always in stock! Definitely check them out.

Polka Dot Gradient

Today's Christmas nails are yet another glitter gradient, but a little more special. I finally got around to getting some dotting tools, so when they came in the mail I knew exactly what manicure I was going to do. Here it is:

 

Direct Sunlight

 Shade

The base color I used is China Glaze- Ultamate Holiday which was from their Ulta exclusive holiday collection from last year, hence the name. Then I used the largest dotting tool end and added the red dots first, I always start with the lightest color. The red is Stila- Firecracker. Yeah Stila has some nail polishes. I got them on Cyber Monday last year and checked their site before I wrote this, and it looks like they don't have them anymore. Then I added the large green dots with China Glaze- Winter Holly which is from their

Holiday Joy collection from this year. I used it in another manicure which you can see here. Then I repeated the same steps, but used a significantly smaller dotting tool.

Ultamate Holiday applies pretty well. I used two coats and it dries to a very gritty almost matte texture. Winter Holly is pretty much the same consistency. As far as the red goes, it gave me some trouble. It isn't a very dense polish, so I constantly had to go over the same dot a few times, and you can see the red dots still aren't perfect. Oh well, I am still happy with the results. Since they were such rough textured glitters I used my Gelous Advance Nail Gel Coat, then finished it off with Seche Vite, of course. Hope you enjoy this as much as i do! :)

China Glaze Overload

Oh my gosh I am so excited for this post! I made my second set of Christmas nails last night, and I seriously can not stop staring at my nails. I had a group presentation in class earlier today and after I said my part I was pretty much staring at them the entire time. On to the awesomeness!

 

Look how gorgeous that is! I don't want to take this manicure off! The polishes I used are all China Glaze, of course, the best brand in the world. I started off with two coats of CG- Mistletoe Kisses all over the nail. This polish is from their 'Tis the Season To Be Naughty and Nice Holiday collection way back in 2010! I just got it recently from my nail supply store, I thought it was an appropriate time to finally get it. Then I added one thin coat of CG- Twinkle Lights two thirds the way down my nail. This polish is from their Let it Snow Holiday collection from 2011. Last but not least, I added CG- Party Hearty, which was the star of their 'Tis the Season To Be Naughty and Nice collection from two years ago. I tried adding it to just the tips, but I ended up applying it a little further down. Here's more photos:

 

A little overcast lighting

 

Indoor Lighting

 Awesome Glitter Detail!

The application of all these polishes is pretty much amazing. Mistletoe Kisses was kind of sheer, but it is a jelly base, so it was expected. It pretty much has only silver microglitters packed into the light green jelly base. Twinkle Lights has gold, green, and silver micro glitters in a clear base. And Party Hearty is just ridiculous! It has like every shape and size possible of red and green glitters, along with silver microglitters. I knew it has always been one of my all time favorite polishes, mainly because it was one of my first polishes I got when I first really got into collecting polishes. I have used it so much of it there's like two thirds of the polish left, which is rare for me! I will definitely be getting another backup, and possibly one for my viewers. Everyone needs this polish in their life!

I got the inspiration for this manicure from another nail blogger, Swatched Nails. Here is the post she made: Swatched Nails. She has some awesome swatches, go check her out!

First Christmas Nails

Well, I guess it isn't totally christmas-y, but it is from Orly's Winter collection: Naughty or Nice. I first saw this polish way back when Jen from The Polishaholic reviewed her picks way back in summer! I about died since they released a holographic polish. Has Orly ever made holograhic polishes? I bet they would be amazing. Luckily they had a set of three that had all three of the polishes I wanted. Here is one of them:

 

Orly- Miss Conduct plus OPI- Superbass Shatter. I know Shatters/Crackles are so last year, but I like to whip mine out every once and a while. I am not ashamed that I went a little Crackle crazy. Anyways, on to the polish. This polish was pretty much perfect. It was nearly a one coater, but I did two just for reassurance. You can tell it dries significantly lighter than it looks in the bottle, which I was pretty bummed about. Mainly because it leans more towards red. I am not into the color red really, at all. I own one red polish...I know, crazy. 

Indoor Lighting

I added this so you can see more of the holo come out. It is a more scattered holo affect like Gem from my previous post. Either way it is gorgeous! Adding a top coat doesn't ruin the affect either which is nice. I am attempting to do some "nail art" with my next manicure. That post is soon to come seeing as I am posting this so late! Enjoy