Some Serious Essie Bling

Today we've got Essie's Luxeffects - Set in Stones over China Glaze - Pelican Gray. I love these Effects polishes... all the ones I have are gorgeous for layering and I need to buck up and go buy the rest of the collection. Glitter gradients like this mani are great for parties or a night out when you want a little hint of sparkle and using a neutral base like a grey makes it wearable from day to night. I wear this kind of mani alot with different polish and glitter combos. Hope you enjoyed!

Mani of the Day and a Giraffe

As promised, here is the first manicure from the polishes I picked up at Peninsula Beauty the other day. This one is Orly Rage over Essie Flawless. My diagonals are not perfect here as I just free-handed my use of Rage. If you wanted a more perfect line, you could use tape, scotch or nail tape, but when you use tape you have to make sure your first color is completely dry (and I mean let-dry-overnight level dryness) and I wasn't feeling very patient at the time. I am not a huge fan of flawless, it is a pretty pink, but doesn't really differentiate itself from the dozens of other pinks in my collection... but I am loving Rage. It is a champagne foil with a bit of a pink tint that really compliments my skintone and as you can see, it is really very shiny!

I also wanted to share this little guy with you that I picked up at Forever 21 today. Isn't he cute?!  You can pick up in gold or silver here. I am also very excited about the bright purple jeans that he is resting on in this pic! I have been lusting after some great colored jeans and I snatched these, along with a pair of turquoise ones, at F21 as well! 

Now only to find the perfect pair of red jeans before football season....

Polish Haul from Peninsula Beauty

This weekend I had a Groupon deal for $30 at Peninsula Beauty that was close to expiring so I headed over to my local shop to pick up some fancy beauty supplies. When I arrived I discovered 3 large bins full of polish for 50% off! Woo Hoo! Turns out that PB is replacing their Orly collection (they will continue selling the nail treatments) with China Glaze, which is a total thumbs up in my book. I have never really been all that interested in Orly polishes, I only had 3 before this haul. I always look at the Orly rack, but it just seems like none of the colors are unique. But who can resist a big ol' pile of discount polishes?? I walked away with a nice little haul ranging across the color and finish spectrum.

The colors I picked up, listed by brand, clockwise from the upper left corner are:
Orly: Ancient Jade, Rage, Kiss the Bride, and Terracotta
Essie: Real Simple, Looking for Love, and Flawless
OPI: Meep-Meep-Meep, Pepe's Purple Passion, Warm & Fozzie, and Last Friday Night

I'll be testing out these shades all week, so check back for swatches and manis to see what these polishes are all about!

Essie - Turquoise & Caicos

Featured as the base color in my last post, Turquoise and Red Polka-Dots, Essie's Turquoise & Caicos is among the most used polishes in my collection. This aqua shade that is truly reminiscent of the gorgeous oceans of the Caribbean is demure enough to wear to the office, yet its cheerful and bright demeanor is anything but mundane. Please forgive the slight tip wear seen in these photos as this manicure was a couple of days old when I got around to taking the pictures. If you work in an office where it's appropriate to wear polish other than nudes and neutrals, I definitely recommend giving this color a try, I guarantee that you will receive loads of compliments!

Turquoise and Red: Another Adventure in Polka-Dots

Today's manicure featuring turquoise and red polka-dots is brought to you by special request. This is not normally a combo that I would rock but I have had fun sporting it over the last few days. With a base of Turquoise & Caicos and dots of Russian Roulette, this Essie mani is what the mushrooms would look like in a Made-By-Melissa version of Mario, none of this plain-old red and white stuff. I think that next time I would do a coat of top coat in between the turquoise and the red as that might help a bit with the darkening that I experienced in the dots, but in the sunshine they still come through bright cranberry red, so it wasn't too much of a problem. Also, something to keep in mind when doing any kind of nail art when your colors are drastically different, make sure that your art paint doesn't get too tacky or you will end up with visible drag lines. You can see them a bit on my index finger, especially in the first picture. To avoid this, just make sure that you replenish your little puddle of polish between every few fingers!

Tiffy, this one is for you, I hope you enjoyed it!

Summer Polka-dots

Nothing quite says fun and flirty like polka-dots and, when done in great summer colors like these, what is not to love?! These polka-dots are created with a base of Essie's California Coral spotted with Haute as Hello, two of my favorite summer colors from Essie.

What colors would you do the good ol' polka with?

A Dressed Up Mani with Essie - A Cut Above

So I went about perking up my bland pink mani from this morning and decided to give it a sprinkling of glitter. I have said it before and I will say it again, glitter makes everything better! The base here is China Glaze's Dance Baby with Essie's A Cut Above from the Luxeffect collection, layered in a gradient over the top. To get this look, I painted a full mani with the base color (see my previous post for the results). Then, taking the glitter polish, I painted a french tip like line across the top making sure to glob on extra glitter and using the brush, gently pulled the glitter down the nail, stopping about halfway down. Make sure to work on only one nail at a time as you don't want your glob of glitter to dry at the top :)

I like this mani much better now! I also really love the Luxeffect polishes. I have this and I just got the silver glitter, Set in Stones. They are great for layering but are dense enough that, with a few coats, you could wear them on their own. I also really want Shine of the Times, an opalescent flake glitter so I am on the lookout for that. Hope you enjoyed!

Essie - Haute as Hello

Today, I just wanted to share a full mani or the color that I used for the base color in my Turquoise and Coral  reverse french manicure. Essie's Haute as Hello is a bright orangy coral with an almost neon like finish. As I said in the other post, this color does not translate well into photographs. I tried indoors, outdoors, diffused light, direct light, pretty much everything and could not get the brightness of this color to show. You may want to check out this post by a longtime blogger Temptalia, as she manages to capture some of the brightness with her photos, particularly the one with flash. As a polish with a neonish treatment, Haute as Hello dries semi-matte, so make sure you have a high-shine topcoat on hand - Seche Vite, is always my topcoat of choice.This is another color that I love for spring and gets a lot of nail time during the warmer months.

Love and Nail Polish,

Pinspiration Thursday - Turquoise and Coral

I don't know about all of you, but I am obsessed with Pinterest. Those of you who have never heard of it need to visit the site immediately. It is amazing! I spend more time browsing pins nowadays than I do on Facebook (THAT is a big deal). There is always more to see and it is such a great way to get ideas for everything from fashion to crafting and party throwing. A friend of mine pinned this great Polyvore creation a while back and I just love the colors! 

So, in a burst of what I am now referring to as "Pinspiration", I set to work creating a mani inspired by this outfit. The colors are not quite identical, but I really like the way that it turned out.

A really popular trend in polish lately has been the half moon manicure. Where you essentially use hole-punch reinforcers to recreate the natural coloring of a nail bed with your polish, let Lauren Conrad teach you how here. I simply do not have the patience to recreate this look. In order to apply the sticker to your nail, and have it not damage the polish when you remove it, you have to wait for your first color to dry completely - we all know how long this takes without a topcoat.. FOREVER. So, using the Half-moon manicure as part of my inspiration, I went for a bit of a different layering effect that can be achieved without the use of stickers.

For this look I used Essie's Haute as Hello, a bright orangy coral that is actually a bit neon (it turned out to be very difficult to capture the true color, it is much brighter than it appears here), as the base color. I painted two coats paying particular attention to making sure there was no brush drag near the bottom of the nail, as this is the area that is actually going to show, and trying to get good coverage without laying it on too thick. The thicker your polish, the more easily it will chip and with layering it is very easy to end up with VERY thick  nails.

I then layered on 2 coats of China Glaze's For Audrey, starting slightly above the beginning of Haute as Hello. This can be a bit tricky, especially if you haven't mastered the art of not getting polish all over your cuticles, but if you sit at a table and have a surface to prop and steady your painting hand, you can get a very smooth round edge. It has taken me a lot of practice, but I think I have gotten it down pretty well now.

I love this combo and today is actually my 3rd consecutive day sporting this mani, which, if you know me, means that it is a HUGE hit. I might actually try to stretch it until tomorrow (!!!), if the slight tip wear doesn't drive me over the edge before then.

I am getting very fond of these creative manis, so I am sure that this is the first of many Pinspiration posts to come! If you'd like to follow my Pinboards, click here.

Happy Pinning and Painting!

St. Paddy's Day Mani

Green is not normally my color, especially green nail polish. For some reason I just don't like the way it looks. However, for St. Patrick's Day exceptions need to be made. I also don't own very much in the way of green clothing or accessories so I try to do the green thing with nails and makeup.

This year I went for for a green combo with Essie's Incognito as the majority of the mani and just a hint of sparkle on the index finger with Zoya's Riva. Combo manicures are very much the rage right now and while I am not usually a band wagon jumper, I think that this is a really fun trend. Manicures like this are perfect if you are just getting into polish and/or tend to be more conservative with your color choices. You can choose are more subtle or subdued color for the bulk of your nails and showcase a pop of a bright color, glitter, etc. on a single finger that you maybe wouldn't be comfortable wearing as a full mani. It is also just a fun way to ass some dimension and interest to your nails. This combo got a lot of positive attention and I loved the look, so I will definitely be doing more daily manicures like this!

I hope everyone had a great weekend and had a couple of delicious green libations!!