Girly Girly Glitz

I am seriously obsessed with this manicure... I couldn't even wait to take decent pictures in good light to share this with you! These were taken with my phone under a desk lamp, lol. This is Orly - Kiss the Bride, a super light, almost-white, pink topped with a cheap cheap Wet N' Wild iridescent glitter. Watching the sparkle while I was typing today was really distracting! Apologies for the poor pictures (and my TERRible cuticles, I have not been drinking enough water), take my word for it, this combo is just so girly and cute! I love it!!

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!

Red, White, and Blue

Fourth of July manis are flying around the internet right now and I love it! Red, white, and blue is definitely not a combination I go for usually so I always take advantage of the opportunity, trying to get in at least 2 patriotic manis in the week around the holiday. This is the one I am rocking right now. The amount that these polishes sparkle make this mani even more festive and appropriate for a sunshiny 4th. You can recreate this look with China Glaze - Ruby Pumps, an AMAZING, glowing red glitter with tons of depth, and China Glaze - Blue Iguana. I just used a Wet 'N Wild white for the dots and the white Stripe Rite polish for the stripe. It is so difficult to capture the beautiful glittering of these polishes so I tried to take pics in a few different lighting conditions and even out of focus to show some of the depth of the glitter.... alas, these are way more beautiful in person. You'll just have to try it yourself!!

Glittering Stripes

Today we have more glitter...you know how much I love glitter! Not only, do we have a glitter manicure for today - we have a Stripey glitter manicure. This is my first attempt at using nail tape to create a look and I think it turned out pretty well. However, I will definitely have to do more practicing with it before I am ready to use solid colors in my stripes. The glitter was definitely more forgiving than solids would be.

This mani was created with OPI's Sparrow Me The Drama, a dusty rose pink, layered with Wet N' Wild Hallucinate, an iridescent glitter that sparkles in a rainbow of colors. Using striping tape is definitely a bit more time-consuming and difficult than I anticipated, but I think that with practice it will get easier. The trick that took me a few go-rounds to figure out...it is REALLY important to pull off the tape before the polish dries. If you wait too long some of the polish that you want to leave behind will pull up with the tape. This was really fun to sport around town so I challenge you to give stripes a try!

China Glaze - Atlantis

I am back in The Bay after a nice relaxing week in So Cal! Even though we didn't get the gorgeous beach weather that I was hoping for, it was nice to get some quality time with the BF and my family. We did get a couple of nice sunny days and whenever I know I am going to be outside in the sun I like to showcase a neon or a glitter. This time I went for China Glaze - Atlantis, a gorgeous blue-green holo glitter.

Later in the week, I layered Atlantis over China Glaze - Frostbite for a little different look. These pictures really don't do this combo justice as I was using my phone for these pics. The glitter in Atlantis is waayyy more sparkly than my phone was able to capture in this lighting and the holo effect of the glitter still stood out  even in a more sheer application like this.

What polish do you like to wear for a day out in the sunshine?

An April Wedding: What I Wore - Nails

My first wedding of the 2012 season got things off to a fantastic start! Both the ceremony and the reception were perfect and classic. The bridesmaids all looked amazing donned in full length ivory a-line gowns and carrying bouquets of red roses while the bride looked beautiful in a strapless, ruched, mermaid style dress with a unique scalloped neckline and long cathedral veil. The whole crew was gorgeous! The reception was at a local country club and the venue was perfect for the warm and sunny spring day. I think that everyone had a great time and that the event was truly a success! 

Now, after a wonderful evening of friends, dancing, photos, flowers and champagne, I am excited to share with you the details of what I wore on the joyous day! First up, the nails. I wanted something fun that would go with my outfit and live up to the excitement of the day so I went with a combination of glitter - gold, to go with my accessories - and a deep magenta that almost perfectly coordinated with my dress.

The glitter base is actually a polish of my own concoction. I have yet to find a "store-bought" gold glitter that I have fallen in love with. They always end up being too thin, or the gold is not bright enough, or the glitter doesn't sparkle enough. Whatever the reason, every gold glitter I have ever purchased has been benched, so I took a stab at making my own. I simply found a beautiful, small grain, gold craft glitter and added it to a clear polish - in this case, Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Clearly Quick. You can add as much or as little glitter as you like, depending on how dense you want the glitter to be. The polish tends to separate, but with a quick shake before use it quickly recombines and becomes my perfect gold glitter polish!

The magenta polish I used on top is Sinful Colors - Dream On. The polish is a really gorgeous deep magenta, that looks much brighter in the sunshine and dries matte so make sure you have a top-coat on hand! I could not stop looking at my fingers when I was wearing this combination and they looked perfect wrapped around a tall glass of bubbly champagne. I also got a ton of compliments, my friends all seemed to love it!

To the blushing bride and handsome groom, thank you so much for sharing your celebration with us and I wish you a lifetime of love and happiness! As for the rest of you, stay tuned for more on what I wore to this April wedding!

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!

China Glaze - Dorothy Who?

This gorgeous blue sparkler is from a few years back, the Wizard of Ooh Ahz collection in 2009, I believe, but I just picked it up for a friend and, in spur of the moment manis, got the chance to give it a go. Of course. I love it. What can I say? I'm a sucker for sparkles. The base is a cerulean blue jelly with an abundance of blue and silver glitter. It goes on pretty thin, but only took 3 coats to get the opacity you see here. I have, and love, Ruby Pumps from this collection and this is definitely it's amazing blue counterpart. Like Ruby Pumps, it is hard to capture the wonderful depth of the glitter and get a true feeling of how gorgeous this polish is. I also love that, even without a base coat, this polish didn't stain my nails at all! I am going to have to pick a bottle up for myself. Hopefully they still have a few bottles when I get the chance to head back!

Life is better with glitter, don't you think?