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!!

Julep - Helena

Since we are talking about Julep Maven, I though I would share one of the polishes that came in my Julep Maven Intro box. This gem is Helena, a beautiful magenta/fuchsia cream. A bright jewel tone, this polish is one of those that looks seriously rich and gorgeous on my hands and I bet would look great on any skintone. In terms of the formula on this baby, I wasn't overly thrilled with it. It was the first Julep polish that I had ever tried and to be perfectly honest, I haven't yet figured out how they can charge $14 a bottle for these things. For Helena in general, I just wanted it to be glossier. Even with a high-shine top coat it wasn't shiny enough for my tastes. So there it is: the color is gorgeous but I could do for a lot more shine!

Orly - Kiss the Bride

Brace yourselves for another Orly polish! 

Kiss the Bride is one of those almost whites with a hint of pink, which I love. This kind of color was made super popular by the Kardashians as the whole family sports them on their show. I have a couple Essie polishes like this that I have loved and this one definitely gets added to the list. It is surprisingly opaque and super flattering against my skin - especially when I've got a bit of a summer tan :) This is another polish that can go virtually anywhere... the beach, the office, the bar... and is cute and appropriate. I also think that this would look great paired with Orly - Rage, so I will have to put together a combo mani here in the near future. Love Love Love.

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....

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!

Wet N' Wild - Pink and Orange

In general, I tend to like the salon brand polishes better than drug store brands. However, whenever I walk into a CVS or a Walgreens I almost always walk out with at least one bottle of  polish, whether it be Wet N' Wild, Sinful Colors, or Sally Hansen. There is just something about those prices that I can't resist! A perfect example are these two Wet N' Wild polishes that I picked up recently. If I remember correctly, these were $0.97 each. Less than a dollar?? Yes, please. 

These two great spring colors are Tickled Pink and Sunny Side Up. Very appropriate names, I think! They are both great on their own but I love the combo of the pink and orange together. Hope you enjoyed!

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 Busy Week and an Interview Mani

As I mentioned in my last post, this last week has been a bit of a whirlwind. In addition to having several interviews earlier this week, one of my girlfriends/roommate/sorority sister from college is getting married today! So of course this meant lots of shopping looking for the perfect dress and shoes to wear to the shindig, and a reunion/Bachelorette party thursday night! It was so great getting to see so many of my sisters, some of which I haven't seen in quite a long while. I am super excited about the wedding tomorrow and will definitely do an update about my nails and outfit!

On a less fun note, I have been looking for a new job and had a couple of interviews downtown earlier in the week. I overestimated the time I would need, so I stopped at a local Starbucks to pick up a delicious Tazo Refresh tea and decided to snap a few pictures of my interview manicure. *Sorry for the picture quality... my camera phone can only do so much!*

I realize that this would not be an appropriate choice for all interviews in all industries, but for the roles that I am interested in, it is ok to show a little personality. I try to do this with little punches of color, maybe a purple shoe or a bright printed top, and sometimes I add a little interest to my manicure. I talk alot with my hands, so it is imperative for the nails to be well-groomed and if they are a little bit unusual it can sometimes be a great conversation starter that gives me the opportunity to talk about one of my passions.

For this manicure, I chose two colors that I consider fairly demure and interview worthy. Similar shades of pink in different tonalities. The base here is China Glaze - Fuchsia Fanatic, another member of the Spring 2012 collection and as the name implies a beautiful fuschia pink. On top is China Glaze - Seduce Me, a more subdued raspberry pink. I think that either of these polishes worn on their own, while beautiful, create typical pink, some-what boring manicures. But when layered in a reverse french, offer a unique twist on "appropriate".

What would you don on your digits for an interview??

Another Reverse French Manicure

So... I am little bit obsessed with this lately. Pretty much every plain old manicure I do, I repaint the 2nd or 3rd day with a reverse french. It is an awesome way for me to deal with my OCD regarding chipped tips and draw a little extra attention to those digits. I especially love incorporating a bright neon color that might be a little too much for the average working lady. This combo is probably still a little out there since the blue is not exactly office friendly, but for a girl like me, with over the top taste in polish, it is AWESOME. :)

I started with a full manicure of China Glaze - Shocking Pink. This is a bright neon pink that I showcased in my last post. I wore the all-pink mani for a day or two, so it was completely dry and had a coat of topcoat on it before I started with the blue.

The top color in this combo mani is another China Glaze color (I knew you would start to see the pattern here lol), Frostbite. I layered this on top, leaving a small half moon of the pink visible near the cuticle.

Frostbite, is an awesome blue on its own. It seriously glows. When I first picked it up I wore it for a week straight then painted my toes with it and wore it for a solid month on my piggly wigglies. Even if you don't like wearing blues, chances are you will love this color. I can not stop looking at my nails when I wear it.

The two of these together is awesome, I have gotten 17,000 compliments on it and keep flashing my nails around like it is nobody's business. This is a bright, fun, eye-catching combo that I love and will definitely wear again. I definitely encourage you to play around with layering your polishes as it is a fun, fresh way to wear some of your old regular favorites.

Happy painting and a blessed Easter!

China Glaze - Shocking Pink

Amazing neon pink! Shocking Pink is lighter than similar Pink Voltage and Pool Party but still offers that great neon punch that is especially visible in direct sunlight. This is one of those summer polishes that you want to wear to the beach or to a BBQ that will get tons of attention and I think will look good on pretty much any skin tone. 

I had the same application problems with this polish as I do with most neons, they tend to be streaky and you have to be really careful not to get brush drag at the base of your nail. I needed three coats to get full coverage. It dries matte, so if you like shine, like myself, you'll need a high-gloss topcoat. I always have trouble with neons chipping much more quickly than other polishes, and Shocking Pink was no exception. I find that washing dishes and showering always lead to big chips, so I tend to keep wear time pretty short for most neon polishes. This certainly doesn't keep my from buying and using them though!

Shocking pink does look quite different in differing lighting situations, sometimes appearing very neon and sometimes appearing as a much softer pink. I took a bunch of different pictures and I think that these few give a pretty good idea of what this polish looks like.

This is definitely a great sunshine weather polish that I will bust out frequently this summer. I think it will make an especially great pedicure color too!

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 - Dance Baby

Today's manicure is from the new China Glaze collection Electropop for Spring 2012. I picked up quite a few of the colors from this collection, except the one I really really wanted, Aquadelic, was sold out so I am still on the hunt. I always love the spring collections, as I tend to be a pastel creme fiend. I am not gaga over this color, but it a slighlty different pink that an others that I own, and it doesn't give me lobster hands, which some pastel pinks tend to do with my pinkish skin. 

The Verdict: It is a nice feminine pink color, highly pigmented - this was only 2 coats, and easy to work with. Not one of my all time favorites, but I am sure that I will find occasion to wear this color occasionally. Check back again later today, I may try to dress this mani up a bit to make it a little more pleasing :)

China Glaze Sugar High

You'll start to notice a trend here at MP3 (the nickname I have decided to use for my little blog)... I love China Glaze. At this point, CG makes up the majority of my nail polish collection. The truth behind this reality is that I simply love the color selection that CG offers, not to mention that they are slightly more affordable at my local nail polish haunt than OPI or Essie. I am a big fan of bright, cheery cremes and CG offers a plethora of these. 

Sugar High from the Up and Away collection is one of my favorites for Spring and Summer. A bright coral pink, this color just makes me happy. I took several photos in different lights and the color shows quite differently under these different circumstances. This first one is under diffused fluorescents and leans more to the coral end of the spectrum.

The second photo is under more direct light and I think the color reflects more as it appears in life, much more pink. Sugar High goes on very smoothly and easily and I love the flawless finish and shine that you get with a quick coat of Seche Vite.

If you're a fan of pink cremes, take this out and give it a whirl this spring. Happy painting!