Black and Gold Tribal

I used some more of my stamping plates here, and I did actually have a hard time finding a polish that would show up on top of black, so I just stuck with my gold polish. And even that didn't really show up all that well before I put on a matte top coat, the gloss from the Seche Vite really hid the details of the design. (As you can see in the first picture)

The first picture is of my hand, because the image actually came out a little crooked. I did line it up straight but when I stamped it the stamp came down crooked onto my nail, but I actually like that lineup better than it being straight on. But I had already done my left hand.. And I didn't really feel like doing it over. 

I still need to work on placement and getting the stamp straight on my nails. 

Also, my nails are too short, so this whole stamp image didn't fit on my nails. I kind of wish that it was either smaller so it would fit, or my nails were longer.. Lol 

(Image Used)

Seche Vite Topcoat

Matte Topcoat

Matte Topcoat

Polished Used:

Wet n Wild Fast Dry - Ebony Hates Chris

Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear - Golden-I 

Hard Candy Matte Topcoat

Plate Used:
MASH 47

Wet n Wild I got from Walgreens for about $2, Sally Hansen I got from Walgreens as well for about $2.50 and the Hard Candy topcoat I got from Walmart for $4.00

And Seche Vite topcoat I got from Amazon.

Milani and LAColors Nail Art

I actually really like how this design came out! 

Only my second time doing a gradient and I think it came out pretty good! Though I did actually watch a few tutorials this time, that seemed to have helped. Note to self: if you're going to do something for the first time, watch some how to videos. lol

I used one of my LAColor polishes for the first time here, none of them have names, but it's the blue metallic one.. I used it for the base. 

I used Milani Silver Dazzle for the gradient. 

The LAColors, I got those in a pack of seven for like $6.99 or about that.. from Ross. 

And the Milani polish, I got from Walmart for about $3.50.

Pink and Blue Sparkles

I finally got my hands on Revlon Whisical! 

I saw swatches of it online months ago and ran out to my local Walgreens looking for it, but they didn't have it; no one in my town did. 

So I forgot about it eventually. But finally we got a super Wal-mart up here and they had it, but it was sold out... But the next week I went down and they had it! So of course I got a bottle. 

It is the most amazing glitter I own. It is such a delicate glitter, it's not overpowering to the color underneath, I love it! 

I chose to pair it with OPI What's With the Cattitude?

I have had this OPI for who knows how long and I have never used it... 

The formula was weird with the first coat, streaky and very thin, but luckily with the second coat it was all fixed and to full opacity. A few nails, however, I did need to do three coats where the brush pulled the nail polish. This is a creme polish. 

The middle finger I did two coats of the glitter to show what it would look like more built up, and to see if it would even go thicker. 

The glitter was actually a little hard to apply, it is suspended in a rather thin, very sheer, light blue shimmery blue base. The glitter kept wanting to migrate to the tips of my nails when I would just brush it on, but it didn't really want to pat on either. I did end up brushing this on like normal polishes and it turned out okay. A few nails have a bit of glitter up near the tips. 

OPI I got a while ago from a local salon, so I don't remember the exact price; probably around $7-8. 

Revlon was $3.95? Somewhere around there and I got it at Wal-mart. 

It was below $4.

What do you think of this combo?

Wet n Wild Purple and Blue

I just got these polishes the other day and absolutely fell in love! 

I was actually quite surprised to see such a developed, by this I mean the duo-chrome/color they had, polish for only 93 cents each! 

The polishes I got were Wet n Wild Wild Card and Wet n Wild Rain Check. 

Beautiful colors! And I almost passed them up too. 

I actually have quite a few polishes from Wet n Wild's Wild Shine Collection, all of these colors from this collection I would highly recomend because of the tendency to have that chrome finish for such an inexpensive polish. 

But anyway, back to THESE polishes! Love at first sight. 

Wild Card - This polish is so hard to describe, the name is so fitting here. The best I can say is that it is kind of a mauve-ish purple with a pink shimmer. It does look pink in some lighting, but for the most part it is that lavender/mauve/purple(? Most bloggers I've read say lavender). It did take three coats however to get full opacity, the first was barely visable. It did have a good formula though it wasn't too thick and it didn't dry too fast, becoming tacky. And! Amazing, it was not streaky, which I was expecting from this chrome-finish polish.

I also did a little design on top of this with the blue that I was talking about above:

Rain Check.

Rain Check is a beautiful blue with a heavy silver/grey undertone. There is also a bit of a purple tone in this polish. This one was only a two coater, but other than that it had the same formula and also did not have any streaks at all. 

For the silver here, I used silver acrylic paint and a striping brush. My first time ever doing free hand painting like this! That's why it looks so horrible. Lol. Except for my thumb, and that's why I had to show it off. 

With matte finish

I also put a matte finish over this in the end, and I must say that I love these colors matted! 

Though they do look great both ways. 

I used Hard Candy Matte-Ly In Love which I got from Wal-mart for $4.00 

What do you think?

Black and Creme

I saw this design in an ad and just had to try and duplicate it, and I think I did a pretty good job. 

Here is the add:

Unfortunately, I don't have the pointed nails that really tie this look together, but my nails still came out looking good. I did match the colors pretty closely because Illamasqua is too expensive of a polish for me to buy at $17 a bottle from Sephora or $21.43 from Illamasqua.com

I used Revlon Top Speed - Cotton Sheets for the cream color and Sinful Colors - Black on Black for the black. 

I used Seche Vite top coat over these two.

I honestly thought that the hearts would have been harder to do, but I just used a small striping brush and dipped that into the bottle of Sinful Colors Black on Black to get a smooth line, and then painted the rest of my nail as usual. 

I bought the Revlon on sale from Walgreens for about $3.50 and Sinful Colors was $1.99 from Walgreens.

Navy and Gold

I did another french tip mani today, but with a little bit of a twist. I did do an accent nail, as I usually do, to spice things up a little bit. 

But I took a picture of my right hand, instead of my left this time, because it turned out better. 

Polishes used: 

For the navy - Milani Sail Away

For the gold - Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Golden-I (or Golden-l)

I don't know if the last letter in the name of the Sally Hansen polish is an upper case I or a lower case L.... 

But anyway, the Milani went on great; it was a little thick, but it did only need one coat and dried super quick, so by the time I was done painting my nails and clean-up I was able to put the tapes down and start with the gold. There was no wait time there. 

The gold was a little bit trickier. It was thick as well, and wanted to goop up at the tips of my nails, especially on my ring finger, which is why I decided to take a picture of my right hand. My left hand; the ring finger looks pretty bad. When I put the top coat on, the polish wasn't nearly dry enough because it had gobbed on near the tips and when I put the top coat on, the polish bled a little into the stripes. But it a very vibrant gold, just a little tricky to work with and, as you can see I was able to get it to work for my right hand, once I knew how it was going to work; this had been my very first time using this polish. 

Milani - Approx. $3.27 (Wal-mart)

Sally Hansen - Buy 2 for $5 or 1 for $2.99 (Walgreens)

Teal Swatch and Flowers

I just bought a whole bunch more polishes, and wanted to show them off, unfortunately it is going to be a bit slow... My schedule has been so hectic lately and I am not much of a fan of putting on a polish just to swatch it then taking it off. I want to wear it for at least one day because I am buying them... 

But anyway. Today I am swatching Milani Mint Candy. I bought it at Walmart for about $3.50, but it is also sold at other retailers such as Walgreens, Target and CVS, just for a bit more money. Though actually I think it's cheaper at Target? I'm not sure, I don't shop there a lot. 

Mint Candy - This is a dusky turquoise/teal color, in some lights you can see the turquoise shimmer in it, but indoors or when there is minimal lighting it isn't as noticable. I still really love it though. As for it being called mint, I think it's a bit too dark for that.

You can see the shimmer a little bit here.

And here.

I also put flowers on this polish just because I'm a little tired of just doing swatches. 

Polishes Used: Milani Mint Candy, Pure Ice Taupe Drawer (for the Pink), Sally Hansen French White Tip.

Pure Ice - Approx. $1.97 (Wal-Mart)

Sally Hansen French Tip - Approx. $5.00 (for the kit, Wal-mart)

Dotted Purple

I swear this is the last time that I'll do this! Probably not... 

But I haven't had much time on my hands to do an actually full manicure with school and work and stuff, that to keep posting at least on a kind of regular basis I've just been making designs over my swatches. 

This one I got kind of lazy on, I wanted to do dots, and I thought I might do a gradient, but when I looked at my purples I'm missing a color in between to make the colors look cohesive. 

So I just used two colors and did them in two different sized dots radomly. I also still haven't gotten my dotters, so this was done with a small paint brush. 

Colors used: Base - Sinful Colors Let's Talk 

Darker Dots - Revlon Grape Icy

Lighter Dots - Revlon Gum Drop

The Revlon nail polish is their scented line and I will do a review on this line, or at least these two nail polishes, a bit later. 

Sinful Colors - $.99 (On sale, Walgreens)

Revlon (Both) - $3.27 each (Wal-mart)

Peachy Tips

I decided to do something different with my nails today, instead of just doing one color like I normally do for the swatches. 

I don't know how well it turned out... I've never done dots before and my hands were shaking pretty bad, so they kind of ran into each other... So they're not really dots; more like blobs.
And I was using a bobby pin to do these dots, because my dotters still haven't come in the mail.

I've used: Revlon Charismatic for the lighter shade, Jessica Eyes Wide Open for the tips, and Sinful Colors Why Not for the dots. 

Jessica - Approx. $6-7 (Make-up Counter at the Mall)

Revlon - Approx. $4 (Walgreens)

Sinful Colors - $1.99 (Walgreens)

Milani Yellow Whiz

In this I am just wearing Milani Yellow Whiz. It is a very bright yellow. 

The bottle says that it is a "fast dry", it did dry quite fast. Faster than most polishes anyway and I didn't put a quick dry top coat on top of it. 

I didn't do anything special with my nails today. In a few days I am going to update this post with pictures of me putting China Glaze Fairy Dust over this yellow to see how it looks because it may tone down how bold this color is and add a bit of sparkle. 

I did add that Fairy Dust to the manicure that I had in the very first post that I have here. It looks absolutely wonderful on top of black. I would've posted pictures, but my camera doesn't pick up the fine sparkles. It does have pink, blue, green, and gold very fine sparkles in it. Though it does make your polish a bit dull because as you might be able to see from the bottle, the actual polish is a bit grey, it's not completely clear. 

But I will post pictures when I put it on this yellow.

______________________________

I finally got the Fairy Dust on this polish.
And I was right it did tone down the yellow quite a bit.
I don't know if I like it all that much.. I think the Fairy Dust is more suited towards darker polishes. On this one, it almost makes the polish look dirty, in my opinion anyway.
My camera didn't really want to pick up the little sparkles.. I tried everything. But right now it's getting dark so I can't sit next to a window; I'm just using a lamp. You can see them really good in the bottle and a little bit on my ring and pnky finger... But these pictures do not do this polish justice. It has a ton of little sparkles that catch the light, like they do in the bottle.
But what makes the yellow polish look dirty, is that there are also a little bit of grey fleck in there too that doesn't sparkle. I didn't pick that up when I had it on Sally Hansen Black Platinum, and that could also have been what made it look a little bit dull.

Milani - Appox. $4 (Walgreens)

China Glaze - Approx. $5 (on sale Sally Beauty Supply)

New Polishes and Tools

I bought new polishes today and yesterday and I just wanted to show them off a bit. I also bought some dotting tools and striping tape. I will update when I actually get them on my fingers, and what they look like on, but as of right now I only have the names and the bottles. I did buy some online too so I don't actually have those in my posession. 

But the polishes that I got from the store yesterday were Milani Yellow Whiz, Sally Hansen XTreme Wear Sun Kissed, China Glaze Fairy Dust, Beauty Secrets Top Coat, ORLY Nail Defense Base Coat, and this last one doesn't have a name on it but it's brand name is Sally Girl and it's a chunky gold glitter. 

The ones that I bought online are China Glaze Luxe and Lush, China Glaze Fast Track, and China Glaze Electrify all from the Hunger Games Collection. 

Milani - Approx. $4 (Walgreens)

Sally Hansen - Approx. $3 (Walgreens)

China Glaze Fairy Dust - Approx. $5 (on sale, Sally Beauty)

China Glaze (The Rest) - Approx. $4.50 each (Amazon)

Cross Design with Milani and Sally Hansen

Sorry the picture is so horrible... I don't have a very good camera. 

I made this design just a bit ago, but go easy on me I've never done this one before and I've actually only done french style tips twice before. But this is done with Sally Hansen's Black Platinum and Milani's Signature Gold. The picture does not give them credit as the black looks more blue in the first one... I did try editing them a little, but Photoshop only works so much. The polish did bubble up a little bit, I don't know why. If any one has a solution to this I would love to hear from you! I have not been able to fix this problem.

At first I thought it might be my base coat I was using, but I didn't use it on my left hand, as I chnged polish at the last minute from a flat color to this one that has a bit of shimmer. And the bubbling also happens before I put on my top coat. But anyway! I hope you like this design! I will be posting more once this one starts chipping, I've never used this gold before either so I don't know how long it generally lasts, but the black usually lasts 3-4 days and nail polish doesn't tend to last long on my nails. 

Where I got the idea: (And most of my ideas)

Link

Milani - $4.00 (Walgreens)

Sally Hansen - Approx. $6 (Wal-Mart)