OPI Are We There Yet?

Are We There Yet? is from OPI's Fall 2011 Touring America Collection. It's a nice orange coral with pink and gold shimmer in it. However the shimmer is so subtle that once I applied it I actually forgot it was there until I saw my nails in the sunlight! That's not to say it's not a nice color, because to me it is, and sometimes it's nice to have a color where the shimmer is incredibly subtle. Pictured here is three coats of Are We There Yet? and one coat of Seche Vite. Application was alright, it was a little streaky though, but not so streaky that it was unbearable, just mild streaking that required me to go a little slower. I tried to capture the shimmer but my camera couldn't even capture it really. But trust me, it's there.

Shatter...Experiment?

Hey guys! This is actually one of those "I wonder what this looks like if I do this" kind of experiment posts. I was about to take off the Polka dots I had done with Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac and China Glaze White on White when a thought popped into my head: What would shatter look like over polka dots? So I quickly threw on a coat of OPI Black Shatter over top of the nails from my previous post. I think the second picture really shows the polka dots more...take a look!

Now I'm sure someone somewhere has done this before, but I've never seen a picture of it so I thought I'd give it a go. I personally think that while you can't really see the polka dots all that well after putting the shatter over it, that it's kind of fun. More fun than plain old shatter over a solid color at least. Would I ever go through the trouble to put polka dots on my nails just so I could do this again? No. But if I had polka dots on previously and wanted a change but didn't have time to redo my nails, this is something I might consider doing. What do you guys think?

Purple and White Polka Dots

Base Color- Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac

Dots- China Glaze White on White

Would you believe the purple stayed perfectly intact through moving, lifting, disassembling furniture, and ripping up carpet, trim, and carpet tack strips? Because it did. I painted my nails with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Lacey Lilac on Friday night, then the next morning for 4 hours I was cleaning out one of our bedrooms and ripping up carpet. Basically I was not going easy on my nails at all. And guess what! No chipping, whatsoever. So I decided to push my luck and see if I could get a couple more days of wear out of this before chipping begins. 

Over top of Lacey Lilac I used my dotting tools I purchased from Ebay to make polka dots using China Glaze White on White. Since I didn't want to have the tips shrink again by using more Seche Vite, I added a coat of Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Invisible to it once the dots dried. 

Please excuse the dry cuticles, ripping that carpet up may not have hurt my nails or nail polish, but it sure did make my cuticles, and my hands overall, look and feel very dry. 

Sally Hansen Lacey Lilac

I picked up this lovely pale purple at Target yesterday, expecting it to have horrible application since it was a lighter color, and I was pleasantly surprised! Would you believe that this is two coats? Because it is. Two coats and a coat of Seche Vite. It was absolutely flawless in two coats, a couple of my fingers were actually perfect in one coat! Compared to all my other pale, pastel purples, this is by far the best one. Color wise, I think it's a tad bit lighter than my picture is showing, but not by much. It's still a nice, pale lilac creme. It's very similar to Essie Nice is Nice, but a little darker. If you're looking for a pale lilac creme that isn't streaky, definitely pick up this. 

Yellow, Black, and Silver Stripes

Polishes Used

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening
Art Deco Black Sparkles
China Glaze Icicle 

Would you believe my brother picked out the colors and design? Inspired by a snake, he suggested I do yellow with silver and black stripes, he meant horizontal stripes but didn't specify that until I was already done with my left hand.

First I painted my nails with Sally Hansen Insta-Dri Lightening, I did three coats. Once that was pretty much dry I freehanded a silver stripe down the middle with China Glaze Icicle, and immediately after I used Art Deco Black Sparkles to do a black stripe down both sides of the silver stripe. Then I finished with a coat of Seche Vite after completing every nail to reduce the chance of the ends shrinking due to dry polish.

This is probably one of the easiest ways to do stripes, especially since your silver stripe doesn't have to be perfect since the black stripes along the sides will help to hide imperfections with your black stripe, perfect for beginners, or for people like myself who are impatient most of the time and want to do something different than plan polish but don't want to take the extra time most nail art designs take.

This actually reminds me of a design I did a couple months back where I used OPI Fly as the base and a white polish down the middle with black polka dots and a black stripe on each side of the white, I wish I photographed it though, it was one of my favorites, despite the staining from OPI Fly.

Teal and Purple Color Block French Manicure

I absolutely ADORE this color combination. Teal and purple just look gorgeous together! Over top of Zoya Zuza from the previous post, I used  the Nailene Perfect Tips French Polish Guides I purchased a few months ago and added two coats of Zoya Dannii on the tips. 

Afterwards I made the mistake of putting Seche Vite over dry polish so the ends shrunk a bit, I attempted to fix it but it didn't quite work, so please excuse the mess!

Swatch & Review- Zoya Zuza

Outside, full sun

Indoors, indirect sunlight from window 

I'm wearing two coats of Zoya Zuza and one coat of Seche Vite in these pictures. The formula on this was fantastic, as with almost all the other Zoya's I have. No complaints on the formula at all. I need to figure out how to properly photograph this color, the indoor color does it more justice than the outdoor one does. It's a blueish teal with a metallic looking shimmer. I posted on my Instagram earlier that Zuza just became my favorite Zoya polish, it had been Zoya Kissy, but this just blows that one away. I highly suggest this color, especially if you like teal, blue, or green polishes. 

I also want to note that this polish seemed to dry pretty quickly compared to other polishes I own, while I didn't wait for the second coat to dry before putting Seche Vite over it, the first coat was completely dry by the time I put the second coat on, which usually doesn't happen.

Orange Mixed Mani (aka Skittle Nail Art)

Last night around 1am I had the urge to add something to my nails, but couldn't decide what, so I attempted my first ever mixed mani! I was feeling\ inspired by this post from The Nailasaurus so decided to give it a go over top of Color Club's Sparkle and Soar that I had put on a couple hours earlier. Not too thrilled with the end result. 

I was trying to get a picture to show my thumb, but taking a good one with my thumb in it was a lot harder than I expected!

Thumb to pinky (Base of Color Club's Sparkle and Soar)
Sally Hansen Diamond Strength Jewel Overcoat in Multi-Faceted

OPI Black Spotted

Gradient with Sally Hansen Black Out

Polka dots with Sally Hansen Black Out and large dotting tool from ebay
Stamped with Sally Hansen Black out and Bundle Monster plate BM-223

And finally, featuring my clarinet: since my love for nail polish is almost as great as my passion for playing clarinet.

I didn't quite think the color combination through though, once I already started I realized it was very Halloween-like, which is why I'm about to remove it and probably swatch one of my new Zoya's. Next time I attempt a mixed mani like this, I'll probably wait until I'm a bit more creative so that it looks better and I'll save the black and orange color combination for closer to Halloween!

Swatch & Review- Color Club's Oooooo La La

Oooooo La La is a nice, wearable white with a pearl finish. While the end result is nice, and not chalky like a lot of white seem to be, the application was less than stellar. I usually apply 1-2 thin coats then 1 thicker coat for most polishes. Unfortunately the thinner coats made the application uneven, resulting in needing 4 coats. However if you do slightly thicker coats and take your time you could easily get away with 3 coats. 

Overall, I'm pleased with this color. While 4 coats and a coat of Seche Vite may be a lot, the subtle pearl finish to this makes it worth it in my opinion. So if you're looking for a wearable white that's NOT chalky, look no more! 

Please ignore the lighting, I tried to catch the sun while it was still out but wasn't quite fast enough.

NOTD: Blue Gradient

I'm really into the Gradient trend lately. This is only my third attempt at it but hey, not too bad! I'm still trying to improve my technique though. 

The Base color is Essie's Borrowed and Blue followed by Essie's School of Hard Rocks and Bobbing For Baubles with an accent nail in Icing's Hey Sailor Boy. 

I could be wrong, but Hey Sailor Boy looks like a close dupe to Deborah Lippmann's Across The Universe. Don't take my word for it though since I don't own Across The Universe to compare it to. 

I'm not sure how I feel about these two looks together, but separately they're both fantastic colors! All three of the Essie polishes were pretty easy to work with, Borrowed and Blue took about three coats to be even and fully opaque, but if you take your time you could probably get away with two coats. Hey Sailor Boy also took three coats to be fully opaque. I'm not sure if my camera captured it or not, but it has green glitter in it as well as the blue glitter, very pretty!

Edit: I didn't notice the glare from my curtains until just now, please forgive me for the glare on my middle finger and my pinky! 

Welcome to my nail blog!

I would like to welcome everyone to my new nail blog! I absolutely love nail polish and nail art and currently own 300+ bottles of nail polish. I do my nails around 5-6 times a week usually and dabble around in the world of nail art, I still have a long way to go though in my technique!

I look at a variety of nail blogs on a daily basis and decided to create my own to share my love of polish. I plan on using this blog as a place for my nail art, swatches, and reviews of various polishes. 

Welcome, and thank you for stopping by!