Valentine's Day Glitter Tips

So obviously this isn't specifically a "Valentine's Day only" mani, more of a "Valentine's Day mani IDEA". I know not everyone has stamping plates or other things that I or others may use for a V-day mani. Or maybe they consider it tacky or just want something simple. So all you need for this is a base polish, a glitter polish, and a top coat*!













3 coats Revlon Lilac Pastelle
1 coat Poshe
Silver glitter is Ardene Diamonds
1 more coat Poshe*

*I find a top coat necessary because of my technique. If you don't use a top coat, you may be able to see streaks of the clear base of the glitter polish.

I did these just like my China Glaze VIII with Glitter Tips post. Here's how I did it:

1. Paint on your base polish as you normally would.

2. Add a quick dry top coat (which I recommend), or wait until it's dry.

3. Paint the glitter polish just on the tip of your nail.

4. Wipe the brush on the sides of the bottle and gently, use the glitter polish brush to use light, irregular strokes and brush some polish from the tip towards the cuticle.
I don't go all the way to my cuticle. I just sort of gauge how far up I want it.

5. Go over the tip again to make sure the glitter is heavier there to help with the gradient effect.

6. Use a top coat and you're done!!

Wet n Wild Sugar Coat

I picked this up a WHILE ago in hopes of my job allowing us to wear nail polish, and because I heard it's dupe-ish for OPI Bubble Bath, and I love cheap dupes! So this is Wet n Wild Sugar Coat.






1 coat Wet n Wild Sugar Coat
1 coat Poshe






A second coat Sugar Coat over the 1 coat and 1 coat Poshe (it'd probably look cleaner if there wasn't a layer of Poshe sandwiched in the middle).

Sugar Coat is a milky pink sheer but buildable polish that gives your nails a very clean, natural look. One coat is nice, but it can probably reach opacity at 3 coats.

The formula was decent. Biggest problem I ran into was having enough polish on the brush to go down the length of my nail. Could be because my nails are a little long. I just had to make sure I had more polish on the brush... which didn't happen on my pinky in my two coat photos.

Overall, just a simple, clean polish that you can wear sheer or opaque. Not too bad!!

MAC Bad Fairy

Remember when people were ALL OVER this polish? It came out fall of last year when the duochrome foils were HUGE. Bad Fairy was the only one of the MAC Venomous Villains polishes that wasn't a dupe for an Orly Cosmic FX polish. It was its own polish.



















2 coats MAC Bad Fairy
1 coat Poshe

I snatched 2 of these suckers up when I caught it just right online when they were back in stock at Nordstrom. I'm so glad I did! Not only is this one of my fav polishes, but its one of my sisters as well! I'm about 1/3 of the way through the bottle so I'm glad I have a backup!

This is a gorgeous dark pink/warm orange duochrome. At first glance it seems like a simple foil polish, but as soon as you move the duochrome is very prominent. I love duochromes because they're like an "indoor holo" to me. You know how you need good light for a holo to really look amazing? Duochromes look special and awesome in any light.

The formula was ok, but the brush was freakin' horrendous. The polish is kinda streaky, but these types of polishes can be finicky anyway. Definitely tolerable and not frustrating. You just can't do a ton of strokes of you get bald spots. So long as you use a light touch and don't go over it a ton of times you'll be fine. But the brush was just bad. I had to trim it because there were bristles going whichever direction they felt like, and it's not a very dense brush it it flares at the tip. Not in a good way. Again it's tolerable, but for $13 I expect WAY more higher quality packaging. I have 99 cent polishes with AMAZING brushes that make MACs look like a brush from a pack of 10 watercolor brushes from the dollar store complete with 10 bristles per brush. Point being, I really expected a better brush for $13.

Revlon Top Speed Jelly... Not Really A Jelly

Keepin' this short because I wanna focus on describing this polish. I was under the impression that Jelly was a jelly. Well, I don't really know, but it's interesting.

Direct Sunlight




Shade





And here's it with Hidden Treasure


1 coat (yes, ONE) Revlon Jelly
1 coat Poshe
(Last photo has 1 coat Sally Hansen Hidden Treasure)

I usually never put direct sunlight photos first, but they were (IMO) def the most gorgeous. Color-wise, it's a bright red based pink that can appear to be red on the nails, though in the bottle it's clearly pink.

More importantly, let's discuss the finish and whatnot. So. Is it a jelly? I'd say maybe? but I don't think so. What makes me say maybe is that it does have a "squishy" quality, but it's more shiny than squishy (even without a top coat). It's not an obvious creme. But at the same time, it's just not that interesting. It doesn't have that opacity shift that jellies have that make it look almost glassy. Does that make sense? It doesn't have depth the way a true jelly does. I think that's partly because it takes only ONE freakin' coat and it's perfect.

So let's talk about formula, because it's so odd. It reminds me of a thick creme polish that was thinned. But not thick as in it was getting dried out because its old, thick like the formula was just bad but thinner made it "puffy". The consistency was puffy. I think that's what takes away from it being a jelly. Anyway, the brush seemed to collect SO much polish. That made it super prone to easily flooding your cuticle. If you're not good at doing a gap, stay the heck away from this. You'll frustrate yourself to no end because your cuticles will be so full of polish. I actually had to redo a nail. It's been like a year since I've actually had to redo a nail due to flooding... and it was on my LEFT hand!!!!! I was painting with my dominant hand!!

However, back to the one coat thing. Legit, there is absolutely no reason to do a second coat. It was so evenly pigmented, there was no streaking (you couldn't make this polish streak if you tried), it was amazing.

The other thing that frustrated me was the brush. If you have straighter, not so curved cuticles (my cuticles are fairly rounded), the brush will work fine. But for me, trying to get a nice swoop at my cuticle was not easy. The brush wanted to keep it completely straight. And because of the high risk of cuticle flooding, it was difficult to try to get it even near my cuticle without drowning it.

Ultimately...
1. The TRUE one coat factor was nice.
2. I was expecting more of a jelly, and it was disappointing to not have that.
3. I wish it looked more pink than red (because I really don't like red nails on myself).
4. The cuticle flooding was a PITA.

Pink Syrup

So maybe you wanna call this a gradient, but I'm calling it syrup because of the method I used, but mainly because this was the STICKIEST thing ever!! I don't know if it was the polish, or that I have 10 freakin' coats of polish on my nails but holy crap!! Legit like I was painting syrup on my nails.

So I had heard mention of syrup nails and started to search around to see what this was all about. Seemed very interesting. I used the method similar to this post by Nihrida. Had my jelly been as sheer as Butter LONDON Stroppy from this post by Polish Insomniac, I think the process would have been much better.
*For the record, my cuticles aren't actually dry and gross. They look a little icky because of all the polish that kinda got on 'em.







Total of 10 layers (two nails have more because they needed one more coat at the tip to make it fade better).
Started with Essie Mademoiselle and then with Revlon Take Two in Wild Garnet, alternating the two down the nail. I'd do complete coats of mademoiselle, but kept doing shorter coats of Wild Garnet.

Every 10 minutes I repeated the process. For example, at 11:30 I painted a layer. It takes me 3 minutes to paint both hands. Then I wait 7 minutes until 11:40 and do the process again. Ultimately topped with 1 coat Poshe.

What a terribly tedious process!! Worst part about it? I'm just not that happy with the way it came out. It bothers me that the lines are visible. It looks more apparent in the photos, but it unfortunately is still noticeable when you look at my nails closely in real life. I need to practice this a bit more. Looking on the bright side, since I don't like it, I won't mind taking it off despite the fact that it took over an hour and a half to do!!

Edit 8/16
I decided to add glitter to the tips to see if that helped at all. I used an absolutely ancient Sally Hansen Hard As Nails called Glisten. I actually think it did make it look a little better. I figure if you're going to have nails like this, you might as well slap some glitter on it!! Haha.







The problem is you can really see that there is WAY too much polish on my middle finger. Look how it is so raised and kinda distorted. My middle nail is already a little different shaped than my other nails, but wow does 10-12 layers of polish accentuate that!!

Paintball Nails

Ok, so better known as a splatter mani. I chose the title Paintball Nails because my boyfriend did all the splattering, he plays on a paintball team, and he mentioned how it was like being splattered by paintballs. If you're curious, I used this awesome tutorial by The PolishAholic.

















My boyfriend and I both mutually agree this is the best nail:


It's actually on my right hand, but I am terrible at taking photos of that whole hand (really, I tried), so I did just the nail.

2 coats Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in White On
1 coat Poshe
Black - Sinful Black on Black
Purple - China Glaze Spontaneous
Pink - Orly Basket Case
1 coat Poshe

Instead of dipping the straw into polish, we ended up just painting the polish onto the end of the straw and we had much better luck with that. He held the straw kinda far away, which gave more of a speckled look than big splats of polish.

Forever 21 Love & Beauty Pink

L&B has the most obnoxious names for their polishes. Their names are literally the color of the polish. This one is called "Pink". More specifically, it's MA120 Pink, just in case you were curious.

I have been dying to wear this because it's so similar to a peachy color I've been wanting. However, this one is just a little too pink, so I think I have to take a trip to NYC and pick up Illamasqua Purity. Anyway, here's "Pink".

**This polish was EXTREMELY difficult to photograph accurately. This first photo is as close as I could get to the actual color**


Sunlight




Shade




2 coats Pink
1 coat Poshe

This polish is one of those neon (bright) pastels. Definitely not a true neon, though it photographs almost as difficult as a neon, which is a HUGE pain. It's a bright creme salmon that goes on several shades darker than the bottle. It has more of a peachy hue than the photos show, it has almost a coral kinda feel. It is also brighter in real life. From photos I've seen, it looks VERY comparable to Orly Cotton Candy, however I do not own Cotton Candy to compare directly.

The formula was totally fine. Opaque and streak-free in 2 coats. First coat seemed a little uneven, but that was totally fixed with the second coat. No cuticle drag, either. The brush is pretty average, and that's actually not a bad thing!!

Newport Nails

I'm pretty behind on posting because I recently spent a night in Newport, RI and wasn't around my computer until late, and then had a crazy busy day the next day, then I've been at work. That's ok, though, because I did my Summer Neon Crackle again. I spent the night out in Newport with my boyfriend, and when I went there, I had these nails. I only live less than an hour away from Newport, but it made for a nice mini getaway.

Again, this mani has been posted before, but because I loved it so much, I had to wear it again!!











1 coat of an unknown neon pink Orly (it might be Passion Fruit? Or at least similar to it?)
1 coat China Glaze Lightning Bolt

Be prepared for ramblings about my trip to Newport, RI. If you're not interested, skip this part!!
We had dinner at The Red Parrot last night, which we had previously tried to go to a couple of years ago. We had been with some friends, all of us over 21, and I don't remember the details, I think we were trying to get into the bar. Point being, one of our friends had a reissue RI license because he had lost his. They wouldn't accept it, so they wouldn't let him in. I don't quite understand why they couldn't. Wouldn't a reissue still mean it's a real license? So he can't get in there until his license expires and he needs to renew it? I don't know. Anyway, The Red Parrot. The food was fine, good selection for vegetarians (my boyfriend is far from a vegetarian haha). We had some spring rolls as an appetizer and my boyfriend LOVED the red pepper dipping sauce they had with it, and he asked what exactly was in it. The waitress told us she wasn't quite sure because they don't make it there. It was kind of annoying to learn they just buy the sauce as-is. It's not like they're a chain restaurant, ya know? So what else is just store bought and then served to us? Then I treated us to some awesome Awful Awfuls from the Newport Creamery. Delicious!!

The next morning it took my boyfriend FOR-FREAKIN'-EVER to get up, but it didn't really matter. We wondered back to where we were yesterday and figured we'd walk through the shops and just spend the day there. The shops in Newport, RI are ridiculously redundant. Let me give you a tour... Jewelry Store next to a Clothing Shop next to a Tourist Shop next to a Gallery/Antique Shop next to a Jewelry Store next to Clothing Shop next to an Ice Cream Shop next to a Tourist Shop next to a Gallery/Antique Shop next to a Jewelry Store... you get the idea. They have a few random places that don't fit that description, but they're not wowing by any shot. For example, they have an Army Navy store. It's full of like mass production camo stuff and some tourist things. Other Army Navy stores I have been in have more realistic type of things. So basically, if you're thinking about going to the shops in Newport, I suggest heading southwest and going to Mystic, CT to check out Olde Mistick Village. It's a thousand times more interesting when it comes to the variety of shops.

My boyfriend convinced me to get into one of these little 3 wheel street dune buggy (apparently they're called Scoot Coupes) and drive around near the mansions and ocean. We had done this before, only we had a moped. This little car was so bizarre, but whatev, it was fun anyway. We then wanted to grab lunch, and some chick was handing out 10% off coupons to a restaurant called H2O, which we had eaten at on a previous trip to Newport. It sits partly on a dock, so you're RIGHT on the water, which was nice. But the service was horrible!! They had a whole 7 tables with people, so they were not even close to being busy. Their lunch menu is very small, but that's fine with me because the Roasted asparagus, red pepper, and hummus sandwich sounded amazing. My boyfriend got some grilled chicken sandwich. So the guy, who I didn't think was actually a server, took our order. 25 minutes after we had been there, the girl who I assumed was our server finally came up to us and asked if we were ready to order. Wow. Yeah, we already did. Let me remind you, there were SEVEN tables with people at them!! Just 7. So our food finally comes out, the poor people at the table next to us still didn't have theirs and I could tell they were annoyed and I don't blame them. My sandwich was correct, but my boyfriend got some fried fish sandwich... not what he ordered at all. So they finally brought out the correct meal, and ultimately took it off the bill without us mentioning anything about it, which I thought was very considerate though I wouldn't have minded paying for it. The awkward thing was my sandwich was server on a soft grinder roll. Like a store bought hot dog bun type of thing. The completely wrong type of bread for this type of sandwich, I just ended up eating everything off the bread with a fork. The French fries were perfect, though. My ideal fry! Haha. That poor table next to us got their food once we were finished eating, and they had even messed up one of their orders. Very awkward service. And the prices were WAY too high for the situation. My sandwich was $12!! Too expensive, in my opinion, for a lunch sandwich and poor service. But at least it was good minus the bread.

We walked around some more and stopped in a place called Cupcake Charlie's for dessert. It was a cute little cupcake shop, nothing particularly special about it except you could see the kitchen out in the open, which was nice. The cupcakes looked amazing, very appealing and well garnished. We chose to split a Chocolate Raspberry Surprise that was actually fantastic. The chocolate cake was very moist and not artificial tasting. Apparently it had a filling of chocolate raspberry ganache, but I noticed it on top of the cupcake/under the frosting, not so much actually inside the cupcake. The frosting had a very strong raspberry flavor, and that was definitely a good thing. Here's a photo of the display case courtesy of my iPhone:


The cupcake we had is the one in the case on the right on the middle shelf with the pink frosting and cute little chocolate straws.

After that, we just headed home... well, we stopped at Ulta because I still had a $5 off $10 coupon that expires today. Picked up two polishes I had been wanting... well, my boyfriend did and he's keeping them until my birthday. Haha!!

French Affair with Sticker Decal

Yesterday's mani was just simply Essie French Affair, and I wanted to do something simple to it today. I considered Konad, but wanted a bit more. Nothing flashy, though. I wanted to keep it fairly simple. So I ran down to Walmart and picked up some Nail Art stickers by Kiss for less than $2 and figured I'd give them a shot.





3 coats French Affair
1 coat Poshe
Sticker from Kiss

Well it's a good thing I got those few photos before I put a top coat on the sticker. The photos aren't the best because I had just gotten out of the shower, so my nails were a little swollen.
My first experience with the sticker was decent. It has a clear backing so even though it looks noticeable in the photos, it's not noticeable when you look at it in real life. The instructions mention using a Nail Art Applicator. I didn't use that, just used my fingers. The only problem I had was once it's down, it's down. One of them got about halfway stuck and I realized the placement didn't quite match my other nail. I tried to pull it back up, but it tore off the piece I was holding, so I just stuck it down where it was. I suppose that's a good thing when it comes to lasting, though. Maybe that would imply that it won't peel up within a day.

So, here's where things went wrong. I didn't initially use a topcoat, even though the instructions state that you should. I got home from the dentist and realized the little silver balls looked dingy and not really shiny at all anymore. I was going to say I used lotion, but I used it BEFORE putting on the sticker, so I really don't know why they became dull.
Once I got home (about 2 hours after application), I decided to use a top coat to make the silver balls shiny before I took better photos once my nails de-swelled... what a horrible mistake.





This is with 1 coat OPI Top Coat. The silver color from the balls smeared ALL OVER and left portions of the balls just clear. Wow I'm not impressed.

Here are the stickers I bought


Here are the instructions