Polish All the Nails

I went on a bit of a Zoya rampage the other day.  Trade Secrets is my main source, living in Canada, and I've been trying to avoid it lately as I'm trying to be a proper adult and not spend all my disposable income on polishes.  Anyway, I was there and magically five Zoyas came home with me and that's that.  Let's take a look at one of the standouts, Zoya Fei Fei. I was particularly attracted to Fei Fei as there's so many different colours in would could have so easily been just another glass fleck polish.  On close up, there's blues, greens, yellows and greys that all come together in a shimmery blue-grey.  Because I can't just do a swatch, it seems, I thought I'd throw in a half-moon.  I recently found my binder reinforcement labels and used them on top of Rimmel Black satin to create the moons.  One coat of Fei Fei was enough, surprisingly. The Verdict:  Pretty!  And half moons.

I've always liked the look of ombre nails but hadn't gotten around to trying it myself.  Unless the run of colours was perfect, it just didn't look right to me.  On a completely unrelated note, I find I have a lot glass fleck polishes, usually in blues and purples.  I find I have a hard time using them as they don't look good on their own and sometimes I'm just on in the mood for layering.  The other night, however, these seemingly unrelated points came together.  What if I did an ombre with my glass flecks??  YES. First up, a coat of Rimmel Black Satin for the base colour.  Then, from thumb to pinkie, I added two coats of each of Color Club Ulterior Motive, Claire's Cosmic, American Apparel Violet Panache, Spa Ritual Meditate on This and Claire's Moon Dust.  All application was pretty much the same, being all sparkly and good with two coats.  

Given the sheer number of times I do my nails a week, you think I'd be better at matching them to outfits, events, etc.   I'm just not that kind of plan-ahead person.  EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE TIME.  My bf's parents are visiting from Australia and we took them to Niagara Falls the other day, complete with Maid of the Mist.  Thus, water-themed sparkly nails! The hardest part about my glitter nails is finding the right base to go with the right glitter.  The right glitter is always the blue holo glitter in my collection, it's always sparkly and beautiful.  Today, the right base was OPI I Don't Give a Rotterdam, the pretty blue-grey polish filled with gold flecks from the Holland collection.  Application was good with this polish, as you'd expect from OPI, needing two coats.  I really liked how the flecks stood out in this one, they can blend in too much sometimes.  Once dry, I added the glitter polka dots using my usual technique.  Tada, n...

I spend a fair amount floating around the webs, trying to find new things to do and show you.  I've come across the Saran Wrap technique quite a few times now and thought I'd give it a try.  It has to be sparkly or shiny for me to be interested so why not use Essie No Place Like Chrome?  Turns out it makes for an amazing mani. First up, two coats of Essie No Place Like Chrome.  I both love and hate this polish: it's so very very shiny but shows every flaw in your nails, even with a base coat.  Next, I grabbed some cling film, balled it up, painted a splotch of L.A. Girl Amethyst and blobbed away.  I found that the second and third nails from a polish application turned out better so if I were to do this again, I'd blot the wrap before adding to my nails.  Full list of polishes at the bottom.

For whatever reason, I'm irrevocably drawn to glass-flecked polishes.  They're always so sparkly, I just cannot resist them.  The problem is, they're hard to wear on their own so they end up sitting on my desk for forever and day.  On my recent trip to Sephora I of course couldn't resist the two sparkliest Spa Ritual polishes, Off the Grid and Meditate on this.  The crazy thing is, I actually used them, hooray! This mani was something of a evolutionary process.  I started with two coats of Wet n Wild Black Creme and added two coats of the beautiful blue-green Off the Grid.  I'm so glad I didn't just use this one on its own as it positively glows over black.  Apart from the sparkliness, the thing that struck me the most about this polish is the smell - or the lack there of.  Being "vegan" also seems to mean low odour, which is great if you're sensitive to smells.  I toyed with the idea of adding glitter but then decided to add a gradient ...

I was in Sephora the other day and always have mixed feelings about the place, now that there's a "nail bar" at the store in the Eaton Centre in Toronto.  It used to be I'd have to make a pilgrimage to a mall in further north to get access to all the fancy polishes but now they're all available downtown.  Not only are they too easy to get to, the teenagers always manage to make everything look messy and tawdry as they either paint their nails in the store or cover the displays in polish.  Even the lighting in the display makes it really hard to tell the colours.  It just makes it all vaguely disappointing.  I buy polish, you know, cos it's there, but it's never a good experience.  This isn't a terribly good segue but whatcha gunna do.  It's been bugging me.  Anyway, let's take a look at a polish I extricated intact from the display, Sephora by OPI Once a Cheetah, Always a Cheetah. I've been burnt a few times by overestimating how sheer...

Someone made the comment that apparently I'm 12.  It's not the most unreasonable comment - I do like all things sparkly, had princess nails for my birthday and just generally a little bit 12.  Sticking with that analogy, let me show you one of the Hello Kitty nail polishes I found in Australia, a shimmery duochrome Violet Salome.   Other than sparklies, I also can't seem to resist a polish that has that oil slick colour shift around the edges.  Violet Salome is a classic example.  It looks mostly a reddish purple but right on the edges it shifts to green.  I am physically unable to stop myself from buying these, if I see them.  To test this polish out properly, I started with a coat of black polish, as I wasn't in the mood to layer on five coats.  I then followed it up with two coats of Violet Salome.  Despite being my least favourite shade of purple, the amount of sparkle that comes off this, combined with the different colours in ...

If your eyes are sensitive and prone to melting out your face, AVERT YOUR EYES.  What I have to show you today is so eye-ball punching, it's almost painful.  What's more the point though is that I'M AT THE AIRPORT RIGHT NOW, BLOGGING FROM THE GATE, ABOUT TO GO FIRST TO LA THEN TO AUSTRALLLLIIIIIAAAAAAAAAAAAA.  That's right, I'm so dedicated to you all that I am willing to blog from here.  I'm also very very tired so anything seems like a good idea. Anyway, onto the nails.  A while back I bought a bunch of Urban Outfitter polishes and am only now getting around to using them.  Urban Outfitters Red Planet is the brightest, sparkliest glass fleck pink with the edges going orange I think I've ever seen.  Application was decent, what you see here is three coats.  Once it was dry, I used my paper labell-y things to create the triangles.  It's not too hard to do: cut a triangle out of something, place both halves on your nails with a gap in the...

Guys guys guys, guess what: I managed to not over-embellish a polish!  Ok, that might have been a bit over-dramatic, but I'm still proud of myself for not ruining what turned out to be a really beautiful polish.  I scout out a large range of locations for polish so I end up with a ton of cheap polish that I never end up using.  When sorting through my collection the other day though, I noticed this Love & Beauty polish and couldn't help but try it out.   Love & Beauty Royal is a beautiful midnight blue duochrome, with glass flecks that change from green to blue to purple.  Did I mention it's also super sparkly?  The polish itself is a little thin so I layered it over one coat of Rimmel Black Satin.  I'm so glad I did, two coats on top and it was perfect.  I've tried to catch all the colours here but it's really hard.  Looking at it closely while I'm typing now, I can see all three colours but of course cameras are rarely as co-op...

Gotta keep showing you lovely ladies something different all the time so I present to you another experiment: using a sparkly foil polish to do a gradient.  I initially saw this idea on one of the bigger blogs (can't remember which, dammit) and had to try it for myself.   First up, I added two coats of Revlon Midnight Affair, a nice, if unexciting midnight blue followed by a coat of Seche Vite, cos I'm impatient.  Next, using a makeup sponge, I sponged a layer of Orly Lunar Eclipse from the Cosmic FX collection three quarters of the way down my nail.  Finally, I added another coat, this time of Galaxy Girl, to the tips to get that extra colour pop.  Man, did this come out pretty.  The sparkly glass foils make for a really interesting, subtle gradient.  The duochrome in the polishes just made it so interesting to look at. The Verdict: Yep, foil gradients are awesome, definitely using them more.  On their own the Cosmic FX pol...

I have to limit the amount I go into Sephora.  They always have nice polish but it's not the cheapest.  When I last felt strong enough to go in, I ended up with three polishes >.< .  The one I found most interesting was one called Blasted Opalescent Gold, a very sparkly gold duochrome.  I didn't realise til I got home that it was a stupid bloody shatter!  Sure, shatter polishes were a nice gimmick a year ago but I'm over it.  To find that this pretty gold was a shatter just made me sad.  Intent writing a post being all angry at it, I tried it over black and got quite the surprise: it's actually really nice! Blasted Opalescent Gold has a really interesting composition - how often do you see a gold duochrome?  It's main colour is a yellow gold but the light picks out gold and green, depending on the angle.  Super pretty.     Application was ok although I'd have liked to add a second coat to get the gold to be stronger. ...

Over the past week or so I've been having a lot of fun trying out different techniques.  Acrylic paints last night, manually placed glitter Saturday and Sunday nights, tape earlier, it's been a lot of fun.  Probably my favourite technique has been the manually placed glitter, it just has such a special, sparkly effect and I always <3 sparklies.  So what with getting Orly Galaxy Girl in the mail yesterday, I wanted to try out the last glitter in my set and do a glitter gradient...with a twist. First up, let me say how much I love Orly Galaxy Girl.  I was lucky enough to pick up this member of the Cosmic FX collection from nailpolishcanada as they had this and Space Cadet in stock recently, even at a normal price which is amazing.  It's an absolutely gorgeous glass flecked duochrome, shifting from a grape purple to blue and pink in the light. Application was decent given the duochrome glass flecked - these can be sheer - and what you see here is three coat...