2013 Holiday Nails #1

For this Holiday look, I used Santa Red My List by China Glaze as the base color and Essie's No Place Like Chrome for the stamp color:

Shot of the Day: Dance in the Dark by JulieG

As I've mentioned before, I'm a huge fan of Jesse's Girl polishes.  Their application is amazing and the colors are always highly pigments and very smooth and creamy.  The limited edition JulieG colors are no exception.  Below are swatches of Dance in the Dark from Jessie's Girl limited edition JulieG collection:

As you can see, Dance in the Dark is a highly pigmented royal blue color with purple shimmery undertones.  But to really make those shimmery bits pop, I used my Out the Door Northern Lights Holographic topcoat in silver.

Without the topcoat, the color was still very bright and rich, but I love adding a Northern Lights topcoat to my manis (either in Gold or Silver) to add extra dimension to the colors.  With this polish, I think it has a bit of a galaxy look to it and is almost a dupe for Essie's much coveted Starry Starry Night - but with holographic sparkles instead of just silver sparkles.

What do you think?

Shot of the Day: Bejeweled Barbie Mani

I recently purchased a bottle of China Glaze's "You Drive Me Coconuts" and I absolutely adore the color.  Usually I'm not into so much Barbie pink, but when I added a layer of Essie's "A Cut Above,"  the glam factor skyrocketed as you can see:

It's so fancy, I'm calling it my Bejeweled Barbie look.  Well, I guess I still can't decide between bejeweled or bedazzled.  Either way, it's pretty fabulous!

Shot of the Day: Celebrating with China Glaze (Champagne Bubbles) and Gold Glitter

Well, I found out this week that I passed my comprehensive exams for my graduate program so I am celebrating the fact that I will have my master's degree in just three weeks!  I wanted to make my nails fit my mood, so I thought China Glaze's Champage Bubbles would be a perfect base for a sparkling celebration mani!

The gradient isn't perfect, but it sure does shine!  I used a base coat of OPI Nail Envy, then I used China Glaze Angel Wings as my first glitter layer toward the tips.  Angel Wings is a gold/green fine glitter with slightly holographic undertones. My second coat was Color Club's Gold Glitter, which is a slightly chunkier glitter that is very pigmented, and it has an amazing application.  It's very smooth and offers pretty full coverage.

The final coat I used for this glitter gradient look was Nicole by OPI's Kissed at Midnight.  It is a part of the Selena Gomez collection and it's one of my new favorite glitters.  The application is comparable to Essie's Luxeffects glitters.  It has a clear base with various sizes of gold round glitter, which are plentiful and easy to apply with the brush.  I seriously love this glitter and I will definitely be buying more glitters from the Selena Gomez collection!  It isn't goopy and thick like most highly pigmented glitters, and I think it added the perfect touch to my champagne celebration nails!

I used Seche Vite as my top coat.  I love this top coat with glitters because it makes your nails smooth to the touch, not grainy or bumpy, which happens a lot with glitters.  Anyway, I think it's time to get this party started.  I'll begin by mixing a pitcher of Sangria!

Welcome!

As I mentioned in the About page, I'm here to blog about two of my favorite things - nail polish and cocktails.  I've been a book blogger for years, but I recently decided to join the nail blogging world and it's really exciting.  I'm not completely sure how I'm going to organize this site yet, but I will definitely be posting pictures of my manicures, which will include lots of glitter and polka dots by the way, as well as nail polish reviews and swatches.

 I'm a big fan of China Glaze, Essie, Kleancolor, OPI, Revlon, Orly, and Sinful Colors polishes, but I'll wear almost any drugstore brand if the color catches my eye.  I haven't delved into the realm of designer polishes yet, but I'm hoping my graduate school budget will allow for a few polish splurges here and there.  And just to start things off on the right hand, here are some sample photos of my most recent manicures.  In the future, I will improve my photography methods and post the base coat, polish names, etc.  Also, please be patient with my cuticles...Enjoy!