2013 Holiday Nails #2

I love this Holiday color from OPI.  It's called Wondrous Star and it's from the 2013 Mariah Carey Holiday collection.  It features a micro glitter base that is somewhere between silver and gold with chunky black glitter throughout.  Love the formula and the outcome!

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: Metallic "Chevron" Nails

We all know the chevron look has been really popular this summer, so I decided to try out one of my chevron stamps a little while ago to keep up with the trend.  Unfortunately, I did not evenly line up the stamp on my first couple of tries so I just decided the stamp the chevron pattern from a bunch of different angles instead.  I think it still looks pretty cool:

Sorry it's a little blurry...guess I just did not have a steady hand that night.  Anyway, here's a swatch of the base color without the stamp.  I used Sally Hansen's Gilty Party for this look:

And let me just say, I absolutely love this polish.  Sally Hansen Complete Salon Manicure polishes are some of my favorites, and this one is a perfect cross-seasonal shade.  It has a tiny bit of bronze that makes it perfect for summer, but the overall shimmer and color could be great for a Christmas/wintery look, too.  See how the color shifts somewhere between silver/bronze/gold with the two different lighting settings in the photos?  It's basically a must have polish.

Shot of the Day: Galaxy Nails

Hey y'all!  Hope you had a great weekend.  Now that my husband and I have finished moving into our new place, I have been seriously trying to restore my pitiful, chipped and broken nails.  Now that I've got them looking decent again, I thought I'd celebrate with one of my favorite looks - the galaxy mani.  Here's a picture taken in natural lighting:

For this look, I used Nina Ultra Pro's Purple Xing as a base color, which worked great because this particular shade includes fine-medium multi-color glitter which really adds to that "deep space" look.  Next, I used a cosmetic sponge to dab on the little galaxies.  I outlined each little nebula in white first, then added depth and color with layers of pink, yellow, and dark blue.

Next, I used Essie's Set in Stones to add the little "stars, and then I finished by adding a coat of Out the Door's Northern Lights Hologram Top Coat in Silver.  And by the way, this was my first time using this particular top coat, and let me just tell you how wonderful it is, especially for a look like this.  Just like Out the Door's other top coats, Northern Lights dries quickly and offers great nail protection, but it also adds a subtle holographic shimmer, which kind of gives a 3 dimensional impression.  I will definitely be purchasing Northern Lights in Gold.  Anyway, here's the galaxy look in darker lighting, which really seems to glow with this top coat:

And remember, this is what it looks like in a brighter setting:

Pretty amazing, huh?  I must say, I'm quite proud of myself for pulling this off so well.  I did take me nearly two hours, but I think it was worth it.  What do you think?

Happy 4th of July

So, I couldn't decide what to do for my patriotic manicure (there are sooo many options), so I just decided to do a little bit of everything.  Here's my left hand:

 And here's my right hand:

I've got glitter gradients, polka dots, stamps, and rhinestones...I feel like Uncle Sam would be proud!  It's too much product to catalog here, and I honestly can't even remember everything I used for this look, but it's pretty great, huh?!

Anyway, I hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday! Happy 4th of July!