Illamasqua Glitter Gradient

Good evening Ninjas!

Happy Monday, hope you had a lovely weekend. I think the highlight of my weekend was Walking Dead coming back for the Mid-Season premiere! Do you watch that show?

Tonight's manicure is one I really didn't want to take off. This is two coats of Illamasqua Phallic which is, hands down, my new favorite blue nail polish. Illamasqua describes Phallic as a "deep midnight blue, shimmer finish" which doesn't do this polish justice. This polish absolutely glows on its own but I couldn't just leave well enough alone. I did a sponged glitter gradient on the tips of my nails with Finger Paints Falling for You which is a Copper mini and hex glitter combination. This was an awesome duo!

This is Halloween day 22

Hello Ninjas!

The grand opening of our new building for Jiu Jitsu is today! I'll be super busy at work so I decided to so this post the night before things went crazy. Hopefully everyone will have an awesome Monday!

This is a pretty neat manicure, I think. Three coats of Nina Pro Cobalt make up the base, I sponged China Glaze It's Alive on the nail tips, then I added one coat of an unnamed Pumpkinhead polish with holographic moons over top. I wanted the overall effect to look like the crescent moon rising over a green field. I think this turned out pretty well though my right hand came out a lot better than my left.

Jolly Green Gradient!

Hello lovely Ninjas!

Sorry about the slightly delayed posting. I had intended to post yesterday but got thrown out of whack my parts of my schedule moving around. A good friend of mine graduated from High School today! I've successfully gotten her interested in nail polish even though she's a pretty devout tomboy type XD Converting the people of the world to polish, one person at a time! I'm like a lacquer superhero.

Today's manicure is a two part process! I wore Zoya *Wednesday for two days by itself then added Zoya Shawn to make my very first sponge gradient. *Wednesday only took two lovely coats for opacity and was great at self leveling. I'll never get over how wonderful the formula is on Zoya polishes is, it makes other brands very irritating at times though! Zoya describes *Wednesday as, " Faded dirty medium turquoise with green undertone and an opaque cream finish." Which is pretty accurate! I wasn't expecting Wednesday to lean so green on me but it wasn't unpleasant so it all worked out. I need a more teal version of this though, I love teals. Sorry about my cuticles and the cut on my right index finger, that's where my bigger dog mistook my finger for a french fry!

On to the pictures:

*Wednesday provided by the Zoya PR team for honest review.

Peachy Glitter Gradient

Hello Ninjas!

Sorry this isn't the usual Scent of the Day post that I do every other post. I felt a little under the weather today and wasn't really able to create anything with my little ole mind. Hopefully the next post will have a new scent and a new story for you to read. Until then, here's a very springy/summery combination I did a while back.

This is who knows how many coats of Maybelline Peach Petal with OPI Pirouette my Whistle on the tips for a glitter gradient. PP is a very sheer light peach polish with a pretty silvery shimmer to it. This probably took four coats to get to the opacity you see here. I love this color but after 4 coats there was still VNL which is why I added the glitter. This was a pretty manicure but not the easiest to photograph!

Essie School of Hard Rocks Gradient

Hello darling ninjas!

Today I've got my first attempt at a gradient nail design. This is a bas of two coats of Essie School of Hard Rocks from their Cocktail Bling collection for Winter 2011. I was expecting SoHR to come out much lighter but it ended up drying to a nice muted medium teal instead of the more khaki green I was expecting. This was still a very pretty color and an easy formula to work with. If you have a steady hand, you could probably make this color into a one coat wonder but I just didn't want to risk the bubbling.

After the coats of Essie, I did one layer of Orly Twilight on about 3/4 of my nails. My original intention had been to do the gradient entirely with the Orly color but it was just too subtle to produce the effect I wanted. I ended up adding a layer of Sally Hansen Glass Slipper to the tips of my nails to finish off the gradient. The overall effect looks like I dipped my nails in water and let them freeze. I love the frosty look!

I don't think I did too bad for my first try at a gradient, what do you think? Oh yes, I did chop my nails down after a bad break on my right hand. Sorry for the shortness!