China Glaze Shower Together topped with WnW Fergie Walk of Fame

Wet n Wild Walk of Fame on top of China Glaze Shower Together... I am so hooked on star glitters!

Neon Leopard Nails

Just another set of freehand leopard print nails with a neon base.

I can't get enough of true neons and leopard print!

Claires and Icing Polishes and a quick swatch

Claire's and Icing are having Buy 1, Get 1 50%  off so I went a little wild today!

Radio Superstar on top of imPress nails in Flirt!  Love how these turned out!

 

China Glaze Blue Iguana topped with Crow's Toes Absolum

Just a quick swatch of my one and only Crows Toes polish, Absolum.  I paired it up with China Glaze Blue Iguana.

Stamped Butterfly Wing Nails

I was over my KC It Purple and FP Motley mani and I wanted to try out the butterfly wing stamp on the Vivid Lacquer  002 plate.

It needed a little bit more after that so I applied teal hex glitters and covered them with some L.A. Colors iridescent glitter.

I have to say, this butterfly wing mani was WAY easier than the freehand version.  The wing image is a little large and I beleive that Vivid Lacquer added a smaller wing image on her newest plates.

Anyway...what's better than glittery, sparkly butterfly wings?  Nothing!

A Belated week 32 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Neon Watermarble Manicure

Watermarbling and I have not seen eye to eye in recent past and I finally figured out why.

Everyone (the watermarbling experts) kept saying that the water needed to be room temperature.  What I failed to realize is that, with my husband's penchant for sub zero a/c settings, not even room temperature water was in fact room temperature in our home.  I lowered the a/c and for the first time I was able to swirl the polish and apply the design to my nails before the polish dried to a messy skin on top of my water:)  I think it helped using some very good quality polishes from my newest stash of China Glaze.  

For these, I painted my nails with one coat of Sinful Colors Snow Me White.  Next, I taped up all of my nails in preparation for messy watermarbling.  I dropped dots of China Glaze Purple Panic, Turned Up Turquoise, and Sun Worshiper and used a tooth pick to pull the layers into a petal design.  I then dunked my nail carefully into the design and used a toothpick to pick up all of the excess polish off the surface of the water before I pulled my nail out.  The tape prevented a lot of cleanup but I still had to do a bit of touching up around my cuticles and nail edges.  I then applied dots of Snow Me White to each arc of color and topped those white dots with discs of holographic glitter from China Glaze Techno. 

All in all, very satisfied with my watermarbling experience AND with the resulting mani.  This won't be the last watermarbled mani you see on Nails Actually!

Discount Polish Haul, Sally Nail Mail, and a swatch of Vegas Night

A recent trip to my favorite discount beauty store yielded some more Kleancolor polishes as well as one more Ruby Kisses HD polish in Mystic Aurora.  Vegas Night had me drooling so I did a swatch that you can see at the end of this post and it. is. STUNNING!

On top of that, I also took a late night trip to Walgreens and found these two Black Radiance polishes.  The glitters in Party Girl Rock called out to me and B-girl was so stunning I just had to buy them.  There were two extra of each that I bought for a giveaway or nail polish RAOK.

In the same trip I also bought these Sinful Colors polishes.  They are soo perfect for Fall and Fig is like Dream On in its pretty factor but nicely toned down for colder months.  Winterberry is a frosty purple grey and I can't wait to see it on!  I am a sucker for blue polishes and I didn't already have Rain Storm and Ciao Bella so I snapped them up.

Yep, more from the Walgreens trip.  I finally saw the Wet N Wild Fergie polishes everyone was raving about but was soo bummed because the Walk of Fame star glitter was sold out!  (as if that ever stopped me--I later found two WoF at another Walgreens a couple of days later--awesome!)  I love the look of all of these!

I rarely buy InstaDri anymore but I saw these.  They both have a shimmer that is hard to tell in this picture but they'll look stunning on nails!

On one of my FB nail polish groups, someone shared that Sally Beauty had a super great sale on China Glaze polishes for $2.99.  The deepest discount only showed when you signed in to the beauty members account.  I filled up my cart with these 10 polishes and found a promo code that gave me an additional $5 off orders of $25 or more.  My total for these was a little over $30!

Last, I leave you with that Kleancolor Vegas Night swatch.  It speaks for itself!

Latest Polishes, Solvent Resistant Glitter, and a Swatch!

Between a late night shopping spree at Sally's and some nail mail, this past week has been good for the polish business and  not too terrible on my wallet!

Sally's had their China Glaze Crackles on sale for $1.50 so I grabbed one of each color I could find!  Crackle polishes were never a bandwagon I jumped on (much like kaviar nails and magnetic polishes) but I did have a recent Year of Polish Challenge week that I thought I had to skip because I didn't own any crackles.   Went back and did that week and it was passable ;0)

e.l.f.  had a sale on select polishes so I grabbed these three from their website:)

Sally's also had Finger Paints Fall 2012 Collection out so I grabbed the plum and the bar glitter ones... I am a sucker for purple and blue polishes so I had to try on Plum Startled right away!

Androgynie and Fowl Play were finally restocked again at Sally's so I snapped them up too!

Ruby Kisses HD Glitters are very pretty.   I am relatively sure that they aren't 3 free but they are a good start for those of you with small budgets:)  If you know me, you know that I enjoy discount polishes just as much as my indies and my boutique polishes:)

AbsolutLacquer had a mystery, custom polish offer on Etsy so I told her my likes and she sent me this beauty and its named after me!  Teal with holographic hearts!  I can't wait to wear it!

I ordered a solvent glitter sampler from the Glitter Source on Etsy.  These were about $12.  Now I have to order suspension base AND bottles.  lol...I suppose I should take a break from buying polishes and focus on polish making supplies but I am thinking I can do both ;0)

I scored Daul for $0.01 on Copious.  I know, I am a lucky lucky girl...its soooo eye catching!

Anyway, even as I write this I have another blog post full of more polishes to show you.   I am glad I don't make myself swatch each one or I'd have to quit my day job to do so!

Week 34 of the Year of Polish Challenge: Bling Mani

So Week 34...Nice to meet you and can I just say, "Wow, girl!"

Week 34 is the Bling manicure and I brought out my neglected rhinestones and studs.  I was thinking gold, and diamonds, and silver studs.

I don't think I will be able to wear these long because I have a tendency to pick at stuff like this as soon as one pops off from wear and tear but I will wear it proudly until that happens. 

Anyway, these are a decent attempt for something I am not hugely into:) 

YOPC Catch Up: Week 31 Patchwork Crackle Mani

Bought some China Glaze Metallic Crackle polishes so I no longer have any excuse to skip the Year of Polish Challenge Week 31 Crackle manicure.

I painted my Orly Bonder nails with Loreal's Silver Star.  I then used China Glaze's Oxidized Aqua as the next layer.  Last I used little smudges of China Glaze's Latticed Lilac and Haute Metal.

It works ;0)

Klean Color It Purple and Finger Paints Motley Mashup

One coat of It Purple and two coats of Motley, then a protective topcoat.

Zen Nails

I was surfing the net and a number of things inspired me to do these Zen nails.  When drawing it out I had the idea to write out the words "Zen in the Art of Nails" like the old book title, "Zen in the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert Pirsig.  Nail art, like many of my previous hobbies, has a distinct way to bring peace to my life...even in times of chaos.  The tiny canvases that are my nails force me to focus and be very deliberate in my actions.  Even the disasters of nail art are an enjoyable experience:)

 The black unfinished circle is a symbol I found all over the internet as the symbol for zen.

Sorry, I'm so zen right now that I'm not even gonna post polish pics along with this so I'll list them!

OPI Planks a Lot
SC Snow Me White
WnW Ebony Hates Chris
SC Nirvana

On the ring finger, I used the pebble design from BM plate 211 and dotted the image with Nirvana and Ebony Hates Chris for a multicolor look to the stones.

Hope you like:)

Milky Way Galaxy Nails, Week 33 of the Year of Polish Challenge

This is probably my 3rd Galaxy mani and I have to say that its my best!

Week 33 of the Year of Polish Challenge was a Galaxy manicure and I wanted sparkly, colorful, AND as a proud Science nerd, I had to have them have an actual galaxy.  On my ring finger nail, I painted our home galaxy, the glorious spiraled Milky Way Galaxy.

On my index finger nail I painted a supernova.   The other finger nails have the traditional Galaxy motif.

With that, I leave you with a trip back to the 90s....