Deborah Lippmann-Cleopatra In New York

Hi everyone! Happy Friday, I'm going bowling tonight to raise money for our marching band trip, can't wait! I'm probably the worst bowler you've ever seen but hey, it's worth it! Lol last time I went bowling I completely broke my thumb nail...hope that doesn't happen this time :-/
Today's polish is a great one, I picked it up around Christmas time, Deborah Lippmann-Cleopatra In New York. I absolutely love this polish! It is so pretty and unique(I don't have any like it in my collection) and I love the name of it too...God it's awesome!

Cleopatra In New York is an awesome black jelly/crelly base with small and medium sized gold glitter mixed in. The base isn't so thick that it covers the glitter in the previous layers, so this polish has really great depth to it.

The formula on it is all right, the black base is a little sheer, and I'm wearing 3 coats here for full opacity. The glitter is abundant and easy to get onto the brush/nail, but I would give the bottle a nice shake first. I also added a little polish thinner to it to ease the application. A little bit of dabbing is needed for the glitter, but it's really not too bad at all. Here's a closeup: can you see how the glitter from the previous layers shows through but it slightly covered, I love how much depth this gives the polish!

Anyway, this polish is kinda special to me because it's actually the most expensive bottle of polish in my collection, at $19. I have this thing where I refuse to spend more than $20 on a bottle of nail polish, because that's just obnoxious, but you know...how could I resist this 19 dollar nail polish?!

So yeah, that's all I've got for today. Thanks for reading everyone and I'll see you tomorrow! Byee

~Nova

Glitter Spam-Multicolor Glitters Part 1

Hello happy Friday(yay!) Anyone have fun weekend plans? Me not so much, in fact I have absolutely zero plans at all. I guess that means lot's of swatching yay! 
Today I've got another glitter spam post, my multicolored glitters! This has been divided into two posts because I didn't want to have too many polishes/pictures in one post. Sorting the multicolored glitters was kinda difficult, and while swatching some of them I ended up moving them into different categories. But I do have some fun and sparkly glitters in this post so yay!
First up is Spoiled by Wet N' Wild-Trust Fund Baby. I was in CVS the other day and saw a rack of these for like $2 each, and I found this fun glitter so it was like happy day! The rest of the polishes were quite ordinary, there was another glitter but I decided not to get it.
Trust Fund Baby is a super awesome glitter. It has gold, pink, blue, and black small hex glitter and gold and pink SQUARE glitter! It's funny cuz in the bottle I didn't even NOTICE the black glitter at all until it was on the nail and I was like woah there's black glitter in there sweet. And same with the square glitter. Like what?! This glitter is so awesome. The brush on this was REALLY big and flat, which I liked but could make application hard for people with smaller nails. It needed a little dabbing to get the glitter in the right places, but for the most part the coverage is good. and this dries SUPER shiny which is awesome! This is Trust Fund Baby over Essie-Turquoise & Caicos. These pictures do not have top coat.

Uber close up time. Can you see all the different types of glitter? Square glitter...still can't get over it. I don't really love square glitter on its own, but when mixed with other glitters I think it looks so cool! Don't you?

 This next polish is Deborah Lippmann-Happy Birthday. Yes, there are like 50 dupes of this polish for less than half the price. I don't own any so I can't compare, but this was a Christmas gift, because I would really never buy myself a polish this expensive($16!) Ok that's a total lie I would, especially if it was something as fun as Happy Birthday. It is a mix of all sorts of multi colored hex glitter, large and small. The only complaint I have, and I make this complaint a lot, is that the Deborah Lippmann brushes suck, in my opinion. At least in this polish, the brush was REALLY small, and didn't spread out, which means major glitter dabbing required. The glitter was kinda sparse on and sorta reluctant to get on the brush, if you know what I mean. This is Happy Birthday over OPI-Berlin There, Done That.

 Here's a close up, hopefully you can see all the fun colors in Happy Birthday.

Next up is Model's Own-Dancing Queen. Now this polish I LOVE! I bought a bunch of Model's Own polish back when I was in London, and this was one of them. It's an awesome mix of dark blue hex glitter, gold small and large hex glitter, light teal shard glitter, green hex glitter, and silver holographic diamond glitter. Whew I think I got it all. This glitter is SO amazing I mean shard glitter?! That is like the queen (pun intended) of all shaped glitters! I almost out this polish in the shaped glitter category because of the shards and diamonds but I think it has a happier home in the multi colored glitter category. This is Dancing Queen over Zoya-Farah.

 The only thing I don't like about this polish is that it's really goopy/uneven, even after I added a crapload of thinner to the bottle. But once you get around the tricky application the glitter coverage is really good and you don't need to dab around too much. Below is a close up image, and you can really see all the awesome glitter in this polish.

Our next glitter is OPI-The Living Daylights. This came out with the Skyfall collection last fall. And boy does this polish scream fall! The mix of silver, orangey copper, gold, and teal glitter just looks SO much like fall, it's crazy! I can just tell that come the season, this is the polish I'll be grabbing for! This is The Living Daylights over Zoya-Bevin.

 I'd recommend giving this polish a good shake before using it, that way makes it a lot easier to get the polish onto the nail. This polish does need a little dabbing to get the glitter in the right places, but overall the coverage and formula is pretty good. It dries a little satin-y so these pictures have one coat of top coat. And please ignore that awful bald spot on my ring finger. I didn't notice it until I was uploading the pictures :-/

Our last polish is today is one that has already been shown, Model's Own-Freak Out! I have some more pictures just to include it in this post, but for the original post, click here. This is Freak Out! over Orly-Pure Porcelain.

Those are the glitters I've got for today, but I'll have more next Friday! Thanks for reading guys and I hope you all have a nice weekend! Till next time
~Nova

"Sunday" Nail Art-Jelly Sandwiches with Zoya Frida!

Hi guys sorry I didn't have nay nail art yesterday! I was too busy planning my stupid FRENCH ORALS which I did today, plus my dad kept nagging about my math grade and how I should do extra math problems. Sigh...

So today I needed to something simple, no talent really required, so today's nail "art" is more of an experiment, my first try at the JELLY SANDWICH!! I've read/seen so many pics of these, but have never tried one. If you don't know what a jelly sandwich is, it's when you take a jelly polish (which is a kinda sheer/jelly lookin polish) and apply a couple coats to your nail, then apply a coat(s) of glitter, another coat(s) of the jelly polish on top of the glitter, and then another coat of glitter on top (optional). Due to the sheer nature of the jelly polish, the first coat of glitter will show through the polish and give the effect that the glitter is "sandwiched" between the layers of the jelly polish. At least, that's what it's supposed to look like :P

The jelly polish that I used for today's manicure (and the only jelly that I own:( ) is Zoya-Frida which is s pretty tealy blue green jelly polish. The formula on this is like a jelly, which is different from that of a regular creme finish polish. It's runnier and more watery, and is meant to be really sheer so you can apply multiple coats and darken the color. This was my first time working with a jelly, so I was new to this whole thing, but I didn't really have any problems applying Frida. I used thin coats and tried not to glob it on too much, which I usually do, and I was fine. This also tried pretty quickly, which is good because you have to keep going back and doing many coats. 

I experimented with all sorts of different glitters on a different finger of both my hands. So the nails on my left and right hand are different. God it bugs me so much!

Anyway on my right hand (from pinkie to thumb) I have:

-Models Own-Dancing Queen

-Color Club-Platinum Record

-Kleancolor-Firework

-Models Own-Ibiza Mix

-China Glaze-Whirled Away

These nails all have 3(!) coats of basecoat, 2 coats of Frida, one coat of the glitter, another 2 coats of Frida, one coat of the same glitter, and 2 coats of top coat. I used a sh*tload of base coat because a) I normally use a strengthening base coat and an adhesive one, and I've heard that tinted base coats are good for sheer polishes, so I used a tinted base coat in addition to my other 2, and b) I REALLY didn't want my nails to be all blue green stained!

Let me also just say that these were a real pain in the ass to photograph...

Here's an uber close up of my right hand ring finger (Platinum Record) so you can see the "sandwich" effect better:

You can also see how the light sorta shines through the nail near the tip because the polish isn't totally opaque. I think it looks cool.

This is my left hand. Glitter polishes from pinkie to thumb are:

-Wet N' Wild-Kaleidoscope (fine holographic glitter) + OPI-The Living Daylights (larger hex glitter)

-Deborah Lippmann-Happy Birthday

-Brand from China that's called Lucidarling (fine gold glitter) + Sephora by     OPI Tinsel Me Silver (bar glitter)

-Lucidarling (large gold glitter)

-OPI-Lights of Emerald City

I think in general I like the larger glitter better, it just gives off a better sandwich effect, while the fine glitter doesn't. I also probably should have used thinner, less glitter dense coats, so you could see the glitter underneath better. Like if you look at my ring finger it's sort of hard to see the "underlayer" of Happy Birthday.

My favorite fingers out of the whole manicure are my right pinky (Dancing Queen), my right ring finger (Platinum Record), my right index finger (Ibiza Mix), and my left index finger (Large gold glitter)

So that's it for today! Hope you're all satisfied (cough cough my blonde friend) because I took all afternoon doing these instead of studying for finals. So if I fail it's YOUR fault. jk...

Overall I really like the jelly sandwich effect and I think I'll try it again some time, and do it better! 

Zoya polishes cost $8 online, and the other glitters all cost various amounts. If you have any questions about the price you can leave them in the comments!

Whew this was a long post! Thanks for reading guys and enjoy the rest of your week!

Oh and uh...just cuz:

teehee :)