Kleancolor-Firework

Hello everyone! My finals are over yayayay!!!! Summer had OFFICIALLY started, despite that we still have two more 1/2 days of school. Blegh. Whatever, I'm just so happy that I have no more school and homework and can waste more time painting my nails and blogging and watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer...
So today's polish is a simple glitter that I picked up from my town's Spring Fling festival thing last year. It's just like a large open market and they always a nail polish stand with cheap nail polish so I like to go there. I got four polishes there this year, they had OPI polish there for like $6 it was awesome! My friend was forced to stay with me at the booth while I looked at nail polish and she witnessed my whole nail polish buying process. It's pretty long and tedious, I can spend FOREVER in front of a nail polish display debating about what to buy...etc.
So anyway, today's glitter polish is Kleancolor-Firework. It's a pretty fun mix of red,gold, and teal hex glitter and little gold microglitter in a kinda yellow-y base. The red glitter can look very fucsia at certain angles that it sometimes looks like there is actual fucsia glitter in it, like maybe someone knocked over the tube of fucsia glitter and some fell in lol! The yellow base isn't all that noticeable on the nail, just a little over white, which is good. I really don't like glitter in a tinted base because it's always hard to layer it over other stuff.

 The middle and index fingers have a matte top coat on top, just because I was curious about how matte would look. I might have mentioned before though that I'm just not really a fan of matte. But it does look pretty cool. The other two nails, and the rest of the nails in this post, have a coat of Seche Vite on top. 
I played around with some layering just over some colors that I already had on for swatching anyway. You might have seen these last week,
This is Firework over Color Club-Coral Cascade:

Here it is over Zoya-Kristen. I really like this combo:

I like that combo a lot, like the subtle muted Kristen contrasts against the bright and colorful Firework!
Here's Firework over OPI-Honey Ryder, which is one of those textured polishes, this combo is pretty neat too:

On my ring and middle fingers you can see some serious fucsia glitter! It's actually the red glitter that just looks pinker due to the angle and lighting. The little gold microglitters don't really show up over the gold base of Honey Ryder, but I think the glitter on top of textured combo is kinda cool. I might have to experiment with it again! I'll have swatches of Honey Ryder alone later this week. 
Kleancolor polishes can be found in drugstores, I got mine from the Spring Fling for like $2, I don't know how much they cost in stores, but I think they're pretty cheap.
Overall I really like this glitter. It's fun and I think the name is very fitting! That's it for today guys thanks for reading!

Sunday Nail Art-Stripey Zig Zags

Hello everyone! Super anticipated for my math/global finals tomorrow! Ack after tomorrow my school year is practically over. I still have my english final on Tuesday but I'm not really worried about that. But my brain is freaking out over math! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!
So to calm myself down today, and procrastinate on studying...I did this!

(I also changed the watermark on my pics. Yay:P)
So these nails were inspired by this shirt my friend was wearing the other day:

The nails and the shirt don't really match, but I just used the shirt for inspiration then translated it as best as I could onto my nails.
I started with basecoat, then 2-3 coats of OPI-My Boyfriend Scales Walls. Only some nails needed a third coat to smooth out.

After the base I used a quick dry top coat, then ate some lunch...then used a fan brush to do the design.

I was originally debating between using a regular striping brush and a fan brush. Well, 4 seconds into using the striping brush, I was like nope and picked up my fan brush. I think striping brushes just hate me. The fan brush was much easier though. It took a couple nails to get used to how to use the fan brush to make my zig zaggy designs, but I got the hang of it.

The colors are:
Light blue: OPI-Can't Find My Czechbook
Navy blue: Butter London-Royal Navy(<3)
Pinkish red: Essie-Saturday Disco Fever
Purple: Essie-Playdate
I used 2 coats of topcoat to get the nails nice and smooth, and done! I really like these nails, they were easy and I think this design is something that I will be doing variations on again in the future:)
So here's a comparison between my nails and the original inspiration:

Overall I really like that pattern and the look on my nails. They're a little more colorful than my usual designs, but I've been trying to use more color and less grays, nudes etc...

Thanks for reading guys! Wish me luck on my math final and I'll see you all later!

Zoya Kristen

Hello everyone! Glad it's Friday? Took my chem exam today, totally aced it! Jk I had no clue about a couple of the questions, but that's my chem teacher for ya! Just throw some random topic we've never covered on the exam, it's k.
So today's polish is a nice faded pink/purple color (leans more pink in my opinion) Zoya-Heather

Heather is a really nice color on my skin tone. It's nice and soft and doesn't make my hands look sickly. It's sort of looks lavender in this picture but it is a little more pink in real life. 

This picture also looks too lavender, the pink just really doesn't want to show up in these pictures! The formula was very nice, it was a little runny but it was nice and opaque by 2 coats. 
Zoya polishes cost $8 on their website. 

Zoya FeiFei + some striping

Hi everyone! I didn't have any final exams yesterday so I had some free time on my hands (when I should have been studying. Psh) and I only had my french test this morning, so now I have the rest of the day! Yay. So yesterday I decided to swatch one of my untrieds, the famous Zoya-FeiFei. This is a really popular color among other nail bloggers that I've seen, and I get why. IT'S FREAKING BEAUTIFUL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh pictures simply do not do it justice. It's such a pretty shimmery color. The predominant base color is a slatey blue purple color, but there are flecks of shimmer of all sorts of other colors in there. From my close examination, I see blue, green, purple, pink, silver, and orange. Holding the nail at different angles reveals different colors of shimmer. If you look at it really close up it looks like a rainbow! Maybe like a holographic effect or something. Whatever it is, I LOVE it!!

You just have to see this polish in person to appreciate it! Here's an uber close up of one of my fingers so you can see the flecks of shimmer better:

The formula on FeiFei was rather sheer, and I used 3 coats to build it up to opacity. Also it smells funny. Kinda nasty. Sometime I'm gonna try layering this over some other polishes, since I think it's sheer enough to do so. 
And of course yesterday I couldn't leave my nails all one color, so I took out my striping tape, did some accent nails, and this happened:

I was too lazy to do all my other nails, so accent nails will have to do! The glitter I used was China Glaze-Optical Illusion. I love all the full coverage glitters that came out in that collection! I love full coverage glitters in general. Optical Illusion was so freaking sparkly that you can see it totally freaked out my camera! It just wouldn't focus. God I love sparkly things...

Ugh I hate how my camera won't focus on the thumb! But also the blurry image also kinda shows you all the colors in Optical Illusion so it looks kinda cool! 
Zoya polishes are $8 on their website, and you can find China Glaze in most beauty salons or drug stores, and I think they cost somewhere in the $5-$7 range?
Anyway that's all for today and I promise I'll have some nail art for you guys on Sunday!

Color Club-Coral Cascade

Woah check out the alliteration in the title! I don't know why but it reminds me of "I would like to partake in your pecan pie" :P

Aaaaanyway... today's post is just a simple nail polish, Color Club-Coral Cascade. It is pretty coral-y color, but it leans more orange. I would definitely put it in the orange family. I'm still on the hunt for the perfect coral polish, with the perfect balance of pink and orange...

The formula on this was alright. It was rather thin and streaky, though it eventually evened itself out. It tends to apply streaky, but then it smooths out and is smooth when it dries...does that make sense? You can see a bit of lumpiness and stuff on my pinky. I'm using 3 coats in these pics.

Unfortunately this is real ugly color on my skin tone. I've never been one for reds or oranges. I do use this color for nail art at times though cuz it's pretty, just not on me :(
Color Club polishes can be found at beauty retailers, I got mine at Harmon's. I think it cost $7? I could be wrong.
That's all for today thanks for reading!

"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 :)

Urban Outfitters-Dust

Hello happy Saturday yay! Hope everyone's having a good weekend. I had a 6 hour marching band "boot camp" rehearsal this morning. God it was exhausting, and we've barely even started the actual marching part yet! Don't ever let ANYONE tell you that marching band isn't a legit sport, because IT IS INTENSE!
So anyway...[segway]...today's polish is another Urban Outfitters polish, Dust. Dust is a glitter in kind of a blueish base with dark silver glitter. 

As you can see, the blueish base isn't really obvious once it's on the nail. Really all you see is this blue-y tinted silver glitter. Here's a bottle shot, where you can see the grey ish blue base:

I messed with the color balacne just a little to get the base color to show better. This is how the bottle looks in real life, quite a lot of blue. Sadly that blue doesn't translate onto the nail :(

The formula is also a tad tricky. It's thinner than I expected, and runnier/streaky, so the first coat is quite patchy. The second coat is more opaque, but there are still some patchy areas, so I'm wearing 3 coats in these pictures. Since it was so much thinner than I expected, I experimented with some layering.
Here's one coat of Dust over black and white:

Over the white polish on my middle finger you can see the blue base better, and also see how streaky it is. I think it looks pretty cool over black, it looks like Color Club-Platinum Record, which is silver glitter in a clear base. I'll do swatches/a comparison maybe some other time.
Here's one coat of Dust over OPI-I Don't Give A Rotterdam! which is a slate blue with slight copper shimmer.

I tried to choose a polish with a similar base color as Dust to see how it would look. I kind of hoped the copper shimmer in IDGAR would show through, but it didn't :(
And for the sake of experimenting, here's one coat of Dust over Jordana-Pink Lilac

I had hoped that the blue on top of the pink would make a purple-y color, but I clearly still have much to learn about layering polishes, cuz all I got was a streaky ugly blueish mess.

:D
Overall I think I would like this polish a lot more if it were in a clear base, or if the blue showed up better. Right now, it's just sort of grungy looking, and I'm not sure when I could ever use it, except maybe as an accent nail with nail art or something :( 
Urban Outfitters polishes cost $5 in stores.
Anyway that's all for today guys thanks for reading!