NOTD: Layered LA Splash glitters

This is such a fun mani, its so blingy. The light pink and the fushia set off each other very well. Its a little bit darker and more fushia in person.

2 coats WnW Through The Grapevine (in the small round bottles)
1 coat LA Splash Sparkling Lilac
1 coat LA Splash Sparkling Fushia

HP Inspired Franken: Bad As Bellatrix

I was inspired by daydream222 on MUA, who used Dorothy Who in a bunch of amazing frankens. This is a dark plum purple with a bunch of blue, silver, and red glitter. I used equal parts Ruby Pumps, DW, and Groupie, plus a bit of Decked With Dazzle (discontinued) and Art Deco's Blue Glitter (which can be found in almost any mom & pop dollar store).

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Ruby Pumps, Dorothy Who, Groupie, Decked With Dazzle (LE), Blue Glitter

NOTD: LA Girl Rockstar Groupie

This color is amazing! Groupie is a dark royal purple with tons of sparkles that change from purple, blue, fucshia, and gold. It looks striking in any lighting. This is 3 coats, shown in natural lighting and sunlight. I got it from Cherryculture.com but sometimes you can find LA Girl displays in small clothing stores like Fashion Q, Image, etc or small beauty supple stores.

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Color Club neon swatches

Finally got around to swatching the rest of my Color Club polishes, which are mostly neons. I should be doing homework (its spring break but my human ecology teacher tells us to do reading and questions for 3 chapers while he's in Costa Rica, how unfair is that?) but I want to get these done before school starts again Monday.


Explosive, 5 coats. Bumble Bee yellow. Even after 5 coats I could see through some spots. Its a pretty color but it was a pain.

Electro Candy, 4 coats. This is a really pretty cool almost neon pink. It has a silver/blue flash in the sun.

Pink Lust, 3 coats. This is a neon bright pink, leaning more towards warm but it doesn't look red. Almost has a jelly consistancy that I like.

Amp'D Up, 2-3 coats. Gorgeous neon orange, leaning more red then yellow. Pretty good formula.

Pure Energy, 4-5 coats. Bright pool blue with green shimmer. This was thin and runny, which made it hard to work with. I love the color but I don't know that its worth it.

220 Volts, also called Chelsea Girl, 4-5 coats. Not as pretty on as in the bottle, its kind of a flat color, dries almost matte. Looks slightly better with a top coat

Bizerk Turq, 3 coats. My camera hates kelly greens and teals, it always turns them blue. I had to edit it a bit in photoshop. This is a gorgeous milky kelly green, a bit brighter then the photol

Quick LA Splash swatches

I'll do better swatches later but I know these are getting popular and a lot of people want photos and swatches so here are the ones I have. These ones are all glitter in clear bases, Heiress has different sizes of glitter but the others all have one size. Heiress is also the sheerest of the bunch. My favorite is probably Sparkling Lilac, its the most dense and the prettiest color I think. These bottles can be really hard to open, so you can yank off the gold top and underneath there is a round handle that is so much easier to grip. The top slides right back on.

L-R: Sparkling Lilac, Heiress, Sparkling Stratosphere, Sparkling Fushia, Sparkling Fire

one coat

thumb - pinky: Lilac, Fushia, Heiress, Fire, Stratosphere

two coats

three coats

NOTD: St. Patrick's Day Green, another glitter gradient mani

Happy St Patrick's day everyone! I don't often reach for my greens so today was the perfect opportunity to pull out my two favorite greens and show them off in the very best way. I'm wearing 2 coats of Pure Ice Wild Thing and 3 coats of NYX Lime Sparkle (the best green glitter there is imo). These colors go together so well. The first 2 pictures were taken outside in the sun and the 3rd was taken with flash. Inside with normal light its more gold-green then grass-green but I'd say the photos are true to what the color is outside. In any lighting Lime Sparkle glows, if you don't have this color you have to get it. I believe NYX renamed it Simple Sparkle so if you find either name snatch it up (um Simple Sparkle NYX, really? ain't nothing simple about this color).

Tutorial: Gradient with Glitter

For this mani I am using Pure Ice Wild Thing + NYX Lime Sparkle

-Begin with your base color, let it dry 3-4 minutes before beginning with the glitter

-1st layer: have just a little bit of polish on the brush, dab it on the top 1/3 of your nails to get excess glitter off, then do light strokes on the entire nail from base to tip, so it is a thin/sheer layer of glitter everywhere

-2nd layer: again get a little polish on the brush and dab that on the tips, then do the top 2/3 or 3/4 of the nail (depending on how long your nails are), not going over the 1/4 above your cuticles

-3rd layer: dab on top 1/3 of nail again then lightly go over the top 1/2 of your nail

-4th layer: (optional) just put a little on the top 1/4

warning about topcoats: every time I've put a Quick Dry top coat over this many layers of glitter it ends up shrinking and rippling at the tips, so I just let every layer dry 3-4 minutes between coats and I skip the quick dry top coat and just let it dry on its own. Do thin layers so it's not so thick and goopy.

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Franken: Galactic Explosion

I'll start by saying for those who don't know, a Franken is a home made nail polish that you make from mixing different polishes or pigments. I've only made a handful so far but its become addicting. This one I made today and it turned out just a perfect as I imagined.

I used a bottle of Tropez clear polish (from Rite Aid) and all but the silver from the Sparks glitter collection on tkbtrading.com. I used probably a pea size amount of each.

As soon as I reach 100 subscribers I'll make another one (or maybe two) and do a give away, so look out for that.

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Over Wnw's black, 2 coats on the middle & pinkie, 1 coat on the others

Over Color Club's Amp'D Up

NOTD: China Glaze Sprinkles

This color reminds me of strawberries and summer pool parties with my family. Makes me want to lounge by the pool with a fruity drink. Its a lovely mid-tone pink with this glitter that sometimes looks blue or red then flashes hot pink in bright lights. This is 3 coats, and the color is a bit warmer then the photo shows.

Sprinkles

NOTD: China Glaze Grape Juice + OPI Mas As A Hatter in a gradient

I was itching to do another glitter gradient mani, these two seem to be perfect for each other. I used 3 coats of Grape Juice and 4 layers of Mad As A Hatter (my first OPI). I don't really get the hype for MaaH, there are much better glitters in my opinion. Its fun to wear though. I'll be doing a tutorial for the gradient soon.

Updated: China Glaze Summer Days swatches

I know this was released last summer but, its still a great collection and summer will be here again before you know it. So why not post the swatches of the colors I have, right? If you didn't get them last year, get them this year.

I don't have Grape Juice or Cherry Pie but I have the other four. I got the other two, I don't know why I waited so long. Click the photos to see full size, they are amazing.

Grape Juice. Kind of a 'quiet' mid toned purple with a bit of grey, but it has multi colored sparkles what liven it up.

Strawberry Fields. Pink with gold shimmer.

Raspberry Festival. Red-pink with pink shimmer.

Cherry Pie. Gorgeous warm red with pink sparkles. The formula was a dream to apply.

Orange Marmalade. Citris orange with gold flakie/shimmer. I rarely wear orange and this may be my favorite of the bunch.

Watermelon Rind. Tealish green, its more like tiny flakes then glitter.

NOTD: Milani Hi-Res (its a holo!!!)

This is a color you have to get if you love holos. Milani Hi-Res is a light purple with holographic glitter. In some lights the glitter just looks grey, and kind of looks a bit like cement to me. When you put it in sunlight or under a light the holo comes out and blows you away.

This is 3 coats of Hi-Res and one coat thin of Seche Vite quick dry. This polish is very smooth, with the top coat it feels and looks like glass. It also wears well, usually after 24 hours I've got shrinkage and some minor chipping but these photos were taken two days after I put it on. This first photo is taken in natural lighting, the others were taken in my bathroom, which apparently is a magical place for holos. *shrug* The sun was hiding and it was too cold to take photos outside.