NOTD: Glitter gradient with ChG Sexy In The City + LA Splash Oceanspray

This pretty much makes me want to cry and wish I was on a tropical beach.

My camera totally made this look blue so I fixed it in photoshop as much as I could but its still not 100% color accurate, it is very close though. In person the base is a medium teal and all the glitter is light seafoam green.

3 coats Sexy In The City
3 coats Sparkling Oceanspray


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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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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.

NOTD: Claire's Magic + ChG Cleopatra glitter gradient

Oooh baby! I pretty much just got Cleopatra for the name and didn't think I'd really love it but it looks great with dark purples, like Claire's Magic! Doing it in a gradient style made it look really classy in my opinion. I also want to try it with a navy sometime. This is 3 layers of Magic and 3 layers of Cleopatra.

Sadly after only 5 hours my nails had serious shrinkage due to the evil Poshe quick dry top coat. Of course that was after my polish started rippling at the tips (basically that looks like little hills going up and down the tips) and fixed it by both licking it (wish I was joking) and pressing it with my finger. I don't think I'll ever be able to trust Poshe again. *sob* I will fix it this morning by putting a bit of np on the tips.

and this is how it turned out after I fixed it, not too bad!!