Today's NOTD - shimmery white with a holographic glitter gradient

I was lying awake last night in bed just DYING to do this manicure! So of course the first thing I did when I woke up was break out the polish supplies. This manicure made my nails look like something out of a winter fantasy world.



The white base is four coats of Nicole by OPI It's All About the Glam, a semi-sheer glittery white, and one of my favourite base polishes. It's a soft white, easy to apply, and the subtle shimmer keeps it from being too stark. The main issue is that it's quite sheer, and even with four coats I could see my nail line.

To fix that, I added a glitter gradient using Claire's Night Sky, a fine holographic and navy blue glitter that I absolutely love. If you're near a Claire's or Icing shop (it's sold as Epic Winning there I think?), grab this! It's cheap and beautiful.

Deborah Lippmann Glitter in the Air vs Revlon Whimsical - now THIS is a dupe!

While picking up Deborah Lippmann's Candy Shop, I could not resist grabbing Glitter in the Air to do a true dupe comparison with my bottle of Revlon Whimsical. I was convinced I'd be able to tell the difference between these two on the nails the same way I could with Candy Shop, but...

Yeah. I couldn't.

By the way, I'm giving away two bottles of Revlon Whimsical here :)

The bottles:




Close up:



They look pretty damned identical to me. The Lippmann looks a touch milkier, but not much.

Side note: this is the first time I've ever gotten a Lippmann bottle with a flawed brush - one of the strands was super long! You can see it poking through the polish here. I took a pair of scissors and cut it off.

The brushes:



The Lippmann brush is a bit shorter and wider than the Revlon brush.



This is four coats of each polish with no base coat.




Two coats over OPI Alpine Snow. The Lippmann had a bit more glitter, but that may have been a coincidence.



Two coats over Deborah Lippmann Shape of my Heart. Again the Lippmann appears to have a touch more glitter. Incidentally, this is my favourite way to wear this polish!




Two coats over Revlon Dreamer - another beautiful way to wear these lovely polishes. In this case, the Revlon had slightly more glitter than the Lippmann, confirming that it's more a random luck thing than a glitter concentration thing.

Unlike Candy Shop, in my mind Whimsical is a true dupe for Deborah Lippmann's Glitter in the Air.  If you have one, you don't need both! The only difference I saw was that GITA has more tiny pink glitter - the Revlon doesn't appear to have any, but it's so subtle it's barely noticeable. The application for both is similar - fairly easy, though you'll want to wait a minute between coats to prevent the glitter from moving around.

My bottle of Whimsical is already looking a bit low from the number of coats it takes to get a decent application, but I'm not too worried - I have a bottle of Glitter in the Air as a backup!

Vintage nails

I had a lot of fun last night doing this! I set out to do a stamping mani on top of China Glaze For Audrey with a matte finish, but once my nails were painted I figured I'd try my hand at some vintage wallpaper styles instead.



The base is China Glaze For Audrey.

The stripes and dots were done with my Konad stamping polish. This stuff is great for doing nail art - super opaque!

The vintage roses are a combo of Sally Hansen Fuchsia Power and Deborah Lippmann Shape of my Heart, with China Glaze Holly Day and Sally Hansen Mint Sherbet for the leaves. This is where I realised I had no leafy greens in my collection - must rectify that today!

The polish I'm holding is Deborah Lippmann's Mermaid's Dream, which just arrived at my office this morning. Check out the MASSIVE box it came in! I cracked up laughing when the FedEx guy walked in with this.



All that box and padding for one teeny tiny bottle of polish. Sadly, there's a second box just like it on the way tomorrow with On the Beach inside (they shipped separately for some crazy reason).

Deborah Lippmann: The Stripper to Go vs. flakies

Day three of the great Stripper to Go Experiment!

Today's contenders:

One coat of Essie Good to Go base, two coats of Nicole by OPI It's All about the Glam, one coat of Essie Shine of the Times, and one coat of Seche Vite.



I wore this combo to the hockey game last night, and I have to say I really liked it! Subtle, pretty, and shimmery. The dense flakies of Shine of the Times make it an ideal one coater over lighter polishes. I wouldn't try this with say, any of the Picture Polish flakies - it'd take too many coats to see any flakies at all!



I wore this polish for about a day and a half before removal, and here are the results.

Left hand:



Right hand:



The mitt after cleaning:



Overall, this was a pretty big disappointment. There were flakies left all over my nails, even on the first few nails, and by nail 6 I really had to work at it to get anything off at all. This resulted in some bits of lint coming off the mitt and sticking to my nails. As with the creme + glitter experiment, I found that the mitt itself dried out before I got to my right thumb. I did try to use the packaging as a cover for the mitt, but it just didn't work - I couldn't grip the mitt enough to work it over my nails.

Lynnderella - Connect the Dots

These are just some quick and dirty shots of today's manicure: Jacob Haute Couture with Lynnderella Connect the Dots.

The base coat:



Jacob Haute Couture, available in store and online. As of this posting (January 29, 2012) these are on sale for $3 a bottle. Not a bad deal!


The glitter:





Lynnderella Connect the Dots, available exclusively at shop.llarowe.com. Currently out of stock, but due to be re-stocked in February.

In the sun:



In the shade:



This is two coats of Haute Couture followed by two coats of Connect the Dots, then two coats of Seche Vite to smooth it out. Like most chunky glitters, this was a bit thick to apply and took some work to smooth out.

I found it rather hard to work with, and getting the super neat "lines and big dots" effect was tough. I found myself fishing for the bar glitter without much success, and what glitter I did get out tended to clump a fair bit.

Having said that, I think this one just takes practice to apply. I'll keep trying because I love the way it looks, even with less than ideal application.

Buy again? Probably not. I'll be happy with my one bottle for quite some time.

Lynnderella - Snow Angel

I finally got a chance to swatch one of my latest nail mail goodies - Lynnderella Snow Angel! I received this and Connect the Dots from llarowe last week and I am SO excited.

This is my first swatch after an incident with my chef's knife took a good chunk off my middle fingernail :( I'm torn between filing the rest down and waiting for it to grow out to match! This is the first time I've ever had longer fingernails and it's definitely taking some getting used to - gotta learn to be more careful when chopping veggies!

The bottle:




Close up of frosty glittery goodness:



I wasn't sure what to put underneath this. I've seen a lot of swatches over plain white, but I ended up going with a polish from Jacob (of all places) called Pink Chiffon.



It's a super sheer, super milky pale pink, very pretty and light, and it made a nice background for Snow Angel.

Sun:



Shade:



I used three coats of Pink Chiffon, then one coat of Snow Angel, and two coats of Seche Vite to try and smooth it out. As with all heavy glitter polishes, this takes major topcoat to smooth. Application was quite easy, and the glitter itself was very well behaved. The polish is a tad thick, but it went on smoothly with no clumped up bits of glitter to worry about.

The overall effect is very subtle, girly, and pretty. I'm not 100% sold on whether I love this yet or not, but for now it'll stay in my polish collection and I'm sure I'll reach for it again.

I cheated

And redid my nails with Sally Hansen Salon Effects polish strips in Peppermint Twist. I love these - perfect peppermint nails without any fuss or cleanup. I put these on last night in the space of about five minutes, slapped them with a topcoat, and they were good to go. (Damn I need to clean up my index finger cuticle! This picture shows just how dry it is.)



Compared to other SH strips, these felt a tad more plasticky and seemed more prone to wrinkling. I managed to work most of them out but I can still see a bit of folding if I look closely.

ETA: Scrangie posts about this same set of nail strips here!

Water marble candy cane

I attempted Colette's amazing (and seemingly so simple!) candy cane water marble pattern this morning. She makes it look SO EASY, and it's SO NOT.

This took me about two hours to do, and I still managed to muck up a couple of nails. Not to mention just how much clean up this takes! This is after spending about 30 minutes with q-tips and a bottle of polish remover.

Perhaps water marbling just isn't for me. But I will continue to try!

Products used: China Glaze Ruby Pumps, China Glaze White on White in the water marble with Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear Disco Ball on top, along with a coat of Seche Vite.




You can see how badly I smudged my middle finger here. It's not QUITE as noticeable in person and out of the sun thankfully, but I was just out of patience to redo it.



One day, I may be as good at this as Colette, but that day is far, far away!

I'm on a posting spree today

After my disappointment with the Ozotics, I decided to redo one of my current favourite manicures for today: China Glaze For Audrey with China Glaze White on White french tip, covered with Deborah Lippmann Flat Top. You can clearly see where I rushed with the For Audrey on my ring and little fingers and got some polish on the cuticle. Ugh! I WILL learn to slow it down consistently one day.

Here it is before I put on the matte top coat:



And after:



I love this look so much - the matte finish turns it into something very unique and different!

Another Christmas manicure

Building off of my last Christmas manicure, this one takes it to another level. I wasn't 100% pleased with how this turned out - the white and gold should have been separated I think, and the jewels on the center stripe instead of the outer one. But overall this went ok, considering it's my most complicated look yet! Scotch tape helped keep the lines clean, and a bit of top coat dotted on my nails kept the gems from sliding around.

Sadly, I made a mess out of this on my way out the door and had to take it off :( I didn't have time to redo it, so I had to scrap the whole thing.










Colours:
Clear sparkly base: Sephora by OPI Bare to be Different, Sephora by OPI No-el if I Know
White: China Glaze White on White
Gold: Nicole by OPI Not a Gold Bigger
Red: China Glaze Ruby Pumps
Green: China Glaze Glittering Garland
Topcoat: Seche Vite

A haul, and a porcelain manicure!

I received one small package of nail polish today with a few China Glaze items, and then I stopped into Sally on the way home to pick up a few odds and ends. I ended up getting a few more China Glaze polishes while I was there, along with a few cheap Sally Girl samples.




Misc: Polish thinner & pure acetone on the left, nail gems on the lower right.

Polishes:

Top row: China Glaze Frostbite, China Glaze For Audrey, China Glaze White on White, Finger Paint Sparkle Top Coat

Middle row: China Glaze Icicle, China Glaze Glittering Garland, China Glaze Holly Days, China Glaze Tinsel Town, China Glaze Some Like it Haute

Bottom row: Three mini Sally Girl polishes, no names.


China Glaze For Audrey made me think about my lovely set of blue Nigella Lawson mixing bowls, except shiny while they're matte. So I hauled out my Deborah Lippmann Flat Top and did this:




Base: CND Stickey
Blue: China Glaze For Audrey
White: China Glaze White on White
Top coat: Deborah Lippmann Flat Top

Matting a manicure just changes it so completely, from a pretty shiny look to a sophisticated porcelain-like finish. I love this look so much! I'll definitely be wearing it again soon.