Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! This is the manicure I'll be sporting today.

The base is Xtreme Wear Black Out with Confetti Tazmanian Devil layered on top, One of my most favorite combinations. 2012 is painted with China Glaze Midnight Kiss. The fireworks are China Glaze Midnight Kiss, Orly Sweet Peacock, Xtreme Wear Celeb City, and Zoya Izzy.

Shine Of The Times

Hey there, I hope everyone had a happy holiday! I went to Walgreens lately and had a pretty great find. Essie Shine Of The Times is part of Essie's Luxeffects collection. It's one of those flaky duchromes that has recently been rising in popularity. I've never really worked with these before so I thought I'd use a couple different colors as a base. I love this color, it looks awesome over anything, especially black, and applies really smoothly.

SOTT over Orly Royal Navy, China Glaze Shower Together, Orly Lucky Duck, and Zoya Mira.

Over Wet N Wild Black Creme.

Merry Christmas (Eve)!

I did it! 12 Christmas inspired manicures! This is my final one, no real rhyme or reason to what I did for it. Merry Christmas!

Zoya Holly, Color Club Gingerbread Man, and China Glaze Mommy Kissing Santa.

China Glaze Party Hearty gradient to go along.

Christmasy Goodness

Today is going to have two posts, because it's almost Christmas! Or just because I was too lazy to post yesterday and I have two mani's for before Christmas. So, for this manicure I just couldn't pick one aspect of Christmas to do for every nail, so instead I did a variety of things!

Base colors are- China Glaze Frostbite, Color Club Gingerbread Man, Zoya Holly, Xtreme Wear Going Green, and Cherry Red.

Pinky- China Glaze Millennium, Dorothy Who?, Xtreme Wear Celeb City.

Ring- Zoya Holly, Kiki, XW Celeb City, Mellow Yellow, Revlon Hot For Chocolate.

Middle- XW Celeb City, Cherry Red, CG Frostbite, Snow Globe, Millennium, Twinkle Lights, Dorothy Who?

Pointer- XW Cherry Red, Wet N Wild French White Creme

Thumb, WNW French White Creme, Black Creme, China Glaze Midnight Kiss.

Happy Hannukah!

Hello all, Happy Hannukah! It's the first night of Hannukah, so I thought I'd take a break from Christmas manicures and do one inspired by today's (and the next 8 days) holiday!

Hebrew character found on dreidels, Star of David, Menorah, and a dreidel

 The base is Color Club Cold Metal, the detailing is China Glaze Champagne Bubbles (gold), and Extreme Wear Celeb City (Silver).

Christmas Music In The Air

If you've seen any of my posts from last year, or at least their titles, you may be able to tell that I LOVE Christmas music. Throughout November that's all that I look forward to! I'm especially a fan of those really silly and corny songs. Today's manicure is inspired by a couple of my favorite songs for this time of the year

"Christmas Shoes", "Do You Hear What I Hear", "I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas", "Dominick The Donkey".

"Snoopy Vs. The Red Baron".

Base colors are Color Club Gingerbread Man (Gold), Xtreme Wear Going Green (Green), Xtreme Wear Cherry Red (Red), and Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau (Blue).
Pinky- Color Club Santa's Cinnamon.
Ring- Wet N Wild French White Creme, Black Creme, Color Club Yum Gum, Essie Power Clutch.
Middle- Color Club Take Me To Your Chateau, Wet N Wild French White Creme, Black Creme.
Pointer- Essie Power Clutch, Xtreme Wear Wet Cement, WNW French White Creme, Black Creme.
Thumb- WNW French White Creme, Black Creme, Xtreme Wear Going Green, Cherry Red, and Revlon Hot For Chocolate.

Frosty's the Snow-Man Of My Dreams

Yesterday I showcased an awesome polish by Nicole By OPI, Snow-Man Of My Dreams. After I took the swatch photos featured in that post, I decided to play around with some nail art.

Base is Nicole By OPI Snow-Man Of My Dreams. All of the White is Wet N Wild French White Creme, all the black is Wet N Wild Black Creme. The carrot noses are Xtreme Wear Sun Kisses, and the one snowman's scarf is Xtreme Wear Cherry Red.

Snow-Man Of My Dreams

Snow-Man Of My Dreams is from this years Nicole By O.P.I winter collection! This was probably the first polish I got from any holiday collection this year, and I think I made a pretty good decision in buying it! Actually, I didn't really have to contemplate anything about this one, once I saw it I knew I had to have it, and then I saw the brush and I almost immediately went straight to the check out counter.

Snow-Man Of My Dreams has mainly blue micro glitters. The great thing about this polish though, is that it also has a ton of other less noticeable colors sprinkled in too, like pink, orange, yellow, and green. 

It applies opaque enough to pull off two coats, and it wasn't really that gritty with a top coat on. Just like the others in this collection, it has a nice normal round brush! It's so much easier to work with glitters when the brush isn't completely horrible. Anyway I love this color, and stay tuned for tomorrows post which includes some nail art I did over this! 

Snowflakes!

This is my 7th Christmas manicure. It's actually not so much a Christmas manicure as it is winter in general. I know snowflakes aren't very original when it comes to nail art but they're just so cute and seasonal!

My base color is China Glaze Frostbite. My ring finger is Frostbite with a layer of Wet N Wild Cost Is No Issue. The snowflakes are Wet N Wild French White Creme and Xtreme Wear Celeb City.

Cost Is No Back Alley Deal

I had kind of come to terms with the fact that I would never own any part of the Wet N Wild ColorIcon collection. But when by some crazy twist of fate they actually showed up at my local Walgreens, it took quite a lot of restraint to not buy the entire display. Wet N Wild ColorIcon, a Walgreens exclusive, is another entirely glitter collection, which we've been seeing a ton of this year, not that I'm complaining. I'm showing two of the colors that I got, Back Alley Deals, and Cost Is No Issue.

Back Alley Deals is a purple micro glitter with larger round hot pink glitters in a clear base. Cost Is No Issue is a teal micro glitter with larger light blue glitters in a clear base. The brushes are short and stubby and I felt like they ran out of polish before I could even finish a nail. Both of these applied opaque enough that you really only need two coats, but it is still possible for the absolute slightest amount of patchiness. They are great on their own and their probably great for layering too, which I'll have to some time. The wear on these was kinda awful. I had multiple chips within hours, but I don't mind because wear isn't really a big deal to me since I usually switch out my polish about every other day.

Braided Christmas

I haven't really been consistently keeping track of this, but this is my 6th Christmas inspired manicure this year! I'm halfway to my goal! I decided to do a braid because I've never really done one yet. I used Zoya Holly (Green) , China Glaze Mommy Kissing Santa (Red), and China Glaze Midnight Kiss (Gold).

And just for fun I added a bit of China Glaze Twinkle Lights, an awesome polish with gold, red, and green glitters in a clear base.

Also, yesterday was my blogs 1 year anniversary! Woo!

Gingerbread Pallooza

Today I have a lot of gingerbread to show. Which sounds silly, but it's very true. First polish I'm showing is Color Club Gingerbread Man, from the Scent-scuous collection.

It's a light gold foil. This is just one coat, and it's pretty opaque. If I wasn't doing nail art on it, I'd have done two. It also has the most amazing smell of gingerbread. It's not over powering though.

Layered on top of Gingerbread Man

Now this is Color Club Gingerbread, from the Beyond The Mistletoe collection. Its a rusty gold and holo glitter in a clear base. I didn't swatch it by itself, nor did I do more than one coat, but I'm willing to bet its a lot like the other colors from this collection when it comes to formula and opacity.

Gingerbread men layered on top of Gingerbread layered on top of Gingerbread Man!

Now, my nail art! I had started this manicure before I realized that I don't have a proper gingerbread man color. But there was no turning back at that point, so I just grabbed the next best thing, China Glaze Going My Way?. For detailing I used Wet N Wild French White Creme, Color Club Heart To Heart and Xtreme Wear Going Green.

Peppermint Stick

I did a candy cane manicure last year before I started my blog. I'd like to think I've gained more skill since last year, so I thought I'd do it again, and this time showcase it on here! My last candy cane was done with China Glaze Mrs. Clause, and Frosty. This one is Wet N Wild French White Creme, Xtreme Wear Cherry Red, and China Glaze Ring In The Red.

I really like the added sparkle on some of the red stripes, but you can't see them that well in these photos. 

Lady Luck

I couldn't believe it when I saw the new Sally Hansen collection, Gem Crush, at my nearby Bed Bath And Beyond. A lot of the polishes caught my eye, but I just decided to just get one of them for now, Lady Luck.

Pointer and Pinky- LL Over Xtreme Wear Flirt

Middle and Ring- LL over Xtreme Wear Posh Plum

Lady Luck is purple burgundy micro glitters with big circular holo glitters in a clear base. I had this by itself on one nail ( it got destroyed before I could take a picture) and it was a bit patchy, and almost looked kind of dirty in a way. But on top of similar colors it's amazing! I hated the brush though. I don't know why polish brands keep making paddle brushes. Other than that I really liked the color, and from what I saw, the rest of the collection has nice colors too, a lot of dupes though.

Christmas Glitter Sandwich

I've always wanted to do a glitter sandwich but I wasn't really sure of a color sheer enough to go over a glitter nicely. I finally came upon China Glaze Frosty, probably one of the only sheer colors I own. Since it's nearing Christmas, it's the perfect time of the year to use one of the best glitters ever, China Glaze Party Hearty!

My pointer isn't sandwiched.

 Party Hearty has large red hexagon, smaller green circle and micro silver glitters in a clear base. It's not as dense as I would like, but it's definitely worth it anyway. For this manicure I started off with a layer of white, and one of Frosty. I did two coats of Party Hearty, and topped it off with another coat of Frosty.

Christmas Lights

This is my second Christmas manicure! Because I've been seeing and increasing amount of Christmas lights on people's houses, I did a Christmas light french tip. This is probably the closest thing I'll ever do to an actual french tip because I'm not very good at them, and I don't really like the look.

The base color is China Glaze Frosty. The lights cord is Zoya Shawn. They lights are Xtreme Wear Mellow Yellow, Sun Kissed, Color Club Heart To Heart, Xtreme Wear Blue Me Away!, and Green With Envy.

Christmas Gradient

It's finally time for.... CHRISTMAS MANICURES! I'm so excited. I've been thinking up ideas for this years manicures since, well, last year! My first posts ever were actually Christmas mani's, which means I'm coming up on my 1 year anniversary! I'm going to attempt  to do 12 Christmas manicures leading up to actual Christmas day (Swatches don't count). I decided to start off simple with a gradient.

The base color is Color Club Santa's Cinnamon, which is scented exactly like cinnamon candies. The gold gradient is China Glaze Blonde Bombshell. The green on the ring finger is Zoya Rina.