Pastel Rainbow Gradient

Hello, hello!  Two posts in a row?!  Holy cow, maybe I'm getting back into the swing of things lol  Anyway, I have a pretty pastel manicure to show you all today.  I originally saw a manicure like this over at The Swatchaholic that she did with some Illamasqua pastels and I knew eventually I was going to have to give it a try!

Since I don't own Illamasquas as yet, I did this look with 3 of the colors from NYC's City Bloom collection: Sunset Park Pink, Mimosa Bouquet, and Robin's Egg Blue.  To round out my rainbow, I added China Glaze In a Lily Bit and Sinful Colors Skylark.  I'm absolutely loving how this turned out!  

To create this look, I started with 2 coats of Sinful Colors in Snow Me White as a base since the pastels are quite sheer.  Then I just did the normal gradient procedure (for a great tutorial, check out The Nailasaurus) but flipped the sponge so that the gradient goes from side to side, rather than top to bottom of the nail.  Super easy!

I had wanted to add some sparkle on top of this but, alas, my first sparkle attempt kind of ruined the manicure so I scrapped it.  It was lovely all on its own though!  The City Bloom collection is currently available for $1.99 each.  I found mine at CVS and I believe you can get them at Rite Aid and Kmart as well.  Be sure to double check the display, the one at my CVS had $1 off coupons for any of the polish and makeup in the City Bloom collection.  Screamin' good deal!

Thanks so much for reading!

Mish Mash Challenge: Grey Nails

Hello everyone!  We've made it back around to Wednesday so I've got another Mish Mash Challenge manicure to show you.  I'm also rocking some shorter nails today.  The length was getting out of hand and I had about 5 patches on each hand so I decided to trim them back to a more manageable length before a catastrophic break made me go full nubbin! 

This week's theme is "grey".  I had one heck of a time figuring out what to do and in the end I cheated a little bit by adding a pop of another color, but I think they turned out so pretty that I'm hoping you won't mind too much.

I started with 3 coats of 2% Milk by Wet 'n' Wild and then added a sponge gradient with Sinful Colors Jungle Trail on top.  2% Milk is my favorite nude of all time, I think.  I love the sheerness and jelly quality it has.  I liked the look of the gradient but I wanted to add something extra.

Daring Digits' Star Storm fit the bill perfectly!  Star Storm is a grey-based jelly with green and white stars, white and holographic hexes, and tiny green and white glitters.  I hadn't tried this color yet and I can't think why...it's simply stunning!  I'm sad to report that Ashley, Daring Digits' creator, has retired and this polish is no longer available.  I have a few bottles of DD and I'll be rationing them carefully as they'll have to last me forever....waaaaaaaaa!!

I hope you enjoyed this manicure and I hope you'll stop by and give the other Mish Mashers some love this week!  I can't wait to see what they've done.  You can find their posts via the thumbnails below.  Thanks so much for reading!

Blue Textured Gradient Manicure

Hiya, all!  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  I've got a fun little manicure for you guys today so without further ado, let's get to it!

I started here with 2 coats of Julie G's Frosted Gumdrops in Rock Candy.  Then I grabbed my trusty sponge and dabbed on Julie G's Frosted Gumdrops in Blueberry Fizz and Zoya's Liberty.  This gradient turned out so pretty!  The colors work together really nicely, I think.
 

I know not everyone loves the texture trend, but I fall more in love with them every time I wear them.  I'm definitely doing a July 4th mani with Liberty...she's just the most beautiful sparkly blue!
 

You might notice that my pinkie suffered a little breakage mishap.  How do you guys feel about trimming back ALL of your nails when you break one?  I just can't bring myself to do it!  I spent so many years with nubbins because I bit my nails with a vengeance that I just can't cut them short voluntarily.  I hope my shorty pinkie doesn't look too bad and that he grows swiftly!

This is a big week so please swing back by.  A quick reminder that Google Reader has gone bye-bye, so follow me over at Bloglovin'!  You don't want to miss my last ABC Challenge post, especially as it will contain a little surprise!

Thanks for reading!

Solange by Zoya

Hello!  Hope everyone has had a fabulous Thursday :)  I'm sitting in front of my computer with a homemade avocado mask on my head.  I look great, I'm sure lol  Well, at least my nails look great!

I made a trip to Ulta over Memorial Day weekend and scooped up a few new polishes.  As soon as I saw the swatches of Zoya's Summer PixieDust collection, I knew I had to have Solange.  I'm a sucker for the texture trend and something about her color and sparkle just spoke to me!

Can you blame me?  Look at her...*sigh*.  So lovely!  To call this polish simply a yellow textured polish is a crime.  Solange is described on Zoya's website as a "gold metal foil sparkle" and she is all of those things in spades!  The sparkle is amazing, especially in sunlight.  Not that I'd know much about sunlight, what with summer resolutely refusing to appear here in Chicago, but trust me, the sparkle dazzles!

Application was easy, 2-3 coats for opacity and no formula problems to speak of.  Although Solange does dry quickly, I did have a few smudges I had to fix.  I do think that's more due to my base coat not being fully dry when I applied Solange...I was impatient to get that loveliness on my paws!

Of course I can never leave well enough alone, so after a day of this lady by herself, I decided to jazz her up with a gradient.

To create the gradient, I added Tangerine Dream, Sugar Rush, and Hot Cinnamon from JulieG's Frosted Gumdrops collection.
 

I think it looks like a tropical sunset...all that's missing is the ocean!

I hope you enjoyed this manicure as much as I did.  Thanks so much for reading!

Summer Gradient with Nail Pattern Boldness

Howdy, everyone!  I hope you've all had a nice holiday here in the States.  I have a quick, fun manicure for you today.  I actually got this idea from The Polished Perfectionist so I can't say it's original, but I liked the look so much, I knew I had to give it a try! 

I'm loving how this turned out!  I used Sinful Colors in Innocent and Why Not for the gradient and then topped it with Flipping Out Hard by Nail Pattern Boldness.

FOH is a glitter bomb packed with tiny blue, green, and yellow neon matte glitters.  I bought it because I think it looks quite a bit like Floam, which is a total lemming of mine.  When I got the bottle from NPB, I was stumped at how to use it.  I did try to build it up on its own, but didn't have as much success with it as I'd hoped so when I saw The Polished Perfectionist's post, I knew FOH was just perfect for this look!

What do you guys think? 

Thanks so much for reading!

Magnetic Gradient Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  The weekend is just about here (well it IS here for me, as I have today off).  Any big Labor Day plans?  I'll be headed out of the city with my girlfriends to go pick some apples on Monday.  I love apple-picking and I really can't tell you why.  It's probably more my love of road trips and hanging out with my friends more than anything, but it's definitely something fun to do.  

On to my latest manicure!

This is a gradient manicure done with magnetic polishes.  I had no idea such a thing could be done, but it's actually surprisingly simple and I thought the results were pretty good for my first effort.  I only had 2 nails that were problematic and fortunately neither was on my photographed hand :)

I started with one thick coat of Ulta's Polar Opposites*, a teal sparkle magnetic polish. Then I applied my gradient of Ulta's Opposites Attract* (a deep purple magnetic polish with a silver sparkle), sponging it on just as I would for a normal gradient.  Then, one nail at a time, I applied one coat of non-fast drying top coat.  This will reactivate the polish already on the nail, thus allowing you to use your magnet!  While the top coat was still wet, I used the striped magnet that came with Ulta's kit to do alternating diagonal lines on top of the gradient.  I did this one nail at a time so the top coat wouldn't dry before I used the magnet.  I let everything set for a bit and then applied a coat of my beloved Seche Vite.  To my surprise, having the non-fast drying top coat on underneath the Seche seems to have given this manicure a bit more shine than usual.  I'm going to have to try this technique on another mani and see if it holds true.  It's one more step, but, hey I'm already putting 5 coats of polish on, what's one more?

I love learning new techniques and I'm thrilled to learn that magnetic polishes are much more versatile than I thought at first.  I mean, once you've used a magnetic polish, it's cool at first but if it only does the one thing it gets a bit boring.  It's good to know that I can use them more like regular polishes...I have a few ideas churning in my brain for some new manis now!

I hope everyone has a great Friday and, as always, thanks for reading!

*These two polishes came in a set with 2 others, I got the whole set at Ulta for $4.99.

Debbie and Cindy Glitter Gradient Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  Ready for Monday?  Me either.  Oh well, at least my nails look fabulous, which is always a great way to start the week :)  Here's what I'm wearing:

 I have to give a shout out to my new best friend, Bernadette, who was nice enough to give me my very first bottle of Deborah Lippmann polish!  I have long coveted Lippmann polishes but can never bring myself to fork over the dough for them, so it was great to get a bottle to try.  Incidentally, Deborah is the "Debbie" to which this post title refers.  We'll talk about Cindy in a minute.  

So I started here with 2 coats of Deborah Lippman's Pop Life, a beautiful petal pink creme.  Fantastic formula, I'm so in love with this polish right now!  The color is so lovely, but I couldn't wear it just by itself, cuz that's just silly :)  Enter "Cindy".  I decided to do a glitter gradient with another Cynthia Rowley polish.  I hit Marshall's the other day and scored another set of CR polishes, this time a little box of 3 glitter polishes.  Does anyone know where I can find the names of these?  The one pictured here is a multi-colored hex glitter.  Tons of colors in a few different sizes, total wow factor on the nail.  Here's a closer look of the color and shape of the glitter:

As always, thanks so much for reading!