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!

Blue Opal Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  Check me out, 3 posts in 3 days!  Woot, woot!  I hope you all are having a wonderful week so far.  Before I get to my manicure for the day, I wanted to remind you all to enter my giveaway.  I'm accepting entries until 1/16, so make sure to get yours in!  

Now, for the nails!  Today's mani is a simple, but gorgeous, combo.  Take a look:

I started with 2 coats of Essence Colour & Go in Let's Get Lost, a lovely turquoise blue creme.  LGL is one of my favorite blues ever; a perfect, bright, summer-y color.  On top of that gorgeous blue, I layered 2 coats of Zoya's Opal Flake Effect Top Coat, a blue to green flakie in a clear green base.  Wow!  This combo was knock-your-socks-off lovely!  I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to get a great shot of the color, which is much more green than these photos show.  There really is nothing like a flakie for wow factor.  I wanted to do a matte top coat on this but, unfortunately, I got a few chips after one day of wear and didn't want to redo the whole thing...maybe next time.  

Here's another view:

You can see the flakie a bit better in this one I think.  

I've got some great manicures planned over the next few weeks, so I hope you'll stop back in to check them out.  Thanks so much for reading!

Saran Wrap Manicure

Howdy, everyone!  I hope your weekend is going well so far.  I managed to get today off and had brunch with my friend and her parents this morning.  I do so love brunch :)  I also got to try out a new (for me) polish technique this week:  saran wrap!  Here are my results!

 If you're not familiar with the technique*, a saran wrap manicure is similar to some wall treatments I've seen.  You apply your base color (here I've used Sonia Kashuk's Rock Star) and let it dry completely.  I used a coat of Seche Vite to speed it up.  Then you apply one coat of a different color on top (my mani uses Essie's Bangle Jangle).  While this coat is still wet, you use a small piece of saran wrap (cling film, plastic wrap, whatever your favorite term is), crunch it up and dab your nails.  The wrap picks up bits of the wet polish and creates a fun texture.  I actually did this second step twice, using Zoya's Neeka for a little bit of sparkle.  I'm enjoying this technique and would like to try it with different color combinations...maybe something a little less monochrome next time.  Here's another shot of my mani:

 

Thanks so much for reading!!

*I don't know who "invented" this technique as I've seen it on many different blogs lately.  If there's someone I should give credit to, please let me know and I'll be happy to add it in!