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!

China Glaze Luxe and Lush

Howdy, all!  Just a quick post tonight.  I have a bunch of work to do before I can go to bed...including a new manicure after I take this one off!  So, without further ado, here's what I've got on now.

I am so sad that there was no sun for outdoor photos today!  I have a feeling this mani would have just lit up in sunlight.  I had to content myself with taking indoor pics.  I've decided in addition to the new camera I need, so better indoor lighting is also going on the "want" list.  Anyway, back to my nails!  I started here with one coat of CoverGirl NailSlicks in Midnight.  This is an OLD bottle I've had for just about ever.  I'm surprised the formula is still in decent condition!  Midnight is gunmetal metallic-y glitter in a black base.  The bottle describes it as sheer, but one coat is usually enough to cover for me.  On top of that, I used one coat of Wet 'n' Wild's Fergie in Rock 'n' Roll.  My final polish is China Glaze's Luxe and Lush from their Hunger Games collection.  This was another score from my Ulta trip the other day.  I've been looking for a bottle of this and was lucky enough to find it in their clearance section for $4.99 marked down from $8.  Yay!  Luxe and Lush is a flakie topcoat...the flakes are irregularly shaped and flash every color of the rainbow.  I am so happy to have this in my stash!

After wearing this with a coat of Seche Vite, I decided to matte it out with Essie's Matte About You to see how it looked.  Normally I love matte flakies, but I'm not wild about how this turned out.  Maybe it's the metallic glitter underneath that's not working for me.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  I'm quite positive it will also take me about an hour to get all those different layers of glitter off my nails tonight lol  

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Purple, Matte & Flakie, Oh My!

This is what happens when I have no clear idea of where my manicure of the day is headed.  Sometimes, like today, it works out well.  Other times...well, let's not cry over spilled nail polish, shall we?  As far as today's mani goes,  I knew I wanted to do a purple.  However, I can't just do a single color; the last time I tried that, my friend Shannon said "I don't understand.  Your nails are only one color?" in this sad, disappointed voice so I won't be going that route for awhile.  So, here is Stage One in tonight's manicure.

This is  Wet n Wild Wild Shine in Eggplant Frost.  Two coats covered fairly well, although you can see a spot on my pinky where it's a little thin.  I do love cracking open a brand new bottle of polish which is what happened with this one.  I really like this color.  It's a great purple, very deep with some flashes of fuchsia...very pretty!  Here's another view.

After admiring the color for a few minutes (and giving it some time to dry a bit), I decided that only one thing can make any manicure better:  FLAKIES!!

I grabbed my trusty bottle of Finger Paints Flashy and added it over top.  I actually did two coats of that because the only thing better than one coat of flakie on top of something, is two coats :)  I could have stopped here, you can see from the second view that this is quite lovely as is.

However, there is only one thing that can make flakies better.  Naked flakies are good but MATTE flakies are really where it's at!  Behold!

Essie's Matte About You is seriously like magic.  I remember the first time I used it, I literally gasped as I watched the wet polish change to a matte finish before my very eyes!  Just look at it...it's so pretty!  This bottle of Essie was worth every penny and I'll have to replenish my supply soon.

I really wish all my unplanned paints went this successfully.  The next time I have an awful one, maybe I'll snap a couple of shots to show you that not everything works the way you want it to the first, second or even third time.  That's the key to a great manicure, practice!  Well, and a decent amount of patience.  Which is not my strongest virtue by far so it's a wonder I've stuck with it as long as I have. 

Alright, that's it for tonight, folks!  I hope you enjoyed the pictures and I'll see you again soon!