Swatch: Essence - Make It Golden

Again, I feel like glitters are difficult to swatch since they'll always be over something. And especially in this post because I gave a full covering to only three nails, and the tips of  the remaining two. But it's so pretty, I have to share, so this is pic-heavy!
I really enjoyed Essence - Make it Golden, as make it golden, it certainly did!

You see it here over JLB - Immortal Gold. I wasn't sure how the two golds united would play out, but I really like it. Make It Golden appears more of a yellow-gold, making Immortal Gold appear almost a rosy gold. Both look great.

These first couple pictures are without any top coat. You can kind of see that the bigger glitters don't really look like they're laying flat. Once top coat was applied, it felt totally flat - but they still looked a little curled up. Not a huge problem.

You can see that it's mostly this medium hexagonal gold glitter, with some smaller hexagonal gold glitters.

I also wanted to show it over a light background, because then you can also see that though it is in a clear base, it also has gold shimmer/micro glitter.

And here are some final pictures over Immortal Gold, with an additional coat on the tips and top coat.

Like I mentioned, very pretty. I've really enjoyed wearing it. :)

Swatch: JLB - Immortal Gold

Hello! I'm back from a lovely Thanksgiving break.
As I've mentioned before, I'm not sure if this really counts as a swatch post, since I only painted three nails on each hand with this colour. But I really loved seeing JLB - Immortal Gold on my nails, so I wanted to share it on its own.
Here's with flash:

And no flash:

I only used one coat. As you can see, it has great opacity. It didn't even apply streaky, as some metallics tend to.
I loved the colour, a really great metallic gold.

I've mentioned before, I really like the JLB Metallics. This is the first time I've used one as a full nail covering, but I'm just really impressed with this set I got for so cheap at Ross. Such a good purchase! I'm usually not a huge fan of gold, but seeing this on my nails almost makes me reconsider. :)

Stay tuned for more pictures of Immortal Gold covered by Essence - Make It Golden.

11/21/12 - Turkey Day Nails

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!
Last year I did a turkey on my thumb and fall colours on the other nails. This year, that was the only thing I was inspired to do, but I definitely didn't want to repeat myself. So I started thinking: what else could I do? And I started thinking about Thanksgiving crafts, and how when we were little we would trace our hands on paper and colour them in to look like turkeys. So I thought - what if I did that on my nails? So I gave it a shot.

 This is one of those few times when for whatever reason, my right hand does look noticeably worse than my left hand. Oh well. Those hand turkeys were really hard to do!
My accent fingers are a base of OPI - My Boyfriend Scales Walls, with the turkey free-handed with a black Migi Nail Art Pen. Then I filled in the turkey with Julie G - Cherry on Top, Sinful Colors - Timbleberry, Sally Hansen - Orange Impulse, Brash - Gone Bananas, and China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss. The other nails feature JLB - Immortal Gold and Essence - Make It Golden. I also added a little bit of Make It Golden to the accent nails.
Here's a close-up of the turkey that most looks like a hand turkey:

Doesn't look very good so close up!
And here's a close up of the other nails:

There will be a lot more pictures of the those nails, because I'll be doing a pseudo-swatch in a little bit. :)

There are a lot of things I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that at the time of writing this post, I'm at my university, where I am lucky to be able to study and further my education. I'm very thankful that at the time you will be viewing this post, I will be back home in the arms of my loving, wonderful boyfriend. I'm thankful that I have a boyfriend who loves me and treats me well, and that I love him back. I'm thankful for my family. And I'm thankful for all the opportunities I've had and will have.
Happy Thanksgiving. :)

Stash Update: Friend-Given Goodies!

I think it's kinda funny. In the past couple months or so, people seem to just give me nail polish. xD I'm certainly not objecting. It's like I've become the reject nail polish person. Mandybeth gave me some polishes a little while ago, my dorm-mate gave me some striping polishes just a couple weeks ago, and now my friend Kyla has given me some of her rejects. Here's the line-up:

I have no more room on my paper plates and no more paper plates with me to swatch these on, but I gave them each a cursory slot on a piece of paper. I actually already own the two pale pinks on the end. Which is kind of interesting, because I own an older version of of the Wet 'n' Wild polish. I'll have to compare to see whether the polish is the same, even though the bottle is different,
The other polishes area all new to me, including new brands for three of them. I'm excited about finally owning a Finger Paints polish. I'll have to try that out soon. Also the metallic blue LA Colors polish is very pretty. Unfortunately, that last black polish seems to be absolutely crap quality, but I'll work on it and see if
I can find it some purpose.

But yup! Very exciting. I'm always willing to be your receptacle for nail polish rejects.:D

Swatch: OPI - Pirouette My Whistle

I'm never really sure how to do swatch posts of glitters. Chances are, it's a coat of glitter over a base colour, so it feels a little dishonest as a swatch post. But there's not really any better way to do it.
So here is one coat of OPI - Pirouette My Whistle over three coats of Essence - Sweet As Candy.

Pirouette My Whistle is this very pretty glitter, with tiny silver glitters and larger round white glitters. It makes me think of snow, or a fairy winter wonderland.

It's delicate and subtle, but so pretty.

I had to do a little persuading with the larger glitter, but it all went on pretty easily.

Also, this isn't technically a swatch, but here's a picture of another coat of Sweet As Candy over it.

You can kind of see the white glitters better here, since they don't reflect the light as much.

And there it is! I'd been kinda lusting after this polish for a while, and am glad I finally have it. I'm really looking forward to using it around Christmas time. :)

Swatch: Essence - Sweet As Candy

As seen in Peek-A-Boo Monkey, I used Essence - Sweet as Candy as a base. It's a sheer pink, so it took several coats to build up opacity. I can see it being really good for a French manicure pink, though.
Here's three coats:

And here's the build up.
Here's one coat:

Here's a comparison of an unpainted nail and a painted nail:

Here's two coats:

Here's a comparison of one coat and two coats:

 And here's more of three coats:

The formula was really nice. As you can see, it built up easily, but it would also be great for a sheer one-coater. My nails feel very smooth, which may have nothing to do with this polish, but I feel like it does. Overall, I found this a pleasant polish to work with. :)

11/11/12 - Peek-A-Boo Monkey

Hello everyone! Like I mentioned in my last post, I've been struggling for inspiration. Finally I decided to follow this Youtube tutorial by IHaveACupcake. It's pretty adorable, no?

The monkey is just peeking up, and then the ears there.. So cute. xD Also, I didn't have any Fimo slices and I didn't want the pinkie to be lonely, so I painted on some bananas.
The base colour is a sandwich of Essence - Sweet As Candy and OPI - Pirouette My Whistle. The bananas are Brash - Gone Bananas (how appropriately named!), Simply Sweet yellow, and China Glaze - Kalahari Kiss. The monkey is Essence - Trendsetter and more Kalahari Kiss. The eyes are Migi Nail Art Pens.
Here's a close-up of the bananas:

And here's the little monkey:

And that's it! I'm enjoying it.

Quick, give me ideas for my next designs! :)

Pinterest

Hello everyone!
I've been struggling to come up with a design for my nails, especially because I was sick all last week. But I am working on it!

The update I have today is that I have decided to start pinning my own designs on Pinterest. I got a Pinterest a couple months ago to pin nail art inspiration pictures to. I used to save the pictures to my computer, but I realized it would be better to have them accessible from any computer or even my phone, since I was moving up to college. It has been great for that purpose.
But I've also realized that pictures can be spread very easily on Pinterest, and it might help my publicity a bit to put my own nail designs on a board there. So I've just done that!

Here is a link to that board: Quixii's Nails
Here is a link to my nail art inspiration folder: Nail Art Inspiration
And here's a link to my Pinterest as a whole: Quixii

Thanks for looking! :)

Tutorial: Holepunching Nail Polish

As I promised in my Halloween post, here's a technique I came up with!
Basically, you let nail polish dry on a plastic surface, and then you can hole punch it, which can then be attached to the nails.
But here's a more detailed, picture tutorial. This is my first tutorial, so if it needs something more, let me know! (Ooo, maybe I should put it on Instructables!)

What you need: Hole punchers, nail polish, something plastic.
Here are the shaped hole punchers I used, found at Michael's for a dollar each (I also used a regular hole punch):

First, paint your desired colours on something plastic. I chose a random ziploc bag.

I found it was generally better to do two coats, even if the polish only requires one for opacity. Remember the hole puncher is expecting something as thick as paper.

Next, wait several hours. A full 24 is a little excessive, but will definitely work. I waited about eight hours before using mine.

Once they are fully dry, they should be fairly easy to peel off the plastic.

I found the easiest way to do this was to fold the bag over at the edge, and gently peel it off with your nails (or a pair of tweezers).
You can then hold it:

And then insert it in the hole puncher like paper!

And then punch.

You'll then have a cut out!

This is best applied to slightly wet nail polish, but it'll stick enough to even a dry, week old manicure so that you can put top coat on:

Put a top coat on and call it done, or decorate as desired with free hand nail art!

This is fun, way easier than free handing, and for me, easier than stamping. It also has the bonus that for things like the sparkly red, where I never would have built up enough coats for opacity if I was stamping, I could easily put a base of a regular red and then paint over it with the sparkly red, without fear. :)
This could also easily work for cutting out shapes with scissors, and so on. I'll surely use it again!
Give it a try, let me know how it goes! :)

Swatch: OPI - Lucern-Tainly Looks Marvelous

As I mentioned in my stash update, I got OPI - Lucern-Tainly Looks Marvelous in a cute little set. I used it for my latest Halloween nails, and I'm already a big fan! I'm really enjoying seeing this on my nails. I'm definitely hoping to use it again. :)
First, here's just one coat:

And here's two coats, which I thought was just about perfect:

The thumb:

Overall, this is a beautiful polish, kind of a shimmery, metallicy, charcoal greyish colour. It's hard to describe. One thing that I didn't see in the other swatch posts, and is ridiculously hard to catch on camera, is that it has some kind of multi-coloured aspect to it. In certain lights or angles, you can just see a sparkle of the the rainbow. I kept trying to capture it, but ultimately failed. In this blurry picture, you can almost see it:

And here's a picture of the bottle/brush, trying to show it:

Oh well. And here are two pictures of it all the way dry, with top coat (what peeks around my nail art):

You can almost see the multicoloured bits in that last one!

Anyway, like I said, really hard to describe, but really pretty. :)