"Subtle" Glitter bomb

Hey guys! What's up?

What's up for me is that I did something on my nails that I never thought I would ever do.  

That's right.

A french manicure.  

*crickets*

Since I've never had one, it was interesting to see what it looked like on my hands, and I admit it was nice and clean looking (though it also got me wondering if that's what my nails would look like naturally if they weren't polish-stained, ha).  

However, it didn't last even half an hour before I decided to bedazzle it!

I tried out two different effects, and I want you ladies to tell me which one you like better.

The polishes I used are:

Revlon Scene Stealer - My favorite sheer jelly polish, because it leans pink, just like my skin tone.  

China Glaze White on White - I've never used this alone, but for nail art work it is just the right consistency and fairly opaque.

Claire's Bedazzled - my favorite rainbow glitter.  It has large hexes of all colors, but also lots of blue microglitter to fill space on the nail.  It is very dense for a glitter topcoat and easy to work with - no poking glitter with your brush to try and make it stay where you want it to.

So, on my left hand I did: two coats scene stealer, two coats white on the tip, one coat scene stealer to soften things, then one coat of Bedazzled.  Finished product: 

Indirect sunlight:

Direct sunlight:

This one is definitely worth biggifying to see all the individual types of glitter!

And on my right hand, I did a variation on the same thing, but changed the layers: two coats white on the tip, one coat scene stealer, one coat bedazzled, one coat scene stealer.  The resulting jelly sandwich looks like this:


Indirect sunlight:

My right hand is shy to be seen on this blog, since the index and middle finger won't grow longer than that no matter WHAT I try.  I think I use them too much, even though I try not to.

Direct sunlight:

And then, before removing this three days later, I added an extra coat of scene stealer to my ring finger on my left hand, for comparison pictures.  (Left to right: without, with, without top sheer layer).

 So, what's the verdict? Which way do you like better?

Maria

Day 15 - Delicate Print

Hello everybody!

I'm sorry for the slacking in blog posts recently, I have had a truly heartbreaking week and I just was not able to keep up with posting.  But I'm back now and I have FIVE whole posts lined up and ready to post over the next five days :)

So, day 15 of the challenge was delicate print.  And like most of the people who I've seen that did this challenge, this caused me to stop and scratch my head.  Hmmm.... delicate print... what could that mean....  I decided to do a pretty little manicure with two very delicate colors, pastel pink and purple.

Colors I used

I started with a nude polish that I picked up in Italy this summer; after two coats I had an opaque enough base for what I wanted to do.  I then was going to do vertical stripes with three different colored shimmers that I had bought recently.  I'll admit, I mostly bought these for the bottles!! Aren't they just adorable??

Sup-ah cute bottles ;)

Unfortunately, the bottle is pretty much all they are good for.  They are shimmery, but so sheer that even when I painted them side by side on my nude base color, I could not see any difference in the color.  Bummer.  So I decided to just use three coats of the pink (ha) shimmer, which did eventually give my nails are very ephemeral, princess-y look.

I finished it off with a scalloped, purple edge.  I used a chrome purple (NYC Royal Foil) for this, because I knew it would be opaque in one coat.

Sorry, I took pics right after putting on cuticle oil, so the reflections of light look kind of like I didn't clean up.  But I did!  Also, avert your eyes from the poor nubbin.

 

Oooooh, I LOVE my ring finger nail in that pic! And pretty much all of them except the nubbin.

Even though it's not what I had in mind from the beginning, I really like the finished product, actually! It makes me think of a little girl's birthday cake. :)

I'm always looking for pretty new polish bottles to add to my display, but I can't afford to buy them if they don't have good polish inside too.  Do you have any polishes that you bought for the bottle, and then were disappointed by them? Or maybe they were actually really good?  

Enjoying the sunshine,
Maria

Day 12 - Stripes

Hello x2!

As you saw in my last post an hour ago, I am currently in emergency nail repair mode, and therefore unable to post the normally scheduled stripes manicure for today, as the challenge calls for.  I will instead post a cute little striped mani that I did over the summer.  Again, don't blame the pictures too much, these were never intended for a blog audience.  (That reminds me! I got my digital camera today! YAY! There shall be better pictures in the future!)

SOPI - Don't Feed the Hand Models
OPI - Funky Dunkey
OPI - Ogre-the-top Blue
... and some white polish that I don't remember...


First step:

Second step:

OH! And I also painted my friend's nails yesterday! (She chose the colors. Sally Hansen Royal Foil, Essie French Affair, and OPI Jade is the new Black)

Well, hopefully all these poorly lit, weird angled pictures are enough to distract you guys from the fact that I don't have a fresh new mani today! I'll be back up and running tomorrow, I promise.

Love y'all,

Maria