Papa Don't Peach

I am living China Glaze's Lite Brite collection this summer. I have already worn two shades, Bite Me and What I Like About Blue, and today I have number three out of the five I picked up, Papa Don't Peach.

 

Papa Don't Peach is a bright neon coral jelly with golden flecks and shimmer. In the bottle it looks bright and summery and in the nail it doesn't disappoint. (The most colour accurate photo is directly below, however, in reality it actually pulls more coral)

I required two coats to build up to full opacity, which I didn't expect. I figured it would take at least three since it was a jelly. It dries to a semi-matte finish with slight texture, due to the flecks and shimmer, however, I layer of Seche Vite was enough to make the final finish glossy. For extra gloss, I'd add a second layer of too coat after 24 hours of the original application.

What I Like About Blue

Today I have another shade from Light Brites, China Glaze's 2016 Summer collection. This beautiful blue is called What I Like About Blue.

What is there not to love about this shade? The creme base is a beautiful sky blue and has a fine, slight duochromatic shimmer running throughout which shifts from gold to pink depending on your light source. To be clear, by duochrome I don't mean that the colour shifts in front of your eyes, its more of a subtle change from various light sources. This is, however,  a very unique shade in my collection.

Application was good, the first coat covered well, but you will definitely need two coats for full coverage. The polish dries fairly quickly to a matte finish, typical of neons, however, I would not classify this polish as a neon in terms of brightness or colour.

Overall I love the shade and the combo of bright blue creme and golden shimmer together. It wore very well with minor tip wear.

So Hot You'll Melt Your Popsicle

Neons, neons, everywhere! I have been rocking neon shades on my nails almost exclusively this summer. One I had been lemming for a while was Orly, Melt Your Popsicle.

Melt Your Popsicle is a bright traffic cone neon orange polish. I had heard it was an amazing neon and I had to try it out. Although it is a great neon orange, it really isn't anything new or special. I feel like every brand of polish has their own version. Unfortunately it pull more red in these photos, but I assure you it is the perfect orange neon.

 

I applied three coats for full opacity. The formula was thin, but buildable and easy to work with.

Bitten

Today I have a shade from the Lite Brite collection, China Glazes 2016 offering for spring. This bright shade of magenta is called Bite Me.

Bite Me is a neon creme with golden shimmer running throughout. It appears a lot more red toned in my photos, which is not true to the actual colour. Application was good and only two coats were needed for full opacity.

In the bottle I feel this shade of bright magenta had a little more pop to it, however on the nail it didn't wow me. In the photos I found the colour to be WAY off. A lot more red than it appears in reality. The last photo appears to be the closest to the actual shade.

I may have to try this one out again to see how I truly feel about it. I do, however, love the colour combo of the other two I purchased with this shade, What I Like About Blue and Lime After Lime. I just may have to figure out some nail art to do that combines all three shades.

Sun Worshiper

I picked up China Glaze, Sun Worshiper on clearance a little while back, however, it has always been a shade I wanted to pick up. That bright orange leaning yellow, and not to mention the name, totally me in the summertime! But hey, with this polish I may not need to spend as much time in the sun, it's so bright it makes my tanned no matter how long I have spent in the sun!

Sun Worshiper is definitely a neon and apart of the 2010 Poolside collection. It is an interesting shade, radioactive cheese comes to mind as a description. I layered this shade over a white base to get the maximum brightness on my nails. I applied three coats of Sun Worshiper total.

The formula was good for a neon, a tad on the sheer side but it is a yellow shade and that is what the white base was for. It dried pretty quickly to a matte finish, however, the many layers, likely combined  with the white base, did take some time to fully set and dry. Mind you, I was in a hurry when applying. I think it may have been more of the white bases fault than Sun Worshiper re. dry time.

Overall this is an awesome shade for summer and I actually wore it on my birthday!

xxx

Snapshots from Jamaica - My Honeymoon Manis

Yes, multiple manis... on my honeymoon. I honestly could have dealt with just one shade for an extended time but brought some fun neon shades with me in case I decided to change things up a bit.

Glad I did because my manis were kind of chipping all over the place! Next time I will definitely be doing a gel mani before I leave! I had a gel base of my wedding mani, no in-between chipping I'd have that for a few days at a time as well. Let start it off with what I wore on my tips...

China Glaze, Celtic Sun - bright neon yellow, 2-3 coats over a white base

China Glaze, Pool Party, new version - Bright neon, orange based coral, three coats over my gel French tip base.

China Glaze, Flip Flip Fantasy, original version - Bright neon coral, 2-3 coats over my French tip base. Yup, I brought this discontinued baby with me because I have another full bottle at home!

Bio Seaweed Gel, French Mani - more on that here.

Next up, toes

Are You Jelly, new version - The most perfect shade of purple leaning magenta, 2 coats

Flip Flop Fantasy, original verison - 2 coats, no base (forgot to pack it! Opps!)

I would have preferred to keep Are You Jelly on my toes the whole trip, but I didn't bring a bottle of the stuff with me.

A few snippets from my vacation through my manis. Do you bring nail polish on vacation with you?

Back in Business...

Starting to get back to reality, anyway!

What a month July was, so much going on, such a great and happy time in my life. During this time I celebrated by 29th birthday (one more year till 30, yikes!), got hitched and travelled for Jamaica for 11 days on my honeymoon. I am slowly floating back to reality and trying to catch up on all the loose ends I left before the wedding/honeymoon and getting back in to the rhythm of things.

One of those things on my list is blogging and today I am sharing my wedding mani. I decided to go with gels for extended wear since I applied it a good 3 days before the wedding day. I also decided to keep it pretty traditional. I had other ideas in mind and played around with what I wanted to do, but in the end I decided on a classis French mani with a clear base.

I used three products, Bio Seaweed Gel No Sanding Base, No-Wipe top coat and 3 Step colour in 01 White. As you would assume I applied the base, cured, wiped with alcohol then carefully, with no quited drew on the white tips. I took a litter longer than anticipated with this to make it as natural looking as possible. I initally tried striping tape to try a straight edged tip, but it looked to harsh. I also tryed using French manicure guides with no success, they kept bleeding on me.

I applied two coats on each nail, curing in-between and sealed it off with the no-wipe, top coat, my favorite! I really loved how delicate it made my hands look and although not 100% perfect, the tips look flawless in the photos!

Stay tuned for my next post on my honeymoon manis... yes, there were multiple!