Fra-gee-lay!

Today I have my Christmas eve/day mani to share with you. The last few days have flown by in a blur! I have been wanting to pull out I new Christmas glitter from last year, Funky Fingers Fra-gee-lay all of December but wanted to get the most out of a gel mani I was wearing. Once I decided what I wanted to layer beneath it I rushed to get it on my nails!

Fra-gee-lay is a glitter topper made in a clear base with shiny red and gold hexes of a few sizes and white matte hex glitter. I wanted to get all the glitter pieces to be visible on whatever base I used. I originally thought a plain would be a nice base but then the matte while glitter pieces would blend in. I then remembered a favorite holiday polish of mine, China Glaze, Frosty!

I layered one coat of Frosty over a thin layer of a standard white creme polish (Sally Hansen, Ghost) and then layered one coat of Fra-gee-lay overtop. It worked out perfectly! Frosty has a glassflecky shimmer and a slight ivory base which gave the subtle contrast to the matte white glitter I was looking for.

This was a super festive mani that I will now be removing today in favor of something a little more sparkly for New Years Eve!

Purity

Rounding out the three China Glaze Avant Garden polishes I first purchased and have worn right away is Dandy Lyin Around. I own a handful of white polishes that I will use for full manis (this does not include the stark whites I own and use for stamping, nail art, French tips, etc), each white I own is special in it's own way and Dandy Lyin' Around is no exception.

This beautiful white polish has a shimmery sheen that reminds me of snow reflecting the light on a bright, sunny winter day. I have another glistening snow polish from China Glaze named Frosty, which is similar but not a dupe. Frosty has larger glass flecks of shimmer, where as DLA has a very fine and even distribution of glass flecks they look similar to a shimmer from a distance.

I was hoping it was a close dupe to another China Glaze favorite, White Kwik Silver, which is a long gone hard to find, you can see a swatch here.

The formula was alright, not too thick and not too thin, actually pretty good fr a while polish. There was some initial streaking on the first and second coat, so I added some thinner to the bottle before applying a final third coat. I am happy with the final look :)

Who Else Wants Spring to Come Early?

The frigid winter weather has been in full force this last month, lots of snow and freezing temperatures, I am ready to move on to spring lol I am soooo over winter right now. I was feeling in a bright polish wearing mood so I decided to pull out Zoya Rica. Rica is apart of Zoya's summer collection, Sunshine, from 2011. Although it is a bright shade from a summer collection, it does not overly scream summer, it is actually a great transition polish.

Rica is a shimmery foil polish, the base shade is a coral/pink and there is a gold sparkle of shimmer that runs throughout. The base colour of the shifts depending on your lighting source, the gold shimmer also adds a warmth to the polish which in some lighting makes the overall polish appear more copper or orange.

My favourite lighting for this polish has got to be overcast skies and indirect lighting, you really see the flecks of gold that make up the shimmer (the first two photos in this post). Application as always for Zoya polishes was awesome. the consistency was good, not too thin, not too thick. I only needed two coats to reach full opacity, and the wear has been great! I am going on four days so far and am feeling inspired to do a refresh with some nail art, I just haven't decided what I should do just yet. I am feeling Valentines day even though it is not quite February yet, maybe something with hearts :)

Dotty Trees

I new I wanted to do some sort of refresh with this polish when I put it on, that's why I originally didn't apply a top coat. Overall wear was really good, but I wanted to add a little sparkle.

I started with creating a tree out of dots for my ring fingers, I was inspired by Rin's post here. I used a foil silver, gold and white polish with an assortment of different sized dotting tools to create the tree.

I then applied 1 good coat of OPI's Getting Miss Piggy With It, that polish is packed with so much glitter! I finished everything off with a topcoat and I was all done :)

Another view, the tree is upside down.

I love how the red glitter looks sprinkled over deep green base. the shimmering fleck in Glittering Garland also ad great depth tp the overall look.

Glittering Garland

Another Christmasy polish! Can you believe that Christmas is less than a week away? I think I slacked a little too much on my blog this month, gotta make it up to you and get all my Christmas inspired manis in before the 25th.

Glittering Garland is from China Glaze's holiday collection this year, "Let It Snow". Funny enough it seems to be snowing everywhere except for Toronto :( I enjoy white Christmas' so I hope is snows soon. You may recall I did a comparison between Glittering Gardland and Orly's Meet Me Under the Mistletoe, so I won't go in to too much more detail. I applied 2 coats with no top coat. Pretty sparkly on it's own, huh!? Here is is again with my camera flash.

One last non-flash photo:

Christmas Nails - Refresh

So here are my crazy festive nails again, but this time with some fauxnad. This design is from a dupe plate I purchase from bornprettystore.com, it's a copy of Konad plate M-65.

I stamped with Sally Hansen Insa-dri in Whirlwind White. I didn't apply topcoat fast enough and accidentally scraped off some of the design while cleaning up my room... Oops.

My boyfriend said they looked like little gifts! They reminded me of candy canes.

Red and Green Themed

I had an interestingly themed officer Christmas party this year. We all participated in a murder mystery in which we had to dress the part. The storyline was all Christmas themed so the first thing I thought about? My nails of course :)

My character was to be covered in red and green to stand out, so red and green my nails were!

I used Sally Hansen Xtreme Wear in Groovy Green and Love Hangover. I also took this opportunity to use my SH moisturizing base coat. A quick side note here, I find most SH base and topcoats don't play well together with other brands of polish, im talking crazy bubbling. So I tend not to use them. There is an exception however, they never seem to ruin my SH polish, conspiracy or what!

Anyways, my nails had been dry and brittle and I figured I would try it out. I applied 2 coats of each polish on every other finger. I would describe the finish of each polish to be an opaque jelly with iregular shaped glass flecks, such an awesome find. he red reminds me of OPI's Meep-Meep-Meep. They both have the same formula and applied flawlessly. I finished it off with NYC's quick dry top coat and I was set!

By the way, I totally won best costume :D

Strawbery Fields Forever

I went to the salon last weekend and got a pedicure. I usually only get one before I go on my family vacation, 1 time a year, but this year we didn't go. Kinda weird! we have been going for years now... I am in dire need of passing out on the sand by the beach and just chilling. *sigh* oh well, next time I guess.

Back to my pedicure, it was alright I guess, I went to the same place last year and they did a better job, but I thought it was meh then too. I feel like she shaped my nails all wrong, different angles, and sizes and everything! Are you guys like this too, or am I the only one being a little to anal? This is why I have never had a "professional" manicure done, they would totally do it wrong to my standards lol

I brought in a bottle of China Glaze's Strawberry Fields along with my OPI ridge filling base coat and Seche Vite Top coat. The top and base coats they use there are some random/generic stuff... I want my pedi to last.

I really like how this looks on my toes, better than when I wore it on my fingers. But seeing the beauty on my toes makes be want to wear it on my finger nails :)