It's Frosty Out

I think the weather is starting to have an impact on my polish selection these days. The conditions vary from day to day, but they all have one thing in common, crazy low temperatures! For today's mani I decided on wearing a China Glaze I purchased a while back but never got around to wearing, Jitterbug from the Vintage Vixen Collection.

Jitterbug is a lovely charcol foil made up of what looks like silvery flecks. Application was great, I only needed two coats for full opacity and did not create any brush strokes in the process. The finish is icy cold!

I had a great idea of layering Nabi Black Flake, a matte black and white bar/hex glitter combo on the tips with Sally Hansen Open Mica Night, a square holo glitter. I tryed this out over a light silver foil on my nail wheel in early winter and loved the frosted look.

I don't think I got the same look with Jitterbug as the base, too dark. Unfortunately I forgot to take a photo with the combo of square holo glitter in Sally Hansen's Open Mica Night, but you get the idea. I will be recreating the original look soon, I will also be sure to take proper photos!

Illusions

So I wanted a quick and easy update to my current mani of Nabi Hologram Teal and I decided, as usual, to do some stamping. I pulled out my Red Angel plates and decided on an abstract full nail graphic from plate RA-114.

I stamped with Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip in Blackberry and sealed with Ask Cosmetics topcoat, which I am loving lately! Short and sweet post today. I think my manis going forward will start to be halloween themed, I am so pumped for October this year :)

Scattered

I have a lovely Nabi holo shimmer today that I purchased a few months back when it was still summer, for those of you who aren't aware, fall officially started on Sunday. I think I have finally moved on from summer, I am however not impressed with the earlier sunset :( Back to the polish at hand, Nabi Teal is a beautiful teal glitter holo, this particular polish appears to have a more scattered holo effect, still very beautiful though. From swatches I have seen of other other Nabi Hologram polishes the effect seems to vary.

I only needed two coats for full opacity. considering I didn't apply a holo base this polish applied fairly well. The first coat was a little tricky but the second evened everything out! It dried super fast, but to prolong wear I did add a thin layer of top coat. I have been wearing this for a week and have only experienced minor tip wear.

I really love this colour and the holo effect, even if it isn't a strong linear. I hope the blue Nabi Hologram polish I purchased is as beautiful as this one. I just may have to go pick up some more of these the next time I see them !

Nabi Haul

I picked up some Nabi polishes the other day while out doing some shopping. For what I have seen Nabi has really expanded on their line of polishes. Some interesting finds included spotted polish, 3D rainbow effect (holographic) and interesting glitters. At two for $5, I couldn't leave them! Here are my picks,

Navy Blue and Teal from the 3D Rainbow Effect line.Super exciting names!

These bottles look awfully familiar... *Layla*...

As you can see they are not linear, but I still think they are fabulous! A nice scattered holo is always good. When compared to others in my stash, I found these had more of a linear holo than the old Color Club holos (ie. Wild at Heart) and OPI DS Fantasy. My swatches show one coat! Very easy to apply and smooth formula.

And the glitters, Black Flake and Sky Blue Flake, again awesome names...

Black Flake is a black and white matte glitter of different shapes and sizes, amazing right! Sky Blue Flake is the same, but instead of black hex glitter it has blue shiny hex glitter. So glad I found these! On the nail wheel they were easy to apply, I blobbed one coat on using the brush to arrange the glitter on the nail a bit.

Awesome finds right! There were many different shades of the holos, but the only two glitters I found are the ones I bought. I wish there were more!

Ocean Gradient - complete with crushed seashells

Today I have a mani refresh with Essie's Turquoise and Caicos, a gradient refresh to be exact. I used Essie's Lapis of Luxuxy with a sponge and dabbed it on the top of the nail. I have seen many different ways of doing this on you tube and other blogs, but I found the easiest way for me was to apply the polish directly to the sponge and dab it on the nail.

I started out dabbing the polish the max hight of the nail  wanted the gradient to reach, then with each pass after i moved close to the nail tip. I think I went through about three passes per nail.

At this point I hadn't added a top coat and wanted to add a little sparkle, so I used new glitter I got from Nabi, Large RoundG Glitter and applied a thick coat to get all the glitters on my nail. I would say this is fairly similar to Kleancolour's Black Chunky Holo without the murky brown base and heart holo glitter! I didn't want to use the heart for this mani so I made sure to pick them out.

I kind of wish I applied the glitter in a gradient as well but am happy with the overall look :) reminds me of the ocean and the opalescence of the large glitter reminds me of seashells reflecting through the water, while the smaller glitter is more like the shine off the water.

How do you do your gradients?

Small Haul

Hello, hello. Last week was a slow week for me post wise. I didn't really have any new nails to share and was short on time. I did however pick up some polish over the weekend that I'd like to share.

I snatched up a couple more Nabi's including another magnetic. From left to right I have Wine and Clear RoundG Glitter.

While in the states over the weekend I spotted some Sally Hansen Diamond Strength and Insta-Dri polishes at the dollar tree. Unfortunately they were not in the same double packs as the Nail Prisms they were single packs. I picked up Jumpin' Jade.

I was hoping to find the new summer neons display from China Glaze at Sallys, and I did... With only one polish left! Luckily it was one if the many I wanted, Orange You Hot? I hope to acquire a good portion of the rest of this collection very soon :)

XL Plate Stamping Time!

This was my first time doing a full mani with my XL stamping plate from Cheeky, I used plate E. I almost didn't order this one but am so glad that I did! I used the design I've loved the most from this plate, it reminds me of a pineapple!

I stamped using my standard black stamping polish (Old school Sally Hansen 10 Day No Chip in Blueberry) these images stamp so crisp and easy, I love it! I also made use of the mirror image for my right hand. The designs are also large enough for my full thumb!

I finished the whole look off with white dots I made with a dotting tool in the center of the flowers.

The images are really great on this plate, I got comments from people asking if I had hand drawn the images because they looked so fluid and flowy.

I did get a few streaks with the application of top coat, I will have to use a thicker top coat next time. I had actually just thinned it out so that was probably the issue. FYI, I used NYC, quick dry top coat.

Mint Mojito - I'm Ready For Summer!

Today I have one of my new Nabi polishes, but unfortunately the name sticker at the bottom is missing! I looked around the net and think this is called Light Green... Super original, I know!

It's such a perfect shade for summer, I wanna call it "Mint Mojito Green With a Sllice of Lemon", or something like that lol.The lemon is for the yellow undertones :)

I made the bad decision of trying to apply this on a hot afternoon in the sun. Application was hard! The heat made the polish thick and gooey, I would not recommend doing this! I ran in to my cool house to finish polishing my nails and it was smooth sailing. I added a very thin second coat after the first to even everything out.

This is not your average "mint green" it is so close to being a neon, I want to call it a pastel neon! If that even makes any sense.

For my fist try at Nabi polishes I am pretty impressed. I like the formula, but can't comment on dry time as I applied Seche Vite on top. So far the wear is great too. I've been wearing it since Saturday and I just have some very minor tip wear where I usually wrap the tips, not on the actual nail.

Haulin'

Woohoo! Don't you just love long weekends? Not only do you get an extra day but the next week of work is short :)  I meant to post this yesterday but was enjoying my weekend too much lol. During the weekend I did some hauling, read on to see what I got.

To start off I have Sally Hansen nail polish strips. These were reduced at my Superstore location. They had these bins with random beauty products all reduced to $2.95! Score! I picked up Groove and Glitz Blitz.

Next I picked up some long time lemmings of mind that I owner for around to purchase, Essie Lapis of Luxury and Turquoise and Caicos. Swatches are below the bottle shots.

 On this trip out I also spotted the Limited Edition Wet n Wild quick dry glitters (Sparks and Stripes) and picked up Explosion After Dark. This collection surprised me, usually I can't find these in Canada!

Lastly I found some Nabi polishes. I have heard about these from the States but never seem them in Canada before. They are a good size and I picked these up for $2 each! I got Baby Orange, Light Green and Ocean Blue magnetic! I think I'm going to have to go and pick some more up! The quality is pretty good on these polishes and they have some really nice colours. Again swatches are below the bottle shots.

I'm heading to the States this weekend, I hope to score some good deals! Any tips or places you think I should stop by?