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

Is this the real life? Is this just Fantasy...

I'm super excited to show you this polish! I almost didn't purchase it, but after I hauled 12 OPI's from 1 store, this was the clear winner for what to wear first.

Look how beautiful OPI's DS Fantasy is, and only 1 freaking coat! The formula is so pigmented and perfect, it glides on the nail so effortlessly!

Fantasy is a deep royal blue polish, saturated with super fine prismatic particles (or holographic shimmer). These photos I have honestly don't do the polish justice, it's just so much prettier in person, and I haven't even had the chance to see what it looks like in the sun. Although it's not DS Glamor (which I originally thought it was on the shelf at first!) it is so awesome. And a guy recommended it too! If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have gotten it. He worked there by the way, not just some random lol.

So in short, this polish is awesome but the overall haul may just be a tiny bit more awesome. More info on that to come soon...

One last shot that captured some of the rainbow.

Some Broken Nails and Lace

So, here are my nails now, after the break. I went to pull open a drawer, didn't have as good as a grip as I thought, pulled real hard and SNAP! My middle and index finger nails snapped clean off :( My index finger doesn't look too bad, but my middle, although trimmed, still has a crack in the side right down to the skin! I'm going t try to grow it out as much as I can before cutting it down more. It is also lopsided now.

Here are my nails right after I filed them neat and and clean, and shortened the others to match.

So how to fix it? Nail art of course! I had my first Christmas get together of the season and wanted my newly filed nubs to look their best. I decided I would create a lace look on my nails.

To start, I pulled out Wet n' Wild's Tangled in My Web, I applied 1 coat and a bit, trying to get a good amount of the hex glitter on each nail. When that was dry, I pulled out Konad plate M-57, this has the fishnet pattern and flowers. First I stamped the flowers on my mails randomly, sometimes more than once in different spots. Then I stamped over that with the fishnet pattern. Once you apply your top coat, you're all done! This was my first time trying it, but I really liked the effect :)

Have you ever tried lace nails? what did you use to create them?

Lovin' Nude

Today I have an awesome nude that wasn't boring! It was very unexpected, Nordic Nude was included with the Color Club Boho set I bought, but it didn't really stick out to me originally. I don't even remember why I chose to wear it, but I'm glad I did.

The formula was awesome, not too thick and definitely not too thin. I applied two thin to medium coats and coverage was perfect. I'm pretty sure if I used 1 thick coat coat I could get full coverage without having to layer any more polish on top.

I would describe Nordic Nude as a beige, almost greyed out nude with slight yellow undertones. I found it to be similar to OPI's Skull and Gloss Bones, which I picked up recently, minus the yellow undertones. It is not a dupe, just the closest colour I own that I thought to compare it to.

Look how long my nails are! Whoa! I think that may be the longest I've ever had them. Tragedy struck, obviously. I hadn't had a break in so long too :( I really think it's the cold weather, my cuticles have been super dry too. Any tips on preventing dry skin and nails in the winter time?

A Festive Combo

Happy Friday!

Here's a quick refresh post. Tonight I have my work Christmas party, so I thought this would be appropriate to share. I layered a thin coat of China Glaze's Ring in the Red from their holiday collection this year over Zoya's Ivanka.

In my head it seemed like a good idea, but because of the pigmented red jelly base it was a little too strong to be layered over a different coloured polish. This is the only photo I could get where it actually looked ok. There is no topcoat in this photo because I removed it right afterwards, it didnt come out how I thought it would, which was sad because I looooooved Ivanka and didn't want to remove it so soon :(

I'll have to test layering this polish over some other colours to see what looks best for next time. What do you think, yay or nay?

December Already!?

Wow, the first of December. Where has the year gone? In a month it will be 2012! While I already started getting in to the holiday spirit before December, I am definitely in full gear now. I love the music, the shopping, the family get togethers, the first snow :)

I wore Zoya's Ivanka mid November, it definitely got me in the holiday spirit and I LOOOOVVVED it. It is just so perfect. I would describe it as a foily green with a yellow/blue duochrome. Although the duochrome is faint, it is still gorgeous. This just screams winter to me :)

I wish I could remmber how many coats I applied, I think it was 3, the polish was kind of sheer, but it built up nicely, these types of polishes always do.

It's so sparkly and shimmery and just reminds me of elves working away at Santa's work shop lol. When I first saw this polish and heard it's name I mediately thought of money, Ivanka being Donald Trumps daughter. I wonder if they named it after her...

So lovely, all the Zoya's I've owned have amazed me with colour, formula and wear. I can't wait for the spring trade in promo next year so I can get me some more :)