Goodbye and Hello - Essie Lots of Lux, W7 Rocket

I decided to do a simple mani for New Year's Eve except it kind of looks like a Christmas mani too. Oh well!

[Base: Essie Lots of Lux
Glitter: W7 Rocket]

I really wanted to try out my new polishes which is how this look came to being. 

[Essie Lots of Lux]

As a base polish, I used Essie's Lots of Lux, which is a beautiful, royal blue textured matte nail polish. It has some holographic microglitter. The nail polish dried fast and was a dream to apply.

[Base: Essie Lots of Lux
Glitter: W7 Rocket]

I added W7's Rocket in dabs to the part of the nails closer to the cuticle. I used less dabs of nail polish as I got closer to the middle of the nails, to give it a little bit of a gradient. Rocket has silver and pale teal hex glitter, holo hex glitter and very fine bar glitter.

Then I completed the look by adding a silver square stud on each nail, but tilted so that it looks like a rhombus instead. I think it balances the glitter nicely.

[Base: Essie Lots of Lux
Glitter: W7 Rocket]

I tried out something slightly different with the square studs for my left thumb nail. I actually thought this was a pretty nice look as well but the other one looked cleaner so I used that instead.

Happy New Year's Eve, everyone! I hope you have a rocking new year!

Deck the Halls - China Glaze Emerald Sparkle, W7 It's Christmas

It's still technically Christmas?? Isn't it?! I'm just gonna sneak this Chrissy mani in here...

[Come back, my lovely holidays..]

Not just that, it features a polish that Jme just blogged about last week! In fact both polishes this time around are ones that were gifted to me by Jme!! What can I say... they're both just really appropriate for Christmas!

[Bottle to nail: China Glaze Emerald Sparkle (2 coats);
Glitter topper: W7 It's Christmas (1 coat)]

I started out with a base of China Glaze Emerald Sparkle - a lovely deep emerald (you guessed it!) shade that seems to have featured in LOTS of our Christmas manis! Check out Jme's awesome nail art from previous years here and here.

[Bottle to nail: W7 It's Christmas (1 coat);
Base: China Glaze Emerald Sparkle (2 coats)]

I then topped it off with a dabbed layer of W7 It's Christmas. Jme has done a great description of this festive glitterbomb in her awesome nail art post last week)

[Base: China Glaze Emerald Sparkle (2 coats);
Glitter topper: W7 It's Christmas (1 coat)]

Top it off with a generous layer of topcoat and voila! Insta-Christmas manicure! Ready-to-go themed glitters are the best for getting into the spirit! =)

of all the trees most lovely- Blacquistry Lacquistry, W7 It's Christmas

Season's greetings! It's Christmas Eve and I hope you'll have a good week, filled with a ton of good food. :)

I have a Christmas themed mani to share for the occasion!

[Base: Lacquistry's Blacquistry
Christmas tree: W7's It's Christmas]

The base used here is Lacquistry's Blacquistry, which is a gorgeous and shiny black with gold flakes. We've done a more detailed review of Blacquistry that you can check out here. I then taped off my nails to leave triangular sections and covered those sections with W7's It's Christmas, an appropriately named nail polish. It's Christmas is a dense glitter topper, with silver hex glitter, and green and red hex and bar glitter. I got to to mostly full coverage easily by applying the polish with dabs.

I topped off the whole affair with gold square studs from Born Pretty, to represent my gold star on top of my Christmas trees. Well, I hope that the Christmas tree look I was going for is easy to see! 

[Base: Lacquistry's Blacquistry
Christmas tree: W7's It's Christmas]

I think it looked the best on my thumbnail, so I've taken a close up shot of it here. The hardest part of the mani was probably taping off the nails symmetrically, but otherwise, it was pretty easy and quick to do.

Flower Garden - Rimmel Oh, Mr Darcy!, Born Pretty DLS-193 water decal

A quick one today! The past week has been a blur of overtime and trying to get stuff sorted before the year comes to a close... Phewww~

[Base: Rimmel Oh, Mr Darcy!; Water decal: Born Pretty DLS-193]

I don't think I've actually used a full nail water decal before this, but here you go! This one is from Born Pretty, item code DLS193. It's a very pretty semi transparent water decal with a flower and bird design in earthy shades.

[Base: Rimmel Oh, Mr Darcy!; Water decal: Born Pretty DLS-193]

You can see my base shade, Oh, Mr Darcy by Rimmel (previously swatched here) and that's what's showing in between the printed design. I then topped it off with a matte topcoat to give it all a bit of a muted, vintage look.

It took a little bit of trial and error but I think I sorta got the hang of these full nail water decals now... which is great because I've got a whole bunch of them just waiting to be used (story of my life...)!

I actually had a Christmas mani but I haven't had a chance to transfer/edit the photos yet! Ah well, hope y'all have a great Christmas!!

Sand Sparkle - Emily De Molly Third Edition

Here, I have a rare work-appropriate nail polish. How unusual for me! :)

[Emily De Molly Third Edition]

This is Emily De Molly's Third Edition. It has a dusky silver base, gold flakies, silver glitter and a light scattering of holo microglitter. Smooth application and it's opaque with two coats. The overall effect is brushed metal or an almost sandy-looking nail polish, complete with a touch of glitter.

[Emily De Molly Third Edition]

I do quite like Third Edition because the dulled silver makes it look like such a sedate nail polish but on closer inspection, there's these other small glitter that catches the eye.

Night Race - Dance Legend World Up

Here's another gorgeous gift I received from Jme this year for my birthday! Check it out!

[Bottle to nail: Dance Legend World Up (2 coats)]

This is another polish from the Dance Legend City Lights collection - World Up. This is such an aptly named collection. Just look at the shade in the bottle. It really reminds me of driving at night with those older-style yellow streetlights.

[2 coats: Dance Legend World Up]

On the nail, it's a little bit different, with the deep orange jelly base coming through more obviously. There's also tons of tiny square iridescent orange glitter, which has a green flash at extreme angles. I think you can juuuust see it on the curve of the nails here.

[2 coats: Dance Legend World Up]

Formula was good, I used two coats to even out the base and then finished off with a topcoat. I reckon these polishes would look spectacular with a matte topcoat as well, there's an idea!

Surprise Party - Emily de Molly Fashion Victim

So, I tend to do my nails at night because there's never really time in the day... Sometimes, the next day dawns and I realise that the shade I picked looks completely different in daylight! It's pretty exciting... (cheap thrills..)

[Glitterbomb chameleon]

Today's shade is one of those. I thought it was a lot more red but in reality it's actually a bright magenta pink jelly! Much brighter and sparklier than in my photos!

[Bottle to nail: Emily de Molly Fashion Victim (2-3 coats)]

This is Fashion Victim by Emily de Molly, a gorgeous combination of a pink jelly base with lots of pink and purple holo glitter. You get lots of little flashes of red and purple in the light, which is a really lovely effect.

[2-3 coats: Emily de Molly Fashion Victim]

I used 2-3 coats for this manicure. The formula was a little on the thicker side but dry time was decent. Definitely needs a thick layer of topcoat over the top to get a perfectly smooth finish.

 Emily de Molly Fashion Victim

Altogether a unique shade which still manages to be quite festive, something I'm getting more into as the year winds down!

Sea Glass - Revlon OceanChrome

I found this old Revlon Color Chrome nail polish in a bargain bin. What a treat!

[Revlon OceanChrome]

Revlon OceanChrome is a teal chrome nail polish. It has to be applied with steady light strokes and as few brush strokes as possible because the drag of the brush shows up pretty clearly, as you can see in some pictures. It's a lovely polish from a discontinued line and it's made me dig out my older chrome polishes too!

Blue Baroque - Rimmel Little Boy Blue, Black floral lace nail foil

Here's a nail foil manicure I wore a few weeks ago.

[Fancy wallpaper]

I was going for the contrast of black and blue but unfortunately, I think the lace/floral print on this particular foil is too large for my nubbins at the time...

[Bottle to nail: Rimmel Little Boy Blue (2 coats)]

I started with a base of Rimmel Little Boy Blue, a medium blue creme.

[2 coats: Rimmel Little Boy Blue]

I'm not actually sure why it photographs unevenly but as far as I remember, I didn't have an issue with application. As much as I love the shinies, I've been picking up quite a few basic bright cremes as a base for nail art.

[Base: Rimmel Little Boy Blue (2 coats); Foil: Black floral lace]

After allowing the base to dry, I put on a layer of nail foil glue, waited 10-15 minutes before applying this black/transparent floral lace design nail foil. As I mentioned earlier, the size of the print sort of drowns out the details as I didn't get much on each nail. Oh well!

Violet Villains - Femme Fatale Cosmetics Sinister Calling

I was going through my nail polishes and I realised that I never got a good photo of Femme Fatale Cosmetics' Sinister Calling. So obviously, I had to swatch a full mani of it. What a sacrifice! :P

[Femme Fatale Cosmetics Sinister Calling]

Sinister Calling is this amazing purple polish, with its purple jelly base, and range of glitter in different shades of purple. It also has blue, pink and silver holo glitter, as you can see in the photos. There are hex, square, bar and star glitter. How crazy is that?

I uses a black base and then applied two coats of Sinister Calling. In two coats, the glitter is almost completely opaque anyway. The black base is just to ensure there's no visible nail line.

Avian Display - Peacock nail foil, Layla Turquoise Splash, Picture Polish Revolution

Another birthday gift from Jme - this time a nail foil!

[Eyes on the prize]

 Yay for nail foils! Quick, easy way to get fancy nails? Grab the foil glue and get stickin'!

[Peacock nail foil; Topcoat: Picture Polish Revolution]

This particular one is a peacock feather themed nail foil. The background (not the "eyes") are transparent but the entire foil has a pixellated holographic overlay over the top that you can sort of see on my middle finger above. I used Layla Softouch Effect in Turquoise Splash to keep in the peacock theme. You can see my swatches of Turquoise Splash here.

[Peacock nail foil; Topcoat: Picture Polish Revolution]

I also conveniently received my bottle of Picture Polish Revolution top/basecoat for glitter polish/nail foils at the same time, so that's what I used on this, and yes! It did preserve the holographic finish on this foil. Overall, a success! Sounds like it's time to break out all my shiny and/or holo foils...

Bubbling Sea - Revlon Heavenly

I have no idea why I haven't tried this nail polish until now. It really is quite pretty.

[Revlon Heavenly]

This is Revlon's Heavenly over a black nail polish base. Heavenly consists of holo-gold hex glitter and holo-blue square glitter in a clear base. The glitter aren't opaque so they do look better against darker colours.

[Revlon Heavenly]

Lovely, no? The nail polish gives the mani an electric blue sheen, while still being flashy and colourful. The bottle is quite densely packed with glitter too so two coats were enough to achieve the above look.

Kiddy Graffiti - Sally Hansen Shrimply Divine, Pixel Perfect

Here's another birthday-related manicure! 

[Well done, little grasshopper]

Basically my little niece was allowed to pick out two shades of polish to gift to me and this is the combination she chose. Pretty good!

[2 coats: Sally Hansen Shrimply Divine]

Apologies for the terrible photos! This particular shade was absolutely impossible to photograph. It's Sally Hansen Shrimply Divine (lol) which is a bright almost-neon pink with a slight coral tint to it. I used two coats as a base, it was nice and opaque.

[Base: Sally Hansen Shrimply Divine (2 coats); Glitter: Sally Hansen Pixel Perfect (1 coat)]

The next polish was Sally Hansen Pixel Perfect, a combination of black and white glitter in different sizes of hexes and some bars as well. I used one carefully dabbed on coat for this manicure. Don't they go so well together!

[Base: Sally Hansen Shrimply Divine (2 coats); Glitter: Sally Hansen Pixel Perfect (1 coat)]

To tone it down just a little bit, I finished off with some matte topcoat which really pulled the whole look together. Really liking this! Well done, small child! =D