Sunset on Sea - Revlon Grape Shimmer, Revlon Grape Fizz, Revlon Mint Fizz, Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor

I did this mani and broke a nail before I remembered I needed to take a photo. So that's why there are only three fingers in these photos!

[Gradient: Revlon Grape Shimmer, Revlon Grape Fizz and Revlon Mint Fizz
Glitter topcoat: Sinful Colors Pearl Harbor]

It had been awhile since I have done gradient manis, so it was fun to give it a shot again. This took many different nail polishes to achieve, which is what happens when you have so many to pick from.

The base coat was Revlon's Grape Shimmer which is really too jelly to be a good visible base coat. I took many coats and you can still see it's not a solid purple. Then I used a little Revlon's Grape Fizz to start the medium gradient to blue. Revlon's Mint Fizz towards the tips finished off the gradient look. The names of all the nail polishes in this order rather amuses me too.

It still didn't look sparkly enough and so I added Sinful Colors' Pearl Harbor as a top coat, which is a blue and green microglitter. Quite pretty and not very strong, just enough to give the mani a scattering of blue-green glitter. To complete the look, I used matte nail polish over it all.

I liked how this turned out and it was fun to throw together!

Happy Haunting - Nubar Arencia, Konad Black Pearl, Bundle Monster BM20 + BM-224

So, today's manicure... has been sitting in my folders for the last four years!
 

[The creepy part is how old these are..]

This was 2011, so pretty much the first Halloween manicure I ever attempted since I got into nail polish in late 2010. =) How's that for a throwback!

[Base: Nubar Arencia]

I obviously hadn't got the hang of colour correcting photos at that point! Bear with the odd pink skintone..

[Base: Nubar Arencia]

My base was the very lovely Nubar Arencia from the Venetian Glass collection. Man, this kinda makes me feel bad because I don't think I've picked it up since doing this mani...

[Base: Nubar Arencia; Stamping: Konad Black Pearl, Bundle Monster BM20 & BM-224]

I think this was also when I first picked up stamping. Here's me going crazy with Konad Black Pearl stamping polish and Bundle Monster plates BM20 (stripes and arrows) and BM-224 (reptile print, haunted house and pumpkin).

[Base: Nubar Arencia; Stamping: Konad Black Pearl, Bundle Monster BM20 & BM-224]

Wow, look at past me! I even added some rhinestones to top it off! Current me feels rather lacking... well, there's just under a week to Halloween, so maybe I'll get my act together in time for it... Hopefully I won't take another four years to post it... =p

Etched in Gray - Revlon Rich

Look at the photos I dug out!

[Revlon Rich]

These are nail stickers over Revlon Rich.

[Revlon Rich]

Revlon's Rich is a gray-gold shimmer, which is opaque in 2 to 3 coats. It's rather pretty and subtly shiny. It has fast become my favourite gray polish!

[Revlon Rich]

I found these nail stickers in my drawer, origin unidentified, and decided to try them on. They were a lot harder to apply than expected and even after sealing them with topcoat, they started lifting at the ends within a day or two. Other than that, they're a pretty addition to the mani. The stickers are a dark gold and gives the mani an embossed look.

Deja Vu - Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell, Lacquistry Amazeballz Original

The title of today's post has very little to do with the actual polish shades involved. It's just that I swear I must have done this combination of shades before but I can't find any evidence of that in my photo folders. Hmmm, very curious!

[Where have I seen you before..]

At any rate, I really like combining blue and gold! Especially when the gold comes in the form of nice shiny french tips.

[Bottle to nail: Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell (2 coats)]

I started with a base of Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell, a dusty almost Tiffany blue. I'm having a bit of trouble remembering what this was like... I believe I used two coats, and definitely no problem with opacity.

[2 coats: Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell]

I'm not sure why it looks a bit streaky here, I think I originally intended to stamp over this so wasn't very careful about the finish... At any rate, I wore this for a few days before deciding I was too busy to stamp over it.

[Base: Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell (2 coats); Tips: Lacquistry Amazeballz Original]

So, instead I did a quick tape-off and applied a glitzy layer of Lacquistry Amazeballz Original on the ends. Sighhh~ sooo shiny!

[Base: Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell (2 coats); Tips: Lacquistry Amazeballz Original]

Amazeballz is pretty densely filled with those ultra-reflective gold flakes but I did do a bit of dabbing to make sure I had a fully opaque layer.

[Base: Sally Hansen Barely Blue Bell (2 coats); Tips: Lacquistry Amazeballz Original]

This lasted for quite a bit and was quite popular at work! =) It definitely satisfied my bling cravings!

I'm Blue - Lacquistry Soulstice

I'm Blue da ba dee da ba daa~~~  I had the song lyrics stuck in my head. :)

[Lacquistry Soulstice]

What I have here is Lacquistry's Soulstice, one of the famous glitterbombs but in blue.

[Lacquistry Soulstice]

I feel like I'm admitting something blasphemous here, but... I was a little bit disappointed by Soulstice. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely royal blue and it looks nice. But it just looks like a blue foil. It's not as shiny as I was expecting it to be, not anywhere near as shiny as Amazeballs.

With Amazeballs, I feel like the glitter looks slightly larger than normal and because of the density of the glitter, a mani with Amazeballs: Original makes it look like you have a sheet of metal over your nails. I expected the same for Soulstice, just in blue. But it didn't live up to my expectations. I have Amazeballs: Original, and when I use a jelly colour over it, the mani looks shinier than Soulstice looks on the nails.

I did have a better experience with another one of Lacquistry's lovely shinies, and I'll swatch that one at some point. :)

Splash n Spray - Zoya Charla, China Glaze GR8

Here's an old bunch of photos that I dug up! So, usually I start off with a photo of the finished product, but this time I decided... let's just stick to the gorgeous base. I'm setting the tone here.. =p

[Bottle to nail: Zoya Charla (3 coats)]

..and what a gorgeous base it is too! One of my favourite polishes and definitely a big factor in getting me into polish years and years ago, this is Zoya Charla. Many companies have some version of this shade and Jme has even done a dupe comparison with one of them!

[3 coats: Zoya Charla]

Lovely shade, good formula. I think I used three coats here to get the colour as dense as possible.

[Base: Zoya Charla (3 coats); Water spot: China Glaze GR8]

Then I did some funky stuff with it! What was I thinking! This was a while ago, mind you. So if you haven't yet guessed what it is, this was my first attempt at the water spot manicure!

Basically, you drop polish on a water surface (such as with water marbling), before misting a fine spray of alcohol over the top to create the spots (holes) in the polish film. You then dip your fingers in as with water marbling. I probably used China Glaze GR8 for the gold... I don't remember anymore what the champagne shade was!

Now that I've reminded myself that this technique exists, perhaps I should make another attempt soon...

Watercolours - Born Pretty nail decals

More water decals!

I am really liking these water decals that stretch over the whole nail. They're quite easy to apply and the excess is easy to remove too. Just bending the excess over the edges of the nails and folding down hard makes the excess easy to tear off. The excess on the sides are easy to remove too.

The results of the water decals are quite worth it too. What a nice mani it makes! I was happy to wear this swirly splash of colours on my nails for several days longer than usual.