Tropical Twilight - LA Girls Hustle, Orly Heartbreaker, Orly Orange Punch, China Glaze Yell-O-Neil

I'm in a gradient mood again!

[Purple: LA Girls Hustle
Red: Orly Heartbreaker
Orange: Orly Orange Punch
Yellow: China Glaze Yell-O-Neil]

I used the sponge gradient method (where you paint all the colours you want on one sponge), and I feel rather proud of this one because I did it in the semi-dark (long story). Not a bad result! I do like the bright and colourful, summer-ish feel to the mani.

Summer Glow - China Glaze Pool Party

This was one tough polish to photograph and I don't think I got the colour quite right in the end either! Anyway, one of our friends had a pool party yesterday for Australia Day (although with the sudden chill, it was less pool party and more a sit-around-the-barbie-to-eat-and-chat party...), so in honour,.. here's China Glaze Pool Party~!

[Bottle to nail: China Glaze Pool Party (2 coats over white)]

China Glaze Pool Party is a fluoro pinky-orange, closer to the bottle colour in the photo above. Super fun and eye-catching!

[2 coats: China Glaze Pool Party]

My photos are all slightly too hazard orange than in real life; there's definitely a bit more pink to it. But altogether a great shade. I used two coats over white to make it really pop but this is chockers with pigment and applies well.

[2 coats: China Glaze Pool Party]

As with most neon colours, it dries matte, so remember to pop on a layer of top coat for extra gloss!

Candied Flowers - Foil Gold Floral Meadow, China Glaze Shooting Stars

I was lazy, but I wanted something really pretty, so foils and glitter it was!

[Base: Orly Au Champagne
Foil: Gold Floral Meadow]

Here's a white base with the Gold Floral Meadow foil over it. The flowers are see-through, and you can see an example of it over a blue base here where Ev has tried it out. I really do like this foil. Easy to apply, delicate-looking, and very sweet.

After a couple days, I wanted to spice it up a little, so I added glitter to it.

[Base: Orly Au Champagne
Foil: Gold Floral Meadow
Top: China Glaze Shooting Stars]

The glitter is China Glaze Shooting Stars, which has fine holo microglitter and translucent hex holo glitter. I added more glitter to the tips.

I have to admit, adding the glitter almost makes the whole mani too sweet. Still pretty though!

Spot On - China Glaze Swing Baby, OPI Warm and Fozzie

Here's a simple dotticure I did a couple months ago using some gorgeous foily metallics from China Glaze and OPI.

[Dotmania]

I think this is one mani that would work better on longer nails as there's more space for dots!

[Bottle to nail: China Glaze Swing Baby (2 coats)]

I started out with China Glaze Swing Baby, a gorgeous pewter foil from the Vintage Vixen collection in 2010. On close examination, the particles are a combination of silver and bronzey flecks which combine to give that brushed metal look.

[2 coats: China Glaze Swing Baby]

Formula was good, no issues with it. These photos show two coats and you get pretty decent opacity.

[Bottle to nail: OPI Warm and Fozzie; Base: China Glaze Swing Baby]

As usual, I was then inspired to play around with another colour of the same finish and pulled out one of my favourites - OPI Warm and Fozzie from the Muppets collection. Look at that gorgeous duochrome in the bottle!

[Base: China Glaze Swing Baby; Dots: OPI Warm and Fozzie]

Just dot some on with a dotting tool (or whatever blunt-pointy thing you have handy), pop on some topcoat for extra shinyness, and voila! Super easy practically-insta-nail art! =)

Geometric Sunrise - Essence Here's My Number, LA Colors Spat!, Tips & Toes 07

Fun with striping tape, yay!

[Top: Essence Here's My Number
Base orange: LA Colors Spat!
Base yellow: Tips & Toes 07]

The base is a gradient mani, a neon orange to neon yellow. I used striping tape to tape off the geometric diamond shape you see above, and then I painted over the tape with Essence Here's My Number. Here's My Number is a 'Sparkle Sand Effect' polish, which I think is supposed to be similar to the OPI Liquid Sand collection. However, it's definitely not as rough or sandy as OPI's. I've added a glossy top coat so you can't really see the shiny sand effect anyway, but maybe I'll do a proper swatch another day.

As for the base...

[Orange: LA Colors Spat!
Yellow: Tips & Toes 07]

The gradient was done over a white polish, to bring out the neon better. The neon orange is LA Colors Spat! while the neon yellow is Tips & Toes 07, and I used the sponge method to create this gradient.

Overall, I loved the bright gradient and it suits the summer weather so well. Adding the geometric design over it meant I got a longer wear out of the gradient (since it was starting to chip after a couple days) and I thought it looked pretty funky!

Garden Party - Femme Fatale Noble Garden

Here's a gorgeous polish I wore a couple weeks ago during Christmas. It's one of very many awesome gifts I received from Jme for my birthday last year! =)

[Bottle to nail: Femme Fatale Noble Garden (1 coat) over China Glaze Running in Circles (1 coat)]

This is Femme Fatale Noble Garden, from the 2013 Easter Trio. What a gorgeous polish! My obsession with green polish still hasn't faded, so I was stoked to add this to my collection~

[1 coat: Femme Fatale Noble Garden over China Glaze Running in Circles]

Noble Garden is a dark green jelly base containing many sizes of green glitter, plus hexes and dots in magenta, orange and blurple. A great combination and excellent ratio of glitter colours - enough to give contrasting accents without becoming some chaotic mish-mash of shades.

[1 coat: Femme Fatale Noble Garden over China Glaze Running in Circles]

I was a bit short on time (gee, a running theme much..?) so I used a base layer of China Glaze Running In Circles, one of my favourite super-pigmented greens. This is just one layer of Noble Garden over the top of that. How awesome is that! Overall, a great polish and not too difficult to get smooth with some quick-dry either.

Night Party - Glam Polish Twister, Orly In The Navy

Colourful mani for the New Year!

[Glitter: Glam Polish Twister
Base: Orly In The Navy]

I'm using Orly In The Navy as a base, which is an almost-black blue. Glam Polish Twister is a bright confetti-like polish! The neon matte glitter comes in blue, green, yellow and pink and different sizes.

I really like Twister because the glitter is opaque while still being bright, and it has a good density, enough so that it provides just the right amount of coverage on the nails! I really like the sprinkling of tiny neon matte glitter in the nail polish too.

Subtle Sands - Color Club Love 'Em Leave 'Em

Another holo, you say! Oh dearrr... Am I going to run out of holo swatches soon? I think not! =p Gotta love all that rainbow bling~

[Bottle to nail: Color Club Love ' Em Leave 'Em (2 coats)]

This one's an oldie from Color Club's Wild at Heart collection - Love 'Em Leave 'Em. There were quite a few holos from Color Club around that time but with a more subtle flame than the more recent Halo Hues collections.

[2 coats: Color Club Love ' Em Leave 'Em]

Anyway! Love 'Em Leave 'Em is a soft warm gold-beige shade with fairly subtle holographic sparkle all through. It's quite linear but not all that visible except in direct sunlight.

[2 coats: Color Club Love ' Em Leave 'Em]

Formula was thin but covered well in two coats although may possible need three on longer nails. A very nice work-appropriate shade!

King Under the Mountain - Revlon Chocolate Drizzle, More Nail Polish Coinage

So a group of us went to watch the Hobbit. Oh, yeaaah! DRAGON! :D  Like Ev, I too did a Smaug inspired mani, though it's far less colourful than Ev's! Obviously, the inspiration is dragon scales and treasuuuuuure.

[Base polish: Revlon Chocolate Drizzle
Snake Foil
Tips: More Nail Polish Coinage]

The base polish is Revlon's Chocolate Drizzle, which is a medium to dark chocolate brown with a silver shimmer. On top of that is a brown foil of scales. I love the foil, which I think is meant to be a snake pattern. Snake, dragon, eh, same difference. :P The main colour of the foil are different shades of brown, with gold outlining the scales. The different brown shades give the foil such a nice depth.

I used More Nail Polish's Coinage on the tips, which is such a gorgeous nail polish and perfect for this mani because it has all this gold, silver and red glitter. (The full swatch of Coinage can be found here.) After that, I added a few gold, red and silver rhinestones to the tips as well.

[Base polish: Revlon Chocolate Drizzle
Snake Foil
Tips: More Nail Polish Coinage]

As this was inspired by Smaug, I was hoping to do a mani that looks like dragon scales, with treasure clinging to the underbelly. I think it turned out quite well!