Royal Touch - Zoya Blaze, Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment

Happy Monday! Back to work, but when you have glitter and holo in your manicure, it makes things just a little bit better...

[Tips of Fortune]

Here's a quick riff off an existing manicure, just jazzing up the tips with a glitter polish.

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

I started off with Zoya Blaze, which is a red holo jelly, deeper in shade than this particular photo suggests. Great formula, you can go for 2-3 coats depending on how dark you want the resulting shade to be. I ended up using three.

[Bottle to nail: Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment; Base: Zoya Blaze (3 coats)]

Then Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment, one of my favourite polishes to do french tips with because of the fine super shiny glitter and great coverage. This was about one to two coats of Chelsea Embankment, carefully dabbed on where I wanted it. 

[Base: Zoya Blaze (3 coats); Tips: Nails Inc Chelsea Embankment]

Top it off with a generous layer of topcoat, and that's it! As usual, perfect for adding sparkle (and hiding tip wear!).

Gold Wave - Milani Red Canvas, Gold stamping

Guess what, the Chinese zodiac year's about to change! Yep, it's the end of the lunar year once again, and we're moving on from the year of the horse to that of the sheep.

[Baaaaa~!!]

Here's my shiny swirly manicure in lucky shades of red and gold!

[2 coats: Milani Red Canvas]

A quick reminder of the base I used, that I posted about on Monday. This is 2 coats of the super glowy  red shimmer that is Milani Red Canvas.

[Base: Milani Red Canvas (2 coats); Stamping: Ebay Gold stamping polish]

I then picked a swirly wave design from one of my stamping plates and stamped it on with a gold stamping polish I purchased off eBay. I must say, using dedicated stamping polish really seems to make a difference. I did take a few goes to get the hang of it so this is the second hand I did, where I'd worked things out... =p

[Base: Milani Red Canvas (2 coats); Stamping: Ebay Gold stamping polish]

I'm pretty pleased with this! Super excited now to do more stamping - I have sooo many gorgeous stamping plates that I haven't even pulled the protective stickers off of, oh dear!

Anywayyy, hope y'all have a great week! I'll be busy with family and eating, eating, eating!! (Yes, priorities...)

Hot Rod - Milani Red Canvas

This polish was actually just the base shade for the manicure I'll post in a couple of days, but I was so impressed that I gave it it's own post!

[Revved up!]

I know reds are generally the least problematic of shades, maybe due to the long history of producing the shade? I'm rarely disappointed by a good rich red, and this one really blew me away!

[Bottle to nail: Milani Red Canvas (2 coats)]

This is Milani Red Canvas, a very similar shade to another I own, Milani Paint the Town Red. This is a rich glowing red on the brighter side, warmed up by very fine gold shimmer. It's opaque in one coat but I used two here to deepen it up. It dries amazingly glossy and glowy - I was so impressed!

[2 coats: Milani Red Canvas]

My photos are slightly warmer than the shade is. The bottle photo is the most accurate - it's just this rich silky red shimmer that reminds me of a loud racing shade instead of a vampy red. Definitely attention-grabbing!

Summer Shake - Essence Mellow Yellow, Ulta3 Honolulu, Lush Lacquer Glowsticks

Here's a sunny summer manicure that I did last month.

[Summer Shake]

What better combination than yellow and neon glitter! 

[Bottle to nail: Essence Mellow Yellow, Ulta3 Honolulu (2 coats)]

I started with a base of alternate fingers using Essence Mellow Yellow, a pastel yellow creme, and Ulta3 Honolulu, a bright yellow creme. Both were opaque in two coats, but in the general way of yellows, were a bit streaky.

[Bottle to nail: Lush Lacquer Glowsticks (1 coat)]

That's where the glitter topper comes in! A popped on a coat of Lush Lacquer Glowsticks, an awesome mix of semi-translucent neon glitter in a clear base.

[Base (2 coats): Essence Mellow Yellow (index and ring), Ulta3 Honolulu (pinky and middle)
Glitter: Lush Lacquer Glowsticks (1 coat)]

 Here's the finished look! I did have to do a bit of dabbing to get the glitter pieces exactly where I wanted them. My favourite bits (as I've mentioned before) are the bright blue bars so I made sure to fish up some of them for each nail!

[Base (2 coats): Essence Mellow Yellow (index and ring), Ulta3 Honolulu (pinky, middle, thumb)
Glitter: Lush Lacquer Glowsticks (1 coat)]

All in all, a super easy look to achieve and one that got lots of comments and compliments from people! =)

Bewitching Waves - Chi Chi Fully Sic

Someone was telling me good things about Chi Chi and so I decided to pick this up when I found it in the bargain bin at Target.

[Bottle of Chi Chi Fully Sic]

[Chi Chi Fully Sic]

Chi Chi Fully Sic looks to have a blue-purple duochrome microglitter in its bottle, but alas, there is no duochrome goodness when it's on the nails. Fully Sic is a jelly vibrant blue polish. It might lack the duochrome sheen, but it's pretty enough for a bright blue shade.

Harlequin Hilarity - Zoya Crystal, China Glaze Hi-Tek

I haven't done stamping for so long - here's a shameful first attempt after what has got to be years!!

[Base: Zoya Crystal (3 coats); Stamping: China Glaze Hi-Tek]

After a few days (okay, really more like 1 day) of wearing Zoya Crystal as posted last week, I was getting all excited to try something else so I decided to ease back in to stamping...

[3 coats: Zoya Crystal]

Just a quick refresher of Zoya Crystal, three coats of a blue and gold fleck foil finish polish.

[Base: Zoya Crystal (3 coats); Stamping: China Glaze Hi-Tek]

Since I was easing myself into it, I picked out one of the polishes that has been my go-to in the past for stamping. Here's China Glaze Hi-Tek a bronzey rose gold chrome from the (You guessed it!) Khrome collection.

[Base: Zoya Crystal (3 coats); Stamping: China Glaze Hi-Tek]

Oh gawwwd, I was so bad at it! I finally got the hang of it right at the end so now I'm inspired to keep going! Didn't help that I was using one of the old Bundle Monster plates (BM16) which had absolutely tiny designs for the full nail so even though I had little nubs, it was pretty hard getting a design on the whole nail. Nevertheless, I'll keep going and finally make use of allll the gorgeous plates I have sitting around with blue plastic still over the top, eek!