Candeo Colors Orchid

On with the indie polish-awesomeness!! Today I have Candeo Colors Orchid for your viewing pleasure, layered over Wet 'n' Wild FuchsiaRama. Candeo Colors is another awesome indie polish-maker who started selling on Etsy, but has just recently opened her own store site. You can like her page on Facebook to keep updated on when the site will be restocked!

I decided that Orchid would be best layered over some type of berry-pink and I just happened to have Wet 'n' Wild FuchsiaRama sitting on my desk, so I decided to use that. This is two coats of Orchid over two coats of FuchsiaRama. I had no idea that there was shimmer in the base of Orchid and literally squealed when I saw it show up on the nail! I love shimmer! I gave my bottle a good shake before I started applying and had zero issues with getting the big glitter pieces out of the bottle. And as my parting gift to you, here's an awesome bottle shot!

Zoya Petra & Glitter

Here's a mani I did back in December... not sure why these photos are so awful, but I'm sure you can imagine how pretty it was. :) This is two coats of Zoya Petra with Wet 'n' Wild Color Icon Diamond in the Rough sponged near the cuticle. Diamond in the Rough was the only Color Icon glitter that I chose to pick up and after working with it, I'm glad I only bought one. Even after two thick coats of Seche Vite, it was still coarse to the touch! No me gusta.

These photos really aren't doing much for it, but I remember it being really gorgeous in person. My momma even wanted me to do this for her Christmas mani! 

Jesse's Girl Firefly over Black

First of all, these photos are so bad that it makes me laugh. Why am I squeezing my poor ring finger like that?? Anyway, this beauty is Jesse's Girl Firefly over Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme. Firefly is such a pretty and versatile polish; you could pretty much layer it over anything and it would be gorgeous. The iridescent flakes in it flash yellow, orange, and green, most of which you can see in the first photo. 

This second photo is generally how my nails looked when I was indoors, a sparkly dark green. This is one of the prettiest combinations I've worn in a while. I bet Firefly would look good over a dark blue or purple too... hmm...

"A" for concept, "F" for execution.

Well, this was one of my first real attempts at a "tape mani."Unfortunately, I was a little too impatient with the drying polish and rushed the process too much, hence the terribly ragged black lines. However, like I said in the title, I really liked this color-combo and design, I just executed it badly.

Essence Dress For a Moment is the base color; it is actually more lilac in real life than it shows in my photo. I used Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme as the black and Color Club Revvvolution for the tips (which you all know how much I love).

So, what do you think? Do you have any tips for me?

Crazy purple mani!

Hello everyone! I did this mani to support my bro's All-Star baseball team last night. Our school district's colors are purple and white, so that's where my color choices come from. The boys' uniforms also have black and gray on them, so I used those colors too. I've never done my nails like this before and it was really fun to do!

Here are all the colors I used for each nail (left hand):
Thumb: China Glaze Sci Fi, Milani Purple Gleam, Wet 'n' Wild Black Creme (stamp)
Index: Sephora by OPI Just a Little Dangerous, OPI Black Shatter
Middle: China Glaze White on White, SOPI Just a Little Dangerous (stamp)
Ring: Milani Purple Gleam
Pinky: Orly Charged Up, China Glaze Sci Fi (stamp)

I should also mention that Charged Up is not as blue in real life as it looks in my photos. It is a blue-leaning purple, but it definitely is much more purple in real life than it shows here.

I'll be back Sunday with whatever I decide to do with my nails for my aunt's wedding tomorrow! :)

Orly It's Up to Blue

I've been super busy this week with work, my brother's baseball games, and my aunt's wedding coming up on Saturday, so I haven't had time to do anything really interesting with my nails. Sooooo that means you guys get an old one! This mani was influenced by Let Them Have Polish's mermaid mani, but I lacked a lot of the resources that I have now so it is a very loose interpretation of her beautiful design. ;)

I used Orly It's Up to Blue, which is a turquoise polish with a metallic finish and was honestly rather irritating to apply, although the end result justifies the trouble. I stamped sea weed/fern-ish plants with Wet 'n' Wild Caribbean Frost onto my ring finger and thumb nails and then I added little clusters of rhinestones to finish it off. I didn't like it as much as I liked Cristina's from LTHP, but I think it was still a success. What do you think?

Fourth of July nails!

Happy (almost) Fourth of July to all my fellow Americans! I am sooooo in love with this mani! It's so sparkly and festive and I can't wait to show it off all weekend. Please do yourself a favor and click on all these photos to see the incredible glitter in all of them.

On my fingers I used two coats of Orly Star Spangled, which is incredible; it's a jelly-ish bright red packed with red glitter that looks like it's just floating in the polish. I stamped an image that reminded me of fireworks from my new Bundle Monster plates onto my ring fingers with China Glaze Sci Fi and dabbed some glitter from Wet 'n' Wild Kaleidoscope onto the "fireworks." Also, that's not a smudge on my index finger, it's just the lighting from out on my deck that is making it look funny. :(

For my thumbs, I started out with one coat of Wet 'n' Wild Blue Moon, which happens to be one of my favorite polishes ever. It's absolute perfection, a dark blue that stays dark blue and doesn't look black. I put one coat of China Glaze Dorothy Who? over Blue Moon and then a coat of Kaleidoscope. And there you have it, my awesome glitter packed July 4th mani! I hope everyone out there has a safe and exciting holiday weekend and I leave you with a group shot of all the polishes I used for this mani:

Flowery French

I love these... I've done a couple so far and they are sooooo pretty and good for formal events. For the mani above, I used China Glaze White on White for the tips, Confetti Pink Paradise over that, and Wet 'n' Wild Blue Moon for the flower stamp (from the Bundle Monster plates). I used light green rhinestones from eBay for the center of each flower stamp.

For this mani, I used Sephora by OPI Just a Little Dangerous for the stamping and placed a clear rhinestone (also from eBay) in the center. That flower stamp is my favorite... I use it a lot when I need something "extra" over a plain nail polish.

White on White works pretty well for french manicures; I can get away with a pretty thin coat for my tips. Pink Paradise is AWESOME though. I used one coat on both manis and it evened out perfectly and gave just a bit of color to my nail beds; it's also a cheapy! As usual, I topped everything off with Seche Vite and called it a day. Hope you like!

Wet 'n' Wild Waves of Enchantment

Here is the other polish that I managed to snag from the Wet 'n' Wild Mermaid's Cove display. Waves of Enchantment is a gorgeous peachy pink packed with the same kind of glass-flecky glitter that Ocean Grotto has, except there's an incredible gold flash when the sun hits it. I had an annoying time applying this on because the brush had bristles sticking out every which way. I really should start checking the brushes before I buy nail polish... at any rate, after three patient coats this is what I got... 

I'm not joking... for $1.99, you NEED these! Also, from what I can tell by swatches that I've seen online, Waves of Enchantment vaguely reminds me of Zoya Rica (which I really wanted until I found this). I should also probably note that I always use Seche Vite as a top coat when I'm done with a mani. 

In a slightly unrelated note, I'm thinking of putting together a give-away if I can get to 50 followers. Any suggestions or requests? 

Wet 'n' Wild Ocean Grotto

This color is... interesting. It's not something I would typically go for (I haven't really ventured much into the yellow/orange/green section of the color wheel, though I'm trying) but I picked it up because of how glittery it looked. And I'm glad I did! Ocean Grotto is a limey yellow-green shade that is packed with glitter flecks. The application was decent and I used three coats for the below photos. The best part? These (not so) little guys are only $1.99! This first photo was taken outside in what was left of the sunlight for the day...

        

And this photo was under room lighting... I think the glitter shows up better in this one...

I found this at my local CVS; it's part of the (apparently) limited edition summer collection called Mermaid's Cove. A lot of the polishes in the display were gone, including what looked like a nice lighter orange shade. You may still be able to find some in your area if you check soon! 

Wet 'n' Wild Bijou Blue

This was a fun manicure I did recently when I finally found Wet 'n' Wild's Bijou Blue. The two CVS stores near me have only a limited variety of nail polishes in stock (which sucks), but I picked it up when I went to a new Wal*Mart in the area. Bijou Blue is a shimmery ocean blue shade that is gorgeous out in the sunlight. To jazz it up a little bit, I tried a paint splatter technique by blowing nail polish out of a straw and onto the nail; it was a messy process! The colors I used for the paint splatter are China Glaze's Flip Flop Fantasy and Orly's Dazzle.

This photo was taken without flash and it represents the color more accurately, I believe. However, Flip Flop Fantasy is actually much brighter than it appears here; neons just don't photograph correctly. :(

I used the flash here to show the shimmer in Bijou Blue, isn't it beautiful? The formula on this was okay,  it was a little sheer and thin; I ended up using three coats for what you see in the photos.

Thanks for visiting!