Happy Belated New Years Nails

Hello readers, it has been a very long time since I posted on here and I feel awful about it. I feel like I lost my mojo and inspiration a few months ago due to a lack of focus but I'm going to try and keep this up like I did in the past.

I know I'm about a week late but I really wanted to show off my New Years nails! I wanted to do something super blingy that standed out so I ended up doing a glittery metallic manicure.

I was originally just going to do silver (favorite metallic color) but I began to envy my sisters gold blingy nails that she did for new years and ended up with a mix of both manicures.

Before I get to the photos, I'm going to list what used and how I did it!

Cheers To You by China Glaze (metallic foil, 2 coats)
Techno by China Glaze (chunky silver holo glitter, 1 coat)
Northern Lights Hologram Topcoat (fine holo glitter topcoat, 1 coat)
Midnight Kiss by China Glaze (gold foil, sponged on tips)
Queen Of Drums by Dare To Wear (chunky gold glitter, sponged on halfway from tips)
Golden Enchantment by China Glaze (fine gold holo glitter topcoat, 1 coat)

I really love how Cheers to you and Midnight Kiss blended so perfectly together, These photos honestly don't do this mani justice and it is crazy how blingy they are in person. PS please ignore the fingernail imprint on my thumbnail... I have no idea how that got there =P

Indoors (With Flash)

Indoors (Indirect Sunlight)

Outdoors (Sun)

Outdoors (Shade)

Bloody Halloween Nails

Hello readers. I have another Halloween themed post for you! I love doing my nails for Halloween and I decided to do one of my favorite scary manicures.

This is a repeat manicure of last years glow-in-the-dark blood spatter nails. I used a very messy and fun technique involving dipping one end of a straw into nail polish and blowing it onto my nails. Here is a link to the tutorial I go the idea from.

I used:
White- Alpine Snow by OPI
then two coats of Ghoulish Glow by China Glaze
Red- Drastic by China Glaze (near perfect jelly blood red)

One of my favorite parts of this manicure is that the white glows in the dark!

For now, I only have a pic prior to cleanup but I like it more that way =P

Vampire Look in Action!

Hello readers! A couple weeks ago, I posted a Halloween Vampire Look that I found off of someone's blog and I was finally able to have proper photographs taken by a good friend earlier this evening! I wanted to share the photos with you, as well as the photographers facebook page. MAJOR THANK YOU TO GROTHAUS PHOTOGRAPHY :D Check him out and like his page! I hope you enjoy the photos :)

Vampire Halloween Makeup

Hello readers, it's been so long since I've typed up a post on here. My hard drive crashed a couple months ago and I recently was able to recover my data and get back into the funk of things.

Today I wanted to show you something I haven't done before, which is a look for Halloween. The following look was inspired by this tutorial created by EMAN. I fell in love with the mysterious and edgy look and decided to recreate it with some of the makeup I had.

For the eyes, all the shadows I used were from my 120 eyeshadow palette which includes a full range of reds, purples, blacks, and whites, which are the colors needed to create the look. I purchased this specific palette from eBay and I like it because the colors are rich, pigmented, shimmery, and blend well. They last pretty long on their own but work even better with primer underneath. If you would like to see a review of the palette by Nihrida, click here! Her review is what convinced me to but the palette and overall I'm very happy with it.

I found very similar colors from the tutorial in the palette and followed EMAN's directions accordingly. Blending all the colors together was relatively easy to do. I found the hardest part of this look to be perfecting the point of the inner corners of the eyes since I have never tried a look like that before. After a few tries, I finally got it. I finished the eyes off with mascara. I used Rimmel's Lash Accelerator, which is AMAZING!

After the eyes were done, I cleaned everything up and added a new layer of foundation and blush. The foundation I use is Bare Minerals Matte in Golden Fair and the blush I use is Luminoso by Milani, which is a shimmery peachy blush.

Lips are last (as quoted by Carmindy from What Not To Wear) so I used Loreal Infallible Gloss in Rebel Red topped off with Rimmel's Smokey Finish lipstick from the Kate Moss collection. It's really fun to layer on top of red, hot pink, or magenta, especially in the evening. It adds a sheer, smoky, silvery, shimmery glitterness to it lol.

And noooooowwwww for the final look! I have an all-over face shot followed by some other shots so you can see the colors in different lighting... also a closeup of the lips which used to be a true, deep red along with the Smokey Finish on top. I hope you like it :)

Happy 4th of July! Independence Day Manicure :)

Hello readers. Today I'm going to show you my nails for 4th of July and show you last year's 4th of July nails.

I used:

Blue = Eyes Like Sapphires by China Glaze
Red = Ruby Pumps by China Glaze
Silver = Kiss Nail Art striper
White = Kiss Nail Art striper
Glitter topcoat = Northern Lights
Seche Vite topcoat

Here's how I did it:

I started off with two coats of Ruby Pumps. Then I did the white stripes by laying the brush pretty flat against the nail and dragging it. I then carefully drawed on the silver stripes where I wanted the blue to start. Then I freehanded two coats of Eyes Like Sapphires to the edge of the silver. I touched up the silver once more to even out the lines and finished it all with Northern Lights and Seche Vite :)

Like it? Post the links to your July 4th nails as well! I would love to see them! Click here to see others' July 4th designs.

Neon Plaid Nails

Hello readers. I'm going to show you my current manicure that I've been wearing since this past weekend. In honor of the Scottish Festival in Santa Cruz County, I wanted to do my nails plaid like I did last year (click here to see last year's mani).

Since it's summertime and I felt like doing something fun, I ended up doing bright neon colors that were inspired by Nailside's Neon Plaid manicure seen here. Rather than using tape like she did, I used a striping brush to do all the designs.

Here are the colors I used in order of application:
White- Alpine Snow by China Glaze
Pink shimmer topcoat- Femme Fatale by Color Club
Yellow- Glowstick by Orly
Lime green- In The Limelight by China Glaze
Pink- Oh Cabana Boy! by Orly
Orange- Melt Your Popsicle by Orly
Darker lime green- Turned Up Turquoise by China Glaze
Finally topped off with Seche Vite

Now for some photos :) I hope you like it! My eyes are literally burning from staring at these photos for the past 15min :P

Spoiled- I'm So Jaded with HITS Hefesto Holo Topcoat

Hello readers. Today I'm going to show you a color that I've been dying to try since I bought it. This is I'm So Jaded by Spoiled, which is a collection from Wet 'n' Wild.  This color is so awesome... It's a neon lime green with gold/yellow shimmer in it. It's definitely one of those must-have greens! I especially liked it because it reminds me so much of Limonyte by China Glaze, which I've been lemming for ages!

As much as I love this color, I hated applying the polish itself. I think it was a combination of the brush and the formula. The brush was very bristly and harsh, which dragged on the polish and didn't let me apply a smooth coat. The next issue I had was the formula. It was pretty thick and a bit on the goopy side. I had to carefuly apply 3-4 thin coats to get good coverage. It ended up being very messy since I couldn't reach near my cuticles easily. I actually had to re-do a couple of my nails because the application was so terrible and there was no saving it.

Here's a photo of I'm So Jaded, followed by a closeup of the thumbnail so you can see the shimmer:

I then decided to add a holographic topcoat on top called Hefesto by HITS. This topcoat looks amazing on just about anything and it adds a little extra in the sun :-) Here are some photos of I'm So Jaded with Hefesto on top!

What do you think? Do you like this combo?