Nail Art: Patchwork Mani

Oh hey guys! It's been a while since my last post - things are hectic since school has started, and my school is the over-crowded/guinea pig one so things have been a little crazy.

The previous manicure I did I forgot to take a picture of! I haven't done that since I started the site, so I'm just really stressed.

Also I joined the swim team this year, which really sucks for my poor nails <3 It's also senior years, so I have to focus on my grades.

Anyways, here's some nail art I did, trying to follow Kayla Shevonne's awesome manicure tutorial. I'm not really a pastel girl (but I'm learning to be!), so I used my metallics and such.

^ Click the peekture for nail art awesomeness^

The polishes I used were Sexy Silhouette &  Frostbite from China Glaze, as well as Positive Energy from Nicole By OPI. The black 'stitches' are using my Kiss nail art brush thing.

That's all for now ~ Hopefully I can post soon!

-Melanie

Three Manicures

Oh hey guys! Sorry for my lack of updating.. I've been super busy too lazy to bring down my cable to transfer stuff, LOL... I'm lazy...

Anyways, I've built up three swatches because of that (I've also got some new nail art and make up to show/review, sooo yeah!) and I figured I should probably post them all since I kinda disappeared - I suppose. All in all, what I've got to show you is Strawberry Fields, Watermelon Rind, and Sex In The City from China Glaze, Party Of Five Glitter from Wet 'N' Wild, and a reappearance by Groupie from L.A. Girl.

 [This post is picture heavy! Be warned!] 

First off, I want to say I didn't haul these or buy these all at the same time. I feel like I'm dying a bit more when I do that. I like to spread out my buying ;D Also, excuse the dry cuticles.

This is Strawberry Fields from China Glaze.

 

 I used to totally be against most.. well, girly shades of pink - but I've always been captivated by the swatch wheel of this at my local Sally's Beauty Supply. Unfortunately, nearly everytime I look for this, it's gone, and some incredibly obnoxious fuchsia is sitting there. I got lucky, and was searching behind other pinks and boom! Found it!
Anyyyyways, this polish applied awesome! I only used two coats, but my smile line might've been more hidden if I had gone with another coat. It's a pink with shimmery gold flecks in it that I was so in love with. I wouldn't wear this all the time, but LOVE LOVE LOVE.

Next is a glitter accent mani, featuring Sex In The City from China Glaze, and Party Of Five Glitter from Wet 'N' Wild.

 Awesome! I love blues and I have this bad obsession with those tropical looking teal colours (I have so many). This reminded me of those, but it was definitely more blue than green. I added the glitter because I wanted to make use of my glitter polishes, LOL. I hate removal (even with foil) so I usually only do accents.

SITC was only two coats, by the way. Even more awesome!

Lastly, this is the manicure I still have on. This is Watermelon Rind from China Glaze, and Groupie from L.A. Girl (which you might not know, is my all time favorite purple. Yeah. That's right)

This one was inspired by Donatello the turtle (and the boyfriend who picked green). Honestly? I wasn't 'wowed' by this polish. It looks kickass in the bottle, but I was.. eh. Not too impressed :/ If it weren't for my accent purple nails, this polish would've been off in two days. Application took three coats for opacity.

Anyways, hope you enjoyed those manicures ^_^ I have some more posts, and now that I've actually gotten a bunch of photos on my computer, they'll be up within the week (maybe. I'm so lazy)

-Melanie

China Glaze: Sexy Silhouette

Today I have a very awesome hot pink from China Glaze. This one is called Sexy Silhouette, and I bought it around the same time I bought Blue Iguana and Watermelon Rind (both of which are China Glazes).

Unfortunately, my Nikon Coolpix L110 camera could not correctly capture the sexy hot pink-ness that is Sexy Silhouette, but here is a 'close' attempt.

 Definitely over-exposed. Sadly, my the camera on my Nexus S phone has more accurate colours and proper exposure. It sports only 5 megapixels, yet my Nikon has 12 megapixels.

Um, what?

But I'm off-topic. If you look below, you will see a very accurate photo of Sexy Silhouette. It's so pretty! I love how bright it is - I've been looking for a really nice hot pink, and this is definitely my favorite. This says a lot, since I don't really like pink, anyways.

All in all, Sexy Silhouette is definitely that - sexy. It applies smoothly (add white underneath for extra umph!) and removes great (no staining! yay!), but it's definitely not for your mom! (Or at least, my mom. But then again, she only wears washed out pastel pink, ugh)

Till next time!

-Melanie

China Glaze: Blue Iguana from the Island Escape Collection

Oh sadness! The nails I did for prom... Apparently my pictures didnt save :/ But! I do have this swatch, of Blue Iguana from China Glaze. The colour really didn't wow me, so it was followed by a Konad/Bundle Monster stamp for an extra kick! Here's a photo.

 

(ignore the chips everywhere, I was tired of the mani... and when I'm tired of a mani I pick at it)

Blue Iguana is a not so unique frosted blue, with a pretty regular application.

It took me three coats to have decent coverage, but my smile line was still pretty visible. Hence the stamp - which is from the new Bundle Monster set, plate BM-208.  I used the special Konad stamping polish in white.

Meh, though Blue Iguana is a nice colour, it really didn't... blow me away, like I was hoping it would.

For next time, maybe some fakies? With fimos :)

-Melanie

China Glaze : Jamaican Out

Hi guys ^^

This one is Jamaican Out from China Glaze. I bought it during the 'Buy two get one free' at Sally's Beauty Supply.

Okay, here we go!

 Jamaican Out is a super pretty orange-y/peach-y/kinda-tangerine-y colour. (I'm so terrible, LOL) Shown above was two coats with a top coat. So, two coats = very visible smile line in the shade. Perhaps three coats may have done the trick? But I was feeling sick and lazy at the time, so only two.

This photo was taken after around 4 days of wear without tips. Most of the visible tip was due to me accidently grinding my nails on the new glass grinder we got at school. It works really well - my nails found that out :/

Overall, it's a pretty color, but eh... I'm not really feelin' it.

Oh, by the way - Happy Star Wars day! May the 4th be with you.

-Melanie

China Glaze: Atlantis & some Orange

I'm gonna rock up two mani's in this post, since I've been on a bad break (y'know, I've never been great with set dates for posting. I just kinda post when I"m not feeling too lazy... Plus it's the boyfriend's birthday soon, and I've been working hard on his present ^^)

Anyways, first up, I wore Candy Corn from Cover Girl. This polish is maybe two years(?) old,  so I don't know if it's still sold. Two coats of that, and I topped it with one coat of Orange Twinkle from The Face Shop.

 I have some weird tendency to get bored of manis pretty quick (this one, a day, no joke!) and to add some pizazz I threw on a coat of my Essie Matte About You topcoat, to give this plastic feel. I got tons of compliments, super awesome!

Next up, here's Atlantis from China Glaze. I heard this polish is back from a while away (as in discontinued), but my local Sally's Beauty Supply had a Treasures collection (no Anchors Away, boo hoo!) and there were some oldies there. This was the last Atlantis bottle, and right away I was like OH SO PRETTY!

Look at the holo sparkles! LOOK AT THEM!! Holo sparkles in a lovely more-green-than-blue teal gel! I'm constantly getting distracted by them when I do anything, it's absolutely ridiculous. This is two coats of Atlantis & two coats of Seche Vite to make it nice and smooth ^_^

Did you pick up any of the treasures?

-Melanie

Fake Nails : Fireworks

I posted these over at my DeviantArt account a day or two ago - but I figured they belonged here as well!

Done with two coats of Icing - Dark Magic (matte), then a coat of China Glaze - Fairy Dust. To top it off, i made fireworks with white & pink polish with my nail pens.

What do you think? It was my first time really using the pens, and as super awesome as they are they tend to... Leak?  Even when not touching it, polish is still coming out of the needle. Very tricky to work with.

I haven't decided what I'm doing with these bad boys yet, for now they're sitting on some foam in my room, haha.

Do you paint fake nails? Do you use them?

-Melanie

China Glaze : Frostbite

Semester one is OVER! No more gym for me! Haha, such a great thing - over the semester I broke three nails halfway down the nail bed, salvaged them with nail glue, but my middle finger-nail kept breaking, grrr. I ended up chopping them all down *cries* and making them the same length. These things are like nubs, it makes me really sad, I want my nails back!

To make up for my little nubs, I painted my nails with a truly BAM! RIGHT IN YOUR FACE blue. It's called Frostbite, from China Glaze.

 Two coats for even coverage, but three coats to make it super awesome!

Like always, I topped it off with Seche Vite to make it super glossy. I've had this manicure on for 4 days now, and there hasn't been any chipping (but 5 coats of polish does that!), but there's been natural tip wear. I've gotten tons of compliments on it, too. I'm definitely in love, love, LOVE with this polish.

China Glaze : Vertical Rush

Hey ! I haven't had time to post since I've been swamped with studying for my math provincial & my socials exam (which I still haven't had yet! Eek!)

Before the major cramming started, I went to Sally's Beauty Supply and purchased 3 China Glaze polishes: Ruby Pumps, Vertical Rush & Frostbite.
Today, I'm showing you China Glaze's Vertical Rush, which supposedly is from the Tis' The Season To Be Naughty And Nice Christmas collection. Actually, the girls put it on the display for that, but that was wrong... It's actually from the Ski collection.

Sorry for how completely *inaccurate* these photos are. Actually, this is more of a red wine kinda colour. I really liked it, but it didn't really win me over.

  And not trying to sound obnoxious, BUT WHAT IS THAT CHIP ? ^ My polish has never really done this before - but then I started using Seche Vite... I could be wrong. Or maybe they reacted differently. Either way, I only kept this colour on for 4 days until it got that stupid chip and I switched it.
Sadly , this was the only polish from this collection I managed to pick up :/.

-Melanie.

Ruby Pumps !

Oh hey there! Did you guys have a great New Years? Mine was alcohol-free as usual. I don't like the taste.

Anyways, here's something special ~ Ruby Pumps from China Glaze.

After seeing this so many times online, I decided I should pick myself up a bottle. So I went over to Sally's Beauty Supply while they were having a buy 2 get 1 free sale... and got myself this beautiful red (as well as one from the Christmas collection & Frostbite) ~ got a small discount too, since I have a SC.

I couldn't even capture how beautiful this red is. It was a whole lot darker and more stunning than in the picture. This is pretty much my go-to red, from now on. It took only three coats, and was only kind of rough because of the silver-y/red glitter. Removal was pretty good too.

-Melanie.

Star Of The Party - Nicole by OPI

This is next one is Star Of The Party from Nicole By OPI. It's another one my friend Tim gave me :].

This is like a dazzling violet! When it comes to purple, I usually gave things leaning to indigo, but this is refreshing and a truly dazzling colour. It's very 'Fall'-esque, without being gloomy and dark.

It took me three layers of this colour (though, you could get away with two), and I topped it off with 

Fairy Dust by China Glaze.

 ^This picture was blurred to show you the holo-y goodness of the sparkles! Woo, sparkles!^

This polish applied kinda streaky on the first layer, but see how pretty it looks when opaque? I love it ^_^

Nicole by OPI can be found at your local Walmart for $10, BUT - ! Hold on penny pinchers! Shoppers often has it on sale for $7.99!

I purchase my China Glaze from Sally's Beauty Supply.

Till next time! :]

-Melanie